Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cerebral processing of auditory and noxious stimuli in severely brain injured patients: Differences between VS and MCS

We review cerebral processing of auditory and noxious stimuli in minimally conscious state (MCS) and vegetative state (VS) patients. In contrast with limited brain activation found in VS patients, MCS patients show activation similar to controls in response to auditory, emotional and noxious stimuli. Despite an apparent clinical similarity between MCS and VS patients, functional imaging data show striking differences in cortical segregation and integration between these two conditions. However, in the absence of a generally accepted neural correlate of consciousness as measured by functional neuroimaging, clinical assessment remains the gold standard for the evaluation and management of severely brain damaged patients. This research was supported by the Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique, (FNRS), by the Reine Elisabeth Medical Foundation, by funds of the University of Liège and the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Sart Tilman, Liège, Belgium, and by a Tom Slick Research Award on Consciousness of the Mind Science Foundation, TX. S. Laureys and P. Maquet are Research Associate and Research Director at the FNRS.
Identifying metabolic syndrome without blood tests in young adults--the Terneuzen Birth Cohort.

BACKGROUND Within the context of the obesity epidemic identifying young adults at risk for type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease is important. A practical approach is based on the identification of metabolic syndrome (MetS). Our objective was to develop a simple and efficient stepwise strategy to identify MetS in young adults. METHODS Subjects were part of a birth cohort (n = 2599) in Terneuzen, The Netherlands, born in 1977-86. In 2004-05: 642 of these young adults participated in a physical examination and blood tests. Tree regression was used to determine the optimal decision strategy to identify MetS. RESULTS Overall prevalence of MetS, defined according to the NCEP ATPIII, was 7.5%. The tree regression yielded an optimal stepwise strategy that eliminated the need for blood tests for the diagnosis of MetS in 50-90% of the cases, depending on the accepted level of error. A large group (52% of the total) with BMI <35 had a normal waist circumference (WC) and normal blood pressure (BP). None of them had MetS. Subjects with BMI > or =35 all had MetS. If BMI <30, 38% had an increased WC or increased BP with a risk of MetS of only 6%. So for them the omission of blood tests could also be considered. CONCLUSION In most young adults MetS can be identified or excluded without blood tests by a simple and stepwise strategy, based on the measurement of BMI, WC and BP. This makes it possible to develop simple prevention strategies for young adults at risk for type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Designing a fully automated hierarchical fuzzy logic controllers using evolutionary algorithms

Hierarchical approaches and methodologies are commonly used as a promising technique for control system design and synthesis. This paper focuses an automatic way of evolving hierarchical fuzzy Logic controller which is a combination of cascaded fuzzy modules. The control algorithm works in two phases simultaneously: Firstly, evolutionary programming (EP) employed to identify the optimum hierarchical architecture and secondly, genetic algorithm (GA) employed to tune the fuzzy sub controllers (SC) involve in hierarchical controllers. The proposed control algorithms coupled both EP and GA optimizations. The fine tuning of the antecedent and consequent parameters of fuzzy control rules and their corresponding membership functions (MFs) of SCs encoded in the structure is accomplished using genetic algorithms (GAs). In this method, the total number of rules increases only linearly with the number of input variables. The automatically generated hierarchical fuzzy controller consists of a number of low-dimensional fuzzy systems in a hierarchical form. The proposed hierarchical control algorithm is evaluated using well known benchmark applications namely trailer-and-cab, a nonlinear motion control of nonholonomic robots. Simulation results are presented at different operating conditions and under various disturbances to verify the effectiveness of developed adaptive small size hierarchical controller.
Acute mammary and liver transcriptome responses after an intramammary Escherichia coli lipopolysaccharide challenge in postpartal dairy cows

