Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Incorporating the Spine Instability Neoplastic Score into a Treatment Strategy for Spinal Metastasis: LMNOP

Study Design Review. Objective To describe a decision framework that incorporates key factors to be considered for optimal treatment of spinal metastasis and highlight how this system incorporates the Spinal Instability Neoplastic Score (SINS). Methods We describe how treatment options for spinal metastasis have broadened in recent years with advancements in stereotactic radiosurgery, vertebral augmentation, and other minimally invasive techniques. We discuss classification-based approaches to the treatment of spinal metastasis versus principles-based approaches and argue that the latter may be more appropriate for optimal patient informed consent. Case examples are provided. Results Scoring systems at best produce an estimate of life expectancy but fall short in incorporating all of the relevant factors that determine which treatment(s) may be indicated. We advocate a principle-based decision framework called LMNOP that considers: (L) location of disease with respect to the anterior and/or posterior columns of the spine and number of spinal levels involved (contiguous or non-contiguous); (M) mechanical instability as graded by SINS; (N) neurology (symptomatic epidural spinal cord compression); (O) oncology (histopathologic diagnosis), particularly with respect to radiosensitivity; and (P) patient fitness, patient wishes, prognosis (which is mostly dependent on tumor type), and response to prior therapy. Conclusions LMNOP is the first systematic approach to spinal metastasis that incorporates SINS. It is easy to remember, it addresses clinical factors not directly addressed by other systems, and it is adaptable to changes in technology.
Text-Dependent Speaker Recognition Using Emotional Features and Neural Networks

This paper deals with a novel feature extraction method for text dependent speaker recognition. Four female speakers were used to create a text –dependent database for Malayalam (one of the south Indian languages). Discrete Wavelet Transform was used for feature extraction and artificial neural network was used for machine intelligence. In this work we used emotional features for speaker recognition. Multi Layer perceptron architecture was used for the machine learning. An overall recognition accuracy of 84.37% has been achieved from this experiment.
No NAT'd User Left Behind: Fingerprinting Users behind NAT from NetFlow Records Alone

It is generally recognized that the network traffic generated by an individual acts as his biometric signature. Several tools exploit this fact to fingerprint and monitor users. Often, though, these tools access the entire traffic, including IP addresses and payloads. In general, this is not feasible on the grounds that both performance and privacy would be negatively affected. In reality, most ISPs convert user traffic into Net Flow records for a concise representation that does not include the payload. More importantly, a single IP address belonging to a large and distributed network is usually masked using Network Address Translation techniques, thus a few IP addresses may be associated to thousands of individuals (NAT'd IPs). We devised a new fingerprinting framework that overcomes these hurdles. Our system is able to analyze a huge amount of network traffic represented as Net Flows, with the intent to track people. It does so by accurately inferring when users are connected to the network and which IP addresses they are using, even though thousands of users are hidden behind NAT. Our prototype implementation was deployed and tested within an existing large metropolitan WiFi network serving about 200,000 users, with an average load of more than 1,000 users simultaneously connected behind 2 NAT'd IP addresses only. Our solution turned out to be very effective, with an accuracy greater than 90%. We also devised new tools and refined existing ones that may be applied to other contexts related to Net Flow analysis.
Predicting Critical Intradomain Routing Events

Network equipments generate an overwhelming number of reports and alarms every day, but only a small fraction of these alarms require the intervention of network operators. Our goal is to build a system to automatically select the set of critical alarms, so that network operators can focus their time and effort on these critical events. As a first step, we focus on alarms from intradomain routing. Our key observation is that operators already use trouble ticketing systems to record all events that require their intervention. Hence, we can use the history of trouble tickets combined with intradomain routing messages to train a classifier. Then, we can apply this classifier online to process intradomain routing messages and single out the critical events. This paper shows the feasibility of this approach by using the k-nearest neighbor algorithm to build classifiers from IS-IS and trouble ticket data from two networks. Our results show that we can accurately pinpoint approximately 70% of critical events for both networks.
The role of combination therapy with corticosteroids and long-acting β2-agonists in the prevention of exacerbations in COPD

Acute exacerbations of COPD can complicate the course of the disease in patients with severe airway obstruction. Reduction of exacerbations is an important clinical outcome in evaluating new therapies in COPD. Combination therapies with long-acting β-agonists and inhaled corticosteroids have now been approved for use. Three 1-year randomized clinical trials, which studied the effect of combining a long-acting β2-agonist with an inhaled corticosteroid in COPD, documented that exacerbation frequency was lower with therapy than placebo. Combination therapy had a similar effect to its monocomponents in the trial evaluating salmeterol/fluticasone combination. However, when patients with more severe COPD were studied using a combination of budesonide and formoterol, a clear improvement was seen in the overall exacerbation rates compared with the use of a long-acting β2-agonist alone.
Model-free joint torque control strategy for hydraulic robots

