Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Formally Verified Argument Reduction with a Fused Multiply-Add

The Cody and Waite argument reduction technique works perfectly for reasonably large arguments, but as the input grows, there are no bits left to approximate the constant with enough accuracy. Under mild assumptions, we show that the result computed with a fused multiply-add provides a fully accurate result for many possible values of the input with a constant almost accurate to the full working precision. We also present an algorithm for a fully accurate second reduction step to reach full double accuracy (all the significand bits of two numbers are accurate) even in the worst cases of argument reduction. Our work recalls the common algorithms and presents proofs of correctness. All the proofs are formally verified using the Coq automatic proof checker.
Impaired NK‐cell education diminishes resistance to murine CMV infection

Ly49G2 (G2+) NK cells mediate murine (M)CMV resistance in MHC Dk‐expressing mice. Bone marrow transplantation (BMT) studies revealed that G2+ NK cell‐mediated MCMV resistance requires Dk in both hematopoietic and nonhematopoietic cells. As a Ly49G2 ligand, Dk in both cell lineages may contribute to lysis of virus‐infected cells. Alternatively, cellular differences in self‐MHC Dk may have affected NK‐cell education, and consequently NK cell‐mediated viral clearance. We investigated the Dk‐licensing effect on BM‐derived NK cells in BMT recipients by analyzing cytokines, cytotoxicity and MCMV resistance. In BMT recipients with lineage‐restricted Dk, G2+ NK‐cell reactivity and cytotoxicity was diminished in comparison to BMT recipients with self‐MHC in all cells. Reduced G2+ NK‐mediated MCMV resistance in BMT recipients with lineage‐restricted self‐MHC indicates that licensing of G2+ NK cells is related to NK‐cell reactivity and viral control. Titrating donor BM with self‐MHC‐bearing hematopoietic cells, as well as adoptive transfer of mature G2+ NK cells into BMT recipients with self‐MHC in non‐hematopoietic cells only, enhanced NK‐cell licensing and rescued MCMV resistance. This disparate self‐MHC NK‐cell education model would suggest that inadequately licensed NK cells corresponded to inefficient viral sensing and clearance.
Conditional activation of a single‐copy L1 transgene in mice by Cre

The synthetic L1 retrotransposon, ORFeus, is useful for probing mechanisms of L1 retrotransposition in vivo and for genome‐wide mouse mutagenesis because of its high level of activity. To achieve controlled activation of ORFeus in mice, we constructed ORFeusLSL, in which ORFeus coding sequences were separated from the promoter by a loxP‐β‐geo‐stop‐loxP (LSL) cassette, and derived transgenic mouse lines containing single‐copy ORFeusLSL. We observed tissue‐specific ORFeus activation by crossing ORFeusLSL to various Cre‐expressing lines, specifically in the germ line or the pancreas, providing definite evidence that all host factors and machinery required posttranscriptionally for L1 retrotransposition are available in somatic tissues in living animals. Notably, the single‐copy ORFeus transgene is about threefold more active per copy than a previously described multicopy ORFeus transgene in the germ line and even more active somatically. This conditional transgenic ORFeus mouse model should allow further exploration of posttranscriptional cellular requirements for L1 retrotransposition and facilitate the development of ORFeus mouse lines suitable for in vivo mutagenesis. genesis 46:373–383, 2008. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Changes in the Structure and Properties of the Cu-Pb Composites Interface Jointed in the Solid Phase

Research of structure and properties of Cu-Pb-Cu composite interface, obtained by technology of pack rolling of the pair of mutually insoluble metals, was performed using the methods of metallography, micro- and nano-hardness, mechanical tests, energy-dispersion elementary analyses. The work was aimed at the analyses of possible mechanical mechanisms of mass-transfer, determining the hardness of metal joint in conditions of absence of inter-diffusion. It was shown that different intensity of mass transfer of copper and lead takes place through the composite interface, which corresponds to the results obtained on the other system of dissimilar materials—copper-niobium. Qualitative explanation of these patterns was offered on the basis of more intensive plastic flow of fusible compound of the composite in conditions of roll-bond joining.
Antibiotic Disk Susceptibility Tests with Neisseria gonorrhoeae

