Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Variations in the intrinsic mechanical properties of human articular cartilage with age, degeneration, and water content.

UNLABELLED In a series of 103 specimens from the lateral facet of the human patella, the intrinsic mechanical properties of articular cartilage were measured using a confined compression creep test. By considering the cartilage as a porous, permeable solid filed with fluid, this experimental procedure allowed the determination of the intrinsic equilibrium modulus of the cartilage matrix and its permeability to fluid flow. The intrinsic equilibrium modulus and the permeability both were highly correlated with the water content of the tissue; as water content increased, the matrix of the tissue became softer and more permeable. There was only a marginal decrease in the equilibrium modulus of the tissue with increasing age and surface degeneration. The permeability of the cartilage matrix was not significantly correlated with age or degeneration. CLINICAL RELEVANCE We concluded that the visual or histological appearance of a cartilage specimen may be a poor indicator of its ability to function as the bearing material in the intact joint. A more reliable indicator of the functional properties of a specimen can be obtained either by direct mechanical testing or by biochemical analysis of its composition.
Policy Iteration for Decentralized Control of Markov Decision Processes

Coordination of distributed agents is required for problems arising in many areas, including multi-robot systems, networking and e-commerce. As a formal framework for such problems, we use the decentralized partially observable Markov decision process (DEC-POMDP). Though much work has been done on optimal dynamic programming algorithms for the single-agent version of the problem, optimal algorithms for the multiagent case have been elusive. The main contribution of this paper is an optimal policy iteration algorithm for solving DEC-POMDPs. The algorithm uses stochastic finite-state controllers to represent policies. The solution can include a correlation device, which allows agents to correlate their actions without communicating. This approach alternates between expanding the controller and performing value-preserving transformations, which modify the controller without sacrificing value. We present two efficient value-preserving transformations: one can reduce the size of the controller and the other can improve its value while keeping the size fixed. Empirical results demonstrate the usefulness of value-preserving transformations in increasing value while keeping controller size to a minimum. To broaden the applicability of the approach, we also present a heuristic version of the policy iteration algorithm, which sacrifices convergence to optimality. This algorithm further reduces the size of the controllers at each step by assuming that probability distributions over the other agents' actions are known. While this assumption may not hold in general, it helps produce higher quality solutions in our test problems.
Complex unilateral hybridization in Lycopersicon hirsutum.

* Paper No. 826 from the Department of Genetics, University of Wisconsin. This work was supported by grants from the American Cancer Society and the Atomic Energy Commission. 1 Freese, E. , these PROCEEDINGS, 45, 622 (1959). 2 Freese, E. , E. Bautz Freese, and E. Bautz, J. Mol. Biol. (in press). 3 Benzer, S. , and. E. Freese, these PROCEEDINGS, 44, 112 (1958). 4 Freese, E. , J. Mol. Biol., 1, 87 (1959). 5 Freese, E. Bautz, and E. Freese, Virology, 13, 19 (1961). 6 Litman, R. M. , and A. B. Pardee, Nature, 178, 529 (1956). 7 Baron, F. , and D. M. Brown, J. Chem. Soc. , Aug., 2855 (1955). 8 Takemura, S. , J. Biochemistry (Japan), 44, 321 (1957). 9 Takemura, S. , Bull. Chem. Soc. (Japan), 32, 920 (1959). 10 Stahl, F. W. , J. M. Crasemann, L. 0. Kun, E. Fox, and C. Laird, Virology, 13, 98 (1961). 1 Bautz, E. , and E. Freese, these PROCEEDINGS, 46, 1585 (1960). 12 Freese, E. Bautz, these PROCEEDINGS, 47, 540 (1961). 13 Hershey, A. D. , J. Dixon, and M. Chase, J. Gen. Physiol. , 36, 777 (1953). 14 Wyatt, G. R. , and S. S. Cohen, Biochem. J., 55, 774 (1953). 16 Vielmetter, W. , and H. Schuster, Biochem. Biophys. Research Commun. , 2, 324 (1960).
Spatial gossip and resource location protocols

