Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Phase‐contrast velocimetry with simultaneous fat/water separation

Phase‐contrast MRI can provide high‐resolution angiographic velocity images, especially in conjunction with non‐Cartesian k‐space sampling. However, acquisitions can be sensitive to errors from artifacts from main magnetic field inhomogeneities and chemical shift from fat. Particularly in body imaging, fat content can cause degraded image quality, create errors in the velocity measurements, and prevent the use of self‐calibrated amplitude of static field heterogeneity corrections. To reduce the influence of fat and facilitate self‐calibrated amplitude of static field heterogeneity corrections, a combination of chemical shift imaging with phase‐contrast velocimetry with nonlinear least‐squares estimation of velocity, fat, and water signals is proposed. A chemical shift and first‐moment symmetric dual‐echo sequence is proposed to minimize the scan time penalty, and initial investigations are performed in phantoms and volunteers that show reduced influence from fat in velocity images. Magn Reson Med, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Quantifying Rainfall Interception Loss of a Subtropical Broadleaved Forest in Central Taiwan

The factors controlling seasonal rainfall interception loss are investigated by using a double-mass curve analysis, based on direct measurements of high-temporal resolution gross rainfall, throughfall and stemflow from 43 rainfall events that occurred in central Taiwan from April 2008 to April 2009. The canopy water storage capacity for the wet season was estimated to be 1.86 mm, about twice that for the dry season (0.91 mm), likely due to the large reduction in the leaf area index (LAI) from 4.63 to 2.23 (m2·m−2). Changes in seasonal canopy structure and micro-meteorological conditions resulted in temporal variations in the amount of interception components, and rainfall partitioning into stemflow and throughfall. Wet canopy evaporation after rainfall contributed 41.8% of the wet season interception loss, but only 17.1% of the dry season interception loss. Wet canopy evaporation during rainfall accounted for 82.9% of the dry season interception loss, but only 58.2% of the wet season interception loss. Throughfall accounted for over 79.7% of the dry season precipitation and 76.1% of the wet season precipitation, possibly due to the change in gap fraction from 64.2% in the dry season to 50.0% in the wet season. The reduced canopy cover in the dry season also produced less stemflow than that of the wet season. The rainfall stemflow ratio ( P s f / P g ) was reduced from 12.6% to 8.9%. Despite relatively large changes in canopy structure, seasonal variation of the ratio of rainfall partitioned to interception was quite small. Rainfall interception loss accounted for nearly 12% of gross precipitation for both dry and wet seasons.
Neuronal tracing

Received 2 January 2003; accepted 29 January 2003 ABSTRACT The tracing of neural pathways continues to be an important concern for neuroanatomy. During the second half of the nineteenth century, at a time when the foundations of neuroanatomy were being established, tracing pathways often required laborious dissections by hand. Then, neuroanatomy experienced a methodological revolution in the beginning of the 1970s with the development of powerful techniques based on the axonal transport of tracers. Axonal tracing of neuronal pathways using anterograde and retrograde transport is available. Axonal transport can be combined with immunohistochemistry for the neurochemical characterization of specific neuronal pathways. After tracing, tissue is collected following appropriate survival time for the tracer to be transported. Immunohistochemical methods, virus immunolabeling or autoradiography at the axon terminals are used for expressing the tracers. Retrograde axonal transport is used by certain viruses (e.g., herpes and pseudorabies virus) to spread from one neuron to the next in a chain of neurons (transneuronal transfer). It is also the method whereby toxins (e.g., tetanus) are transported from the periphery into the central nervous system. This has led to the idea that viral tracing may be an important way as a possible gene delivery method for the gene therapy in nervous system diseases.
Assessing the relationship between spatial features derived from high resolution satellite imagery and census variables in Accra, Ghana