We have used a standardized disk diffusion procedure to test the susceptibility of 892 isolates of Neisseria gonorrhoeae to six antibiotics. The disk diffusion test described is a modification of the disk test of Bauer, Kirby, Sherris, and Turck, which is widely used for susceptibility testing of fast-growing, aerobic pathogens. With all six antibiotics (penicillin, ampicillin, tetracycline, erythromycin, chloramphenicol, and cephaloridine), disk test results were found to be reproducible and correlated well with the minimal inhibitory concentration as determined by an agar dilution procedure. The coefficients of correlation ranged from −0.79 with cephaloridine to −0.93 with penicillin. The technique described for disk susceptibility testing of gonococci can be used both for research and clinical purposes.
3D opto-structuring of ceramics at nanoscale

Ceramics as advanced materials play an important role in science and technology as they are mechanically robust, can withstand immense heat, are chemically inert. Consequently, there is a direct end-user driven need to find ways for efficiently acquiring free-form 3D ceramic structures. Recently, stereo-lithographic 3D printing of hybrid organic-inorganic photo-polymer and subsequent heating was demonstrated to be capable of providing true 3D ceramic and glass structures. Up to now, this was limited to (sub-)millimeter scale and naturally the next step is to acquire functional glass-/ceramic-like 3D structures in micro-/nano-dimensions. In this paper, we explore a possibility to apply ultrafast 3D laser nanolithography followed by heating to acquire ceramic 3D structures down to micro-/nano-dimension. Laser fabrication is employed for the production of initial 3D structures with varying (ranging within hundreds of nm) feature sizes out of hybrid organic-inorganic material SZ2080. Then, a post-fabrication heating at different temperatures up to 1500 °C in an air atmosphere facilitates metal-organic framework decomposition, which results in the glass-ceramic hybrid material. Additionally, annealing procedure densifies the obtained objects providing an extra route for size control. As we show, this can be applied to bulk and free-form objects. We uncover that the geometric downscaling can reach up to 40%, while the aspect ratio of single features, as well as filling ratio of the whole object, remains the same regardless of volume/surface-area ratio. The structures proved to be qualitatively resistant to dry etching, hinting at significantly increased resiliency. Finally, Raman spectrum and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis were performed in order to uncover undergoing chemical processes during heat-treatment in order to determine the composition of material obtained. Revealed physical and chemical properties prove the proposed approach paving a route towards 3D opto-structuring of ceramics at the nanoscale for diverse photonic, microfluidic and biomedical applications.
Light and electron microscopy study of the spermatheca of Eupholidoptera chabrieri bimucronata (Ramme, 1927) and Uromenus brevicollis trinacriae La Greca 1964 (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae)

A study by both optical and electron microscopy has been carried out on the spermatheca of Eupholidoptera chabrieri bimucronata and Uromenus brevicollis trinacriae (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae). In both the examined species, the spermatheca consists of a sac/kidney‐shaped seminal receptacle and a more or less tortuous spermathecal duct that opens into the common oviduct. The wall of both the organs consists of a pseudostratified epithelium surmounted by a cuticular intima; the latter is made up of a thicker endocuticle and an epicuticle. The epithelium shows two different cell types, irregularly arranged and with well differentiated functions: cuticle‐forming and gland cells. In both the species, the cuticle‐forming cells perform other functions, in addition to producing the cuticular intima. The gland cells never come in contact with the cuticular intima, have inside the reservoir a secretion whose appearance can diversify also in contiguous zones of the seminal receptacle. Based on our findings in both the species, the functions of the seminal receptacle would differ from those of the spermathecal duct. In the latter, some areas of the wall of the connecting tract show an activity of lysis, by contiguous epithelial cells, that could play a role in control and selection of spermatozoa. As for the feather‐shaped spermatodesms, similar in both the species, freeze‐fracture observations have shown that the acrosome of each spermatozoon regularly covers three‐quarters of the extension of the acrosome of the following spermatozoon. Finally, the significance of our findings, compared with what is known in literature, is discussed. Microsc. Res. Tech. 78:577–586, 2015. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
An adaptive fuzzy segmentation of intravascular ultrasound images

