Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Endoscopic third ventriculostomy

Endoscopic third ventriculostomy (ETV) is considered as a treatment of choice for obstructive hydrocephalus. It is indicated in hydrocephalus secondary to congenital aqueductal stenosis, posterior third ventricle tumor, cerebellar infarct, Dandy-Walker malformation, vein of Galen aneurism, syringomyelia with or without Chiari malformation type I, intraventricular hematoma, post infective, normal pressure hydrocephalus, myelomeningocele, multiloculated hydrocephalus, encephalocele, posterior fossa tumor and craniosynostosis. It is also indicated in block shunt or slit ventricle syndrome. Proper Pre-operative imaging for detailed assessment of the posterior communicating arteries distance from mid line, presence or absence of Liliequist membrane or other membranes, located in the prepontine cistern is useful. Measurement of lumbar elastance and resistance can predict patency of cranial subarachnoid space and complex hydrocephalus, which decides an ultimate outcome. Water jet dissection is an effective technique of ETV in thick floor. Ultrasonic contact probe can be useful in selected patients. Intra-operative ventriculo-stomography could help in confirming the adequacy of endoscopic procedure, thereby facilitating the need for shunt. Intraoperative observations of the patent aqueduct and prepontine cistern scarring are predictors of the risk of ETV failure. Such patients may be considered for shunt surgery. Magnetic resonance ventriculography and cine phase contrast magnetic resonance imaging are effective in assessing subarachnoid space and stoma patency after ETV. Proper case selection, post-operative care including monitoring of ICP and need for external ventricular drain, repeated lumbar puncture and CSF drainage, Ommaya reservoir in selected patients could help to increase success rate and reduce complications. Most of the complications develop in an early post-operative, but fatal complications can develop late which indicate an importance of long term follow up.
The Political Foundations of Modern Economic Growth: England, 1540-1800

Growth: England, I540-I800 In a recent article, North and Weingast argue that the political history of England in the period before the Industrial Revolution illustrates two important propositions: the first, that the establishment of secure and stable property rights for private citizens is a necessary and sufficient condition for economic growth, and the second, that the establishment of such rights depended on the creation of a representative democracy. Thus, they believe that there was an intimate connection between the Glorious Revolution of I688 and the Industrial Revolution of 1760 and thereafter.1 Many scholars cite England during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as an example of how stable democratic politics causes economic growth. The Glorious Revolution replaced a corrupt, autocratic monarchy, which financed itself by a variety of extortionary means, with a political system in which Parliament, admittedly drawn from a limited franchise, controlled the monarch. This political system was remarkably stable. There were no coups, and few attempted coups, after I689, but an unbroken line of governments elected by a popular franchise. WhenJames II was deposed, the throne passed first to William of Orange and James' daughter Mary, and then to Mary's sister Anne. When Anne died childless in 1714 (despite giving birth to eighteen children),
A MULTIWAVELENGTH STUDY OF A SAMPLE OF 70 μm SELECTED GALAXIES IN THE COSMOS FIELD. I. SPECTRAL ENERGY DISTRIBUTIONS AND LUMINOSITIES

We present a large robust sample of 1503 reliable and unconfused 70 μm selected sources from the multiwavelength data set of the Cosmic Evolution Survey. Using the Spitzer IRAC and MIPS photometry, we estimate the total infrared (IR) luminosity, LIR (8–1000 μm), by finding the best-fit template from several different template libraries. The long-wavelength 70 and 160 μm data allow us to obtain a reliable estimate of LIR, accurate to within 0.2 and 0.05 dex, respectively. The 70 μm data point enables a significant improvement over the luminosity estimates possible with only a 24 μm detection. The full sample spans a wide range in IR luminosity, LIR ≈ 108–1014 L☉, with a median luminosity of 1011.4 L☉. We identify a total of 687 luminous, 303 ultraluminous, and 31 hyperluminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs, ULIRGs, and HyLIRGs) over the redshift range 0.01 < z < 3.5 with a median redshift of 0.5. Presented here are the full spectral energy distributions (SEDs) for each of the sources compiled from the extensive multiwavelength data set from the ultraviolet (UV) to the far-infrared. A catalog of the general properties of the sample (including the photometry, redshifts, and LIR) is included with this paper. We find that the overall shape of the SED and trends with LIR (e.g., IR color temperatures and optical–IR ratios) are similar to what has been seen in studies of local objects; however, our large sample allows us to see the extreme spread in UV to near-infrared colors spanning nearly 3 orders of magnitude. In addition, using SED fits we find possible evidence for a subset of cooler ultraluminous objects than observed locally. However, until direct observations at longer wavelengths are obtained, the peak of emission and the dust temperature cannot be well constrained. We use these SEDs, along with the deep radio and X-ray coverage of the field, to identify a large sample of candidate active galactic nuclei (AGNs). We find that the fraction of AGNs increases strongly with LIR, as it does in the local universe, and that nearly 70% of ULIRGs and all HyLIRGs likely host a powerful AGN.
An Accelerated Proximal Gradient Algorithm for Singly Linearly Constrained Quadratic Programs with Box Constraints

