Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Genetics of pheochromocytoma and paraganglioma syndromes: new advances and future treatment options

Purpose of reviewTo summarize the recent advances in the genetics of pheochromocytoma and paraganglioma (PHEO/PGL), focusing on the new susceptibility genes and dividing PHEOs/PGLs into two groups based on their transcription profile. Recent findingsRecently, TMEM127, MYC-associated factor X, and hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) 2&agr; have been described in the pathogenesis of PHEOs/PGLs. Thus, now about 30–40% of these tumors are linked to the germline mutations, which also include mutations in the VHL, RET, NF1, SDHx, and SDHAF2 genes. Furthermore, PHEOs/PGLs have been divided into two groups, cluster 1 (SDHx/VHL) and cluster 2 (RET/NF1), based on the transcription profile revealed by genome-wide expression microarray analysis. SummaryPHEOs/PGLs are the most inherited tumors among (neuro)endocrine tumors. Future approaches in genetics, including whole-genome sequencing, will allow the discovery of additional PHEO/PGL susceptibility genes. The current division of PHEOs/PGLs into cluster 1 and 2 provides us with additional knowledge related to the pathogenesis of these tumors, including the introduction of new treatment options for patients with metastatic PHEOs/PGLs. New discoveries related to the role of the HIF-1/HIF-2&agr; genes in the pathogenesis of almost all inherited PHEOs/PGLs may call for a new regrouping of these tumors and discoveries of new treatment targets.
Real-Time Shadow Using a Combination of Stencil and the Z-Buffer

In this paper we describe a real-time shadow generation with volume shadow algorithm in virtual environment that is illuminated by light sources with possibility to move separately. This algorithm uses the combination of stencil and Z-buffers to generate shadow volume. It is simple to understand and implement. We have significantly improved and implemented recent techniques that are used in shadow volume algorithms using stencil buffers especially in order to recognize silhouette, reduce the number of shadow polygons and also redundant length of each triangles that makes the volume shadow. This work may be applied in commercial games or other virtual reality systems.
Energy Storage Overview : Applications , Technologies and Economical Evaluation

The electric system needs to balance supply and demand on a moment to moment basis. Energy commodities such as coal, oil and natural gas can be readily stored in massive quantities. However, the storage of electricity has been relatively complex and expensive. Today, with the changing ways in which electricity is generated and used, increased penetration of renewable energy sources and smart grid are making storage more attractive than before. The appearance of newer and cost-effective technology options is making it likely that energy storage will finally become a reality in the near future.
Compressive sensing based location estimation using channel impulse response measurements

Due to the popularity of location-based services in environment with weak GPS signals, indoor location estimation problem have attracted more and more attention in recent years. Among several distance-related measurements, channel impulse response (CIR) reflects multi-path situation between the transmitter and receiver pair and is suitable to describe the characteristic of different positions. Note that CIR, which can be obtained from the inverse Fourier transform of channel frequency response in broadband wireless networks, is supported in most of the commercial standards. In this paper, a novel compressive sensing based location estimation using CIR measurements (CS-CIR) is proposed as well as fingerprinting algorithm. CIR information is collected from each reference point (RP) to access point (AP) and stored in the database. During the on-line stage, the mobile user measures CIR from the AP and compares measured CIR with those CIR values in the database. Note that user position is close to one of the RPs and user position vector is represented as a sparse vector. By applying compressive sensing theory, user position can be recovered by solving l1-minimization problem. Simulation result validate that the CS-CIR outperforms the K-nearest neighbour method using CIR measurements and conventional received signal strength based methods.
Toward Standardizing a Lexicon of Infectious Disease Modeling Terms

Disease modeling is increasingly being used to evaluate the effect of health intervention strategies, particularly for infectious diseases. However, the utility and application of such models are hampered by the inconsistent use of infectious disease modeling terms between and within disciplines. We sought to standardize the lexicon of infectious disease modeling terms and develop a glossary of terms commonly used in describing models' assumptions, parameters, variables, and outcomes. We combined a comprehensive literature review of relevant terms with an online forum discussion in a virtual community of practice, mod4PH (Modeling for Public Health). Using a convergent discussion process and consensus amongst the members of mod4PH, a glossary of terms was developed as an online resource. We anticipate that the glossary will improve inter- and intradisciplinary communication and will result in a greater uptake and understanding of disease modeling outcomes in heath policy decision-making. We highlight the role of the mod4PH community of practice and the methodologies used in this endeavor to link theory, policy, and practice in the public health domain.
Health caring. Psychosocial support for patients with cancer

