Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Obesity, intergenerational programming, and epigenetics: emerging concepts and challenges

One of the most important medical and public health issues of today is obesity, defined as abnormal and excess fat accumulation. Obesity is linked to many health problems including metabolic syndrome (MS), hypertension, type II diabetes mellitus (T2DM), and cardiovascular disease (CVD). Recently, the incidence of these conditions has surged to epidemic proportions, especially in Western societies. Research has also linked obesity to cancer and osteoarthritis. Preventing, diagnosing, and treating obesity is challenging. The diagnosis of obesity is often unclear when it is made with generalized criteria such as the Body Mass Index (BMI). Obesity interventions generally include the often difficult lifestyle change to healthy diets and adequate exercise, which depends heavily upon patient compliance and discipline. Today’s society is pushing for the discovery of a shortcut or of a “magic pill” to cure obesity. Consequently, many studies aim to identify therapeutic targets. The majority of current obesity research is focused on discovering and revealing the underlying mechanisms and genetic risk factors. Certain stages of development, such as childhood, are especially susceptible times to be exposed to stressors that lead to obesity. vi A developing concept is the intergenerational transmission of risk of obesity through epigenetics. Epigenetics is the study of the heritable changes in gene regulation and expression not caused by mutations or changes in DNA sequence. A person’s genes may increase or decrease his or her susceptibility to obesity. In addition to genetic inheritance, parents may pass non-genetic alterations to their children. Changes can be mediated through methylation of deoxyribonucleic acids (DNA) and modifications to histones. These epigenetic changes may alter gene expression patterns and “program” offspring towards developing chronic metabolic disease. Many models have begun to show the effects of environmental perturbations on individuals and on several generations of future descendants. This review will analyze the current literature on obesity and evaluate this rapidly evolving field. Current obesity preventions and treatments will be surveyed. In addition, the relative impact of different contributors to obesity risk will be examined. The crossover between obesity and epigenetics may provide a deeper understanding of disease risk and developmental origins. Future directions of study will be proposed such as large-scale prospective studies to further characterize intergenerational transmission of risk.
A Secure Group Communication and Rekeying using Rabin’s Squaring Trapdoor Function in Multicasting

In today‟s world of internet, secure communication among group of members has become vital, where multicasting plays an important role. In secure multicasting, security and scalability are the two important checks. Sometimes there is tradeoff between security and scalability. In order to transmit the data in a secure and scalable way, a suitable key management protocol should be implemented which reduces the number of rekey messages generated during the join or leave of any member thereby preserving forward and backward secrecy. In our proposed work, a new key management protocol has been proposed where a hierarchical structure has been implemented to improve the scalability. Derivation key is used to generate the new keys from the existing keys and Rabin‟s Squaring Trapdoor Function is used as the key derivation function to distribute the rekey messages. The security of the key derivation function lies in the hard mathematical problem of integer factorization which cannot be solved in a polynomial time. In order to increase the security, a salt value has been used along with the derivation keys for key stretching so that original keys used in the derivation function cannot be found out. The proposed protocol reduces the rekey messages by 1/d, in a d-degree tree and the number of modular exponential operations is only 2h compared to 3h in TGDH (Tree-based Group Diffie-Hellman) protocol, where h is the height of the tree.
Psychological and educational factors: Better predictors of work status than FEV1 in adults with cystic fibrosis

Now that more individuals with cystic fibrosis (CF) are living into adulthood, vocational attainment is an increasingly important consideration. Work is a key factor in quality of life. The purpose of the present paper was to evaluate the factors that are associated with work status in 183 adults with CF. Approximately half of the participants were working at the time of evaluation, an impressive figure given that the mean forced expired volume in 1 sec (FEV1) was 31.9%. The average number of hours worked was 32.7 hr/week. The majority of individuals were employed in professional, technical, or managerial occupations (accounting, teaching, law, or social work). A third were employed in clerical and sales occupations, and the remaining individuals were employed in a wide range of other occupations (hotel manager, undercover shopper, artist, or dental technician). Interestingly, FEV1 and age did not differentiate between subjects who were working and those who were not. Individuals who were working had significantly lower depression scores and a higher educational level than those who were not working. Future research is needed to determine whether it is the increased socialization and the resulting social support that may come from a work environment, or a reduction in financial stress because of better income and health benefits that helps to explain this difference. Alternatively, work may serve as a distraction from the symptoms of CF. It is likely that those with higher educational levels had more professional jobs that were more easily modified as health declined. Future research needs to assess how career choices are made, and what factors into a patient's decision to keep working. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
A Modern Approach to Searching the World Wide Web: Ranking Pages by Inference over Content

