Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
PolyFit

Raster clip-art images, which consist of distinctly colored regions separated by sharp boundaries typically allow for a clear mental vector interpretation. Converting these images into vector format can facilitate compact lossless storage and enable numerous processing operations. Despite recent progress, existing vectorization methods that target such data frequently produce vectorizations that fail to meet viewer expectations. We present PolyFit, a new clip-art vectorization method that produces vectorizations well aligned with human preferences. Since segmentation of such inputs into regions had been addressed successfully, we specifically focus on fitting piecewise smooth vector curves to the raster input region boundaries, a task prior methods are particularly prone to fail on. While perceptual studies suggest the criteria humans are likely to use during mental boundary vectorization, they provide no guidance as to the exact interaction between them; learning these interactions directly is problematic due to the large size of the solution space. To obtain the desired solution, we first approximate the raster region boundaries with coarse intermediate polygons leveraging a combination of perceptual cues with observations from studies of human preferences. We then use these intermediate polygons as auxiliary inputs for computing piecewise smooth vectorizations of raster inputs. We define a finite set of potential polygon to curve primitive maps, and learn the mapping from the polygons to their best fitting primitive configurations from human annotations, arriving at a compact set of local raster and polygon properties whose combinations reliably predict human-expected primitive choices. We use these primitives to obtain a final globally consistent spline vectorization. Extensive comparative user studies show that our method outperforms state-of-the-art approaches on a wide range of data, where our results are preferred three times as often as those of the closest competitor across multiple types of inputs with various resolutions.
Reasons for and Impacts of Kava Use by Tongan Men in Kava Clubs in Auckland and Tonga

Kava drinking in kava clubs has become an intrinsic part of Tongan Pasifika culture. Perceived effects and reasons for kava consumption are not fully understood. This study explored these issues using the culturally safe, Pasifika qualitative research approaches of Kakala and Talanga. Group interviews were held with a convenience sample of 104 Tongan men across 10 kava clubs in Tonga and New Zealand. A general inductive approach was used to analyse the interviews. Participants in both countries reported that kava use is socially sanctioned and easily accessible. Kava clubs provide an opportunity to learn about Tongan culture, socialise and are a safe way to relieve stress and boredom. However, kava consumption could reduce members’ productivity, contribute to ill-health and increase stress on family relationships. It is vital that kava use amongst Tongans is addressed in a way that deals with the negative impacts but protects its benefits. There is an opportunity to educate men about the health effects of kava. To enact this opportunity and solve this widespread issue, partnership between kava clubs, the church and the Tongan community is needed. A multi-agency engagement with kava club members and Tongan society may therefore be the best approach to minimize risks and optimize benefits of kava use.
Grapevine trunk diseases in German viticulture IV. Spreading of spores of Phaeomoniella chlamydospora in Esca-affected vineyards

© The author(s). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike License (http://creative-commons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Correspondence to: Prof. M. Fischer, Julius Kühn-Institut (JKI) Institute for Plant Protection in Fruit Crops and Viticulture, 76833 Siebeldingen, Germany. E-mail: michael.fischer@julius-kuehn.de Grapevine trunk diseases in German viticulture IV. Spreading of spores of Phaeomoniella chlamydospora in Esca-affected vineyards
Factors Associated with Physical Activity

The purpose of this paper is to determine the association of demographic, psychological, and social factors with physical activity, and to determine whether indicators of physical activity differ in terms of gender among 974 young adults of Albanian nationality from 18 to 29 years of age. Students completed a questionnaire that examined their level of participation in physical activity and behaviours, along with several potential correlates. Hierarchical regression was used to explore the relationship between hypothesised factors and physical activity. On the basis of the obtained results, one can conclude that male students, unlike female students, show a significantly higher level of physical activity. The respondents of both genders who have a higher level of self-efficacy perceive greater benefits of physical activity, greater social support from friends, and come from families where a larger number of family members have higher levels of physical activity. The results of the research suggest the importance of the preparation of a national plan and programme to promote physical activity to help young people change unhealthy lifestyle habits and increase physical activity, thereby to improve their health.
Reinforcement Learning in Continuous Time and Space: A Stochastic Control Approach

