Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Manuscript: Stable Running with Segmented Legs ¤

In human and animal running spring-like leg behavior is found. In a spring-mass model, running proves to be self-stable in terms of external perturbations or variations in leg properties (e.g. landing angle). However, biological limbs are not made of springs but, rather, consist of segments where springlike behavior can be localized at joint level. Here, we use a two-segment leg model to investigate the effects of leg compliance originating from joint level on running stability. Due to leg geometry a nonlinear relationship between leg force and leg compression is found. In contrast to the linear leg spring, the segmented leg is capable of reducing the minimum speed for self-stable running from 3.5 m/s in the spring-mass model to 1.5 m/s for almost straight joint configurations which is below the preferred transition speed from human walking to running (¼ 2 m/s). At moderate speeds the tolerated range of landing angle is largely increased (17 degrees at 5 m/s) compared to the linear leg spring model (2 degrees). However, for fast running an increase of joint stiffness is required to compensate the mechanical disadvantage of larger leg compression. This could be achieved by nonlinear springs enhancing joint stiffness in fast running.
Compaction Algorithm for Precise Modular Context-Sensitive Points-to Analysis

Points-to analysis is a critical component of optimization and software engineering tools. A higher degree of precision in this analysis can significantly benefit such tools if it can be provided with a reasonably bounded analysis cost. The focus of this work is to enable a fully context-sensitive modular points-to analysis under the flow-insensitive and inclusionbased intraprocedural setting. Such a modular approach reduces the interprocedural problem to a series of intraprocedural ones. The main source of difficulty with such an approach is that the size of the module grows very quickly as they are built up as the bottom-up phase of the analysis proceeds. The main contribution of this work is compaction, an algorithm that produces a concise-yet-equivalent summary of a procedure’s module. It allows the modular points-to analysis to enjoy the full power of context sensitivity in a scalable fashion. Through empirical results, both the necessity and the effectiveness of the proposed techniques are demonstrated.
Autonomously Reconstructable Semi-Structured P2P Networks for File Sharing

We propose a semi-structured peer-to-peer (P2P) network for file sharing built from a structured P2P network as a basis for file search together with an unstructured P2P network for access load balancing. This semi-structured P2P network adopts a structured P2P network capable of providing reliable file search as its base structure. In addition, it makes lightly loaded nodes in the structured network construct unstructured P2P networks over which heavily loaded nodes can spread their access load. The semi-structured P2P network is required to dynamically reconstruct its network topology according to changes in node loadings and file search performance. We also propose an autonomic, distributed, and cooperative method for dynamically altering the network topology. In simulation experiments, we first obtain a network topology that ensures reliable file search and is optimal in terms of access load balancing. This is carried out under the (idealized) assumption that the load state of all nodes in the network can be obtained in advance. We also show that the proposed topology reconstruction method yields network topologies with almost the same performance as the optimal configuration.
The founding and application of pattern database for building recognition

The founding of building pattern database is the key technique of building recognition of high resolution remote sensing imagery. This paper founded a simple pattern database by extracting the characteristics of building in remote sensing imagery and summing up several building patterns. Next, on the basis of patterns from the pattern database, this paper used the wavelet descriptor to describe the characteristics of buildings and utilized its affine invariant to recognize them. Then an image of Peking University was taken as an example to do the experiment. The result proved the method of founding pattern database was feasible.
Ophthalmic artery chemosurgery for eyes with advanced retinoblastoma

ABSTRACT Background: Surgical removal of one or both eyes has been the most common way to treat children with retinoblastoma worldwide for more than 100 years. Ophthalmic artery chemosurgery (OAC) was introduced 10 years ago and it has been used as an alternative to enucleation for eyes with advanced retinoblastoma. The purpose of this report is to analyze our 9-year experience treating advanced retinoblastoma eyes with OAC. Materials and methods: Single-arm retrospective study from a single center of 226 eyes with eyes of retinoblastoma patients with advanced intraocular disease defined as both Reese-Ellsworth (RE) “Va” or ”Vb” and International Classification Retinoblastoma (ICRb) group “D” or ”E” (COG Classification). Ocular survival, patient survival, second cancers, and electroretinography (ERG) were assessed. Results: Ocular survival at five years for these advanced eyes was 70.2% (95% confidence interval, 57.3%–79.8%). When eyes were divided into groups either by RE classification or ICRb, no significant differences in ocular survival were seen. Ocular survival was significantly better in naïve compared to non-naïve eyes (80.2% vs 58.4%, p = 0.041). The ERG distribution was very similar before and after OAC treatment for the patient population that did not receive intravitreal chemotherapy. Three patients (1.5%) have developed metastatic retinoblastoma (previously reported) and were successfully treated (no deaths). Conclusion: Using OAC for advanced eyes (the majority of such eyes have been enucleated in the past) enables 70% 5-year ocular survival. Treated eyes have a similar ERG distribution before and after treatment. No patient has died of metastatic retinoblastoma.
Action and Adaptation: Lessons from Neurobiology and Challenges for Robot Cognitive Architectures