This paper proposes a simple model-free joint torque control strategy for hydraulic robots. The undesirable effect called “natural velocity feedback effect” is discussed by introducing mechanical impedance of the system. The proposed model-free joint torque control consists of internal-loop control and external-loop control (2 degrees of freedom (DOF)). Based on a mechanically represented hydraulic robot joint, the first-order internal-loop control is designed to reduce the mechanical impedance of a hydraulic robot joint in a passive manner. To improve joint torque tracking performance, a simple proportional-integral-derivative external-loop control is applied to the modified system by the internal-loop control. Robustness to external disturbance is demonstrated by transforming the proposed 2DOF control structure to the disturbance observer form. The proposed joint torque control strategy is validated on a 1DOF rotary hydraulic robot joint.
CXC Chemokine Receptor CXCR2 Is Essential for Protective Innate Host Response in Murine Pseudomonas aeruginosaPneumonia

ABSTRACT Pulmonary infection due to Pseudomonas aeruginosa has emerged as a leading cause of mortality. A vigorous host response is required to effectively clear the organisms from the lungs. This host defense is dependent on the recruitment and activation of neutrophils and macrophages. A family of chemotactic cytokines (chemokines) has been shown to participate in this protective response. In this study, we assessed the role of the ELR+ (glutamic acid-leucine-arginine motif positive) CXC chemokines and their CXC chemokine receptor (CXCR2) in lung antibacterial host defense. The intratracheal administration of Pseudomonas to mice resulted in the time-dependent influx of neutrophils to the lung, peaking at 12 to 24 h after inoculation. The influx of neutrophils was associated with a similar time-dependent expression of the ELR+ CXC chemokines, KC, macrophage inflammatory protein 2 (MIP-2), and lipopolysaccharide-induced CXC chemokine (LIX). Selective neutralization of MIP-2 or KC resulted in modest changes in neutrophil influx but no change in bacterial clearance or survival. However, neutralization of CXCR2 resulted in a striking increase in mortality, which was associated with a marked decrease in neutrophil recruitment and bacterial clearance. Conversely, the site-specific transgenic expression of KC resulted in enhanced clearance of bacteria after Pseudomonas challenge. This study indicates that ELR+ CXC chemokines are critical mediators of neutrophil-mediated host defense in Pseudomonas pneumonia.
Parametric epicyclic resonance in black hole disks: QPOs in micro-quasars

Non-linear acoustic coupling of modes in accretion disks allows a parametric resonance between epicyclic motions. In black hole disks, such a resonance first occurs, and is strongest, when the radial and vertical epicyclic frequencies are approximately in a 2:3 ratio, in agreement with the 300 and 450 Hz frequencies reported in GRO J1655-40 and the 184 and 276 Hz frequencies reported in XTE J1550-564. The first overtone in the same resonance is in a 5:3 ratio with the fundamental, in agreement with the 69.2 and 41.5 Hz frequencies reported in GRS 1915+105. The narrow width and the frequency stability of the corresponding QPOs follow from general properties of parametric resonance.
A Linear Voltage Regulator for PLL in SOC Application

In modern integrated circuit design, analog parts and digital parts are designed on a single chip. Many papers show that supply noises coupling from digital parts influence the performance of analog parts greatly. This paper presents a design to implement a linear voltage regulator with operational amplifiers for PLL in mixed signal integrated circuits, whose output voltage is proportional to bandgap reference. This circuit is designed in SMIC 0.18 mum CMOS process. The output voltage of the regulator can be stable when 1) power supply changes from 3.1 V to 3.5 V, and verse; 2) output current varies in the range from 15 mA to 300 muA. Its power supply noise rejection(PSNR) is less than -70 dB when frequency is below 1 KHz. The current consumption of this linear voltage regulator is about 1.7 mA
Optimal anchor guiding algorithms for maximal node localization in mobile sensor networks

Localization of mobile nodes is a challenging problem especially when both anchor and node are mobile. In this paper, algorithms for optimal anchor guiding, to localize maximum number of nodes, are proposed. The algorithms are based on the principle of jointly maximizing a grid benefit criterion and the number of nodes localized. The advantage of these algorithms is that, that both the anchors and nodes can be deployed randomly and can traverse the region with varying speeds. Additionally, the optimal path for the anchor is decided in such a way that the maximum number of nodes are localized. The proposed algorithms are extensively analyzed for their performance by conducting experiments on both, NI and Crossbow set-up. The results obtained from localization error analysis indicate that the algorithms discussed in this work perform reasonably better than the similar conventional algorithms available in literature. Additional analysis performed on energy consumption indicate that the proposed algorithms are energy efficient.
Assistance of knee movements using an actuated orthosis through subject's intention based on MLPNN approximators