We consider reinforcement learning (RL) in continuous time with continuous feature and action spaces. We motivate and devise an exploratory formulation for the feature dynamics that captures learning under exploration, with the resulting optimization problem being a revitalization of the classical relaxed stochastic control. We then study the problem of achieving the best trade-oﬀ between exploration and exploitation by considering an entropy-regularized reward function. We carry out a complete analysis of the problem in the linear–quadratic (LQ) setting and deduce that the optimal feedback control distribution for balancing exploitation and exploration is Gaussian. This in turn interprets the widely adopted Gaussian exploration in RL, beyond its simplicity for sampling. Moreover, the exploitation and exploration are captured respectively by the mean and variance of the Gaussian distribution. We characterize the cost of exploration, which, for the LQ case, is shown to be proportional to the entropy regularization weight and inversely proportional to the discount rate. Finally, as the weight of exploration decays to zero, we prove the convergence of the solution of the entropy-regularized LQ problem to the one of the classical LQ problem.
Synopsis of biological data on Indian mackerel /Rastrelliger kanagurta, cuvier, 1817/ and short bodied mackerel /Rastrelliger brachysoma, bleeker, 1851

This is an unabridged, revised version of the first draft prepared by H. Rosa Jr. for the Meeting of the Indo-Pacific Fisheries Council Sub- Committee on Rastrelliger> Malaya, September, 1956. Appendix 7 (IV) of Summary Record of the Sub-Committee Meeting, "Synopsis of data on the species of the genus Rastrelliger Jordan and Starks 1908")
PUNJABIS BASAL METABOLIC RATE NEEDS ATTENTION Akwinderkaur*

In the present study an attempt has been made to report the prevalence of basal metabolic rateamong school girls of Punjab, total 6000 students (3000 each from government & private schools and 3087 from rural & 2913 from urban schools) were selected with stratified random sampling techniqueranging in age from 10-17 years. The data was obtained from various government and private schools of Punjabbased on literacy rate of parents. Height of each individual is measured with anthropometric rode and the basal metabolic rate(BMR) was calculated by the bio electrical impedance machine with scale HBF-361. Further‘t’ test was employedfor testing the hypothesis the level of significance was set at 0.05 levels. The results show that basal metabolic rate was more prevalent among those girls who are associated from private and urban schools& vice versa.
Newcastle Traffic Classification Using Clustering Algorithms

The urban road traffic network evolution is complex and varies depend on road type, zoning types and social activities. Typical traffic pattern variation of road network could be examined by considering the daily human travel activities. Thus, factor and cluster analysis is carried out. This paper is a comparative analysis of various Data Mining clustering methods for the grouping of roads based on traffic profile. The analysis was carried out using data available from 45 Automatic Traffic Recorder (ATR) sites in Newcastle, UK. Factor and cluster analysis were applied on the road traffic data so that roads could be classified, allowing diurnal traffic profiles to be assigned a group to roads with similar attributes. These groups could be classify based on road traffic characteristics. Five road classifications were found.
Morphological Signature for Improvement of Weakly Supervised Segmentation of Quadriceps Muscles on Magnetic Resonance Imaging Data

Automatic segmentation allows advancement in medical diagnosis and follow-up but remains a challenging task. Thanks to new machine learning approaches, this task tends to be more and more robust but still required many manual segmentations. Here we proposed to improve segmentation results obtained by multi-atlas segmentation with corrective learning (CL) approach using a selection of atlases based on morphological similarity to the image to process. We ﬁrst introduce our morphological measurement dedicated for quadriceps segmentation of 3D T1 Water-only MR images and then use it to select closest atlases. Our results show that using few atlases (3 in lieu of 6) based on our morphological measurement improves segmentation quality and decrease computational time for multi-atlas segmentation with CL. Based on the proposed measurements, we also deﬁned a data augmentation strategy to train U-Net (a well-known and eﬃcient deep learning segmentation approach), expecting better generalization capability, with very promising results.
Cancer treatment: changes in hearing thresholds

