Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Steering of flexible needles combining kinesthetic and vibratory force feedback

Needle insertion in soft-tissue is a minimally invasive surgical procedure which demands high accuracy. In this respect, robotic systems with autonomous control algorithms have been exploited as the main tool to achieve high accuracy and reliability. However, for reasons of safety and acceptance by the surgical community, autonomous robotic control is not desirable. Thus, it is necessary to focus more on techniques enabling clinicians to directly control the motion of surgical tools. In this work we address that challenge and present a novel teleoperated robotic system able to steer flexible needles. The proposed system tracks the position of the needle using an ultrasound imaging system, and, from that, it computes needle's ideal position and orientation to reach a given target. The master haptic interface then provides mixed kinesthetic-vibratory navigation cues about this ideal position and orientation to the clinician as she steers the needle. Six subjects carried out an experiment of teleoperated needle insertion into a soft-tissue phantom. They showed a mean targeting error of 1.36 mm. An additional experiment of remote teleoperation has been carried out to highlight the passivity-based stability of the proposed system.
Posterior Reversible Encephalopathy Syndrome (PRES): Restricted Diffusion does not Necessarily Mean Irreversibility

Summary Background Restricted diffusion is the second most common atypical presentation of PRES. This has a very important implication, as lesions with cytotoxic edema may progress to infarction. Several studies suggested the role of DWI in the prediction of development of infarctions in these cases. Other studies, however, suggested that PRES is reversible even with cytotoxic patterns. Our aim was to evaluate whether every restricted diffusion in PRES is reversible and what factors affect this reversibility. Material/Methods Thirty-six patients with acute neurological symptoms suggestive of PRES were included in our study. Inclusion criteria comprised imaging features of atypical PRES where DWI images and ADC maps show restricted diffusion. Patients were imaged with 0.2-T and 1.5-T machines. FLAIR images were evaluated for the severity of the disease and a FLAIR/DWI score was used. ADC values were selectively recorded from the areas of diffusion restriction. A follow-up MRI study was carried out in all patients after 2 weeks. Patients were classified according to reversibility into: Group 1 (reversible PRES; 32 patients) and Group 2 (irreversible changes; 4 patients). The study was approved by the University’s research ethics committee, which conforms to the declaration of Helsinki. Results The age and blood pressure did not vary significantly between both groups. The total number of regions involved and the FLAIR/DWI score did not vary significantly between both groups. Individual regions did not reveal any tendency for the development of irreversible lesions. Similarly, ADC values did not reveal any significant difference between both groups. Conclusions PRES is completely reversible in the majority of patients, even with restricted diffusion. None of the variables under study could predict the reversibility of PRES lesions. It seems that this process is individual-dependent.
Central schemes for hydrodynamical limits of discrete-velocity kinetic models

Abstract The hydrodynamical scalings of many discrete-velocity kinetic models lead to a small-relaxation time behavior governed by the corresponding Euler type hyperbolic equations or Navier-Stokes type parabolic equations. Using as a prototype a simple discrete-velocity model of the Boltzmann equation we develop a class of central schemes with the correct asymptotic limit that work with uniform second order accuracy with respect to the scaling parameter. Numerical results for both the fluid-dynamic limit and the diffusive limit show the robustness of the present approach.
Thymidine phosphorylase mRNA expression may be a predictor of response to post-operative adjuvant chemotherapy with S-1 in patients with stage III colorectal cancer

