Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Text Segmentation from Complex Background Using Sparse Representations

A novel text segmentation method from complex background is presented in this paper. The idea is inspired by the recent development in searching for the sparse signal representation among a family of over-complete atoms, which is called a dictionary. We assume that the image under investigation is composed of two components: the foreground text and the complex background. We further assume that the latter can be modeled as a piece-wise smooth function. Then we choose two dictionaries, where the first one gives sparse representation to one component and non-sparse representation to another while the second one does the opposite. By looking for the sparse representations in each dictionary, we can decompose the image into the two composing components. After that, text segmentation can be easily achieved by applying simple thresholding to the text component. Preliminary experiments show some promising results.
Building a Clinical Research Network in Trauma Orthopaedics: The Major Extremity Trauma Research Consortium (METRC)

Objectives: Lessons learned from battle have been fundamental to advancing the care of injuries that occur in civilian life. Equally important is the need to further refine these advances in civilian practice, so they are available during future conflicts. The Major Extremity Trauma Research Consortium (METRC) was established to address these needs. Methods: METRC is a network of 22 core level I civilian trauma centers and 4 core military treatment centers—with the ability to expand patient recruitment to more than 30 additional satellite trauma centers for the purpose of conducting multicenter research studies relevant to the treatment and outcomes of orthopaedic trauma sustained in the military. Early measures of success of the Consortium pertain to building of an infrastructure to support the network, managing the regulatory process, and enrolling and following patients in multiple studies. Results: METRC has been successful in maintaining the engagement of several leading, high volume, level I trauma centers that form the core of METRC; together they operatively manage 15,432 major fractures annually. METRC is currently funded to conduct 18 prospective studies that address 6 priority areas. The design and implementation of these studies are managed through a single coordinating center. As of December 1, 2015, a total of 4560 participants have been enrolled. Conclusions: Success of METRC to date confirms the potential for civilian and military trauma centers to collaborate on critical research issues and leverage the strength that comes from engaging patients and providers from across multiple centers.
Effect of culture media on expansion properties of human umbilical cord matrix-derived mesenchymal cells.

BACKGROUND AIMS Mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC) have been isolated from a number of different tissues, including umbilical cord. Because of the lack of a uniform approach to human umbilical cord matrix-derived mesenchymal (hUCM) cell expansion, we attempted to identify the optimum conditions for the production of a high quantity of hUCM cells by comparing two media. METHODS We compared the ability of Dulbecco's Modified Eagle's Medium/F12 (DMEM/F12) and Alpha Minimum Essential Medium (α-MEM) with Glutamax (GL) (α-MEM/GL) to expand hUCM cells. For this purpose, hUCM cells were cultured in plates containing different culture media supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum (FBS). Culture dishes were left undisturbed for 10-14 days to allow propagation of the newly formed hUCM cells. The expansion properties, CD marker expression, differentiation potential, population doubling time (PDT) and cell activity were compared between the two groups. RESULTS The hUCM cells harvested from each group were positive for MSC markers, including CD44, CD90 and CD105, while they were negative for the hematopoietic cell surface marker CD34. Differentiation into adipogenic and osteogenic lineages was confirmed for both treatments. Cell activity was higher in the α-MEM/GL group than the DMEM/F12 group. PDT was calculated to be 60 h for the DMEM/F12 group, while for the α-MEM/GL group it was 47 h. CONCLUSIONS Our data reveal that α-MEM/GL with 10% FBS supports hUCM cell growth more strongly than DMEM/F12 with 10% FBS.
Elevated NMDA receptor levels and enhanced postsynaptic long-term potentiation induced by prenatal exposure to valproic acid

