Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dynamic hair capture using spacetime optimization

Dynamic hair strands have complex structures and experience intricate collisions and occlusion, posing significant challenges for high-quality reconstruction of their motions. We present a comprehensive dynamic hair capture system for reconstructing realistic hair motions from multiple synchronized video sequences. To recover hair strands' temporal correspondence, we propose a motion-path analysis algorithm that can robustly track local hair motions in input videos. To ensure the spatial and temporal coherence of the dynamic capture, we formulate the global hair reconstruction as a spacetime optimization problem solved iteratively. Demonstrated using a range of real-world hairstyles driven by different wind conditions and head motions, our approach is able to reconstruct complex hair dynamics matching closely with video recordings both in terms of geometry and motion details.
Self-Perceptions of Black Americans: Self-Esteem and Personal Efficacy

This study examines the determinants of personal self-esteem, racial self-esteem, and personal efficacy in a 1980 national sample of black Americans. The findings show that the three dimensions are interrelated each is anchored in interpersonal relations with family and friend. However, the three dimensions are produced by fundamentally different processes. Personal self-esteem is most strongly influenced by microsocial relations with family, friends, and community, while personal efficacy is generated through experiences in social statuses embedded in macrosocial systems of social inequality. We conclude that black self-esteem is insulated from systems of racial inequality, while personal efficacy is not, and suggest that this explains why black Americans have relatively high self-esteem but low personal efficacy. The belief that racial discrimination, rather than individual failure, accounts for low achievement among blacks is irrelevant to personal self-esteem and personal efficacy. In contrast, racial self-esteem is produced by a combination of education, interracial contact, and ideological processes.
Handwritten Gurmukhi Numeral Recognition using Different Feature Sets

there is an emerging trend in the research to recognize handwritten characters and numerals of many Indian languages and scripts. In this manuscript we have practiced the recognition of handwritten Gurmukhi numerals. We have used three different feature sets. First feature set is comprised of distance profiles having 128 features. Second feature set is comprised of different types of projection histograms having 190 features. Third feature set is comprised of zonal density and Background Directional Distribution (BDD) forming 144 features. The SVM classifier with RBF (Radial Basis Function) kernel is used for classification. We have obtained the 5-fold cross validation accuracy as 99.2% using second feature set consisting of 190 projection histogram features. On third and first feature sets recognition rates 99.13% and 98% are observed. To obtain better results pre-processing of noise removal and normalization processes before feature extraction are recommended, which are also practiced in our approach.
Structure and mechanics of physically cross-linked hydrogels

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Regulation of the expression of NR1 NMD A glutamate receptor subunits during hippocampal LTP

SEVERAL isoforms of the NMDA receptor 1 (NR1) sub-units of the ionotropic NMDA (N-methyl-D-aspartate) glutamate receptor contain a consensus site for phos-phorylation by protein kinase C (PKC) which, once phos-phorylated results in an increased conductance through the receptor channel. Using in situ hybridization, we investigated the expression of NR1 subunits sensitive or insensitive to modification by PKC in the granule cells of the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus, following the induction of long-term potentiation (LTP). A selective 50% increase only in the levels of raRNA NR1 subunits containing this consensus sequence for PKC phosphorylation was seen 48 h after LTP induction. The change in the expression of PKC-sensitive NR1 subunits may be the molecular basis for the increased response of the postsynaptic cell to released glutamate during the maintenance phase of LTP.
Studies on thrombocytosis. I. Hyperkalemia due to release of potassium from platelets during coagulation.

Remarkable elevation of the serum potassium concentration without associated manifestations of hyperkalemia was observed in a patient with an unexplained increase in the blood platelets (1). Studies of the phenomenon in this patient indicated that the excess of potassium was derived from the platelets during the coagulation of the blood. Hyperkalemia was encountered in certain other patients with thrombocytosis. In contrast, no striking elevation of the serum potassium concentration was observed when normal platelets were concentrated in vitro.
Lipid-Induced Insulin Resistance Is Associated With an Impaired Skeletal Muscle Protein Synthetic Response to Amino Acid Ingestion in Healthy Young Men

The ability to maintain skeletal muscle mass appears to be impaired in insulin-resistant conditions, such as type 2 diabetes, that are characterized by muscle lipid accumulation. The current study investigated the effect of acutely increasing lipid availability on muscle protein synthesis. Seven healthy young male volunteers underwent a 7-h intravenous infusion of l-[ring-2H5]phenylalanine on two randomized occasions combined with 0.9% saline or 10% Intralipid at 100 mL/h. After a 4-h “basal” period, a 21-g bolus of amino acids was administered and a 3-h hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamp was commenced (“fed” period). Muscle biopsy specimens were obtained from the vastus lateralis at 1.5, 4, and 7 h. Lipid infusion reduced fed whole-body glucose disposal by 20%. Furthermore, whereas the mixed muscle fractional synthetic rate increased from the basal to the fed period during saline infusion by 2.2-fold, no change occurred during lipid infusion, despite similar circulating insulin and leucine concentrations. This “anabolic resistance” to insulin and amino acids with lipid infusion was associated with a complete suppression of muscle 4E-BP1 phosphorylation. We propose that increased muscle lipid availability may contribute to anabolic resistance in insulin-resistant conditions by impairing translation initiation.
Rapid adaptation of insect herbivores to an invasive plant

