Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Universal lossless data embedding without explicit compression

In digital watermarking, the original data, called host or cover data, is inevitably distorted by the insertion of a watermark or embedded data. However, there are a number of applications that require complete lossless recovery of original data. This paper introduces an information theoretical model to the lossless data embedding problem, and gives the maximum embedding rate of the model. The main contribution of the paper is to propose an embedding scheme, which can asymptotically attain the maximum rate without knowing the source of the host data. The proposed scheme divides the host data into fixed-length blocks and embeds a watermark by replacing a less significant component of each block with a new component of the same length. The new component represents both the replaced original component and a fragment of the watermark. This paper shows that as the block length tends to infinity, the embedding rate converges to the maximum rate that could be attained when we ideally compress the less significant components using complete knowledge on the source of the host data.
Exploiting Fine-Grained Data Parallelism with Chip Multiprocessors and Fast Barriers

We examine the ability of CMPs, due to their lower on-chip communication latencies, to exploit data parallelism at inner-loop granularities similar to that commonly targeted by vector machines. Parallelizing code in this manner leads to a high frequency of barriers, and we explore the impact of different barrier mechanisms upon the efficiency of this approach. To further exploit the potential of CMPs for fine-grained data parallel tasks, we present barrier filters, a mechanism for fast barrier synchronization on-chip multi-processors to enable vector computations to be efficiently distributed across the cores of a CMP. We ensure that all threads arriving at a barrier require an unavailable cache line to proceed, and, by placing additional hardware in the shared portions of the memory subsystem, we starve their requests until they all have arrived. Specifically, our approach uses invalidation requests to both make cache lines unavailable and identify when a thread has reached the barrier. We examine two types of barrier filters, one synchronizing through instruction cache lines, and the other through data cache lines
Determination of skeletal muscle perfusion using arterial spin labeling NMRI: Validation by comparison with venous occlusion plethysmography

T1‐based determination of perfusion was performed with the high temporal and spatial resolution that monitoring of exercise physiology requires. As no data were available on the validation of this approach in human muscles, T1‐based NMRI of perfusion was compared to standard strain‐gauge venous occlusion plethysmography performed simultaneously within a 4 T magnet. Two different situations were investigated in 21 healthy young volunteers: 1) a 5‐min ischemia of the leg, or 2) a 2–3 min ischemic exercise consisting of a plantar flexion on an amagnetic ergometer. Leg perfusion was monitored over 5–15 min of the recovery phase, after the air‐cuff arterial occlusion had been released. The interesting features of the sequence were the use of a saturation‐recovery module for the introduction of a T1 modulation and of single‐shot spin echo for imaging. Spatial resolution was 1.7 × 2.0 mm and temporal resolution was 2 s. For data analysis, ROIs were traced on different muscles and perfusion was calculated from the differences in muscle signal intensity in successive images. To allow comparison with the global measurement of perfusion by plethysmography, the T1‐based NMR measurements in exercising muscles were rescaled to the leg cross‐section. The perfusion measurements obtained by plethysmography and NMRI were in close agreement with a correlation coefficient between 0.87 and 0.92. This indicates that pulsed arterial techniques provide determination of muscle perfusion not only with superior spatial and temporal resolution but also with exactitude. Magn Reson Med 46:305–311, 2001. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
A Simple Adaptive Interpolation Approach Based on Varying Image Local Activity Levels

In this paper, a simple adaptive interpolation approach is proposed for image interpolation. It depends on modifying the warped distance technique for image interpolation considering the local activity levels in each region of the image. This is performed by weighting the pixels used in the interpolation process with different adaptive weights. The adaptation can be extended to different traditional interpolation techniques such as bilinear, bicubic and cubic spline techniques as well as the warped distance technique. Our study shows that the adaptive weighting of pixels in interpolation yields better results than that obtained using only traditional interpolation methods or by using the warped distance technique. The computation cost of the suggested interpolation approach is moderate and acceptable.
Wheat Domestication Accelerated Evolution and Triggered Positive Selection in the β-Xylosidase Enzyme of Mycosphaerella graminicola