Valproic acid (VPA) is a powerful teratogen causing birth defects in humans, including autism spectrum disorder (ASD), if exposure occurs during the first trimester of embryogenesis. Learning and memory alterations are common symptoms of ASD, but underlying molecular and synaptic alterations remain unknown. We therefore studied plasticity-related mechanisms in the neocortex of 2-week-old rats prenatally exposed to VPA and tested for changes in glutamate-mediated transmission and plasticity in the neocortex. We found a selective overexpression of NR2A and NR2B subunits of NMDA receptors, as well as the commonly linked kinase calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II. Synaptic plasticity experiments between pairs of pyramidal neurons revealed an augmented postsynaptic form of long-term potentiation. These results indicate that VPA significantly enhances NMDA receptor-mediated transmission and causes increased plasticity in the neocortex. Enhanced plasticity introduces a surprising perspective to the potential molecular and synaptic mechanisms involved in children prenatally exposed to VPA.
Viral load and heterosexual transmission of human immunodeficiency virus type 1. Rakai Project Study Group.

BACKGROUND AND METHODS We examined the influence of viral load in relation to other risk factors for the heterosexual transmission of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1). In a community-based study of 15,127 persons in a rural district of Uganda, we identified 415 couples in which one partner was HIV-1-positive and one was initially HIV-1-negative and followed them prospectively for up to 30 months. The incidence of HIV-1 infection per 100 person-years among the initially seronegative partners was examined in relation to behavioral and biologic variables. RESULTS The male partner was HIV-1-positive in 228 couples, and the female partner was HIV-1-positive in 187 couples. Ninety of the 415 initially HIV-1-negative partners seroconverted (incidence, 11.8 per 100 person-years). The rate of male-to-female transmission was not significantly different from the rate of female-to-male transmission (12.0 per 100 person-years vs. 11.6 per 100 person-years). The incidence of seroconversion was highest among the partners who were 15 to 19 years of age (15.3 per 100 person-years). The incidence was 16.7 per 100 person-years among 137 uncircumcised male partners, whereas there were no seroconversions among the 50 circumcised male partners (P<0.001). The mean serum HIV-1 RNA level was significantly higher among HIV-1-positive subjects whose partners seroconverted than among those whose partners did not seroconvert (90,254 copies per milliliter vs. 38,029 copies per milliliter, P=0.01). There were no instances of transmission among the 51 subjects with serum HIV-1 RNA levels of less than 1500 copies per milliliter; there was a significant dose-response relation of increased transmission with increasing viral load. In multivariate analyses of log-transformed HIV-1 RNA levels, each log increment in the viral load was associated with a rate ratio of 2.45 for seroconversion (95 percent confidence interval, 1.85 to 3.26). CONCLUSIONS The viral load is the chief predictor of the risk of heterosexual transmission of HIV-1, and transmission is rare among persons with levels of less than 1500 copies of HIV-1 RNA per milliliter.
Cathelicidins Have Direct Antiviral Activity against Respiratory Syncytial Virus In Vitro and Protective Function In Vivo in Mice and Humans

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a leading cause of respiratory tract infection in infants, causing significant morbidity and mortality. No vaccine or specific, effective treatment is currently available. A more complete understanding of the key components of effective host response to RSV and novel preventative and therapeutic interventions are urgently required. Cathelicidins are host defense peptides, expressed in the inflamed lung, with key microbicidal and modulatory roles in innate host defense against infection. In this article, we demonstrate that the human cathelicidin LL-37 mediates an antiviral effect on RSV by inducing direct damage to the viral envelope, disrupting viral particles and decreasing virus binding to, and infection of, human epithelial cells in vitro. In addition, exogenously applied LL-37 is protective against RSV-mediated disease in vivo, in a murine model of pulmonary RSV infection, demonstrating maximal efficacy when applied concomitantly with virus. Furthermore, endogenous murine cathelicidin, induced by infection, has a fundamental role in protection against disease in vivo postinfection with RSV. Finally, higher nasal levels of LL-37 are associated with protection in a healthy human adult RSV infection model. These data lead us to propose that cathelicidins are a key, nonredundant component of host defense against pulmonary infection with RSV, functioning as a first point of contact antiviral shield and having additional later-phase roles in minimizing the severity of disease outcome. Consequently, cathelicidins represent an inducible target for preventative strategies against RSV infection and may inform the design of novel therapeutic analogs for use in established infection.
Key Role for Activin B in Cellular Transformation after Loss of the von Hippel-Lindau Tumor Suppressor