Recently, the existed proximal gradient algorithms had been used to solve non-smooth convex optimization problems. As a special nonsmooth convex problem, the singly linearly constrained quadratic programs with box constraints appear in a wide range of applications. Hence, we propose an accelerated proximal gradient algorithm for singly linearly constrained quadratic programs with box constraints. At each iteration, the subproblem whose Hessian matrix is diagonal and positive definite is an easy model which can be solved efficiently via searching a root of a piecewise linear function. It is proved that the new algorithm can terminate at an ε-optimal solution within O(1/ε) iterations. Moreover, no line search is needed in this algorithm, and the global convergence can be proved under mild conditions. Numerical results are reported for solving quadratic programs arising from the training of support vector machines, which show that the new algorithm is efficient.
An Information Theoretic Approach for Next Best View Planning in 3-D Reconstruction

We present an algorithm for optimal view point selection for 3D reconstruction of an object using 2D image points. Since the image points are noisy, a Kalman filter is used to obtain the best estimate of the object's geometry. This Kalman filter allows us to efficiently predict the effect of any given camera position on the uncertainty, and therefore quality, of the estimate. By choosing a suitable optimization criterion, we are able to determine the camera positions which minimize our reconstruction error. We verify our results using two experiments with real images: one experiment uses a calibration pattern for comparison to a ground-truth state, the other reconstructs a real world object
Review of Pharmacological Effects of Glycyrrhiza sp. and its Bioactive Compounds

The roots and rhizomes of licorice (Glycyrrhiza) species have long been used worldwide as a herbal medicine and natural sweetener. Licorice root is a traditional medicine used mainly for the treatment of peptic ulcer, hepatitis C, and pulmonary and skin diseases, although clinical and experimental studies suggest that it has several other useful pharmacological properties such as antiinflammatory, antiviral, antimicrobial, antioxidative, anticancer activities, immunomodulatory, hepatoprotective and cardioprotective effects. A large number of components have been isolated from licorice, including triterpene saponins, flavonoids, isoflavonoids and chalcones, with glycyrrhizic acid normally being considered to be the main biologically active component. This review summarizes the phytochemical, pharmacological and pharmacokinetics data, together with the clinical and adverse effects of licorice and its bioactive components. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Electroosmotic Flow in a Rough Nanochannel with Surface Roughness Characterized by Fractal Cantor

Molecular dynamics simulation is applied to study the electroosmotic flow in rough nanochannels, with particular attention given to the fluid–solid interactions. In the simulation, the surface roughness is characterized by a fractal Cantor. The roles of roughness height and fractal dimension on nanoscale electroosmotic flow are examined and analyzed. The concentration distributions, zeta potential and electroosmotic velocity are presented and investigated. The results indicate that surface roughness plays a significant role in the fluid–solid interaction and nanoscale electroosmotic flow. The distribution of dipole angle for water molecules in both the near-wall region and middle region is almost unaffected by surface roughness; however, a significant difference of dipole angle distribution is observed in the fluid region away from the wall. Interestingly, the concentration distributions, electroosmotic velocity and zeta potential are highly affected by the surface fractal dimension, even with the same roughness height.
[Prevalence of dementia in several regions of the world: analysis of epidemiologic studies from 1994 to 2000].

OBJECTIVE To analyse the prevalence studies of dementia from 1994 to 2000. METHODS The papers were searched on Medline and Lilacs and the inclusion criteria were: to be an original study, that estimated dementia prevalence and investigated community samples. RESULTS thirty-eight studies were evaluated from all continents. The mean age-specific prevalence rates of dementia were 1,17% for the 65-69 years group, and 54,83% over 95 years. The results were strongly influenced by age. Dementia prevalence rates were higher on women on 75% of the papers reviewed. The Alzheimer's disease/vascular dementia ratio was higher in South America and lower in Asia. DISCUSSION Methodological advances were found, specially regarding the homogeneity of diagnostic criteria. The effect of age on the rates of dementia prevalence was pronounced, up to 90 years of age.
Prediction Bias Correction for Dynamic Term Structure Models

