Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multifrequency synthesis and extraction using square wave projection patterns for quantitative tissue imaging

Abstract. We present a method for spatial frequency domain data acquisition utilizing a multifrequency synthesis and extraction (MSE) method and binary square wave projection patterns. By illuminating a sample with square wave patterns, multiple spatial frequency components are simultaneously attenuated and can be extracted to determine optical property and depth information. Additionally, binary patterns are projected faster than sinusoids typically used in spatial frequency domain imaging (SFDI), allowing for short (millisecond or less) camera exposure times, and data acquisition speeds an order of magnitude or more greater than conventional SFDI. In cases where sensitivity to superficial layers or scattering is important, the fundamental component from higher frequency square wave patterns can be used. When probing deeper layers, the fundamental and harmonic components from lower frequency square wave patterns can be used. We compared optical property and depth penetration results extracted using square waves to those obtained using sinusoidal patterns on an in vivo human forearm and absorbing tube phantom, respectively. Absorption and reduced scattering coefficient values agree with conventional SFDI to within 1% using both high frequency (fundamental) and low frequency (fundamental and harmonic) spatial frequencies. Depth penetration reflectance values also agree to within 1% of conventional SFDI.
Validation of Universal Scale in Oral Surgery (USOS) for Patient’s Psycho-emotional Status Rating

ABSTRACT Objectives There aren’t any objective methods that may help in standard evaluation of oral surgery patient’s psycho-emotional status. Without any standardized evaluation, two main problems appear: heterogeneity between studies and ineffective patient’s evaluation. Therefore, Universal Scale in Oral Surgery (USOS) for patient’s psycho-emotional status rating has previously been proposed by authors. The aim of present study is to assess the clinical effectivity and validate the Universal Scale in Oral Surgery in case of outpatient tooth extraction for adult healthy patients. Material and Methods Clinical trial to validate the USOS for patient’s psycho-emotional status rating was performed. In total 90 patients, that came for outpatient dental extraction to Lithuanian University of Health Sciences Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Department ambulatory, were enrolled in clinical trial. Patients filled self-reported questionnaires before the procedure. Operating surgeon rated USOS for patient’s psycho-emotional status rating doctor’s part questionnaire after the procedure. 4 - 6 weeks later all patients were asked to fill USOS for patient’s psycho-emotional status rating questionnaire retrospectively. Results According to the statistical analysis, the final composition of USOS for patient’s psycho-emotional status rating that would fit to reliability coefficient should be composed from 6 patient part questions and 3 general doctor part questions. Conclusions Universal Scale in Oral Surgery for patient’s psycho-emotional status rating is a novel, doctor and patient rated scale which is suitable for clinical and scientific usage.
Approaches to the Feather Stain Detection and Segmentation

Extraction of feather defects is difficult because of their complicated and diversified characteristics. It is proposed that feather stain defects be extracted in HSI color space according to color characters of different types of feather defects. The improved variational level set method is adopted to locate and segment the feather stains on that basis. Experiment results show that the proposed methods can extract feather stains effectively and segment them accurately.
Effect of crystallization temperature on crystal modifications and crystallization kinetics of poly(L-lactide)

