Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Invasive Aspergillosis Caused by Aspergillus ustus: Case Report and Review

ABSTRACT A case of invasive pulmonary aspergillosis in an allogeneic bone marrow transplant recipient caused by Aspergillus ustus is presented. A. ustus was also recovered from the hospital environment, which may indicate that the infection was nosocomially acquired. A literature review revealed seven cases of invasive infections caused by A. ustus, and three of these were primarily cutaneous infections. In vitro susceptibility testing of 12A. ustus isolates showed that amphotericin B and terbinafine had fungicidal activity and that itraconazole and voriconazole had fungistatic activity.
Fusion of multispectral and panchromatic Satellite images using the curvelet transform

A useful technique in various applications of remote sensing involves the fusion of different types of satellite images, namely multispectral (MS) satellite images with a high spectral and low spatial resolution and panchromatic (Pan) satellite image with a low spectral and high spatial resolution. Recent studies show that wavelet-based image fusion provides high-quality spectral content in fused images. However, the results of most wavelet-based methods of image fusion have a spatial resolution that is less than that obtained via the Brovey, intensity-hue-saturation, and principal components analysis methods of image fusion. We introduce an improved method of image fusion which is based on the amelioration de la resolution spatiale par injection de structures (ARSIS) concept using the curvelet transform, because the curvelet transform represents edges better than wavelets. Because edges are fundamental in image representation, enhancing the edges is an effective means of enhancing spatial resolution. Curvelet-based image fusion has been used to merge a Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus Pan and MS image. The proposed method simultaneously provides richer information in the spatial and spectral domains.
Using Octave to introduce programming to technical science students

In this paper we describe a five semester experiment on the introduction of Octave to teach computer programming to technical science students. We discuss the main advantages and disadvantages of this approach relatively to more traditional programming languages. After a qualitative and quantitative analysis of student evaluation results we argue that this kind of programming languages are useful to teach programming to non computer science engineering students.
Possible Editing of Alu Transcripts in Blood Cells of Sporadic Creutzfeldt–Jakob Disease (sCJD)

Editing of RNA molecules gained major interest when coding mRNA was analyzed. A small, noncoding, Alu DNA element transcript that may act as regulatory RNA in cells was examined in this study. Alu DNA element transcription was determined in buffy coat from healthy humans and human sporadic Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (sCJD) cases. In addition, non-sCJD controls, mostly dementia cases and Alzheimer's disease (AD) cases, were included. The Alu cDNA sequences were aligned to genomic Alu DNA elements by database search. A comparison of best aligned Alu DNA sequences with our RNA/cDNA clones revealed editing by deamination by ADAR (adenosine deaminase acting on RNA) and APOBEC (apolipoprotein B editing complex). Nucleotide exchanges like a G instead of an A or a T instead of a C in our cDNA sequences versus genomic Alu DNA pointed to recent mutations. To confirm this, our Alu cDNA sequences were aligned not only to genomic human Alu DNA but also to the respective genomic DNA of the chimpanzee and rhesus. Enhanced ADAR correlated with A–G exchanges in dementia, AD, and sCJD was noted when compared to healthy controls as well as APOBEC-related C–T exchanges. The APOBEC-related mutations were higher in healthy controls than in cases suffering from neurodegeneration, with the exception of the dementia group with the prion protein gene (PRNP) MV genotype. Hence, this study may be considered the first real-time analysis of Alu DNA element transcripts with regard to editing of the respective Alu transcripts in human blood cells.
Economic burden of sarcoidosis in a commercially-insured population in the United States

Abstract Background: Sarcoidosis is a multi-system inflammatory disorder characterized by the presence of non-caseating granulomas in involved organs. Patients with sarcoidosis have a reduced quality-of-life and are at an increased risk for several comorbidities. Little is known about the direct and indirect cost of sarcoidosis following the initial diagnosis. Aims: To provide an estimate of the healthcare resource utilization (HCRU) and costs borne by commercial payers for sarcoidosis patients in the US. Methods: Patients with a first diagnosis of sarcoidosis between January 1, 1998 and March 31, 2015 (“index date”) were selected from a de-identified privately-insured administrative claims database. Sarcoidosis patients were required to have continuous health plan enrollment 12 months prior to and following their index dates. Propensity-score (1:1) matching of sarcoidosis patients with non-sarcoidosis controls was carried out based on a logistic regression of baseline characteristics. Burden of HCRU and work loss (disability days and medically-related absenteeism) were compared between the matched groups over the 12-month period following the index date (“outcome period”). Results: A total of 7,119 sarcoidosis patients who met the selection criteria were matched with a control. Overall, commercial payers incurred $19,714 in mean total annual healthcare costs per sarcoidosis patient. The principle cost drivers were outpatient visits ($9,050 2015 USD, 46%) and inpatient admissions ($6,398, 32%). Relative to controls, sarcoidosis patients had $5,190 (36%) higher total healthcare costs ($19,714 vs $14,524; p < 0.001). Sarcoidosis patients also had significantly more work loss days (15.9 vs 11.3; p < 0.001) and work loss costs ($3,288 vs $2,527; p < 0.001) than matched controls. Sarcoidosis imposes an estimated total direct medical cost of $1.3–$8.7 billion to commercial payers, and an indirect cost of $0.2–$1.5 billion to commercial payers in work loss. Conclusions: Sarcoidosis imposes a significant economic burden to payers in the first year following diagnosis.
Enriching Textual Documents with Timecodes from Video Fragments