Introduced plant success often is attributed to release from natural enemies in their new ranges. However, herbivores may accumulate over time and reduce invasiveness but evidence for this process to date is weak. We report here that enemy release is indeed limited to the early stages of introduction of the Chinese tallow tree (Sapium sebiferum). In bioassays and gardens along a geographical gradient of time since tallow tree introduction, herbivory was highest and tree performance was poorest where tallow tree has been present longer (i.e. introduced earlier). Additionally, Asian ecotypes (grown from seeds collected in Asia) had lower survival than North American ecotypes (seeds collected in North America), which is consistent with genetic responses to low herbivory in the introduced range (EICA Hypothesis). Release from insect herbivores appears to contribute to early success of the tallow tree, but accumulation of insect herbivores has apparently reduced this benefit over time.
Constipation, haemorrhoids, and heartburn in pregnancy.

INTRODUCTION Constipation, heartburn, and haemorrhoids are common gastrointestinal complaints during pregnancy. Constipation occurs in 11-38% of pregnant women. Although the exact prevalence of haemorrhoids during pregnancy is unknown, the condition is common, and the prevalence of symptomatic haemorrhoids in pregnant women is higher than in non-pregnant women. The incidence of heartburn in pregnancy is reported to be 17-45%. METHODS AND OUTCOMES We conducted a systematic review and aimed to answer the following clinical questions: What are the effects of interventions to prevent or treat constipation in pregnancy? What are the effects of interventions to prevent or treat haemorrhoids in pregnancy? What are the effects of interventions to prevent or treat heartburn in pregnancy? We searched: Medline, Embase, The Cochrane Library and other important databases up to July 2007 (Clinical Evidence reviews are updated periodically, please check our website for the most up-to-date version of this review). We included harms alerts from relevant organisations such as the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). RESULTS We found five systematic reviews, RCTs or observational studies that met our inclusion criteria. We performed a GRADE evaluation of the quality of evidence for interventions. CONCLUSIONS In this systematic review we present information relating to the effectiveness and safety of the following interventions: Acid-suppressing drugs, anaesthetic agents (topical), antacids with or without alginates, bulk-forming laxatives, compound corticosteroid and anaesthetic agents (topical), corticosteroid agents (topical), increased fibre intake, increased fluid intake, osmotic laxatives, raising the head of the bed, reducing caffeine intake, intake of fatty foods, and the size and frequency of meals, rutosides, sitz baths, and stimulant laxatives.
Early-to-Mid Gestation Fetal Testosterone Increases Right Hand 2D∶4D Finger Length Ratio in Polycystic Ovary Syndrome-Like Monkeys

A smaller length ratio for the second relative to the fourth finger (2D∶4D) is repeatedly associated with fetal male-typical testosterone (T) and is implicated as a biomarker for a variety of traits and susceptibility to a number of diseases, but no experimental human studies have been performed. The present study utilizes the rhesus monkey, a close relative of humans, and employs discrete gestational exposure of female monkeys to fetal male-typical T levels for 15–35 days during early-to-mid (40–76 days; n = 7) or late (94–139 days; n = 7) gestation (term: 165 days) by daily subcutaneous injection of their dams with 10 mg T propionate. Such gestational exposures are known to enhance male-typical behavior. In this study, compared to control females (n = 19), only early-to-mid gestation T exposure virilizes female external genitalia while increasing 2D∶4D ratio in the right hand (RH) by male-like elongation of RH2D. RH2D length and 2D∶4D positively correlate with androgen-dependent anogenital distance (AG), and RH2D and AG positively correlate with duration of early-to-mid gestation T exposure. Male monkeys (n = 9) exhibit a sexually dimorphic 2D∶4D in the right foot, but this trait is not emulated by early-to-mid or late gestation T exposed females. X-ray determined phalanx measurements indicate elongated finger and toe phalanx length in males, but no other phalanx-related differences. Discrete T exposure during early-to-mid gestation in female rhesus monkeys thus appears to increase RH2D∶4D through right-side biased, non-skeletal tissue growth. As variation in timing and duration of gestational T exposure alter male-like dimensions of RH2D independently of RH4D, postnatal RH2D∶4D provides a complex biomarker for fetal T exposure.
A model of flux regulation in the cholesterol biosynthesis pathway: Immune mediated graduated flux reduction versus statin-like led stepped flux reduction

