Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Instructions for use Title Thyroid Nodule Segmentation and Component Analysis in Ultrasound Images Author ( s

Heterogeneous thyroid nodules with distinct components are similar to background in ultrasound image. This results in a difficult task when radiologists and physicians manually delineate the complete shape of a nodule, or distinguish what kind of components it has. Hence, this paper presents an automatic process for nodule segmentation and component classification. A decision tree algorithm is used to segment the possible nodular area. A refinement process is then applied to recover the nodular shape. Finally, a hierarchical classification method based on support vector machine (SVM) is used to identify the components in the nodular lesion. Experimental results of the proposed approach were compared with those of other segmentation methods and showed a good performance.
Sentiment-Based Assessment Of Electronic Mixed-Motive Communication - A Comparison Of Approaches

In this paper, we seek to analyse specific types of bilateral electronic communication processes, namely such processes where there is a distinction between individual goals of the communicating parties and their joint goals. We argue that there exists a distinction between successful and unsuccessful processes. This distinction is manifest in the communication patterns used by the participants. Sentiment analysis can enable researchers to identify these distinctions automatically, based on a classification model previously trained for the exact type of communication process. This paper discusses an adaption of sentiment-based techniques for the domain of electronic business negotiations.
Nucleophosmin and its AML-associated mutant regulate c-Myc turnover through Fbw7γ

Mutations leading to aberrant cytoplasmic localization of nucleophosmin (NPM) are the most frequent genetic alteration in acute myelogenous leukemia (AML). NPM binds the Arf tumor suppressor and protects it from degradation. The AML-associated NPM mutant (NPMmut) also binds p19Arf but is unable to protect it from degradation, which suggests that inactivation of p19Arf contributes to leukemogenesis in AMLs. We report here that NPM regulates turnover of the c-Myc oncoprotein by acting on the F-box protein Fbw7γ, a component of the E3 ligase complex involved in the ubiquitination and proteasome degradation of c-Myc. NPM was required for nucleolar localization and stabilization of Fbw7γ. As a consequence, c-Myc was stabilized in cells lacking NPM. Expression of NPMmut also led to c-Myc stabilization because of its ability to interact with Fbw7γ and delocalize it to the cytoplasm, where it is degraded. Because Fbw7 induces degradation of other growth-promoting proteins, the NPM–Fbw7 interaction emerges as a central tumor suppressor mechanism in human cancer.
Dynamic Detection of COTS Component Incompatibility

The development of COTS-based systems shifts the focus of testing and verification from single components to component integration. Independent teams and organizations develop COTS components without referring to specific systems or interaction patterns. Developing systems that reuse COTS components (even high-quality ones) therefore presents new compatibility problems. David Garlan, Robert Allen, and John Ockerbloom (1995) reported that in their experience, integrating four COTS components took 10 person-years (rather than the one planned person-year), mainly because of integration problems. According to Barry Boehm and Chris Abts (1999), three of the four main problems with reusing COTS products are absence of control over their functionality, absence of control over their evolution, and lack of design for interoperability. Our proposed technique, called behavior capture and test, detects COTS component incompatibilities by dynamically analyzing component behavior. BCT incrementally builds behavioral models of components and compares them with the behavior the components display when reused in new contexts. This lets us identify incompatibilities, unexpected interactions, untested behaviors, and dangerous side effects.
Estimating the Tradeoff between Risk Protection and Moral Hazard with a Nonlinear Budget Set Model of Health Insurance

Insurance induces a well-known tradeoff between the welfare gains from risk protection and the welfare losses from moral hazard. Empirical work traditionally estimates each side of the tradeoff separately, potentially yielding mutually inconsistent results. I develop a nonlinear budget set model of health insurance that allows for the calculation of both sides of the tradeoff simultaneously, allowing for a relationship between moral hazard and risk protection. An important feature of this model is that it considers nonlinearities in the consumer budget set that arise from deductibles, coinsurance rates, and stoplosses that alter moral hazard as well as risk protection relative to no insurance. I illustrate the properties of my model by estimating it using data on employer sponsored health insurance from a large firm. Within my empirical context, the average deadweight losses from moral hazard substantially outweigh the average welfare gains from risk protection. However, the welfare impact of moral hazard and risk protection are both small relative to transfers from the government through the tax preference for employer sponsored health insurance and transfers from some agents to other agents through a common premium.
Explicit Muller Games are PTIME

A tray-type container and a method of forming the same container is disclosed which is formed from a single blank of paperboard having a coating of a heat sealable film material so as to provide when fully set up, a rectangular bottom wall forming panel with hingedly connected upstanding sidewall and end wall forming panels which are integrally connected at the corners by pairs of triangular web members folded upon each other and against the outside faces of the end walls where they are secured by narrow top edge reinforcing and stiffening strips folded downwardly of the top edge into overlying relation with the top portions of the folded web members and the end wall, which reinforcing strips are heat sealed to corner connecting tab members folded with the corner web members into position beneath the strips.
A nonlinear active noise control scheme with on-line model structure selection

