Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Surgery Training, Planning and Guidance Using the SOFA Framework

In recent years, an active development of novel technologies dealing with medical training, planning and guidance has become an increasingly important area of interest in both research and health-care manufacturing. A combination of advanced physical models, realistic human-computer interaction and growing computational power is bringing new solutions in order to help both medical students and experts to achieve a higher degree of accuracy and reliability in surgical interventions. In this paper, we present three different examples of medical physically-based simulations implemented in a common software platform called SOFA. Each example represents a different application: training for cardiac electrophysiology, pre-operative planning of cryosurgery and per-operative guidance for laparoscopy. The goal of this presentation is to evaluate the realism, accuracy and efficiency of the simulations, as well as to demonstrate the potential and flexibility of the SOFA platform.
Activity dependence of spreading depression in the locust CNS

ABSTRACT Spreading depression (SD) is associated with large changes in extracellular ion concentrations and can be induced by impairing mechanisms of K+ ion homeostasis. We tested activity dependence of SD in the locust model of ouabain-induced SD in the metathoracic ganglion. Wind activation of thoracic circuitry resulted in small increases of K+ concentration that took 5–10 s to be cleared from the extracellular space. In the presence of the Na+/K+-ATPase inhibitor ouabain, wind stimulation every 30 s halved the latency to the first SD event and increased its duration. Wind stimulation was able to trigger the first event, suggesting that local activity could determine the origin of successive SD events. Perfusion with calcium-free saline blocked neural activity in the ganglion and prevented the occurrence of ouabain-induced SD. We conclude that ouabain-induced SD in the locust CNS is strongly dependent on the existing level of neural activity. Summary: Locust spreading depression is strongly dependent on existing levels of neural activity. Increased neural activity heightens susceptibility to spreading depression, whereas a reduction in activity is inhibitory.
H i in very metal‐poor galaxies: the SBS 0335–052 system

We present Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT), H i 21cm observations of SBS 0335–052E and SBS 0335–052W, a close pair of dwarf galaxies, which are further unusual in being the most metal-poor star-forming galaxies known. We present images at several angular resolutions, ranging from �40 to 4 arcsec. These images show that SBS 0335–052 is a strongly interacting system, with a faint diffuse H i bridge seen at low resolution, and elongated tails seen at the higher resolutions. The overall morphology suggests that the pair represents a major (as both galaxies have similar H i masses) merger of extremely gas-rich galaxies, which is currently past the first close encounter. The low-resolution velocity field is dominated by the velocity difference between the two galaxies and the velocity gradient along the tidal features. However, for SBS 0335–052W at least, at high angular resolution, one sees a central velocity field that could be associated with the spin of the original undisturbed disc. The two galaxies have very similar H i masses, but very different optical properties and current star formation rates. A possible reason for this is the differing amounts of tidally-induced star formation, because of the different spin orientations of these interacting galaxies. The highest angular resolution H i images show that the ionized superbubble, identified by Thuan, Izotov & Lipovetsky (1997), in the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) images of SBS 0335–052E, is extended along one of the diffuse tidal features, and that there is a high-density H i clump at the other end of the superbubble. The star formation in SBS 0335–052E occurs mainly in a group of superstar clusters (SSCs) with a clear age gradient; the age decreases as one approaches the dense H i clump. We suggest that this propagating star formation is driven by the superbubble expanding into a medium with a tidally-produced density gradient. The high pressures associated with the compressed material would also naturally explain why current star formation is mainly concentrated in superstar clusters.
Soil Property Mapping Over Large Areas Using Sparse Ad-hoc Samples

This paper presents a new approach to predict soil properties and quantify uncertainty in the derived soil property maps over large areas using sparse and ad-hoc samples. According to the soil-landscape model, each soil sample contains corresponding relationships between soil and environment conditions. Under the assumption that the more similar the environment conditions between two locations the more similar the soil property values, each sample can be considered as a representative (individual representativeness) over areas of similar environmental conditions. The level of representativeness of an individual sample to an unsampled location can be approximated by the similarity in environmental conditions between the two locations. Based on this “individual representativeness” concept and with the use of Case-based Reasoning (CBR) idea, which solves new problems by referring to similar cases, soil property values at unsampled locations can be predicted based on their environmental similarity to the individual samples. Furthermore, the uncertainty associated with each prediction is related to the similarity and can thus be quantified. A case study located in Illy Region, Xinjiang, Northwest China, has demonstrated that the predicted map of soil organic matter of top layer is of good quality and the quantified uncertainty is positively correlated with prediction residual. This suggests that the approach can be an effective alternative for predicting soil property and reporting uncertainty in the resulting soil map over large areas with sparse and ad-hoc samples.
GPS moving performance on open sky and forested paths