Graphical Abstract Highlights We model the cholesterol biosynthesis pathway and its regulation The innate immune response leads to a suppression of flux through the pathway Statin inhibitors show a different mode of suppression to the immune response Statin inhibitor suppression is less robust and less specific than immune suppression Asbtract The cholesterol biosynthesis pathway has recently been shown to play an important role in the innate immune response to viral infection with host protection occurring through a coordinate down regulation of the enzymes catalyzing each metabolic step. In contrast, statin based drugs, which form the principle pharmaceutical agents for decreasing the activity of this pathway, target a single enzyme. Here, we build an ordinary differential equation model of the cholesterol biosynthesis pathway in order to investigate how the two regulatory strategies impact upon the behaviour of the pathway. We employ a modest set of assumptions: that the pathway operates away from saturation, that each metabolite is involved in multiple cellular interactions and that mRNA levels reflect enzyme concentrations. Using data taken from primary bone marrow derived macrophage cells infected with murine cytomegalovirus infection or treated with IFNγ, we show that, under these assumptions, coordinate down regulation of enzyme activity imparts a graduated reduction in flux along the pathway. In contrast, modelling a statin-like treatment that achieves the same degree of down-regulation in cholesterol production, we show that this delivers a step change in flux along the pathway. The graduated reduction mediated by physiological coordinate regulation of multiple enzymes supports a mechanism that allows a greater level of specificity, altering cholesterol levels with less impact upon interactions branching from the pathway, than pharmacological step reductions. We argue that coordinate regulation is likely to show a long-term evolutionary advantage over single enzyme regulation. Finally, the results from our models have implications for future pharmaceutical therapies intended to target cholesterol production with greater specificity and fewer off target effects, suggesting that this can be achieved by mimicking the coordinated down-regulation observed in immunological responses.
Similarity-Based Approaches to Natural Language Processing

Statistical methods for automatically extracting information about associations between words or documents from large collections of text have the potential to have considerable impact in a number of areas, such as information retrieval and natural-language-based user interfaces. However, even huge bodies of text yield highly unreliable estimates of the probability of relatively common events, and, in fact, perfectly reasonable events may not occur in the training data at all. This is known as the sparse data problem. Traditional approaches to the sparse data problem use crude approximations. We propose a different solution: if we are able to organize the data into classes of similar events, then, if information about an event is lacking, we can estimate its behavior from information about similar events. This thesis presents two such similarity-based approaches, where, in general, we measure similarity by the Kullback-Leibler divergence, an information-theoretic quantity. Our first approach is to build soft, hierarchical clusters: soft, because each event belongs to each cluster with some probability; hierarchical, because cluster centroids are iteratively split to model finer distinctions. Our clustering method, which uses the technique of deterministic annealing, represents (to our knowledge) the first application of soft clustering to problems in natural language processing. We use this method to cluster words drawn from 44 million words of Associated Press Newswire and 10 million words from Grolier's encyclopedia, and find that language models built from the clusters have substantial predictive power. Our algorithm also extends with no modification to other domains, such as document clustering. Our second approach is a nearest-neighbor approach: instead of calculating a centroid for each class, we in essence build a cluster around each word. We compare several such nearest-neighbor approaches on a word sense disambiguation task and find that as a whole, their performance is far superior to that of standard methods. In another set of experiments, we show that using estimation techniques based on the nearest-neighbor model enables us to achieve perplexity reductions of more than 20 percent over standard techniques in the prediction of low-frequency events, and statistically significant speech recognition error-rate reduction.
Factors affecting the conversion to open surgery during laparoscopic cholecystectomy in patients with cholelithiasis undergoing ERCP due to choledocholithiasis.