The study investigated the effect of an intramammary lipopolysaccharide (LPS) challenge on the bovine mammary and liver transcriptome and its consequences on metabolic biomarkers and liver tissue composition. At 7 days of lactation, 7 cows served as controls (CTR) and 7 cows (LPS) received an intramammary Escherichia coli LPS challenge. The mammary and liver tissues for transcriptomic profiling were biopsied at 2.5 h from challenge. Liver composition was evaluated at 2.5 h and 7 days after challenge, and blood biomarkers were analyzed at 2, 3, 7 and 14 days from challenge. In mammary tissue, the LPS challenge resulted in 189 differentially expressed genes (DEG), with 20 down‐regulated and 169 up‐regulated. In liver tissue, there were 107 DEG in LPS compared with CTR with 42 down‐regulated and 65 up‐regulated. In mammary, bioinformatics analysis highlighted that LPS led to activation of NOD‐like receptor signaling, Toll‐like receptor signaling, RIG‐I‐like receptor signaling and apoptosis pathways. In liver, LPS resulted in an overall inhibition of fatty acid elongation in mitochondria and activation of the p53 signaling pathway. The LPS challenge induced changes in liver lipid composition, a systemic inflammation (rise of blood ceruloplasmin and bilirubin), and an increase in body fat mobilization. The data suggest that cells within the inflamed mammary gland respond by activating mechanisms of pathogen recognition. However, in the liver the response likely depends on mediators originating from the udder that affect liver functionality and specifically fatty acid metabolism (β‐oxidation, ketogenesis, and lipoprotein synthesis).
The Role of Purinergic Signaling on Deformation Induced Injury and Repair Responses of Alveolar Epithelial Cells

Cell wounding is an important driver of the innate immune response of ventilator-injured lungs. We had previously shown that the majority of wounded alveolus resident cells repair and survive deformation induced insults. This is important insofar as wounded and repaired cells may contribute to injurious deformation responses commonly referred to as biotrauma. The central hypothesis of this communication states that extracellular adenosine-5′ triphosphate (ATP) promotes the repair of wounded alveolus resident cells by a P2Y2-Receptor dependent mechanism. Using primary type 1 alveolar epithelial rat cell models subjected to micropuncture injury and/or deforming stress we show that 1) stretch causes a dose dependent increase in cell injury and ATP media concentrations; 2) enzymatic depletion of extracellular ATP reduces the probability of stretch induced wound repair; 3) enriching extracellular ATP concentrations facilitates wound repair; 4) purinergic effects on cell repair are mediated by ATP and not by one of its metabolites; and 5) ATP mediated cell salvage depends at least in part on P2Y2-R activation. While rescuing cells from wounding induced death may seem appealing, it is possible that survivors of membrane wounding become governors of a sustained pro-inflammatory state and thereby perpetuate and worsen organ function in the early stages of lung injury syndromes. Means to uncouple P2Y2-R mediated cytoprotection from P2Y2-R mediated inflammation and to test the preclinical efficacy of such an undertaking deserve to be explored.
Gamma correction based satellite image enhancement using singular value decomposition and discrete wavelet transform

This paper proposes the enhancement of low contrast satellite images based on intensity transformation. The intensity transformation is achieved using gamma correction on discrete wavelet transform (DWT) and the better illumination is achieved by singular value decomposition (SVD) technique. The DWT decomposes the input image in four different frequency sub-bands; low-low (LL), low-high (LH), high-low (HL) and high-high (HH). The gamma correction is applied only on LL sub-band to preserve the edge information. To improve the illumination, these gamma corrected LL sub-band information are passed through SVD. The enhanced image obtained is reconstructed by taking inverse discrete wavelet transform (IDWT). The performance measure is carried out in terms of EME, entropy and signals to noise ratio.
Risk-Averse Strategic Planning of HVDC Renewable Energy Grids

This paper considers the problem of strategic planning of energy grids where the power demands are served from renewable energy sources, such as wind farms, and the transmission network is represented by High-Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) lines. The principal question considered in this work is whether a risk-averse design of the grid, including the selection of wind farm locations and assignment of power delivery from wind farms to customers, would allow for effective hedging of the risks associated with uncertainties in power demands and production of energy from renewable sources. To this end, we have constructed several stochastic optimization models, including the traditional risk-neutral expectation based model, and riskaverse models based on linear and nonlinear coherent measures of risk. Exact solutions algorithms that employ Benders decomposition and polyhedral approximations of nonlinear constraints have been proposed for the obtained linear and nonlinear mixed-integer programming problems. The conducted numerical experiments illustrate the properties of the constructed models, as well as the efficiency of the developed algorithms.
Defining Established and Emerging Microbial Risks in the Aquatic Environment: Current Knowledge, Implications, and Outlooks