The aim of the present study was to investigate markers in surgically resected specimens of colorectal cancer that can be used to predict the response to chemotherapy. The mRNA expression levels of enzymes involved in 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) metabolism and folate metabolism were measured in formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tumor sections obtained from the primary tumors of 54 patients with resected stage II or III colorectal cancer who received S-1 for one year. The 5-FU metabolizing enzymes studied were thymidylate synthase, dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase and thymidine phosphorylase (TP). The folate metabolizing enzymes studied were folypolyglutamate synthetase, γ-glutamyl hydrolase and dihydrofolate reductase. The associations between the mRNA expression levels of these enzymes and clinical variables were investigated. Tumors were classified as exhibiting high or low expression as compared with the median mRNA expression level of each metabolizing enzyme defined as the cutoff value. The associations between the high and low expression levels of each enzyme and disease-free survival (DFS) were analyzed with the use of Kaplan-Meier curves and the log-rank test. DFS was not significantly associated with the relative mRNA expression level of any metabolizing enzyme in the study group as a whole, but there was a trend toward longer DFS in patients with high TP expression (P=0.066). In patients with stage III colorectal cancer, high TP expression was associated with significantly improved outcomes compared with low TP expression (P=0.039). These results indicate that the mRNA expression of TP, a metabolizing enzyme of 5-FU, is a significant predictor of response to post-operative chemotherapy with S-1 in patients with stage III colorectal cancer.
Autonomous movement-driven place recognition calibration for generic multi-sensor robot platforms

In this paper we present a method for autonomously tuning the threshold between learning and recognizing a place in the world, based on both how the rodent brain is thought to process and calibrate multisensory data and the pivoting movement behaviour that rodents perform in doing so. The approach makes no assumptions about the number and type of sensors, the robot platform, or the environment, relying only on the ability of a robot to perform two revolutions on the spot. In addition, it self-assesses the quality of the tuning process in order to identify situations in which tuning may have failed. We demonstrate the autonomous movement-driven threshold tuning on a Pioneer 3DX robot in eight locations spread over an office environment and a building car park, and then evaluate the mapping capability of the system on journeys through these environments. The system is able to pick a place recognition threshold that enables successful environment mapping in six of the eight locations while also autonomously flagging the tuning failure in the remaining two locations. We discuss how the method, in combination with parallel work on autonomous weighting of individual sensors, moves the parameter dependent RatSLAM system significantly closer to sensor, platform and environment agnostic operation.
Direct modulation of rod photoreceptor responsiveness through a Mel(1c) melatonin receptor in transgenic Xenopus laevis retina.

PURPOSE Retinal circadian signals may have a role in maintaining the normal function and health of photoreceptors. Melatonin is an output of the retinal circadian oscillator and provides nocturnal signaling that is mediated through specific G-protein-coupled receptors. Melatonin receptors are expressed in retinal photoreceptor cells, and this study was undertaken to test the hypothesis that melatonin directly increases photoreceptor responses through melatonin receptors. METHODS Transgenic Xenopus laevis frogs were generated using a DNA construct containing a Xenopus opsin promoter driving expression of a melatonin Mel(1c) receptor-green fluorescent protein (GFP) fusion protein (XOP-MEL(1c)-GFP). Electroretinogram (ERG) analysis on transgenic and normal tadpole eyes was performed in response to melatonin treatment, and the eyes were subsequently examined by confocal microscopy and GFP immunocytochemistry. RESULTS XOP-MEL(1c)-GFP transgenic frogs demonstrated GFP immunoreactivity in rod photoreceptor inner segments throughout the retina, indicating the rod-specific expression of the Mel(1c)-GFP fusion protein. ERG analysis of transgenic tadpole eyes showed that 1 to 100 nM melatonin increased the a- and b-wave amplitudes. Control transgenic (XOP-GFP) and normal frogs exhibited only modest ERG responses to 100-nM melatonin treatment. The effect of melatonin on a- and b-wave amplitudes in XOP-MEL(1c)-GFP transgenic frogs was dose dependent, with ERG responses occurring at physiological concentrations. CONCLUSIONS The results suggest that melatonin, acting through Mel(1c) receptors on rod photoreceptor membranes, directly stimulates the responsiveness of rod photoreceptors to light. This supports the hypothesis that melatonin acts both as an intracrine and paracrine circadian signal of darkness, and binds to specific receptors in photoreceptors and other retinal cells to increase visual sensitivity.
Garbage Collection Based on a Linear Type System