A system for automatic definition of region of interest (ROI) in intravascular ultrasound images is proposed. This system performs this task in two phases: first a preprocessing based on morphological smoothing and fuzzy enhancement is done and then a fuzzy clustering algorithm is applied to the preprocessed image. The preliminary results showed that this technique is a feasible method for finding calcified regions that can be explored by classifiers.
Subtyping of breast cancer using reverse phase protein arrays

Reverse phase protein arrays (RPPAs) present a robust and sensitive high capacity platform for targeted proteomics that relies on highly specific antibodies to obtain a quantitative readout regarding phosphorylation state and abundance of proteins of interest. This review summarizes the current state of RPPA-based proteomic profiling of breast cancer in the context of existing preanalytical strategies and sample preparation protocols. RPPA-based subtypes identified so far are compared to those obtained by other approaches such as immunohistochemistry, genomics and transcriptomics. Special attention is given to discussing the potential of RPPA for biomarker discovery and biomarker validation.
Sampling and Ontologically Pooling Web Images for Visual Concept Learning

Sufficient training examples are essential for effective learning of semantic visual concepts. In practice, however, acquiring noise-free training examples has always been expensive. Recently the rapid popularization of social media websites, such as Flickr, has made it possible to collect training exemplars without human assistance. This paper proposes a novel and efficient approach to collect training samples from the noisily tagged Web images for visual concept learning, where we try to maximize two important criteria, relevancy and coverage, of the automatically generated training sets. For the former, a simple method named semantic field is introduced to handle the imprecise and incomplete image tags. Specifically, the relevancy of an image to a target concept is predicted by collectively analyzing the associated tag list of the image using two knowledge sources: WordNet corpus and statistics from Flickr.com. To boost the coverage or diversity of the training sets, we further propose an ontology-based hierarchical pooling method to collect samples not only based on the target concept alone, but also from ontologically neighboring concepts. Extensive experiments on three different datasets (NUS-WIDE, PASCAL VOC, and ImageNet) demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed approach, producing competitive performance even when comparing with concept classifiers learned using expert- labeled training examples.
Sound Representing Self-Motion in Virtual Environments Enhances Linear Vection

Sound is an important, but often neglected, component for creating a self-motion illusion (vection) in Virtual Reality applications, for example, motion simulators. Apart from auditory motion cues, sound can provide contextual information representing self-motion in a virtual environment. In two experiments we investigated the benefits of hearing an engine sound when presenting auditory (Experiment 1) or auditory-vibrotactile (Experiment 2) virtual environments inducing linear vection. The addition of the engine sound to the auditory scene significantly enhanced subjective ratings of vection intensity in Experiment 1 and vection onset times but not subjective ratings in Experiment 2. Further analysis using individual imagery vividness scores showed that this disparity between vection measures was created by participants with higher kinesthetic imagery. On the other hand, for participants with lower kinesthetic imagery scores, the engine sound enhanced vection sensation in both experiments. A high correlation with participants' kinesthetic imagery vividness scores suggests the influence of a first person perspective in the perception of the engine sound. We hypothesize that self-motion sounds (e.g., the sound of footsteps, engine sound) represent a specific type of acoustic body-centered feedback in virtual environments. Therefore, the results may contribute to a better understanding of the role of self-representation sounds (sonic self-avatars), in virtual and augmented environments.
Robust time recognition of video clock based on digit transition detection and digit-sequence recognition