The crystalline structure of poly(L-lactide) (PLLA) have been found to quite depend on the crystallization temperatures (Tcs), especially in the range of 100−120°C, which is usually used as the crystallization temperature for the industrial process of PLLA. The analysis of wide-angle X-ray diffraction and Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy revealed that 110°C is a critical temperature for PLLA crystallization. At Tc < 110°C and Tc ≥ 110°C, the α′ and α crystals were mainly produced, respectively. Besides, the structural feature of the α′-form was illustrated, and it was found that the α′-form has the larger unit cell dimension than that of the α-form. Moreover, the crystallization kinetics of the α′ and α crystals are different, resulting in the discontinuousness of the curves of spherulite radius growth rate (G) versus Tc and the half time in the melt-crystallization (t1/2) versus Tc investigated by Polarized optical microscope and Differential scanning calorimetry, respectively. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2008
Correction of “ Wrist ” Deformity in Radial Dysplasia A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background: Radial dysplasia affects 1 in 6,000 to 8,000 births, classically presenting with a shortened, bowed ulna and radially deviated hand. The optimal treatment remains unclear, with several opposing approaches advocated. This review aims to clarify the long-term outcomes of nonsurgical and surgical treatment of the “ wrist ” deformity. Methods: The Embase, MEDLINE, PubMed, Cochrane Central, ClinicalTrials.gov, and World Health Organization International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) databases were searched for published and unpublished studies reporting long-term outcomes of surgical or nonsurgical treatment of children with radial dysplasia. Results were not restricted by date or language. Primary outcomes were hand-forearm angle, ulnar length, and “ wrist ” active range of motion (ROM). Studies were assessed using the Grades of Recommendation, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) criteria. Data for the change in hand-forearm angle were pooled using random-effects meta-analysis, and mean differences and 95% con ﬁ dence intervals were obtained. Primary outcome data at last follow-up were pooled, and means and standard deviations were obtained. The PROSPERO registration of this study was CRD42016036665. Results: Of 104 studies identi ﬁ ed, 12 were included in this review. Five were retrospective cohort studies and 7 were case series. No randomized studies were found. Study quality was low or very low according to the GRADE criteria. The hand-forearm angle of nonsurgically treated patients worsened during childhood, from 66 (cid:1) to 84 (cid:1) , whereas “ wrist ” active ROM, at 61 (cid:1) , was better than thatfor most surgicallytreatedpatients. Ulnar length with nonsurgical treatment was predicted to be 64% of normal, but was not directly reported. Isolated soft-tissue release provided a modest reduction in hand-forearm angle compared with nonsurgical treatment. Soft-tissue distraction with centralization or radialization achieved the best hand-forearm angle correction (16 (cid:1) radial deviation). Radialization maintained better “ wrist ” active ROM (46 (cid:1) ) and ulnar length than centralization. Microvascular second metatarsophalangeal joint transfer yielded better reported “ wrist ” active ROM (83 (cid:1) ) and good ulnar length compared with other surgical techniques, but a slightly worse hand-forearm angle (28 (cid:1) ). Conclusions: There was low-quality evidence that soft-tissue distraction plus centralization or radialization achieved the best correction of the hand-forearm angle for children with radial dysplasia.
Synthesis and Characterization of Ionic Crosslinked Chitosan Scaffolds

Chitosan has been the focus of an extensive research in recent years, especially due to its biodegradability, biocompatibility and the possibility to be processed in many form, shapes and sizes. Besides, chitosan can ben chemically modified and this modification through crosslinking can produce materials with a wide variety of properties. The aim of this present work was to produce and characterizing ionic crosslinked chitosan scaffolds. Chitosan scaffolds were prepared by the freeze drying technique and crosslinking was introduced by a chemical reaction with sulfuric acid solution. The non-crosslinked and crosslinked chitosan scaffolds were characterized by Fourier Transformed Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS). According to FTIR results, an effective reaction between the sulfate ions and chitosan scaffolds was achieved with visible changes in the spectra. This reaction also could be seen on EDS results with sulfur peaks presents in all the crosslinked samples. The SEM results showed that the crosslinking reaction doesn ́t modified the chitosan scaffolds tridimensional structure.
Ceramic and Cermet Coatings for Cylinder Liner in Ultra Light Weight Engines - Novel Processing and Manufacturing of Ceramic Layer Composites

Actual requirements in the automotive industry are the reduction of fuel consumption and pollution emission, engine efficiency improvement, as well as cost reduction. Most of these requirements are fulfilled by reducing the total weight of the vehicle. This results in an increasing utilization of light metal components for engine applications. Significant weight savings are obtained by changing the engine block material from cast iron to aluminum or even to magnesium aluminum hybrid constructions. Despite of all advantages the industrial implementation of light metals is often inhibited by their poor surface properties especially concerning wear and tribological behavior. Due to the highly loaded operation conditions a cylinder liner surface reinforcement is necessary. A very promising technological alternative is the internal cylinder reinforcement by using HVOF (high velocity oxygen fuel) sprayed coatings. By using these advanced high energetic coating technologies, material combinations containing solid lubricant ceramic dispersions can be deposited. The thermal spray processes represent a cost effective and flexible solution for ultra light weight engine technology. This research is focused on the development of HVOF sprayed coating systems for cylinder liners, the coating optimization and the cost effective implementation of this hypersonic spray technology in a series production process. It will be shown that cast engine block bores can be directly coated by using an automated HVOF process, obtaining improved coating results. The internal coating process by hypersonic flame spraying is a superior technological alternative to the APS process for high quality cylinder liner and engine crankcase applications.
Institutional Investor Preferences and Price Pressure: The Case of Corporate Spin-Offs

Corporate spin-offs create new firms with characteristics markedly different from the original firm. Consequently, institutional investors precommitted to certain investment styles or subject to fiduciary restrictions have incentives to rebalance their portfolios at the time of the spin-off. We find strong evidence that investment strategy and fiduciary restrictions affect institutional investor demand for stocks after spin-offs. However, contrary to prior research conjecturing that trading related to investor preferences creates short-term price pressure in entities emerging from spin-off transactions, we find that, in general, this trading is not associated with abnormal price movements for parents or subsidiaries around the spin-off.
Influence of the fracture process zone in ferroelectrics on the effective fracture toughness

