Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fuzzy and possibilistic shell clustering algorithms and their application to boundary detection and surface approximation. I

Shell clustering algorithms are ideally suited for computer vision tasks such as boundary detection and surface approximation, particularly when the boundaries have jagged or scattered edges and when the range data is sparse. This is because shell clustering is insensitive to local aberrations, it can be performed directly in image space, and unlike traditional approaches it does assume dense data and does not use additional features such as curvatures and surface normals. The shell clustering algorithms introduced in Part I of this paper assume that the number of clusters is known, however, which is not the case in many boundary detection and surface approximation applications. This problem can be overcome by considering cluster validity. We introduce a validity measure called surface density which is explicitly meant for the type of applications considered in this paper, we show through theoretical derivations that surface density is relatively invariant to size and partiality (incompleteness) of the clusters. We describe unsupervised clustering algorithms that use the surface density measure and other measures to determine the optimum number of shell clusters automatically, and illustrate the application of the proposed algorithms to boundary detection in the case of intensity images and to surface approximation in the case of range images. >
Accelerated phospholipid degradation and associated membrane dysfunction in irreversible, ischemic liver cell injury.

Interruption of the blood supply to rat liver produces a progressive loss of phospholipids from the ischemic cells. Whole homogenates and post-mitochondrial supernatants from livers ischemic for 3 h showed a 40% and 55% decrease in phospholipids, respectively. Phosphatidylcholine and phosphatidylethanolamine were predominantly affected without accumulation of either lysophosphatidylcholine or lysophosphatidylethanolamine. Pretreatment of the animals with chlorpromazine prevents the liver cell death produced by as much as 3 h of ischemia and prevents the loss of phospholipids from both the whole homogenates and post-mitochondrial supernatants. This phospholipid depletion is entirely accountable by an accelerated rate of degradation with a half-life of 2 to 4 h for ischemic as compared to 24 h for control microsomal membrane phospholipids. Microsomes prepared from the lipid-depleted post-mitochondrial supernatants exhibit considerable alterations in their structure and function with inhibition of glucose6-phosphatase and calcium pump activities and a 25to go-fold increase in their passive permeability to Ca ‘+ Pretreatment with chlorproma. zine prevents this increased Ca” permeability and addition of phosphatidylcholine to the ischemic microsomes restores a normal Ca2+ permeability. Treatment of control liver microsomes with Naja naja phospholipase AZ produces a similar spectrum of abnormalities with decreased phospholipids, inhibition of glucose-6phosphatase and calcium pump activities, and increased Ca2+ permeability. These changes could not be attributed to accumulation of the lysophospholipids accompanying the loss of phospholipids. Electron micrographs of freeze-fractured ischemic microsomes showed fewer intramembranous particles, bare membrane regions devoid of particles, and areas containing aggregations of intramembranous particles. It is suggested that the loss of phospholipid from the microsomal membranes results from the activation of endogenous, membrane-bound phospholipases as a result of increased cell Ca2+ shown previously to accompany liver cell ischemia. Chlorpromazine, an inhibitor of Ca2+ fluxes and phospholipases, would act by preventing the increased Ca2’ or by directly inhibiting the activation of membrane-bound phospholipases. Accelerated phospholipid degradation and its resultant membrane dysfunction are proposed as the critical alteration that produces irreversible liver cell injury and ultimately cell death in ischemia.
Reference Points, Prospect Theory, and Momentum on the PGA Tour

Pope and Schweitzer (2011) study predictions of prospect theory for the reference point of par on the current hole in professional golf. We study prospect-theory predictions of three other plausible reference points: par for recent holes, for the round, and for the tournament. A potentially competing force is momentum in quality of play, that is, the hot or cold hand. While prospect theory predicts negative serial correlation in better (worse)-than-average performance across holes, the hot (cold) hand implies the opposite. We find evidence that, for each of the reference points we study, when scores are better than par, hot-hand effects are dominated by prospect-theory effects. These effects can occur via two mechanisms: greater conservatism or less effort. We find evidence that the former (latter) dominates for scores closer to (further from) the reference point. We also find evidence of prospect theory effects (greater risk seeking) when scores are worse than par for the round in Round 1 and of cold-hand effects for scores worse than par for the tournament in Round 3. The magnitudes of some of the joint effects are comparable to those found by Pope and Schweitzer and other related papers. We conclude by discussing how, rather than compete, prospect-theory and cold-hand forces might also cause one another.
Knowledge-Based Features for Place Classification of Unvoiced Stops

