Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Cylindrical, Inner Volume Selecting 2D-T2-Prep Improves GRAPPA-Accelerated Image Quality in MRA of the Right Coronary Artery

Background Two-dimensional (2D) spatially selective radiofrequency (RF) pulses may be used to excite restricted volumes. By incorporating a "pencil beam" 2D pulse into a T2-Prep, one may create a "2D-T2-Prep" that combines T2-weighting with an intrinsic outer volume suppression. This may particularly benefit parallel imaging techniques, where artefacts typically originate from residual foldover signal. By suppressing foldover signal with a 2D-T2-Prep, image quality may therefore improve. We present numerical simulations, phantom and in vivo validations to address this hypothesis. Methods A 2D-T2-Prep and a conventional T2-Prep were used with GRAPPA-accelerated MRI (R = 1.6). The techniques were first compared in numerical phantoms, where per pixel maps of SNR (SNRmulti), noise, and g-factor were predicted for idealized sequences. Physical phantoms, with compartments doped to mimic blood, myocardium, fat, and coronary vasculature, were scanned with both T2-Preparation techniques to determine the actual SNRmulti and vessel sharpness. For in vivo experiments, the right coronary artery (RCA) was imaged in 10 healthy adults, using accelerations of R = 1,3, and 6, and vessel sharpness was measured for each. Results In both simulations and phantom experiments, the 2D-T2-Prep improved SNR relative to the conventional T2-Prep, by an amount that depended on both the acceleration factor and the degree of outer volume suppression. For in vivo images of the RCA, vessel sharpness improved most at higher acceleration factors, demonstrating that the 2D-T2-Prep especially benefits accelerated coronary MRA. Conclusion Suppressing outer volume signal with a 2D-T2-Prep improves image quality particularly well in GRAPPA-accelerated acquisitions in simulations, phantoms, and volunteers, demonstrating that it should be considered when performing accelerated coronary MRA.
Disability Management among Women with Physical Impairments: The Contribution of Physical Activity

The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe the ways women with physical disabilities shape their identities and manage (i.e., cope or come to terms with) their disabilities while living in an able-bodyist culture. Particular emphasis was placed on how these women, all of whom were participating in sport or exercise, used physical activity in the management process. In-depth interviews were conducted with 34 women who had physical mobility disabilities. Findings indicated three different approaches to managing disability via physical activity: (a) management by minimizing the significance of the body, (b) management by normalization of the body, and (c) management by optimizing mind-body functioning. They also indicated that having a disability does not preclude positive physical and global self-perceptions. The implications of these findings for sport and society are discussed.
On data structures and asymmetric communication complexity

In this paper we consider two-party communication complexity, the ``asymmetric case'', when the input sizes of the two players differ significantly. Most of previous work on communication complexity only considers the total number of bits sent, but we study trade-offs between the number of bits the first player sends and the number of bits the second sends. These types of questions are closely related to the complexity of static data structure problems in the cell probe model. We derive two generally applicable methods of proving lower bounds and obtain several applications. These applications include new lower bounds for data structures in the cell probe model. Of particular interest is our ``round elimination'' lemma, which is interesting also for the usual symmetric communication case. This lemma generalizes and abstracts in a very clean form the ``round reduction'' techniques used in many previous lower bound proofs. ] 1998 Academic Press
Line cepstral quefrencies and their use for acoustic inventory coding

Line spectral frequencies (LSF) are widely used in the ﬁeld of speech coding. Due to its properties, the LSF are qualiﬁed for the quantisation and the efﬁcient compression of speech signals. In this paper we introduce the line cepstral quefrencies (LCQ). They are derived from the cepstrum in the same manner as the LSF are derived from linear predictive coding (LPC) features. We show that the combination of the pole-zero transfer function of the cepstrum with the properties of LSF offers advantages for speech coding. We apply the LCQ features to compress an acoustic inventory, which is used for a low resource speech synthesis. It is shown that the compression performance of the LCQ features is better than those of the LSF features in terms of the mean spectral distance to the original inventory.
The Systematic Activation Method (SAM) in depressed elderly: a case report.