Psychosocial treatments, including group, individual, and family therapies, are of proven efficacy and deserve inclusion as standard components of biomedical treatment for patients with cancer, Four issues regarding such treatment are reviewed. The first is need. Significant anxiety and depression are common (and treatable) problems among the medically ill and represent a major aspect of the burden of illness. Even those with less severe emotional reactions need help coping with the stress of serious illness. The second is methods. Psychotherapy, both group and individual, provides valuable emotional and social support and teaches important symptom management skills. The third is outcome. Psychotherapy has been shown to be effective in improving quality of life and enhancing the ability of the medically ill to cope with their illness. Results of various psychotherapies include reducing depression and anxiety, improving coping skills, and in some cases, extending survival time. The fourth is cost offset. Appropriate psychotherapeutic intervention saves money by reducing unnecessary office visits, diagnostic tests, medical procedures, and hospital admittance.
Evaluation Dataset (DT-Grade) and Word Weighting Approach towards Constructed Short Answers Assessment in Tutorial Dialogue Context

Evaluating student answers often requires contextual information, such as previous utterances in conversational tutoring systems. For example, students use coreferences and write elliptical responses, i.e. incomplete but can be interpreted in context. The DT-Grade corpus which we present in this paper consists of short constructed answers extracted from tutorial dialogues between students and an Intelligent Tutoring System and annotated for their correctness in the given context and whether the contextual information was useful. The dataset contains 900 answers (of which about 25% required contextual information to properly interpret them). We also present a base-line system developed to predict the correctness label (such as correct, correct but incomplete) in which weights for the words are assigned based on context.
External Memory Algorithms for String Problems

In this paper we present external memory algorithms for some string problems. External memory algorithms have been developed in many research areas, as the speed gap between fast internal memory and slow external memory continues to grow. The goal of external memory algorithms is to minimize the number of input/output operations between internal memory and external memory. These years the sizes of strings such as DNA sequences are rapidly increasing. However, external memory algorithms have been developed for only a few string problems. In this paper we consider five string problems and present external memory algorithms for them. They are the problems of finding the maximum suffix, string matching, period finding, Lyndon decomposition, and finding the minimum of a circular string. Every algorithm that we present here runs in a linear number of I/Os in the external memory model with one disk, and they run in an optimal number of disk I/Os in the external memory model with multiple disks.
Faster Set Intersection with SIMD instructions by Reducing Branch Mispredictions

Set intersection is one of the most important operations for many applications such as Web search engines or database management systems. This paper describes our new algorithm to efficiently find set intersections with sorted arrays on modern processors with SIMD instructions and high branch misprediction penalties. Our algorithm efficiently exploits SIMD instructions and can drastically reduce branch mispredictions. Our algorithm extends a merge-based algorithm by reading multiple elements, instead of just one element, from each of two input arrays and compares all of the pairs of elements from the two arrays to find the elements with the same values. The key insight for our improvement is that we can reduce the number of costly hard-to-predict conditional branches by advancing a pointer by more than one element at a time. Although this algorithm increases the total number of comparisons, we can execute these comparisons more efficiently using the SIMD instructions and gain the benefits of the reduced branch misprediction overhead. Our algorithm is suitable to replace existing standard library functions, such as std::set_intersection in C++, thus accelerating many applications, because the algorithm is simple and requires no preprocessing to generate additional data structures. We implemented our algorithm on Xeon and POWER7+. The experimental results show our algorithm outperforms the std::set_intersection implementation delivered with gcc by up to 5.2x using SIMD instructions and by up to 2.1x even without using SIMD instructions for 32-bit and 64-bit integer datasets. Our SIMD algorithm also outperformed an existing algorithm that can leverage SIMD instructions.
Innovations in Video Error Resilience and Concealment

Router buffer overflow and random bit errors have always been a problem in the Internet. The growth in multimedia applications in mobile extensions of the Internet has increased the threat from error bursts, random errors, and packet erasures that are a manifestation of wireless channels. Source-coded error resilience has come to prominence in the H.264/AVC codec standard, and this paper reviews such innovations surrounding this codec. Some innovations are new variants of an existing technique such as datapartitioning and some are entirely new such as the powerful dispersed-mode flexible macroblock ordering. Other techniques, such as reversible variable length coding, were not be transferred to H.264 from earlier codecs and, hence, innovations are proposed to still provide robust entropy coding. Other variants such as adaptive intra-refresh are still being experimented with. When error resilience or other protection methods fail to present an adequate video frame then error concealment can be brought to bear. This paper reviews error concealment which is important to commercial companies as they are able to distinguish their codec from others. The paper considers spatial, temporal and hybrid error concealment methods. Though this paper contains over one hundred references it can only provide a slice through this rich field.
MRI-Guided Focused Ultrasound in Parkinson's Disease: A Review