A model is presented to calculate the influence of ferroelectric/ferroelastic domain switching near a crack tip on the effective fracture toughness of piezoelectric ceramics. The switch-toughening effect is quantified in terms of intrinsic field intensity factors accounting for residual fields within the fracture process zone which are due to constraints at the boundary of the switching zone. The intrinsic field intensity factors themselves depend on the external electromechanical loading of the cracked body and thus can clearly be expressed in terms of the intensity factors of the applied loading. These can also account for the effects of an electrical permeability of the crack. The extension of the process zone is calculated using closed-form solutions for the asymptotic crack tip fields in connection with a domain switching criterion. Subsequently, the amount of switch-toughening is calculated applying a weight function technique. Therefore, crack weight functions have been derived for the real anisotropy in piezoelectrics.
Genome-Wide Characterization of bHLH Genes in Grape and Analysis of their Potential Relevance to Abiotic Stress Tolerance and Secondary Metabolite Biosynthesis

Basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcription factors are involved in many abiotic stress responses as well as flavonol and anthocyanin biosynthesis. In grapes (Vitis vinifera L.), flavonols including anthocyanins and condensed tannins are most abundant in the skins of the berries. Flavonols are important phytochemicals for viticulture and enology, but grape bHLH genes have rarely been examined. We identified 94 grape bHLH genes in a genome-wide analysis and performed Nr and GO function analyses for these genes. Phylogenetic analyses placed the genes into 15 clades, with some remaining orphans. 41 duplicate gene pairs were found in the grape bHLH gene family, and all of these duplicate gene pairs underwent purifying selection. Nine triplicate gene groups were found in the grape bHLH gene family and all of these triplicate gene groups underwent purifying selection. Twenty-two grape bHLH genes could be induced by PEG treatment and 17 grape bHLH genes could be induced by cold stress treatment including a homologous form of MYC2, VvbHLH007. Based on the GO or Nr function annotations, we found three other genes that are potentially related to anthocyanin or flavonol biosynthesis: VvbHLH003, VvbHLH007, and VvbHLH010. We also performed a cis-acting regulatory element analysis on some genes involved in flavonoid or anthocyanin biosynthesis and our results showed that most of these gene promoters contained G-box or E-box elements that could be recognized by bHLH family members.
Supervised deep actor network for imitation learning in a ground-air UAV-UGVs coordination task

Ground-Air coordination is a very complex environment for a machine learning algorithm. We focus on the case where an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) needs to support a group of Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs). The UAV is required to broadcast an image that contains all UGVs, thus, offering a bird-eye-view on the group as a whole. The source of complexity in this task is twofold. First, coordination needs to occur without communication between the UAV and UGVs. Second, the ability of the UAV to sense the UGVs is coupled with the ability of the UAV to learn how to track laterally the UGVs and adapt its vertical position so that the images of the UGVs are appropriately spaced within the camera field of view. In this paper, we propose using the Deep Actor Network component of an Actor-Critic Deep Reinforcement Learning architecture as a supervised learner. The advantage of this approach is that it offers a step towards autonomous learning whereby the full Actor-Critic model can be utilized in the future. Human demonstrations are collected for the deep Actor network to learn from. The system is built using the Gazebo Simulator, Robot Operating System, and the OpenAI Gym. We show that the proposed setup is able to train the UAV to follow the UGVs while maintaining all UGVs within camera range in situations where UGVs are performing complex maneuvers.
Computational methods in super-resolution microscopy

The broad applicability of super-resolution microscopy has been widely demonstrated in various areas and disciplines. The optimization and improvement of algorithms used in super-resolution microscopy are of great importance for achieving optimal quality of super-resolution imaging. In this review, we comprehensively discuss the computational methods in different types of super-resolution microscopy, including deconvolution microscopy, polarization-based super-resolution microscopy, structured illumination microscopy, image scanning microscopy, super-resolution optical fluctuation imaging microscopy, single-molecule localization microscopy, Bayesian super-resolution microscopy, stimulated emission depletion microscopy, and translation microscopy. The development of novel computational methods would greatly benefit super-resolution microscopy and lead to better resolution, improved accuracy, and faster image processing.
A Rule based Stemming Method for Multilingual Urdu Text

is a national language of Pakistan and spoken more than 200 million people use it as a verbal and written communication. There exists a large amount of unstructured Urdu textual data in the world; by applying data mining techniques useful information can be achieved. However it seriously lacks processing capabilities to develop innovative systems based on Urdu language. In this paper, authors present a rule based stemming method for Urdu language that has the ability to cope the challenges of Urdu infix stemming. The proposed stemming method generates the stem of Urdu words by removing prefix, infix and postfix from it. In this proposed Urdu stemming technique, authors have introduced two novel classes of Urdu infix words and a new minimum word length rule. To generate stem of Urdu word that belongs to proposed Urdu infix word classes, infix stripping rules are developed. The proposed Urdu stemming technique is competent to generate the stem of borrowed words and compound words, as well. The proposed approach is evaluated on Urdu headline news datasets. This proposed approach is compared with existing state-of-the art technique (A Light Weight Urdu Stemmer) to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The proposed method provides 90% to 95 % accuracy and shows significant improvements comparing to the Urdu stemming technique. Keywordsstemming, stemming rules, infix stemming, stemming lists, Urdu infix classes
Study on Char Structure of Intumescent Flame-Retardant Polypropylene

