Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: Generation for Shake-and-Bake MT

In SLE's approach to multilingual machine translation. [Whitelock, 1991, this conference] we envisage the process of sentence generation as beginning from a multiset or bag of richly structured lexical signs rather than from a conventional logical form or other underlying structure. The translation equivalences are stated between sets of lexical signs, with the superstructure of non-terminal symbols being no more than the means by which monolingual grammars are implemented
Efficient implementation of the RDM-QIM algorithm in an FPGA

The RDM-QIM algorithm has been proposed as a solution to the gain attack in QIM-based data hiding schemes. Several data hiding applications, such as broadcasting monitoring and live performance watermarking, requires a real-time multi-channel behavior. While Digital Signal Processors (DSP) have been used for implementing these schemes achieving real-time performance for audio signal processing, FPGAs offer the posibility of fully exploiting the inherent parallelism of this type of algorithms for more demanding applications. This letter presents an efficient FPGA implementation of RDM-QIM algorithm that overcomes a DSP-based implementation for more than two orders of magnitude and allows real-time multi-channel behavior.
Micro machining of ITO film by LD-pumped SGH YAG laser

ITO film, which is a kind of transparent conductive film, has been used for LCD, PDP and so on. This film is mostly removed by wet etching method. However, this method needs many chemicals, numbers of process and large-size equipments. On the other hand, laser beam processing can achieve the dry process without chemicals and drastically reduces the number of process. Therefore, selective removal of ITO film on glass substrate by LD pumped Q-switch SHG YAG laser is experimentally investigated. Electric insulation across machined groove was successful. Better groove shape can be obtained by accurate control of defocused distance and feed rate under a constant average power. Using SHG YAG laser makes it possible to remove only ITO film without any damage to glass material as substrate, since SHG YAG laser of 531 nm in wavelength is easy to transmit the glass material. When laser beam is irradiated from ITO film to glass material, a non-removed portion of ITO film remains at the bottom of groove under long defocused distance condition. On the other hand, backside irradiation method, in which laser beam is irradiated to ITO film through glass material, can prevent from remaining a non-removed portion, since absorption of laser beam occurs from the boundary part between ITO film and glass material.
Pulmonary artery/aorta ratio in simple screening for fetal outflow tract abnormalities during the second trimester

Congenital heart disease is associated with high mortality and morbidity rates, being the most life‐threatening defect in the first month of postnatal life and accounting for approximately half of all childhood mortality from birth defects. Despite this, the prenatal detection rate for congenital outflow tract anomalies by ultrasound imaging is relatively low. The aim of this study was to establish a nomogram for the pulmonary artery/aorta (PA/AO) ratio measured in the three‐vessel view plane. This ratio was investigated as a simple screening tool for congenital cardiac outflow tract abnormalities.
Adaptive Immunity to Hepatitis C Virus

The precise role of adaptive immune responses in the clinical outcome of HCV infection is still only partially defined. Recent studies suggest that viral-host cell interactions during the acute phase of infection are essential for viral clearance or progression into chronic HCV infection. This review focuses on different aspects of the adaptive immune responses as determinants of the different outcomes of HCV infection, clearance or persistent infection, and outlines current concepts of HCV evasion strategies. Unravelling these important mechanisms of virus-host interaction will contribute to the development of novel strategies to prevent and control HCV infection.
Distinguishing Closely Related Amyloid Precursors Using an RNA Aptamer