This paper presents an algorithm for robust time recognition of video clock. The existing OCR algorithms cannot recognize time properly due to digits of time are in very low resolution and blur. To confront the challenges of time recognition, our algorithm employs three techniques. The first one is a digit transition detection, which identifies SECOND transit frames. The second is a digit-sequence recognition, which uses the property that digits in clock appear in cycle of 0 to 9 to form digit sequence. The third is an on-the-fly template creation. Informally, the robustness of our algorithm benefits from the facts that both digit transition detection and digit-sequence recognition are more reliable than direct character recognition. Experimental results show that our algorithm can achieve a high accuracy in recognizing time.
Hardening Induced Stresses in Very Thick Concrete Members - Insights from Comprehensive FE-Studies: insights from comprehensive FE-studies

This contribution presents first results of comprehensive FE-studies on hardening-induced stress histories of very thick concrete members with compact dimensions. The motivation is to improve the understanding of their structural behaviour in order to provide an efficient but safe crack width control of such members. The strict application of current design rules would lead to very high reinforcement amounts, even though observations in practice indicate that serviceability can be ensured with much less reinforcement. Finally, the insights of these investigations will provide a basis on which efficient design rules can be developed for very thick concrete members. The FE-studies were conducted with a new constitutive law for hardening concrete whereby special regard was put on the influence of the member thickness, the ambient temperature as well as production conditions. In general, the results confirm the predominance of residual stresses or so called Eigenstresses in such structural elements, while restraint forces and restraint moments are of minor importance for usual subsoil conditions.
Face Recognition Based on LFDA and LS-SVM

Face recognition is one of the most challenging research topics in the field of pattern recognition and computer vision. To efficiently deal with this problem, a novel face recognition algorithm is proposed by the combination of local fisher discriminant analysis (LFDA) and least square version of SVM(LS-SVM). Experimental results on real face databases have demonstrated the better performance of the proposed algorithm.
SAT: A Web-Based Interactive Advisor for Investor-Ready Business Plans

The business plan is one of the essential tools for companies to attract investors and raise venture capital. Getting a business plan "investor ready" in that context means that it has to be professionally prepared such that it answers all questions of potential investors. This, however, requires in-depth knowledge of a typical investor's expectations and viewpoints, a type of knowledge which in particular first-time entrepreneurs or small companies do not dispose of. As a consequence, significant amounts of consulting hours are required to get the business plan ready to be presented to investors. The goal of the SAT project presented in this paper is to provide an in-depth business plan advisory service over the Web. While current approaches in that area rely on static fill-out forms or checklists, the SAT tool is based on personalized interactive dialogs, knowledge-based input analysis and feedback generation, as well as on detailed financial calculations. Within the paper, we thus show how knowledge-based approaches can serve as a technological foundation for such next-generation electronic services and how the corresponding development and maintenance efforts can be minimized. The paper gives an overview on the general knowledge-based architecture of the system, discusses the integrated graphical modelling environment, and finally reports on experiences gained from the practical use of the tool.
Mechanical embolectomy for ischemic stroke in a pediatric ventricular assist device patient

The reported incidence of cerebral embolic or hemorrhagic complications related to mechanical circulatory support in children is high, even while subjects are managed with aggressive antithrombotic therapy. The safety and utility of endovascular treatment for stroke in the pediatric VAD population has not been established in the published literature. We describe a nine‐yr‐old patient on BiVAD support who experienced threatened AIS on two separate occasions. He was treated successfully via mechanical embolectomy on both occasions and survived to transplantation with minimal neurologic deficits.
Towards An Ultra-Low-Power Architecture Using Single-Electron Tunneling Transistors

