Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Analysis of Graphene-Based Multilayered Three-Dimensional Structures by the Extended Method of Lines

In this paper, the method of lines is extended to analyze graphene-based multilayered 3-D structures. The graphene plates with tensor conductivity may cover partially or totally the interfaces between two consecutive layers. The impedance and admittance transformation formulas are then derived at the interfaces. Hence, the impedance and admittance at all the planes of the multilayered structure are obtained. Consequently, the scattering parameters are derived too. To verify the presented technique, as an example of a multilayered structure, graphene plates are placed within a rectangular waveguide. Then, for different numbers of plates and also for different states of the graphene plates which may cover the cross section of the waveguide totally or partially along the <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$x$ </tex-math></inline-formula>- or <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$y$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-directions, the scattering parameters of the structure are calculated. The obtained results are compared with those of the CST simulation software, which are in good agreement.
Optical signal processing with a network of semiconductor optical amplifiers in the context of photonic reservoir computing

Photonic reservoir computing is a hardware implementation of the concept of reservoir computing which comes from the field of machine learning and artificial neural networks. This concept is very useful for solving all kinds of classification and recognition problems. Examples are time series prediction, speech and image recognition. Reservoir computing often competes with the state-of-the-art. Dedicated photonic hardware would offer advantages in speed and power consumption. We show that a network of coupled semiconductor optical amplifiers can be used as a reservoir by using it on a benchmark isolated words recognition task. The results are comparable to existing software implementations and fabrication tolerances can actually improve the robustness.
Mapping impervious surface expansion using medium-resolution satellite image time series: a case study in the Yangtze River Delta, China

Cities have been expanding rapidly worldwide, especially over the past few decades. Mapping the dynamic expansion of impervious surface in both space and time is essential for an improved understanding of the urbanization process, land-cover and land-use change, and their impacts on the environment. Landsat and other medium-resolution satellites provide the necessary spatial details and temporal frequency for mapping impervious surface expansion over the past four decades. Since the US Geological Survey opened the historical record of the Landsat image archive for free access in 2008, the decades-old bottleneck of data limitation has gone. Remote-sensing scientists are now rich with data, and the challenge is how to make best use of this precious resource. In this article, we develop an efficient algorithm to map the continuous expansion of impervious surface using a time series of four decades of medium-resolution satellite images. The algorithm is based on a supervised classification of the time-series image stack using a decision tree. Each imerpervious class represents urbanization starting in a different image. The algorithm also allows us to remove inconsistent training samples because impervious expansion is not reversible during the study period. The objective is to extract a time series of complete and consistent impervious surface maps from a corresponding times series of images collected from multiple sensors, and with a minimal amount of image preprocessing effort. The approach was tested in the lower Yangtze River Delta region, one of the fastest urban growth areas in China. Results from nearly four decades of medium-resolution satellite data from the Landsat Multispectral Scanner (MSS), Thematic Mapper (TM), Enhanced Thematic Mapper plus (ETM+) and China–Brazil Earth Resources Satellite (CBERS) show a consistent urbanization process that is consistent with economic development plans and policies. The time-series impervious spatial extent maps derived from this study agree well with an existing urban extent polygon data set that was previously developed independently. The overall mapping accuracy was estimated at about 92.5% with 3% commission error and 12% omission error for the impervious type from all images regardless of image quality and initial spatial resolution.
Spatio-Temporal Check-in Time Prediction with Recurrent Neural Network based Survival Analysis

We introduce a novel check-in time prediction problem. The goal is to predict the time a user will check-in to a given location. We formulate check-in prediction as a survival analysis problem and propose a Recurrent-Censored Regression (RCR) model. We address the key challenge of check-in data scarcity, which is due to the uneven distribution of check-ins among users/locations. Our idea is to enrich the check-in data with potential visitors, i.e., users who have not visited the location before but are likely to do so. RCR uses recurrent neural network to learn latent representations from historical check-ins of both actual and potential visitors, which is then incorporated with censored regression to make predictions. Experiments show RCR outperforms state-of-the-art event time prediction techniques on real-world datasets.
Vibration paradox in orthodontics: Anabolic and catabolic effects