When the yield curve is modelled using an affine factor model, residuals may still contain relevant information and do not adhere to the familiar white noise assumption. This paper proposes a pragmatic way to improve out of sample performance for yield curve forecasting. The proposed adjustment is illustrated via a pseudo out-of-sample forecasting exercise implementing the widely used Dynamic Nelson–Siegel model. Large improvement in forecasting performance is achieved throughout the curve for different forecasting horizons. Results are robust to different time periods, as well as to different model specifications.
Incremental modular decomposition

Modular decomposition is a form of graph decomposition that has been discovered independently by researchers in graph theory, game theory, network theory, and other areas. This paper reduces the time needed to find the modular decomposition of a graph from &OHgr;(<italic>n</italic><supscrpt>3</supscrpt>) to &Ogr;(<italic>n</italic><supscrpt>2</supscrpt>). Together with a new algorithm for transitive orientation given in [21], this leads to fast new algorithms for a number of problems in graph recognition and isomorphism, including recognition of comparability graphs and permutation graphs. The new algorithm works by inserting each vertex successively into the decomposition tree, using &Ogr;(<italic>n</italic>) time to insert each vertex.
Scheduling Multi-tenant Cloud Workloads on Accelerator-Based Systems

Accelerator-based systems are making rapid inroads into becoming platforms of choice for high end cloud services. There is a need therefore, to move from the current model in which high performance applications explicitly and programmatically select the GPU devices on which to run, to a dynamic model where GPUs are treated as first class schedulable entities. The Strings scheduler realizes this vision by decomposing the GPU scheduling problem into a combination of load balancing and per-device scheduling. (i) Device-level scheduling efficiently uses all of a GPU's hardware resources, including its computational and data movement engines, and (ii) load balancing goes beyond obtaining high throughput, to ensure fairness through prioritizing GPU requests that have attained least service. With its methods, Strings achieves improvements in system throughput and fairness of up to 8.70× and 13%, respectively, compared to the CUDA runtime.
The Psychological Measurement of Cultural Syndromes.

An examination of a range of definitions of culture indicates that almost all researchers agree that culture is reflected in shared cognitions, standard operating procedures, and unexamined assumptions. Cultural syndromes consist of shared attitudes, beliefs, norms, role and self definitions, and values of members of each culture that are organized around a theme. Two methods of measurement of syndromes that allow the examination of the convergence of the data from each method in each culture are (a) the identification of questionnaire items to which an arbitrary 90% of each sample responds on the same side of the neutral point and (b) the identification of items to which an arbitrary 90% of triads--consisting of members of each culture--agree among themselves in fewer than 60 seconds on the appropriate response to the item. The shorter the time to reach agreement, the more likely it is that the item is an element of culture. Examples of these approaches are presented, and discussion focuses on how to obtain good descriptions of cultures through psychological methods.
Low-Complexity Heterogeneous Video Transcoding by Motion Vector Clustering

The recently developed video compression standard, H.264/AVC surpasses the performance of previous video standards, such as MPEG-2, MPEG-4(part2), and H.263 and is therefore expected to be selected as the video standard for most digital video applications. The widely distributed infrastructure, however, continues to use the previous standards. Heterogeneous video transcoding offers a significant key to the resolution of this problem. This paper suggests a new algorithm for H.264/AVC to MPEG-2 transcoding that uses motion vector clustering to reduce the computation time with no loss of quality. Such a clustering method can reduce the number of candidate motion vectors that are gathered during the H.264 decoding stage. These candidate motion vectors consider the correlation between the direction and distance of the motion vectors in the variable blocks in H.264/AVC. The candidate motion vector that has the least distortion is then selected in the MPEG-2 encoder. The MPEG-2 encoder can therefore use the best motion vector without carrying out computations for motion estimation. The experimental results show that the proposed method can maintain a good level of video quality while reducing the computational complexity by a considerable 64%, on average, compared to a cascade transcoder.
A Digital Control Architecture for Quadrotor Aircraft

We show that the principal attitude and inertial dynamics of a quadrotor aircraft can be decomposed into a cascade of three passive and one interior conic subsystem such that a proportional digital feedback loop can effectively be applied to each subsystem in a nested manner. This proportional feedback architecture includes one saturation block nested between the attitude and inertial control systems to account for actuator saturation. Our architecture can control yaw independently of the desired inertial position. Stability of this architecture can be verified in both simulation and runtime through the following corollary derived from the sector stability theorem of Zames and later Willems. The corollary applies to the control of a dynamic system H1 : x1 → y1 which is inside the sector [a1, b1], in which −∞ < a1 < 0, 0 < b1 ≤ ∞, and b1 > a1 . It states that if a negative feedback controller with reference r1 and control gain k1 < − 1 a1 is applied to H1 : x1 → y1 such that x1 = k1(r1 − y1) then the closed loop system Hcl−1 : r1 → y1 is L m 2 (l m 2 ) stable. Simulations indicate the controller performs exceptionally well when applied to detailed STARMAC and Hummingbird aircraft models which includes blade flapping effects.
Weight space analysis and forecast uncertainty