Minimizing power consumption is vitally important in embedded system design; power consumption determines battery lifespan. Ultra- low-power designs may even permit embedded systems to operate without batteries, e.g., by scavenging energy from the environment. Moreover, managing power dissipation is now a key factor in integrated circuit packaging and cooling. As a result, embedded system price, size, weight, and reliability are all strongly dependent on power dissipation. Recent developments in nanoscale devices open new alternatives for low-power embedded system design. Among these, single-electron tunneling transistors (SETs) hold the promise of achieving the lowest power consumption. However, SETs impose unique design constraints that strongly influence architectural and circuit-level decisions. Unfortunately, most analysis of SETs has focused on single devices instead of architectures, making it difficult to determine whether they are appropriate for low-power embedded systems. This article presents possible uses of SETs in high-performance and battery-powered embedded system design. The resulting fault-tolerant, hybrid SET/CMOS, reconfigurable architecture can be tailored to specific requirements and allows trade-offs among power consumption, performance, operation temperature, fabrication cost, and reliability. This work is a first step in evaluating the system-level potential of reducing power consumption by using SETs.
Robust parametric modeling of durations in hidden Markov models

We address the problem of explicit state and word duration modeling in hidden Markov models (HMMs). A major weakness of conventional HMMs is that they implicitly model state durations by a geometric distribution, which is usually inappropriate. Using explicit modeling of state and word durations, it is possible to significantly enhance the performance of speech recognition systems. The main outcome of this work is a modified Viterbi algorithm that by incorporating both state and word duration modeling, reduces the string error rate of the conventional Viterbi algorithm by 29% and 43% for known and unknown string lengths respectively, for a speaker independent, connected digit string task. The uniqueness of the algorithm is that unlike alternative approaches, it adds the duration metric at each frame transition (and not at the end of a state, word or sentence), thus enhancing the performance.
Advantages of microfluidic systems for studying cell-biomaterial interactions—focus on bone regeneration applications

The poor correlation between in vitro and in vivo studies emphasises the lack of a reliable methodology for testing the biological properties of biomaterials in the bone tissue regeneration field. Moreover, the success of clinical trials is not guaranteed even with promising results in vivo. Therefore, there is a need for a more physiologically relevant in vitro model to test the biological properties of biomaterials. Microfluidics, which is a field concerning the manipulation and control of liquids at the submillimetre scale, can use channel geometry, cell confinement and fluid flow to recreate a physiological-like environment. This technology has already proven to be a powerful tool in studying the biological response of cells in defined environments, since chemical and mechanical inputs as well as cross-talk between cells can be finely controlled. Moving a step further in complexity, biomaterials can be integrated into microfluidic systems to evaluate biomaterial-cell interactions. The biomaterial-microfluidics combination has the potential to produce more physiologically relevant models to better screen the biological interactions established between biomaterials and cells. This review is divided into two main sections. First, several possible cell-based assays for bone regeneration studies in microfluidic systems are discussed. Second, and the ultimate goal of the review, is to discuss how the gap between in vitro and in vivo studies can be shortened by bridging the biomaterials and microfluidics fields.
Predictors of employment for people with severe mental illness: results of an international six-centre randomised controlled trial

Background An international six-centre randomised controlled trial comparing individual placement and support (IPS) with usual vocational rehabilitation for people with serious mental illness found IPS to be more effective for all vocational outcomes. Aims To determine which patients with severe mental illness do well in vocational services and which process and service factors are associated with better outcomes. Method Patient characteristics and early process variables were tested as predictors of employment outcomes. Service characteristics were explored as predictors of the effectiveness of IPS. Results Patients with previous work history, fewer met social needs and better relationships with their vocational workers were more likely to obtain employment and work for longer. Remission and swifter service uptake were associated with working more. Having an IPS service closer to the original IPS model was the only service characteristic associated with greater effectiveness. Conclusions The IPS service was found to be more effective for all vocational outcomes. In addition, maintaining high IPS fidelity and targeting relational skills would be a valuable focus for all vocational interventions, leading to improved employment outcomes. Motivation to find work may be decreased by satisfaction with current life circumstances.