In this paper we present a systematic study of the performance of seven different configurations of GPS on a moving vehicle using three different GPS receivers. The seven different configurations are 1) single frequency code differential DGPS, 2) double frequency code differential DGPS, 3) RTK-GPS receiving RTCM correction from a mobile phone, 4) RTK-GPS receiving RTCM correction information via wireless module from base antenna, 5) StarFire WADGPS, 6) StarFire-DGPS dual mode and 7) StarFire-RTK GPS dual mode. As GPS is mostly used in loosely coupled configurations where receiver output is fused with other sensors, the contribution of this paper is the statistical comparison in two dimensions of different GPS configurations using as performance index availability, precision (using standard deviation parameters of each measurement) and reliability. Two types of study environments were tested, open sky and under tree shading. Time for re-acquiring fix solution for RTK-GPS configurations and re-acquiring dual frequency solution by dual frequency configurations are discussed as well. Finally, experimental measurement results show how under tree shading, biased position data with small covariance can be rejected thresholding measurements with small HDOP values and large number of satellites used for solution.
The impact of emotions on the well-being of the english preparatory program instructors

The purpose of this research study is to find out the impact of emotions on the well-being of the English Language Preparatory Program instructors working in private (non-profit, foundation) universities in İstanbul, Turkey. Specifically, this mixed method study aims to investigate the emotional well-being (positive and negative emotions) of the instructors, to explore to what extent year of experience affects their emotions, and lastly, to find out the reflections of the participating instructors leading to change in their emotions. The quantitative data were obtained through a Teacher Emotion Inventory (TEI) Scale (Chen, 2016) administered to 66 EFL instructors from five different English Language Preparatory Programs (ELPPs) in İstanbul while the qualitative data including instructors’ opinions about their feelings were gathered from teachers’ reflections written by 28 participating instructors. The findings of the study showed that participants mostly experience positive emotions. Moreover, it was also found that the years of experience had a positive impact only on the participants’ emotions of joy. However, there were also other remarkable factors affecting instructors’ emotions and emotional well-being regarding their students, personal life and institutions. Based on the findings, recommendations to foster positive emotions in preparatory programs were provided in the study.
Dual inhibition of PCDH9 expression by miR-215-5p up-regulation in gliomas

The clinical prognosis of malignant gliomas is poor and PCDH9 down-regulation is strongly associated with its poor prognosis. But the mechanism of PCDH9 down-regulation is unknown. Abnormal miRNAs profiles regulate tumor phenotypes through inhibiting their target genes and miRNAs could inhibit target genes more efficiently by binding to both the promoter and 3′UTR of target genes. In this study, to search the dual inhibitory miRNAs which suppress PCDH9 expression in gliomas, we performed an integrative analysis of databases including miRDB, TargetScan, microPIR and miRCancer. We identified three candidate miRNAs which were predicted to bind both the promoter and 3′UTR of PCDH9 and up-regulated in gliomas. Then, we validated miR-215-5p up-regulation and PCDH9 down-regulation in glioma samples and demonstrated that miR-215-5p could inhibit the mRNA and protein levels of PCDH9 in glioma cell lines by targeting its promoter and 3′ UTR at the same time. Moreover, miR-215-5p could increase glioma cell proliferation, clone formation, in-vitro migration and reduce apoptosis via inhibiting PCDH9 expression. Our study provides evidence for a novel dual inhibition of PCDH9 by miR-215-5p in gliomas and suggests that miR-215-5p might be a therapeutic target for the treatment of gliomas.
Comments to NIST concerning AES Modes of Operations: CTR-Mode Encryption

Counter-mode encryption (“CTR mode”) was introduced by Difﬁe and Hellman already in 1979 [5] and is already standardized by, for example, [1, Section 6.4]. It is indeed one of the best known modes that are not standardized in [10]. We suggest that NIST, in standardizing AES modes of operation, should include CTR-mode encryption as one possibility for the next reasons. First, CTR mode has signiﬁcant efﬁciency advantages over the standard encryption modes without weakening the security. In particular its tight security has been proven. Second, most of the perceived disadvantages of CTR mode are not valid criticisms, but rather caused by the lack of knowledge.
Intelligent System for Urban Emergency Management during Large-Scale Disaster