In this paper, we present an actuated orthosis aimed to assist the subject's knee joint movements through wearer's intention. The shank-foot orthosis system is considered as a black box and is controlled using a Multi-Layers Perceptron Neural Network (MLPNN) controller. This controller avoids the modeling of the “wearer lower limb-orthosis” system, and then avoids the long and complex procedure to identify the model parameters since MLPNN is able to represent model nonlinearities. In this study, the MLPNN is used to approximate the inertia, viscous and damping friction effects as well as the gravitational effect of the system. We propose to control the Shank-foot-orthosis system through the estimated human intention by measuring muscular activities of the quadriceps muscle. For that purpose, a second MLPNN (MLPNN estimator) is trained to give the desired subject's movement as functions of the ElectroMyoGram (EMG) signals measured at the quadriceps muscle. The proposed method avoids the use of classical approaches to model muscles, activation and contraction dynamics that are often nonlinear. EMG muscular activities represent the system input while knee joint angle represents the system output. The proposed approach is validated experimentally with a healthy subject. Promising results in term of desired trajectory tracking while ensuring system stability are obtained.
Overcoming the Slow Recovery of MOX Gas Sensors through a System Modeling Approach

Metal Oxide Semiconductor (MOX) gas transducers are one of the preferable technologies to build electronic noses because of their high sensitivity and low price. In this paper we present an approach to overcome to a certain extent one of their major disadvantages: their slow recovery time (tens of seconds), which limits their suitability to applications where the sensor is exposed to rapid changes of the gas concentration. Our proposal consists of exploiting a double first-order model of the MOX-based sensor from which a steady-state output is anticipated in real time given measurements of the transient state signal. This approach assumes that the nature of the volatile is known and requires a precalibration of the system time constants for each substance, an issue that is also described in the paper. The applicability of the proposed approach is validated with several experiments in real, uncontrolled scenarios with a mobile robot bearing an e-nose.
Sox17 Regulates Liver Lipid Metabolism and Adaptation to Fasting

Liver is a major regulator of lipid metabolism and adaptation to fasting, a process involving PPARalpha activation. We recently showed that the Vnn1 gene is a PPARalpha target gene in liver and that release of the Vanin-1 pantetheinase in serum is a biomarker of PPARalpha activation. Here we set up a screen to identify new regulators of adaptation to fasting using the serum Vanin-1 as a marker of PPARalpha activation. Mutagenized mice were screened for low serum Vanin-1 expression. Functional interactions with PPARalpha were investigated by combining transcriptomic, biochemical and metabolic approaches. We characterized a new mutant mouse in which hepatic and serum expression of Vanin-1 is depressed. This mouse carries a mutation in the HMG domain of the Sox17 transcription factor. Mutant mice display a metabolic phenotype featuring lipid abnormalities and inefficient adaptation to fasting. Upon fasting, a fraction of the PPARα-driven transcriptional program is no longer induced and associated with impaired fatty acid oxidation. The transcriptional phenotype is partially observed in heterozygous Sox17+/− mice. In mutant mice, the fasting phenotype but not all transcriptomic signature is rescued by the administration of the PPARalpha agonist fenofibrate. These results identify a novel role for Sox17 in adult liver as a modulator of the metabolic adaptation to fasting.
Reconstitution of a functional IS608 single-strand transpososome: role of non-canonical base pairing

Single-stranded (ss) transposition, a recently identified mechanism adopted by members of the widespread IS200/IS605 family of insertion sequences (IS), is catalysed by the transposase, TnpA. The transposase of IS608, recognizes subterminal imperfect palindromes (IP) at both IS ends and cleaves at sites located at some distance. The cleavage sites, C, are not recognized directly by the protein but by short sequences 5′ to the foot of each IP, guide (G) sequences, using a network of canonical (‘Watson–Crick’) base interactions. In addition a set of non-canonical base interactions similar to those found in RNA structures are also involved. We have reconstituted a biologically relevant complex, the transpososome, including both left and right ends and TnpA, which catalyses excision of a ss DNA circle intermediate. We provide a detailed picture of the way in which the IS608 transpososome is assembled and demonstrate that both C and G sequences are essential for forming a robust transpososome detectable by EMSA. We also address several questions central to the organization and function of the ss transpososome and demonstrate the essential role of non-canonical base interactions in the IS608 ends for its stability by using point mutations which destroy individual non-canonical base interactions.
Methyl Gallate from Galla rhois Successfully Controls Clinical Isolates of Salmonella Infection in Both In Vitro and In Vivo Systems