MRI-guided focused ultrasound is a new technology that enables intracranial ablation. Since lesioning ameliorates some of the symptoms of PD, this technology is being explored as a possible treatment for medication resistant symptoms in PD patients. The purpose of this paper is to review the clinical use and treatment outcomes of PD patients treated to date with this technology.
Tin whiskers behaviour on immersion tin surface finish at high temperature and humidity condition

Towards green technology application in electronic industry, pure tin as a Pb-free component lead finish become a popular choice, yet facing the problem with tin whisker formation. Tin whisker has turned into a serious concern in the electronic industry where it may cause short circuit to electronic components. It has been long believed that residual stress generated by external stresses, internal stresses, and temperature is the root cause of whisker formation. In this study, the effect of temperature and humidity on the formation and growth of tin whiskers was studied focusses on immersion tin surface finish only. The samples were prepared by a chloride-based bath and held at 30°C/ 60% RH (normal condition) and 55°C/ 85%RH (severe condition) for several time intervals. The morphology of tin whiskers on an immersion tin finish on copper substrate was observed by FESEM. The whiskers length was measured using JEDEC-Standard JESD22-A121A. The results showed that, tin whiskers formed in various types including nodules, straight, twist, bent, and spiral shape with striations along its circumference for normal condition, but only nodule- and spiral-type of whiskers only can be observed for severe conditions. Surprisingly, normal condition produce longer whiskers length as compared to the whiskers formed when the surface exposed to the severe condition.
Cell culture surfaces with immobilized gold nanostars: a new approach for laser-induced plasmonic cell optoporation

The application of gold nanoparticles (GNPs) for laser-induced cell transfection has been studied intensively during the past decade as efficient and gentle alternative to well-established molecule delivery methods like lipid-based transfection or electroporation. The method is based on temporal increase of membrane permeability induced by laser irradiation of GNPs attached to cell membranes. Although this approach is attractive due to high throughput and easy usability, it is not free from serious drawbacks related to random adsorption of GNPs during preincubation of cells with GNPs. This stage can affect the optoporation results because of potential nanoparticle toxicity, thus leading to decreased delivery efficiency and to low reproducibility of independent optoporation runs. Herein, we suggest a novel GNP-mediated laser transfection technique based on immobilized gold nanostars (GNSs) that are adsorbed on microplate wells and act as a plasmonic surface. The HeLa cells are grown directly on the monolayer of immobilized GNSs followed by CW NIR laser irradiation. We used the propidium iodide (PI) as a model transfecting agent to monitor simultaneously the delivery of PI into HeLa cells and their viability. These proof-of-the-concept experiments demonstrated enhanced penetration of PI into irradiated cells as compared to untreated ones.
Consistency Checks of System Properties Using LTL and Büchi Automata

Although formal approaches to software assurance such as model checking and theorem proving improve system dependability, software development professionals have yet to adopt these approaches. A major reason for the hesitance is the lack of maturity of tools that can support use of formal specification approaches. These techniques verify system correctness against formal specifications. Tools such as the Specification Pattern System (SPS) and the Property Specification tool (Prospec) assist users in translating system properties (requirements) into formal specifications in multiple languages such as Linear Temporal Logic (LTL). The goal of such tools is to aid in the generation of a large set of formal specifications of systems or subsystems. A major advantage of formal specifications is their ability to discover inconsistencies among the generated properties. This paper provides an approach to extend the work of the aforementioned Prospec tool to allow for consistency checks of automatically generated system properties. The work will allow for the discovery of discrepancies among system requirements at early stages of system development, providing a return on investment for specifying formal properties using the Prospec tool.
A Framework for Managing MapReduce Applications in Dynamic Distributed Environments

MapReduce is a programming model widely used in data centers for processing large data sets in a highly parallel way. Current MapReduce systems are based on master-slave architectures that do not cope well with dynamic node participation, since they are mostly designed for conventional parallel computing platforms. On the contrary, in Internet-based computing environments, node churn and failures - including master failures - are likely to happen since nodes join and leave the network at an unpredictable rate. The goal of this work is enabling the use of MapReduce in dynamic distributed environments so as to combine the effectiveness of a well-established programming model with the scalability of a large-scale computing infrastructure. This paper presents an adaptive MapReduce framework, called P2P-MapReduce, which exploits a peer-to-peer model to manage intermittent node participation, master failures and job recovery in a decentralized but effective way, so as to provide a more robust MapReduce middleware that can be effectively exploited in Internet-scale dynamic distributed environments.
A Sufficient Condition for Deadlock-Free Adaptive Routing in Mesh Networks

