Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Molecular changes and vision loss in a mouse model of closed-globe blast trauma.

PURPOSE To characterize retinal changes and assess vision after an eye-directed air blast. METHODS Adult C57Bl/6 mice were exposed to a blast directed at one eye. Optical coherence tomography and histology were performed to assess retina and optic nerve integrity. Cell death, oxidative stress, and glial reactivity were examined by immunohistochemistry. Visual changes were measured by ERG recordings and the optokinetic reflex. RESULTS In the outer retina, eye blast caused retinal pigment epithelium vacuoles and rare retinal detachments followed by regional cell death. Labeling for nitrotyrosine and markers of pyroptosis (caspase-1) and necroptosis (receptor-interacting protein kinases-1, -3) increased, primarily in the inner retina, after blast. Caspase-1 labeling was restricted primarily to the starburst amacrine cells. A few degenerating axons were detected at 28 days post blast. Despite a lack of substantial cell death or decreased ERG, there was a deficit in visual acuity after blast. CONCLUSIONS Oxidative stress, neuroinflammation, and cell death became increasingly prevalent, over time post blast suggestive of an ongoing neurodegenerative response. Outer retinal changes either resolved or remained focal. In contrast, inner retinal changes were more robust and spread from focal regions to the entire retina over time post blast. Our model of eye blast trauma causes molecular changes and a decrease in visual acuity within the first month post blast despite a lack of overt eye injury. This subtle response matches the delayed presentation of visual deficits in some blast-exposed Veterans.
Demonstration of Super-Resolution for Tomographic SAR Imaging in Urban Environment

Tomographic synthetic aperture radar (SAR) inversion, including SAR tomography and differential SAR tomography, is essentially a spectral analysis problem. The resolution in the elevation direction depends on the elevation aperture size, i.e., on the spread of orbit tracks. Since the orbits of modern meter-resolution spaceborne SAR systems, such as TerraSAR-X, are tightly controlled, the tomographic elevation resolution is at least an order of magnitude lower than in range and azimuth. Hence, super-resolution (SR) reconstruction algorithms are desired. Considering the sparsity of the signal in elevation, a compressive sensing based super-resolving algorithm, named “Scale-down by L1 norm Minimization, Model selection, and Estimation Reconstruction” (SL1MMER, pronounced “slimmer”), was proposed by the authors in a previous paper. The ultimate bounds of the technique on localization accuracy and SR power were investigated. In this paper, the essential role of SR for layover separation in urban infrastructure monitoring is indicated by geometric and statistical analysis. It is shown that double scatterers with small elevation distances are more frequent than those with large elevation distances. Furthermore, the SR capability of SL1MMER is demonstrated using TerraSAR-X real data examples. For a high rise building complex, the percentage of detected double scatterers is almost doubled compared to classical linear estimators. Among them, half of the detected double scatterer pairs have elevation distances smaller than the Rayleigh elevation resolution. This confirms the importance of SR for this type of applications.
Storage of interim platelet units for 18 to 24 hours before pooling: in vitro study

BACKGROUND: The Atreus 3C system (CaridianBCT) automatically produces three components from whole blood (WB), a red blood cell (RBC) unit, a plasma unit, and an interim platelet (PLT) unit (IPU) that can be pooled with other IPUs to form a PLT dose for transfusion. The Atreus 3C system also includes a PLT yield indicator (PYI), which is an advanced algorithm that provides an index that is shown to correlate well with the amount of PLTs that finally end up in the IPU bag. The aim of our in vitro study was to compare the effects of holding WB overnight versus processing WB fresh (2‐8 hr), both with 18‐ to 24‐hour storage of the IPUs before pooling into a transfusable PLT dose.
Visual localization using an optimal sampling of bags-of-features with entropy applied to repeatable test methods

This paper investigates the visual Localization of a mobile platform using a new sampling adaptive bag-of-features patches techniques. The method is specifically developed for the navigation of robots. It is based on the idea of an adaptive dense sampling of images using an optimal multilayer Quadtree decomposition of the image driven by the quantity and homogeneity of the information contained within subpatches. Extracted patches will be of different sizes according to the covered zones in the image. Experimental results carried out on real images in the case of a navigation of a mobile robot using an omnidirectional camera are presented. The method of generating maps will be briefly introduced. Large amount of measures in different cases of noise and occlusion will be presented showing the robustness of the method.
Performance of the Massive MIMO Uplink With OFDM and Phase Noise