The usage of location information of weight vectors can help to overcome deeciencies of gradient based learning for neural networks. We study the non-trivial structure of weight space, i. e. , symmetries of feedforward networks in terms of their corresponding groups. We nd that these groups naturally act on and partition weight space into disjunct domains. We derive an algorithm to generate representative weight vectors in a fundamental domain. The analysis of the metric structure of the fundamental domain leads to a clustering method that exploits the natural metric of the fundamental domain. It can be implemented eeciently even for large networks. We used it to improve the assessment of forecast uncertainty for an already successful application of neural networks in the area of nancial time series.
Reconceptualizing Play: Aesthetic Self-Definitions

This article aims to trouble the identity of children's dramatic play(ing). It contains two interweaving threads of discourse. In one thread lies a discussion of how children can trouble and extend their own identities through the aesthetic form-languages and conventions they employ and deploy in their dramatic playing/pretend playing. Whereas adults exchange thoughts verbally, children enter the play-arena and converse and reflect with, and in, dramatic form-languages. In dramatic form, through taking the perspective of, and momentarily becoming, The Other, the children problematize and construct temporary identities. In each dramatic enactment they are in a reflective process of becoming. In the second thread of discourse, the article troubles the theoretical identity of dramatic playing — as it is perceived in the dominant play theory of sociology, which defines playing as reproduction. This issue is addressed through the aesthetic concept of mimesis, by which playing is defined as critical transformation. In the interpretative work the author shows how, in the privacy of the children's play-culture, they have the cultural occasion, space, and liberty to take control: to question, to speak for themselves, to represent, transform and define themselves. The players can experiment with standpoints, redefine their identities and, thereby, take back their power of self-definition. Cultural hegemony can be turned on its head.
Line manager involvement in work-life balance and career development: can't manage, won't manage?

ABSTRACT Line manager involvement in HRM is an increasing trend across Europe. With the numbers of employees taking advantage of work-life balance policies also on the increase, line manager responsibility for this specific policy area is likely to become more marked. In this paper, we argue that line managers have a critical role to play in the career development of reduced-hours employees, but that due to a number of cultural and institutional processes, the extent of this involvement is likely to be limited. Using qualitative data from interviews with police managers and police officers who have reduced their hours, we argue that gendered assumptions, deeply embedded in taken-for-granted organisational practices and structures, operate in ways that encourage line managers and reduced-hours workers to locate career barriers in the psyche of the latter. The implications of these processes for line manager involvement in the career development of reduced-hours professionals are explored and explicated.
Improved rotor flux estimation based on voltage model for sensorless field-oriented controlled induction motor drives

Speed sensorless field-oriented vector control of induction motor depends on effective estimation of rotor flux. This paper proposes an improved rotor flux estimator based on stator voltage model with programmable low-pass filter (LPF) and an error compensator. In the voltage model based flux estimation, a LPF is normally used to replace the pure integrator to avoid integration drift and saturation problems. However, the LPF estimator may introduce magnitude and phase errors, and results in degraded estimation performance at low operating frequency. The flux estimation error is compensated according to feedback signal of the estimated flux in this paper. In addition, the LPF with a fixed cutoff frequency is difficult to provide good estimation for wide speed range. The reason is that lower cutoff frequency required for wide speed operation may result in weakening the restraint of DC drift problem. To achieve the compromise, an improved programmable LPF rotor flux estimator with a compensator for DC drift restraint is introduced. The validity of the proposed rotor flux estimator is verified by speed sensorless field-oriented vector controlled 11 kW induction motor. Experimental results demonstrate high performance of the improved rotor flux estimator.
Co-occurrence Matrix and Fractal Dimension for Image Segmentation

One of the most important tasks in image processing problem and machine vision is object recognition, and the success of many proposed methods relies on a suitable choice of algorithm for the segmentation of an image. This paper focuses on how to apply texture operators based on the concept of fractal dimension and cooccurence matrix, to the problem of object recognition and a new method based on fractal dimension is introduced. Several images, in which the result of the segmentation can be shown, are used to illustrate the use of each method and a comparative study of each operator is made.