The Hypertext-based Webs such as Intranets contain a vast amount of information pertaining to an enormous number of subjects. It is, however, an organically grown and thus essentially structureless environment that is in a constant state of flux. Therefore, finding useful information pertaining to a particular topic is oftentimes a difficult task. Search engines were designed with the intent of easing the burden on the individuals perusing the Web for specific topics. Traditionally, Web search engines have used straightforward–and relatively naïve–approaches towards indexing and ranking pages pertaining to a particular subject. As our understanding of hyperlinked environments has improved, algorithmic tools have been developed that more effectively distill the plethora of information that exists within this environment. We will briefly discuss the history of the World Wide Web, the approaches employed by “traditional” search engines, and how alternative techniques can improve upon older approaches. We find that new techniques build upon, rather than replace, previous approaches, and that the problem of searching the Web is one that evolves as our understanding of the Web’s structure improves.
Integrated high voltage power supply utilizing burst mode control and its performance impact on dielectric electro active polymer actuators

Through resent years new high performing Dielectric Electro Active Polymers (DEAP) have emerged. To fully utilize the potential of DEAPs a driver with high voltage output is needed. In this paper a piezoelectric transformer based power supply for driving DEAP actuators is developed, utilizing a burst mode control technique. Controlling and driving a DEAP actuator between 250V to 2.5kV is demonstrated, where discrete like voltage change and voltage ripple is observed, which is introduced by the burst mode control. Measurements of the actuator strain-force reveal that the voltage ripples translates to small strain-force ripples. Nevertheless the driver demonstrates good capabilities of following an input reference signal, as well as having the size to fit inside a 110 mm x 32 mm cylindrical InLastor Push actuator, forming a “low voltage” DEAP actuator.
A vision-based method for automatizing tea shoots detection

Counting tender tea shoots in a sampled area is required before making a decision for plucking. However, it is a tedious task and requires a large amount of time. In this paper, we propose a vision-based method for automatically detecting and counting the number of tea shoots in an image acquired from a tea field. First, we build a parametric model of a tea-shoot's color distribution in order to roughly separate Regions-of-Interest (ROIs) of tea shoots from a complicated background. For each ROI, we then extract supportive (local) features with expectations that these features will only appear around an apical bud of tea shoots thanks to two measurements: the density of edge pixels and a statistic of gradient directions. Consequently, the extracted features are put into a mean shift cluster to locate the position of tea shoots. The proposed method is evaluated on a set of testing images with different species of tea plants and ages. The results show 86% correct tea shoots detected, whereas 25% of a false alarm rate exists. It offers an elegant way to build an assisting tool for tea harvesting.
1 PROBABILISTIC LDA 1 PLDA and Mixture of PLDA Formulations

