Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Real time 3D avatar for interactive mixed reality

This paper presents real-time reconstruction of dynamic 3D avatar for interactive mixed reality. In computer graphics, one of the main goals is the combination of virtual scenes with real-world scenes. However, the views of the real world objects are often restricted to views from the cameras. True navigation through such mixed reality scenes becomes impossible unless the components from real objects can be rendered from arbitrary viewpoints. Additionally, adding a real-world object to a virtual scene requires some depth information as well, in order to handle interaction. The proposed algorithm introduces an approach to generate 3D video avatars and to augment the avatars naturally into 3D virtual environment using the calibrated camera parameters and silhouette information. As a result, we can create photo-realistic live avatars from natural scenes and the resulting 3D live avatar can guide and interact participants in VR space.
Optogenetic approaches for functional mouse brain mapping

To better understand the connectivity of the brain, it is important to map both structural and functional connections between neurons and cortical regions. In recent years, a set of optogenetic tools have been developed that permit selective manipulation and investigation of neural systems. These tools have enabled the mapping of functional connections between stimulated cortical targets and other brain regions. Advantages of the approach include the ability to arbitrarily stimulate brain regions that express opsins, allowing for brain mapping independent of behavior or sensory processing. The ability of opsins to be rapidly and locally activated allows for investigation of connectivity with spatial resolution on the order of single neurons and temporal resolution on the order of milliseconds. Optogenetic methods for functional mapping have been applied in experiments ranging from in vitro investigation of microcircuits, to in vivo probing of inter-regional cortical connections, to examination of global connections within the whole brain. We review recently developed functional mapping methods that use optogenetic single-point stimulation in the rodent brain and employ cellular electrophysiology, evoked motor movements, voltage sensitive dyes (VSDs), calcium indicators, or functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to assess activity. In particular we highlight results using red-shifted organic VSDs that permit high temporal resolution imaging in a manner spectrally separated from Channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2) activation. VSD maps stimulated by ChR2 were dependent on intracortical synaptic activity and were able to reflect circuits used for sensory processing. Although the methods reviewed are powerful, challenges remain with respect to finding approaches that permit selective high temporal resolution assessment of stimulated activity in animals that can be followed longitudinally.
Immunohistochemical Changes and PCR Detection of HIV Provirus DNA in Brains of Asymptomatic HIV-Positive Patients

The stage of HIV infection at which the virus enters the nervous system remains poorly understood. Examination of brains of HIV-positive non-AIDS patients often shows lymphocytic meningitis, myelin pallor and gliosis, but no immunohistochemical (IHC) evidence of the virus. In this study we have examined a number of brains from HIV-positive patients with (23) and without (8) AIDS as well as brains from 5 HIV-negative controls by morphological, morphometric, IHC and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) methods in an attempt to establish at what stage of the infection HIV can be detected in the brain and to correlate its presence with the pathological changes in the cortex. HIV-1 proviral DNA was found by PCR in the cortex of the majority of AIDS and in 2 out of 8 non-AIDS cases. Astroglial reaction was observed in the cortex of the majority of AIDS brains but not in most of the non-AIDS brains which showed, in addition, a dramatic reduction of glial fibrillary acidic protein staining around blood vessels; moreover, in this group the density of microglial cells was higher than in the AIDS group. These results show that: 1) HIV proviral DNA can be found in the brains of HIV-positive non- AIDS patients; 2) in the same group there is an increase in density of microglial cells which 3) appears to be transient, since AIDS brains without neuropathology show a lower density of these cells. They also suggest that the status of'immune reaction' existing in AIDS may predate this period. By analogy with the cytokine hypothesis of neural damage in established AIDS cases, it is tempting to invoke a similar mechanism to explain the neuropathological changes observed in the early stages of the infection.
The Stress of Organisational Change: A Dynamic Process Model

