Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Image fusion for human observers: How should we choose the method?

Image fusion is used to improve target detection and identification. In human-observer applications it is useful to rank fusion methods according to how well they assist the observer in a decision task. Two images (medium- and long-wave infrared), acquired for each of a number of outdoor scenes, were fused by each of nine methods. For each scene, a set of observers assessed each of the 36 pairwise combinations of fused images, choosing from each pair the one that was deemed best for target identification. We used that set of preferences to rank the fusion methods for their effectiveness in the identification task. A classical technique for ranking these “discriminal processes” is Thurstone's Law of Comparative Judgment and its implementation as the Thurstone-Mosteller (TM) Method of Paired Comparisons, which is reviewed briefly here. To make meaningful statements about preferences, one should have a measure of uncertainty for each rank. The TM method, however, cannot readily provide such a measure. An alternative, the Bradley-Terry (BT) method, does permit calculation of confidence intervals for ranks. To our knowledge, BT has not previously been applied in the evaluation of fusion methods. We present results from a multi-observer, multi-view trial, evaluated using TM and BT. The methods yield similar rankings of the fusion methods. But the additional information provided by BT - that is, whether there are significant differences between the ranks - can have a substantial impact on the implementation of fusion in real systems. There could be meaningful tradeoffs among fusion methods - e.g., performance vs. computation time - that may not be exploited in the absence of those insights.
Botulinum toxin treatment of secondary headaches and cranial neuralgias: a review of evidence

Linde M, Hagen K, Stovner LJ. Botulinum toxin treatment of secondary headaches and cranial neuralgias: a review of evidence. Acta Neurol Scand: 2011: 124 (Suppl. 191): 50–55. © 2011 John Wiley & Sons A/S.
Distinguishing between authentic and fictitious user-generated hotel reviews

The objective of this paper is to distinguish between authentic and fictitious user-generated hotel reviews. To achieve this objective, it adopts a two-step approach. The first seeks to classify authentic and fictitious reviews by leveraging on their possible textual differences. The second step attempts to identify the textual traits that are unique to authentic and fictitious reviews. For the purpose of this paper, a ground truth dataset of 1,800 reviews, uniformly divided between authentic and fictitious, was created. With respect to the first step, authentic and fictitious reviews were classified by using four forms of textual differences: understandability, level of details, writing style, and cognition indicators. Classification was performed using voting by average probability among logistic regression, C4.5, Support Vector Machine, JRip, and Random Forest classifiers. Using five-fold cross-validation, the proposed approach was found to outperform two existing baselines. Furthermore, with respect to the second step, the textual traits unique to authentic and fictitious reviews were identified using Information Gain, and Chi-squared feature selection techniques. A sequential forward feature selection approach was further adopted to identify the top five features that aid the classification of authentic and fictitious reviews. These include the use of nouns, articles, function words, punctuations, and in particular, exclamation points in reviews. The implications of the results are discussed.
Tree-maps: a space-filling approach to the visualization of hierarchical information structures

A method for visualizing hierarchically structured information is described. The tree-map visualization technique makes 100% use of the available display space, mapping the full hierarchy onto a rectangular region in a space-filling manner. This efficient use of space allows very large hierarchies to be displayed in their entirety and facilitates the presentation of semantic information. Tree-maps can depict both the structure and content of the hierarchy. However, the approach is best suited to hierarchies in which the content of the leaf nodes and the structure of the hierarchy are of primary importance, and the content information associated with internal nodes is largely derived from their children. <<ETX>>
A small-molecule inhibitor of Tcf / B-catenin signaling down-regulates PPAR ; and PPAR D activities