Abstract The classification of unvoiced stops in consonant–vowel (CV) syllables, segmented from continuous speech, is investigated by features related to speech production. As burst and vocalic transitions contribute to identification of stops in the CV context, features are computed from both regions. Although formants are the truly discriminating articulatory features, their estimation from the speech signal is a challenge especially in unvoiced regions like the release burst of stops. This may be compensated partially by sub-band energy-based features. In this work, formant features from the vocalic region are combined with features from the burst region comprising sub-band energies, as well as features from a formant tracking method developed for unvoiced regions. The overall combination of features at the classifier level obtains an accuracy of 84.4%, which is significantly better than that obtained with solely sub-band features on unvoiced stops in CV syllables of TIMIT.
What is work? On the invisibility of women’s paid work in the informal sector

»Work« is broadly defined in the literature as effort resulting in some product or service in exchange for payment or in-kind payment. However women’s labor force participation often remains under-reported in official statistics. Based on fieldwork in Istanbul, Turkey, this article presents the discrepancies between common sense notions of »work« and women workers’ subjective interpretations of their paid work in the informal sector as »non-work«. This discrepancy raises important questions about gendered segregation of labor markets, and about women’s status in society in general. I argue that this discrepancy also contributes to women workers’ invisibility in official statistics. The article contributes to theorization on the under-reporting of women’s paid work in official statistics by demonstrating the ambivalent patterns of female identities within the gendered economy of global markets.
Cytomegalovirus infection in severe ulcerative colitis patients undergoing continuous intravenous cyclosporine treatment in Japan.

AIM To investigate active cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection following the cyclosporine A (CyA) treatment of steroid-refractory ulcerative colitis (UC). METHODS Twenty-three patients with severe UC not responding to steroid therapy (male 14, and female 9) enrolled at Nagoya University Hospital from 1999 to 2005. They received continuous intravenous infusion of CyA (average 4 mg/kg per day) for 1 mo. Serum and colonic biopsy samples were collected before CyA treatment and 4 d, 10 d, 20 d, and 30 d after treatment. Patients were evaluated for CMV by using serology (IgM antibody by ELISA), quantitative real-time PCR for CMV DNA, and histopathological assessment of hematoxylin and eosin (HE)-stained colonic biopsies. CMV infection was indicated by positive results in any test. RESULTS No patients had active CMV infection before CyA treatment. Eighteen of 23 UC patients treated with CyA were infected with active CMV (IgM antibody in 16/23 patients, 69.6%; CMV DNA in 18/23 patients, 78.2%; and inclusion bodies in 4/23 patients, 17.3%). There was no difference in the active CMV-infection rate between males and females. Active CMV infection was observed after approximately 8 d of CyA treatment, leading to an exacerbation of colitis. Fifteen of these 18 patients with active CMV infection (83.3%) required surgical treatment because of severe deteriorating colitis. Treatment with ganciclovir rendered surgery avoidable in three patients. CONCLUSION Our results suggest that active CMV infection in severe UC patients treated with CyA is associated with poor outcome. Further, ganciclovir is useful for treatment of CMV-associated UC after immuno-suppressive therapy.
Rac1 Is a Critical Mediator of Endothelium-Derived Neurotrophic Activity

Rac1 drives transcriptional programs in endothelial cells that alter endothelial barrier property and expression of neurotrophic factors. Bypassing the Barrier In ischemic stroke and various neurological disorders, neuronal death is exacerbated by breakdown of the blood-brain barrier, composed of vascular endothelial cells, the underlying basal lamina, and associated glial cells. Noting that the small guanosine triphosphatase Rac1 has been implicated in various aspects of endothelial cell function, Sawada et al. used transgenic mice to explore the contribution of endothelial Rac1 to neuronal damage and the breakdown of vascular integrity in a mouse model of ischemic stroke. Mice with decreased endothelial Rac1 abundance showed a reduction in infarct size, brain edema, and neurological deficits. Endothelial cells from these mice showed increased expression of genes implicated in the stress response, as well as genes encoding neurotrophic factors and components of the basement membrane. Intriguingly, Rac-deficient brain endothelial cells showed enhanced production of the neurotrophic factor artemin. Thus, endothelial Rac1 may represent a viable therapeutic target in ischemic stroke and other conditions associated with neuronal death and breakdown of blood-brain barrier function. The therapeutic potential of neurotrophic factors has been hampered by their inability to achieve adequate tissue penetration. Brain blood vessels, however, could be an alternative target for neurosalvage therapies by virtue of their close proximity to neurons. Here we show that hemizygous deletion of Rac1 in mouse endothelial cells (ECs) attenuates brain injury and edema after focal cerebral ischemia. Microarray analysis of Rac1+/− ECs revealed enrichment of stress response genes, basement membrane components, and neurotrophic factors that could affect neuronal survival. Consistent with these expression profiles, endothelial Rac1 hemizygosity enhanced antioxidative and endothelial barrier capacities and potentiated paracrine neuroprotective activities through the up-regulation of the neurotrophic factor, artemin. Endothelial Rac1, therefore, could be an important therapeutic target for promoting endothelial barrier integrity and neurotrophic activity.
Relationship Between Gait and Clinical Results After High Tibial Osteotomy