Plant cell wall degrading enzymes (PCWDEs) of plant pathogens are receiving increasing interest for their potential to trigger plant defense reactions. In an antagonistic co-evolutionary arms race between host and pathogen, PCWDEs could be under strong selection. Here, we tested the hypothesis that PCWDEs in the fungal wheat pathogen Mycosphaerella graminicola have been positively selected by analyzing ratios of non-synonymous and synonymous nucleotide changes in the genes encoding these enzymes. Analyses of five PCWDEs demonstrated that one (β-xylosidase) has been under strong positive selection and experienced an accelerated rate of evolution. In contrast, PCWDEs in the closest relatives of M. graminicola collected from wild grasses did not show evidence for selection or deviation from a molecular clock. Since the genealogical divergence of M. graminicola from these latter species coincided with the onset of agriculture, we hypothesize that the recent domestication of the host plant and/or agricultural practices triggered positive selection in β-xylosidase and that this enzyme played a key role in the emergence of a host-specialized pathogen.
A Mouse Stromal Response to Tumor Invasion Predicts Prostate and Breast Cancer Patient Survival

Primary and metastatic tumor growth induces host tissue responses that are believed to support tumor progression. Understanding the molecular changes within the tumor microenvironment during tumor progression may therefore be relevant not only for discovering potential therapeutic targets, but also for identifying putative molecular signatures that may improve tumor classification and predict clinical outcome. To selectively address stromal gene expression changes during cancer progression, we performed cDNA microarray analysis of laser-microdissected stromal cells derived from prostate intraepithelial neoplasia (PIN) and invasive cancer in a multistage model of prostate carcinogenesis. Human orthologs of genes identified in the stromal reaction to tumor progression in this mouse model were observed to be expressed in several human cancers, and to cluster prostate and breast cancer patients into groups with statistically different clinical outcomes. Univariate Cox analysis showed that overexpression of these genes is associated with shorter survival and recurrence-free periods. Taken together, our observations provide evidence that the expression signature of the stromal response to tumor invasion in a mouse tumor model can be used to probe human cancer, and to provide a powerful prognostic indicator for some of the most frequent human malignancies.
cDNA cloning and developmental expression of fibroblast growth factor receptors from Xenopus laevis

The heparin-binding growth factors constitute a family of homologous polypeptides including basic and acidic fibroblast growth factors (FGFs). These factors participate in a variety of processes, including wound healing, angiogenesis, neuronal survival, and inductive events in the early amphibian embryo. We have isolated three closely related species of cDNA clones for Xenopus FGF receptors. One of these, designated XFGFR-A1, encodes an open reading frame of 814 amino acids. A second class encodes an identical amino acid sequence with the exception of an 88-amino-acid deletion near the 5' end. This species probably arises through alternative splicing. A third class of cDNA corresponding to the shorter form of XFGFR-A1 was isolated and shown to be 95% homologous and is designated XFGFR-A2. Xenopus FGF receptors are similar to FGF receptors from other species in that they contain a transmembrane domain, a tyrosine kinase domain split by a 14-amino-acid insertion, and a unique conserved stretch of eight acidic residues in the extracellular domain. Overexpression of Xenopus FGF receptor protein by transfection of COS1 cells with the corresponding cDNA in a transient expression vector leads to the appearance of new FGF binding sites on transfected cells, consistent with these cDNAs encoding for FGF receptors. RNA gel blot analysis demonstrates that Xenopus FGF receptor mRNA is a maternal message and is expressed throughout early development. When blastula-stage ectoderm is cultured in control amphibian salt solutions, Xenopus FGF receptor mRNA declines to undetectable levels by late neurula stages. However, when cultured in the presence of FGF of XTC mesoderm-inducing factor, Xenopus FGF receptor RNA expression is maintained.
Psychological, behavioural, and social adjustment in children and adolescents with juvenile chronic arthritis

