Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Combined influence of CT random noise and HU-RSP calibration curve nonlinearities on proton range systematic errors

Proton range random and systematic uncertainties are the major factors undermining the advantages of proton therapy, namely, a sharp dose falloff and a better dose conformality for lower doses in normal tissues. The influence of CT artifacts such as beam hardening or scatter can easily be understood and estimated due to their large-scale effects on the CT image, like cupping and streaks. In comparison, the effects of weakly-correlated stochastic noise are more insidious and less attention is drawn on them partly due to the common belief that they only contribute to proton range uncertainties and not to systematic errors thanks to some averaging effects. A new source of systematic errors on the range and relative stopping powers (RSP) has been highlighted and proved not to be negligible compared to the 3.5% uncertainty reference value used for safety margin design. Hence, we demonstrate that the angular points in the HU-to-RSP calibration curve are an intrinsic source of proton range systematic error for typical levels of zero-mean stochastic CT noise. Systematic errors on RSP of up to 1% have been computed for these levels. We also show that the range uncertainty does not generally vary linearly with the noise standard deviation. We define a noise-dependent effective calibration curve that better describes, for a given material, the RSP value that is actually used. The statistics of the RSP and the range continuous slowing down approximation (CSDA) have been analytically derived for the general case of a calibration curve obtained by the stoichiometric calibration procedure. These models have been validated against actual CSDA simulations for homogeneous and heterogeneous synthetical objects as well as on actual patient CTs for prostate and head-and-neck treatment planning situations.
Comparison of the Screening Tests for Gestational Diabetes Mellitus between “One-Step” and “Two-Step” Methods among Thai Pregnant Women

Objective To compare the prevalence and pregnancy outcomes of GDM between those screened by the “one-step” (75 gm GTT) and “two-step” (100 gm GTT) methods. Methods A prospective study was conducted on singleton pregnancies at low or average risk of GDM. All were screened between 24 and 28 weeks, using the one-step or two-step method based on patients' preference. The primary outcome was prevalence of GDM, and secondary outcomes included birthweight, gestational age, rates of preterm birth, small/large-for-gestational age, low Apgar scores, cesarean section, and pregnancy-induced hypertension. Results A total of 648 women were screened: 278 in the one-step group and 370 in the two-step group. The prevalence of GDM was significantly higher in the one-step group; 32.0% versus 10.3%. Baseline characteristics and pregnancy outcomes in both groups were comparable. However, mean birthweight was significantly higher among pregnancies with GDM diagnosed by the two-step approach (3204 ± 555 versus 3009 ± 666 g; p=0.022). Likewise, the rate of large-for-date tended to be higher in the two-step group, but was not significant. Conclusion The one-step approach is associated with very high prevalence of GDM among Thai population, without clear evidence of better outcomes. Thus, this approach may not be appropriate for screening in a busy antenatal care clinic like our setting or other centers in developing countries.
Set-based path following and obstacle avoidance for underwater snake robots

This article presents a set-based guidance strategy for path following with obstacle avoidance for underwater snake robots conducting planar sinusoidal motion. The guidance scheme is designed such that the robot follows a straight path and avoids obstacles on the way by following a circle around them. In order to enable a switching between these two tasks, we generalize a strategy that was introduced for surface vessels, by making the switching condition independent of the dynamics and thus applicable for a larger class of systems. The guidance system is shown to fulfill the control objectives at a kinematic level. We present new test results that validate the set-based guidance scheme for the first time experimentally.
The Potential of Proteins for Producing Food Packaging Materials: A Review

The problems associated with obtaining conventional plastic materials and with their accumulation have led to a constant search for new materials derived from renewable sources. Materials made from proteins stand out among them all because of the many ways in which they can be modified enzymatically, chemically or physically, giving rise to materials with improved physicochemical properties that are adjustable to each specific application. This paper reviews the state of the art with regard to the use of proteins for the manufacture of packaging materials, including: the main protein sources that have been used; manufacturing methods (coating on conventional materials, thermoforming, extrusion), with special emphasis on materials made by extrusion; possible strategies for improving the physicochemical properties of the materials and the main future prospects and limitations of materials of this kind.
The Adoption of "E-Banking" by Lebanese Banks: Success and Critical Factors

This article examines the organizational, structural, and strategic factors that can speed up or slow down the adoption of E-banking innovations by financial institutions in the Lebanese market. A conceptual model is developed based on a review of the major innovation adoption theories and other research findings, and tested with a survey administered through a census of the population of Lebanese banks. Findings revealed that the organizational variables of bank size, presence of functional divisions, technical staff and infrastructure, as well as the degree of international experience and tolerance of risk of the decision makers exert a significant impact on the adoption of E-banking. Two structural characteristics, the internal technological environment, and relative advantage of the innovations were also found to impact adoption. The two strategic factors related to the banksâ€™ degree of international operations were also found to positively influence the adoption of E-banking. Recommendations were provided on ways of accelerating the rate of adoption of E-banking in an important developing Middle Eastern country.
THE MYSTERIOUS BAR OF THE LARGE MAGELLANIC CLOUD: WHAT IS IT?