In nonlinear active noise control (ANC) applications the on-line tuning of the parameters of the nonlinear control filter is not sufficient to guarantee the required model accuracy, and a suitable model structure adaptation scheme must be included. However, the ANC setting configures an indirect model identification problem which does not give direct access to the target output signal for the filter model. As such, the filter adaptation problem cannot be solved with the linear regression tools usually employed for model selection. A modified ANC scheme is here proposed, where the controller adaptation loop is reconfigured as a direct identification problem, to allow for model selection, and an auxiliary adaptation loop is introduced to compensate for the error resulting from the scheme modification. Some simulation examples are reported to show the algorithm effectiveness.
Mixed viral infection identified using heteroduplex mobility analysis (HMA).

It is now recognised that mixed viral infection, or infection of an individual with two or more distinct strains of a single viral species, often occurs particularly with RNA viruses. Current methods for detection of mixed infection normally involve genotyping or cloning and DNA sequencing. These methods are not always accurate or sensitive at detecting mixed infection and cannot be used for large numbers of samples. Furthermore subsequent sequence determination of the coinfecting viruses is labour intensive. This paper describes a simple, generic method based upon PCR and heteroduplex mobility analysis (HMA) that can be used to rapidly determine mixed infection with two strains of the same virus. The utility of this method is illustrated with hepatitis C virus (HCV) and TT virus (TTV) as examples. PCR-HMA detected mixed infection in 3 (8%) of 38 sera from intravenous drug users (IVDU) and 28 (30%) of 70 TTV-positive sera from Australia, China, and Vietnam. HMA can also be used to screen recombinant colonies to identify the sequences of the coinfecting viruses. The methods described here could be applied to analyse any PCR product containing two or more divergent sequences, whether derived from viruses, bacteria, or eukaryotic organisms.
k-Best: A New Method for Real-Time Decision Making

Many real-world problems, such as air-traffic control and factory scheduling, require that a sequence of decisions be made in real time. The real-time constraint means that we typically do not have sufficient time to find a complete solution to the problem using traditional methods before we must commit to a decision. We propose an incremental search approach to making real-time, sequential decisions, and then present a new decision method called k-best, which is both an extension of an existing realtime decision method (MINIMIN) and an approximation to a decision-theoretic approach to the real-time decision problem. We next provide an analytical bound on the worst-case expected error when k-best is used instead of the optimal decision method. The averagecase performance of k-best is then compared to MINIMIN on a set of randomly generated problems. Our results show that k-best is an improvement over MINIMIN, although MINIMIN performs quite well. Given that MINIMIN is very efficient and easy to implement, we conclude that it should be the algorithm of choice for many real-time decision problems.
Learning to rank for content-based image retrieval

In Content-based Image Retrieval (CBIR), accurately ranking the returned images is of paramount importance, since users consider mostly the topmost results. The typical ranking strategy used by many CBIR systems is to employ image content descriptors, so that returned images that are most similar to the query image are placed higher in the rank. While this strategy is well accepted and widely used, improved results may be obtained by combining multiple image descriptors. In this paper we explore this idea, and introduce algorithms that learn to combine information coming from different descriptors. The proposed learning to rank algorithms are based on three diverse learning techniques: Support Vector Machines (CBIR-SVM), Genetic Programming (CBIR-GP), and Association Rules (CBIR-AR). Eighteen image content descriptors(color, texture, and shape information) are used as input and provided as training to the learning algorithms. We performed a systematic evaluation involving two complex and heterogeneous image databases (Corel e Caltech) and two evaluation measures (Precision and MAP). The empirical results show that all learning algorithms provide significant gains when compared to the typical ranking strategy in which descriptors are used in isolation. We concluded that, in general, CBIR-AR and CBIR-GP outperforms CBIR-SVM. A fine-grained analysis revealed the lack of correlation between the results provided by CBIR-AR and the results provided by the other two algorithms, which indicates the opportunity of an advantageous hybrid approach.
What role does the palate play in speech motor control? Insights from tongue kinematics for German alveolar obstruents