Activation of the Wnt/B-catenin signaling pathway occurs in several types of cancers and thus it is an attractive target for anticancer drug development. To identify compounds that inhibit this pathway, we screened a chemical library using a cell-based B-catenin/Tcf–responsive reporter. We identified FH535, a compound that suppresses both Wnt/B-catenin and peroxisome proliferator–activated receptor (PPAR) signaling. FH535 antagonizes both PPAR; and PPARD ligand–dependent activation and shows structural similarity to GW9662, a known PPAR; antagonist. The effect of FH535 on B-catenin/Tcf activity is reduced in cells carrying a deletion of the PPARd gene, as well as by the PPAR; agonist lysophosphatidic acid. Mechanistically, FH535 inhibits recruitment of the coactivators B-catenin and GRIP1 but not the corepressors NCoR and SMRT. Its repression of B-catenin recruitment, in comparison with GW9662, is linked to FH535¶s unique capability to inhibit the Wnt/B-catenin signaling pathway. The antiproliferation effect of the compound observed on some transformed colon lung and liver cell lines is suggestive of its potential therapeutic value in the treatment of cancer. [Mol Cancer Ther 2008;7(3):521–9]
On the fuzzy vector quantization based hidden Markov model

There is a mathematical inconsistency in conventional FVQ/HMMs proposed by Tseng et al. (1987). This inconsistency appears to affect the recognition performance. We formulate two new types of FVQ/HMM to remove this inconsistency: multiplication type FVQ/HMM and addition type FVQ/HMM. According to experimental results, the MT-FVQ/HMM shows the best performance among the VQ type HMMs for a wide range of code-book size. It is also shown that the MT-FVQ/HMM can be derived on the basis of the Kullback-Leibler divergence between the a priori probability distribution of clusters defined at each state of a given model whose likelihood of yielding a given observation sequence y/sub 1/, . , y/sub T/ is to be calculated, and the a posteriori probability distribution of the clusters for given y/sub t/. <<ETX>>
Chandra Detection of Ejecta in the Small-Diameter Supernova Remnant G349.7+0.2

We present high-resolution X-ray observations of the small-diameter supernova remnant (SNR) G349.7+0.2 with Chandra. The overall SNR spectrum can be described by two spectral components. The soft component is in ionization equilibrium and has a temperature of ≈0.8 keV; the hard spectral component has a temperature of ≈1.4 keV, an ionization timescale of ≈5 × 1011 cm-3 s, and enhanced abundances of Si. The spatially resolved spectral modeling shows that S may also be enhanced, at least in some regions. The enhanced abundances clearly point to the presence of an ejecta component in this remnant. Using the available H I and CO data toward G349.7+0.2 we derive a column density of ≈7 × 1022 cm-2 along the line of sight to the SNR, which is consistent with our X-ray data. The X-ray morphology of G349.7+0.2 is strikingly similar to that at radio wavelengths—an irregular shell with a brighter eastern side—which is consistent with expansion in a medium with a large-scale density gradient. The remnant is known to be interacting with a molecular cloud (from the presence of OH (1720 MHz) masers), but this interaction is probably limited to the central portion of the SNR, as seen in SNR IC 443. We found that H I clouds are present in the SNR region, which supports the notion that G349.7+0.2 belongs to a class of remnants evolving in the intercloud medium (such are IC 443 and W44), which is also responsible for the remnant's morphology. G349.7+0.2 does not have the mixed-morphology found for other maser-emitting SNRs studied to date in X-rays, but its morphology can be explained by a projection model for mixed-morphology SNRs. We have identified a point source close to the center of the SNR with a luminosity of LX(0.5-10.0 keV) ~ (0.2-2.3) × 1034 d22 ergs s-1, which is consistent with that of the compact central objects found in a few other Galactic SNRs.
Extracellular Matrix and Cytokines: A Functional Unit

The extracellular matrix (ECM) as well as soluble mediators like cytokines can influence the behavior of cells in very distinct as well as cooperative ways. One group of ECM molecules which shows an especially broad cooperativety with cytokines and growth factors are the proteoglycans. Proteoglycans can interact with their core proteins as well as their glycosaminoglycan chains with cytokines. These interactions can modify the binding of cytokines to their cell surface receptors or they can lead to the storage of the soluble factors in the matrix. Proteoglycans themselves may even have cytokine activity. In this review we describe different proteoglycans and their interactions and relationships with cytokines and we discuss in more detail the extracellular regulation of the activity of transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) by proteoglycans and other ECM molecules. In the third part the interaction of heparan sulfate chains with fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF-2, basic FGF) as a prototype example for the interaction of heparin-binding cytokines with heparan sulfate proteoglycans is presented to illustrate the different levels of mutual dependence of the cytokine network and the ECM.
Identification and characterization of an hnRNP E1 translational silencing motif