Background: Altering the co-polymerization of proteins into amyloid fibrils provides an opportunity for manipulating fibril assembly. Results: NMR and kinetic analysis showed that an RNA aptamer distinguishes between two highly similar co-aggregating proteins. Conclusion: RNA aptamers are specific and discriminatory probes able to modulate amyloid formation. Significance: Aptamers can be used as tools to differentiate amyloid precursors that are closely related and alter assembly. Although amyloid fibrils assembled in vitro commonly involve a single protein, fibrils formed in vivo can contain multiple protein sequences. The amyloidogenic protein human β2-microglobulin (hβ2m) can co-polymerize with its N-terminally truncated variant (ΔN6) in vitro to form hetero-polymeric fibrils that differ from their homo-polymeric counterparts. Discrimination between the different assembly precursors, for example by binding of a biomolecule to one species in a mixture of conformers, offers an opportunity to alter the course of co-assembly and the properties of the fibrils formed. Here, using hβ2m and its amyloidogenic counterpart, ΔΝ6, we describe selection of a 2′F-modified RNA aptamer able to distinguish between these very similar proteins. SELEX with a N30 RNA pool yielded an aptamer (B6) that binds hβ2m with an EC50 of ∼200 nm. NMR spectroscopy was used to assign the 1H-15N HSQC spectrum of the B6-hβ2m complex, revealing that the aptamer binds to the face of hβ2m containing the A, B, E, and D β-strands. In contrast, binding of B6 to ΔN6 is weak and less specific. Kinetic analysis of the effect of B6 on co-polymerization of hβ2m and ΔN6 revealed that the aptamer alters the kinetics of co-polymerization of the two proteins. The results reveal the potential of RNA aptamers as tools for elucidating the mechanisms of co-assembly in amyloid formation and as reagents able to discriminate between very similar protein conformers with different amyloid propensity.
Food intake patterns, self rated health and mortality in Danish men and women. A prospective observational study

OBJECTIVE To examine whether self rated health confounds or modifies the relation between a prudent food intake pattern and mortality and to study whether the prudent food intake pattern predicts subsequent changes in self rated health. DESIGN A prospective cohort study with follow up of total mortality and changes in self rated health. Food intake patterns were identified by principal component analysis from a 28 item food frequency questionnaire, collected at baseline. SETTING MONICA surveys, Copenhagen County, Denmark. PARTICIPANTS A random sample of 3698 men and 3618 women aged 30–70 years were followed up from 1982 to 1998 (median 15 years). MAIN RESULTS Among participants with complete information on all variables 18% had rated their health as poor (average or bad) at the baseline examination. Poor self rated health was related to a low score on the prudent food intake pattern, which was characterised by a frequent intake of wholemeal bread, fruit and vegetables. Three hundred and seventy six men and 210 women died during follow up. Poor self rated health and a low prudent food score were associated with increased mortality in both men and women. Self rated health did not modify the relation between diet and mortality. Of the 1098 men and 1048 women with good self rated health at baseline, 243 men and 297 women reported poor health during follow up. Low prudent food score, smoking, and high BMI increased the risk of developing poor health in both men and women, but in multivariate analysis the associations attenuated and were only significant for BMI. CONCLUSION Both prudent food intake pattern and self reported health are independent predictors of mortality. Self rated health does not seem to modify the relation between diet and mortality.
An adaptive symmetry detection algorithm based on local features

Local feature-based symmetry detection algorithms can simultaneously consider symmetries over all locations, scales and orientations and achieve state-of-the-art performance. This paper demonstrates the limitations of these algorithms in case of dealing with background clutters, low contrast and smooth surfaces, and presents an adaptive feature point detection algorithm to overcome those limitations. Quantitative evaluations and subjective comparisons against the state-of-the-art reflection symmetry detection algorithm on the image dataset released by "Symmetry Detection from Real World Images Competition 2013" show a significant improvement in detection accuracy and computation efficiency. Furthermore, the proposed algorithm is also tested on the non-human primates' (NHPs') video surveillance data as a preprocessing step before NHPs' behaviors analysis, and a good performance is obtained as well.
Alternating beamforming methods for hybrid analog and digital MIMO transmission