We propose a type-directed garbage collection (GC) scheme for a programming language with static memory management based on a linear type system. Linear type systems, which can guarantee certain values (called linear values) to be used only once during program execution, are useful for memory management: memory space for linear values can be reclaimed immediately after they are used. However, conventional pointer-tracing GC does not work under such a memory management scheme: as linear values are used, dangling pointers to the memory space for them will be yielded. This problem is solved by exploiting static type information during garbage collection in a way similar to tag-free GC. Type information in our linear type system represents not only the shapes of heap objects but also how many times the heap objects are accessed in the rest of computation. Using such type information at GC-time, our GC can avoid tracing dangling pointers; in addition, our GC can reclaim even reachable garbage. We formalize such a GC algorithm and prove its correctness.
Blog-supported scientific communication: An exploratory analysis based on social hyperlinks in a Chinese blog community

As a new-style computer-mediated communication system, the blog has been gaining popularity among various Web users. Blog communities come into being in the process of self-organized communication between bloggers and the community structures are reflected by the embedded social networks. This study research the communication patterns of scientist bloggers with the data from the largest Chinese-language scientific blog community specializing in computer and information sciences and technologies, i.e. the Csdn blog. The social network analysis of its blogroll link data suggests that the Csdn blog community is a small-world network. Many sub-communities exist in the blog community. The communication between the central and ordinary bloggers within the same sub-community is usually one-way and dense. The structure of the Csdn blog community indicates that distributed central actors are still important in the diffusion and communication of scientific knowledge.
Speaker Verification in Different Database Scenarios

This document shows the results of our Speaker Verification System under two scenarios: the Face and Speaker Verification Evaluation organized by MOBIO (MObile BIOmetric consortium) and the results for the Speaker Recognition Evaluation 2010 organized by NIST. The core of our system is based on a Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) and maximum likelihood (ML) framework. First, it extracts the important speech features by computing the Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC). Then, the MFCCs train genderdependent GMMs that are later adapted to obtain target models. To obtain reliable performance statistics those target-models evaluate a set of trials and final scores are calculated. Finally, those scores are tagged as target or impostor. We tried several system configurations and found that each database requires a specific tuning to improve the performance. For the MOBIO database we obtained an average equal error rate (EER) of 16.43 %. For the NIST 2010 database we accomplished an average EER of 16.61%. NIST2010 database considers various conditions. From those conditions, the interview training and testing conditions showed the best EER of 10.94 %, followed by the phone call training phone call testing conditions of 13.35%.
Comparative computational fluid dynamic study of two distal 5 Contegra conduit anastomoses

30 ‘circular’ vs. oblique ‘elliptical’ anastomosis extended on the left PA, evaluating pressure and velocity profiles, and shear stress, from PA 31 origin to the bifurcation. ‘Elliptical’ anastomosis provides larger (s54% difference) cross-sectional area than ‘circular’ anastomosis. Velocity 32 contours showed important stagnation at PA bifurcation in ‘circular’ anastomosis and minimal in ‘elliptical’ configuration, where fluid flow 33 occurred preferentially in left PA. Pressure contours showed peak pressure zone at bifurcation in ‘circular’ anastomosis, while ‘elliptical’ 34 exhibited more uniform pressure distribution. Shear stress distribution was more homogeneous in ‘elliptical’ than in ‘circular’ anastomosis. 35 At bifurcation and in right PA artery velocity and pressure were higher for ‘circular’ than ‘elliptical’ anastomosis, while in left PA velocity 36 was much higher for ‘elliptical’ anastomosis. CFD study demonstrates more homogeneous pressure, velocity and shear stress distributions 37 for ‘elliptical’ compared to ‘circular’ anastomosis at PA bifurcation, and preferential flow in left PA. CFD results suggest that clinical 38 application of ‘elliptical’ anastomosis, with cross-sectional area larger than conventional ‘circular’ anastomosis, may reduce incidence and 39 degree of distal stenosis, particularly for small size conduits. 4
Intrinsic ON Responses of the Retinal OFF Pathway Are Suppressed by the ON Pathway