PURPOSE The study aims to describe the implementation of Activity Scheduling (AS) as a nursing intervention in an inpatient population of older adults with a major depressive disorder. DESIGN AND METHODS In a single case report, the implementation of the intervention was described. FINDINGS This case report shows that AS, when adapted into a brief and prescriptive course, can be beneficial for depressed elderly in an inpatient care setting. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS Although previous research shows promising results, there is a need for additional research on the effectiveness of the intervention when AS is executed by nurses.
Effect of Growth Temperature and Culture Medium on the Cryotolerance of Permafrost Exiguobacterium Sibiricum 255-15 by Proteome-Wide Mass Mapping

Exiguobacterium sibiricum 255-15 has shown significantly improved cryotolerance after liquid broth growth at 4 o C and agar surface growth at both 4 o C and 25 o C compared with liquid broth growth at 25 o C. The ability to survive freeze-thaw stress is expected to depend on the physiological state and protein composition of cells prior to freezing. Using 2-D liquid separation and an ESI-TOF MS-based mass mapping technique, we examined the differences in the pro- teomic profiles of the permafrost bacterium E. sibiricum 255-15 grown at two temperatures (4 o C and 25 o C) and two media (liquid broth and agar surface) before freeze-thawing treatments. In this study, a total of 330 proteins were identified. The cells cultured under the growth conditions associated with the improved cryotolerance have revealed a general down- regulation of enzymes involved in major metabolic processes (glycolysis, anaerobic respiration, ATP synthesis, fermenta- tion, electron transport, and sugar metabolism) as well as in the metabolism of lipids, amino acids, nucleotides and nucleic acids. In addition, eight proteins (2'-5' RNA ligase, hypoxanthine phosphoribosyl transferase, FeS assembly ATPase SufC, thioredoxin reductase and four hypothetical proteins) were observed to be up-regulated. This suggests these eight proteins might have a potential role to induce the improved cryotolerance.
Concomitant chemoradiotherapy with cisplatin, 5‐fluorouracil and hydroxyurea in poor‐prognosis head and neck cancer

Based on encouraging results with 5‐fluorouracil (5‐FU), hydroxyurea, and concomitant radiotherapy in patients with advanced or recurrent head and neck cancer, an attempt was made to modulate the regimen by the addition of cisplatin as a third active agent. A cohort of 26 patients with head and neck cancer of all histologies were entered into a broad phase I study investigating simultaneous radiation therapy, 5‐FU (with or without leucovorin), HU, and infusional cisplatin administered on an alternate‐week schedule. Eleven patients (group 1) had failed prior curative local therapy and 15 patients (group 2) were considered to have a poor prognosis with standard therapy. The median follow‐up was 30 months. The response rate for all evaluable patients was 82% (14/17), and the complete response rate was 65% (11/17). Patients in group 1 demonstrated a high failure rate (9/11), while few group 2 patients failed after treatment (2/15). The median time to progression was 4.4 months in group 1 and has not been reached in group 2. Patients in group 1 failed locally (7/11), while no local failures were observed in group 2. Acute and cumulative hematologic toxicity was encountered at all dose levels and schedules tested and prevented escalation of the cisplatin dose beyond the desired level of 100 mg/m2 per month. Mucositis was a second significant toxicity in patients with head and neck cancer and was more pronounced during cycles containing leucovorin. A detailed analysis of survival, time to progression, and site of failure is presented.
Deep Learning Techniques for Music Generation - A Survey

