Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Locating Facial Landmarks towards Plastic Surgery

The improvement of digital cameras and computers' processing capabilities have made applicable the solutions of a wide range of problems regarding image processing and computer vision. Among the most interesting tasks in this field of expertise, there are several face related problems. Many works have been proposed to solve problems such as face recognition, expression and age estimation, facial reconstruction, etc. Those works have a large potential to be explored in applications ranging from computer graphics to security and, even, medical software. This work proposes a method to automatic locate and identify a set of facial landmarks. The goal is to quickly provide precise and helpful information for plastic surgery procedures. The proposal, after implemented and tested on over 400 images, presented encouraging results for aesthetic analysis. Besides, it brings a novel methodology to locating specific landmarks needed for planning surgeries.
New Insights in the Biology of BDNF Synthesis and Release: Implications in CNS Function

BDNF has pleiotropic effects on neuronal development and synaptic plasticity that underlie circuit formation and cognitive function. Recent breakthroughs reveal that neuronal activity regulates BDNF cell biology, including Bdnf transcription, dendritic targeting and trafficking of BDNF mRNA and protein, and secretion and extracellular conversion of proBDNF to mature BDNF. Defects in these mechanisms contribute differentially to cognitive dysfunction and anxiety-like behaviors. Here we review recent studies, presented at a symposium at Neuroscience 2009, that describe regulatory mechanisms that permit rapid and dynamic refinement of BDNF actions in neurons.
A New Phase-Factor Design Method for Hilbert-Pairs of Orthonormal Wavelets

A new method is proposed for designing Hilbert transform pairs of orthonormal wavelet bases with improved analyticity. Selesnick proposed a simple common factor technique for designing the Hilbert transform pairs in , where the phase factor is required to satisfy the half-sample delay condition, while the common factor is used to obtain the maximum number of vanishing moments and to satisfy the condition of orthonormality. To improve the analyticity of complex wavelets, we propose a novel method to design the phase factor by using the Remez exchange algorithm, so that the difference in the frequency response between two scaling lowpass filters is minimized. One design example is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Cigarette smoking and adenocarcinomas of the esophagus and esophagogastric junction: a pooled analysis from the international BEACON consortium.

BACKGROUND Previous studies that showed an association between smoking and adenocarcinomas of the esophagus and esophagogastric junction were limited in their ability to assess differences by tumor site, sex, dose-response, and duration of cigarette smoking cessation. METHODS We used primary data from 10 population-based case-control studies and two cohort studies from the Barrett's Esophagus and Esophageal Adenocarcinoma Consortium. Analyses were restricted to white non-Hispanic men and women. Patients were classified as having esophageal adenocarcinoma (n = 1540), esophagogastric junctional adenocarcinoma (n = 1450), or a combination of both (all adenocarcinoma; n = 2990). Control subjects (n = 9453) were population based. Associations between pack-years of cigarette smoking and risks of adenocarcinomas were assessed, as well as their potential modification by sex and duration of smoking cessation. Study-specific odds ratios (ORs) estimated using multivariable logistic regression models, adjusted for age, sex, body mass index, education, and gastroesophageal reflux, were pooled using a meta-analytic methodology to generate summary odds ratios. All statistical tests were two-sided. RESULTS The summary odds ratios demonstrated strong associations between cigarette smoking and esophageal adenocarcinoma (OR = 1.96, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.64 to 2.34), esophagogastric junctional adenocarcinoma (OR = 2.18, 95% CI = 1.84 to 2.58), and all adenocarcinoma (OR = 2.08, 95% CI = 1.83 to 2.37). In addition, there was a strong dose-response association between pack-years of cigarette smoking and each outcome (P < .001). Compared with current smokers, longer smoking cessation was associated with a decreased risk of all adenocarcinoma after adjusting for pack-years (<10 years of smoking cessation: OR = 0.82, 95% CI = 0.60 to 1.13; and > or =10 years of smoking cessation: OR = 0.71, 95% CI = 0.56 to 0.89). Sex-specific summary odds ratios were similar. CONCLUSIONS Cigarette smoking is associated with increased risks of adenocarcinomas of the esophagus and esophagogastric junction in white men and women; compared with current smoking, smoking cessation was associated with reduced risks.
Anthropometric and performance measures for the development of a talent detection and identification model in youth handball

