Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mobile robot path planning using Ant Colony Optimization

Ant colony optimization (ACO) technique is proposed to solve the mobile robot path planning (MRPP) problem. In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of ACO in solving the MRPP problem, several maps of varying complexity used by an earlier researcher is used for evaluation. Each map consists of static obstacles in different arrangements. Besides that, each map has a grid representation with an equal number of rows and columns. The performance of the proposed ACO is tested on a given set of maps. Overall, the results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach for path planning.
Contact force during VT ablation: vector orientation is key.

Our understanding of ventricular tachycardia (VT) substrate and mapping has evolved considerably over the past 3 decades. Nonetheless, the outcomes of catheter ablation of scar-mediated VT continue to remain far from perfect.1 There is no doubt that new advances in VT mapping may help improve the outcomes of catheter ablation. But ultimately it will be the quality of the ablation lesions delivered to the VT substrate that will determine the clinical outcomes. This is important because radiofrequency, the principal source of energy used in VT ablation has been presumed to be a suboptimal energy modality for catheter ablation of scar tissue. A recent study found that in experienced hands using the standard 3.5-mm tip irrigated ablation catheter, elimination of late potentials occurred during only one-third of the radiofrequency applications and electrogram reduction with impedance drop >10 Ω in just half of the radiofrequency lesions during VT ablation.2 Yet, experimental data suggest that presence of scar by itself does not significantly impact lesion size or intramural temperatures when stable ablation catheter-tissue contact is maintained during radiofrequency energy delivery through a needle electrode.3 As such, there seems to be a paradox—scar by itself does not significantly affect radiofrequency lesion size or intramural temperature during ablation, however, the efficacy of ablating scar tissue seems poorer than anticipated! Because tissue contact by way of a needle electrode seems most optimal, one may simply ask whether lack of a stable catheter-tissue contact could provide a plausible explanation for our disappointing clinical outcomes. Article see p 1168 Although no concrete data are presently available to support a direct relationship between contact force (CF) and successful elimination of abnormal ventricular electrograms or VT recurrence after catheter ablation, it is conceivable that poor or unstable contact between the ablation catheter tip and myocardial tissue could …
TÉCNICO Specification , modelling and simulation of timed Cell-DEVS spaces

This work is devoted to present several formal descriptions for cell spaces' modeling and simulation. The formalisms are based on the DEVS and Asynchronous Cellular Automata paradigms. The concepts of transport or inertial delays used in the circuit modeling domain have been combined, allowing simple specification of accurate timed models. The specifications have been defined for binary or three-states systems. The formalisms allow automatic definition of the spaces, and eases verification of the models, allowing eff icient and cost-effective development of simulators.
Implicit Motion-Shape Model: A generic approach for action matching

We develop a robust technique to find similar matches of human actions in video. Given a query video, Motion History Images (MHI) are constructed for consecutive keyframes. This is followed by dividing the MHI into local Motion-Shape regions, which allows us to analyze the action as a set of sparse space-time patches in 3D. Inspired by the idea of Generalized Hough Transform, we develop the Implicit Motion-Shape Model that allows the integration of these local patches to describe the dynamic characteristics of the query action. In the same way we retrieve motion segments from video candidates, then project them onto the Hough Space built by the query model. This produces the matching score by running Parzen window density estimation under different scales. Empirical experiments on popular datasets demonstrate the efficiency of this approach, where highly accurate matches are returned within acceptable processing time.
Humanoid Soccer Robot : TWNHR-IV

A humanoid soccer robot named TWNHR-IV and designed by the TKU team to attend the HuroSot League of FIRA RoboWorld Cup is presented. A platform for the study of biped walking control is designed and implemented. A system architecture for TWNHR-IV is presented, where a CMOS sensor, a digital compass, an accelerometer, and eight pressure sensors are used to obtain the information of the environment. In order to design the robot locomotion control, a human-machine interface is implemented to study and design the locomotion control of biped robot. Two practical experiment results are presented to illustrate that TWNHRIV can be a soccer robot to autonomously decide some actions to stand up from a fall, find a ball, walk to an appropriate position, and kick a ball.
Synaptic Depression Influences Inspiratory–Expiratory Phase Transition in Dbx1 Interneurons of the preBötzinger Complex in Neonatal Mice