OBJECTIVE To assess the psychological, behavioural and social adjustment of children (7–11 years) and adolescents (12–16 years) with juvenile chronic arthritis (JCA). Higher rates of maladjustment were expected to be found in these patients. METHODS Self report questionnaires were used within the context of personal interviews. Family functioning and social support were studied as well. Forty seven patients with JCA, 52 healthy peers and their respective parents participated in the study. RESULTS Self esteem, perceived competence and body image in patients with JCA were as positive as they were in healthy participants. There were no differences between ill and healthy youngsters with respect to the incidence of psychopathology. Patients with JCA, in general, perceived themselves as socially competent, but they seemed to have somewhat less opportunity or energy to participate in social activities. Children with JCA showed a high level of aspiration to cope with social expectations. This aspiration seemed to be even stronger in case the disease caused more strains, for example, in periods of inflammation and in the systemic onset type. The high level of social adjustment in children with JCA seemed to be supported by highly cohesive family structures. Generally, adolescents with JCA experienced much social support. CONCLUSIONS In contrast with our expectation, children and adolescents with JCA seemeed to cope quite well with the psychological and social consequences of their long term condition. For future studies, it is hypothesised that the high levels of adaptation might imply an enduring psychological strain, which is reflected in an altered function of the autonomic nervous system.
Comparison of Two Citizen Scientist Methods for Collecting Pond Water
 Samples for Environmental DNA Studies

The use of environmental DNA (eDNA) for the survey of aquatic species offers a wide range of benefits over conventional surveys and has begun to be used by citizen scientists. One advantage of eDNA over conventional survey protocols is the comparative ease with which samples can be collected over a wide geographic area. However, eDNA collection protocols vary widely between different studies, promoting a need to identify an optimum method. Collection protocols include ethanol precipitation and various filtration methods including those that use electronic vacuum or peristaltic pumps, hand pumps, or syringes to capture eDNA on a membrane. We compare the effectiveness of two eDNA collection methods suitable for use by citizen scientists: Glass-microfiber syringe filtration and ethanol precipitation. Paired samples of water were analysed for Great Crested Newt (Triturus cristatus) DNA using (1) a laboratory tank experiment using different dilutions of water inoculated with newt DNA; and (2) by sampling naturally colonised ponds. Although syringe filters consistently yielded greater DNA extract concentrations in the tank experiments, this was not the case in samples collected from the field where no difference between the two methods was identified. Clearly, properties within the water—such as algae and particulate matter—can influence the amount of DNA captured by the two methods, so the sampling protocol of choice will depend on the design and goals of the study.
Clinical characteristics of angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma in China and C-reactive protein as an independent prognostic factor

Abstract Angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma (AITL) is a major subtype of peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL). Due to its low incidence, the characteristics of AITL are still not well understood. The prognostic evaluation of this disease has not been established. We retrospectively analyzed 52 patients with newly diagnosed AITL in China between January 2008 and September 2016. Among these patients, the median age at diagnosis was 62 (40–83) and 58% (30/52) of the patients were older than 60 years. Thirty-five patients were male, accounting for 67.3% of the whole. Among these, 90% (47/52) of the diagnoses were estimated at advanced stage. A total of 25 (48%) patients were scored >1 by the ECOG performance status. Systemic B symptoms were described in 34 (65%) patients. When evaluated by International Prognostic Index (IPI), 81% were scored >2, and 77% got >1 score according to the prognostic index for PTCL (PIT) upon diagnosis. The 3-year progression-free survival (PFS) was 44% and the 3-year overall survival (OS) rate was 52%. IPI and PIT scores could not be effectively applied to stratify those AITL patients into subgroups. Our multivariate analysis results found that the elevated serum C-reactive protein (CRP) level was an independent adverse factor to the OS of the AITL patients. Patients with AITL had a poor outcome. The serum level of CRP may be applied as an independent prognostic factor for AITL.
Cadmium‐induced neurological disorders: prophylactic role of taurine