The OLIVE project aims the development of a multilingual indexing tool for broadcast material based on speech recognition, which automatically produces indexes from the sound track of a program (television or radio). Such a tool allows multimedia archives to be searched by keywords and corresponding fragments to be retrieved. This paper gives a report on the alignment module, which is one of the components of the retrieval environment to be developed in OLIVE. It assigns time-codes to non-time-coded textual documents that are describing the content of the video. Timecoding of these textual documents will increase the overall level of disclosure. Basis for the assignment is some similarity measure between the non-timed-coded texts and subtitle files or the transcripts from speech recognition. The core of the alignment module is a generic algorithm for generating the links that are the basis for the insertion of time-codes into non-time-coded texts. An additional step combines similarity values with locality information. The data used during testing are closed-caption files of Dutch news-broadcasts and the autocue files of these broadcasts. Adaptations to the initial algorithm for which improved perfomance figures were found involved a threshold related to the sentencelength, and the applications of a high- and low-frequency term stoplist compiled from the time-coded text under consideration.
Preference Logic Programming

Preference logic programming (PLP) is an extension of constraint logic programming (CLP) for declaratively specifying problems requiring optimization or comparison and selection among alternative solutions to a query. In the PLP framework, the deenite clauses of a constraint logic program are augmented by two new kinds of clauses, which we call optimization clauses and arbiter clauses. Optimization clauses specify which predicates are to be optimized and arbiter clauses specify the criteria to be used for optimization. We illustrate their use with representative examples: one from dynamic programming and another from ambiguity resolution in grammars. We formalize the semantics of PLP using concepts from modal logic: Essentially, each world in the possible-worlds semantics for a preference logic program is a model of the program, and an ordering over these worlds is enforced by the arbiter clauses in the program. We introduce a new notion called preferential consequence to refer to truth in the optimal worlds. Because we are interested in computing preferential consequences (as opposed to the logical consequences), we are able to provide a more eecient inference procedure than that for modal logic. We describe a sound operational semantics that is an extension of SLD derivation that prunes the search paths of suboptimal solutions. This operational semantics is complete for the class of stratiied preference logic programs.
IT C 2 00 2 Su bm iss ion Do N ot D ist rib ut e Verifying PropertiesUsing SequentialATPG

Thispaperdevelopsa novel approach for formally verifying both safetyand livenesspropertiesof designsusing sequentialATPG tools. The propertiesare automatically mappedinto a monitor circuit with a target fault so that findinga testfor thefault correspondsto formallyestablishing theproperty. Themappingof thepropertiesto themonitor circuit is describedin detailandtheprocessis shownto besoundandcomplete. Experimentalresultsshowthat the ATPG-basedapproach performsbetterthanexistingverificationtechniques,especiallyfor largedesigns.
Developmental regulation of calcium-dependent feedback in Xenopus rods

The kinetics of activation and inactivation in the phototransduction pathway of developing Xenopus rods were studied. The gain of the activation steps in transduction (amplification) increased and photoresponses became more rapid as the rods matured from the larval to the adult stage. The time to peak was significantly shorter in adults (1.3 s) than tadpoles (2 s). Moreover, adult rods recovered twice as fast from saturating flashes than did larval rods without changes of the dominant time constant (2.5 s). Guanylate cyclase (GC) activity, determined using IBMX steps, increased in adult rods from ∼1.1 s−1 to 3.7 s−1 5 s after a saturating flash delivering 6,000 photoisomerizations. In larval rods, it increased from 1.8 s−1 to 4.0 s−1 9 s after an equivalent flash. However, the ratio of amplification to the measured dark phosphodiesterase activity was constant. Guanylate cyclase–activating protein (GCAP1) levels and normalized Na+/Ca2+, K+ exchanger currents were increased in adults compared with tadpoles. Together, these results are consistent with the acceleration of the recovery phase in adult rods via developmental regulation of calcium homeostasis. Despite these large changes, the single photon response amplitude was ∼0.6 pA throughout development. Reduction of calcium feedback with BAPTA increased adult single photon response amplitudes threefold and reduced its cutoff frequency to that observed with tadpole rods. Linear mathematical modeling suggests that calcium-dependent feedback can account for the observed differences in the power spectra of larval and adult rods. We conclude that larval Xenopus maximize sensitivity at the expense of slower response kinetics while adults maximize response kinetics at the expense of sensitivity.
Multiple-Play Bandits in the Position-Based Model