Non-canonical transforming growth factor β (TGFβ) signaling through protein kinase B (Akt2) induces phosphorylation of heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein E1 (hnRNP E1) at serine-43 (p-hnRNP E1). This post-translational modification (PTM) of hnRNP E1 promotes its dissociation from a 3′ untranslated region (UTR) nucleic acid regulatory motif, driving epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) and metastasis. We have identified an hnRNP E1 consensus-binding motif and genomically resolved a subset of genes in which it is contained. This study characterizes the binding kinetics of the consensus-binding motif and hnRNP E1, its various K-homology (KH) domains and p-hnRNP E1. Levels of p-hnRNP E1 are highly upregulated in metastatic cancer cells and low in normal epithelial tissue. We show a correlation between this PTM and levels of Akt2 and its activated form, phosphorylated serine-474 (p-Akt2). Using cellular progression models of metastasis, we observed a signature high level of Akt2, p-Akt2 and p-hnRNP E1 protein expression, coupled to a significantly reduced level of total hnRNP E1 in metastatic cells. Genes that are translationally silenced by hnRNP E1 and expressed by its dissociation are highly implicated in the progression of EMT and metastasis. This study provides insight into a non-canonical TGFβ signaling cascade that is responsible for inducing EMT by aberrant expression of hnRNP E1 silenced targets. The relevance of this system in metastatic progression is clearly shown in cellular models by the high abundance of p-hnRNP E1 and low levels of hnRNP E1. New insights provided by the resolution of this molecular mechanism provide targets for therapeutic intervention and give further insight into the role of the TGFβ microenvironment.
Modelling and Simulation of a Hydrostatic Transmission System using Two Motor Summation Drive

In this article simulation studies have been carried out on the dynamic performance of a hydrostatic transmission (HST) system using two motor summation drive. In this respect a closed loop HST system that consists of a variable displacement swashplate controlled axial piston pump and bent axis piston motors is considered. Bondgraph simulation technique is used to model the hydrostatic drive system. In that model an on-off control strategy is implemented to switch over the mode of operation from single motor to twin motor or vice-versa considering pressure as a parameter. The system’s performance has been analysed with respect to typical load cycle of a machine where such drive is incorporated. The effects of variation of critical parameters of the system on the performance of the system are studied through simulation.
Hypoxia 2015 Iron , oxygen , and the pulmonary circulation

Frise MC, Robbins PA. Iron, oxygen, and the pulmonary circulation. J Appl Physiol 119: 1421–1431, 2015. First published June 11, 2015; doi:10.1152/japplphysiol.00179. 2015. —The human pulmonary vasculature vasoconstricts in response to a reduction in alveolar oxygen tension, a phenomenon termed hypoxic pulmonary vasoconstriction (HPV). This review describes the time course of this behavior, which occurs in distinct phases, and then explores the importance for HPV of the hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) pathway. Next, the HIF-hydroxylase enzymes that act as molecular oxygen sensors within the HIF pathway are discussed. These enzymes are particularly sensitive to intracellular iron availability, which confers iron-sensing properties on the HIF pathway. Human studies of iron chelation and supplementation are then reviewed. These demonstrate that the iron sensitivity of the HIF pathway evident from in vitro experiments is relevant to human pulmonary vascular physiology. Next, the importance of iron status in high-altitude illness and chronic cardiopulmonary disease is explored, and the therapeutic potential of intravenous iron discussed. The review concludes by highlighting some further complexities that arise from interactions between the HIF pathway and other intracellular iron-sensing mechanisms.
Biophysical Insights into How Surfaces, Including Lipid Membranes, Modulate Protein Aggregation Related to Neurodegeneration