The dynamic behavior of a network in which information is changing continuously over time requires robust and efficient mechanisms for keeping nodes updated about new information. Gossip protocols are mechanisms for this task in which nodes communicate with one another according to some underlying deterministic or randomized algorithm, exchanging information in each communication step. In a variety of contexts, the use of randomization to propagate information has been found to provide better reliability and scalability than more regimented deterministic approaches. In many settings --- consider a network of sensors, or a cluster of distributed computing hosts --- new information is generated at individual nodes, and is most “interesting” to nodes that are nearby. Thus, we propose distance-based propagation bounds as a performance measure for gossip algorithms: a node at distance d from the origin of a new piece of information should be able to learn about this information with a delay that grows slowly with d, and is independent of the size of the network. For nodes arranged with uniform density in Euclidean space, we present natural gossip algorithms that satisfy such a guarantee: new information is spread to nodes at distance \DIST, with high probability, in O(\log^{1 + \ve} \DIST) time steps. Such a bound combines the desirable qualitative features of uniform gossip, in which information is spread with a delay that is logarithmic in the full network size, and deterministic flooding, in which information is spread with a delay that is linear in the distance and independent of the network size. Our algorithms and their analysis resolve a conjecture of Demers et al. We show an application of our gossip algorithms to a basic resource location problem, in which nodes seek to rapidly
Scheduling of domestic water heater power demand for maximizing PV self-consumption using model predictive control

This paper presents a model predictive control (MPC) strategy for maximizing photo-voltaic (PV) self-consumption in a household context exploiting the flexible demand of an electric water heater. The predictive controller uses a water heater model and forecast of the hot water consumption in order to predict the future temperature of the water and it manages its state (on and off) according to the forecasted PV production, which are computed starting from forecast of the solar irradiance. Simulations for the proof of concept and for validating the proposed control strategy are proposed. Results of the control approach are compared with a traditional thermostatic controller using historical measurements of a 10 kW PV installation. Economic results based on the Italian self consumption tariffs are also reported. The model of the water heater complex is a mixed grey and white box and its parameters have been estimated using a real water heater device.
Mcheza: a workbench to detect selection using dominant markers

MOTIVATION Dominant markers (DArTs and AFLPs) are commonly used for genetic analysis in the fields of evolutionary genetics, ecology and conservation of genetic resources. The recent prominence of these markers has coincided with renewed interest in detecting the effects of local selection and adaptation at the level of the genome. RESULTS We present Mcheza, an application for detecting loci under selection based on a well-evaluated F(ST)-outlier method. The application allows robust estimates to be made of model parameters (e.g. genome-wide average, neutral F(ST)), provides data import and export functions, iterative contour smoothing and generation of graphics in an easy to use graphical user interface with a computation engine that supports multicore processors for enhanced performance. Mcheza also provides functionality to mitigate common analytical errors when scanning for loci under selection. AVAILABILITY Mcheza is freely available under GPL version 3 from http://popgen.eu/soft/mcheza.
Stereo Matching Using Belief Propagation

In this paper, we formulate the stereo matching problem as a Markov network consisting of three coupled Markov random fields (MRF's). These three MRF's model a smooth field for depth/disparity, a line process for depth discontinuity and a binary process for occlusion, respectively. After eliminating the line process and the binary process by introducing two robust functions, we obtain the maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimation in the Markov network by applying a Bayesian belief propagation (BP) algorithm. Furthermore, we extend our basic stereo model to incorporate other visual cues (e.g., image segmentation) that are not modeled in the three MRF's, and again obtain the MAP solution. Experimental results demonstrate that our method outperforms the state-of-art stereo algorithms for most test cases.
Neuroprotective effects of Salvia aristata Aucher ex Benth. on hydrogen peroxide induced apoptosis in SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cells

