Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Islet Autoimmunity Identifies a Unique Pattern of Impaired Pancreatic Beta-Cell Function, Markedly Reduced Pancreatic Beta Cell Mass and Insulin Resistance in Clinically Diagnosed Type 2 Diabetes

There is a paucity of literature describing metabolic and histological data in adult-onset autoimmune diabetes. This subgroup of diabetes mellitus affects at least 5% of clinically diagnosed type 2 diabetic patients (T2DM) and it is termed Latent Autoimmune Diabetes in Adults (LADA). We evaluated indexes of insulin secretion, metabolic assessment, and pancreatic pathology in clinically diagnosed T2DM patients with and without the presence of humoral islet autoimmunity (Ab). A total of 18 patients with at least 5-year duration of clinically diagnosed T2DM were evaluated in this study. In those subjects we assessed acute insulin responses to arginine, a glucose clamp study, whole-body fat mass and fat-free mass. We have also analyzed the pancreatic pathology of 15 T2DM and 43 control cadaveric donors, using pancreatic tissue obtained from all the T2DM organ donors available from the nPOD network through December 31, 2013. The presence of islet Ab correlated with severely impaired β-cell function as demonstrated by remarkably low acute insulin response to arginine (AIR) when compared to that of the Ab negative group. Glucose clamp studies indicated that both Ab positive and Ab negative patients exhibited peripheral insulin resistance in a similar fashion. Pathology data from T2DM donors with Ab or the autoimmune diabetes associated DR3/DR4 allelic class II combination showed reduction in beta cell mass as well as presence of autoimmune-associated pattern A pathology in subjects with either islet autoantibodies or the DR3/DR4 genotype. In conclusion, we provide compelling evidence indicating that islet Ab positive long-term T2DM patients exhibit profound impairment of insulin secretion as well as reduced beta cell mass seemingly determined by an immune-mediated injury of pancreatic β-cells. Deciphering the mechanisms underlying beta cell destruction in this subset of diabetic patients may lead to the development of novel immunologic therapies aimed at halting the disease progression in its early stage.
Abnormal vessel formation in the choroid of mice lacking tissue inhibitor of metalloprotease-3.

PURPOSE Tissue inhibitor of metalloprotease (TIMP)-3 is an inhibitor of matrix metalloprotease (MMP) and regulates angiogenesis. In the eye, TIMP3 is tightly associated with Bruch's membrane. In this study, the authors analyzed mice lacking TIMP3 for retinal abnormalities. METHODS Mice with targeted disruption of the Timp3 gene were generated (Timp3(-/-)) and bred into C57/Bl6 and CD1 backgrounds. Eyes were analyzed by light and electron microscopy. Vasculature was examined by scanning laser ophthalmoscopy, corrosion casts, and whole mount preparations. MMP activity was assessed by in situ zymography, angiogenic potential was evaluated by tube formation, and aortic ring assays and signaling pathways were studied by immunoblotting. RESULTS TIMP3-deficient mice develop abnormal vessels with dilated capillaries throughout the choroid. Enhanced MMP activity in the choroid region of Timp3(-/-) eyes was detected when compared with controls. Timp3(-/-)-derived tissue showed an increased angiogenic activity over wild-type, an effect that could specifically be inhibited by recombinant TIMP3. Moreover, the antiangiogenic property of TIMP3 was demonstrated to reside within the C-terminal domain. When VEGFR2 inhibitor was added to Timp3(-/-) aortic explants, endothelial sprout formation was markedly reduced, which provided evidence for an unbalanced VEGF-mediated angiogenesis in Timp3(-/-) animals. Finally, angiogenic signaling pathways are activated in Timp3(-/-)-derived cells. CONCLUSIONS These findings suggest that the distinct choroidal phenotype in mice lacking TIMP3 may be the result of a local disruption of extracellular matrix and angiogenic homeostasis, and they support an important role of TIMP3 in the regulation of choroidal vascularization.
Markerless perspective taking for humanoid robots in unconstrained environments