This paper is a survey and an analysis of different ways of using deep learning (deep artificial neural networks) to generate musical content. We propose a methodology based on five dimensions for our analysis: Objective - What musical content is to be generated? Examples are: melody, polyphony, accompaniment or counterpoint. - For what destination and for what use? To be performed by a human(s) (in the case of a musical score), or by a machine (in the case of an audio file). Representation - What are the concepts to be manipulated? Examples are: waveform, spectrogram, note, chord, meter and beat. - What format is to be used? Examples are: MIDI, piano roll or text. - How will the representation be encoded? Examples are: scalar, one-hot or many-hot. Architecture - What type(s) of deep neural network is (are) to be used? Examples are: feedforward network, recurrent network, autoencoder or generative adversarial networks. Challenge - What are the limitations and open challenges? Examples are: variability, interactivity and creativity. Strategy - How do we model and control the process of generation? Examples are: single-step feedforward, iterative feedforward, sampling or input manipulation. For each dimension, we conduct a comparative analysis of various models and techniques and we propose some tentative multidimensional typology. This typology is bottom-up, based on the analysis of many existing deep-learning based systems for music generation selected from the relevant literature. These systems are described and are used to exemplify the various choices of objective, representation, architecture, challenge and strategy. The last section includes some discussion and some prospects.
CO2 Reduction Selective for C≥2 Products on Polycrystalline Copper with N-Substituted Pyridinium Additives

Electrocatalytic CO2 reduction to generate multicarbon products is of interest for applications in artificial photosynthetic schemes. This is a particularly attractive goal for CO2 reduction by copper electrodes, where a broad range of hydrocarbon products can be generated but where selectivity for C–C coupled products relative to CH4 and H2 remains an impediment. Herein we report a simple yet highly selective catalytic system for CO2 reduction to C≥2 hydrocarbons on a polycrystalline Cu electrode in bicarbonate aqueous solution that uses N-substituted pyridinium additives. Selectivities of 70–80% for C2 and C3 products with a hydrocarbon ratio of C≥2/CH4 significantly greater than 100 have been observed with several additives. 13C-labeling studies verify CO2 to be the sole carbon source in the C≥2 hydrocarbons produced. Upon electroreduction, the N-substituted pyridinium additives lead to film deposition on the Cu electrode, identified in one case as the reductive coupling product of N-arylpyridinium. Product selectivity can also be tuned from C≥2 species to H2 (∼90%) while suppressing methane with certain N-heterocyclic additives.
Probabilistic Distance-Based Arbitration: Providing Equality of Service for Many-Core CMPs

Emerging many-core chip multiprocessors will integrate dozens of small processing cores with an on-chip interconnect consisting of point-to-point links. The interconnect enables the processing cores to not only communicate, but to share common resources such as main memory resources and I/O controllers. In this work, we propose an arbitration scheme to enable equality of service (EoS) in access to a chip’s shared resources. That is, we seek to remove any bias in a core’s access to a shared resource based on its location in the CMP. We propose using probabilistic arbitration combined with distance-based weights to achieve EoS and overcome the limitation of conventional round-robin arbiter. We describe how nonlinear weights need to be used with probabilistic arbiters and propose three different arbitration weight metrics – fixed weight, constantly increasing weight, and variably increasing weight. By only modifying the arbitration of an on-chip router, we do not require any additional buffers or virtual channels and create a simple, low-cost mechanism for achieving EoS. We evaluate our arbitration scheme across a wide range of traffic patterns. In addition to providing EoS, the proposed arbitration has additional benefits which include providing quality-of-service features (such as differentiated service) and providing fairness in terms of both throughput and latency that approaches the global fairness achieved with age-base arbitration – thus, providing a more stable network by achieving high sustained throughput beyond saturation.
Comparative Study on Discrimination Methods for Identifying Dangerous Red Tide Species Based on Wavelet Utilized Classification Methods

Comparative study on discrimination methods for identifying dangerous red tide species based on wavelet utilized classification methods is conducted. Through experiments, it is found that classification performance with the proposed wavelet derived shape information extracted from the microscopic view of the phytoplankton is effective for identifying dangerous red tide species among the other red tide species rather than the other conventional texture, color information.
Sliding mode closed-loop control of FES controlling the shank movement