This timely review primarily addresses important but presently undefined microbial risks to public health and to the natural environment. It specifically focuses on current knowledge, future outlooks and offers some potential alleviation strategies that may reduce or eliminate the risk of problematic microbes in their viable but nonculturable (VBNC) state and Cryptosporidium oocysts in the aquatic environment. As emphasis is placed on water quality, particularly surrounding efficacy of decontamination at the wastewater treatment plant level, this review also touches upon other related emerging issues, namely, the fate and potential ecotoxicological impact of untreated antibiotics and other pharmaceutically active compounds in water. Deciphering best published data has elucidated gaps between science and policy that will help stakeholders work towards the European Union's Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC), which provides an ambitious legislative framework for water quality improvements within its region and seeks to restore all water bodies to “good ecological status” by 2015. Future effective risk-based assessment and management, post definition of the plethora of dynamic inter-related factors governing the occurrence, persistence and/or control of these presently undefined hazards in water will also demand exploiting and harnessing tangential advances in allied disciplines such as mathematical and computer modeling that will permit efficient data generation and transparent reporting to be undertaken by well-balanced consortia of stakeholders.
Temperature Forecast Based on SVM Optimized by PSO Algorithm

this paper presents a new SVM algorithm framework optimized by PSO algorithm. The value of parameters in the SVM has great influence on the performance of regression model. In previous works the choice of these parameters mainly depends on the experience. In our work PSO algorithm was used to optimize these parameters to form a new SVM framework – PSVM. The proposed algorithm was used to forecast the daily minimum temperate. The experimental results show that the proposed PSVM has higher accuracy the some other SVM model such as GSVM and basic SVM.
Software Transactional Memory in Multicore Processors

The transactional memory in multicore processors has been a very hot research area over past several years. Many transactional memory systems have been proposed to solve the synchronization problem of multicore processors. Software transactional memory is one of the critical methods to ease parallel programming and improve the scalability in the environment with many cores. In this study, software transactional memory systems for Multicore processors are reviewed according to the following aspects: transaction granularity, version management, conflict detection and synchronization. Finally, we discuss an active research challenge: whether strong isolation should be supported for the tradeoff between performance and semantics correctness in software transactional memory systems. KeywordsSoftware; Synchronization; Transactional Memory; Multicore processor; Parallel programming
FROBENIUS ALGEBRAS AND AMBIDEXTROUS ADJUNCTIONS

In this paper we explain the relationship between Frobenius objects in monoidal categories and adjunctions in 2-categories. Specifically, we show that every Frobenius object in a monoidal category M arises from an ambijunction (simultaneous left and right adjoints) in some 2-category D into which M fully and faithfully embeds. Since a 2D topological quantum field theory is equivalent to a commutative Frobenius algebra, this result also shows that every 2D TQFT is obtained from an ambijunction in some 2-category. Our theorem is proved by extending the theory of adjoint monads to the context of an arbitrary 2-category and utilizing the free completion under Eilenberg- Moore objects. We then categorify this theorem by replacing the monoidal category M with a semistrict monoidal 2-category M , and replacing the 2-category D into which it embeds by a semistrict 3-category. To state this more powerful result, we must first define the notion of a 'Frobenius pseudomonoid', which categorifies that of a Frobenius object. We then define the notion of a 'pseudo ambijunction', categorifying that of an ambijunction. In each case, the idea is that all the usual axioms now hold only up to coherent isomorphism. Finally, we show that every Frobenius pseudomonoid in a semistrict monoidal 2-category arises from a pseudo ambijunction in some semistrict 3-category.
On Design of Wideband Compact-Size Ka/Q-Band High-Power Amplifiers