The bar of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is one of the prominent, but controversial, features regarding its location with respect to the disk of the LMC. In order to study the relative location of the bar with respect to the disk, we present the high-resolution map of the structure across the LMC. We used the reddening corrected mean magnitudes (I0) of red clump (RC) stars from the OGLE III catalog to map the relative variation in distance (vertical structure) or variation in RC population across the LMC. The bar does not appear as an identifiable vertical feature in the map, as there is no difference in I0 values between the bar and the disk regions. We conclude that the LMC bar is very much part of the disk (within 0.02 mag), located in the plane of the disk and not a separate component. We identify warps or variation in RC population with increase in radial distance.
Annual Research Review: Interparental conflict and youth psychopathology an evidence review and practice focused update

The quality of the interparental relationship is recognized as an important influence on child and adolescent psychopathology. Historically, clinically oriented research on this topic has focused on the impacts of parental divorce and domestic violence as primary interparental relationship influences on child outcomes, to the relative neglect of dimensional or qualitative features of the couple/interparental relationship for youth (child and adolescent) psychopathology. Recent research has highlighted that children are affected by attributes of interparental conflict, specifically how parents express and manage conflicts in their relationship, across a continuum of expressed severity and negativity - ranging from silence to violence. Furthermore, new evidence highlights that children's emotional, behavioral, social, academic outcomes, and future interpersonal relationships are adversely affected by conflict between parents/carers whether adults are living together or not (i.e. married or separated), or where children are or are not genetically related to their rearing parents (e.g. adoption). We review evidence and present an integrated theoretical model, highlighting how children are affected by interparental conflict and what this evidence base means for effective intervention and prevention program development, as well as the development of possible cost-benefit models. Additionally, we review policy implications of this research and highlight some very recent examples of UK-based policy focusing on addressing the interparental relationship and its impact on youth psychopathology.
Finite Element Modeling and Modal Analysis of the Human Spine Vibration Configuration

This study was designed to investigate the modal characteristics of the human spine. A 3-D finite element model of the spine T12-Pelvis segment was used to extract resonant frequencies and modal modes of the human spine. By finite element modal analysis and harmonic response analysis, several lower vibration modes in the flexion-extension, lateral bending, and vertical directions were obtained and its vibration configurations were shown in this paper. The results indicate that the lowest resonant frequency of the model is in the flexion-extension direction. The second-order resonant frequency is in the lateral bending direction and the third-order resonant frequency of the T12-Pelvis model is in the vertical direction. The results also show that lumbar spinal vertebrae conduct the rotation action during whole body vibration (WBV). The vibration configurations of the lumbar spine can explore the motion mechanism of different lumbar components under WBV and make us to understand the vibration-induced spine diseases. The findings in this study will be helpful to understand WBV-related injury of the spine in clinics and the ergonomics design and development of mechanical production to protect human spine safety.
Projection Bank: From High-Dimensional Data to Medium-Length Binary Codes

Recently, very high-dimensional feature representations, e.g., Fisher Vector, have achieved excellent performance for visual recognition and retrieval. However, these lengthy representations always cause extremely heavy computational and storage costs and even become unfeasible in some large-scale applications. A few existing techniques can transfer very high-dimensional data into binary codes, but they still require the reduced code length to be relatively long to maintain acceptable accuracies. To target a better balance between computational efficiency and accuracies, in this paper, we propose a novel embedding method called Binary Projection Bank (BPB), which can effectively reduce the very high-dimensional representations to medium-dimensional binary codes without sacrificing accuracies. Instead of using conventional single linear or bilinear projections, the proposed method learns a bank of small projections via the max-margin constraint to optimally preserve the intrinsic data similarity. We have systematically evaluated the proposed method on three datasets: Flickr 1M, ILSVR2010 and UCF101, showing competitive retrieval and recognition accuracies compared with state-of-the-art approaches, but with a significantly smaller memory footprint and lower coding complexity.
Nonaffine chain and primitive path deformation in crosslinked polymers