Thirty-two patients with primary osteoarthritis of the medial compartment of the knee were studied prospectively to assess the relationship between clinical results, limb alignment, and adduction moment of the knee. Clinical and radiographic examination and gait analyses were performed preoperatively and repeated at 6 months and at 1, 3, and 6 years after high tibial osteotomy. The preoperative peak adduction moment was high in 25 patients and low in seven. In both groups, the adduction moment of the knee decreased at 6 months after surgery but increased after that period. Alignment of the affected knee in both groups remained valgus after surgery (average femorotibial angle, 167°-169°). Clinical outcome in both groups improved after surgery and remained unchanged after 1 year. The peak adduction moment of the knee for the whole group significantly correlated with alignment and foot angle before and 6 years after surgery but did not correlate with stride length and walking velocity. In addition, only alignment was associated significantly with clinical results at 6 years. These results suggest that the preoperative peak adduction moment of the knee does not correlate with clinical or radiographic outcomes of high tibial osteotomy, provided sufficient valgus alignment is achieved at surgery.
Payment Mechanisms and Antipoverty Programs: Evidence from a Mobile Money Cash Transfer Experiment in Niger

Cash transfers have become an increasingly important component of social protection policies in both developed and developing countries. While such programs are often implemented electronically in developed countries, in many developing countries with weak financial infrastructure, such transfers are distributed manually, resulting in significant costs to program recipients and the public sector alike. The introduction of mobile money systems in many developing countries offers new opportunities for distributing cash transfers. Using data from a randomized experiment of a mobile money cash transfer program in Niger, we find evidence of benefits of this new system: household diet diversity was 9%–16% higher among households who received mobile transfers, and children ate an additional one-third of a meal per day. These results can be partially attributed to time savings associated with mobile transfers, as program recipients spent less time traveling to and waiting for their transfer. They are also associated with shifts in intrahousehold bargaining power for women. These results suggest that electronic transfers may address key logistical challenges in implementing cash transfer programs in developing countries but that sufficient investment in the payments infrastructure is needed.
Willingness to participate in HIV vaccine research in a peri-urban South African community

Research on willingness to participate in HIV vaccine trials is important in preparations for HIV vaccine research, but there are few data from sub-Saharan Africa. We interviewed 198 individuals in a peri-urban South African community immediately after enrolment into an HIV vaccine preparedness study on their willingness to participate in hypothetical vaccine trials. Overall 23% of participants (n = 46) said that they would be willing to participate in an HIV vaccine trial. Willingness was associated with increasing age, male gender, and increasing knowledge about vaccines generally and HIV vaccines specifically. In multivariate analysis, a 1-unit increase in HIV vaccine knowledge score was associated with a 10-fold increase in willingness to participate (adjusted odds ratio, 10.72, 95% confidence intervals: 4.40–26.12). These results suggest that while willingness to participate in HIV vaccine trials is relatively low in this setting, educational campaigns may have a substantial impact on individuals' willingness to participate in research.
House dust mite allergen (Der p I) and respiratory symptoms in children: a case‐control study

The association between house dust mite allergen in house dust and childhood respiratory symptoms was investigated in a case‐control study of 259 children with reported chronic respiratory symptoms and 257 control children without reported respiratory symptoms. The Der p I concentration in floor dust of the living room and bedroom and in mattress dust was determined using an enzyme immunoassay. Venous blood samples were taken from all children for serum IgE determination against house dust mite (Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus) by radioallergosorbent assay (RAST). A questionnaire was administered to the parents of the children to elicit information about the home, about changes made to the home in the past in relation to respiratory symptoms, and about a number of risk factors for childhood respiratory disease. In 83% of the dwellings of cases and 89% of those of controls, Der p I concentrations higher than 2000 ng/g were found, and in 54% of the dwellings of cases and 57% of those of controls, the concentrations exceeded 10 000 ng/g dust. In a crude analysis, cases were generally exposed to lower Der p I concentrations than controls. Restriction of the analysis to cases sensitized to dust mites, and non‐sensitized controls, taking the type of floor covering into account, showed not significantly higher Der p I concentrations in bedroom floor dust of cases. However, restriction of the analysis to cases sensitizied to dust mites and cases not sensitized to house dust mites — adjusting for allergen avoidance measures taken in the past — revealed a positive association between the Der p I concentrations in bedroom floor dust and mattress dust and sensitization. This finding indicates that allergen avoidance measures modify current exposure to Der p I. This obscures the relationship between the exposure to mite allergens and sensitization, and hampers the estimation of the association between exposure to house dust mite allergens, sensitization and the development of respiratory symptoms.
Interactive Narrative Personalization with Deep Reinforcement Learning