Plongees dans un marche mondial, les organisations ne cessent de subir de profonds changements. Encore que la plupart de ces changements soient necessaires et souvent retardes, ils presentent comme inconvenient le risque de couts eleves en terme d'accroissement des depenses de sante, de pertes de productivite, de baisse de la satisfaction professionnelle et de chute du moral. Ces couts peuvent etre directement imputes a la detresse qui frappe les salaries d'une organisation confrontee a des changement permanents. Cet article propose un modele dynamique permettant d'aborder les articulations complexes entre le changement organisationnel et le stress subi par les individus. A partir de ce modele, des interventions prenant en compte tous les aspects du probleme pourront etre concues pour aider les salaries a gerer le stress provoque par les mutations des organisations. Organisations in the global marketplace continue to experience tremendous change. Although most of these changes are necessary and long overdue, the downside includes the risk of huge costs in terms of increased health care expenses, lost productivity, lower levels of job satisfaction, and low morale. These costs may be directly attributed to the distress that is created when an organisation's employees encounter constant changes. This paper establishes a dynamic framework from which we can begin to understand the complex interplay between change at the organisational level and stress at the individual level. Using this framework, comprehensive interventions can ultimately be developed to help employees manage the stress of organisational transitions.
A Pilot Study to Assess Emotional Distress and Quality of Life among Transgenders in South India

Background and aims: Transgenders face several social disadvantages in the Indian cultural context, and often live on the fringe of the society. Presence of adverse life circumstances predisposes them to have psychological morbidity. In the absence of previous systematic evidence, this pilot study aimed to assess emotional distress and quality of life among transgenders attending a clinic in south India. Methods: This hospital based cross-sectional study assessed transgenders attending a specialized multi-speciality clinic. Participants were assessed for relevant demographic and clinical information. Anxiety and depression were assessed using Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), while General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) was used to assess for general emotional distress. WHOQOL Bref was used to assess quality of life. Results: The pilot study included 15 transgenders with a median age of 30 years. All the participants had experienced sexual abuse in childhood, and 11/15 (73.3%) had a lifetime suicide attempt. The median HADS anxiety, HADS depression and GHQ scores were 9, 14 and 8 respectively. About 66.7% of the sample had significant anxiety symptoms while 100% had significant depressive symptoms as per HADS cut-off. The quality of life scores were particularly low for the ‘social’ domain. Conclusion: Transgenders experience considerable emotional distress and have poor social quality of life. Medical professionals need to be sensitive to the health-care needs of transgenders to improve their psychological wellbeing.
Variability of repeated coronary artery calcium measurements on low-dose ECG-gated 16-MDCT.

OBJECTIVE High reproducibility on coronary artery calcium (CAC) scoring is a key requirement in monitoring the progression of coronary atherosclerosis. Retrospective ECG-gated helical CT has been shown to be superior to prospective gating helical CT in the reproducibility of CAC measurements. However, it brings with it a high level of radiation exposure. The purpose of this study was to compare low- and standard-dose protocols in the variability of CAC scores and in image quality, thereby assessing the feasibility of low-dose retrospective ECG-gated helical CT in CAC measurements. SUBJECTS AND METHODS Eighty-six patients with CAC were scanned using a tube current setting of 100 mA once and then a tube current setting equivalent to the patient's body weight twice. CAC scores (Agatston and volume) and interscan variability were evaluated. The mean and SD of the CT attenuation values in regions of interest in the aorta were measured, and the value (mean + 2 x SD) was obtained. RESULTS A high correlation of log(10) (Agatston score + 1) was observed between sequential helical CT scans (r = 0.998). The variability in CAC measurements ranged from 11% to 12% for both the Agatston and volume scores. With the tube current equivalent to body weight, the value (mean + 2 x SD) did not exceed a CT attenuation value of 130 H. CONCLUSION Low-dose retrospective ECG-gated helical CT-yielding low variability and achieving the level of image quality needed to measure CAC-can be used to monitor patients with coronary atherosclerosis.
Ambiguous Figures – What Happens in the Brain When Perception Changes But Not the Stimulus

During observation of ambiguous figures our perception reverses spontaneously although the visual information stays unchanged. Research on this phenomenon so far suffered from the difficulty to determine the instant of the endogenous reversals with sufficient temporal precision. A novel experimental paradigm with discontinuous stimulus presentation improved on previous temporal estimates of the reversal event by a factor of three. It revealed that disambiguation of ambiguous visual information takes roughly 50 ms or two loops of recurrent neural activity. Further, the decision about the perceptual outcome has taken place at least 340 ms before the observer is able to indicate the consciously perceived reversal manually. We provide a short review about physiological studies on multistable perception with a focus on electrophysiological data. We further present a new perspective on multistable perception that can easily integrate previous apparently contradicting explanatory approaches. Finally we propose possible extensions toward other research fields where ambiguous figure perception may be useful as an investigative tool.
Inhibition of the PI3K Pathway: Hope We Can Believe in?

The phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) pathway is one of the most commonly activated pathways in human cancer and has roles in cell proliferation, apoptosis, protein synthesis, and metabolism. The PI3K pathway can be activated by amplification or activating mutation of upstream receptor tyrosine kinases, and by mutations or deletions downstream in the pathway. Trastuzumab, a monoclonal antibody targeting the human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2), has been one of the most successful and most widely used targeted therapies. However, many HER2-positive cancers are not sensitive to HER2-based therapies or become resistant during treatment; downstream activation of the pathway is one of the causes of resistance. Because of the common activation of the PI3K pathway in cancer, compounds targeting proteins downstream in the pathway have been developed in recent years. The mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) inhibitors everolimus and temsirolimus have been shown to be beneficial in certain cancer types; many other inhibitors of the PI3K pathway are in various stages of clinical development. Ongoing research should clarify which molecular cancer subtypes are most susceptible to specific compounds and explore combinatorial approaches, ultimately leading to individualized patient treatment. Clin Cancer Res; 16(12); 3094–9. ©2010 AACR.
An Attack Tree Based Comprehensive Framework for the Risk and Security Assessment of VANET using the Concepts of Game Theory and Fuzzy Logic

VANET is a subclass of MANET that faces plenty of research challenges in terms of security. The existing risk and security analysis approach of VANET may not work well as it is purely based on the ideological beliefs, and it does not reflect any realistic conditions. In this research work, we have done the systematic study of the various algorithms which are used to find the inflection points of equilibrium that further reflects a trade-off between the attacker and the defender's gain or loss payoff for pursuing their pursuit. This paper explores and discusses the usage of game theory and fuzzy logic in analysis of the attack and defense equilibrium. After doing this research work we have also recommended the future directives for doing research in this area.
Crisis management revisited: A new agenda for research, training and capacity building within Europe

Fifteen years ago we presented an agenda for crisis management research and training in Europe, here that article is revisited through a comprehensive review of social science scholarship in the field. Both the discourses on risk and crisis ‘management’ and on crisis ‘politics’ are surveyed in an effort to show the connect between knowledge and policy agendas for capacity building. Priority areas for European research are identified and discussed. The vital roles of research-based education and experience-based training to foster enhanced crisis management practices are noted. Independent yet policy-focused centres of crisis management scholarship are encouraged and needed. These should be linked through a transnational network to support a common ‘rapid reflection’ force in service of European leadership, when it matters the most.
Parallel Guided Dynamic Programming Approach for DNA Sequence Similarity Search

 Development of DNA sequence comparison technique is an active research activity in computational biology application. Commonly techniques studied are dynamic programming and heuristic algorithms. Exhaustive dynamic programming algorithm produces optimal result but requires longer time and bigger space. Heuristic algorithm gives approximate results with much faster processing. We have developed a new model that improves the speed of large scale DNA sequence similarity search and at the same time the best possible alignment result is retained. The model is known as a guided dynamic programming approach for DNA sequence similarity search (FRA-Search). Two approaches are used to complete the FRA-Search model: an automaton based exact string matching algorithm is employed to skip irrelevant database sequences from being computed for dynamic programming alignment processing and; the rough sets theory has been employed to classify and reduct the dataset. This paper discusses the parallel model for FRA-Search application. The parallel FRA-Search model is implemented on PC-based cluster system. It is developed on a single program multiple data (SPMD) architecture and MPJ Express software is used as a communication interface protocol between processors.
Uncertain 2D Vector Field Topology

We introduce an approach to visualize stationary 2D vector fields with global uncertainty obtained by considering the transport of local uncertainty in the flow. For this, we extend the concept of vector field topology to uncertain vector fields by considering the vector field as a density distribution function. By generalizing the concepts of stream lines and critical points we obtain a number of density fields representing an uncertain topological segmentation. Their visualization as height surfaces gives insight into both the flow behavior and its uncertainty. We present a Monte Carlo approach where we integrate probabilistic particle paths, which lead to the segmentation of topological features. Moreover, we extend our algorithms to detect saddle points and present efficient implementations. Finally, we apply our technique to a number of real and synthetic test data sets.
Numerical Verification of an Analytical Model for Phase Noise in MEMS Oscillators

A new analytical formulation for phase noise in MEMS oscillators was recently presented encompassing the role of essential nonlinearities in the electrical and mechanical domains. In this paper, we validate the effectiveness of the proposed analytical formulation with respect to the unified theory developed by Demir et al. describing phase noise in oscillators. In particular, it is shown that, over a range of the second-order mechanical nonlinear stiffness of the MEMS resonator, both models exhibit an excellent match in the phase diffusion coefficient calculation for a square-wave MEMS oscillator.
Greedy localization approach in Wireless Sensors Network