Chains in a polymer network deform nonaffinely at small length scales due to the ability for extensive microscopic rearrangement. Classically, the conformations of an individual chain can be described solely by an end-to-end length. This picture neglects interchain interactions and therefore does not represent the behavior of a real polymer network. The primitive path concept provides the additional detail to represent interchain entanglements, and techniques have recently been developed to identify the network of primitive paths in a polymer simulation. We use coarse-grained molecular dynamics (MD) to track both chain end-to-end and primitive path deformation in crosslinked polymer networks. The range of simulated materials includes short chain unentangled networks to long, entangled chain networks. Both chain end-to-end and primitive path length are found to be linear functions of the applied deformation, and a simple relationship describes the behavior of a network in response to large stretch uniaxial, pure shear, and equi-biaxial deformations. As expected, end-to-end chain length deformation is nonaffine for short chain networks, and becomes closer to affine for networks of long, entangled chains. However, primitive path deformation is found to always be nonaffine, even for long, entangled chains. We demonstrate how the microscopic constraints of crosslinks and entanglements affect nonaffine chain deformation as well as the simulated elastic behavior of the different networks.
Profiling DNA methylation differences between inbred mouse strains on the Illumina Human Infinium MethylationEPIC microarray

The Illumina Infinium MethylationEPIC provides an efficient platform for profiling DNA methylation in humans at over 850,000 CpGs. Model organisms such as mice do not currently benefit from an equivalent array. Here we used this array to measure DNA methylation in mice. We defined probes targeting conserved regions and performed a comparison between the array-based assay and affinity-based DNA sequencing of methyl-CpGs (MBD-seq). Mouse samples consisted of 11 liver DNA from two strains, C57BL/6J (B6) and DBA/2J (D2), that varied widely in age. Linear regression was applied to detect differential methylation. In total, 13,665 probes (1.6% of total probes) aligned to conserved CpGs. Beta-values (β-value) for these probes showed a distribution similar to that in humans. Overall, there was high concordance in methylation signal between the EPIC array and MBD-seq (Pearson correlation r = 0.70, p-value < 0.0001). However, the EPIC probes had higher quantitative sensitivity at CpGs that are hypo-(β-value < 0.3) or hypermethylated (β-value > 0.7). In terms of differential methylation, no EPIC probe detected significant difference between age groups at a Benjamini-Hochberg threshold of 10%, and the MBD-seq performed better at detecting age-dependent change in methylation. However, the top most significant probe for age (cg13269407; uncorrected p-value = 1.8 × 10−5) is part of the clock CpGs used to estimate the human epigenetic age. For strain, 219 Infinium probes detected significant differential methylation (FDR cutoff 10%) with ∼80% CpGs associated with higher methylation in D2. This higher methylation profile in D2 compared to B6 was also replicated by the MBD-seq data. To summarize, we found only a small subset of EPIC probes that target conserved sites. However, for this small subset the array provides areliable assay of DNA methylation and can be effectively used to measure differential methylation in mice.
Precomputed Panel Solver for Aerodynamics Simulation

In this article, we introduce an efficient and versatile numerical aerodynamics model for general three-dimensional geometry shapes in potential flow. The proposed model has low computational cost and achieves an accuracy of moderate fidelity for the aerodynamic loads for a given glider shape. In the geometry preprocessing steps of our model, lifting-wing surfaces are recognized, and wake panels are generated automatically along the trailing edges. The proposed aerodynamics model improves the potential theory-based panel method. Furthermore, a new quadratic expression for aerodynamic forces and moments is proposed. It consists of geometry-dependent aerodynamic coefficient matrices and has a continuous representation for the drag/lift-force coefficients. Our model enables natural and real-time aerodynamics simulations combined with general rigid-body simulators for interactive animation. We also present a design system for original gliders. It uses an assembly-based modeling interface and achieves interactive feedback by leveraging the partwise precomputation enabled by our method. We illustrate that one can easily design various flyable gliders using our system.
Effects of Kefir on Growth Performance and Carcass Characteristics in Pekin Ducks (Anas platyrhynchos domestica)

The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of kefir as a probiotic on growth performance and carcass characteristics in Pekin ducks. For this purpose, 42 ducklings at 2-week-old age were randomly and equally divided into 1 control and 2 treatment groups. All groups were fed with the same diet during the 6 week study period. Group 1 served as control and received normal drinking water. For group 2 and 3, 2.5% and 7.5% kefir was applied in drinking water. Feed and water was offered ad libitum. All birds were individually weighed at the start and then weekly intervals until the end of the experiment. At the end of the study, a total of 30 ducks, 5 male and 5 female from each group was randomly selected for slaughter. The results showed that after a 6 week feeding period, the total body weight in group 2 and 3 were significantly lower than group 1 (P 0.05). Our findings showed that, the decrease in total body weight, abdominal fat ratio, liver and giblets weights based on the increased kefir rates attracted attention. In conclusion, kefir usage as a supplement in ducks doesn’t provide an economical benefit but kefir could be used for human consumption for antiobesity.
Crowdsourced Word Sense Annotations and Difficult Words and Examples