People living within cities tend to live near others who have similar characteristics such as socioeconomic status, religion or ethnicity. Generally the characteristics of these spatial groups manifest themselves at the neighborhood level and they live in similar dwellings. In this study we examine the ability to use spatial features and spectral information, derived from high spatial resolution satellite data, to map variations in dwellings to determine the amount of information we can derive about the people living within the city of Accra, Ghana. The spatial features examined are line support regions, PanTex, Histogram of Oriented Gradients, Local Binary Patterns, Hough and Fourier transforms, and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). Results indicate that there are strong correlations between multiple spatial features and census variables at the neighborhood scale. This indicates that the spatial information derived from imagery can be used to map population characteristics at within city spatial scales.
MicroRNAs in clear cell renal cell carcinoma: biological functions and applications

MicroRNAs (miRs) are small noncoding RNAs that govern many biological processes. They frequently acquire a gain or a loss of function in cancer and hence play a causative role in the development and progression of neoplasms. They could be used as biomarkers to improve our knowledge on diagnosis, prognosis and drug resistance, and to attempt therapeutic approaches in several types of cancer including clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC). ccRCC is the most predominant subtype of RCC that accounts for about 90% of all renal cancers. Since ccRCC is generally asymptomatic until very late, it is difficult to diagnose early. Moreover, in the absence of preventive treatments for metastatic ccRCC after surgical resection of the primary cancer, predictive prognostic biomarkers are needed in order to achieve appropriate therapies. Herein the role of miRs in the biology of ccRCC and the potential applications of these molecules are discussed. Moreover, future applications in the diagnostic and prognostic field, as well as their impact on drug response and therapeutic targets are also explored. Their use in clinical practice as molecular biomarkers alone, or in combination with other biological markers could accelerate progress, help design personalized therapies, limit side effects, and improve quality of life of ccRCC patients.
Employing Realistic Propagation Maps for Resource Allocation Strategies in Cellular Networks Master of Science

Within the last decade, Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing(OFDM) has been considered as the most promising transmission and multiple-access scheme for the 4th generation of wireless networks including 3GPP LTE and WiMAX. OFDMA has the feature of exibility in radio resource allocation as well as exploiting frequency and multi-user diversity. A key limitation of OFDM-based system is inter-cell interference, which exists if the same subcarriers are used by neighboring cells simultaneously, leading to degradation of network performance. Thus, various approaches such as power control, spatial techniques, interference cancellation techniques, new decoding algorithms and resource allocation have been introduced into multi-cell OFDMA networks leading to an active research area of inter-cell interference mitigation. The objective of this thesis is to utilize the propagation maps for resource allocation in cellular networks and nd an Adaptive Soft Frequency Reuse(ASFR) scheme for Inter-cell Interference(ICI) coordination which can improve the system performance. Propagation maps are a kind of pre-calculated data which provide information on average channel gains for di erent coordinates of a certain environment. Using these propagation maps and employing techniques such as Global Positioning System(GPS) to detect the position of a terminal in a network, signaling overhead and delays resulting from channel state feedbacks from terminals to base stations can be signi cantly reduced and it provides the system a possibility to be able to adapt to the change of tra c load. In this thesis, a centralized multi-cell scheduling system is provided and the ICI coordination is modeled to maximize the worst user's performance based on the average channel gains. This model is found to be able to adapt to di erent distributions of the tra c load and improve overall system performance for the data stream tra c, such as Voice over Internet Protocol(VoIP).
Distributed Traffic Management System

This paper aims to offer a potential solution to the traffic management problem. In order to achieve this goal we considered implementing a distributed simulator that brings together a great variety of traffic environments. By adjusting some set of parameters of the simulation, we can get an improvement on average waiting time for many crowded infrastructures, traffic fluency being a major criterion we take into account regarding the optimality of the solution. Our model incorporates a central monitoring unit that holds all the traffic information needed for the traffic lights to act in an adaptive way.
Exploratory Analysis of Exercise Adherence Patterns With Sedentary Pregnant Women