This document provides the derivations of the formulae in the paper “Mixture of PLDA for Noise Robust I-Vector Speaker Verification” published in IEEE/ACM Transactions on Audio, Speech and Language Processing, Nov. 2015. The document starts with the conventional PLDA. Then, the document extends the derivations to SNR-independent PLDA and finally to SNR-dependent PLDA. 1 Probabilistic LDA 1.1 Generative Model Given a set of D-dim length-normalized [1] i-vectors X = {xij ; i = 1, . , N ; j = 1, . ,Hi} obtained from N training speakers each with Hi sessions, we estimate the latent variables Z = {zi; i = 1, . , N} and parameters ω = {m,V,Σ} of a factor analyzer [2]: xij = m + Vzi + ij ; xij , m ∈ <, V ∈ <D×M , zi ∈ < , ij ∈ <, (1) where V is aD×M factor loading matrix (M < D), m is the global mean ofX , zi’s are the speaker factors, and ij’s are residual noise assumed to follow a Gaussian distribution with zero mean and full covariance Σ [1, 3]. Because each training speaker provides a number of utterances (i-vectors), these speaker-specific i-vectors should share the same speaker factor. Therefore, we can collect the i-vectors of speaker i and rewrite Eq. 1 as x̃i = m̃ + Ṽzi + ̃i, x̃i, m̃ ∈ <i , Ṽ ∈ <DHi×M , ̃i ∈ <i , (2) where x̃i = [xi1 · · · xiHi ] T, m̃ = [mT · · · mT]T, Ṽ = [VT · · · VT]T, and ̃i = [ i1 · · · iHi ] T. Eq. 2 is a factor analyzer whose parameters can be estimated via an EM algorithm [2, 4]. 1.2 EM Formulation Although each iteration of EM should be started with the E-step followed by the M-step, notationally, it is more conveniently to describe the M-step first, assuming that the posterior expectations have already been computed in the E-step. 1.2. 1 M-Step: Maximizing the Expectation of Complete Likelihood Denote ω′ = {m′,V′,Σ′} as the new parameter sets. The Eand M-steps iteratively evaluate and maximize the expectation of the complete likelihood: Q(ω′|ω) = EZ{ln p(X ,Z|ω′)|X ,ω} = EZ {∑ ij ln [p (xij |zi,ω) p(zi)] ∣∣∣∣X ,ω} = EZ {∑ ij ln [ N ( xij |m′ + Vzi,Σ ) N (zi|0, I) ] ∣∣∣∣X ,ω} , (3) where the notation ∑ ij is a short-hand form of ∑N i=1 ∑Hi j=1. To simplify notations, we drop the symbol (′) in Eq. 3 and ignore the constant terms independent on the model parameters, which 1 PROBABILISTIC LDA 2 results in Q(ω) = − ∑ ij EZ { 1 2 log |Σ|+ 1 2 (xij −m−Vzi)Σ(xij −m−Vzi) }
Merging and Splitting Eigenspace Models

We present new deterministic methods that, given two eigenspace models-each representing a set of n-dimensional observations-will: 1) merge the models to yield a representation of the union of the sets and 2) split one model from another to represent the difference between the sets. As this is done, we accurately keep track of the mean. Here, we give a theoretical derivation of the methods, empirical results relating to the efficiency and accuracy of the techniques, and three general applications, including the construction of Gaussian mixture models that are dynamically updateable.
Blind detection of asynchronous CDMA signals in multipath channels using code-constrained inverse filter criteria

A code-constrained inverse filter criteria based approach is presented for blind detection of asynchronous short-code DS-CDMA (direct sequence code division multiple access) signals in multipath channels. Only the spreading code of the desired user is assumed to be known; its transmission delay may be unknown. We focus on maximization of the normalized fourth cumulant of inverse filtered (equalized) data w.r. t. the equalizer coefficients subject to the equalizer lying in a subspace associated with the desired user's code sequence. Constrained maximization leads to extraction of the desired user's signal whereas unconstrained maximization leads to the extraction of any one of the existing users. An illustrative simulation example is provided.
Structural Characterisation of the E. coli Heat Stable Enterotoxin STh

E. coli heat stable enterotoxin STa is an agonist of the membrane guanylate cyclase C whose endogenous ligands are the peptide hormones guanylin and uroguanylin. Whereas these peptides contain only two disulfide bonds, STa is stabilized by one additional disulfide bridge. We chemically synthesized the enterotoxin STh that originates from the E. coli strain found in humans, and we determined its structure and its dynamics by nuclear magnetic resonance spec- troscopy and molecular dynamics calculations. Chemical synthesis clearly proved successful and resulted in the formation of the native disulfide bonds. The endogenous ligands guanylin and uroguanylin show the same general structural features and dynamics properties as the enterotoxin.
A representation of Lambda terms suitable for operations on their intensions