Purpose: Evaluate changes in hearing thresholds in patients undergoing cancer treatment. Method: Prospective, longitudinal study carried out at Cancer Center of a Sergipe ́s public hospital, Brazil. Audiological evaluation (Conventional Pure Tone Audiometry) have been performed in 20 patients following eight weeks of cancer treatment (reference exam) and 20 weeks (sequential exam) of treatment. All survivors had normal hearing thresholds before cancer treatment. The procedure has been approved by the Ethics in Research Committee, under protocol # 33665014.7. 0000.5546. Results: Head and neck cancer displayed oncology highest incidence (35%). Referential exam, eight weeks before treatment, displayed 15% with sensorineural hearing loss and 17.5% at second tests. It was observed a slight worsening for all test frequencies of referential and sequential exam. Tinnitus was the biggest complaint (81.3%), but there was no statistic correlation between hearing loss (p=0.89). Conclusion: Hearing monitoring form this small sample suggest chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments can have a detrimental effect on hearing thresholds significate for 2 to 8kHz eight weeks after cancer treatment and 4 to 8kHz 20 weeks before. *Correspondence to: Priscila Feliciano de Oliveira, Departamento de Fonoaudiologia, Universidade Federal de Sergipe. Av. Marechal Rondon, s/n. São Cristóvão, se, Brazil, Cep: 49100-000, Tel: +55 79 3194-6805/+55 79 3194-6842; E-mail: oliveirapriscila@hotmail.com
Randomization and Ambiguity Aversion

We propose a model of preferences in which the effect of randomization on ambiguity depends on how the unknown probability law is determined. We adopt the framework of Anscombe and Aumann (1963) and relax the axioms. In the resulting representation of the individual's preference, the individual has a collection of sets of priors M. She believes that before she moves, nature has chosen an unknown scenario (a set of priors) from M, and from that scenario, nature will choose a prior after she moves. The representation illustrates how randomization may partially eliminate the effect of ambiguity.
Path Analysis: Psychososial and Economic Factors Affecting Diarrhea Incidence in Children under Five in Jayapura, Papua

Background: Diarrhea is a major cause of malnutrition and death in children under five. Studies have shown that there are some factors contributing to the incidence of diarrhea in infants. This study aimed to examine the psychososial and economic factors affecting diarrhea incidence in children under five in Jayapura, Papua. Subjects and Method: This was an analytic observational study with a cross-sectional design. The study was conducted in North Jayapura Subdistrict, Papua in February 2018. A sample of 200 children under five was selected for this study by fixed disease sampling, consisting of 100 children with diarrhea and 100 children without diarrhea. The dependent variable was diarrhea. The independent variables were maternal education, family income, exclusive breastfeeding, nutritional status, personal hygiene, and environmental sanitation. The data were collected by questionnaire. Path analysis was employed for data analysis in Stata 13. Results: The risk of diarrhea increased with poor personal hygiene (b= -1.04; 95% CI= -1.75 to -0.33; p= 0.004), poor environmental sanitation (b= -1.90; 95% CI= -2,59 to -1.21; p<0.001), poor nutritional status (b= -1.27; 95% CI= -2.02 to -0.52; p= 0.001). The risk of diarrhea was indirectly affected by exclusive breastfeeding, maternal education, and family income. Conclusion: The risk of diarrhea increases with poor personal hygiene, poor environmental sanitation, poor nutritional status, and indirectly affected by exclusive breastfeeding, maternal education, and family income. Keywords: psychosocial factor, economic factor, diarrhea, children under five
The role of mixotrophic protists in the biological carbon pump