The performance of multi-user massive multiple-input multiple-output orthogonal frequency division multiplexing uplink systems in the presence of base station (BS) phase noise impairments is investigated. Closed-form achievable rate expressions are rigorously derived under two different operations, namely, the case of a common oscillator (synchronous operation) at the BS and the case of independent oscillators at each BS antenna (non-synchronous operation). It is observed that the non-synchronous operation exhibits superior performance due to the averaging of a portion of the intercarrier interference. Furthermore, radiated power scaling laws are derived, which are identical to the phase-noise-free case.
The impact of the observation model on the Cramer-Rao bound for carrier phase and frequency synchronization

This contribution considers the Cramer-Rao bound (CRB) related to the joint estimation of the carrier phase and frequency of a noisy linearly modulated signal with random data symbols, using the correct continuous-time model of the received signal. We compare our results with the existing results obtained from a (common used) simplified discrete-time model of the matched filter output samples, that ignores useful signal reduction and ISI caused by nonzero frequency offset. We show that both models yield the same CRB for phase estimation. As far as frequency estimation is concerned, we point out that: (i) the correct observation models yield the smaller CRB, and (ii) the difference between the CRBs resulting from the two models is apparent only at very small SNR. This indicates that at practical SNR values, the frequency offset affects the likelihood function mainly through the signal rotation (rather than signal magnitude) at the matched filter output.
Space-Code CS-CDMA Systems over MISO Frequency-Selective Rayleigh Fading Channels

We propose a transmit diversity CDMA scheme which is a combination of convolutional spreading (CS) and space-time spreading (STS) over multiple-input single-output (MISO) multipath Rayleigh fading channels. With our scheme, multiuser detection over an MISO multipath channel is transformed to single-user detection over a single-input single-output (SISO) multipath channel as the scheme by Petre et al. Because of its simple configuration, it is immediate to see that our scheme realizes full transmit- and path-diversity for two transmit antennas. We extend the system to four transmit antennas employing quasi-orthogonal construction and show a necessary and sufficient condition for full transmit- and path-diversity to be realized. The proposed scheme requires less hardware complexity and less latency than the one by Petre et al.
Incentive Sensitization by Previous Amphetamine Exposure: Increased Cue-Triggered “Wanting” for Sucrose Reward

We reported previously that an amphetamine microinjection into the nucleus accumbens enables Pavlovian reward cues in a conditioned incentive paradigm to trigger excessive instrumental pursuit. Here we show that sensitization caused by previous amphetamine administration also causes reward cues to trigger excessive pursuit of their associated reward, even when sensitized rats are tested in a drug-free state. Rats learned to lever press for sucrose pellets, and they separately learned to associate sucrose pellets with Pavlovian cues (30 sec auditory cues). Amphetamine sensitization was induced by six daily injections of amphetamine (3 mg/kg, i.p.; controls received saline). Rats were tested for lever pressing under extinction conditions 10 d later, after a bilateral microinjection of intra-accumbens vehicle or amphetamine (5 μg/0.5 μl per side). Cue-triggered pursuit of sucrose reward was assessed by increases in pressing on the sucrose-associated lever during intermittent presentations of a free conditioned stimulus (CS+) sucrose cue. Sensitized rats pressed at normal levels during baseline and during the CS−, but the CS+ triggered 100% greater increases in pressing from sensitized rats than from control rats after vehicle microinjection. Sensitization therefore enhanced the incentive salience attributed to the CS+ even when rats were tested while drug-free. For control rats, a microinjection of intra-accumbens amphetamine was needed to produce the same enhancement of cue-triggered reward “wanting. ” The amphetamine microinjection also interacted synergistically in sensitized rats to produce intrusive cue-triggered pursuit behaviors (e.g., investigatory sniffing) that interfered with goal-directed lever pressing. These results support the incentive-sensitization theory postulate that sensitization causes excessive cue-triggered “wanting” for an associated reward.
CHARACTERIZATION OF THE RADIATION-DAMAGED PRECURSOR CELLS IN BONE MARROW BASED ON MODELING OF THE PERIPHERAL BLOOD GRANULOCYTES RESPONSE

Bone marrow failure is the major cause of radiation lethality in mammals. Since bone marrow is distributed heterogeneously within trabecular spongiosa encased in a cortex of cortical bone, it is very difficult to measure the extent of the radiation damage directly. However, indirect consequences of damage to marrow, such as reductions in peripheral blood cell counts, are easily measured. In this paper, the authors investgate a mathematical model of the granulopoiesis system that provides quantitative relationships between reductions in peripheral blood cells and the bone marrow precursor cells following radiation exposure. A coarse-grained architecture of cellular replication and production as well as a mechanism for implicit regulation used in this model are discussed. The model is based on previous investigations of rodents. The authors test how well the model matches, in the principal dynamic regime of hematopoiesis, experimental data on large animals as well as empirical data on humans following radiation exposure. Due to its ability to infer, albeit indirectly, radiation damage to bone marrow, this model will provide a useful computational tool in radiation accident management, military operations involving nuclear warfare, radiation therapy, and space radiation risk assessment.
Statistical parametric speech synthesis with joint estimation of acoustic and excitation model parameters