ABSTRACT The von Hippel-Lindau tumor suppressor gene (VHL) is mutated in clear cell renal cell carcinomas (RCC), leading to the activation of hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF)-mediated gene transcription. Several VHL/HIF targets, such as glycolysis, angiogenesis, cell growth, and chemotaxis of tumor cells, have been implicated in the transformed phenotype of RCC-regulating properties. Here, we show that VHL suppresses key features of cell transformation through downregulation of the HIF-dependent expression of activin B, a member of the transforming growth factor β superfamily. Activin B expression is repressed by restoration of VHL in VHL-deficient RCC cells and upregulated by hypoxia. RCC tumor samples show increased expression of activin B compared to that in the normal kidney. VHL increases cell adhesion to the extracellular matrix, promotes cell flattening, and reduces invasiveness. These effects are completely phenocopied by RNA interference-mediated knockdown of activin B and reverted by treatment with recombinant activin B. Finally, knockdown of activin B reduces tumor growth of RCC cells in nude mice. Our data indicate that activin B is a key mediator of VHL/HIF-induced transformation in RCC.
A fundamental parameters approach to X-ray line-profile fitting

A convolution approach to X-ray powder line-profile fitting is developed in which the line shape is synthesized from the Cu Kα emission profile, the dimensions of the diffractometer and the physical variables of the specimen. In addition to the integrated intensities and 2θ positions of the line profiles, the parameters that may be fitted include the receiving-slit width, the receiving-slit length, the X-ray-source size, the angle of divergence of the incident beam, the X-ray attenuation coefficient of the specimen and the crystallite size. This is a self-consistent approach to fitting as the instrumental parameters are usually known by direct measurement. To minimize correlation between refined instrumental parameters, profiles at high and low 2θ values should be fitted simultaneously. The Cu Kα emission profile used in this work is based on recent monolithic double-crystal spectrometer measurements that have identified a doublet structure in both the Kα1 and Kα2 components. Fast and accurate convolution procedures have been developed and a mixture of multilinear regression and Gauss–Newton non-linear least squares with numerical differentials is used for fitting the profiles. The method is evaluated by fitting powder diffraction data from well crystallized specimens of MgO and Y3Al5O12 (YAG). Testing has also been carried out by examining the changes in the fitted values after altering various instrumental parameters (e.g. receiving-slit width, detector defocus, receiving-slit length and inclusion of a monochromator).
Hadrian: The Restless Emperor

Preface. List of illustrations. List of maps. Introduction: The Emperor Hadrian. 1. A Childhood in Flavian Rome 2. The Old Dominion 3. The Military Tribune 4. Principatus et Libertas 5. The Young General 6. Archon at Athens 7. The Parthian War 8. The New Ruler 9. Return to Rome 10. To the German Frontier 11. Hadrian's Wall 12. A New Augustus 13. Return to the East 14. A Summer in Asia 15. A Year in Greece 16. Pater Patriae 17. Africa 18. Hadrianus Olympius 19. Death in the Nile 20. Athens and Jerusalem 21. The Bitter End Epilogue: Animula Vagula Blandula Stemma. Abbreviations and Notes. Bibliography. Index: (Persons Peoples & Places Subject)
Mental Maps: Die kognitive Kartierung des Kontinents als Forschungsgegenstand der europäischen Geschichte Mental Maps

Raumbezogene Begriffe wie 'Europa', der 'Westen' oder der 'Mittelmeerraum' pragen nicht nur die politische Alltagssprache, sondern auch den historiographischen Diskurs. Mit der Geschichte solcher kulturell und historisch bedingter Vorstellungen von der regionalen Gliederung der Erde befasst sich die historische Mental-Maps-Forschung. Im folgenden Beitrag wird das aus der Kognitionspsychologie entlehnte Konzept der 'cognitive / mental map' vorgestellt und sein heuristisches Potential fur die Geschichtsschreibung erortert. Am Beispiel der 'Erfindung' Osteuropas wird schlieslich ein besonders intensiv diskutierter Gegenstand dieses Forschungsgebiets beleuchtet.
A comparative study of Pakistani and British press regarding the framing of Afghanistan war 2001