Hybrid beamforming has drawn attention with the increasing concern on high frequency band communication and the appearance of flexible structures of base stations. This paper considers the practical transmitter structure that each antenna is only connected to a unique RF chain and optimizes the analog and digital beamforming matrices to maximize the achievable rate with transmit power constraint. Following alternating optimization principle, closed-form relationships between analog and digital precoders are obtained when both amplitude and phase or only phase can be adjusted to form analog beams. Simulation results demonstrate the advantage of our proposed methods over the existing beam steering method in terms of achievable rate with different scale antenna array. This reveals that the method can be applied to both low and high frequency band communications. When increasing the number of propagation paths, contrast to the traditional beam steering method, the performance of proposed methods becomes better while the complexity almost keeps at an acceptable constant level.
Nanostructure formation processes in femtosecond laser ablation of thin film surfaces

We have studied periodic nanostructure formation processes on hard thin film surfaces in femtosecond laser ablation. Using diamond-like carbon films patterned with submicrometer-size stripes, we found that the nanoscale ablation is preferentially initiated by the enhancement of a local field on the stripe surface having high curvature. Based on the experimental results for the initial stage of nanostructuring, it is concluded that the nanoscale ablation is initiated with the enhanced local field, and the periodicity is developed with the excitation of surface plasmon polaritons.
Characterizing impacts of multi-Vt routers on power and reliability of Network-on-Chip

Prolong advancements in technology scaling over the past few years eventually leads to the development of multi core processors. Network On Chip architecture is a promising paradigm to attain higher network density in high performance multi core computing systems. In today's scenario, with the growing number of transistors, power density is becoming prominent issue in the network design. Therefore, the researchers are constantly focusing on accurate estimation of system power which ultimately leads to system reliability enhancement. In this paper, an experimental setup is formulated to analyze the working of multi-Vt NoC routers and their impacts on system power. Different life time distribution schemes are adopted for accurate reliability estimation. We have done the power analysis on the basis of multi-threshold voltage cells which is a low power technique i.e. low Vt (LVT), normal Vt (NVT) and high Vt (HVT) routers and reliability analysis by using two life time distributions i.e. lognormal and weibull and have compared their results. We have also done the comparative analysis with the previous integrated power model on the basis of reliability, transistor performance, architectural and technological parameters. The reliability results by weibull distribution for LVT routers shows 35% degradation as compared to HVT routers and for lognormal the difference is 56%.
Parallax Effect Free Mosaicing of Underwater Video Sequence Based on Texture Features

In this paper, we present feature-based technique for construction of mosaic image from underwater video sequence, which suffers from parallax distortion due to propagation properties of light in the underwater environment. The most of the available mosaic tools and underwater image mosaicing techniques yields final result with some artifacts such as blurring, ghosting and seam due to presence of parallax in the input images. The removal of parallax from input images may not reduce its effects instead it must be corrected in successive steps of mosaicing. Thus, our approach minimizes the parallax effects by adopting an efficient local alignment technique after global registration. We extract texture features using Centre Symmetric Local Binary Pattern (CS-LBP) descriptor in order to find feature correspondences, which are used further for estimation of homography through RANSAC. In order to increase the accuracy of global registration, we perform preprocessing such as colour alignment between two selected frames based on colour distribution adjustment. Because of existence of 100% overlap in consecutive frames of underwater video, we select frames with minimum overlap based on mutual offset in order to reduce the computation cost during mosaicing. Our approach minimizes the parallax effects considerably in final mosaic constructed using our own underwater video sequences.
Goodness-of-Fit Tests For Elliptical and Independent Copulas through Projection Pursuit

Two goodness-of-fit tests for copulas are being investigated. The first one deals with the case of elliptical copulas and the second one deals with independent copulas. These tests result from the expansion of the projection pursuit methodology that we will introduce in the present article. This method enables us to determine on which axis system these copulas lie as well as the exact value of these very copulas in the basis formed by the axes previously determined irrespective of their value in their canonical basis. Simulations are also presented as well as an application to real datasets.
Effect of Sonication Time and Clay Loading on Nanoclay Dispersion and Thermal Property of Epoxy-Clay Nanocomposite