Word Sense Disambiguation has been stuck for many years. The recent availability of crowdsourced data with large numbers of sense annotations per example facilitates the exploration of new perspectives. Previous work has shown that words with uniform sense distribution have lower accuracy. In this paper we show that the agreement between annotators has a stronger correlation with performance, and that it can also be used to detect problematic examples. In particular, we show that, for many words, such examples are not useful for training, and that they are more difficult to disambiguate. The manual analysis seems to indicate that most of the problematic examples correspond to occurrences of subtle sense distinctions where the context is not enough to discern which is the sense that should be applied.
tDCS Over DLPFC Leads to Less Utilitarian Response in Moral-Personal Judgment

The profound nature of moral judgment has been discussed and debated for centuries. When facing the trade-off between pursuing moral rights and seeking better consequences, most people make different moral choices between two kinds of dilemmas. Such differences were explained by the dual-process theory involving an automatic emotional response and a controlled application of utilitarian decision-rules. In neurocognitive studies, the bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) has been demonstrated to play an important role in cognitive “rational” control processes in moral dilemmas. However, the profile of results across studies is not entirely consistent. Although one transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) study revealed that disrupting the right DLPFC led to less utilitarian responses, other TMS studies indicated that inhibition of the right DLPFC led to more utilitarian choices. Moreover, the right temporoparietal junction (TPJ) is essential for its function of integrating belief and intention in moral judgment, which is related to the emotional process according to the dual-process theory. Relatively few studies have reported the causal relationship between TPJ and participants' moral responses, especially in moral dilemmas. In the present study, we aimed to demonstrate a direct link between the neural and behavioral results by application of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) in the bilateral DLPFC or TPJ of our participants. We observed that activating the right DLPFC as well as inhibiting the left DLPFC led to less utilitarian judgments, especially in moral-personal conditions, indicating that the right DLPFC plays an essential role, not only through its function of moral reasoning but also through its information integrating process in moral judgments. It was also revealed that altering the excitability of the bilateral TPJ using tDCS negligibly altered the moral response in non-moral, moral-impersonal and moral-personal dilemmas, indicating that bilateral TPJ may have little influence over moral judgments in moral dilemmas.
Healthcare professionals' knowledge and practice of physical activity promotion in cancer care: Challenges and solutions

Limited research exists regarding healthcare professionals' knowledge and practice of physical activity promotion for cancer survivors in Ireland. There is also a lack of research identifying the barriers experienced by oncology professionals when promoting physical activity, or referring patients to community-based exercise programmes. This study aims to identify healthcare professionals' knowledge, barriers and practices in relation to physical activity promotion for cancer survivors, and to generate guidance regarding the optimisation of the referral process to community-based exercise programmes. Oncology healthcare professionals (n = 114) were invited to participate in two rounds of an online Delphi study. The response rates in rounds one and two were 38% (43/114) and 70% (30/43). Most respondents acknowledged the value of physical activity for cancer survivors (≥86%) and agreed that discussing physical activity with cancer patients was part of their role (88%). However, the majority of recommendations provided to patients did not align with the current physical activity guidelines. Strategies related to four themes that could optimise the referral process to community-based exercise programmes achieved consensus, including providing education to healthcare professionals and patients regarding the benefits of physical activity and the logistics and quality of programmes, and optimising the logistics of the referral process.
Enzymatic treatment of wool fabrics - opportunity of the improvement on some physical and chemical properties of the fabrics

Abstract The enzymatic treatment of textiles significantly improves some of their physicochemical properties as well as increases their aesthetic values and comfort of use. Enzymes are used in order to develop environmentally friendly processes by reducing the concentration of chemical agents, water and energy consumption. In the present study, an attempt was made to treat the wool fabric with different concentrations (1, 3, and 5 g/L) of protease enzyme and observed the effects on physical and chemical properties including softness, absorbency, pilling resistance, weight loss, tensile strength loss, water retention, felting shrinkage, alkali solubility and urea-bisulphite solubility of wool fabric. The results of pretreated and enzyme-treated samples are compared to those obtained for untreated wool fabric. Enzyme-treated wool fabrics showed improvement in softness, absorbency, pilling resistance and felting shrinkage and a slight increase in weight loss, tensile strength loss, alkali solubility and urea-bisulphite solubility, and decrease in water retention of the fabric.