Abstract The first part of this study examined in which basic morphological and fitness measures Under-14 (n = 34) and Under-16 (n = 47) male youth handball players differ from reference samples of the same age (n = 430 and n = 570, respectively). To help develop a talent identification model, the second part of the study investigated which specific morphological and performance measures describe differences between elite (n = 18) and non-elite (n = 29) Under-16 youth handball players. The results showed that Under-16 handball players were significantly taller than the reference group; this was not the case in the Under-14 age group. Physical fitness in handball players was significantly better than in the reference groups. Multivariate analysis of covariance (maturation and chronological age as covariates) showed that the Under-16 elite players were heavier and had greater muscle circumferences than their non-elite peers. Elite players scored significantly better on strength, speed and agility, and cardiorespiratory endurance but not on balance, upper limb speed, flexibility or upper body muscular endurance. Maturation was a significant covariate in anthropometric measures but not in physical performance. Discriminant analysis between elite and non-elite players revealed that height, running speed, and agility are important parameters for talent identification. Specific anthropometric measures, in addition to some performance measures, are useful for talent identification in youth handball.
Facilitating Student Learning Through Contextualization

This is a review of evidence for contextualization, defined here as an instructional approach connecting foundational skills and college-level content. Two forms of contextualization are identified, contextualized and integrated instruction. Despite methodological limitations, the available studies suggest that contextualization has the potential to accelerate the progress of academically underprepared college students.
Rerouting strategies for networks with advance reservations

Network transmissions in high performance networking scenarios, e.g., used for e-science or grid applications, require quality-of-service guarantees concerning bandwidth availability, but also timing constraints, e.g., deadlines, must be met. Current research efforts concentrate on supporting such environments with SLA-aware advance reservation management systems. Hence, the robustness of the management system against network failures is an important issue, especially since failures frequently occur in networks. Since accurate knowledge about the failure duration is unlikely available and estimations lead to considerably degraded performance, in this paper we present a novel load-based approach for dealing with link failures in advance reservation environments. The approach does not rely on prediction of the downtime, but instead reroutes flows only based on available information about the network
Impact of SNPs on Protein Phosphorylation Status in Rice (Oryza sativa L.)

Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are widely used in functional genomics and genetics research work. The high-quality sequence of rice genome has provided a genome-wide SNP and proteome resource. However, the impact of SNPs on protein phosphorylation status in rice is not fully understood. In this paper, we firstly updated rice SNP resource based on the new rice genome Ver. 7.0, then systematically analyzed the potential impact of Non-synonymous SNPs (nsSNPs) on the protein phosphorylation status. There were 3,897,312 SNPs in Ver. 7.0 rice genome, among which 9.9% was nsSNPs. Whilst, a total 2,508,261 phosphorylated sites were predicted in rice proteome. Interestingly, we observed that 150,197 (39.1%) nsSNPs could influence protein phosphorylation status, among which 52.2% might induce changes of protein kinase (PK) types for adjacent phosphorylation sites. We constructed a database, SNP_rice, to deposit the updated rice SNP resource and phosSNPs information. It was freely available to academic researchers at http://bioinformatics.fafu. edu.cn. As a case study, we detected five nsSNPs that potentially influenced heterotrimeric G proteins phosphorylation status in rice, indicating that genetic polymorphisms showed impact on the signal transduction by influencing the phosphorylation status of heterotrimeric G proteins. The results in this work could be a useful resource for future experimental identification and provide interesting information for better rice breeding.
Appearance of the Bona Fide Spiral Tubule of Orf Virus Is Dependent on an Intact 10-Kilodalton Viral Protein

ABSTRACT Parapoxviruses can be morphologically distinguished from other poxviruses in conventional negative staining electron microscopy (EM) by their ovoid appearance and the spiral tubule surrounding the virion's surface. However, this technique may introduce artifacts. We have examined Orf virus (ORFV; the prototype species of the Parapoxvirus genus) by cryoelectron microscopy (cryo-EM) and cryo-negative staining EM. From these studies we suggest that the shape and unique spiral tubule are authentic features of the parapoxviruses. We also constructed an ORFV mutant deleted of a gene encoding a 10-kDa protein, which is an orthologue of the vaccinia virus (VACV) 14-kDa fusion protein, and investigated its ultrastructure. This mutant virus multiplied slowly in permissive cells and produced infectious but morphologically aberrant particles. Mutant virions lacked the spiral tubule but displayed short disorganized tubules similar to those observed on the surface of VACV. In addition, thin extensions or loop-like structures were appended to the ORFV mutant particles. We suggest that these appended structures arise from a failure of the mutant virus particles to properly seal and that the sealing activity is dependent on the 10-kDa protein.
Modeling atmospheric longwave radiation at the surface under cloudless skies