By means of simultaneous EMMA and EPG recordings, we investigated tongue tip kinematics and tongue palate contact patterns for four German speakers in order to compare production strategies of alveolar stops with fricatives. For alveolar stops versus fricatives, two different control strategies were hypothesized: a target above the contact location for alveolar stops resulting in a collision of the tongue tip at the palate as opposed to a precise positioning of the tongue at the lateral margins at the palate for alveolar fricatives. Additionally, we suspected differences between stops and fricatives with respect to anterior and lateral palate contacts and their influence on tongue kinematics. Results of this study confirmed two different control strategies for alveolar stops and fricatives by means of significant differences in movement amplitude, velocity, and duration of the closing gesture, the amplitude of deceleration peaks, tongue tip movement during acoustically defined closure and constriction, and maximal anterior contact during closure. Additionally, results for speaker dependent mechanisms were related to the subject's coronal palatal shape.
Mfn2 deletion in brown adipose tissue protects from insulin resistance and impairs thermogenesis

BAT‐controlled thermogenic activity is thought to be required for its capacity to prevent the development of insulin resistance. This hypothesis predicts that mediators of thermogenesis may help prevent diet‐induced insulin resistance. We report that the mitochondrial fusion protein Mitofusin 2 (Mfn2) in BAT is essential for cold‐stimulated thermogenesis, but promotes insulin resistance in obese mice. Mfn2 deletion in mice through Ucp1‐cre (BAT‐Mfn2‐KO) causes BAT lipohypertrophy and cold intolerance. Surprisingly however, deletion of Mfn2 in mice fed a high fat diet (HFD) results in improved insulin sensitivity and resistance to obesity, while impaired cold‐stimulated thermogenesis is maintained. Improvement in insulin sensitivity is associated with a gender‐specific remodeling of BAT mitochondrial function. In females, BAT mitochondria increase their efficiency for ATP‐synthesizing fat oxidation, whereas in BAT from males, complex I‐driven respiration is decreased and glycolytic capacity is increased. Thus, BAT adaptation to obesity is regulated by Mfn2 and with BAT‐Mfn2 absent, BAT contribution to prevention of insulin resistance is independent and inversely correlated to whole‐body cold‐stimulated thermogenesis.
Physicochemical properties and morphological observations of selected local rice varieties in northern Afghanistan

In this study, milled rice ( Oryza sativa L.) samples of local varieties (Sarda Barah, Garma Barah, Surkha Zurahti and Shah Lawangi ) were procured from Kunduz province, Afghanistan and check varieties (Koshihikari and Super Basmati) from Japan. We conducted the research in the Laboratory of Crop Science of Ibaraki University, Japan during February in 2018, to clarify the physicochemical and morphological traits on different local rice varieties. The results demonstrated that local rice varieties (Sarda Barah, Garma Barah, Surkha Zurahti and Shah Lawangi ) from Afghanistan including Super Basmati (Check) with long and slender grains, associated with significantly higher grain amylose and protein contents of 22.9 and 8.1%, respectively, which created in declined taste points. While, Koshihikari with short and medium grain types demonstrated the lowest grain amylose and protein contents of 17.7 and 5.5%, respectively, which amplified grain taste point. The micrographs observations revealed that there were no obvious alterations in the endosperm of translucent grains across varieties. In contrast, the endosperm of chalky grains in local rice varieties were differed compared to check varieties (Super Basmati and Koshihikari), irregularly developed starch granules together with single spherical shape and dent-portion on their surfaces with numerous airgaps were observed due to high temperature. Such irregular arrangement leads in lower grain weight and quality.
Finite-Length Linear Schemes for Joint Source-Channel Coding Over Gaussian Broadcast Channels With Feedback

In this paper, we study linear encoding for a pair of correlated Gaussian sources transmitted over a two-user Gaussian broadcast channel in the presence of unit-delay noiseless feedback, abbreviated as the GBCF. Each pair of source samples is transmitted using a linear transmission scheme in a finite number of channel uses. We investigate three linear transmission schemes: A scheme based on the Ozarow–Leung (OL) code, a scheme based on the linear quadratic Gaussian (LQG) code of Ardestanizadeh et al., and a novel scheme derived in this paper using a dynamic programming (DP) approach. For the OL and LQG schemes we present lower and upper bounds on the minimal number of channel uses needed to achieve a target mean-square error (MSE) pair. For the LQG scheme in the symmetric setting, we identify the optimal scaling of the sources, which results in a significant improvement of its finite horizon performance, and, in addition, characterize the (exact) minimal number of channel uses required to achieve a target MSE. Finally, for the symmetric setting, we show that for any fixed and finite number of channel uses, the DP scheme achieves an MSE lower than the MSE achieved by either the LQG or the OL schemes.
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY Laboratory of Information Processing Science