The structure and properties of the char of intumescent flame retardant polypropylene (IFR-PP) have been studied by cone calorimeter, scanning electron microscope (SEM) and differential scanning calorimeter (DSC). Charring tendency analysis indicates IFR-PP is more likely to form a thick and homogenous char at low heat flux than that at higher heat fluxes. The SEM study indicates different char structures are formed at different stages. DSC analysis studies thermal stability of IFR-PP. Theoretical analysis of intuemscent charring shows when intumescent velocity increases, the heat diffusing into the underlying material will decrease if the thermal diffusivity of the material keeps constant.
Probiotic Properties of Exopolysaccharide-Producing Lactobacillus Strains Isolated from Tempoyak

Tempoyak is a functional Malaysian food (an acid-fermented condiment) which is produced from the pulp of the durian (Durio zibethinus) fruit. The current study aimed to isolate and identify potential exopolysaccharide (EPS)-producing Lactobacillus strains from tempoyak for potential use as probiotics. Seven isolates (DUR2, DUR4, DUR5, DUR8, DUR12, DUR18, and DUR20) out of 44 were able to produce EPS, and exhibited resistance to acid and bile salt compared to the reference strains Lactobacillus rhmnosus (ATCC53103) and L. plantarum (ATCC8014). The seven isolated strains belonged to five different species—L. plantarum, L. fermentum, L. crispatus, L. reuteri, and L. pentosus—which were identified using API 50 CHL and 16S rRNA gene sequences (Polymerase chain reaction, PCR – based). The seven strains displayed different ability to produce EPS (100–850 mg/L). Isolates exhibited a high survivability to acid (pH 3.0), bile salts (0.3%), and gastrointestinal tract model (<70%). Results showed that the auto-aggregation and cell surface hydrophobicity ranged from 39.98% to 60.09% and 50.80% to 80.53%, respectively, whereas, the highest co-aggregation value (66.44%) was observed by L. fermentum (DUR8) with Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The isolates showed good inhibitory activity against tested pathogens, high antioxidant activity (32.29% to 73.36%), and good ability to reduce cholesterol (22.55% to 75.15%). Thus, the seven tested strains have value as probiotics.
Predicting Adversarial Examples with High Confidence

It has been suggested that adversarial examples cause deep learning models to make incorrect predictions with high confidence. In this work, we take the opposite stance: an overly confident model is more likely to be vulnerable to adversarial examples. This work is one of the most proactive approaches taken to date, as we link robustness with non-calibrated model confidence on noisy images, providing a data-augmentation-free path forward. The adversarial examples phenomenon is most easily explained by the trend of increasing non-regularized model capacity, while the diversity and number of samples in common datasets has remained flat. Test accuracy has incorrectly been associated with true generalization performance, ignoring that training and test splits are often extremely similar in terms of the overall representation space. The transferability property of adversarial examples was previously used as evidence against overfitting arguments, a perceived random effect, but overfitting is not always random.
Use of Interactive Health Communication to Affect Smoking Intentions in Middle School Students: A Pilot Test of the “Headbutt” Risk Assessment Program

Purpose. Developing and disseminating innovative and effective approaches for smoking prevention among middle school children remains a public health priority. This pilot study evaluates the use of a Web-based tobacco prevention program, Headbutt, to change intentions of middle school children to smoke tobacco. Methods. Headbutt was implemented with the use of a single-group pretest-posttest study design in sixth grade classes of nine middle schools in Texas (student n = 2227). The program assesses cognitive determinants of smoking and provides intervention feedback tailored to the child's responses. Results. Headbutt significantly affected smoking intentions, prosmoking attitudes, self-efficacy expectations, and knowledge of negative consequences (all p ≤ .001) measured with scales adopted from the Texas Tobacco Initiative Survey. Change in prosmoking attitudes had the greatest predictive effect on smoking intentions (p < .001). These results were moderated by ethnicity and age of students. Conclusion. Findings need to be interpreted in the light of study design limitations. However, strong associations between the Headbutt program and intention change suggests that a more rigorous effectiveness trial is indicated.