Galla rhois is a commonly used traditional medicine for the treatment of pathogenic bacteria in Korea as well as in other parts of Asia. Methyl gallate (MG), a major component of Galla Rhois, exhibits strong antibacterial activity, but its mechanism of action against Salmonella spp. is unclear. In the present study, we investigated the antibacterial actions of MG against Salmonella. The antibacterial activity determined by broth dilution method indicated that the antibacterial activity of MG against Salmonella strains ranged from 3.9 to 125 µg/ml. In vitro bacterial viability test indicated that MG significantly decreased the viability of Salmonella over 40% when combined with ATPase inhibitors. The time-kill curves showed that a combined MG and ATPase inhibitors (DCCD and NaN3) treatment reduced the bacterial counts dramatically after 24 h. Oral administration of MG showed a strong anti-bacterial activity against WS-5 infected BALB/c mice. In contrast to the untreated Salmonella infected control animals, MG treated groups showed no clinical symptoms of the disease, such as lethargy and liver damage. It was observed that MG treatment significantly increased the survival of animals from Salmonella infection, while in untreated groups all animal succumbed to disease by the sixth day post infection. Thus, the present study demonstrates the therapeutic ability of MG against Salmonella infections.
The Lexicon-Grammar continuum and attraction effects

Irregular or unproductive morphology and the phenomenon of lexically controlled phonological variation point to a lexicon-grammar continuum which seems more consistent with the gradient properties of connectionist models than with the all-or-nothing properties of traditional approaches. Another class of generalizations pointing in the same direction centers on the notion of representations as attractors, which connectionist models can readily express. Segmental assimilations and neutralizations, conditions requiring maximal distances among phonemes; morphological syncretism, and the patterns known as 'Non-derived environment blocking' and 'Lexical conservatism' can all be characterized as attraction effects, but do not afford unified solutions to traditional resources.
FACTORS RELATED TO WELL YIELD

income. Where census polygons lacked data, because of no population in 1990, the median county income was assigned to the income polygon. (This assignment was done to cover all possible wells, including those wells drilled post 1990.) Each well was assigned a median income based on the polygon in which the well was located and this income was used as another instrumental variable. Residuals from the two-staged regression model are computed as the difference between actual lnYIELD and predicted lnYIELD from the regression using actual lnDEPTH rather than predicted lnDEPTH. This process was used to essentially estimate the variance of a population of wells that would exist if yield had not been a function of demand. Details on how the model was built are given in appendix A. A list of variables considered and tested for inclusion in the model are given in appendix B.
A New Application of Current Conveyors: The Design of Wideband Controllable Low-Noise Amplifiers

The aim of this paper is three-fold. First, it reviews the low-noise amplifier and its relevance in wireless communica- tions receivers. Then it presents an exhaustive review of the existing topologies. Finally, it introduces a new class of LNAs, based on current conveyors, describing the founding principle and the performances of a new single-ended LNA. The new LNAs offer the following notable advantages: total absence of passive elements (and the smallest LNAs in their respective classes); wideband performance, with stable frequency responses from 0 to 3 GHz; easy gain control over wide ranges (0 to 20 dB). Com- parisons with other topologies prove that the new class of LNA greatly advances the state of the art.
Possibility of applying Virtual Reality and Mixed Reality to the Human Centered Design and Prototyping for Information Appliances

As functions of ubiquitous computing devices such as interactive portable information appliances – mobile phones, digital cameras, PDAs, digital audio players, car navigation system-are rapidly increasing in number and diversity. Human-centered design including assessments of usability and ergonomics for such appliances is necessary to the development at early design phases. In this situation, user test, which implies direct involvement of users, is becoming of great importance. In the user test, designers or usability engineers make end-users operate working prototypes or physical interactive mock-ups of the information appliance, and investigate ergonomic issues from physical and cognitive aspects. However, physical interactive mock-ups are generally very costly and can be obtained only at late stage of the development. To solve this problem, the concept of virtual reality and mixed reality could offer designers potential means to substitute digital interactive digital mock-ups for the physical mock-ups. In this workshop, state of the art of the applications of virtual reality and mixed reality to the human-centered design and prototyping for interactive information appliances are presented, and impacts on the rapid development and technical limitations of them are discussed. The workshop consists of the following four topics on this subject being done in internationally different academic organizations: 1) toward more practical interactive augmented prototyping environments for industrial design engineering, 2) virtual reality and mixed reality as design media, 3) a system using mixed reality technology for evaluating designability and operability of information appliances and 4) building rapid, inexpensive and high-fidelity virtual prototypes for usable designs of information appliances.