The present study was conducted to investigate whether the conditionally essential amino acid taurine could play any protective role against the potent neurotoxin cadmium (Cd)‐induced oxidative impairment in mice brain. Cd administration in the form of CdCl2 (at a dose of 4 mg kg−1 body weight for 3 days, orally) increased the intracellular accumulation of metallic Cd, reactive oxygen species and super oxide radicals. The toxin also augmented the extent of lipid peroxidation, protein carbonylation and the levels of glutathione disulfide. Activities of the antioxidant enzymes and the levels of reduced glutathione as well as total thiols have been significantly decreased due to Cd exposure. In addition, the toxin also caused significant DNA degradation (as evidenced from DNA smearing and diphenylamine reaction). Oral administration of taurine (at a dose of 100 mg kg−1 body weight for 5 days) was found to be very effective in the prevention of Cd‐induced oxidative impairment in the brain tissue of experimental mice. In addition, taurine treatment could also prevent the reduction in the in vivo antioxidant power linearly up to a dose of 100 mg kg−1 body weight. The preventive role of taurine against Cd‐induced cerebral oxidative damage was supported by the observation under scanning electron microscope as well as histological examination of brain segments. To validate the experimental results, a well‐known water soluble antioxidant, vitamin C, was used as the positive control in the study. In all, the results suggest that taurine plays a beneficial role against Cd‐induced cerebral oxidative stress. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Node Criticality Computation for Circuit Timing Analysis and Optimization under NBTI Effect

For sub-65 nm technology nodes, Negative Bias Temperature Instability (NBTI) has become a primary limiting factor of circuit lifetime. During the past few years, researchers have spent considerable and continuous efforts on modeling and characterization of NBTI-caused delay degradation at different design levels. Searching for solutions which can effectively reduce NBTI impact on circuit delay is still under way. In this work, we use node criticality computation to drive NBTI aware timing analysis and optimization. Circuits after being applied this optimization flow show strong resistance to NBTI delay degradation. Particularly, for the first time, we propose node criticality computation algorithm under the NBTI aware timing analysis and optimization framework and give answers to the following questions which have not been answered yet. They are: (1) how to define node criticality in a circuit under NBTI effect; (2) how to find the critical nodes which once are protected NBTI timing degradation will be effectively reduced. Experimental results show that by protecting the critical nodes found by this framework, circuit delay degradation can be reduced by up to 50%.
EFFECT OF VENTED ATTIC POSITIONS ON HEAT TRANSFER AND AIR FLOW OF NATURALLY VENTILATED ATTICS FOR PASSIVE COOLING SYSTEM

The effect of vent size and position on heat transfer and air flow for naturally ventilated attics used for passive cooling system is studied in this paper using a steady state two dimensional finite volume methods (FVM). The v2f turbulent model is employed to investigate the effect of turbulence in low Reynolds number buoyancy driven air flow and natural convection heat transfer. Thermal conditions and air flow performance are compared between the ceiling vented attic and the roof vented (ridge vent) attic, and also comparison is made on varying the size of the soffit vent. The predicted temperature field revealed the occurrence of thermal stratification for all the configurations and symmetric air flow patterns. Furthermore, the air flow and heat transfer rate for the roof vented attic is greater than that of the ceiling vented attic for all cases of soffit vent size. The result showed that increasing vent size leads to higher attic cooling load but barely affects the ventilation air flow while vent positions have higher effect on air flow ventilation and attic cooling load. Thus for effective passive cooling system in dry season, a ridge vent in combination of small soffit vent is recommended.
Morphodensitometric analysis of protein kinase C beta(II) expression in rat colon: modulation by diet and relation to in situ cell proliferation and apoptosis.