A representation for lambda terms is described based on the scheme of de Bruijn for eliminating variable names. The new notation provides for a class of terms that can encode other terms together with substitutions to be performed on them. The notion of an environment is used to realize this “delaying” of substitutions. The precise mechanism that is used is, however, more complex than the usual so as to support the ability to examine subterms embedded under abstractions. A virtue of our representation is that it permits substitution to be realized as an atomic operation and thereby provides for efficient implementations of β-reduction. Operations on lgr;-terms are described based on our representation and the relationship of these to the conventional definitions are exhibited.
Antisense Knockdown of the Glial Glutamate Transporter GLT-1, But Not the Neuronal Glutamate Transporter EAAC1, Exacerbates Transient Focal Cerebral Ischemia-Induced Neuronal Damage in Rat Brain

Transient focal cerebral ischemia leads to extensive neuronal damage in cerebral cortex and striatum. Normal functioning of glutamate transporters clears the synaptically released glutamate to prevent excitotoxic neuronal death. This study evaluated the functional role of the glial (GLT-1) and neuronal (EAAC1) glutamate transporters in mediating ischemic neuronal damage after transient middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO). Transient MCAO in rats infused with GLT-1 antisense oligodeoxynucleotides (ODNs) led to increased infarct volume (45 ± 8%; p < 0.05), worsened neurological status, and increased mortality rate, compared with GLT-1 sense/random ODN-infused controls. Transient MCAO in rats infused with EAAC1 antisense ODNs had no significant effect on any of these parameters. This study suggests that GLT-1, but not EAAC1, knockdown exacerbates the neuronal death and thus neurological deficit after stroke.
Effect of starch addition on microstructure and strength of ball clay membrane

The use of starch as pore-forming agent is one of the frequently used methods to produce porous ceramics membrane with controlled microstructure (porosity and pore size) because corn starch are cheap, non- toxic and environmental friendly. A membrane with the mixture 0–35 wt% of corn starch and ball clay were prepared by compaction process and sintered at 1200°C. Thermal analysis has been done to identify the minimum sintering temperature for ball clay. The sintered membranes show the range value of shrinkage is 4.5–22.76 % and apparent porosity of 9.14–31.83 % depending on the starch content. The pore structures were analyzed by FESEM. The strength of sintered samples was tested by 3-point bending test. The flexural strength reduced from 21–7 MPa. These clay membrane are promising porous ceramic structure for water filtration applications due to their excellent combination physical and mechanical properties.
Improvements to Platt's SMO Algorithm for SVM Classifier Design

This article points out an important source of inefficiency in Platt's sequential minimal optimization (SMO) algorithm that is caused by the use of a single threshold value. Using clues from the KKT conditions for the dual problem, two threshold parameters are employed to derive modifications of SMO. These modified algorithms perform significantly faster than the original SMO on all benchmark data sets tried.
Bag-of-multimedia-words for image classification

We introduce the bag-of-multimedia-words model that tightly combines the heterogeneous information coming from the text and the pixel-based information of a multimedia document. The proposed multimedia feature generation process is generic for any multi-modality and aims at enriching a multimedia document description with compact and discriminative signatures well appropriate to linear classifiers. It is evaluated on the Pascal VOC 2007 classification challenge, outperforming the state-of-the-art bag-of-visual-words or bag-of-tag-words based classification approaches.
Defect inscription and observation in 3D photonic band gap opal templates

Observation of defects inscribed in 3D photonic band gap opal templates has been investigated by means of fluorescence of solidified photo polymer. The defects, or breaks in periodicity, have been inscribed inside the structure by two-photon polymerization (2PP) of an infiltrated hybrid polymer from the type ORMOCER®. In-situ and ex-situ observation of the inscribed defects has been achieved with fluorescence microscopy.
CONVERSATION , ORGANISATION AND IDENTITY

