Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparison of Partial Volume Effects in Arterial and Venous Contrast Curves in CT Brain Perfusion Imaging

Purpose In brain CT perfusion (CTP), the arterial contrast bolus is scaled to have the same area under the curve (AUC) as the venous outflow to correct for partial volume effects (PVE). This scaling is based on the assumption that large veins are unaffected by PVE. Measurement of the internal carotid artery (ICA), usually unaffected by PVE due to its large diameter, may avoid the need for partial volume correction. The aims of this work are to examine i) the assumptions behind PVE correction and ii) the potential of selecting the ICA obviating correction for PVE. Methods The AUC of the ICA and sagittal sinus were measured in CTP datasets from 52 patients. The AUCs were determined by i) using commercial CTP software based on a Gaussian curve-fitting to the time attenuation curve, and ii) by simple integration of the time attenuation curve over a time interval. In addition, frames acquired up to 3 minutes after first bolus passage were used to examine the ratio of arterial and venous enhancement. The impact of selecting the ICA without PVE correction was illustrated by reporting cerebral blood volume (CBV) measurements. Results In 49 of 52 patients, the AUC of the ICA was significantly larger than that of the sagittal sinus (p = 0.017). Measured after the first pass bolus, contrast enhancement remained 50% higher in the ICA just after the first pass bolus, and 30% higher 3 minutes later. CBV measurements were significantly lowered when the ICA was used without PVE correction. Conclusions Contradicting the assumptions underlying PVE correction, contrast in the ICA was significantly higher than in the sagittal sinus, even 3 minutes after the first pass of the contrast bolus. PVE correction might lead to overestimation of CBV if the CBV is calculated using the AUC of the time attenuation curves.
DR_PSF: Enhancing Developer Recommendation by Leveraging Personalized Source-Code Files

Given a new issue request, suitable developers should be arranged to implement it. Technologies such as developer recommendation have been proposed to tackle this issue. These techniques tend to recommend experienced developers, i.e., the more experienced the developer is, the more possible he/she is recommended. However, if the experienced developers are hectic, the junior developers may be employed to finish the incoming issue. But they may have difficulty in finishing these tasks for lack of developing experience. In this paper, we propose a novel approach, DR_PSF (Developer Recommendation with Personalized Source-code Files), to enhance developer recommendation by leveraging personalized source-code files. DR_PSF uses the collaborative topic modeling (CTM) technique to analyze developer expertise and triage some personalized files for the recommended developers. An empirical study is conducted, and the results show that DR_PSF can effectively recommend useful personalized source-code files for them to refer when they implement the incoming issue.
Biopharmaceutical Innovation Capacities - Benchmarking Europe and Implications for CEE

This article gives an insight into the uptake of cutting edge technologies such as stem cell technologies, RNAi, and gene therapy by the European pharmaceutical industry. The European situation is benchmarked against the most important competitorsUSA and Japanboth in terms of products in the pipeline and on the market. Economic and employment effects illustrate the impact of modern biotechnology for the European economy. Current and future trends and the competitiveness of the European drug developmental pipeline are outlined in terms of relevant indications (e.g., oncology and infectious diseases), the degree of adoption by European companies and the European biotechnological contribution. It shows how national strength in early developmental stages of drug development influences the power of a national market. In this context the role of SMEs and biotechnology start-ups is discussed. The analysis culminates in questioning which factors influence the uptake of technology and the direction of a technology trajectory and which measures are suitable to foster pharmaceutical innovation in general and in CEE in particular.
"Look at Us Now!": Scrapbooking, Regimes of Value, and the Risks of (Auto)Ethnography

By the early 2000s, scrapbook construction in the United States had shifted from a relatively private mode of assemblage into a visible practice bolstered by robust marketing and public venues for creation and display. But today's scrapbooks often also perform the value of activities long characterized as ephemeral, mundane, and private by recasting them—using archival-safe products and visual documentation—as durable, artistic, and public. In effect, these books perform everyday lives. Arbiters of culture have questioned the authenticity or aesthetic merit of these exhibits in moves that deflect attention from the risks that attend any form of cultural documentation, including their own. Because scrapbooking makes visible the estrangement and objectification that occur when experience is entextualized, this popular hobby prompts reflections about ethnographic practice, the risks of performance, and the regulation of cultural hierarchies more generally.
Linearity and the pi-calculus