Vibration in the form of High Frequency Acceleration (HFA) is anabolic on the craniofacial skeleton in the absence of inflammation. Orthodontic forces trigger an inflammation-dependent catabolic cascade that is crucial for tooth movement. It is unknown what effect HFA has on alveolar bone if applied during orthodontic treatment. The objectives of this study are to examine the effect of HFA on the rate of tooth movement and alveolar bone, and determine the mechanism by which HFA affects tooth movement. Adult Sprague Dawley rats were divided to control, orthodontic force alone (OTM), and different experimental groups that received the same orthodontic forces and different HFA regimens. Orthodontic tooth movement was assessed when HFA parameters, frequency, acceleration, duration of exposure, and direct or indirect application were varied. We found that HFA treatment significantly enhanced the inflammation-dependent catabolic cascade during orthodontic tooth movement. HFA treatment increased inflammatory mediators and osteoclastogenesis, and decreased alveolar bone density during orthodontic tooth movement. Each of the HFA variables produced significant changes in the rate of tooth movement and the effect was PDL-dependent. This is the first report that HFA enhances inflammation-dependent catabolic cascades in bone. The clinical implications of our study are highly significant, as HFA can be utilized to enhance the rate of orthodontic tooth movement during the catabolic phase of treatment and subsequently be utilized to enhance retention during the anabolic remodeling phase after orthodontic forces are removed.
Clinical and Pathological Characteristics of Autoimmune Hepatitis with Acute Presentation

Aim. To study the differences between acute presentation-autoimmune hepatitis (A-AIH) and chronic autoimmune hepatitis (C-AIH). Methods. Through long-term follow-up, 80 patients were included in our study by using the revised international autoimmune hepatitis group (IAIHG) score and were divided into acute and chronic groups for comparison. Results. No significant difference was found in the gender, age, IAIHG score (pretreatment/posttreatment), definite diagnosis rate, extrahepatic autoimmune disease, onset time, or treatment before biopsy between the acute and chronic groups. In terms of clinical symptoms, A-AIH patients were more prone to jaundice, anorexia, yellow urine, and detesting oil than C-AIH patients, but melena only occurred in chronic group (P < 0.05). The acute group exhibited more severe injury upon histological evaluation, with lobular inflammation and bile duct injury, especially central necrosis of the lobule, more pronounced in this group (P < 0.05). Conclusion. A-AIH had manifestations of acute hepatitis and presented cholestasis. Serum indicators could preliminarily distinguish A-AIH and C-AIH. Histologically, the primary manifestation of A-AIH was lobular inflammation, which was usually accompanied by lobular central necrosis. For the diagnosis of A-AIH, more attention should be paid to long-term follow-up. This study was registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (identifier: NCT02994537).
MR-FLIP: A new method that combines FLIP with anatomical information for the spatial compliance assessment of the anal sphincter muscles

Introduction Continence results from a complex interplay between anal canal (AC) muscles and sensory-motor feedback mechanisms. The AC’s passive ability to withstand opening pressure – its compliance – has recently been shown to correlate with continence. Functional lumen imaging probe (FLIP) is used to assess AC compliance, although it provides no anatomical information. Therefore, compliance assessment of specific
The Role of Efferent Reduction of Cochlear Compression in the Detection of Tones in Noise

Stimulation of medial olivocochlear (MOC) efferent neurons reduces basilar membrane (BM) sensitivity and increases the slope of BM input-output (I/O) functions in animal models. Decreased compression of I/O functions associated with activation of MOC efferent neurons may assist in extending the neural response to the tone above that of noise, leading to an improvement in masked thresholds. To evaluate this hypothesis, the distortion-product otoacoustic emission (DPOAE) I/O function, a proxy measure of BM compression, was examined in conditions with presentation of contralateral noise. DPOAE I/O functions were measured at f2 frequencies of 1000 and 2000 Hz in 16 normal-hearing adults. In each subject, estimation of masked thresholds at 1000 and 2000 Hz was provided by a two-interval forced-choice procedure. There were statistically significant associations between DPOAE I/O function slopes and masked tone thresholds at both 1000 and 2000 Hz. At 1000 Hz, individuals with higher DPOAE I/O function slopes exhibited lower masked thresholds. Data at 2000 Hz indicated that individuals with higher masked thresholds exhibited higher DPOAE I/O function slopes. When measured with contralateral noise, DPOAE I/O function slopes were linked to masked thresholds at both frequencies examined in this study. Linearized DPOAE I/O functions presumably reflect linearized BM growth functions under conditions of MOC efferent activation, and this process may have extended the neural response to the signal tone so that it could be more easily heard in the presence of masking noise under certain conditions examined in this study.
An Enhanced Queue Management Approach for Greedy Routing in MANETs

Mobile Ad-hoc network (MANET) is the guiding technology of ubiquitous era and a cornerstone in the 4G communication architecture. MANET has limited resources and characterized with high mobility and frequent topology change. Routing in MANET should follow these constrains, otherwise, it can severely degrade the performance of MANET. Owing to Greedy routing (GFS) nature in MANET, a certain part of the MANET becomes congested before other parts. In such area the nodes have failed to forward packets in a timely manner or drop them, thus such nodes called Network Holes. This paper presents a simple and efficient enhanced GFS routing algorithm called Intelligent Fuzzy logic Greedy forwarding Scheme (IFGFS). IFGFS consider the De-congestion level of each mobile node as another selective metric besides distance. In order to validate our algorithm, we rely on a wide simulation experiments. The evaluation results showed the correctness of our new proposed algorithm the adaptive- congestion IFGFS which maximize the performance of the network.
EgoSampling: Wide View Hyperlapse From Egocentric Videos