Functional electrical stimulation (FES) enables restoration of movement in individuals with spinal cord injury. FES-based devices use electric current pulses to stimulate and excite the intact peripheral nerves. They produce muscle contractions, generate joint torques, and thus, joint movements. Since the underlying neuromuscular-skeletal system is highly nonlinear and time-varying, feedback control is necessary for accurate control of the generated movement. However, classical feedback/closed-loop control algorithms have so far failed to provide satisfactory performance and were not able to guarantee stability of the closed-loop system. Because of this, only open-loop controlled FES devices are in clinical use in spite of their limitations. The purpose of the reported research was to design a novel closed-loop FES controller that achieves good tracking performance and guarantees closed-loop stability. Such a controller was designed based on a mathematical neuromuscular-skeletal model and is founded on a sliding mode control theory. The controller was used to control shank movement and was tested in computer simulations as well as in actual experiments on healthy and spinal cord injured subjects. It demonstrated good robustness, stability, and tracking performance properties.
Identification of Pathogens by Mass Spectrometry

Abstract Background: Mass spectrometry (MS) is a suitable technology for microorganism identification and characterization. Content: This review summarizes the MS-based methods currently used for the analyses of pathogens. Direct analysis of whole pathogenic microbial cells using MS without sample fractionation reveals specific biomarkers for taxonomy and provides rapid and high-throughput capabilities. MS coupled with various chromatography- and affinity-based techniques simplifies the complexity of the signals of the microbial biomarkers and provides more accurate results. Affinity-based methods, including those employing nanotechnology, can be used to concentrate traces of target microorganisms from sample solutions and, thereby, improve detection limits. Approaches combining amplification of nucleic acid targets from pathogens with MS-based detection are alternatives to biomarker analyses. Many data analysis methods, including multivariate analysis and bioinformatics approaches, have been developed for microbial identification. The review concludes with some current clinical applications of MS in the identification and typing of infectious microorganisms, as well as some perspectives. Summary: Advances in instrumentation (separation and mass analysis), ionization techniques, and biological methodologies will all enhance the capabilities of MS for the analysis of pathogens.
Design Patterns for Synchronization Adapters of Corba Objects

Standard middleware platforms offer Interface definition languages (IDLs) to achieve component interoperability in a heterogeneous computing context. IDLs serve to specify module and interface names, as well as operation signatures. The simplicity of IDLs ensures that they are applicable to a wide range of application domains, can be mapped to a wide variety of im- plementation languages, and are simple to learn. However, for certain security and safety cri- tical or reactive applications there is an urgent need to express further aspects of the software under development. Such aspects include synchronization constraints, pre- and post conditions, invariants, QoS annotations, and real-time annotations. To leverage this semantic mismatch of current IDLs and domain specifi ce xtensions, we discuss solutions for adding specifications of semantic aspects to component interfaces and automatically synthesizing code that instru- ments corresponding semantic checks. Independently from the concrete syntax and semantics of such specification elements, we present a collection of design patterns that allow the designer to seamlessly integrate the synthesized code with the code frames generated by standard IDL com- pilers. We study these approaches along the concrete example of extending CORBA IDL with synchronization constraints and evaluate several implementation alternatives. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach through an IDL-annotation compiler that synthesizes code portable across different CORBA implementations. RESUME.
Stresses, Strengths, and Experiences of Mothers Engaged in Methadone Maintenance Treatment