The development of nanoclay-epoxy nanocomposite material requires a suitable blending process to be employed. Amongst blending techniques, sonication has been one of the promising means for polymer-clay nanocomposite fabrication. In this study, epoxy-clay nanocomposites with 2, 4 and 5% clay loadings were fabricated using different sonication periods ranging from 5 to 60 minutes. The effect of sonication time and clay loading on the nanocomposite structure was investigated using Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Micropscope (SEM) and Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS). Differential Scanning Calorimetry analysis indicated that while clay loading reduced the glass transition temperature (Tg), sonication time did not alter Tg significantly. Upon examining the structure of the resulting nanocomposites both exfoliation and intercalation structures were present, yet, neither structure was fully achieved; evident by the XRD patterns. Nonetheless, the predominant structures for most of the nanocomposites were intercalation. Intergallery spacing of the nanocomposites were enhanced with increased sonication time mainly at 2%wt loading; whereas further increase in nano-clay loading resulted in a reduction of the d-spacing. SEM analysis showed that clay agglomerates were present in the nanocomposites irrespective of the sonication time. However, the analysis revealed that dispersion of clay was better in the nanocomposite fabricated at higher sonication time. From the EDS analysis, the different sites in the nanocomposites’ microstructure were identified which were then correlated with the observation made in the fractographic analysis.
An Optimized Hybrid Approach for Path Finding

Path finding algorithm addresses problem of finding shortest path from source to destination avoiding obstacles. There exist various search algorithms namely A*, Dijkstra's and ant colony optimization. Unlike most path finding algorithms which require destination co-ordinates to compute path, the proposed algorithm comprises of a new method which finds path using backtracking without requiring destination co-ordinates. Moreover, in existing path finding algorithm, the number of iterations required to find path is large. Hence, to overcome this, an algorithm is proposed which reduces number of iterations required to traverse the path. The proposed algorithm is hybrid of backtracking and a new technique(modified 8- neighbor approach). The proposed algorithm can become essential part in location based, network, gaming applications. grid traversal, navigation, gaming applications, mobile robot and Artificial Intelligence.
CMOS compatible electrochemical process for improving quality factor of spiral microinductors

This study presents a post-CMOS electrochemical technique to improve the quality factor of standard CMOS inductors. This technique is a maskless process based on Silox Vapox III which possesses great etching selectivity between aluminium and SiO2 during electrochemical process. A porous silicon layer was generated on silicon substrate using this technique to increase the effective substrate resistance and to reduce the substrate loss. The result of the experiment showed that quality factor of a 1.5- and a 3.5-turn microinductor has been increased by 72.2 and 47%, respectively. A lumped-element model was used to analyse the effect of the presented technique. This technique provides a low-cost and effective process to modify CMOS components.
Top surface and side roughness of Inconel 625 parts processed using selective laser melting

Purpose – Obtaining the required part top surface roughness and side roughness is critical in some applications. Each of these part properties can often be improved to the detriment of the other during selective laser melting (SLM). The purpose of this paper is to investigate the selective laser melting of Inconel 625 using an Nd:YAG pulsed laser to produce thin wall parts with an emphasis on attaining parts with minimum top surface and side surface roughness.Design/methodology/approach – A full factorial approach was used to vary process parameters and identify a usable Inconel 625 processing region. The effects laser process parameters had on the formation of part surface roughness for multi‐layer parts were examined. Processing parameters that specifically affected top surface and side roughness were identified.Findings – Higher peak powers tended to reduce top surface roughness and reduce side roughness as recoil pressures flatten out the melt pool and reduce balling formation by increasing wettabilit.
RTCGD: retroviral tagged cancer gene database