The economy and flexibility of the pi-calculus make it an attractive object of theoretical study and a clean basis for concurrent language design and implementation. However, such generality has a cost: encoding higher-level features like functional computation in pi-calculus throws away potentially useful information. We show how a linear type system can be used to recover important static information about a process's behavior. In particular, we can guarantee that two processes communicating over a linear channel cannot interfere with other communicating processes. After developing standard results such as soundness of typing, we focus on equivalences, adapting the standard notion of barbed bisimulation to the linear setting and showing how reductions on linear channels induce a useful “partial confluence” of process behaviors. For an extended example of the theory, we prove the validity of a tail-call optimization for higher-order functions represented as processes.
The effect of stochastic nano-scale surface roughness on microfluidic flow in computational microchannels

viii CHAPTER 1. GENERAL INTRODUCTION 1 Microchannels in Biomedical Devices 1 Research Motivation 2 Thesis Organization 3 References 4 CHAPTER 2. NANO-SCALE SURFACE ROUGHNESS AFFECTS LOW RE FLOW: EXPERIMENTS AND MODELING 5 Abstract 5 Introduction 5 Experimental Setup: Fabrication, characterization, and visualization 7 Modeling Framework: Mesh generation and solution technique 9 Results and Discussion 10 Conclusions and Outlook 15 References 15 CHAPTER 3. INVESTIGATING THE EFFECT OF NANO-SCALE SURFACE ROUGHNESS ON MICROFLUIDIC NEWTONIAN FLUID FLOW 20 Abstract 20 Introduction 21 Computational Domain Construction 26 Microchannel Roughness: Experimental Manufacturing 27 Microchannel Roughness: Characterization 29 Governing Equations: Newtonian Fluid 30 Validity of Continuum Hypothesis 31 Validity of No-Slip Boundary Condition 31 Computational Methods 33 CFD Microchannel Grid 33
Ecological perception affords an explanation of object permanence

In this paper I aim to present an explanation of object permanence that is derived from an ecological account of perceptually based action. In understanding why children below a certain age do not search for occluded objects, one must first understand the process by which these children perform certain intentional actions on non-occluded items; and to do this one must understand the role affordances play in eliciting retrieval behaviour. My affordance-based explanation is contrasted with Shinskey and Munakata's graded representation account; and although I do not reject totally the role representations play in initiating intentional action I nevertheless maintain that only by incorporating direct perception into an account of object permanence can a fuller understanding of this phenomenon be achieved.
Views of diverse primary care patients on the roles of healthcare providers and staff and the influence of other variables in their weight management

The prevalence of overweight/obesity is disproportionately higher among racial/ethnic minority and low‐income patients. The purpose of this study was to survey racially diverse, low‐income patients regarding their experiences with and desires regarding their providers’ involvement in weight management. Adult patients (N = 529), including mostly African American (42.7%), White (44.6%) and low‐income (55.5% with incomes <$30 000) patients from 7 Patient‐Centered Medical Homes voluntarily completed a brief anonymous survey while waiting to see their providers. Only 19.8% of the patients said that their primary care provider frequently or very frequently talked with them about their weight. Older patients as compared to younger patients, as well as males compared to females, were more likely to have their primary care provider talk to them about their diet and physical activity during the last year. It was also found that 56.9% of the patients were interested in getting help from their doctor to connect with resources for weight management in their community. African American patients, as compared to White patients, were more interested in getting such help. These results suggest that there is a need to establish healthcare policies and training in primary care settings that are designed to ensure that primary care providers routinely talk with all of their patients, including their female and older patients, about their weight and weight management services. Additionally, primary care administrators need to play an increased role in identifying, developing, and advocating for affordable weight management services, particularly in African American and low‐income communities.
Enhancement of Thermoelectric Efficiency in PbTe by Distortion of the Electronic Density of States

The efficiency of thermoelectric energy converters is limited by the material thermoelectric figure of merit (zT). The recent advances in zT based on nanostructures limiting the phonon heat conduction is nearing a fundamental limit: The thermal conductivity cannot be reduced below the amorphous limit. We explored enhancing the Seebeck coefficient through a distortion of the electronic density of states and report a successful implementation through the use of the thallium impurity levels in lead telluride (PbTe). Such band structure engineering results in a doubling of zT in p-type PbTe to above 1.5 at 773 kelvin. Use of this new physical principle in conjunction with nanostructuring to lower the thermal conductivity could further enhance zT and enable more widespread use of thermoelectric systems.
Governance for Sustainability: Towards a ‘Thick’ Analysis of Environmental Decisionmaking