Background: It is not well understood how sedentary women who wish to engage in regular exercise adhere to interventions during pregnancy and what factors may influence adherence over time. Objective: The aim of this study was to examine longitudinal patterns of pregnant women's adherence to exercise. Methods: Exploratory secondary data analyses were carried out with 124 previously sedentary pregnant women (ages 31 ± 5 years; 85% non-Hispanic White) from a randomized controlled trial. Daily exercise logs (n = 92) from 18 through 35 weeks of gestation were explored using linear regression, functional data, and principal component analyses. Results: Adherence decreased as gestation week increased (p < .001). The top adherers maintained levels of adherence, and the bottom adherers decreased levels of adherence. And adherence pattern was influenced by types of exercise throughout the study period. Discussion: Exercise behavior patterns were explored in a randomized controlled trial study, using chronometric data on exercise attendance. A new analytic approach revealed that sedentary pregnant women may adopt exercise habits differently from other populations.
An antigen receptor-driven, interleukin 2-independent pathway for proliferation of murine cytolytic T lymphocyte clones

Proliferation of T lymphocytes can be induced by IL-2, either through an autocrine pathway in which the responding cell produces its own IL-2 or through an exocrine pathway in which IL-2 secreted by Th stimulates proliferation of IL-2-dependent CTL. However, proliferation of at least some CTL clones, such as CTL L3 and CTL dB45, also can be induced by stimulation of the antigen receptor in the absence of IL-2. Stimulation of these cloned CTL with T cell-depleted allogeneic spleen cells, allogeneic tumor cells, or immobilized mAb reactive with the T cell antigen receptor (TCR) induced thymidine incorporation, entry into cell cycle, and secretion of macrophage activating factor, but these stimuli did not induce the secretion of IL-2. Several observations indicated that such proliferation of cloned CTL induced by stimulation of the TCR was independent of IL-2; IL-2 could not be detected in supernatants from stimulated CTL cells. mAbs reactive with the murine IL-2-R efficiently blocked IL-2-mediated thymidine incorporation in cloned CTL and Th, but had no inhibitory effect on TCR-driven thymidine incorporation in the CTL clones. TCR-driven thymidine incorporation in cloned Th L2 cells was profoundly inhibited by these antibodies, indicating the operation of an IL-2-mediated autocrine pathway for proliferation in this cloned Th. When antibodies to the TCR were used to stimulate cloned CTL and Th, IFN-gamma mRNA was easily shown in the cloned CTL and Th. Although IL-2 mRNA could be detected in the cloned Th, it was never observed in the cloned CTL. These findings provide evidence for the existence of a TCR-mediated, IL-2-independent pathway for induction of cellular proliferation in cloned murine CTL.
Online Depression Communities: Members' Interests and Perceived Benefits

Most previous studies on online communities (peer-to-peer support groups) dedicated to people with depression related to members as a homogeneous group, and none examined differences between segments based on psychographic measures. Such segmentation may be most helpful in understanding members' participation patterns and explaining the benefits members gain from participation. This study aimed to explore whether members of online depression communities vary in their interests in issues discussed in the communities, and if so, whether groups with different interests also differ with regard to the benefits gained from participation. The study was based on an online survey of 793 members of 16 online depression communities. Results identified four member groups: concerned about daily living, information seekers, interested in all topics, and relatively less involved. There were very few differences between the groups in background characteristics, participation patterns, and level of depression. However, results indicated significant differences between the groups in perceived benefits, as the interested in all topics reported more “online support” and “offline improvement” than the information seekers and the relatively less involved, and more “offline improvement” than the concerned about daily living. Assuming that the reported interests reflected actual involvement in discussions of different issues, the findings suggest that combining supportive and informative discussions is more beneficial than attending to only one type of discussion, and stress the importance of informative discussions.
Variation of interfacial properties during carbon nanotube pullout from natural rubber