Deadlock remains a central problem in interconnection network. In this paper, we establish a new theory of deadlock-free flow control for k-ary, n-cube mesh network, which enables the use of any minimal-path adaptive routing algorithms while avoiding deadlock. We prove that the proposed flow control algorithm is a sufficient condition for deadlock freedom in any minimal path, adaptive routing algorithms on k-ary, n-cube mesh network.
Radiation effects in glasses for intrinsic optical fibre radiation dosimetry

An optical fibre device has been developed for the purpose of detecting ionising radiation using optically stimulated luminescence. Characterisation of glass materials has been performed, after which optical fibres were fabricated for experiments to demonstrate sensing of ionising radiation. Fluoride phosphate glass was tested for its capability to sense ionising radiation, primarily using the mechanism of optically stimulated luminescence. The characteristics of the material were determined using a combination of spectroscopy, and thermally and optically stimulated luminescence tests. The sensitivity to ionising radiation was improved by introducing dopant ions into the glass; doping of fluoride phosphate glass with Tb3+ was found to increase the intensity of the optically stimulated luminescence response by an order of magnitude, from 7.56 × 106 counts/g/Gy to 100.7 × 106 counts/g/Gy. Optical fibres were fabricated from fluoride phosphate glass using the extrusion method for fibre preform manufacture. The fabrication process was optimised in each of the extrusion, preform processing and fibre drawing stages to achieve optical fibres with loss of between 0.5 1 dB/m for undoped fibres, and between 1 4 dB/m for Tb3+doped fibres. Optical fibres were used for ionising radiation sensing experiments, where the optically stimulated luminescence response was measured following both beta and X-ray irradiation. Following a dose of 14.6± 0.5 Gy, optically stimulated luminescence signals were observable using optical fibre lengths of up to 2.6 m, with an integrated OSL intensity of 44.1± 13.0 counts. Silica glass was also tested as an alternative material to perform optical fibre measurements using optically stimulated luminescence. The material was characterised and optical fibres were fabricated with a loss of 0.5 dB/m. Following a dose of 15.5 ± 0.5 Gy, optically stimulated luminescence signals were observable using optical fibre lengths of up to 8.6 m, with an integrated OSL intensity of 385.7 ± 43.4 counts.
Finding Optimal Sinks for Random Walkers in a Network

In a model of network communication based on a random walk in an undirected graph, what subset of nodes (subject to constraints on the set size), enables the fastest spread of information? In this paper, we assume the dynamics of spread is described by a network consensus process, but to find the most effective seeds we consider the target set of a random walk--the process dual to network consensus spread. Thus an optimal set $A$ minimizes the sum of the expected first hitting times $F(A)$ of random walks that start at nodes outside the set. We introduce a submodular, non-decreasing rank function $\rho$, that permits some comparison between the solution obtained by the classical greedy algorithm and one obtained by our methods. The supermodularity and non-increasing properties of $F$ are used to show that the rank of our solution is at least $(1-\frac{1}{e})$ times the rank of the optimal set. When our approximation has a higher rank than the greedy solution, this can be improved to $(1-\frac{1}{e})(1+\chi)$ where $\chi >0$ is a constant. A non-zero lower bound for $\chi$ can be obtained when the curvature and increments of $\rho$ are known.
A Wavelet-based Random-effect Model for Multiple Sets of Complicated Functional Data

Multiple sets of complicated functional data curves appeared in many engineering studies such as improving stamping quality of an automobile manufacturing process, detecting process faults in a semiconductor fabrication experiment or characterizing process behavior in a nano-machining system. To handle potentially large size of these data, this article proposes a wavelet-based randomeffect model and develops a vertical-energy based thresholding procedure for data reduction and denoising purposes. The selected wavelet coefficients are treated as the “reduced-size” data in subsequent data analyses for decision-making in engineering studies. This enhances the ability of the existing statistical procedures in handling large-size complicated functional data. Analytical properties of the proposed methods are provided. Simulation studies show that our methods perform better than several ad hoc techniques extended from single-curve based data modeling and denoising procedure. A few real-life examples motivate the importance of the current research.