Environmental decisions made by individuals, civil society, and the state involve questions of economic efficiency, environmental effectiveness, equity, and political legitimacy. These four criteria are constitutive of the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development, which has become the dominant rhetorical device of environmental governance. We discuss the tendency for disciplinary research to focus on particular subsets of the four criteria, and argue that such a practice promotes solutions that do not acknowledge the dynamics of scale and the heterogeneity of institutional contexts. We advocate an interdisciplinary framework for the analysis of environmental decisionmaking that seeks to identify legitimate and context-sensitive institutional solutions producing equitable, efficient, and effective outcomes. We demonstrate the usefulness of our approach by using it to examine decisions concerning contested nature conservation and multiple-use commons in the management of Hickling Broad in Norfolk in the United Kingdom. We conclude that interdisciplinary approaches enable the generalisation and transfer of lessons in a way that respects the specifics and context of the issue at hand.
Assisted articulation of closed polygonal models

Creating articulated geometric models is a common task in animation systems. In some instances, models are procedurally instanced, and articulated degrees of freedom are designed into the model. In other instances, the model is some geometric assemblage, and an articulated skeleton (sometimes called an “I-K skeleton”) is bound to the model by the user, typically by manual indication of a correspondence between elements of each structure. In either case, some binding must be made to couple boundary motions to those of the skeleton; this can be done for example by generating spring networks or spatial deformation fields. Both processes can be tedious in the ordinary case, especially when the model to be articulated is given only as a boundary representation, for example a polygonal mesh representing a character’s skin or clothing, or an object’s surface.
A Method for Using Belief Networks as Influence Diagrams

This paper demonstrates a method for using belief-network algorithms to solve influence diagram problems. In particular, both exact and approximation belief-network algorithms may be applied to solve influence-diagram problems. More generally, knowing the relationship between belief-network and influence-diagram problems may be useful in the design and development of more efficient influence diagram algorithms.
An Iterative Signal Detection Algorithm Based on Bayesian Belief Propagation Ideas

We investigate the construction of an iterative algorithm for signal detection based on Pearl's Belief Propagation algorithm. Two main issues arise: the need to modify the graphical model of the problem in order to force the creation of an iterative algorithm, and the need to find suitable approximations to various probability distribution functions so as to allow an efficient implementation of the algorithm. The resulting algorithm is similar to a conventional deflation-based approach but it can make soft rather than hard decisions.
Great, Good, and Divided: The Politics of Public Space in Rio De Janeiro

ABSTRACT: At a time when cities, particularly large Latin American cities, are increasingly polarized and overcome with violence, and public space has long been pronounced dead, an exceptionally vibrant public realm survives in Rio de Janeiro. In the elite beach neighborhood of Ipanema, residents spend a large part of their free time in public: on the street corner, in bars, and on the beach. Ipanema has a proliferation of what Ray Oldenburg calls “third places” where neighbors, friends, and colleagues plug into and out of an ongoing public social life. But below the idyllic surface lies a conflictual social space stratified along race and class lines. Through an analysis of the discursive construction of the beach, the politics of beach access, and a 15-year old tradition of beach riots, I question the notion—popularized by Oldenburg and others—of public space as the location of an organic civil society that greases the wheels of commerce, promotes democracy, and solves its own problems in the common interest. Rather, I argue that Rio’s famous beach neighborhoods are a key arena of the public sphere where the terms of Rio’s unjust social order are challenged, negotiated, and largely reproduced. Nevertheless, Ipanema’s public space represents political possibility for the otherwise excluded majority.
An Improved Constrained Engineering Optimization Design Algorithm

Many engineering optimization problems can be state as function optimization with constrained, intelligence optimization algorithm can solve these problems well. Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm was developed under the inspiration of behavior laws of bird flocks, fish schools and human communities. In this paper, aim at the disadvantages of standard Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm like being trapped easily into a local optimum, we improves the standard PSO and proposes a new algorithm to solve the overcomes of the standard PSO. The new algorithm keeps not only the fast convergence speed characteristic of PSO, but effectively improves the capability of global searching as well. Experiment results reveal that the proposed algorithm can find better solutions when compared to other heuristic methods and is a powerful optimization algorithm for engineering optimization problems.
Trio-One: Layering Uncertainty and Lineage on a Conventional DBMS (Demo)

Trio is a new kind of database system that supports data, uncertainty, and lineage in a fully integrated manner. The first Trio prototype, dubbed Trio-One, is built on top of a conventional DBMS using data and query translation techniques together with a small number of stored procedures. This paper describes Trio-One's translation scheme and system architecture, showing how it efficiently and easily supports the Trio data model and query language.
Formation of the G-quadruplex and i-motif structures in retinoblastoma susceptibility genes (Rb)