ABSTRACT The present study predicts the interfacial properties of the single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) reinforced natural rubber (NR) nanocomposites by using a series of pullout simulation using molecular dynamics. Material Studio 2017 has been used as the tool for predicting all the properties. The variations in the potential energy and the pull-out force for the SWCNT reinforced NR nanocomposites was determined and the effects of nanotube length and diameter were studied for the pullout. In addition, the interfacial shear stress (ISS) and the surface energy density (γ) were predicted. The results showed that the incremental energy change increased sharply to a peak value at a specified displacement in the first stage and remained steady between specified peak values in the second stage. The average energy increment in the second stage (∆EII) was independent of the nanotube length. ISS and γ decreased with increasing SWCNT diameter and got converged at 113.5 MPa and 0.1 N/m, respectively. Graphical Abstract
Effect of Resistance to Bacillus thuringiensis Cotton on Pink Bollworm (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae) Response to Sex Pheromone

Abstract Fitness costs associated with resistance to transgenic crops producing toxins from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) could reduce male response to pheromone traps. Such costs would cause underestimation of resistance frequency if monitoring was based on analysis of males caught in pheromone traps. To develop a DNA-based resistance monitoring program for pink bollworm, Pectinophora gossypiella (Saunders) (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae), we compared the response to pheromone traps of males with and without cadherin alleles associated with resistance to Bt cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.). When irradiated males from two hybrid laboratory strains with an intermediate frequency of resistance alleles were released in large field cages, the probability of capture in pheromone traps was not lower for males with resistance alleles than for males without resistance alleles. These results suggest that analysis of trapped males would not underestimate the frequency of resistance. As the time males spent in traps in the field increased from 3 to 15 d, the success of DNA amplification declined from 100 to 30%. Thus, the efficiency of a DNA-based resistance monitoring program would be improved by analyzing males remaining in traps for 3 d or less.
Selecting the Top-k Discriminative Features Using Principal Component Analysis

Feature selection is important for dimensionality reduction, analysis, and pattern discovery applications. We consider multivariate time series data and propose an unsupervised learning technique to identify the top-k discriminative features. The proposed technique uses statistics drawn from the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of the input data to leverage the relative importance of the principal components along with the coefficients within the principal directions of the data to uncover the ranking of the features. We conduct numerous experiments using various benchmark datasets to study the performance of the proposed technique in terms of the discriminant power of the selected features and its ability to minimize the original data reconstruction error. Compared to major existing techniques, our results indicate increased accuracy and efficiency. We also show that our technique yields improved classification accuracy.
Compact 28 GHz antenna array with full polarization flexibility under yaw, pitch, roll motions

Novel antenna design technologies are devised at 28 GHz to realize vertical and horizontal polarizations and its combined radiation characteristics using ultra-thin printed circuit board (PCB) substrates. Details of the design methodologies, simulation and measurement results are presented and discussed in relation to the targeted mmWave 5G mobile application.
Passive Q-switching of femtosecond-laser-written Tm:KLu(WO4)2 waveguide lasers by graphene and MoS2 saturable absorbers

A buried depressed-index channel waveguide with a circular cladding and a core diameter of 40 μm is fabricated in a bulk monoclinic 3 at. % Tm:KLu(WO4)2 crystal by femtosecond direct laser writing. In the continuous-wave regime, the Tm waveguide laser generates ∼210 mW at 1849.6 nm with a slope efficiency η of 40.8%. Passively Q-switched operation is achieved by inserting transmission-type 2D saturable absorbers (SAs) based on few-layer graphene and MoS2. Using the graphene-SA, a maximum average output power of ∼25 mW is generated at 1844.8 nm. The pulse characteristics (duration/energy) are 88 ns/18 nJ at a repetition rate of 1.39 MHz.
CMT-QA: Quality-Aware Adaptive Concurrent Multipath Data Transfer in Heterogeneous Wireless Networks