Parallel ON and OFF pathways conduct visual signals from bipolar cells in the retina to higher centers in the brain. ON responses are thought to originate by exclusive use of metabotropic glutamate receptor 6 (mGluR6) expressed in retinal ON bipolar cells. Paradoxically, we find ON responses in retinal ganglion cells of mGluR6-null mice, but they occur at long latency. The long-latency ON responses are not blocked by metabotropic glutamate or cholinergic receptor antagonists and are not produced by activation of receptive field surrounds. We show that these longer-latency ON responses are initiated in the OFF pathways. Our results expose a previously unrecognized intrinsic property of OFF retinal pathways that generates responses to light onset. In mGluR6-null mice, long-latency ON responses are observed in the visual cortex, indicating that they can be conducted reliably to higher visual areas. In wild-type (WT) mice, APB (dl-2-amino-4-phosphonobutyric acid), an mGluR6 agonist, blocks normal, short-latency ON responses but unmasks longer-latency ones. We find that these potentially confusing ON responses in the OFF pathway are actively suppressed in WT mice via two pharmacologically separable retinal circuits that are activated by the ON system in the retina. Consequently, we propose that a major function of the signaling of the ON pathway to the OFF pathway is suppression of these mistimed, and therefore inappropriate, light-evoked responses.
3 Force Resolution Map ( FRM ) : A New Pattern Component 3 . 1 The Role of FRMs

This paper extracts and documents patterns that identify recurring solutions for the problem of evaluation of data mining models. The five patterns presented in this paper are organized as a pattern language. The patterns differ in their context of application and how they solve the evaluation problem, especially when only limited amounts of data are available. Another contribution of this paper is the introduction of a new pattern section called “Force Resolution Map”. We believe that Force Resolution Maps illuminate not only these data mining patterns, but are generally useful in explicating any patterns.
Nonlinear principal component analysis for seismic data compression

Seismic data processing to interpret subsurface features is both computationally and data intensive. It is necessary to keep the dimensionality of data as small as possible, for good generalization from limited data. Therefore it is worthwhile exploring methods to compress the size of seismic data. In this paper, we consider approaches for linear and nonlinear principal component analysis (PCA) methods for compression of data for seismic signal processing. Principal component analysis (PCA) can improve seismic interpretations. Linear compression is realized by Karhunen-Loeve transform (KLT) and also by three layer autoassociative neural network (AANN) models. The distribution capturing ability of five layer AANN model is explored for nonlinear principal component analysis for compression of seismic data.
Open nesting in software transactional memory

Transactional memory (TM) promises to simplify concurrent programming while providing scalability competitive to fine-grained locking. Language-based constructs allow programmers to denote atomic regions declaratively and to rely on the underlying system to provide transactional guarantees along with concurrency. In contrast with fine-grained locking, TM allows programmers to write simpler programs that are composable and deadlock-free. TM implementations operate by tracking loads and stores to memory and by detecting concurrent conflicting accesses by different transactions. By automating this process, they greatly reduce the programmer's burden, but they also are forced to be conservative. Incertain cases, conflicting memory accesses may not actually violate the higher-level semantics of a program, and a programmer may wish to allow seemingly conflicting transactions to execute concurrently. Open nested transactions enable expert programmers to differentiate between physical conflicts, at the level of memory, and logical conflicts that actually violate application semantics. A TMsystem with open nesting can permit physical conflicts that are not logical conflicts, and thus increase concurrency among application threads. Here we present an implementation of open nested transactions in a Java-based software transactional memory (STM)system. We describe new language constructs to support open nesting in Java, and we discuss new abstract locking mechanisms that a programmer can use to prevent logical conflicts. We demonstrate how these constructs can be mapped efficiently to existing STM data structures. Finally, we evaluate our system on a set of Java applications and data structures, demonstrating how open nesting can enhance application scalability.
Under the Plastic: A Quantitative Look at DVD Video Encoding and Its Impact on Video Modeling