In this paper, we propose a greedy localization approach in Wireless Sensors Network (WSN) which has received much attention in the emerging area of Internet of Things (IoT). The proposed method is based on Compressive Sensing (CS) formulation and uses the inherent sparsity of the localization problem. While this is not the first work on applying CS to localize targets, in this paper, we propose a simple and novel formulation and deduce an algorithm to solve this problem, more suitable to the time and complexity constraints of IoT context. Moreover, we propose a Denoising - Greedy Recovery Algorithm (D-GRA) to deal with noise measurement affecting the received signal strength used to the sensor localization. The proposed algorithm has been compared to the classical trilateration method by performing different simulations. The obtained results demonstrate that the proposed algorithms outperform the trilateration method in a noisy environment.
Isolation of Mesophyll Protoplasts from Mediterranean Woody Plants for the Study of DNA Integrity under Abiotic Stress

Abiotic stresses have considerable negative impact on Mediterranean plant ecosystems and better comprehension of the genetic control of response and adaptation of trees to global changes is urgently needed. The single cell gel electrophoresis (SCGE) assay could be considered a good estimator of DNA damage in an individual eukaryotic cell. This method has been mainly employed in animal tissues, because the plant cell wall represents an obstacle for the extraction of nuclei; moreover, in Mediterranean woody species, especially in the sclerophyll plants, this procedure can be quite difficult because of the presence of sclerenchyma and hardened cells. On the other hand, these plants represent an interesting material to be studied because of the ability of these plants to tolerate abiotic stress. For instance, holm oak (Quercus ilex L.) has been selected as the model plant to identify critical levels of O3 for Southern European forests. Consequently, a quantitative method for the evaluation of cell injury of leaf tissues of this species is required. Optimal conditions for high-yield nuclei isolation were obtained by using protoplast technology and a detailed description of the method is provided and discussed. White poplar (Populus alba L.) was used as an internal control for protoplast isolation. Such a method has not been previously reported in newly fully developed leaves of holm oak. This method combined with SCGE assay represents a new tool for testing the DNA integrity of leaf tissues in higher plants under stress conditions.
Optimal treatment of actinic keratoses

The most compelling reason and primary goal of treating actinic keratoses is to prevent malignant transformation into invasive squamous cell carcinoma, and although there are well established guidelines outlining treatment modalities and regimens for squamous cell carcinoma, the more commonly encountered precancerous actinic lesions have no such standard. Many options are available with variable success and patient compliance rates. Prevention of these lesions is key, with sun protection being a must in treating aging patients with sun damage as it is never too late to begin protecting the skin.
Reliving and Disorganization in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Panic Disorder Memories

Intense, disorganized recollections are one of the core symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and considered to be the result of inadequate processing of trauma information. A first panic attack resembles trauma in being an unexpected frightening and subjectively life-threatening event, and like PTSD, panic disorder with agoraphobia also involves fear conditioning after the first event. Therefore, a panic attack may be processed similarly to a trauma, and as a result, memories of a panic attack may share characteristics like reliving and disorganization with PTSD trauma memories. To test this hypothesis, scripts of PTSD trauma memories (n = 21) were compared with scripts of panic disorder with agoraphobia panic memories (n = 25) using a narrative rating scale. No differences were found between reliving intensity and disorganization levels in the scripts of both patient groups. The results suggest a panic attack may affect information processing similarly to a traumatic event.
Optimal Beaconing Control in Delay-Tolerant Networks With Multiple Destinations

The opportunistic contacts between nodes have important impact on the routing process in delay-tolerant networks, and they are related to the beaconing rate. In this paper, we study the optimal beaconing rates for the relay nodes and destinations at the same time. First, a theoretical framework, which can be used to evaluate the performance under different beaconing policies, is presented. Then based on the framework, we formulate an optimization problem. Through Pontryagin's maximum principle, we obtain the optimal beaconing policies for the relay nodes and destinations, respectively. In addition, we prove that both optimal policies conform to the threshold form. The optimal policy of the relay nodes changes its value from the maximal beaconing rate to the minimal one, but it is opposite for the destinations. The simulations show the accuracy of our theoretical model. Extensive numerical results show that the optimal policies are really better.