In this paper we review recent findings from neurobiology concerning action and adaptation, from the level of motor control up to the level of decision making. At the level of motor control, proposals concerning multiple forward and inverse internal models in the cerebellum are described. Particular consideration is devoted to the adaptive mechanisms of these models.Then, the decision making processes taking place in the basal ganglia and the orbitofrontal cortex are discussed. Under the light of recent findings, these two structures correspond to two levels of decision making with distinct characteristics.The amygdala plays an important role in these decision making processes, for it provides affective evaluation to the action options being considered, as well as an adaptive role in associating novel stimuli with affective states. Then, we discuss possible contributions that these findings may provide for the development of cognitive architectures for robots. In particular, we focus on the following issues: (1) the integration of information coming from different levels, with distinct natures and time frames (the binding problem), and (2) the nature of the described internal models, in the sense that they model the relationship of an embedded and embodied being with its environment. We finally discuss future directions for the research on cognitive architectures, taking into account the discussed neurobiological adaptive mechanisms.
Rapid Increases in Forest Understory Diversity and Productivity following a Mountain Pine Beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) Outbreak in Pine Forests

The current unprecedented outbreak of mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) in lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) forests of western Canada has resulted in a landscape consisting of a mosaic of forest stands at different stages of mortality. Within forest stands, understory communities are the reservoir of the majority of plant species diversity and influence the composition of future forests in response to disturbance. Although changes to stand composition following beetle outbreaks are well documented, information on immediate responses of forest understory plant communities is limited. The objective of this study was to examine the effects of D. ponderosae-induced tree mortality on initial changes in diversity and productivity of understory plant communities. We established a total of 110 1-m2 plots across eleven mature lodgepole pine forests to measure changes in understory diversity and productivity as a function of tree mortality and below ground resource availability across multiple years. Overall, understory community diversity and productivity increased across the gradient of increased tree mortality. Richness of herbaceous perennials increased with tree mortality as well as soil moisture and nutrient levels. In contrast, the diversity of woody perennials did not change across the gradient of tree mortality. Understory vegetation, namely herbaceous perennials, showed an immediate response to improved growing conditions caused by increases in tree mortality. How this increased pulse in understory richness and productivity affects future forest trajectories in a novel system is unknown.
Challenge in a Mathematics Classroom: Students' Motivation and Strategies in Project-Based Learning

We studied 14 fifth- and sixth-grade students' challenge seeking during project-based mathematics instruction in 1 classroom. We drew on 5 areas of research: academic risk taking, achievement goals, self-efficacy, volition, and affect. Data included students' responses to a tolerance for failure survey, an adaptive learning pattern survey, and 3 individual interviews about their actions during a math project. Qualitative and quantitative analyses suggested 2 patterns of student self-perceptions and behaviors: "challenge seekers" and "challenge avoiders. " Challenge seekers self-reported a tolerance for failure, a learning goal orientation, and a higher than average self-efficacy in math. Challenge avoiders self-reported a higher negative affect after failure, a more performance-focused goal orientation, a lower self-efficacy in math, and a greater use of surface strategies (i.e., strategies requiring minimal processing of information). We illustrate the consistency of these patterns and reveal the diversity within patterns with 4 descriptive cases. Although the surveys were useful in characterizing general patterns of challenge seeking, more individual and contextualized information is necessary for understanding how to support students engaged in challenging academic work, such as project-based learning.
Finding Good URLs: Aligning Entities in Knowledge Bases with Public Web Document Representations

In this paper we address the novel task of mapping entities from a knowledge base to public web documents. This task is of relevance for aligning structured data with web documents, e.g., for the purpose of providing equivalent human readable representations of entities or to detect and propagate changes on the web to the knowledge base. An alternative interpretation of the task is to find good public URLs for the entities in a knowledge base. In order to address the task, we adapt and investigate several approaches based on web search and link network analysis. We compare nine approaches including ordinary web search for the text label of an entity as well as link analysis strategies like HITS authority ranking or PageRank. We evaluate the approaches under the aspect of identifying URLs of documents which are good representations of a given entity. In general, our experiments show a significant advantage of label based web search over all other methods. Furthermore, we introduce a filtering technique leveraging semantic typings to boost the performance of virtually all methods.
Utilizing the ICF to Understand Depressive Symptomology in Multiple Sclerosis: An Exploratory Systematic Review