The brainstem preBötzinger complex (preBötC) generates the rhythm underlying inspiratory breathing movements and its core interneurons are derived from Dbx1-expressing precursors. Recurrent synaptic excitation is required to initiate inspiratory bursts, but whether excitatory synaptic mechanisms also contribute to inspiratory–expiratory phase transition is unknown. Here, we examined the role of short-term synaptic depression using a rhythmically active neonatal mouse brainstem slice preparation. We show that afferent axonal projections to Dbx1 preBötC neurons undergo activity-dependent depression and we identify a refractory period (∼2 s) after endogenous inspiratory bursts that precludes light-evoked bursts in channelrhodopsin-expressing Dbx1 preBötC neurons. We demonstrate that the duration of the refractory period—but neither the cycle period nor the magnitude of endogenous inspiratory bursts—is sensitive to changes in extracellular Ca2+. Further, we show that postsynaptic factors are unlikely to explain the refractory period or its modulation by Ca2+. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that short-term synaptic depression in Dbx1 preBötC neurons influences the inspiratory–expiratory phase transition during respiratory rhythmogenesis. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Theories of breathing's neural origins have heretofore focused on intrinsically bursting “pacemaker” cells operating in conjunction with synaptic inhibition for phase transition and cycle timing. However, contemporary studies falsify an obligatory role for pacemaker-like neurons and synaptic inhibition, giving credence to burst-generating mechanisms based on recurrent excitation among glutamatergic interneurons of the respiratory kernel. Here, we investigated the role of short-term synaptic depression in inspiratory–expiratory phase transition. Until now, this role remained an untested prediction of mathematical models. The present data emphasize that synaptic properties of excitatory interneurons of the respiratory rhythmogenic kernel, derived from Dbx1-expressing precursors, may provide the core logic underlying the rhythm for breathing.
Development and evaluation of multi-stage phase-controlled converter for magnetron driver

As clean and high energy efficient, the microwave drying system has gained popularity for a wide variety of food preservation and processing of bio-commodities. The main advantage is the acceleration of the drying process which is quite limited comparing to conventional hot air drying system. However, during microwave drying process, pressure and temperature will increase continuously and this might cause undesired side effects such as degradation and physical damages. In order to eliminate the mentioned problems and enhance higher performance of control system flexibility, in this paper, a design of multi-stage phase-controlled converter for microwave drying system is proposed. The objective of this multi-stage power control is to track the drying characteristics under microwave drying process at different power level depending on the stage of drying cycle period. This control approach is achieved by controlling the triggering events at appropriate phase angle of TRIAC based on predefined power profiles. By varying the pulse width, the average power output of the magnetron can be controlled. As the focus of this paper, the hardware design and component selections are discussed. The system flowchart and control algorithm based on microcontroller Arduino Mega 2560 are also presented in details. Experimental results of the proposed multi-stage phased-control converter are investigated and discussed.
The selective tyrosine kinase inhibitor STI571 inhibits small cell lung cancer growth.