This paper describes a novel framework for statistical parametric speech synthesis in which statistical modeling of the speech waveform is performed through the joint estimation of acoustic and excitation model parameters. The proposed method combines extraction of spectral parameters, considered as hidden variables, and excitation signal modeling in a fashion similar to factor analyzed trajectory hidden Markov model. The resulting joint model can be interpreted as a waveform level closed-loop training, where the distance between natural and synthesized speech is minimized. An algorithm based on the maximum likelihood criterion is introduced to train the proposed joint model and some experiments are presented to show its effectiveness.
Preserved arterial vasodilatation via endothelial protease-activated receptor-2 in obese type 2 diabetic mice

In non‐obese diabetic animals, protease‐activated receptor‐2 (PAR2) agonists are more effective vasodilators, which is attributed to increased COX‐2 and endothelial NOS (eNOS) activities. Under conditions of diabetes and obesity, the effectiveness of PAR2 agonists is unknown. We compared the vasodilator responses of small calibre mesenteric arteries from obese diabetic B6.BKS(D)‐Leprdb/J (db/db) induced by PAR2‐activating agonists 2‐furoyl‐LIGRLO‐amide (2fly) and trypsin to those obtained in controls [C57BL/6J (C57)], and assessed the contributions of COX, NOS and calcium‐activated potassium channels (KCa) to these responses.
A content-based image retrieval framework for multi-modality lung images

This paper presents a framework for effective and fast content-based image retrieval for multi-modality PET-CT lung scans. PET-CT scans present significant advantages in tumor staging, but also place new challenges in computerized image analysis and retrieval. Our framework comprises 5 major components: lung field estimation, texture feature extraction, feature categorization, refinement using SVM, and similarity measure. Clinical data from lung cancer patients are used as case studies, and effective retrieval performance is demonstrated.
Where Does the Buck Stop?: Assessing the Impact of Presidential Personality

Personality studies of important political figures have generally relied on either detailed but idiosyncratic case historical methods or the more rigorous but potentially misleading content analysis of a subject's public statements or writings. This paper employs a comparatively new method of personality assessment to evaluate the personality of postwar U. S. presidents. A Q-sort analysis produces a personality profile for each of six U. S. presidents and permits a comparison of these profiles with "criterion" profiles for presidential openness, effective leadership, and "optimally adjusted" personality. The Q-sort data provide no support for the hypothesis that a president's personality is related to his overall "greatness" rating by historians, but the data are consistent with the hypothesis that presidents rated high on openness may also exhibit greater integrative complexity in their policy deliberations during international crises.
Efficient computation of a simplified medial axis

Applications of of the medial axis have been limited because of its instability and algebraic complexity. In this paper, we use a simplification of the medial axis, the θ-SMA, that is parameterized by a separation angle (θ) formed by the vectors connecting a point on the medial axis to the closest points on the boundary. We present a formal characterization of the degree of simplification of the θ-SMA as a function of θ, and we quantify the degree to which the simplified medial axis retains the features of the original polyhedron.We present a fast algorithm to compute an approximation of the θ-SMA. It is based on a spatial subdivision scheme, and uses fast computation of a distance field and its gradient using graphics hardware. The complexity of the algorithm varies based on the error threshold that is used, and is a linear function of the input size. We have applied this algorithm to approximate the SMA of models with tens or hundreds of thousands of triangles. Its running time varies from a few seconds, for a model consisting of hundreds of triangles, to minutes for highly complex models.
The Smallest Carbamoyl-phosphate Synthetase