Instructor: LicSc(Tech.) Vesa Hirvisalo This thesis studies workload modeling of an electronic commerce payment system. A hierarchic workload model of the system and the parameters that characterise its workload are presented. Workload models can be used in several software performance engineering (SPE) related activities. Workload models identify the basic components and features that affect the system performance. They provide the input to different performance evaluation studies including analytical modeling, simulation, and measurement. They also aid software design and capacity planning related decisions. To create a workload model for a software under development a combination of resource and functional approaches was used. Resource oriented approach describes the consumption of system resources caused by the workload, and it was used for capturing information from the already implemented parts of the software. The functional approach describes the programs and applications that make up the workload, and it was used for creating the whole picture of the workload. The resulting hierarchic model consists of three levels: session level, command level and request level. On the session level, the workload is composed of client sessions. On the command level, the workload is composed of billing and authentication requests. On the request level, the workload is composed of different kinds of billing requests. The parameters that characterise the workload belong to three different groups: session parameters, intensity parameters and other parameters.
Validity of the International Classification of Diseases 10th revision code for hospitalisation with hyponatraemia in elderly patients

Objective To evaluate the validity of the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision (ICD-10) diagnosis code for hyponatraemia (E87.1) in two settings: at presentation to the emergency department and at hospital admission. Design Population-based retrospective validation study. Setting Twelve hospitals in Southwestern Ontario, Canada, from 2003 to 2010. Participants Patients aged 66 years and older with serum sodium laboratory measurements at presentation to the emergency department (n=64 581) and at hospital admission (n=64 499). Main outcome measures Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value comparing various ICD-10 diagnostic coding algorithms for hyponatraemia to serum sodium laboratory measurements (reference standard). Median serum sodium values comparing patients who were code positive and code negative for hyponatraemia. Results The sensitivity of hyponatraemia (defined by a serum sodium ≤132 mmol/l) for the best-performing ICD-10 coding algorithm was 7.5% at presentation to the emergency department (95% CI 7.0% to 8.2%) and 10.6% at hospital admission (95% CI 9.9% to 11.2%). Both specificities were greater than 99%. In the two settings, the positive predictive values were 96.4% (95% CI 94.6% to 97.6%) and 82.3% (95% CI 80.0% to 84.4%), while the negative predictive values were 89.2% (95% CI 89.0% to 89.5%) and 87.1% (95% CI 86.8% to 87.4%). In patients who were code positive for hyponatraemia, the median (IQR) serum sodium measurements were 123 (119–126) mmol/l and 125 (120–130) mmol/l in the two settings. In code negative patients, the measurements were 138 (136–140) mmol/l and 137 (135–139) mmol/l. Conclusions The ICD-10 diagnostic code for hyponatraemia differentiates between two groups of patients with distinct serum sodium measurements at both presentation to the emergency department and at hospital admission. However, these codes underestimate the true incidence of hyponatraemia due to low sensitivity.
In vitro and in vivo evaluations of the performance of an indirubin derivative, formulated in four different self‐emulsifying drug delivery systems

Anticancer indirubins are poorly soluble in water. Here, digestion of four self‐emulsifying drug delivery systems (SEDDS) containing E804 (indirubin‐3′‐oxime 2,3‐dihydroxypropyl ether) was compared by dynamic lipolysis and bioavailability studies. Used lipids were either medium‐chain or long‐chain glycerides.
Constraints on aspherical core structure from PKiKP‐PcP differential travel times

[1] We have assembled a data set of 302 differential PKiKP-PcP travel times that were recorded by seismic array stations of the International Monitoring System. This is an order of magnitude more data than all previous PKiKP-PcP observations combined. The differential times were measured using a beam-forming and cross-correlation algorithm that has a precision of 1–2 sampling intervals (<0.1 s). The use of differential times mitigates the effects of hypocentral errors and heterogeneities in the crust and upper mantle, leaving the data sensitive to deep Earth structure. The PKiKP-PcP times are especially sensitive to variations in the thickness of the liquid outer core. The data are well fit by PREM, with residuals having a mean of −0.29 s and a standard deviation of 0.44 s, and rule out lateral variations in outer core thickness of more than 4 km. Most of the geographically coherent residuals can be explained by lower mantle heterogeneities and ellipticity corrections however there remain at least three regions that seem to require aspherical core structure. The anomalous data are best explained by long-wavelength topography on the core-mantle boundary (CMB) with peak-to-peak amplitude of 3.5 km. The CMB topography is most likely maintained by isostatic compensation of thickness variations in a distinct layer at the base of the mantle.
New cost-effective VLSI implementation of multiplierless FIR filter using common subexpression elimination

We propose a novel common subexpression elimination (CSE) method to be used for the VLSI design of a multiplierless finite impulse response (FIR) filter with a small number of adders and registers. The proposed method is an efficient way to reduce the function blocks using horizontal and vertical CSE. The FIR filters were synthesized from Verilog HDL code. Area and critical path values were evaluated for the 0.35 /spl mu/m standard CMOS library. Compared with previous CSE techniques, the presented approach can save from a minimum of 0.8% up to a maximum 21.5% of gate area. Also, the critical path of the proposed method is an average of 3.2% or 17.6% shorter than those of other methods.