This paper focuses on knowledge work in a rehabilitation department at a hospital. We aim at examining the characteristics of this knowledge context and elaborate the conditions for knowledge creation and sharing. We argue that in spite of good intentions, participation in knowledge work is not freely given. New knowledge contexts must take into account how knowledge claims are made, by whom, and how the knowledge workers see themselves as professionals. We accordingly set out to discuss how knowledge work is organized, the conversational processes and the identity of the participants. We conclude that it is not enough to formally establish new ways of work. More efforts are called for that ensures conversation between the participants as well as taking into account and utilize the potential reshaped identity of the individuals.
REVIEW: PART OF A HIGHLIGHT ON BREEDING STRATEGIES FOR FORAGE AND GRASS IMPROVEMENT Advanced phenotyping offers opportunities for improved breeding of forage and turf species

† Background and Aims Advanced phenotyping, i.e. the application of automated, high-throughput methods to characterize plant architecture and performance, has the potential to accelerate breeding progress but is far from being routinely used in current breeding approaches. In forage and turf improvement programmes, in particular, where breeding populations and cultivars are characterized by high genetic diversity and substantial genotype × environment interactions, precise and efficient phenotyping is essential to meet future challenges imposed by climate change, growing demand and declining resources. † Scope This review highlights recent achievements in the establishment of phenotyping tools and platforms. Some of these tools have originally been established in remote sensing, some in precision agriculture, while others are laboratory-based imaging procedures. They quantify plant colour, spectral reflection, chlorophyll-fluorescence, temperature and other properties, from which traits such as biomass, architecture, photosynthetic efficiency, stomatal aperture or stress resistance can be derived. Applications of these methods in the context of forage and turf breeding are discussed. † Conclusions Progress in cutting-edge molecular breeding tools is beginning to be matched by progress in automated non-destructive imaging methods. Joint application of precise phenotyping machinery and molecular tools in optimized breeding schemes will improve forage and turf breeding in the near future and will thereby contribute to amended performance of managed grassland agroecosystems.
Diagnostic Accuracy of Computed Tomography for Chronic Thromboembolic Pulmonary Hypertension: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

This study aimed to determine the diagnostic accuracy of computed tomography imaging for the diagnosis of chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH). Additionally, the effect of test and study characteristics was explored. Studies published between 1990 and 2015 identified by PubMed, OVID search and citation tracking were examined. Of the 613 citations, 11 articles (n=712) met the inclusion criteria. The patient-based analysis demonstrated a pooled sensitivity of 76% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 69% to 82%), and a pooled specificity of 96% (95%CI: 93% to 98%). This resulted in a pooled diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) of 191 (95%CI: 75 to 486). The vessel-based analyses were divided into 3 levels: total arteries、main+ lobar arteries and segmental arteries. The pooled sensitivity were 88% (95%CI: 87% to 90%)、95% (95%CI: 92% to 97%) and 88% (95%CI: 87% to 90%), respectively, with a pooled specificity of 90% (95%CI: 88% to 91%)、96% (95%CI: 94% to 97%) and 89% (95% CI: 87% to 91%). This resulted in a pooled diagnostic odds ratio of 76 (95%CI: 23 to 254),751 (95%CI: 57 to 9905) and 189 (95%CI: 21 to 1072), respectively. In conclusion, CT is a favorable method to rule in CTEPH and to rule out pulmonary endarterectomy (PEA) patients for proximal branches. Furthermore, dual-energy and 320-slices CT can increase the sensitivity for subsegmental arterials, which are promising imaging techniques for balloon pulmonary angioplasty (BPA) approach. In the near future, CT could position itself as the key for screening consideration and for surgical and interventional operability.
DUAL-CUBES: A NEW INTERCONNECTION NETWORK FOR HIGH-PERFORMANCE COMPUTER CLUSTERS

The binary hypercube, or n-cube, has been widely used as the interconnection network in parallel computers. However, the major drawback of the hypercube is the increase in the number of communication links for each node with the increase in the total number of nodes in the system. This paper introduces a new interconnection network for large-scale distributed memory multiprocessors called dual-cube. This network mitigates the problem of increasing number of links in the large-scale hypercube network while keeps most of the topological properties of the hypercube network. We investigate the topological properties of the dualcube, compare them with other hypercube-like networks, and establish the basic routing and broadcasting algorithms for dual-cubes.