Background and objectivesOxidative stress is implicated in the neuronal damage associated with Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, amyotropic lateral sclerosis and cerebral ischemic stroke. The present work was designed to establish the neuroprotective effects of Salvia aristata extract on H2O2-induced apoptosis in human dopaminergic SH-SY5Y cells.MethodsThe total phenol and flavonoids contents of the plant extracts were quantified by colorimetric methods. The antioxidant activity was assessed using DPPH free radicals scavenging activity assay, and the neuroprotective effect on H2O2-induced oxidative stress was also investigated using human dopaminergic SH-SY5Y cells by MTT assay and western blotting techniques.ResultsThe highest scavenging activity was found for methanol extract of S. aristata roots (85.28 ± 2.61 μg/mL), with the highest total phenolic and flavonoids content (90.28 mg total phenols as gallic acid and 250.12 mg total flavonoids as rutin, respectively). Our results also, showed that H2O2-induced cytotoxicity in SH-SY5Y cells was suppressed by treatment with S. aristata. Moreover, S. aristata root extract was effective in attenuating the disruption of mitochondrial membrane potential and apoptotic cell death has induced by H2O2. S. aristata suppressed the down-regulation of Bcl-2, upregulation of Bax, and the release of mitochondrial cytochrome c to cytosol. In addition, S. aristata attenuated caspase-3, and -9 activation, and eventually protected the cells against H2O2-induced apoptosis.ConclusionTheresults of the present study suggest that treatment of SH-SY5Y cells with S. aristata could block H2O2-induced apoptosis by regulating Bcl-2 family members and by suppressing caspase cascade activation.
AN EFFECTIVE EPIPOLAR GEOMETRY ASSISTED MOTION-ESTIMATION TECHNIQUE FOR MULTIVIEW IMAGE CODING

To effectively encode data-intensive, multi-view imaging content, H.264/AVC as a state-of-the-art coding standard is often adopted for its superior coding efficiency. However, an H.264 encoder is very complex because of the many advanced but computationally complicated schemes it employs in achieving a high-coding performance. The most time-consuming component is variable block-size motion estimation (ME). A ME technique is proposed in this paper to accelerate the encoding by employing what is known as epipolar geometry, which provides constraints for multiview image sequences. Theoretical analyses and experimental results prove that the proposed ME’s use of epipolar geometry can greatly reduce a search region and effectively track large and irregular motion, typical for convergent multi-view camera setups. As a result, compared with fast full search at large search size adopted in H.264, our proposed ME algorithm can obtain a similar coding efficiency while achieving a speedup ratio of 2.
Partial-Match Queries with Random Wildcards: In Tries and Distributed Hash Tables

Consider an $m$-bit query $q$ to a bitwise trie $T$. A wildcard $*$ is an unspecified bit in $q$ for which the query asks the membership for both cases $*=0$ and $*=1$. It is common that such partial-match queries with wildcards are issued in tries. With uniformly random occurrences of $w$ wildcards in $q$ assumed, the obvious upper bound on the average number of traversal steps in $T$ is $2^w m$. We show that the average does not exceed \[ \frac{m+1}{w+1} \left( 2^{w+2} - 2 w - 4 \right) + m = O \left( \frac{2^w m}{w} \right), \] and equals the value exactly when $T$ includes all the $m$-bit keys as the worst case. Here the query $q$ performs with the naive backtracking algorithm in $T$. It is similarly shown that the average is $O \left( \frac{k^w m}{w} \right)$ in a general trie of maximum out-degree $k$. Our analysis for tries is extended to a distributed hash table (DHT), which is among the most frequently used decentralized data structures in networking. We show, under a natural probabilistic assumption for the largest class of DHTs, that the average number of hops required by an $m$-bit query $q$ to a DHT $D$ with random $w$ wildcards meets the same asymptotic bound. As a result, $q$ is answered with average $O \left( \frac{2^w m}{w} \right)$ hops rather than $\Theta \left( 2^w m \right)$ in the four major DHTs Chord, Pastry, Tapestry and Kademlia. In addition, with a uniform key distribution for sufficiently many entries, we prove that a lookup request to the DHT Chord is answered correctly with $O(m)$ hops and probability $1 - 2^{-\Omega (m)}$. To the author's knowledge, the probability $1 - 2^{-\Omega (m)}$ of correct lookup in Chord has not been identified so far.
A Speech rocessin Interface for Analysis of atholo ical oices

The authors present a new speech processing software designed for clinical observation of vocal disorders, speech assessments and some pathologies identification. By using a recorded speech sound of a patient, they use a PDA algorithm implemented under Matlab in order to extract the vocal parameters (pitch period, formant frequencies, jitter, shimmer). The obtained results are compared with the normal values in order to an eventual disorder classification, a pathological prediction and prostheses assessments
Mixed Finite Element Method for Nonlinear Elliptic Problems: the h-p -Version