Perspective taking enables humans to imagine the world from another viewpoint. This allows reasoning about the state of other agents, which in turn is used to more accurately predict their behavior. In this paper, we equip an iCub humanoid robot with the ability to perform visuospatial perspective taking (PT) using a single depth camera mounted above the robot. Our approach has the distinct benefit that the robot can be used in unconstrained environments, as opposed to previous works which employ marker-based motion capture systems. Prior to and during the PT, the iCub learns the environment, recognizes objects within the environment, and estimates the gaze of surrounding humans. We propose a new head pose estimation algorithm which shows a performance boost by normalizing the depth data to be aligned with the human head. Inspired by psychological studies, we employ two separate mechanisms for the two different types of PT. We implement line of sight tracing to determine whether an object is visible to the humans (level 1 PT). For more complex PT tasks (level 2 PT), the acquired point cloud is mentally rotated, which allows algorithms to reason as if the input data was acquired from an egocentric perspective. We show that this can be used to better judge where object are in relation to the humans. The multifaceted improvements to the PT pipeline advance the state of the art, and move PT in robots to markerless, unconstrained environments.
FPGA based implementation of parallel ECC processor

In recent years many hardware designs of elliptic curve cryptography have been developed, aiming to accelerate the scalar multiplication process, mainly those based on the Field programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA), the major issue concerned the ability of embedding this strategic and strong algorithm in a very few hardware, we propose a scalable word based crypto processor that performs modular multiplication based on modified Montgomery algorithm for finite field GF(P) and GF(2m). The general trend of the hardware implementation of elliptic curve cryptography is to increase throughput by designing a variety of algorithms for the KP operation, by optimizing the architectures of finite field basic operation, and by selecting the most appropriate coordinate system point addition and doubling leave few possibilities for parallelism when considering a single KP operation. It is however possible to explore the design space of an elliptic curve crypto processor sharing the field operators among the computation of some different kP operation. In this paper the obtained parallelism scheme has been evaluated referring to an effective VLSI technology.
Information Retrieval (IR) System Using Keyword Search Technique

A keyword search scheme to relational database becomes an interesting area of research system within the IR and relational database system. Many attempts have been made-up and executed, but because of few problem, there is not accuracy in that system. This less accuracy of standard system it resulted in inaccurate results from various attempts. In this paper, we present a thought latest IR system of relational keyword search technique. Existing results shows that huge number of existing search system do not provide best work for information retrieval tasks. In some system, memory consumption prevent many search methods from altering small datasets vertices. We explain connection between implementation time and factors changed in previous attempts. Study of IR system shows that these factors have little impact on working of retrieval system. Keyword Search using ranking require very less execution time. Execution time and file length during IR can be seen using chart .
Scheduler-conscious synchronization

Efficient synchronization is important for achieving good performance in parallel programs, especially on large-scale multiprocessors. Most synchronization algorithms have been designed to run on a dedicated machine, with one application process per processor, and can suffer serious performance degradation in the presence of multiprogramming. Problems arise when running processes block or, worse, busy-wait for action on the part of a process that the scheduler has chosen not to run. We show that these problems are particularly severe for scalable synchronization algorithms based on distributed data structures. We then describe and evaluate a set of algorithms that perform well in the presence of multiprogramming while maintaining good performance on dedicated machines. We consider both large and small machines, with a particular focus on scalability, and examine mutual-exclusion locks, reader-writer locks, and barriers. Our algorithms vary in the degree of support required from the kernel scheduler. We find that while it is possible to avoid pathological performance problems using previously proposed kernel mechanisms, a modest additional widening of the kernel/user interface can make scheduler-conscious synchronization algorithms significantly simpler and faster, with performance on dedicated machines comparable to that of scheduler-oblivious algorithms.
DeTAS : a Decentralized Traffic Aware Scheduling technique enabling IoT-compliant Multi-hop Low-power and Lossy Networks