At least 70% of small cell lung cancers express the Kit receptor tyrosine kinase and its ligand, stem cell factor (SCF). Numerous lines of evidence have demonstrated that this coexpression constitutes a functional autocrine loop, suggesting that inhibitors of Kit tyrosine kinase activity could have therapeutic efficacy in this disease. STI571, formerly known as CGP 57148B, is a p.o. bioavailable 2-phenylaminopyrimide derivative that was designed as an Abl tyrosine kinase inhibitor, but also has efficacy against the platelet-derived growth factor receptor and Kit in vitro. Pretreatment of the H526 small cell lung cancer (SCLC) cell line with STI571 inhibited SCF-mediated Kit activation with an IC50 of 0.1 microM as measured by inhibition of receptor tyrosine phosphorylation and 0.2 microM as measured by immune complex kinase assay. This paralleled the inhibition of SCF-mediated growth by STI571, which had an IC50 of approximately 0.3 microM. Growth inhibition in SCF-containing medium was accompanied by induction of apoptosis. STI571 efficiently blocked SCF-mediated activation of mitogen-activated protein kinase and Akt, but did not affect insulin-like growth factor-1 or serum-mediated mitogen-activated protein kinase or Akt activation. Growth of five of six SCLC cell lines in medium containing 10% FCS was inhibited by STI571 with an IC50 of approximately 5 microM. Growth inhibition in serum-containing medium appeared to be cytostatic in nature because no increase in apoptosis was observed. Despite this growth inhibition, STI571 failed to enhance the cytotoxicity of either carboplatinum or etoposide when coadministered. However, taken together with the minimal toxicity that this compound has shown in preclinical studies, these data suggest that STI571 could have a role in the treatment of SCLC, possibly to block or slow recurrence after chemotherapy-induced remissions.
Identification of a candidate gene for astigmatism.

PURPOSE Astigmatism is a common refractive error that reduces vision, where the curvature and refractive power of the cornea in one meridian are less than those of the perpendicular axis. It is a complex trait likely to be influenced by both genetic and environmental factors. Twin studies of astigmatism have found approximately 60% of phenotypic variance is explained by genetic factors. This study aimed to identify susceptibility loci for astigmatism. METHODS We performed a meta-analysis of seven genome-wide association studies that included 22,100 individuals of European descent, where astigmatism was defined as the number of diopters of cylinder prescription, using fixed effect inverse variance-weighted methods. RESULTS A susceptibility locus was identified with lead single nucleotide polymorphism rs3771395 on chromosome 2p13.3 (meta-analysis, P = 1.97 × 10(-7)) in the VAX2 gene. VAX2 plays an important role in the development of the dorsoventral axis of the eye. Animal studies have shown a gradient in astigmatism along the vertical plane, with corresponding changes in refraction, particularly in the ventral field. CONCLUSIONS This finding advances the understanding of refractive error, and provides new potential pathways to be evaluated with regard to the development of astigmatism.
An Adaptable, Probabilistic, Next-Best View Algorithm for Reconstruction of Unknown 3-D Objects

Autonomous mobile robots perform many tasks, such as grasping and inspection, that may require complete models of three-dimensional (3-D) objects in the environment. If little or no knowledge about an object is known a priori, the robot must take sensor measurements from strategically determined viewpoints in order to reconstruct a 3-D model of the object. We propose an autonomous object reconstruction approach for mobile robots that is very general, with no assumptions about object shape or size, such as a bounding box or predetermined set of candidate viewpoints. A probabilistic, volumetric method for determining the optimal next-best view is developed based on a partial model of a 3-D object of unknown shape and size. The proposed method integrates an object probability characteristic to determine sensor views that incrementally reconstruct a 3-D model of the object. Experiments in simulation and on a real-world robot validate the work and compare it to the state of the art.
Real-Time Imaging Reveals the Dynamics of Leukocyte Behaviour during Experimental Cerebral Malaria Pathogenesis

During experimental cerebral malaria (ECM) mice develop a lethal neuropathological syndrome associated with microcirculatory dysfunction and intravascular leukocyte sequestration. The precise spatio-temporal context in which the intravascular immune response unfolds is incompletely understood. We developed a 2-photon intravital microscopy (2P-IVM)-based brain-imaging model to monitor the real-time behaviour of leukocytes directly within the brain vasculature during ECM. Ly6Chi monocytes, but not neutrophils, started to accumulate in the blood vessels of Plasmodium berghei ANKA (PbA)-infected MacGreen mice, in which myeloid cells express GFP, one to two days prior to the onset of the neurological signs (NS). A decrease in the rolling speed of monocytes, a measure of endothelial cell activation, was associated with progressive worsening of clinical symptoms. Adoptive transfer experiments with defined immune cell subsets in recombinase activating gene (RAG)-1-deficient mice showed that these changes were mediated by Plasmodium-specific CD8+ T lymphocytes. A critical number of CD8+ T effectors was required to induce disease and monocyte adherence to the vasculature. Depletion of monocytes at the onset of disease symptoms resulted in decreased lymphocyte accumulation, suggesting reciprocal effects of monocytes and T cells on their recruitment within the brain. Together, our studies define the real-time kinetics of leukocyte behaviour in the central nervous system during ECM, and reveal a significant role for Plasmodium-specific CD8+ T lymphocytes in regulating vascular pathology in this disease.
Segmentation-Free Keyword Spotting for Bangla Handwritten Documents