Escherichia coli carbamoyl-phosphate synthetase (CPSase) is comprised of a 40-kDa glutaminase (GLN) and a 120-kDa synthetase (CPS) subunit. The CPS subunit consists of two homologous domains, CPS.A and CPS.B, which catalyze the two different ATP-dependent partial reactions involved in carbamoyl phosphate synthesis. Sequence similarities and controlled proteolysis experiments suggest that the CPS subdomains consist, in turn, of three subdomains, designated A1, A2, A3 and B1, B2, B3 for CPS.A and CPS.B, respectively. Previous studies of individually cloned CPS.A and CPS.B from E. coli and mammalian CPSase have shown that homologous dimers of either of these “half-molecules” could catalyze all three reactions involved in ammonia-dependent carbamoyl phosphate synthesis. Four smaller recombinant proteins were made for this study as follows: 1) A1-A2 in which the A3 subdomain was deleted from CPS.A, 2) B1-B2 lacking subdomain B3 of CPS.B, 3) the A2 subdomain of CPS.A, and 4) the B2 subdomain of CPS.B. When associated with the GLN subunit, A1-A2 and B1-B2 had both glutamine- and ammonia-dependent CPSase activities comparable to the wild-type protein. In contrast, the 27-kDa A2 and B2 recombinant proteins, which represent only 17% of the mass of the parent protein, were unable to use glutamine as a nitrogen donor, but the ammonia-dependent activity was enhanced 14–16-fold. The hyperactivity suggests that A2 and B2 are the catalytic subdomains and that A1 and B1 are attenuation domains which suppress the intrinsically high activity and are required for the physical association with the GLN subunit.
Prescriptive support and commitment processes in close relationships

Existing research on close relationships has not determined whether commitment is strengthened by prescriptive support for a relationship. The present research examines both (I) personal prescription, based on the personal belief that one ought to persist in a relationship, and (2) social prescription, based on the belief that friends or family members would like one to persist. In a computer-assisted telephone interview we examined associations of commitment with both forms of prescriptive support and traditional investment-model variables: satisfaction level, alternative quality, and investment size. All five predictors exhibited significant simple associations with commitment level. Regression analyses revealed that social prescription accounted for unique variance in commitment beyond satisfaction, alternatives, and investments; personal prescription did not account for unique variance in commitment.
‘Dialectical Syncretism’ and Occupational Therapy

Over the years, there seems to have been regular debate amongst occupational therapy commentators on the subjects of 'models' and 'philosophies' of practice as well as 'ethics' and the search for a meaningful definition of what occupational therapy is and what occupational therapists do. There is a similar debate within my professional arena over such matters as the differences between 'counselling' and 'psychotherapy' and which theoretical and practical models are the most effective. After over a century of debate, there is as yet no answer acceptable to all (Dryden and Feltham, 1992; Hillman and Ventura, 1992). In psychotherapy and counselling theory, the evolution of models has progressed roughly along the following lines: • Monist: A single 'whole world view' model, for example, Freudian psychoanalysis • Eclectic: A potpourri of techniques unconnected by a core linking philosophy • Integrative: Two or more models judged as complementary and studied together (HIPS, 1994). Monist theories held sway until roughly the 1950s, when eclecticism arose. Integrative models are currently fashionable (Dryden, 1992).
Assessing the usability of students object-oriented language with first-year IT students: a case study

This paper describes our "objects-first" programming environment from the perspective of HCI in education. We argue why a syntactically simple domain-specific programming language allows first-year IT students to focus on core programming skills such as code reading, writing, and debugging. We present a case study of first-year IT students at our regional university. The results suggest that simplified language design helps a student develop transferable skills and conceptual knowledge when compared with traditional approaches.
Exploiting user mobility for D2D assisted wireless caching networks

Caching popular contents at helpers and users can offload the traffic from base stations by the helper transmission or device-to-device (D2D) transmission. In this paper, we investigate the effect of user mobility on the offloading probability for D2D assisted wireless caching systems. Specifically, we model the mobility pattern of users as the contact time and connect frequency between different users, and the offloading probability of both entire caching scheme and coded caching scheme are then derived. In order to maximize the offloading probability, the optimal caching placement problem for helpers and users is formulated and the corresponding solutions are proposed for both entire caching and coded caching schemes. We show the proposed scheme achieves both mobility gain and computation gain, in addition to the traditional caching gain, by increasing caching efficiency and distributing content across users caches. Finally, we find that the mobility of user not only provides mobility gain, but also improves computation gain.
ifcXMLNetwork : A Visual Interface for Exploring and Understanding ifcXML Data

IfcXML files are domain specific type of XML files which are generated from building information models (BIM). Unlike most XML files, they do not have an inherent hierarchy of their own. Data instances in the ifcXML file are identified through unique identifiers and these are used to connect one data instance to other. This results in long chains of connections through multiple reference identifiers. At present there is not effective method of extracting and understanding these connections. The only way a user can see how one data instance is connected to another is by manually searching and following this path of connections through the ifcXML file. This paper introduces a new system called ifcXMLNetwork which generates a network for each data instance by finding all the other data instances it is connected through its identifier. The purpose of ifcXMLNetwork is to make it easier for users to find relationships and connections in ifcXML files without manually navigating through the data file.