The possibility of sharing one’s point of view makes the use of wearable cameras compelling. These videos are often long, boring, and coupled with extreme shaking, as the camera is worn on a moving person. Fast-forwarding (i.e., frame sampling) is a natural choice for quick video browsing. However, this accentuates the shake caused by natural head motion in an egocentric video, making the fast-forwarded video useless. We propose EgoSampling, an adaptive frame sampling that gives stable, fast-forwarded, hyperlapse videos. Adaptive frame sampling is formulated as an energy minimization problem, whose optimal solution can be found in polynomial time. We further turn the camera shake from a drawback into a feature, enabling the increase in field of view of the output video. This is obtained when each output frame is mosaiced from several input frames. The proposed technique also enables the generation of a single hyperlapse video from multiple egocentric videos, allowing even faster video consumption.
The Influences of Online Social Support on Customer Citizenship Behaviors:An Empirical Study of Online Brand Communities

Based on social exchange theory,this study proposes a research model to understand the influence of online social support on customer citizenship behaviors by an empirical study.The results show that:online social support includes the dimension of informational support and emotional support;customer citizenship behaviors include the dimensions of recommendations,providing feedback,and helping other customers;online social support positively influences customer citizenship behaviors through relationship quality.In addition,relationship quality fully mediates the relationship between informational support and recommendations,and emotional support and providing feedback;relationship quality partially mediates the relationship between informational support and providing feedback,informational support and helping other customers,emotional support and recommendations,and emotional support and helping other customers.
An Investigation of the Single and Combined Phthalate Metabolite Effects on Human Chorionic Gonadotropin Expression in Placental Cells

Background: Observational studies have reported associations between maternal phthalate levels and adverse outcomes at birth and in the health of the child. Effects on placental function have been suggested as a biologic basis for these findings. Objective: We evaluated the effects of phthalates on placental function in vitro by measuring relevant candidate genes and proteins. Materials and Methods: Human trophoblast progenitor cells were isolated at 7–14 wk of pregnancy (two female and three male concepti), and villous cytotrophoblast cells (vCTBs) were isolated at 15–20 wk (three female and four male concepti). Cells were cultured in vitro with four phthalate metabolites and their combination at concentrations based on levels found previously in the urine of pregnant women: mono-n-butyl (MnBP, 200 nM), monobenzyl (MBzP, 3μM), mono-2-ethylhexyl (MEHP, 700 nM), and monoethyl (MEP, 1.5μM) phthalates. mRNA levels of CGA, CGB, PPARG, CYP19A1, CYP11A1, PTGS2, EREG, and the intracellular β subunit of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCGβ) and peroxisome proliferator activated receptor γ (PPARγ) were measured in the cellular extracts, and protein levels for four forms of secreted hCG were measured in the conditioned media. Results: Previously reported associations between maternal phthalates and placental gene expression were reproduced experimentally: MnBP with CGA, MBzP with CYP11A1, and MEHP with PTGS2. CGB and hCGβ were up-regulated by MBzP. In some cases, there were marked, even opposite, differences in response by sex of the cells. There was evidence of agonism in female cells and antagonism in male cells of PPARγ by simultaneous exposure to multiple phthalates. Conclusions: Concentrations of MnBP, MBzP and MEHP similar to those found in the urine of pregnant women consistently altered hCG and PPARγ expression in primary placental cells. These findings provide evidence for the molecular basis by which phthalates may alter placental function, and they provide a preliminary mechanistic hypothesis for opposite responses by sex. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP1539
QLDS: A Novel Design Scheme for Trajectory Privacy Protection with Utility Guarantee in Participatory Sensing

Participatory sensing, leveraging on the ubiquity of cheap sensors in mobile devices, enables various promising applications of great social benefit. However, its ubiquitous sampling and openness results in serious privacy concerns. People's activity trajectories may reveal their private information such as home and work place and thus requires proper protection. In this paper, we propose a novel design scheme, called query logics detached storage (QLDS), for trajectory privacy protection. The core idea of QLDS is to extract the query logics for personal trajectory retrieval and make actual trajectory tuples not clustered to any route-identity or user-identity at server end, which introduces fine-granularity anonymity. The QLDS design scheme stores the extracted query logics at users own client devices and the un-clustered location tuples at the backend server, guaranteeing trajectory reconstruction at client-end and privacy preservation at server-end. Besides, integration of QLDS with other privacy protection approaches can further enhance the protection strength and bring flexible configurations to meet individuals’ variable privacy concerns. The theoretical analytics is provided for the privacy and utility evaluation. The data retrieval performance of QLDS is experimentally evaluated in real-world internet environment.
Tissue‐specific mosaicism in hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia: Implications for genetic testing in families