There are a vast number of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (PD), and Huntington’s disease (HD), associated with the rearrangement of specific proteins to non-native conformations that promotes aggregation and deposition within tissues and/or cellular compartments. These diseases are commonly classified as protein-misfolding or amyloid diseases. The interaction of these proteins with liquid/surface interfaces is a fundamental phenomenon with potential implications for protein-misfolding diseases. Kinetic and thermodynamic studies indicate that significant conformational changes can be induced in proteins encountering surfaces, which can play a critical role in nucleating aggregate formation or stabilizing specific aggregation states. Surfaces of particular interest in neurodegenerative diseases are cellular and subcellular membranes that are predominately comprised of lipid components. The two-dimensional liquid environments provided by lipid bilayers can profoundly alter protein structure and dynamics by both specific and non-specific interactions. Importantly for misfolding diseases, these bilayer properties can not only modulate protein conformation, but also exert influence on aggregation state. A detailed understanding of the influence of (sub)cellular surfaces in driving protein aggregation and/or stabilizing specific aggregate forms could provide new insights into toxic mechanisms associated with these diseases. Here, we review the influence of surfaces in driving and stabilizing protein aggregation with a specific emphasis on lipid membranes.
In vivo and in vitro hepatic phosphorus-31 magnetic resonance spectroscopy and electron microscopy in chronic ductopenic rejection of human liver allografts

Background—In vivo hepatic phosphorus-31 magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) provides non-invasive information about phospholipid metabolism. Aims—To delineate MRS abnormalities in patients with chronic ductopenic rejection (CDR) and to characterise spectral changes by in vitro MRS and electron microscopy. Patients and methods—Sixteen liver transplant recipients (four with CDR; 12 with good graft function) and 29 controls (23 healthy volunteers; six patients with biliary duct strictures) were studied with in vivo 31P MRS. Peak area ratios of phosphomonoesters (PME) and phosphodiesters (PDE), relative to nucleotide triphosphates (NTP) were measured. In vitro MRS and electron microscopy were performed on biopsy specimens from five patients with CDR, freeze clamped at retransplantation. Phosphoethanolamine (PE), phosphocholine (PC), glycerophosphorylethanolamine (GPE), and glycerophosphorylcholine (GPC) concentrations were measured. Results—The 12 patients with good graft function displayed no spectral abnormalities in vivo; the four patients with CDR showed significantly elevated PME:NTP (p<0.01) and PDE:NTP ratios (p<0.005). Patients with biliary strictures had significant differences in PME:NTP (p<0.01) from patients with CDR, but not in mean PDE:NTP. In vitro spectra from CDR patients showed elevated PE and PC, mirroring the in vivo changes in PME, but reduced GPE and GPC concentrations were observed, at variance with the in vivo PDE findings. On electron microscopy, there was no proliferation in hepatocyte endoplasmic reticulum. Conclusions—The increase in PME:NTP reflects altered phospholipid metabolism in patients with CDR, while the increase in PDE:NTP may represent a significant contribution from bile phospholipid.
Conference scene: pediatric pharmacogenomics and personalized medicine.

A major challenge for clinicians, pharmaceutical companies and regulatory agencies is to better understand the relative contributions of ontogeny and genetic variation to observed variability in drug disposition and response across the pediatric age spectrum from preterm and term newborns, to infants, children and adolescents. Extrapolation of adult experience with pharmacogenomics and personalized medicine to pediatric patients of different ages and developmental stages, is fraught with many challenges. Compared with adults, pediatric pharmacogenetics and pharmacogenomics involves an added measure of complexity as variability owing to developmental processes, or ontogeny, is superimposed upon genetic variation. Furthermore, some pediatric diseases have no adult correlate or are more prevalent in children compared with adults, and several adverse drug reactions are unique to children, or occur at a higher frequency in children. The primary objective of this conference was to initiate an ongoing series of .
Improving the efficiency of biomarker identification using expert knowledge