Sequentially learning to place items in multi-position displays or lists is a task that can be cast into the multiple-play semi-bandit setting. However, a major concern in this context is when the system cannot decide whether the user feedback for each item is actually exploitable. Indeed, much of the content may have been simply ignored by the user. The present work proposes to exploit available information regarding the display position bias under the so-called Position-based click model (PBM). We first discuss how this model differs from the Cascade model and its variants considered in several recent works on multiple-play bandits. We then provide a novel regret lower bound for this model as well as computationally efficient algorithms that display good empirical and theoretical performance.
Filtering using a tree-based estimator

Within this paper a new framework for Bayesian tracking is presented, which approximates the posterior distribution at multiple resolutions. We propose a tree-based representation of the distribution, where the leaves define a partition of the state space with piecewise constant density. The advantage of this representation is that regions with low probability mass can be rapidly discarded in a hierarchical search, and the distribution can be approximated to arbitrary precision. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the technique by using it for tracking 3D articulated and nonrigid motion in front of cluttered background. More specifically, we are interested in estimating the joint angles, position and orientation of a 3D hand model in order to drive an avatar.
Evolving Organizations of Agents

We investigate how agents can learn to become experts, and eventually organize themselves appropriately for a range of tasks. Our aim is to look at evolutionary processes that lead to organizations of experts. The distributed artificial intelligence (DAI) community has dealt with multiagent systems that organize themselves in order to achieve a specific shared goal. Various organizations can arise that will effectively balance the load on the agents and improve their performance. We here look at the process of emergence of an organization as a step that takes place prior to the execution of a task, and as a general process related to a range of problems in a domain. To explore the ideas set forward, we designed and implemented a testbed based on the idea of the game of Life. We present experimental results that show different patterns of organizations that might evolve in a multiagent system.
Process improvement of software engineering education

This paper discusses the approach and philosophy of teaching software engineering at the University of Adelaide. The advantages and the difficulties of the approach are discussed. Planned improvements to rectify some of the difficulties are addressed along with a discussion of the additional benefits that are to be had. The proposed improvements require minimal additional work for either staff or students, but offer promising improvements to the course and the quality of the graduates produced. 1. Software Engineering Education Current Practices The department of Computer Science at the University of Adelaide teaches a relatively “standard” Computer Science curriculum. Space within the curriculum is at a premium and there is virtually no scope for the addition of extra subjects unless existing course material is either removed entirely or compacted. Within these severe constraints, we have designed a vertically integrated Sof tware Engineering “thread” for the curriculum which is reasonably successful.
Fruit Calcium: Transport and Physiology

Calcium has well-documented roles in plant signaling, water relations and cell wall interactions. Significant research into how calcium impacts these individual processes in various tissues has been carried out; however, the influence of calcium on fruit ripening has not been thoroughly explored. Here, we review the current state of knowledge on how calcium may impact the development, physical traits and disease susceptibility of fruit through facilitating developmental and stress response signaling, stabilizing membranes, influencing water relations and modifying cell wall properties through cross-linking of de-esterified pectins. We explore the involvement of calcium in hormone signaling integral to the physiological mechanisms behind common disorders that have been associated with fruit calcium deficiency (e.g., blossom end rot in tomatoes or bitter pit in apples). This review works toward an improved understanding of how the many roles of calcium interact to influence fruit ripening, and proposes future research directions to fill knowledge gaps. Specifically, we focus mostly on grapes and present a model that integrates existing knowledge around these various functions of calcium in fruit, which provides a basis for understanding the physiological impacts of sub-optimal calcium nutrition in grapes. Calcium accumulation and distribution in fruit is shown to be highly dependent on water delivery and cell wall interactions in the apoplasm. Localized calcium deficiencies observed in particular species or varieties can result from differences in xylem morphology, fruit water relations and pectin composition, and can cause leaky membranes, irregular cell wall softening, impaired hormonal signaling and aberrant fruit development. We propose that the role of apoplasmic calcium-pectin crosslinking, particularly in the xylem, is an understudied area that may have a key influence on fruit water relations. Furthermore, we believe that improved knowledge of the calcium-regulated signaling pathways that control ripening would assist in addressing calcium deficiency disorders and improving fruit pathogen resistance.
Multimedia Information and Mobile-Learning