Mosaicism in hemorrhagic telangiectasia (HHT) has been previously identified when testing blood samples of HHT patients. We report the first detection of mosaicism not involving blood of a family proband, and discuss implications for genetic testing algorithms in HHT families. Sanger sequencing and large deletion/duplication analysis in a patient with HHT identified no pathogenic variant in ENG, ACVRL1, or SMAD4. Exome sequencing was then performed on this proband, as well as her affected adult child. A pathogenic ENG variant was detected in the proband's affected child, but not in DNA extracted from peripheral blood of the affected parent/proband. Additional tissue samples (saliva and hair bulbs) were obtained from the proband. The variant was not detected in saliva, but was detected in the hair bulb sample (at 33%). This is the first report of an HHT patient with mosaicism in whom the disease‐causing mutation was not detected in blood. The molecular findings in this family suggest that the possibility of mosaicism not present or detectable in blood should be considered if a proband with HHT tests “negative” for a mutation in known genes. This occurrence is particularly suspect for families in which the proband does not have a clearly affected parent. This mechanism may explain some patients with classic HHT in whom a pathogenic variant has not been identified in one of the known HHT genes.
Geomagnetism-Aided Indoor Wi-Fi Radio-Map Construction via Smartphone Crowdsourcing

Wi-Fi radio-map construction is an important phase in indoor fingerprint localization systems. Traditional methods for Wi-Fi radio-map construction have the problems of being time-consuming and labor-intensive. In this paper, an indoor Wi-Fi radio-map construction method is proposed which utilizes crowdsourcing data contributed by smartphone users. We draw indoor pathway map and construct Wi-Fi radio-map without requiring manual site survey, exact floor layout and extra infrastructure support. The key novelty is that it recognizes road segments from crowdsourcing traces by a cluster based on magnetism sequence similarity and constructs an indoor pathway map with Wi-Fi signal strengths annotated on. Through experiments in real world indoor areas, the method is proved to have good performance on magnetism similarity calculation, road segment clustering and pathway map construction. The Wi-Fi radio maps constructed by crowdsourcing data are validated to provide competitive indoor localization accuracy.
A Contemporary Conceptual Framework for Initial Data Analysis

Abstract:Initial data analyses (IDA) are often performed as part of studies with primary-data collection, where data are obtained to address a predefined set of research questions, and with a clear plan of the intended statistical analyses. An informal or unstructured approach may have a large and non-transparent impact on results and conclusions presented in publications. Key principles for IDA are to avoid analyses that are part of the research question, and full documentation and transparency.We develop a framework for IDA from the perspective of a study with primary-data collection and define and discuss six steps of IDA: (1) Metadata setup to properly conduct all following IDA steps, (2) Data cleaning to identify and correct data errors, (3) Data screening that consists of understanding the properties of the data, (4) Initial data reporting that informs all potential collaborators working with the data about insights, (5) Refining and updating the analysis plan to incorporate the relevant findings, (6) Reporting of IDA in research papers to document steps that impact the interpretation of results. We describe basic principles to be applied in each step and illustrate them by example.Initial data analysis needs to be recognized as an important part and independent element of the research process. Lack of resources or organizational barriers can be obstacles to IDA. Further methodological developments are needed for IDA dealing with multi-purpose studies or increasingly complex data sets.
INDUCED BY RED WINE POLYPHENOLS : THE ROLE OF NITRIC OXIDE

It was hypothesized that the cardioprotective effect of natural polyphenols results from their ability to protect low-density lipoprotein from oxidation, to prevent platelet aggregation and leukocyte adhesion, and to promote relaxation of vascular smooth muscle. The aim of the present study was to investigate the mechanism of vasorelaxant responses of carotid and femoral arteries induced by red wine polyphenolic compounds (ProvinolsTM). Rings of rat carotid and femoral artery with functional endothelium were set up in a myograph for isometric recording and precontracted with phenylephrine (10 M). ProvinolsTM in cumulative doses (10 to 10 mg/ml) elicited endotheliumand dose-dependent relaxation of the carotid and femoral arteries with maximal relaxation of 61% and 56%, respectively, at the concentration of 10 mg/ml. The relaxant responses to ProvinolsTM were associated with the increase of NO synthase activity in the vascular tissues after administration of cumulative doses of ProvinolsTM (10 to 10 mg/ml) in the presence of Ca. The relaxant responses induced by ProvinolsTM were abolished by Ca-entry blocker, verapamil (10 M) in both arteries. In conclusion, ProvinolsTM elicited endothelium-dependent relaxation of rat carotid and femoral arteries by the Ca-induced increase of NO synthase activity.