The emerging IEEE802.15. 4e standard and IETF RPL routing protocol provide key functionalities useful for a really viable Internet of Things. Indeed, they are core to the organization of multi-hop Low-power and Lossy Networks. Nevertheless, the design of effective scheduling schemes in such systems is one of the major problems, which requires research efforts in order to be solved. Actually, there are no specifications about how schedules should be realized. Trying to fill this gap, the aim of this paper is twofold. First of all, we present a new Decentralized Traffic-Aware Scheduling algorithm, which is able to construct optimum multi-hop schedules in a distributed fashion. Secondly, we prove its effectiveness by means of simulation results, and we compare such descentralized solution with a centralized one. The reported performance results encourage the use of such decentralized scheme, since it allows a very efficient queue management, while minimizing the network duty cycle as well.
Preface Structure of the Book Target Audience Table 1. Reading Guide for Practitioners

In day-today life, a lot of standardization initiatives are carried out within organizations. They aim to ensure quality and to reduce operational costs, to name but a few aims. Studies on the business impact of standards mostly focus on the consequences of product standards for market share (De Vries, 1999) whereas others looked into the balance between desires of entrepreneurs and the needs of society (Krech-mer and Baskin, 2006). For information technology (IT), however, the side effects of standardization are not always taken into account–or even understood. Typically, in standardization there are significant uncertainties on the factual costs and benefits as well as on adequate planning and control strategies (Weitzel, 2003). One of the classic problems facing standardization and standards usage in companies is that of demonstrating its contribution to the company's total success (Hesser and Inklaar, 1997). This problem is persistent and discussed by Lyytinen and King (2006) who argue that despite the importance of standardization, the IS field has not pursued research on it vigorously, considering that only roughly 2% of published journal papers dealt with IT standards during the last decade. Moreover, these papers, on the whole, focused on the content of new IT standards whereas studies on the impact of IT standards in companies were notably absent. In the MIS Quarterly Special Issue on Standard Making (August 2006), 2 of 7 of accepted papers dealt with the impact of IT standards. Although these studies focussed on using IT standards at the organizational level impact (Chen and Forman, 2006; Hanseth et al., 2006), examination of business performance efficiency and effectiveness remained unaddressed. Given these limitations and uncertainties in the field of IT standardization and standards, this book focuses on the effects of company IT standardization and standards usage. We define a company IT standard as: " The specification of an IT product or process to be repeatedly and consistently used in the company. " Company standards have, in general, the form of: 1) a reference to one ore more external standards (e.g. an international standard like ISO 17799 or a de-facto standard like Microsoft® Word®) officially adopted by the company; 2) a company modification of an external standard; 3) a subset of an external standard; 4) a standard reproduced from (part of) other external documents; or 5) a self-written standard (De Vries, 1999, p. 231). Mintzberg (1984) considers standardization as a coordination mechanism for organizations. The organizational …
Monotone Finite Difference Schemes for Anisotropic Diffusion Problems via Nonnegative Directional Splittings

Nonnegative directional splittings of anisotropic diffusion operators in the divergence form are investigated. Conditions are established for nonnegative directional splittings to hold in a neighborhood of an arbitrary interior point. The result is used to construct monotone finite difference schemes for the boundary value problem of anisotropic diffusion operators. It is shown that such a monotone scheme can be constructed if the underlying diffusion matrix is continuous on the closure of the physical domain and symmetric and uniformly positive definite on the domain, the mesh spacing is sufficiently small, and the size of finite difference stencil is sufficiently large. An upper bound for the stencil size is obtained, which is determined completely by the diffusion matrix. Loosely speaking, the more anisotropic the diffusion matrix is, the larger stencil is required. An exception is the situation with a strictly diagonally dominant diffusion matrix where a three-by-three stencil is sufficient for the construction of a monotone finite difference scheme. Numerical examples are presented to illustrate the theoretical findings.
Involvement with Services: An Empirical Replication and Extension of Zaichkowsky's Personal Involvement Inventory