The number of applications that use mobile devices in learning activities is increasing. The limitations of mobile devices such as small screen and inconvenient input facilities can be reduced by using multimedia contents. For example, students can submit questions by taking pictures of their notes; field trip experiences can be shared by video taken from mobile phones, and students can access long text information via voice instead of using SMS that allows only 160 characters per message. However, the use of multimedia information poses a new challenge for system developers: how can the students search on multimedia information? In this paper, we introduce a mobile-learning system that addresses this issue by applying several techniques such as automatic speech recognition (ASR), optical character recognition (OCR), and text to speech (TTS). The system is based on the CoMobile framework, our open source software framework for collaborative work using mobile devices
The possibility of applying reverse scanning techniques to analyse the wear of forging tools and forging defects

The study refers to the application of a 3D reverse scanning method for the analysis of the progressing wear of forging tools as well as for the detection of forging flaws in a selected hot die forging process. With the use of the POLYWORKS software, two parameters were determined: the volume increase (positive volume), describing the tool wear, and the volume loss of the forging material (outside volume), pointing to the forging defects, e.g. in the form of underfills. Both parameters (positive and outside volume) are interdependent and, on their basis, it is possible to elaborate the performance characteristics in time, e.g. the tool wear curve and the curve pointing to the possibility of the presence of forging defects. The presented approach can constitute a useful and effective tool enabling a fast analysis of the current state of the tools and the quality of the forgings (without the necessity of a significant disturbance of the production process), and it can also be an instrument used to analyse the stability and properness of the production process.
A Sustainable Outsourcing Strategy Regarding Cost, Capacity Flexibility, and Risk in a Textile Supply Chain

The textile industry achieves economic benefits through outsourcing to low cost markets. Today, reshoring is an emerging trend due to rising cost and unemployment concerns. This problem is primarily due to an industry-wide focus on economic benefits only. Cost saving is a basic reason for international outsourcing while domestic outsourcing provides capacity flexibility. Moreover, outsourcing risk has a major impact on strategic location of the production destinations. Therefore, the merging of capacity flexibility and outsourcing risk comprises a sustainable outsourcing strategy. This paper suggests a sustainable outsourcing strategy in which a textile manufacturer outsources to international markets for cost savings and outsources to the domestic market for capacity flexibility. The manufacturer reserves some capacity with domestic suppliers, and pays a unit penalty cost if this capacity flexibility is not utilized. The manufacturer seeks minimum risk in international markets. Operational cost, penalty cost, and outsourcing risk are considered to be objective functions. Decisions include the assignment of contracts to suitable facilities, the quantity of each contract, and allocation of reserved capacity flexibility among domestic suppliers. Multi-objective problem of this research was solved using three variants of goal programming. Several insights are proposed for outsourcing decision making in the current global environment.
Comparison of Topical Application of TSG-6, Cyclosporine, and Prednisolone for Treating Dry Eye

Purpose: To compare the therapeutic effects of topical tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-&agr;–stimulated gene/protein-6 (TSG-6) with those of cyclosporine and prednisolone eye drops in NOD.B10. H2b mice, a model for inflammation-mediated dry eye. Methods: The 12-week-old NOD.B10. H2b mice were topically administered recombinant TSG-6 (0.1%) 4 times a day, 0.05% cyclosporine (Restasis) twice a day, or 1% prednisolone (Pred Forte) 4 times a day for 1 week. Aqueous tear production was measured by phenol red thread test, and corneal epithelial damage was observed with lissamine green and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick end labeling staining. Conjunctival goblet cell number was evaluated with periodic acid–Schiff staining. The levels of inflammatory cytokines were analyzed in the ocular surface (cornea and conjunctiva) and intraorbital gland. The dose-dependent effects of topical TSG-6 (0.001, 0.01, and 0.1%) were tested. Results: Tear production and goblet cell density were significantly increased in all groups receiving TSG-6, cyclosporine, and prednisolone. Corneal epithelial staining was markedly reduced by TSG-6 and cyclosporine but not by prednisolone. In prednisolone-treated eyes, corneal epithelial thickness was decreased, and apoptosis of corneal epithelial cells was increased. The levels of interferon gamma and TNF-&agr; in the ocular surface and intraorbital gland were significantly repressed by TSG-6 and cyclosporine, and prednisolone treatment significantly reduced the level of interferon gamma. The effects of TSG-6 on the ocular surface and tear production were dose dependent. Conclusions: Topical TSG-6 was as effective in inflammation-mediated dry eye as cyclosporine eye drops. Topical prednisolone suppressed inflammation but induced apoptosis in the corneal epithelium.