In this paper, a segmentation-free keyword spotting method is proposed for Bangla handwritten documents. In order to tolerate large variations in handwritten scenarios, we extracted key points based on SIFT key point detector, and the end and intersection points found by morphological operations. Heat Kernel signature (HKS) is used to present the local characteristics of detected key points. Instead of using the same size of patch for all the key points, we apply a method dynamically deciding the patch size. Furthermore, our spotting method reduces the scope of searching on the document by only considering the candidate local zones with similar candidate key points, and does not need pre-processing steps. From the experiment on Bangla handwritten text we obtained encouraging results.
Safety and Efficacy of Once-Daily Nevirapine Dosing: A Multicohort Study

Background Nevirapine (NVP) is often prescribed once daily in clinical practice in combination with a once daily nucleoside backbone. We investigated the relationship of NVP dosing with safety and efficacy. Methods Patients from the Dutch AIDS Therapy Evaluation in the Netherlands (ATHENA) cohort study, Canadian HAART Observational Medical Evaluation and Research (HOMER) cohort and Swiss HIV Cohort Study (SHCS) using NVP-based combination therapy either once daily or twice daily were included. Risk factors for discontinuing NVP because of hypersensitivity reactions (HSRs) were investigated using multivariate logistic regression. Risk factors for virological failure 96 weeks after NVP initiation were identified using logistic regression and Cox models. Results Of 5,636 patients (774 once daily and 4,862 twice daily), 268 (4.8%) discontinued NVP because of HSR between 2 and 18 weeks. Logistic regression showed that, compared with patients with detectable HIV type-1 (HIV-1) RNA starting twice-daily NVP, there was a significantly higher risk of discontinuation of once-daily NVP because of HSR in patients with detectable HIV-1 RNA at the start of NVP (odds ratio [OR] 1.52; P=0.04), whereas the risk was actually significantly lower in patients starting once-daily NVP with undetectable HIV-1 RNA (OR 0.44; P=0.04). Cox models showed that risk of virological failure was not different for twice- versus once-daily NVP in treatment-naive patients (twice-daily versus once-daily hazard ratio [HR] 1.01; P=0.95), treatment- experienced patients experiencing treatment failure (twice-daily versus once-daily HR 1.22; P=0.30) or patients with undetectable HIV-1 RNA simplifying treatment with NVP (twice-daily versus once-daily HR 1.29; P=0.30). Conclusions Initiation of a once-daily NVP-based regimen in patients with suppressed viraemia carries a low risk of treatment-limiting HSR. Once- or twice-daily NVP-based regimens appear to have similar antiretroviral efficacy.
Anabolic actions of Notch on mature bone

Significance Notch is a critical regulator of skeletal development, but its role in remodeling of the adult skeleton is unclear. Using genetically modified mice, we show that Notch stimulates skeletal mineralization by bone-building osteoblasts. Thus, overexpression of the Notch intracellular domain in mice results in an increase in bone mass, prevents bone loss following ovariectomy and during aging, and promotes fracture healing. Notch is therefore a potential therapeutic target for conditions of bone loss, including osteoporosis. Notch controls skeletogenesis, but its role in the remodeling of adult bone remains conflicting. In mature mice, the skeleton can become osteopenic or osteosclerotic depending on the time point at which Notch is activated or inactivated. Using adult EGFP reporter mice, we find that Notch expression is localized to osteocytes embedded within bone matrix. Conditional activation of Notch signaling in osteocytes triggers profound bone formation, mainly due to increased mineralization, which rescues both age-associated and ovariectomy-induced bone loss and promotes bone healing following osteotomy. In parallel, mice rendered haploinsufficient in γ-secretase presenilin-1 (Psen1), which inhibits downstream Notch activation, display almost-absent terminal osteoblast differentiation. Consistent with this finding, pharmacologic or genetic disruption of Notch or its ligand Jagged1 inhibits mineralization. We suggest that stimulation of Notch signaling in osteocytes initiates a profound, therapeutically relevant, anabolic response.
Reasoning-based vision recognition for agricultural humanoid robot toward tomato harvesting