Mobile devices equipped with multiple network interfaces can increase their throughput by making use of parallel transmissions over multiple paths and bandwidth aggregation, enabled by the stream control transport protocol (SCTP). However, the different bandwidth and delay of the multiple paths will determine data to be received out of order and in the absence of related mechanisms to correct this, serious application-level performance degradations will occur. This paper proposes a novel quality-aware adaptive concurrent multipath transfer solution (CMT-QA) that utilizes SCTP for FTP-like data transmission and real-time video delivery in wireless heterogeneous networks. CMT-QA monitors and analyses regularly each path's data handling capability and makes data delivery adaptation decisions to select the qualified paths for concurrent data transfer. CMT-QA includes a series of mechanisms to distribute data chunks over multiple paths intelligently and control the data traffic rate of each path independently. CMT-QA's goal is to mitigate the out-of-order data reception by reducing the reordering delay and unnecessary fast retransmissions. CMT-QA can effectively differentiate between different types of packet loss to avoid unreasonable congestion window adjustments for retransmissions. Simulations show how CMT-QA outperforms existing solutions in terms of performance and quality of service.
Zograscopic viewing

The “zograscope” is a “visual aid” (commonly known as “optical machine” in the 18th century) invented in the mid-18th century, and in general use until the early 20th century. It was intended to view single pictures (thus not stereographic pairs) with both eyes. The optics approximately eliminates the physiological cues (binocular disparity, vergence, accommodation, movement parallax, and image blur) that might indicate the flatness of the picture surface. The spatial structure of pictorial space is due to the remaining pictorial cues. As a consequence, many (or perhaps most) observers are aware of a heightened “plasticity” of the pictorial content for zograscopic as compared with natural viewing. We discuss the optics of the zograscope in some detail. Such an analysis is not available in the literature, whereas common “explanations” of the apparatus are evidently nonsensical. We constructed a zograscope, using modern parts, and present psychophysical data on its performance.
Inhibition of MD2‐dependent inflammation attenuates the progression of non‐alcoholic fatty liver disease

Non‐alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) can progress to the more serious non‐alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), characterized by inflammatory injury and fibrosis. The pathogenic basis of NAFLD progressing to NASH is currently unknown, but growing evidence suggests MD2 (myeloid differentiation factor 2), an accessory protein of TLR4, is an important signalling component contributing to this disease. We evaluated the effectiveness of the specific MD2 inhibitor, L6H21, in reducing inflammatory liver injury in a relevant high‐fat diet (HFD) mouse model of NASH and in the palmitic acid (PA)‐stimulated human liver cell line (HepG2). For study, genetic knockout (MD2−/−) mice were fed a HFD or control diet for 24 weeks, or wild‐type mice placed on a similar diet regimen and treated with L6H21 for the last 8 or 16 weeks. Results indicated that MD2 inhibition with L6H21 was as effective as MD2 knockout in preventing the HFD‐induced hepatic lipid accumulation, pro‐fibrotic changes and expression of pro‐inflammatory molecules. Direct challenge of HepG2 with PA (200 μM) increased MD2‐TLR4 complex formation and expression of pro‐inflammatory and pro‐fibrotic genes and L6H21 pre‐treatment prevented these PA‐induced responses. Interestingly, MD2 knockout or L6H21 increased expression of the anti‐inflammatory molecule, PPARγ, in liver tissue and the liver cell line. Our results provide further evidence for the critical role of MD2 in the development of NASH and conclude that MD2 could be a potential therapeutic target for NAFLD/NASH treatment. Moreover, the small molecule MD2 inhibitor, L6H21, was an effective and selective investigative agent for future mechanistic studies of MD2.
FACE DETECTION BY HAAR CASCADE CLASSIFIER WITH SIMPLE AND COMPLEX BACKGROUNDS IMAGES USING OPENCV IMPLEMENTATION

This paper considers the problem of face detection in first attempt using haar cascade classifier from images containing simple and complex backgrounds. It is one of the best detector in terms of reliability and speed. Experiments were carried out on standard database i.e. Indian face database (IFD) and Caltech database. All images are frontal face images because side face views are harder to detect with this technique. Opencv 2.4. 2 is used to implement the haar cascade classifier. We achieved 100% face detection rate on Indian database containing simple background and 93.24% detection rate on Caltech database containing complex background. Haar cascade classifier provides high accuracy even the images are highly affected by the illumination. The haar cascade classifier has shown superior performance with simple background images.