Mixed nite element methods for strongly nonlinear second order elliptic problems are proposed and analyzed. Existence and uniqueness of the approximate solution are demonstrated using a xed point argument. Convergence and stability of the method are proved both with respect to mesh re nement and increase of the degree of the approximating polynomials. The analysis is carried out in detail using Raviart-Thomas-Nedelec spaces as an example. Numerical results for minimal surface problems are obtained using Brezzi-Douglas-Marini spaces. Graphs of the approximate solutions are presented for two different problems.
Accelerated inhomogeneous degradation of XLPE insulation caused by copper-rich impurities at elevated temperature

In this paper, the existence of copper-rich impurities in XLPE cable insulation is found by means of thermal-oxidative ageing. The emergence of copper-rich impurities, shown as dark islands in XLPE, is proposed to be a critical point to dramatic degradation of dielectric performance. It was deduced by XRD and DSC tests that thermal-oxidative ageing at elevated temperature leads to enhanced interplanar spacing and lamellar spacing, as well as decreased crystallinity for XLPE insulation around copper-rich impurities. Meanwhile, the existence of cracks in branch-type around impurities, which can be regarded as the generation of increased free volume in XLPE, was found by SEM. These results might be induced by chains scission and crystalline disruption due to copper-rich impurities. In addition, the Oxidative Induction Time (OIT) of XLPE insulation was measured and it was observed that antioxidant in XLPE insulation plays a key role in the generation of dark islands. The dark islands can be created only if the antioxidant is nearly exhausted, which shows that the generation of dark islands is a result of thermal-oxidative ageing of XLPE cable insulation. Copper-rich impurities play the role of potential catalysts in the oxidation reaction process. The existence of such impurities could lead to accelerated inhomogeneous deterioration of XLPE insulation. A model to illustrate the failure process of XLPE insulation with copper-rich impurities in thermal-oxidative ageing will be proposed.
Graph sketches: sparsification, spanners, and subgraphs

When processing massive data sets, a core task is to construct synopses of the data. To be useful, a synopsis data structure should be easy to construct while also yielding good approximations of the relevant properties of the data set. A particularly useful class of synopses are sketches, i.e., those based on linear projections of the data. These are applicable in many models including various parallel, stream, and compressed sensing settings. A rich body of analytic and empirical work exists for sketching numerical data such as the frequencies of a set of entities. Our work investigates graph sketching where the graphs of interest encode the relationships between these entities. The main challenge is to capture this richer structure and build the necessary synopses with only linear measurements. In this paper we consider properties of graphs including the size of the cuts, the distances between nodes, and the prevalence of dense sub-graphs. Our main result is a sketch-based sparsifier construction: we show that Õ(nε-2) random linear projections of a graph on n nodes suffice to (1+ε) approximate all cut values. Similarly, we show that Õ(ε-2) linear projections suffice for (additively) approximating the fraction of induced sub-graphs that match a given pattern such as a small clique. Finally, for distance estimation we present sketch-based spanner constructions. In this last result the sketches are adaptive, i.e., the linear projections are performed in a small number of batches where each projection may be chosen dependent on the outcome of earlier sketches. All of the above results immediately give rise to data stream algorithms that also apply to dynamic graph streams where edges are both inserted and deleted. The non-adaptive sketches, such as those for sparsification and subgraphs, give us single-pass algorithms for distributed data streams with insertion and deletions. The adaptive sketches can be used to analyze MapReduce algorithms that use a small number of rounds.
Two methods for full-length RNA sequencing for low quantities of cells and single cells

The ability to determine the gene expression pattern in low quantities of cells or single cells is important for resolving a variety of problems in many biological disciplines. A robust description of the expression signature of a single cell requires determination of the full-length sequence of the expressed mRNAs in the cell, yet existing methods have either 3′ biased or variable transcript representation. Here, we report our protocols for the amplification and high-throughput sequencing of very small amounts of RNA for sequencing using procedures of either semirandom primed PCR or phi29 DNA polymerase-based DNA amplification, for the cDNA generated with oligo-dT and/or random oligonucleotide primers. Unlike existing methods, these protocols produce relatively uniformly distributed sequences covering the full length of almost all transcripts independent of their sizes, from 1,000 to 10 cells, and even with single cells. Both protocols produced satisfactory detection/coverage of the abundant mRNAs from a single K562 erythroleukemic cell or a single dorsal root ganglion neuron. The phi29-based method produces long products with less noise, uses an isothermal reaction, and is simple to practice. The semirandom primed PCR procedure is more sensitive and reproducible at low transcript levels or with low quantities of cells. These methods provide tools for mRNA sequencing or RNA sequencing when only low quantities of cells, a single cell, or even degraded RNA are available for profiling.
Social Psychology Alive