Retroviral insertional mutagenesis in mouse hematopoietic tumors provides a potent cancer gene discovery tool in the post-genome-sequence era. To manage multiple high-throughput insertional mutagenesis screening projects, we developed the Retroviral Tagged Cancer Gene Database (RTCGD; http://RTCGD.ncifcrf.gov). A sequence analysis pipeline determines the genomic position of each retroviral integration site cloned from a mouse tumor, the distance between it and the nearest candidate disease gene(s) and its orientation with respect to the candidate gene(s). The pipeline also identifies genomic regions that are targets of retroviral integration in more than one tumor (common integration sites, CISs) and are thus likely to encode a disease gene. Users can search the database using a specified gene symbol, chromosome number or tumor model to identify both CIS genes and unique viral integration sites or compare the integration sites cloned by different laboratories using different models. As a default setting, users first review the CIS Lists and then Clone Lists. CIS Lists describe CISs and their candidate disease genes along with links to other public databases and clone lists. Clone Lists describe the viral integration site clones along with the tumor model and tumor type from which they were cloned, candidate disease gene(s), genomic position and orientation of the integrated provirus with respect to the candidate gene(s). It also provides a pictorial view of the genomic location of each integration site relative to neighboring genes and markers. Researchers can identify integrations of interest and compare their results with those for multiple tumor models and tumor types using RTCGD.
A Computer-based Sound Recognition System for the Diagnosis of Pulmonary Disorders

paper presents a computer-based sound recognition system for diagnosis of pulmonary disorders based on the interpretation of the lung sound signals (LSS). We propose a novel method of analysis of LSS using the Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients, the spectral and temporal parameters estimated from the frequency subbands of the discrete wavelet transform. A Linde Buzo Gray (LBG) clustering neural network model is developed for classifying the LSS to one of the six categories: normal, wheeze, crackle, squawk, stridor, or rhonchus. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed system in detecting pulmonary disorders. KeywordsSound Signals (LSS), Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT), Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC), Spectral and temporal parameters, Linde Buzo Gray (LBG), Multi-Layer Perception (MLP) Network.
DCT image denoising: a simple and effective image denoising algorithm

This work presents a simple but effective denoising algorithm using a local DCT thresholding. This thresholding is applied separately to each color channel after decorrelation. Due to its simplicity and excellent performance, this contribution can be considered as a baseline for comparison and lower bound of performance for newly developed techniques. Source Code The source code (ANSI C), its documentation, and the online demo are accessible at the IPOL web page of this article1.
The Chitinase-Like Protein YKL-40 Modulates Cystic Fibrosis Lung Disease

The chitinase-like protein YKL-40 was found to be increased in patients with severe asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), two disease conditions featuring neutrophilic infiltrates. Based on these studies and a previous report indicating that neutrophils secrete YKL-40, we hypothesized that YKL-40 plays a key role in cystic fibrosis (CF) lung disease, a prototypic neutrophilic disease. The aim of this study was (i) to analyze YKL-40 levels in human and murine CF lung disease and (ii) to investigate whether YKL-40 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) modulate CF lung disease severity. YKL-40 protein levels were quantified in serum and sputum supernatants from CF patients and control individuals. Levels of the murine homologue BRP-39 were analyzed in airway fluids from CF-like βENaC-Tg mice. YKL-40SNPs were analyzed in CF patients. YKL-40 levels were increased in sputum supernatants and in serum from CF patients compared to healthy control individuals. Within CF patients, YKL-40 levels were higher in sputum than in serum. BRP-39 levels were increased in airways fluids from βENaC-Tg mice compared to wild-type littermates. In both CF patients and βENaC-Tg mice, YKL-40/BRP-39 airway levels correlated with the severity of pulmonary obstruction. Two YKL-40 SNPs (rs871799 and rs880633) were found to modulate age-adjusted lung function in CF patients. YKL-40/BRP-39 levelsare increased in human and murine CF airway fluids, correlate with pulmonary function and modulate CF lung disease severity genetically. These findings suggest YKL-40 as a potential biomarker in CF lung disease.