The traditional view of the planktonic food web describes consumption of inorganic nutrients by photoautotrophic phytoplankton, which in turn supports zooplankton and ultimately higher trophic levels. Pathways centred on bacteria provide mechanisms for nutrient recycling. This structure lies at the foundation of most models used to explore biogeochemical cycling, functioning of the biological pump, and the impact of climate change on these processes. We suggest an alternative new paradigm, which sees the bulk of the base of this food web supported by protist plankton communities that are mixotrophic – combining phototrophy and phagotrophy within a single cell. The photoautotrophic eukaryotic plankton and their heterotrophic microzooplankton grazers dominate only during the developmental phases of ecosystems (e.g. spring bloom in temperate systems). With their flexible nutrition, mixotrophic protists dominate in more-mature systems (e.g. temperate summer, established eutrophic systems and oligotrophic systems); the more-stable water columns suggested under climate change may also be expected to favour these mixotrophs. We explore how such a predominantly mixotrophic structure affects microbial trophic dynamics and the biological pump. The mixotroph-dominated structure differs fundamentally in its flow of energy and nutrients, with a shortened and potentially more efficient chain from nutrient regeneration to primary production. Furthermore, mixotrophy enables a direct conduit for the support of primary production from bacterial production. We show how the exclusion of an explicit mixotrophic component in studies of the pelagic microbial communities leads to a failure to capture the true dynamics of the carbon flow. In order to prevent a misinterpretation of the full implications of climate change upon biogeochemical cycling and the functioning of the biological pump, we recommend inclusion of multi-nutrient mixotroph models within ecosystem studies.
New records on cyclomorphosis in the marine eutardigrade Halobiotus crispae (Eutardigrada: Hypsibiidae)

Halobiotus crispae is a marine eutardigrade belonging to Hypsibiidae. A characteristic of this species is the appearance of seasonal cyclic changes in morphology and physiology, i.e. cyclomorphosis. Halobiotus crispae was originally described from Nipisat Bay, Disko Island, Greenland. The present study investigates the distribution of this species and describes the seasonal appearance of cyclomorphic stages at the southernmost locality, Vellerup Vig in the Isefjord, Denmark. Our sampling data indicate that the distribution of H. crispae is restricted to the Northern Hemisphere where we now have found this species at seven localities. At Vellerup Vig data from sampling cover all seasons of the year and all of the originally described cyclomorphic stages have been found at this locality. However, when comparing the lifecycles of H. crispae at Nipisat Bay and Vellerup Vig, profound differences are found in the time of year, as well as the period in which these stages appear. Noticeably, at Nipisat Bay the pseudosimplex 1 stage is a hibernating stage occurring during the long Arctic winter. In contrast, at Vellerup Vig, this stage appears during the summer. Thus, while pseudosimplex 1 seems to be an adaptation to withstand low temperatures in Greenland, this stage possibly enables the animal to tolerate periods of oxygen depletion and heat stress during the Danish summer. Moreover, a characteristic of the Danish population is the presence of a prolonged pseudosimplex 2 stage. The environmental or endogenous signals underlying the transition between different stages remain unknown. In addition, we report the genetic diversity and phylogenetic position of H. crispae based on the first molecular data obtained from this species. Our molecular data confirm that H. crispae from Greenland and Denmark are in fact the same species. Thus, the observed life cycle changes occur within a species and do not represent life cycle variation between different species. In addition, our molecular data suggest that Halobiotus has evolved within Isohypsibius. Further investigations on the lifecycle of members of the Halobiotus genus as well as other members of the Hypsibiidae is needed in order to establish whether cyclomorphosis is i) a general theme among members of Hypsibiidae or ii) an autapomorphy for Halobiotus.
Investigation of the mechanisms and therapeutic implications of crosstalk between G-protein-coupled receptors and the epidermal growth factor receptor in HNSCC

Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is characterized by the overexpression of the epidermal growth factor receptor. However, molecular targeting strategies against EGFR have not improved the 5-year survival rates of HNSCC patients. EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors displayed limited clinical responses in Phase II trials and the FDA-approved monoclonal antibody cetuximab (C225) did not prevent the occurrence of secondary tumors and distant metastases. G-protein-coupled receptor ligands; gastrin-releasing peptide (GRP), prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) and bradykinin (BK) have all been reported to activate EGFR in HNSCC via extracellular release of EGFR ligands TGF-a and AR. To improve the efficacy of EGFR inhibition in HNSCC, we investigated the efficacy of targeting common signaling intermediates involved in GPCR-EGFR crosstalk. We previously reported that GRP mediated release of EGFR ligands via phosphoinositide-dependent kinase 1 (PDK1) - dependent phosphorylation of a disintegrin and metalloprotease 17 (ADAM17). We subsequently investigated whether PDK1 mediates EGFR activation downstream of PGE2, BK and LPA pathways and the efficacy of different PDK1 targeting strategies in HNSCC. PGE2, BK and LPA-mediated EGFR phosphorylation was abrogated in PDK1 siRNA-transfected HNSCC cells. PDK1 siRNA also decreased PGE2 and BK-mediated HNSCC growth in vitro. Expression of kinase-dead PDK1 (PDK1M) decreased PGE2 -mediated HNSCC growth. PDK1M HNSCC cells demonstrated reduced proliferation compared to control HNSCC cells. HNSCC cells displayed nanomolar sensitivity to the PDK1 inhibitor OSU-03012 compared to normal mucosal cells. Combined treatment with the EGFR TKIs erlotinib or AG1478, plus OSU-03012 enhanced anti-proliferative effects. We have reported that PGE2 and BK mediated MAPK phosphorylation in the presence of EGFR inhibition, and combined GPCR and EGFR demonstrated additive to synergistic anti-tumor effects. To elucidate the EGFR-independent signaling mediated by GPCRs, we used a forward phase phosphoprotein array to identify potential molecular targets that can potentiate EGFR inhibition. We observed that p70S6K phosphorylation was induced in EGFR siRNA-transfected cells and sustained in cetuximab (C225)-treated cells following PGE2 or BK stimulation. Further investigation showed that p70S6K phosphorylation mediated by EGFR downmodulation was dependent on PDK1 and PKCa expression. Combined targeting of EGFR with cetuximab and p70S6K with the mTOR inhibitor RAD001 decreased GPCR-mediated growth in vitro and in vivo. The results from this study have indicated that targeting the GPCR signaling intermediates PDK1 and p70S6K in conjunction with EGFR may be beneficial therapeutic strategies for the subset of HNSCC patients that respond poorly to cetuximab treatment.
Clinical findings, synovial fluid cytology and growth factor concentrations after intra-articular use of a platelet-rich product in horses with osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis is a common cause of lameness in horses, resulting in poor performance. Intra-articular platelet-rich plasma can deliver a collection of bioactive molecules, such as autologous growth factors and proteins involved in the quality of tissue repair. Horses (n=5) with osteoarthritis affecting antebrachiocarpal, middle carpal or metacarpophalangeal joints, and horses (n=5) without osteoarthritis of the corresponding joints (radiographically free of osteoarthritis), were used for the production of platelet-rich plasma which was subsequently injected into selected joints. Clinical and synovial fluid changes after intra-articular injection of platelet-rich plasma as well as synovial platelet-derived growth factor-BB and transforming growth factor-beta 1 concentration changes were evaluated in these joints and compared between normal joints and joints with osteoarthritis. A gravity filtration system produced a moderately concentrated platelet-rich plasma, representing a 4.7-fold increase in baseline platelet concentration. The synovial effusion score was significantly different between the control joints and joints with osteoarthritis on Day 0 with a higher score in the group with osteoarthritis. Within the control group, the synovial effusion score was significantly higher on Days 1 and 2 compared to Day 0. For both groups, the synovial fluid nucleated cell count, predominantly intact neutrophils, was significantly increased on Days 1 and 2, with no significant difference between groups. The mean synovial platelet-derived growth factor-BB and transforming growth factor-beta 1 concentrations were increased for both groups but significantly lowered in the group with osteoarthritis on Day 1 compared to normal joints. Concentrations for platelet-derived growth factor-BB remained unchanged on Day 5, compared to Day 1, with no significant difference between groups. In conclusion, intra-articular treatment with platelet-rich plasma resulted in increased synovial growth factor concentrations in joints but with lower concentrations in joints with osteoarthritis. A transient inflammatory reaction was seen both clinically as an increase in synovial effusion and cytologically in both normal joints and joints with osteoarthritis. Keywords horse; osteoarthritis; platelet-rich plasma; intra-articular.