1. Introducing Social Psychology. 2. The Methods of Social Psychology. 3. Social Cognition: Thinking About People. 4. Social Perception: Perceiving the Self and Others. 5. The Person in the Situation: Self-Concept, Gender, and Dispositions. 6. Attitudes and Social Behavior. 7. Attitude Change. 8. Conformity, Compliance, and Obedience. 9. Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination. 10. Group Dynamics and Intergroup Conflict. 11. Aggression and Violence. 12. Helpful Social Behavior. 13. Liking, Loving, and Close Relationships. 14. Social Psychology in Your Life. Appendix: How to Construct a Scale.
Placebo controlled, prospectively randomized, double-blinded study for the investigation of the effectiveness and safety of the acoustic wave therapy (AWT®) for cellulite treatment

Abstract Placebo controlled double-blinded, prospectively randomized clinical trial with 17 patients (11 verum, 5 placebo) for evaluation of cellulite treatment with Acoustic Wave Therapy, (AWT®) was performed. The patients were treated once a week for 7 weeks, a total of 8 treatments with the D-ACTOR® 200 by Storz Medical AG. Data were collected at baseline, before 8th treatment, at 1 month (follow-up 1) and at 3 months (follow-up 2) after the last treatment with a patients’ questionnaire, weight control, measurement of circumference and standardized photography. Treatment progress was further documented using a specially designed 3D imaging system (SkinSCAN3D, 3D-Shape GmbH) providing an objective measure of cellulite (primary efficacy criteria). Patient's questionnaire in the verum group revealed an improvement in number and depth of dimples, skin firmness and texture, in shape and in reduction of circumference. The overall result (of skin waviness, Sq and Sz, surface and volume of depressions and elevations, Vvv and Vmp) at two follow-up visits indicates a more than medium sized superiority (MW = 0.6706) and is statistically significant (pWei–Lachin = 0.0106). The placebo group revealed no statistical significance. No side effects were seen. This indicates the efficacy and safety of AWT® for patients with cellulite.
EFFECT OF LYCOPENE ON FORMATION OF LOW DENSITY LIPOPROTEIN- COPPER COMPLEX IN COPPER CATALYZED PEROXIDATION OF LOW DENSITY LIPOPROTEIN, AS IN VITRO EXPERIMENT

Background: A great deal of evidence has indicated that oxidatively modified LDL plays a critical role in the initiation and progression of atherosclerosis. Antioxidants that can prevent LDL oxidation may act as antiatherogens. Copper is a candidate for oxidizing LDL in atherosclerotic lesions. The binding of copper ions to LDL is usually thought to be a prerequisite for LDL oxidation by copper. The aim of this study was to investigate effect of lycopene on copper bound to LDL and also effect of this binding on the susceptibility of LDL to oxidative modification. Methods: In this study, LDL was isolated from EDTA-plasma by ultracentrifugation using a single- step discontinuous gradient. Then lycopene was added to LDL and oxidizability of LDL was estimated by thiobarbitoric acid reactive substances (TBARS) after CuSo4 addition. Finally, the effect of lycopene on formation of LDL-copper complex by gel filtration was studied. Results: Our results showed that lycopene (as dose dependently) was suppressed the formation TBARS and LDL-copper complex. The lycopene with concentrations of 10 µM, 50 µM and 100 µM was reduced susceptibility of LDL to oxidative modification approximately by 31, 67 and 71 percent, respectively. Furthermore, the addition of lycopene to the mixture containing LDL and copper before incubation was prevented the formation LDL-copper complex, approximately by 38 percent. Conclusion: The results of this investigation show that lycopene with inhibition of binding of copper to LDL may decrease the susceptibility of LDL oxidation to this ion and thus may have a role in ameliorating atherosclerosis. Iran. Biomed. J. 10 (4): 191-196, 2006