The frequency and intensity of natural disasters has significantly increased over the past decades and this trend is predicted to continue. Facing these possible and unexpected disasters, urban emergency management has become the especially important issue for the whole governments around the world.In this paper, we present a novel intelligent system for urban emergency management during the large-scale disasters. The proposed systemstores and manages the global positioning system (GPS) records from mobile devices used by approximately 1.6 million people throughout Japan over one year. By mining and analyzing population movements after the Great East Japan Earthquake, our system can automatically learn a probabilistic model to better understand and simulate human mobility during the emergency situations. Based on the learning model, population mobility in various urban areas impacted by the earthquake throughout Japan can be automatically simulated or predicted. On the basis of such kind of system, it is easy for us to find some new features or population mobility patterns after the recent and unprecedented composite disasters, which are likely to provide valuable experience and play a vital role for future disaster management worldwide.
Onboard Integrated Battery Charger for EVs Using an Asymmetrical Nine-Phase Machine

This paper considers an integrated onboard charger for electric vehicles that incorporates an asymmetrical nine-phase machine and an inverter into the charging process. The charging is from three-phase mains, and it employs exclusively the power electronic components that already exist on board the vehicle and that are mandatory for the propulsion. No new elements are introduced. Moreover, the charging is achieved without any hardware reconfiguration since the existing elements and their connections are not altered during the transfer from propulsion to the charging mode. Instead, the operating principle is based on additional degrees of freedom that exist in nine-phase machines. These degrees of freedom are employed to avoid electromagnetic torque production in the machine during the charging process, although currents flow through its stator windings. The configuration operates with a unity power factor and is capable of vehicle to grid (V2G) operation as well. A detailed theoretical analysis is given, and the control for the charging/V2G and propulsion modes is discussed. Theoretical analysis is validated by experiments for charging, V2G, and propulsion operating regimes.
Moms at Work and Dads at Home: Children's Evaluations of Parental Roles

Children's evaluations of two parental roles, working outside the home, and staying home to take care of children, were assessed in second (M = 7.13 years, SD = .39) and fifth grade (M = 10.42, SD = .57) students (N = 121). Children viewed it as acceptable for both mothers and fathers to work full-time, and used personal choice and social conventional reasons as justifications. In contrast, children found it less acceptable for fathers to stay at home than for mothers to stay at home, and they used gender stereotypes about domestic roles as justifications. With age, children were more flexible in their reasoning and used fewer stereotypes in their evaluations; children from traditional family structures used more stereotypic expectations than did children from non-traditional ones. Overall, children's interpretations of competence in a caretaker role was highly contingent on the gender of the parent.
Decision-making competence and adherence to treatment in adolescents with diabetes.

OBJECTIVE To examine decision-making competence (the ability to form effective plans for managing different situations) in a sample of adolescents with type I diabetes and their parents. We hypothesized that adolescent decision-making competence would mediate the relationship between parent-adolescent communication and adherence to treatment. METHODS The sample consisted of 63 adolescents and their parents. Parent-adolescent communication during a problem-solving task was assessed, as well as adolescent maladaptive decision-making (adolescent report), adherence to treatment (parent and provider report; number of glucose tests), and metabolic control (HbA1C). RESULTS Parent-adolescent communication was associated with adherence to treatment but not with adolescent decision-making. Poorer decision-making was associated with lower adherence per parent report but not provider report or the number of glucose tests. Decision-making competence did not mediate the relationships between parent-adolescent communication and adherence. CONCLUSIONS These results are consistent with prior research demonstrating associations between parent-adolescent communication and adherence and identify adolescent decision-making competence as another potentially important correlate of adherence. These findings highlight several areas for future research.
Soft Folding

We introduce soft folding, a new interactive method for designing and exploring thin‐plate forms. A user specifies sharp and soft folds as two‐dimensional(2D) curves on a flat sheet, along with the fold magnitude and sharpness of each. Then, based on the soft folds, the system computes the three‐dimensional(3D) folded shape. Internally, the system first computes a fold field, which defines local folding operations on a flat sheet. A fold field is a generalization of a discrete fold graph in origami, replacing a graph with sharp folds with a continuous field with soft folds. Next, local patches are folded independently according to the fold field. Finally, a globally folded 3D shape is obtained by assembling the locally folded patches. This algorithm computes an approximation of 3D developable surfaces with user‐defined soft folds at an interactive speed. The user can later apply nonlinear physical simulation to generate more realistic results. Experimental results demonstrated that soft folding is effective for producing complex folded shapes with controllable sharpness.
A concept-drift perspective on prototype selection and generation

This study brings together systematised views of two related areas: data editing for the nearest neighbour classifier and adaptive learning in the presence of concept drift. The growing number of studies in the intersection of these areas warrants a closer look. We revise and update the taxonomies of the two areas proposed in the literature and argue that they are not sufficiently discriminative with respect to methods for prototype selection and prototype generation in the presence of concept drift. We proceed to create a bespoke taxonomy of these methods and illustrate it with ten examples from the literature. The new taxonomy can serve as a road-map for researching the intersection area and inform the development of new methods.
Davis flap: the glory still present