Data-driven techniques for interactive narrative generation are the subject of growing interest. Reinforcement learning (RL) offers significant potential for devising data-driven interactive narrative generators that tailor players’ story experiences by inducing policies from player interaction logs. A key open question in RL-based interactive narrative generation is how to model complex player interaction patterns to learn effective policies. In this paper we present a deep RL-based interactive narrative generation framework that leverages synthetic data produced by a bipartite simulated player model. Specifically, the framework involves training a set of Q-networks to control adaptable narrative event sequences with long short-term memory network-based simulated players. We investigate the deep RL framework’s performance with an educational interactive narrative, C RYSTAL I SLAND . Results suggest that the deep RL-based narrative generation framework yields effective personalized interactive narratives.
Water vapor detection with individual tin oxide nanowires

Individual tin oxide nanowires (NWs), contacted to platinum electrodes using focused ion beam assisted nanolithography, were used for detecting water vapor (1500–32 000 ppm) in different gaseous environments. Responses obtained in synthetic air (SA) and nitrogen atmospheres suggested differences in the sensing mechanism, which were related to changes in surface density of the adsorbed oxygen species in the two cases. A model describing the different behaviors has been proposed together with comparative evaluation of NW responses against sensors based on bulk tin oxide. The results obtained on ten individual devices (tested >6 times) revealed the interfering effect of water in the detection of carbon monoxide and illustrated the intrinsic potential of nanowire-based devices as humidity sensors. Investigations were made on sensitivity, recovery time and device stability as well as surface–humidity interactions. This is the first step towards fundamental understanding of single-crystalline one-dimensional (1D) tin oxide nanostructures for sensor applications, which could lead to integration in real devices.
Surgical site infection and pattern of antibiotic use in a tertiary care hospital in Peshawar.

BACKGROUND Surgical site infection (SSI) is most common complication following surgical procedures. The objective of the study was to collect information on SSI regarding the most frequent pathogen in cases operated in casualty of Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) Peshawar, and sensitivity of the isolated pathogens to different antibiotics used. METHODS The study was carried out at surgical 'B' unit (SBU) LRH from Jan 1, 2009 till Dec 31, 2009. A total of 100 patients who developed SSI after being operated for peritonitis following traumatic gut perforations, perforated appendix and enteric perforation. The patients included presented to casualty, operated in casualty OT and were shifted to the SBU, LRH. Children and patients operated on the elective list were excluded. Data was collected on specially designed proforma. Demographic details, details of SSI, culture/sensitivity reports and antibiotic used for prophylaxis and after C/S report were recorded. RESULTS Out of a total of 100, 72 had superficial, 20 had organ/space and 8 had deep SSI. Organisms were isolated in 77 cases (77%). E. coli being most common pathogen (46%), followed by Pseudomonas (23%), mixed growth of Staph. Aureus or MRSA (13%), MRSA (5%) AND Staph aureus (4%) in descending order. No growth was reported in 23% of cases. CONCLUSION E. coli was the most common organism involved in SSI in SBU LRH. The incidence of infection with MRSA in our unit is high. Combination of antibiotics like pipreacillin/Tazobactam, Cefoperazone/Sulbactam, were most effective against the isolated organisms. except MRSA where Linezolid, vancomycin and Tiecoplanin were effective.
The Chemokine Stromal Cell-Derived Factor-1 Regulates the Migration of Sensory Neuron Progenitors

Chemokines and their receptors are essential for the development and organization of the hematopoietic/lymphopoietic system and have now been shown to be expressed by different types of cells in the nervous system. In mouse embryos, we observed expression of the chemokine (CXC motif) receptor 4 (CXCR4) by neural crest cells migrating from the dorsal neural tube and in the dorsal root ganglia (DRGs). Stromal cell-derived factor-1 (SDF-1), the unique agonist for CXCR4, was expressed along the path taken by crest cells to the DRGs, suggesting that SDF-1/CXCR4 signaling is needed for their migration. CXCR4 null mice exhibited small and malformed DRGs. Delayed migration to the DRGs was suggested by ectopic cells expressing tyrosine receptor kinase A (TrkA) and TrkC, neurotrophin receptors required by DRG sensory neuron development. In vitro, the CXCR4 chemokine receptor was upregulated by migratory progenitor cells just as they exited mouse neural tube explants, and SDF-1 acted as a chemoattractant for these cells. Most CXCR4-expressing progenitors differentiated to form sensory neurons with the properties of polymodal nociceptors. Furthermore, DRGs contained a population of progenitor cells that expressed CXCR4 receptors in vitro and differentiated into neurons with a similar phenotype. Our findings indicate an important role for SDF-1/CXCR4 signaling in directing the migration of sensory neuron progenitors to the DRG and potentially in other aspects of development once the DRGs have coalesced.