AbstractAlthough methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) is the intervention of choice for addiction, unfortunately, mothers are less likely to engage in care. Greater understanding of how mothers experience the addiction and the recovery process is needed to develop strategies to effectively engage mothers in MMT. This mixed method study applied quantitative and qualitative approaches with a sample of 12 mothers who were engaged in MMT for 3 or more months. Although the results showed stresses of high depression and difficult life circumstance scores, the mothers had strengths that included positive social support and family functioning. Inductive analysis of transcribed interviews identified three themes that explained how mothers experienced addiction and recovery: diminished maternal identity, choice for mothering, and redefined maternal identity. During addiction, mothers described a sense of diminished maternal identity with two subthemes of diminished performed mothering and interrupted mothering. With the second theme, choice for mothering, mothers described making the choice to attend MMT for their children. The third theme, redefined maternal identity, consisted of two subthemes that reflected potential outcomes of MMT and addiction recovery. Whereas most mothers described positive, restored maternal identity, two mothers of older children noted continued diminished maternal identity with persistence of negative mother–child relationships despite maternal addiction recovery. Recommendations are made to assist service providers to consider maternal identity within the recovery process.
Design and development of infrared LED based non invasive blood glucometer

Diabetes affects more than 285 million people globally according to estimates by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF). It is a metabolic pathological condition of concern, which affects vital organs of body if not diagnosed and treated on time. Regular monitoring of blood glucose is important to avoid further complication. Commonly used glucose measurement methods are invasive which generally involve finger puncturing. These methods are painful and frequent pricking cause calluses on the skin. It also has a risk of spreading infectious diseases if the needle is contaminated or used more than once. Therefore there is a need to develop a non-invasive monitoring system which can measure blood glucose continuously without posing much problem and easy to use for the diabetic population. In this paper, near infrared optical measurement is applied to overcome the invasive method drawbacks like frequent puncturing, high recurring consumable cost and danger of spreading infectious diseases. The designed device consists of an infrared LED having a wavelength of 900 to 1100 nm as emitter which placed over the fingertip for measurement of blood glucose optically. The intensity of received light depends on the glucose concentration present in blood. The signal is then amplified and fed as input to microcontroller Arduino uno for displaying glucose signal on a computer after carrying out Regression analysis. By analyzing the variation in voltages received after reflection of incident light in the cases the approximate glucose level of the individual is going to be predicted. A compact framework for non-invasive blood glucose measurement has been designed and tested successfully. The results obtained were validated by using various statistical techniques like standard deviation, standard error, percentage linearity etc. It is found that statistical analysis gives correlation coefficient of 0.93. The result obtained shows that voltage intensity level due to pulsatile nature of blood flow and blood glucose level has correlation.
Huge excitonic effects in layered hexagonal boron nitride.

The all-electron GW approximation energy band gap of bulk hexagonal boron nitride is shown to be of indirect type. The resulting computed in-plane polarized optical spectrum, obtained by solving the Bethe-Salpeter equation for the electron-hole two-particle Green function, is in excellent agreement with experiment and has a strong anisotropy compared to out-of-plane polarized spectrum. A detailed analysis of the excitonic structures within the band gap shows that the low-lying excitons belong to the Frenkel class and are tightly confined within the layers. The calculated exciton binding energy is much larger than that obtained by Watanabe et al. [Nat. Mater. 3, 404 (2004). ] based on a Wannier model assuming h-BN to be a direct-band-gap semiconductor.
ActiveText: a method for creating dynamic and interactive texts

This paper describes ActiveText, a method for creating dynamic and interactive texts. ActiveText uses an object-based hierarchy to represent texts. This hierarchy makes it easy to work with the ASCII component and pixel component of the text at the same time. Static, dynamic and interactive properties of text can be easily intermixed and layered. The user can enter and edit text, adjust static and dynamic layout, apply dynamic and interactive behaviors, and adjust their parameters with a common set of tools and a common interface. Support for continuous editing allows the user to sketch dynamically. A prototype application called It's Alive! has been implemented to explore the ActiveText functionality. The documents produced by It's Alive! can be of use in a wide-range of areas, including chat-spaces, email, web-sites, fiction and poetry writing, and low-end film & video titling.