Purpose: Acceptance of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) in research and clinical practice has been delayed, despite its multiperspective approach to health measurement. This review utilized the ICF to examine evidence on the associations between depressive symptoms and psychosocial functioning in a patient cohort: multiple sclerosis (MS). Research Method: Forty-nine studies, involving 7,548 adults with relapsing or progressive forms of MS, were quantitatively evaluated. Data were categorized according to ICF domains: activities of individuals along with their participation in life areas and influential environmental and personal factors. Effect size estimates, in the form of Pearson’s r, 95% confidence intervals and Fail-safe Ns were calculated. Results: Depression severity was linked to reduced social activities and participation levels (29%, n = 14 studies). Limited quality and/or frequency of informal support from family and friends was also identified as an environmental barrier to participation (29%, n = 14 studies). Intrapersonal markers of depressive symptomatology (e.g., low self-efficacy, anxiety, poor coping, illness attitudes and beliefs) were routinely reported (53%, n = 29 studies). Conclusions: The ICF can help guide the selection of clinical measures to assess psychosocial functioning in adults with MS and highlight areas necessitating further research and/or intervention. For those reporting depressed mood, this might include interventions premised on supporting activity and participation in addition to reinforcing interpersonal strengths. To enhance the utility of the ICF in MS care, further research is needed to operationalize its domains and to map this framework onto existing measurement tools.
Autophagy facilitates secretion and protects against degeneration of the Harderian gland

The epithelial derived Harderian gland consists of 2 types of secretory cells. The more numerous type A cells are responsible for the secretion of lipid droplets, while type B cells produce dark granules of multilamellar bodies. The process of autophagy is constitutively active in the Harderian gland, as confirmed by our analysis of LC3 processing in GFP-LC3 transgenic mice. This process is compromised by epithelial deletion of Atg7. Morphologically, the Atg7 mutant glands are hypotrophic and degenerated, with highly vacuolated cells and pyknotic nuclei. The mutant glands accumulate lipid droplets coated with PLIN2 (perilipin 2) and contain deposits of cholesterol, ubiquitinated proteins, SQSTM1/p62 (sequestosome 1) positive aggregates and other metabolic products such as porphyrin. Immunofluorescence stainings show that distinct cells strongly aggregate both proteins and lipids. Electron microscopy of the Harderian glands reveals that its organized structure is compromised, and the presence of large intracellular lipid droplets and heterologous aggregates. We attribute the occurrence of large vacuoles to a malfunction in the formation of multilamellar bodies found in the less abundant type B Harderian gland cells. This defect causes the formation of large tertiary lysosomes of heterologous content and is accompanied by the generation of tight lamellar stacks of endoplasmic reticulum in a pseudo-crystalline form. To test the hypothesis that lipid and protein accumulation is the cause for the degeneration in autophagy-deficient Harderian glands, epithelial cells were treated with a combination of the proteasome inhibitor and free fatty acids, to induce aggregation of misfolded proteins and lipid accumulation, respectively. The results show that lipid accumulation indeed enhanced the toxicity of misfolded proteins and that this was even more pronounced in autophagy-deficient cells. Thus, we conclude autophagy controls protein and lipid catabolism and anabolism to facilitate bulk production of secretory vesicles of the Harderian gland.
Effect of N-acetylcysteine on cycling performance after intensified training.

PURPOSE This investigation examined the ergogenic effect of short-term oral N-acetylcysteine (NAC) supplementation and the associated changes in redox balance and inflammation during intense training. METHODS A double-blind randomized placebo-controlled crossover design was used to assess 9 d of oral NAC supplementation (1200 mg·d) in 10 well-trained triathletes. For each supplement trial (NAC and placebo), baseline venous blood and urine samples were taken, and a presupplementation cycle ergometer race simulation was performed. After the loading period, further samples were collected preexercise, postexercise, and 2 and 24 h after the postsupplementation cycle ergometer race simulation. Changes in total antioxidant capacity, ferric reducing ability of plasma, reduced glutathione, oxidized glutathione, thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances, interleukin 6, xanthine oxidase, hypoxanthine, monocyte chemotactic protein 1, nuclear factor κB, and urinary 15-isoprostane F2t concentration were assessed. The experimental procedure was repeated with the remaining supplement after a 3-wk washout. Eight participants completed both supplementation trials. RESULTS NAC improved sprint performance during the cycle ergometer race simulation (P < 0.001, ηp = 0.03). Supplementation with NAC also augmented postexercise plasma total antioxidant capacity (P = 0.005, ηp = 0.19), reduced exercise-induced oxidative damage (plasma thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances, P = 0.002, ηp = 0.22; urinary 15-isoprostane F2t concentration, P = 0.010, ηp = 0.431), attenuated inflammation (plasma interleukin 6, P = 0.002, ηp = 0.22; monocyte chemotactic protein 1, P = 0.012, ηp = 0.17), and increased postexercise nuclear factor κB activity (P < 0.001, ηp = 0.21). CONCLUSION Oral NAC supplementation improved cycling performance via an improved redox balance and promoted adaptive processes in well-trained athletes undergoing strenuous physical training.
From the SelectedWorks of Marcel Adam Just 2005 Functional connectivity in an fMRI working memory task in high-functioning autism