The formation of G-quadruplex and i-motif structures in the 5′ end of the retinoblastoma (Rb) gene was examined using chemical modifications, circular dichroism (CD) and fluorescence spectroscopy. It was found that substitutions of 8-methylguanine at positions that show syn conformations in antiparallel G-quadruplexes stabilize the structure in the G-rich strand. The complementary C-rich 18mer forms an i-motif structure, as suggested by CD spectroscopy. Based on the C to T mutation experiments, C bases participated in the C–C+ base pair of the i-motif structure were determined. Experiments of 2-aminopurine (2-AP) substitution reveal that an increase of fluorescence in the G-quadruplex relative to duplex is attributed to unstacked 2-AP within the loop of G-quadruplex. The fluorescence experiments suggest that formation of the G-quadruplex and i-motif can compete with duplex formation. Furthermore, a polymerase arrest assay indicated that formation the G-quadruplex structure in the Rb gene acts as a barrier in DNA synthesis.
Drift Removal for Improving the Accuracy of Gait Parameters Using Wearable Sensor Systems

Accumulated signal noise will cause the integrated values to drift from the true value when measuring orientation angles of wearable sensors. This work proposes a novel method to reduce the effect of this drift to accurately measure human gait using wearable sensors. Firstly, an infinite impulse response (IIR) digital 4th order Butterworth filter was implemented to remove the noise from the raw gyro sensor data. Secondly, the mode value of the static state gyro sensor data was subtracted from the measured data to remove offset values. Thirdly, a robust double derivative and integration method was introduced to remove any remaining drift error from the data. Lastly, sensor attachment errors were minimized by establishing the gravitational acceleration vector from the acceleration data at standing upright and sitting posture. These improvements proposed allowed for removing the drift effect, and showed an average of 2.1°, 33.3°, 15.6° difference for the hip knee and ankle joint flexion/extension angle, when compared to without implementation. Kinematic and spatio-temporal gait parameters were also calculated from the heel-contact and toe-off timing of the foot. The data provided in this work showed potential of using wearable sensors in clinical evaluation of patients with gait-related diseases.
Prevalence of Autoantibodies to the p53 Protein in Autoimmune Hepatitis

The target antigens of anti-nuclear autoantibodies in autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) are poorly characterised. Since antibodies to the p53 nuclear protein have been reported in various autoimmune diseases, we have assessed the prevalence of these antibodies in patients with AIH (n = 45), primary biliary cirrhosis (n = 60), hepatitis B (n = 22), hepatitis C (n = 55), and in a control group of subjects with various non-liver diseases (n = 56). A significant proportion of patients with AIH (31%) had elevated levels of autoantibodies to the p53 protein. In contrast, the prevalence of these antibodies in primary biliary cirrhosis (8%) and viral hepatitis (6%) was similar to that in the control group (4%). The clinical features of the anti-p53 seropositive AIH patients were similar to those of the seronegative ones. Thus, the prevalence of p53 autoantibodies in AIH is higher than in other forms of chronic hepatitis, and may be useful in differential diagnosis.
Quantification of Virus Particles Using Nanopore-Based Resistive-Pulse Sensing Techniques

Viruses have drawn much attention in recent years due to increased recognition of their important roles in virology, immunology, clinical diagnosis, and therapy. Because the biological and physical properties of viruses significantly impact their applications, quantitative detection of individual virus particles has become a critical issue. However, due to various inherent limitations of conventional enumeration techniques such as infectious titer assays, immunological assays, and electron microscopic observation, this issue remains challenging. Thanks to significant advances in nanotechnology, nanostructure-based electrical sensors have emerged as promising platforms for real-time, sensitive detection of numerous bioanalytes. In this paper, we review recent progress in nanopore-based electrical sensing, with particular emphasis on the application of this technique to the quantification of virus particles. Our aim is to provide insights into this novel nanosensor technology, and highlight its ability to enhance current understanding of a variety of viruses.
Turning against self and its relation to symptom distress, interpersonal problems, and therapy outcome: A replicated and enhanced study

Abstract The relation of the turning against self defense mechanism to symptom distress, interpersonal problems, and therapy outcome was explored in 75 inpatients in a psychodynamic setting. In accordance with former studies, the patients showed a high initial level of turning against self, and its reduction during therapy was correlated with a good symptom reduction. The validity of the measurement of this mechanism by the FKBS, a German version of the Defense Mechanisms Inventory, was confirmed by high correlations with scales from the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory and the Toronto Alexithymia Scale. A new issue was how turning against self correlated with interpersonal behavior. Patients with a frequent use of turning against self had more interpersonal problems, predominantly of the friendly–submissive type and significantly fewer of the domineering–hostile type. Identifying and reducing a strong turning against self, as well as challenging the related interpersonal behavior, thus represent central tasks in psychotherapy. A multimodal inpatient setting with a combination of psychodynamic and behavioral interventions proved to be effective. Finally, the question of favorable therapist variables is raised.