In this paper, we examine the DVD encoding process and the implications this process has video modeling and network traffic analysis. We have assembled a system that allows us to extract the video data from the DVDs as they were encoded for distribution. Analyzing the resulting video trace data, we describe how DVD encodings have evolved over time. In addition, our findings show that the underlying video content is fundamentally different than those produced by basic consumer video capture boards. We demonstrate how this affects current video modeling proposals and their affect on network traffic characterization. This research is based upon the analysis of over 100 DVD video streams, whose statistics will be made available after the Packet Video workshop.
Location based services combined with GPS and 3G wireless networks

There are increasing demands of location based services on traffic, travel, emergency, special crowd, and etc. With the development of measurement technique in wireless networks and applications of 3GPP release 4 on TD-SCDMA in China, it plays a more important role in positioning service for the customs using wireless networks technology. New and innovative ways are continuously pursued by mobile network operators to offer service and increase profit. The technology of the fundamental location estimates combined with Global Positioning System (GPS) and 3G wireless networks are presented first in the paper. Then a 4-steps method using wide-area continuous positioning combined with 3G system and GPS is developed through its operation process. Finally, the operation process is demonstrated within 3GPP TD-SCDMA combine with GPS.
Robust Multi-Objective Control toolbox

A new “Robust Multi-Objective Control” toolbox is presented. It is freely distributed (www.laas.fr/OLOCEP/romuloc) and works in Matlab environment along with the parser YALMIP. The current version tackles stability, pole location, H∞, H2 and impulse-to-peak analysis problems. The uncertain models are all in state-space and range from interval matrices to structured rational representations. For each considered problem, the user has the opportunity to choose between parameter dependent or independent Lyapunov functions. This gives more or less conservative conditions associated with different numerical burden. The paper exposes the underlying theoretical results and illustrates the use of the tool on some examples.
Exploiting curse of diversity for improved network security

Higher species diversity in biological systems increases the robustness of the system against the spread of disease or infection. However, computers are remarkably less diverse. Such lack of diversity poses serious risks to the today's homogeneous computer networks. An adversary learns with the initial compromises and then applies the learned knowledge to compromise subsequent systems with less effort and time. An exploit engineered to take advantage of a particular vulnerability could be leveraged on many other systems to multiply the effect of an attack. The existence of the same vulnerability on multiple systems in an enterprise network greatly benefits the adversary because she can gain incremental access to enterprise resources with relative ease. In this paper, we have proposed a metric to identify all the attack paths that are not fairly/truly diversified. Our goal is to identify all the attack paths in an enterprise network in which one or more vulnerabilities that could be exploited more than once. Additionally, our goal is to identify what are all those vulnerabilities and what are the affected software's/services? Based on the proposed heuristics, identical and vulnerable services were identified and diversified by functionally equivalent alternatives in such a way that adversary requires an independent effort (i.e. additional or new effort) for exploiting each vulnerability along every attack path. We have presented a small case study to demonstrate the efficacy and applicability of the proposed metric and proposed an algorithm for diversifying attack paths for making enterprise network more robust against 0-day attacks. Initial results show that our approach is capable of identifying identical and vulnerable software/applications/services that need to be diversified for increased network security.
A New Meshless Method to Solve Boundary-value Problems

This paper presents a new family of meshless methods for the solution of boundary-value problems. In the h-p cloud method, the solution space is composed of radial basis functions associated with a set of nodes arbitrarily placed in the domain. The paper describes the construction of the h-p cloud functions using a signed partition of unity and how h, p or h-p reenements can be implemented without a mesh. The h-p cloud functions and the Galerkin method are used to solve a two dimensional boundary-value problem. Some properties of the h-p cloud functions are also discussed.