This paper presents a methodology for the design of Ka/Q-band monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) high-power amplifiers (HPAs). Design techniques are introduced to reduce chip area and to improve bandwidth (BW). These techniques are applied to the design of a 31-39-GHz 5-W HPA implemented on a 0.1-μm AlGaAs-InGaAs pseudomorphic HEMT (pHEMT) technology. With chip dimensions of 3.35 × 3.2 mm2, the HPA achieves 24% average power-added efficiency (PAE) over the frequency band, while maintaining an average 22-dB small-signal gain. A balanced high-power amplifier (BPA) is also presented, which combines the power of two 5-W HPA cells to deliver peak 8.5-W output power (Pout) in the frequency band of 30-38 GHz. The BPA chip area is 3.5 × 6.5 mm2, and 21-dB average small-signal gain is obtained over the frequency band.
Prognostic value of Doppler echocardiographic-derived coronary flow velocity reserve of left anterior descending artery in octogenarians with stress echocardiography negative for wall motion criteria.

AIMS Doppler-derived coronary flow velocity reserve (CFVR) of left anterior descending (LAD) artery is an effective tool to predict overall mortality. The aim was to investigate the capability of CFVR to predict outcome in an unselected cohort of patients older than 80 years having stress echo negative by wall motion criteria. METHODS AND RESULTS The study group refers to 369 patients aged > 80 years (156 men; mean age 83 ± 2 years) who had undergone dipyridamole stress echocardiography with CFVR assessment of LAD artery of known (n = 144) or suspected (n = 225) coronary artery disease. Stress echocardiography was negative for wall motion criteria in all cases. Mean CFVR was 2.07 ± 0.53. During a median follow-up of 21 months, there were 62 major adverse cardiac events (MACEs; 45 deaths and 17 non-fatal myocardial infarctions). With a receiver operating characteristic analysis, a CFVR of ≤ 1.93 was the best cut-off for predicting mortality and MACE. At individual patient analysis, 152 (41%) subjects had a CFVR of < 1.93. Annual mortality was 9.8% in patients with CFVR <1.93 and 3.7% in those with CFVR > 1.93 (P = 0.001); an annual MACE rate was 14.8% in the former and 4.5% in the latter (P < 0.0001). Of 15 clinical and echocardiographic parameters analysed, CFVR ≤ 1.93 [hazard ratio (HR) = 2.17, 95% CI 1.14-4.10] and resting wall motion abnormality (RWMA; HR = 2.60; 95% CI 1.35-5.00) were multivariable indicators of mortality. Moreover, CFVR ≤ 1.93 (HR = 2.69, 95% CI 1.56-4.67), and RWMA (HR = 2.38; 95% CI 1.31-4.33) were also strong independent predictors of MACEs. At incremental analysis, CFR ≤ 1.93 added prognostic information over clinical evaluation and RWMA when both mortality and MACE were taken as clinical end points. CONCLUSIONS A reduced CFVR of LAD artery is a strong and independent indicator of both mortality and MACE, adding prognostic information over clinical evaluation and RWMA. Conversely, a preserved CFVR predicts a favourable outcome particularly in subjects with no RWMA.
Behçet's Disease and Intracardiac Thrombosis: A Report of Three Cases

We present three patients with Behçet's disease associated with intracardiac thrombus and pulmonary vascular involvement. One of these patients had also Budd-Chiari syndrome. All patients were treated with corticosteroid plus monthly intravenous cyclophosphamide as first line treatment and with no recurrences. Immunosuppressive therapy was successful in the treatment of intracardiac thrombus and also in the regression of pulmonary vascular thromboses in these patients. Intracardiac thrombus in Behçet's disease is rarely seen. Behçet's disease should be remembered in the differential diagnosis of the patients with intracardiac mass, especially in patients from the Mediterranean and Middle East populations.
Blog distillation using random walks

This paper addresses the blog distillation problem. That is, given a user query find the blogs most related to the query topic. We model the blogosphere as a single graph that includes extra information besides the content of the posts. By performing a random walk on this graph we extract most relevant blogs for each query. Our experiments on the TREC'07 data set show 15% improvement in MAP and 8% improvement in Precision@10 over the Language Modeling baseline.
Towards Quality-Adaptive Spoken Dialogue Management