An fMRI study was used to measure the brain activation of a group of adults with high-functioning autism compared to a Full Scale and Verbal IQ and age-matched control group during an n-back working memory task with letters. The behavioral results showed comparable performance, but the fMRI results suggested that the normal controls might use verbal codes to perform the task, while the adults with autism might use visual codes. The control group demonstrated more activation in the left than the right parietal regions, whereas the autism group showed more right lateralized activation in the prefrontal and parietal regions. The autism group also had more activation than the control group in the posterior regions including inferior temporal and occipital regions. The analysis of functional connectivity yielded similar patterns for the two groups with different hemispheric correlations. The temporal profile of the activity in the prefrontal regions was more correlated with the left parietal regions for the control group, whereas it was more correlated with the right parietal regions for the autism group.
Putting Residents First: Strategies Developed by CNAs to Prevent and Manage Resident-to-Resident Violence in Nursing Homes.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY Resident-to-resident violence (RRV) in nursing homes (NHs) is common and threatens the safety and quality of life of both residents and caregivers. The purpose of this portion of a larger qualitative study was to explore strategies developed by certified nurses' assistants (CNAs) to prevent and manage RRV in NHs. DESIGN AND METHODS Semistructured interviews were used to collect data. Data were analyzed utilizing content analysis and constant comparison. RESULTS Analysis revealed one overriding theme, "Putting Residents First" which the CNAs described as a conscious effort to put themselves or a beloved family member in the place of the resident while administering care. Within this theme, there were three related subthemes: (a) Knowing the Residents, (b) Keeping Residents Safe, and (c) Spending Quality Time. IMPLICATIONS Together, these themes suggest that the formulation of strategies for decreasing and managing RRV was influenced significantly by the ability of the CNAs to empathize with the residents for whom they were caring. The results indicate that in the absence of evidence-based interventions, CNAs have developed their own strategies for the management and prevention of RRV. These strategies may provide a foundation for the development and testing of interventions aimed at preventing and managing RRV in NHs.
Identifying multiple sclerosis lesions in MR images using image processing techniques

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a disease of the central nervous system (CNS), it is inflammation or decay in a myelin's substance (Demyelination). The causes of the disease is unknown yet, but it is believed to be caused by a combination of many genetic and environmental factors including: geographical distribution (i e less spread closer to the equator), and hereditary reasons. Currently, the diagnosis is depending on the clinical diagnosis of the symptoms of the disease, but the evolution in medical imaging (eg. MRI) can help in detecting the presence of lesions in the white or gray matter of the brain's tissues. In this research, many digital image processor techniques have been adopted and used to detect the lesions sites. An adaptive method is introduced to skinning the brain tissue from the skull's bones. Many edges detection methods have been suggested to segment the MRIs brain tissues (i. e first and second order differentiation methods). The second order Marr-Hildreth method is adopted because it produces thin edge and connected boundaries.
Social Learning Theory–Based Parenting Programs to Treat Attachment Difficulties: A Case Study of an Older Child Placed Late for Adoption

An attachment-sensitive formulation is presented for a 9-year-old adopted girl with a complex presentation of oppositionality, separation anxiety, and attachment problems. Session-by-session observational data of an evidence-based treatment demonstrates the transactional nature of the carer-child interactions that drove an improvement in attachment behaviors, as well as oppositional and anxiety symptoms at home. Most importantly, a placement in imminent danger of breakdown was stabilized, allowing the child more time to negotiate a reliable attachment to her new carer. Thus, the evidence-base can be used to develop personalized treatment packages for complex adoption cases consistent with the relevant practice parameters.
Religion and Relationships in Muslim Families: A Qualitative Examination of Devout Married Muslim Couples

Since 11 September 2001, Islam has been the center of many debates, discussions, parodies and publications. Many Muslims feel that their religion has been portrayed unfairly in Western media. The topics that seem to generate the most criticism relate to gender roles and the treatment of women, both inside the home and in society. The purpose of this paper is to examine the perceived role of Islam on marital and familial relationships from an insider’s perspective and to present participants’ reflections on sensitive issues, including gender roles, women’s rights and marital unity. Content analysis of in-depth interviews of twenty diverse Shia and Sunni Muslim couples living in the U.S. (n = 40) yielded three emergent themes: (1) Islam as a way of life; (2) Islam as a unifying force; and (3) gender roles and the treatment of women. These data suggest that, as perceived by our religiously involved “insider” participants, Islam influences marriage relationships, unites families and (when understood and lived properly) protects women from abuse and oppression.