We have recently demonstrated that overexpression of PKC beta(II) renders transgenic mice more susceptible to carcinogen-induced colonic hyperproliferation and aberrant crypt foci formation. In order to further investigate the ability of PKC beta(II) to modulate colonocyte cytokinetics, we determined the localization of PKC beta(II) with respect to cell proliferation and apoptosis along the entire colonic crypt axis following carcinogen and diet manipulation. Rats were provided diets containing either corn oil [containing n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA)] or fish oil (containing n-3 PUFA), cellulose (non-fermentable fiber) or pectin (fermentable fiber) and injected with azoxymethane (AOM) or saline. After 16 weeks, an intermediate time point when no macroscopic tumors are detected, colonic sections were utilized for immunohistochemical image analysis and immunoblotting. Cell proliferation was measured by incorporation of bromodeoxyuridine into DNA and apoptosis by terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP-biotin nick end-labeling. In the distal colon, PKC beta(II) staining was localized to the upper portion of the crypt. In comparison, proximal crypts had more (P < 0.05) staining in the lower tertile. AOM enhanced (P < 0.05) PKC beta(II) expression in all regions of the distal colonic crypt (upper, middle and lower tertiles). There was also an interaction (P < 0.05) between dietary fat and fiber on PKC beta(II) expression (corn/pectin > fish/cellulose, fish/pectin > corn/cellulose) in all regions of the distal colonic crypt. With respect to colonic cell kinetics, proliferation paralleled the increase in PKC beta(II) expression in carcinogen-treated animals. In contrast, apoptosis at the lumenal surface was inversely proportional to PKC beta(II) expression in the upper tertile. These results suggest that an elevation in PKC beta(II) expression along the crypt axis in the distal colon is linked to enhancement of cell proliferation and suppression of apoptosis, predictive intermediate biomarkers of tumor development. Therefore, select dietary factors may confer protection against colon carcinogenesis in part by blocking carcinogen-induced PKC beta(II) expression.
Q-compensated reverse time migration in viscoacoustic media including surface topography

Conventional reverse time migration (RTM) may not produce high-quality images in areas with attenuation and severe topography because severe topographic surfaces have a great impact on seismic wave simulation, resulting in strong scattering and diffraction waves, and anelastic properties of the earth affect the kinematics and dynamics of seismic wave propagation. To overcome these problems, we have developed a [Formula: see text]-compensated topographic RTM method. In this method, a new viscoacoustic quasidifferential equation is introduced to simulate forward- and backward-propagated wavefields. The viscoacoustic equation has a lossy term and a dispersion term without memory variables, and it is solved by a hybrid spatial partial derivative scheme. A new stabilization operator is derived and substituted into the [Formula: see text]-compensated viscoacoustic quasidifferential equation to suppress high-frequency noise during the attenuated wavefield compensation. Numerical tests on a sag attenuating topographic model and an attenuating topographic Marmousi2 model demonstrate that our [Formula: see text]-compensated topographic RTM can produce accurate and high-quality images by correcting the anelastic amplitude loss and phase-dispersion effects. Finally, our method is tested on a field data set.
Text/Graphics Separation and Skew Correction of Text Regions of Business Card Images for Mobile Devices

Separation of the text regions from background texture and graphics is an important step of any optical character recognition system for the images containing both texts and graphics. In this paper, we have presented a novel text/graphics separation technique and a method for skew correction of text regions extracted from business card images captured with a cell-phone camera. At first, the background is eliminated at a coarse level based on intensity variance. This makes the foreground components distinct from each other. Then the non-text components are removed using various characteristic features of text and graphics. Finally, the text regions are skew corrected for further processing. Experimenting with business card images of various resolutions, we have found an optimum performance of 98.25% (recall) with 0.75 MP images, that takes 0.17 seconds processing time and 1.1 MB peak memory on a moderately powerful computer (DualCore 1.73 GHz Processor, 1 GB RAM, 1 MB L2 Cache). The developed technique is computationally efficient and consumes low memory so as to be applicable on mobile devices. Index Terms—Text/Graphics Separation, Business Card Reader, Skew Angle Estimation, Multi-skewed Documents ——————————  ——————————