Information about the quality of a Spoken Dialogue System (SDS) is usually used only for comparing SDSs with each other or manually improving the dialogue strategy. This information, however, provides a means for inherently improving the dialogue performance by adapting the Dialogue Manager during the interaction accordingly. For a quality metric to be suitable, it must suffice certain conditions. Therefore, we address requirements for the quality metric and, additionally, present approaches for quality-adaptive dialogue management.
Association between Dietary Patterns and the Risk of Hypertension among Chinese: A Cross-Sectional Study

Epidemiological studies of different dietary patterns and the risk of hypertension among a middle-aged Chinese population remain extremely scare. Thus, the aim of this study was to identify dietary patterns and investigate the relationship between dietary patterns and the risk of hypertension among Chinese adults aged 45–60 years. The present cross-sectional study includes 2560 participants who reported their dietary intake using a validated food frequency questionnaire (FFQ). Dietary patterns were identified using factor analysis. Anthropometric measurements were obtained using standardized procedures. We used log-binomial regression analysis to examine the associations between dietary patterns and hypertension risk. Four major dietary patterns were identified and labeled as traditional Chinese, animal food, western fast-food, and high-salt patterns. After adjusting for potential confounders, participants in the highest quartile of animal food pattern scores had a greater prevalence ratio (PR) for hypertension (PR = 1.26; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.064–1.727; p < 0.05) in comparison to those from the lowest quartile. Compared with the lowest quartile of high-salt pattern, the highest quartile had a higher prevalence ratio for hypertension (PR = 1.12; 95% CI: 1.013–1.635; p < 0.05). Conclusions: Our findings indicated that animal food and high-salt patterns were associated with increased risk of hypertension, while traditional Chinese and western fast-food patterns were not associated with the risk of hypertension. Further prospective studies are warranted to confirm these findings.
Adding multiple cost constraints to combinatorial optimization problems, with applications to multicommodity flows

Minimum cost multicommodity flow is an instance of a simpler problem (multicommodity flow) to which a cost constraint has been added. In this paper we present a general scheme for solving a large class of such “cost-added” problems—even if more than one cost is added. One of the main applications of this method is a new deterministic algorithm for approximately solving the minimumcost multicommodity flow problem. Our algorithm finds a (1 + e) approximation to the minimum cost flow in 0(e-3kmn) time, where k is the number of commodities, m is the number of edges, and n is the number vertices in the input problem. This improves the previous best deterministic bounds of O(e-4kmn2 ) [9] and 6(e-2k2m2) [15] by f~ctors of n/6 and ekm/n respectively. In fact, it even dominates the best randomized bound of 0(e-2km2) [15]. The algorithm presented in this paper efficiently solves several other interesting generalizations of rein-cost flow problems, such as one in which each commodity can have its own distinct shipping cost per edge, or one in which there is more than one cost measure on the flows and all costs must be kept small simultaneously. Our approach is based on an extension of the approximate packing techniques in [15] and a generalization of the round-robin approach of [16] to multicommodity flow without costs.
Role Based Access Control For Android ( RBACA )

Android as an open platform dominates the booming mobile market. However its permission mechanism is inflexible and often results in over-privileged applications. This in turn creates severe security issues. In this paper, we propose a Role-Based Access Control for Android (RBACA) framework to address this problem. We show how the widely used Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) approach can be applied to Android mobile systems in order to mitigate the security risks caused by over-privileged applications. We explain how single users as well as large corporations can make use of RBACA. An initial prototype of RBACA has been implemented and its functionality can be
Region Extraction Using Chroma Key with a Checker Pattern Background

In this paper, we propose a new region extraction method using chroma key with a two-tone checker pattern background. The method solves the problem in conventional chroma key techniques that foreground objects become transparent if they have the same color with the background. The method utilizes the adjacency condition between two-tone regions of the background and the geometrical information of the background grid line. Experimental results show that the foreground objects can be segmented exactly from the background regardless of the colors of the foreground objects.