Background: Upper third defects of the ear are too large to be closed primarily without distorting the auricle. Full thickness defects can be reconstructed with local flaps. In this article, Davis flap was used to fill the upper third defects of the ear with some modifications. Patients and methods: Eight patients underwent reconstruction of full thickness auricular defects with Davis flaps from July 2012 to December 2014. The posterior surface of the flap and the raw area of conchal area were covered by full thickness graft taken from posterior surface of ear. Results: All flaps survived. No congestion was noted. The donor sites and skin grafts healed uneventfully. Conclusion: Davis flap is a simple and reproducible tool for reconstruction of upper third of ear.
Mediterranean Diet and Diabetes: Prevention and Treatment

The aim of the present review is to examine current scientific knowledge on the association between the Mediterranean diet and diabetes mellitus (mostly type 2 diabetes). A definition of the Mediterranean diet and the tools widely used to evaluate adherence to this traditional diet (Mediterranean diet indices) are briefly presented. The review focuses on epidemiological data linking adherence to the Mediterranean diet with the risk of diabetes development, as well as evidence from interventional studies assessing the effect of the Mediterranean diet on diabetes control and the management of diabetes-related complications. The above mentioned data are explored on the basis of evaluating the Mediterranean diet as a whole dietary pattern, rather than focusing on the effect of its individual components. Possible protective mechanisms of the Mediterranean diet against diabetes are also briefly discussed.
A scientometric analysis of e-participation research

Purpose Due to the increasing demand for public services, as a new form of public governance, e-participation has emerged. Scholars from various disciplines have published plenty of research results on e-participation. This paper aims to reveal the research status frontiers directly by mapping knowledge domains. Design/methodology/approach The authors take 1,322 articles on e-participation published in Web of Science from 2001 to 2017 as research object. They then run the information visualization software CiteSpace to drill deeper into the literature data. Findings The study found that e-participation research has the obvious interdisciplinary feature; the author and institution cooperation networks with less internal cooperation are relatively sparse; the USA ranks first in the field of e-participation research, followed by the UK, with the other countries lagged behind; and e-participation through social media is gradually becoming the new research focus. Originality/value Based on the objective data and information visualization technology, the research intuitively reveals the research status and development trend of e-participation.
3D Origami Design based on Tucking Molecule

This paper presents a new approach for folding a piece of paper into an arbitrary three-dimensional polyhedral surface based on ”tucking molecules. ” The approach is to align the polygons of the three-dimensional surface onto a convex region of a plane and fill the blank area between the polygons with ”tucking molecules. ” Tucking molecules are aligned between segments and vertices of the polygons, and ”paste” them together by being folded flat. We propose a novel method for generating crease pattern for tucking molecules. Necessary and sufficient conditions to enable construction of the required surface are also shown. Additionally we show that the necessary conditions can be represented in inequality conditions by using the ”tuck proxies. ”
Assessment of vibratory sensation with a tuning fork at different sites in Japanese patients with diabetes mellitus

The current study compared the vibratory sensations at different sites, using a retrospective database of 547 Japanese diabetic patients. The vibratory sensation was assessed with a 128‐Hz tuning fork at the medial malleolus, the great toe and the fifth toe. The vibratory sensations at different sites were significantly associated with one another (all P < 0.01). The vibratory sensation at one site corresponding to 10 s at another site was calculated to be 9–11 s. Although the vibratory sensations at the three sites had different associations with the pressure sensation and the ankle reflex, they showed similar C‐statistics for the impaired pressure sensation and the disappeared ankle reflex. In conclusion, the vibratory sensations at different sites were strongly associated with one another. They would be clinically acceptable alternatives to one another in the assessment of diabetic peripheral neuropathy.
Heuristic Search Exploiting Non-additive and Unit Properties for RTS-game Unit Micromanagement

This paper presents an approach that integrates fuzzy integral and fast heuristic search for improving the quality of unit micromanagement in the popular RTS game StarCraft. Unit micromanagement, i.e., detailed control of units in combat, is one of the most challenging problems posed by RTS games and is often tackled with search algorithms such as Minimax or Alpha-Beta. Due to vast state and action spaces, the game tree is often very large, and search algorithms must rely on evaluation methods from a certain limited depth rather than exploring deeper into the tree. We therefore attempt to apply fuzzy integral and aim for an evaluation method with high accuracy in the search. To achieve this aim, we propose a new function that allows fuzzy integral to cope with not only non-additive properties but also unit properties in RTS games. Experimental results are reported at the end of this paper, showing that our approach outperforms an existing approach in terns of win rates in this domain.