[1] Downward atmospheric longwave radiation (DLR) is an important component of the terrestrial energy budget, strongly related with the greenhouse effect and therefore remarkably affecting the climate. In this study, DLR at the surface has been calculated using a one-dimensional radiative transfer model, Santa Barbara DISORT Atmospheric Radiative Transfer (SBDART). A sensitivity study has been performed in order to assess the influence of several variables on DLR levels for cloudless conditions. Among these variables, the atmospheric profiles of temperature and water content have been confirmed as the most important. Calculations have been compared with measurements made with pyrgeometers. The study has been applied to data from two European stations, Payerne (Switzerland) and Girona (Spain). For the Payerne case, for which radio soundings were available, calculations show differences with measurements in the range � 2.7 ± 3.4 W m � 2 . For Girona, where no in situ radio soundings are available, soundings taken about 90 km away and atmospheric profiles from a gridded analysis (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF)) were used along with the meteorological information at screen level. In the latter case, differences between modeling and measurements were about 0.3 ± 9.4 W m � 2 . From our results, it is found that radiative transfer modeling of DLR can produce results that agree with measurements reasonably well even if no in situ radio soundings are available; the use of profiles from the ECMWF analyses does not greatly increase the bias, while the dispersion of differences is only slightly larger than the uncertainty of the measurements. It has also been confirmed that radiative transfer modeling produces better results than previously published simple parameterizations based only on surface measurements.
Human body schema exploration: Analyzing design requirements of Robotic Hand and Leg Illusions

Understanding the integration of user-proximal robots in the body schema of their human users has a distinct potential to improve human-robot interaction. Robotic devices can help to investigate the psychological fundamentals of body schema integration. While the Rubber Hand Illusion experiment indicates how artifacts can be perceived as a part of the own body, it relies on a passive limb that does not perform motions during the examinations. Novel setups aim at Robotic Hand/Leg Illusions induced by robotic devices which imitate human motions. Although such devices distinctly extend experimental possibilities, their design is rather proprietary and unstructured up to now. This paper analyzes the requirements of robotic hand and leg illusion setups based on systematic discussion of a multidisciplinary team of researchers from engineering and psychology. In a comparative study, requirements are collected and structured, their similarities and differences are determined, and the most important ones are extracted yielding design implications. The requirements with the highest priority are setup characteristics that concern the occurrence and quality of the illusion, i.e., hiding the real limb, anatomical plausibility, visual appearance, temporal delay, and software-controlled experimental conditions. Based on the results, the design of future robotic devices for the exploration of human body schema integration might be guided and supported.
Qualitative Distinction of Autotrophic and Heterotrophic Processes at the Leaf Level by Means of Triple Stable Isotope (C–O–H) Patterns

Foliar samples were harvested from two oaks, a beech, and a yew at the same site in order to trace the development of the leaves over an entire vegetation season. Cellulose yield and stable isotopic compositions (δ13C, δ18O, and δD) were analyzed on leaf cellulose. All parameters unequivocally define a juvenile and a mature period in the foliar expansion of each species. The accompanying shifts of the δ13C-values are in agreement with the transition from remobilized carbohydrates (juvenile period), to current photosynthates (mature phase). While the opponent seasonal trends of δ18O of blade and vein cellulose are in perfect agreement with the state-of-art mechanistic understanding, the lack of this discrepancy for δD, documented for the first time, is unexpected. For example, the offset range of 18 permil (oak veins) to 57 permil (oak blades) in δD may represent a process driven shift from autotrophic to heterotrophic processes. The shared pattern between blade and vein found for both oak and beech suggests an overwhelming metabolic isotope effect on δD that might be accompanied by proton transfer linked to the Calvin-cycle. These results provide strong evidence that hydrogen and oxygen are under different biochemical controls even at the leaf level.
Point-of-Use Membrane Filtration and Hyperchlorination to Prevent Patient Exposure to Rapidly Growing Mycobacteria in the Potable Water Supply of a Skilled Nursing Facility

Background. Healthcare-associated outbreaks and pseudo-outbreaks of rapidly growing mycobacteria (RGM) are frequently associated with contaminated tap water. A pseudo-outbreak of Mycobacterium chelonae–M. abscessus in patients undergoing bronchoscopy was identified by 2 acute care hospitals. RGM was identified in bronchoscopy specimens of 28 patients, 25 of whom resided in the same skilled nursing facility (SNF). An investigation ruled out bronchoscopy procedures, specimen collection, and scope reprocessing at the hospitals as sources of transmission. Objective. To identify the reservoir for RGM within the SNF and evaluate 2 water system treatments, hyperchlorination and point-of-use (POU) membrane filters, to reduce RGM. Design. A comparative in situ study of 2 water system treatments to prevent RGM transmission. Setting. An SNF specializing in care of patients requiring ventilator support. Methods. RGM and heterotrophic plate count (HPC) bacteria were examined in facility water before and after hyperchlorination and in a subsequent 24-week assessment of filtered water by colony enumeration on Middlebrook and R2A media. Results. Mycobacterium chelonae was consistently isolated from the SNF water supply. Hyperchlorination reduced RGM by 1.5 log10 initially, but the population returned to original levels within 90 days. Concentration of HPC bacteria also decreased temporarily. RGM were reduced below detection level in filtered water, a 3-log10 reduction. HPC bacteria were not recovered from newly installed filters, although low quantities were found in water from 2-week-old filters. Conclusion. POU membrane filters may be a feasible prevention measure for healthcare facilities to limit exposure of sensitive individuals to RGM in potable water systems.
Comparison of apparent and true digestibility of nutrients determined in dairy cows either by the nylon capsule or in vivo method