The involvement construct is a key theoretical entity within the general marketing as well as the consumer satisfaction, dissatisfaction, and complaining behavior literatures. Involvement with services is used in the conceptualization and measurement of satisfaction with services and complaining behavior regarding services. The following study investigates the efficacy of using Zaichkowsky's Personal Involvement Inventory (PIT) as a basis for operationalizing the involvement construct within the context of service research. Zaichkowsky (1994) suggests that her original 20-item instrument can be efficiently reduced in marketing research to a ten-item scale representing both affective and cognitive dimensions. Stafford and Day (1995) empirically assess this proposition in two unique service settings, and report evidence providing some initial support for Zaichkowsky's (1994) assertions. The current research replicates and extends these two studies in a study conducted across four unique service settings located throughout the United States. The results of the current research provide strong support for a further reduced eight-item subset of Zaichkowsky's PU that appears as a relatively reliable and valid measure of the affective and cognitive dimensions of the involvement construct within the context of services. Further, the two-dimensional psychometric properties identified in the eight-item scale (i.e., cognitive and affective dimensions) appear robust across service settings thereby potentially minimizing the impact of service heterogeneity. Research and managerial implications of this study are presented and discussed.
Parallel Simulation of a High-Speed Wormhole Routing Network

A flexible simulator has been developed to simulate a two-level metropolitan area network which uses wormhole routing. To accurately model the nature of wormhole routing, the simulator performs discretebyte rather than discrete-packet simulation. Despite the increased computational workload that this implies, it has been possible to create a simulator with acceptable performance by writing it in Maisie, a parallel discrete-event simulation language. The simulator provides an accurate model of an actual high-speed, source-routing, wormhole network (the Myrinet) and is the first such simulator. The paper describes the simulator and reports on the performance of parallel implementations of the simulator on a 24-node IBM SP 2 multicomputer. The parallel implementations yielded reasonable speedups. For instance, on 12 nodes, the conservative algorithm yielded a speed-up of about 6 whereas an optimistic algorithm yielded a speed-up of about 4.
The Stellar Population Histories of Local Early-Type Galaxies. I. Population Parameters

This paper commences a series of investigations into the stellar populations of local elliptical galaxies as determined from their integrated spectra. The goal of the series is to determine the star formation and chemical evolution histories of present-day elliptical galaxies. The primary galaxy sample analyzed is that of González, which consists of 39 elliptical galaxies drawn primarily from the local field and nearby groups, plus the bulge of Messier 31. Single-burst stellar population (SSP)–equivalent ages, metallicities, and abundance ratios are derived from Hβ, Mg b, and ⟨Fe⟩ line strengths using an extension of the Worthey models that incorporates nonsolar line-strength "response functions" by Tripicco & Bell. These functions account for changes in the Lick/IDS indices caused by nonsolar abundance ratios, allowing us to correct the Worthey models for the enhancements of Mg and other α-like elements relative to the Fe-peak elements. SSP-equivalent ages of the González elliptical galaxies are found to vary widely, 1.5 Gyr ≲ t ≲ 18 Gyr, while metallicities [Z/H] and enhancement ratios [E/Fe] are strongly peaked around ⟨[Z/H]⟩ = +0.26 and ⟨[E/Fe]⟩ = +0.20 (in an aperture of radius re/8). The enhancement ratios [E/Fe] are milder than previous estimates because of the application of nonsolar abundance corrections to both Mg b and ⟨Fe⟩ for the first time. While [E/Fe] is usually greater than zero, it is not the "E" elements that are actually enhanced but rather the Fe-peak elements that are depressed; this serves not only to weaken ⟨Fe⟩ but also to strengthen Mg b, accounting for the overall generally mild enhancements. Based on index strengths from the Lick/IDS galaxy library (Trager et al.), C is not depressed with Fe but rather seems to be on a par with other elements such as Mg in the E group. Gradients in stellar populations within galaxies are found to be mild, with SSP-equivalent age increasing by 25%, metallicity decreasing by ⟨[Z/H]⟩ = 0.20 dex, and [E/Fe] remaining nearly constant out to an aperture of radius re/2 for nearly all systems. Our ages have an overall zero-point uncertainty of at least ∼25% because of uncertainties in the stellar evolution prescription, the oxygen abundance, the effect of [E/Fe] ≠ 0 on the isochrones, and other unknowns. However, the relative age rankings of stellar populations should be largely unaffected by these errors. In particular, the large spread in ages appears to be real and cannot be explained by contamination of Hβ by blue stragglers or hot horizontal-branch stars, or by fill-in of Hβ by emission. Correlations between these derived SSP-equivalent parameters and other galaxy observables will be discussed in future papers.
An Adaptive Vision System for Tracking Soccer Players from Variable Camera Settings