This study analyzed how Afghanistan war 2001 was framed by Pakistani and British press. What frames were employed by the newspapers of these two countries in the reporting of Afghanistan attack.For this purpose four newspapers were chosen from Britian and Pakistan namely The Dawn, The Nation, The Independent and The Guardian.The editorilas of these newspapers were analysed by employing the technique of thematic analysis. By analysing the data, it was found that Pakistani and British press mostly framed the coverage of Afghanistan war in a negative stance but at certain points Britsh press adopted positive or neutral stance.Anti war frame was dominnently employed by Pakistani newspapers but humanitrian and rebuilding frames were also observed.Likewise, Britsh press mostly covered Afghanistan under anti war frame but at some points pro war frame was also observed.Overall, it was noted that Pakistani press was more dominated by opposotional and critical themes than British newspapers.
Combining Feature and Model-Based Adaptation of RNNLMs for Multi-Genre Broadcast Speech Recognition

Recurrent neural network language models (RNNLMs) have consistently outperformed n-gram language models when used in automatic speech recognition (ASR). This is because RNNLMs provide robust parameter estimation through the use of a continuous-space representation of words, and can generally model longer context dependencies than n-grams. The adaptation of RNNLMs to new domains remains an active research area and the two main approaches are: feature-based adaptation, where the input to the RNNLM is augmented with auxiliary features; and model-based adaptation, which includes model fine-tuning and introduction of adaptation layer(s) in the network. This paper explores the properties of both types of adaptation on multi-genre broadcast speech recognition. Two hybrid adaptation techniques are proposed, namely the finetuning of feature-based RNNLMs and the use of a feature-based adaptation layer. A method for the semi-supervised adaptation of RNNLMs, using topic model-based genre classification, is also presented and investigated. The gains obtained with RNNLM adaptation on a system trained on 700h. of speech are consistent using both RNNLMs trained on a small (10Mwords) and large set (660M words), with 10% perplexity and 2% word error rate improvements on a 28:3h. test set.
Automatic extrinsic camera parameters calibration using convolutional neural networks

Camera calibration is essential for accurate computer vision, and automatic calibration of some extrinsic parameters is needed in case the camera is placed on a mobile platform. The pitch and yaw angles, which are the most likely ones to change as the vehicle moves, can be inferred from the image coordinates of the vanishing point (VP). In this paper we present an artificial neural network approach for detecting the vanishing point position in road traffic scenarios. The network is trained using 2500 images which are first automatically annotated using a classical vanishing point detection algorithm, and then manually validated. The training and test datasets are made publicly available. The trained network was tested on more than 250 images not previously seen by the network, locating the VP accurately in more than 90% of the cases.
Non-intrusive Occupancy Inferencing using Opportunistically Available Sensor Sources

Nowadays, most commercial and residential buildings are instrumented with a variety of meters and sensors as part of a utility infrastructure installed by service providers. This thesis explores the extent to which readily available sensor information may be used to make occupancy-related inferences. Particularly, we focus on inferences which can be made from smart electric meters, water flow sensors, and network traffic monitors and have gathered several months worth of relevant data from two distinct settings. We explore various machine learning techniques to evaluate a service provider's ability to make privacy-invasive inferences. Our results show that, even with coarse-grained sensor data, we are able to make occupancy related inferences significantly better than naive prediction strategies where sensor information is not taken into account.
Quantitative characterization of tissue globotetraosylceramides in a rat model of polycystic kidney disease by PrimaDrop sample preparation and indirect high-performance thin layer chromatography-matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time-of-flight-mass spectrometry with automated data acquisi