In this study the values of true digestibility of DM, OM, CP, NDF and starch determined either by the nylon capsule method or conventional in vivo method were compared. Four intact crossbred dairy cows (mean milk yield 21.9 kg/d) were used in two experimental periods. TMR consisted of maize silage, lucerne hay and concentrate. Nylon capsules (external diameter 10 mm) were made of nylon cloth (pore size 42 µm). Capsules were filled with TMR and at the beginning of the in vivo trial they were administered orally as a paper bolus into the cows. The values of true digestibility (after washing loss correction) of DM and OM, as determined by means of the nylon capsule method were lower than those estimated by the in vivo method. The respective differences were -6.9 and -7.3% (P < 0.05). Insignificant differences were found in CP, NDF and starch.
Azimuthal distribution of HF slant E echoes and its relationship to the polar cap electric field

A study was conducted to investigate the azimuthal distribution of high-frequency slant E echoes and its relationship to the polar cap electric field. Analysis of data obtained with a oblique step sounder and a rotatable log periodic antenna located at Resolute Bay, Canada, showed that the highest frequency of the slant E echo trace during any given azimuth scan was found to maximize in the direction of the E region current vector. This relationship is inferred from the striking 15-deg/h diurnal variation in the direction of the highest-frequency slant E echo, the change of this direction with the sign of the azimuthal component of the interplanetary magnetic field, and the general agreement of the direction of slant E echo maxima with the directions shown by equivalent current systems derived from polar cap magnetometer data. This directional relationships is interpreted in terms of conditions established by the Buneman-Farley two-stream instability, the magnetic aspect sensitivity, and the ionospheric refraction. Slant E echoes, which were also observed at angles near perpendicular to the current flow, are thought to be due to secondary plasma waves generated by a mechanism similar to that proposed by Sudan et al. (1973). The possibility that some of themore » slant E echoes used in the analysis are really slant F echoes remains to be investigated. (AIP)« less
The oxygen consumption of human skeletal muscle in vivo

Attempts to measure metabolic activity of skeletal muscle in vivo began with the experiments of Chauveau & Kaufmann (1887). These authors stated the principles on which most later work has relied. These are '(1) to collect and measure the blood flowing through a muscle of known or ascertainable weight; (2) to collect this blood uncontaminated by blood from any other source whatever; (3) to find the amounts of chemical substances in a given volume of this blood; and (4) to compare these amounts with those found in simultaneously drawn samples of arterial blood. ' They found in the levator labii superioris of the horse a muscle they could study in the unanaesthetized animal. Holling (1939) has followed the same principle in studies on the human forearm muscles. Blood flow was recorded with the plethysmograph, and samples of venous blood were taken from the deep branch of the median cubital vein immediately distal to its junction with the superficial branch. He was concerned primarily with 02 consumption of the tissues. Another method, used by Jarisch & Gaisb6ck (1929) and by Asmussen, Christensen & Nielsen (1939), was to estimate the fall in respiratory 02 intake that occurs following vascular occlusion of the legs. METHOD
Miocene brachyuran Crustacea from Konar-Takhteh and Ahram sections, southwestern Iran

espanolSe describen cinco especies de crustaceos braquiuros del Mioceno Medio del Miembro Guri de la Formacion Mishan en el suroeste de Iran. Las especies incluyen a los leucosioideos Leucosia persica; Seulosia sp. cf. S. rhomboidalis; Myra sp. ; el portunoideo Portunus withersi y el xantido Demania ahramensis n. sp. Las afinidades paleobiogeograficas de estos generos refuerzan las interpretaciones previas sobre una amplia distribucion entre las regiones del Golfo Persico y el Indopacifico. EnglishFive species of brachyuran Crustacea from the Middle Miocene are described from the Guri Member of the Mishan Formation in southwestern Iran. The species include the leucosioids Leucosia persica; Seulosia sp. cf. S. rhomboidalis; Myra sp. ; the portunoid Portunus withersi and the xanthid Demania ahramensis n. sp. The paleobiogeographic affinities of these genera reinforce previous interpretations of a wide distribution between the Persian Gulf and the Indopacific regions.