In this paper we present ASPOGAMO, a vision system capable of es- timating motion trajectories of soccer players taped on video. The system per- forms well in a multitude of application scenarios because of its adaptivity to various camera setups, such as single or multiple camera settings, static or dy- namic ones. Furthermore, ASPOGAMO can directly process image streams taken from TV broadcast, and extract all valuable information despite scene interrup- tions and cuts between different cameras. The system achieves a high level of robustness through the use of modelbased vision algorithms for camera estima- tion and player recognition and a probabilistic multi-player tracking framework capable of dealing with occlusion situations typical in team-sports. The continu- ous interplay between these submodules is adding to both the reliability and the efficiency of the overall system.
Simulating Crowd Evacuation with a Leader-Follower Model

: Emergency situations involving a large number of people may develop into disasters. One example of such emergency situation is fire evacuation in a building or crowded area. Although crowd evacuation simulation has been an active research area for many years, little research focuses on simulating the evacuation process with a Leader-Follower Model which shows the role of leaders in the evacuation. In this paper, we have simulated crowd evacuation process from a dancing hall. A crowd includes several groups with each group having a leader and some followers guided by the leader. Leaders are responsible for finding the evacuation path for their followers. The objective of this simulation is to show the effect of different number of leaders on the efficiency of evacuation. A dynamic grouping algorithm based on A* Algorithm has been proposed to simulate the dynamic grouping phenomena with a number of leaders. A prototype system has also been developed to verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.
Gain scheduled integrated vehicle control based on a parametric yaw roll model

A gain scheduled integrated vehicle control design method that preserves vehicle stability in extreme handling situations is presented in this study. A new formulation of the classical yaw roll model in which tire slips appear as varying vehicle parameters is introduced. Such a model is shown to be useful in the design of vehicle dynamics controllers scheduled by vehicle parameters: after having expressed the derived parametric yaw roll model in the descriptor form, gain scheduled active steering, differential and suspension controllers are integrated in this study to improve vehicle handling at ldquolargerdquo driver commanded steering angles. Simulations reveal the efficiency of the selected modeling and controller design methodology in enhancing vehicle handling.
Offline Swimmer Cap Tracking Using Trajectory Interpolation

In this paper, we present a preliminary attempt to solve the difficult problem of tracking swimmer cap in swimming videos to facilitate swimmer performance assessment. Due to the great challenges posed by moving camera and severe figure-background occlusions, an offline approach based on trajectory interpolation is adopted. Firstly, each frame is searched for hypothesized positions of the target cap using mean shift mode seeking. Secondly, most outliers due to ambiguities and noise are eliminated using lane constraints, and the hypothesis in the space-time volume are clustered into trajectory segments based on a spatial and temporal closeness criteria. Finally, cubic spline trajectory interpolation is used to infer the target cap position in occluded frames. Experiments show that satisfying tracking results are achieved by our approach.