Glycosphingolipids (GSL) have been associated with a variety of diseases, including cancer and autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD). In contrast to glucosylceramide and gangliosides, alterations in complex neutral GSLs such as globotetraosylceramide (Gb4Cer) have not been investigated in ADPKD yet, and mass spectrometry analysis of Gb4Cer from tissue extracts remains challenging. To this end, we introduce PrimaDrop as an improved and widely applicable sample preparation method for automated matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-mass spectrometry (MALDI-MS) analysis of lipid extracts, which promotes homogeneous cocrystallization and enables relative quantification by indirect thin layer chromatography (TLC)-MALDI-time-of-flight (TOF)-MS against an internal bradykinin standard. Application of the method for detailed investigation of Gb4Cer isoforms in kidneys of an ADPKD rat model revealed increased levels of sphingoid base-containing isoforms in cystic kidneys, whereas changes were subtle for Gb4Cer-containing phytosphingoid bases. We furthermore established an absolute LC-ESI-MS/MS quantification method and demonstrate that absolute quantities of Gb4Cer correlate well with relative quantities obtained by indirect TLC-MALDI-TOF-MS. Taken together, our study proposes an effective sample preparation method for automated analysis of lipid extracts and TLC eluates and suggests that indirect high-performace (HP)TLC-MALDI-TOF-MS with automated data acquisition is a viable option for analysis of neutral glycosphingolipids and that Gb4Cer may play a role in the pathogenesis of ADPKD.
Evaluation of a Panel of Single-Nucleotide Polymorphisms in miR-146a and miR-196a2 Genomic Regions in Patients with Chronic Periodontitis.

BACKGROUND Periodontitis is an inflammatory disease caused by bacterial triggering of the host immune-inflammatory response, which in turn is regulated by microRNAs (miRNA). Polymorphisms in the miRNA pathways affect the expression of several target genes such as tumor necrosis factor-α and interleukins, which are associated with progression of disease. OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to identify the association between the MiR-146a single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) (rs2910164, rs57095329, and rs73318382), the MiR-196a2 (rs11614913) SNP and chronic periodontitis. METHODS Genotyping was performed for the MiR-146a (rs2910164, rs57095329, and rs73318382) and the MiR-196a2 (rs11614913) polymorphisms in 180 healthy controls and 190 cases of chronic periodontitis by the direct Sanger sequencing technique. The strength of the association between the polymorphisms and chronic periodontitis was evaluated using logistic regression analysis. Haplotype and linkage analyses among the polymorphisms was performed. Multifactorial dimensionality reduction was performed to determine epistatic interaction among the polymorphisms. RESULTS The MiR-196a2 polymorphism revealed a significant inverse association with chronic periodontitis. Haplotype analysis of MiR-146a and MiR-196a2 polymorphisms revealed 13 different combinations, of which 5 were found to have an inverse association with chronic periodontitis. CONCLUSION The present study has demonstrated a significant inverse association of MiR-196a2 polymorphism with chronic periodontitis.
A Novel Phase-Shift Dual Full-Bridge Converter With Full Soft-Switching Range and Wide Conversion Range

This paper proposes a novel phase-shift dual full-bridge converter with shared leading leg and dual outputs in series. Full soft-switching range of the active switches can be achieved based on the parallel full-bridge configuration of the converter, and the dual outputs of the proposed converter are connected in series. The output voltage can be regulated by primary-side phase-shift and secondary-side phase-shift dual-mode control scheme, and a wide conversion range can be achieved. Furthermore, the circulating current in the primary-side full-bridge circuits can be extinguished. Therefore, the proposed converter would be useful for constant peak power and wide output voltage range applications. Steady-state operation and relevant analysis results of the proposed converter are presented and verified on a 1.5-kW hardware prototype. The experimental results show that the proposed converter can achieve a peak efficiency of 95.3%.
PinPoint: An algorithm for enhancing diagnostic resolution using capture cycle power information

Conventional ATPG tools help in detecting only the equivalence class to which a fault belongs and not the fault itself. This paper presents PinPoint, a technique that further divides the equivalence class into smaller sets based on the capture power consumed by the circuit under test in the presence of different faults in it, thus aiding in narrowing down on the fault. Applying the technique on ITC benchmark circuits yielded significant improvement in diagnostic resolution.