BACKGROUND The rate of conversion to open surgery is high in laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC) after Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangiopancreotocography (ERCP). The present study aimed to evaluate the risk factors associated with the conversion to open cholecystectomy and minimize the rate of conversion to open surgery. METHODS A total of 157 patients admitted to the Ondokuz Mayıs University Medical Faculty Hospital due to cholelithiasis and choledocholithiasis between January 2002 and December 2012, and they receiving laparoscopic cholecystectomy were included in the study. The patients were analyzed retrospectively. The predictive factors for conversion to open cholecystectomy were evaluated. Patients were compared to each other in terms of time passing from ERCP to operation, number of ERCPs, stent usage, stone extraction and complications that occurred while waiting for the operation. Patients were separated into three groups according to the time passing from ERCP to laparoscopic cholecystectomy, as follows; group I (short time intervals: 7 days or less): 53 patients, group II (intermediate time intervals: 8-42 days): 70 patients and group III (long time intervals: 43 days and more): 34 patients. RESULTS Of the 157 patients, 57 were male and 100 were female. The mean age was 54.5 (range: 19-87) years. Of these 157 patients who received laparoscopic cholecystectomy following ERCP, 22 (14%) underwent open surgery. The conversion to open cholecystectomy was distributed in groups, as follows: seven (13.2%) patients in group I, eight (11.4%) patients in group II and seven (20.6%) patients in group III. When the rate of conversion to open surgery was compared between groups, there was no statistically significant difference (p=0.406). The laparoscopic operations were converted to open surgery in 15 (11.3%) of the 133 patients who underwent single ERCP, and in seven (29.2%) of the 24 patients who underwent two or more ERCPs before surgery (p=0.048). The number of ERCPs was determined to be the most important factor that affects the conversion to open surgery in laparoscopic cholecystectomies following ERCP. The removal of stones from the common bile duct, stent placement in the common bile duct, and existence of biliary complications during waiting time from ERCP to LC had no effect on the conversion to open surgery (p=0.454, p=0.058, and p=0.465, respectively). CONCLUSIONS The results of this study reveal that the timing of LC following ERCP, removal of stones from the common bile duct, stent placement in the common bile duct and the existence of biliary complications during the waiting period have no effect on the rate of conversion to open surgery. The number of ERCPs is the only factor that affects the conversion to open surgery in LC following ERCP. KEY WORDS Choledocholitiasis, Conversion, Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography, Laparoscopic cholecystectomy.
A point-based POMDP planner for target tracking

Target tracking has two variants that are often studied independently with different approaches: target searching requires a robot to find a target initially not visible, and target following requires a robot to maintain visibility on a target initially visible. In this work, we use a partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP) to build a single model that unifies target searching and target following. The POMDP solution exhibits interesting tracking behaviors, such as anticipatory moves that exploit target dynamics, information- gathering moves that reduce target position uncertainty, and energy-conserving actions that allow the target to get out of sight, but do not compromise long-term tracking performance. To overcome the high computational complexity of solving POMDPs, we have developed SARSOP, a new point-based POMDP algorithm based on successively approximating the space reachable under optimal policies. Experimental results show that SARSOP is competitive with the fastest existing point-based algorithm on many standard test problems and faster by many times on some.
Fate of Adenovirus Type 12 Genomes in Nonpermissive Cells

The fate of 3H-thymidine-labeled adenovirus type 12 deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) was studied in Nil-2 cells of Syrian hamster origin. It was found that a substantial fraction of 3H-adenovirus type 12 DNA became degraded within 24 hr after infection and was released into the culture fluid. After infection of 5-bromodeoxyuridine (BUdR)-prelabeled cells with 3H-adenovirus type 12, viral DNA became readily separable from cellular DNA by equilibrium centrifugation in CsCl. Part of the viral radioactivity was found to shift gradually to the position of cellular DNA as time progressed after infection. When exponentially growing cells were exposed simultaneously to BUdR, 5-fluorodeoxyuridine, and 3H-adenovirus type 12, up to 50% of the viral radioactivity shifted within 24 hr from the density of viral DNA to that of cellular DNA after equilibrium centrifugation in CsCl. Upon denaturation of the cellular DNA, the isotope was preferentially found to be associated with the “heavy” strand which was synthesized after infection. Upon hybridization of the “heavy” and the “light” strands with sonically treated, denatured 3H-adenovirus type 12 DNA, small and nearly equal amounts of counts hybridized with both strands. The number of counts annealed was in a range similar to that of those annealed with the same amount of DNA derived from adenovirus type 12-transformed hamster cells. These results demonstrate that (i) a substantial proportion of the adsorbed virus becomes degraded within 24 hr; (ii) part of the degradation products is reutilized for cellular DNA synthesis; (iii) only a small fraction, mainly fragments, of viral DNA becomes integrated into both the newly synthesized and the parental strands of cellular DNA.
l-Leucine Alters Pancreatic β-Cell Differentiation and Function via the mTor Signaling Pathway

Leucine (Leu) is an essential branched-chain amino acid, which activates the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) signaling pathway. The effect of Leu on cell differentiation during embryonic development is unknown. Here, we show that Leu supplementation during pregnancy significantly increased fetal body weight, caused fetal hyperglycemia and hypoinsulinemia, and decreased the relative islet area. We also used rat embryonic pancreatic explant culture for elucidating the mechanism of Leu action on β-cell development. We found that in the presence of Leu, differentiation of pancreatic duodenal homeobox-1–positive progenitor cells into neurogenin3-positive endocrine progenitor cells was inefficient and resulted in decreased β-cell formation. Mechanistically, Leu increases the intracellular levels of hypoxia-inducible factor 1-α, a repressor of endocrine fate in the pancreas, by activating the mTOR complex 1 signaling pathway. Collectively, our findings indicate that Leu supplementation during pregnancy could potentially increase the risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus by inhibiting the differentiation of pancreatic endocrine progenitor cells during a susceptible period of fetal life.