We present a vision cognition framework for tomato harvesting humanoid robot based on geometrical and physical reasoning. Inspired from the natural human harvesting behaviour, our goal is to build a humanoid robot to pick tomatoes autonomously or with minimal human efforts. The proposed vision approach uses fusion of calibrated observation data from two RGB-D sensors installed on the head and the hand of the humanoid. We observe the natural human harvesting behaviour and equip our robot with similar grippers to follow the same picking processes for a specific fruit. In the vision approach, we mainly focus on modelling fruits in one branch and then estimating the pedicel direction of each fruit in a branch. Through pointcloud model segmentation, the primitive shape model of each fruit can be obtained and we consider a simple fact that crops in one branch should remain stable with respect to gravity and interaction forces from neighbouring crops in the branch. According to this assumption, a probabilistic model is created and the picking order in the branch is assigned under the evaluated geometrical structure. In the experiments, we tested harvesting of real tomatoes on actual branches and evaluated the successful harvesting rate.
Effect of tryptophan-N-formylated gramicidin on growth of Plasmodium berghei in mice

The effect of tryptophan-N-formylated gramicidin (NFG) on the growth of Plasmodium berghei in mice was tested in three different experiments. NFG was shown to be capable of inhibiting the growth of the parasite in a dose-dependent way, although its action did not result in elimination of the parasite and was only temporary, preventing mice from early death, presumably due to cerebral malaria, but not from fatal generalized malaria. Intriguingly, a similar observation was made with two other drugs, (S)-9-(3-hydroxy-2-phosphonylmethoxypropyl)adenine, an inhibitor of viral and eukaryotic DNA polymerases, and the presumed topoisomerase II inhibitor, a bisquaternary quinolinium salt. A rise in the level of parasitemia after 8 days, despite continued treatment, was not due to parasite-induced reticulocytosis, as demonstrated in experiments in which this condition was induced artificially. NFG was added in the form of lipid vesicles in which the peptide had been incorporated. The inhibitory action of NFG was not modulated by the lipid composition of the vesicles. Control experiments did not demonstrate any toxicity of NFG when it was administered in lipid vesicles. The main observation is that NFG is able to inhibit the growth of a malaria parasite in vivo at concentrations that are well tolerated by the host.
A robotic device as a sensitive quantitative tool to assess upper limb impairments in stroke patients: a preliminary prospective cohort study.

OBJECTIVE To compare kinematic indices in age-matched healthy subjects and stroke patients, by evaluating various tasks performed with a robotic device, and to provide an objective and standardized protocol to assess upper limb impairments in stroke patients. DESIGN A prospective cohort study. SUBJECTS Age-matched healthy subjects (n = 10) and stroke patients (n = 10). METHODS Various kinematic indices were analysed from 3 randomly assigned tasks performed by the affected arm in stroke patients and the dominant arm in healthy subjects. These tasks, composed of large-amplitude, targeted and geometrical movements, were standardized and performed with the ReaPLAN robotic device. RESULTS For large-amplitude movements, the stroke patients' path lengths were less constant in amplitude, less rectilinear and less smooth than those for healthy subjects (p < 0.001). For the targeted movements, the stroke patients' path lengths were less rectilinear than those of the healthy subjects (p < 0.001). For the geometrical movements, the stroke patients had greater difficulty making the requested shapes compared with the healthy subjects (p < 0.01). CONCLUSION Our study proposes an objective and standardized protocol to assess stroke patients' upper limbs with any robotic device. We suggest that further randomized controlled trials could use this quantitative tool to assess the efficacy of treatments such as robot-assisted therapy.