In this paper, we present a practical algorithm to deal with the data specific classification problem when there are datasets with different properties. We proposed to integrate error rate, missing values and expert judgment as factors for determining data specific pruning to form Expert Knowledge Based Pruning (EKBP). We conduct an extensive experimental study on openly available 40 real world datasets from UCI repository. In all these experiments, the proposed approach shows considerably reduction of tree size and achieves equal or better accuracy compared to several bench mark decision tree methods. We have also conducted a case study of heart disease dataset by using our improved algorithm. This study suggests that (Thal), type of defect in heart is the most important predictor for confirming heart disease presence, Number of major vessels colored by fluoroscopy (MV) and type of chest pain (Chest) as biomarkers of heart disease.
An Enhanced Two-factor User Authentication Scheme in Wireless Sensor Networks

Designing a user authentication protocol for wireless sensor networks is a difficult task because wireless networks are susceptible to attacks and sensor node has limited energy, processing and storage resources. Recently, several authentication schemes have been proposed. This short paper shows some security problems and design weaknesses in those schemes. Furthermore, an enhanced two-factor user authentication protocol is presented. The proposed scheme only uses hash function, and a successful user authentication just requires three message exchanges. Security and performance analyses demonstrate that compared to the well-known authentication schemes, our proposal is more secure and efficient.
Log-based intrusion detection for MANET

Ad hoc networks operate mostly over open environments and are hence vulnerable to a large number of threats. This calls for providing advanced intrusion detection. To meet this requirement, we introduce IDAR, a signature- and log-based distributed intrusion detector dedicated to ad hoc routing protocols. Contrary to existing systems that observe packets, IDAR analyses the logs generated by the OLSR protocol and identifies patterns of misuse. This detector copes with the resource-constraints of devices by providing distributed detection. In particular, depending on the level of suspicion/gravity involved, in-depth cooperative investigation is launched. Simulation shows limited bandwidth usage, high detection and low false positives.
Advances and Applications of DSmT for Information Fusion. Collected Works. Volume 4

The fourth volume on Advances and Applications of Dezert-Smarandache Theory (DSmT) for information fusion collects theoretical and applied contributions of researchers working in different fields of applications and in mathematics. The contributions (see List of Articles published in this book, at the end of the volume) have been published or presented after disseminating the third volume (2009, http://fs.gallup.unm.edu/DSmT-book3.pdf) in international conferences, seminars, workshops and journals. First Part of this book presents the theoretical advancement of DSmT, dealing with Belief functions, conditioning and deconditioning, Analytic Hierarchy Process, Decision Making, Multi-Criteria, evidence theory, combination rule, evidence distance, conflicting belief, sources of evidences with different importance and reliabilities, importance of sources, pignistic probability transformation, Qualitative reasoning under uncertainty, Imprecise belief structures, 2-Tuple linguistic label, Electre Tri Method, hierarchical proportional redistribution, basic belief assignment, subjective probability measure, Smarandache codification, neutrosophic logic, Evidence theory, outranking methods, Dempster-Shafer Theory, Bayes fusion rule, frequentist probability, mean square error, controlling factor, optimal assignment solution, data association, Transferable Belief Model, and others. More applications of DSmT have emerged in the past years since the apparition of the third book of DSmT 2009. Subsequently, the second part of this volume is about applications of DSmT in correlation with Electronic Support Measures, belief function, sensor networks, Ground Moving Target and Multiple target tracking, Vehicle-Born Improvised Explosive Device, Belief Interacting Multiple Model filter, seismic and acoustic sensor, Support Vector Machines, Alarm classification, ability of human visual system, Uncertainty Representation and Reasoning Evaluation Framework, Threat Assessment, Handwritten Signature Verification, Automatic Aircraft Recognition, Dynamic Data-Driven Application System, adjustment of secure communication trust analysis, and so on. Finally, the third part presents a List of References related with DSmT published or presented along the years since its inception in 2004, chronologically ordered.