Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Stressin and Natural Killer Cell Activity in Professional Soldiers a

Chronic stress causes multiple biochemical and physiological changes in the human organism. Recently we have identified stressin, a human serum glycoprotein that was significantly increased in sera of prisoners released from Serbian concentration camps. To eliminate malnutrition and maltreatment as possible causes for the increased stressin concentration, we have analyzed stressin in sera of 40 professional soldiers after involvement in major military activity and compared it to stressin in sera of 20 control individuals. As expected, the sera of professional soldiers contained more than 2.2 times higher concentrations of stressin than control sera. It is interesting that, contrary to expectations, the natural killer cell activity of professional soldiers was normal or even increased. We hypothesize that this might be an effect of winning the war that could have, at least temporarily, erased the immunosuppressive effects of stress.
An Improved Logic-Based Implementation to Ontology Assessment

With the advent of the Semantic Web, ontology engineering has produced thousands of conceptual models. In this context, ontological evaluation is a crucial and imperative task, enabling reuse and the models’ evolution. Several frameworks have been proposed in the literature for quality and correctness assessment as OntoClean, a very subjective methodology based on the user’s knowledge to ascertain meta properties to the concepts of ontology, in order to find out disparities with respect the real domain. Unfortunately, OntoClean only applies to Ontologies whose concepts were completely labeled by the user. Due to the lack of stable OntoClean implementations and the imposed limitation, this paper presents an implementation in a general Constraint Logic-based language, which is still useful to partially labeled ontologies. At the end, some of scalability and efficiency tests are demonstrated.
Assessment of Skeletal Stability After Counterclockwise Rotation of the Maxillomandibular Complex in Patients With Long-Face Pattern Subjected to Orthognathic Surgery

BackgroundThe aim of this study was to evaluate the long-term skeletal stability of counterclockwise maxillomandibular complex rotation in patients undergoing orthognathic surgery for long-face pattern. MethodsThis retrospective study consisted of 10 patients who underwent the procedure between September 2002 and April 2008. To assess the skeletal stability, 30 preoperative (T1), recent postoperative (T2), and late postoperative (T3) cephalometric radiographs of the 10 patients were digitized and traced. To measure the stability in the occlusal plane and mandibular plane, the cephalometric points and planes were determined 3 times. ResultsIn the long term, on average, the A-point moved 0.21 mm backward (AYT3-AYT2), the B-point moved 0.57 mm backward (BYT3-BYT2), and the posterior nasal spine moved 0.31 mm backward (PNSYT3-PNSYT2). On average, the anterior maxillary area (A-point) moved 0.14 mm downward (AXT3-AXT2), the mandible (B-point) moved 0.07 mm downward (BXT3-BXT2), and the posterior nasal spine moved approximately 0.18 mm upward (PNSXT3-PNSXT2). The occlusal plane increased by 0.75 degrees (OPT3-OPT2), and the mandibular plane increased by 0.45 degrees (MPT3-MPT2). ConclusionsIt was observed that the counterclockwise rotation of the maxillomandibular complex produces stable results in patients with long-face pattern undergoing orthognathic surgery.
Evil Is More Than Banal: Situationism and the Concept of Evil

Social psychology as a discipline has given relatively little attention to the problem of evil in society, and those discussions in this field that do exist typically regard evil actions as only varieties of aggression without any characteristics that distinguish them from other forms of intentional mistreatment of others. Because of the field's situationistic perspective emphasizing the individual's susceptibility to the power of the immediate situation, social psychologists generally view the fairly high levels of obedience to authority displayed in Milgram's (1963, 1974) classic experiment as the paradigmatic example of evil behavior. For them, much evil is, in Arendt's (1963) well-known phrase, only “banal,” and Milgram's findings are often viewed as illustrating the “central dynamic” involved in the slaughter of millions of Jews and other “undesirables” in the Holocaust. This article holds that Milgram's (1974) obedience research does not represent significant features of the Holocaust, especially the sadism that occurred not infrequently, and disregards the vital difference between those who initiated the murderous policy and the others who followed their orders. Building on Darley's (1992) earlier conjectures about the features that ordinary people might consider in judging whether any given action is evil, I suggest that many persons have a prototypic conception of evil and speculate about the dimensions that could be involved in this prototype.
Fatigue load mitigation in multi-megawatt wind turbines using output regulation control

This paper addresses the design of a novel model-based control method for modern multi-mega-watt wind turbines using output regulation control scheme. The objective is to alleviate the extreme and fatigue loads on the moving components of the turbine structure (e.g., turbine tower, drivetrain, blades) whilst maximum energy is harvested from the approaching wind. The preview wind field information is collected, analyzed and measured over a given distance in front of the turbine using a light detection and ranging (LIDAR) system. The line-of-sight LIDAR wind measurements are then augmented in the Exact Output Regulation (EOR) control architecture together with the system state feedback information to construct the feedforward controller for the wind turbine. Simulations have been performed to evaluate the design of the proposed controller using a detailed aeroelastic model of the turbine in FAST and a set of turbulent wind fields over the full-load operation region. The results are then compared against the outcomes from the classic baseline controller. Results show promising lifetime fatigue load reduction up to 70% on the turbine tower without negative impact on the overall energy production.
Farm decision making by applying a constraint multi objective model: a case study in Iran.

The main objective of this paper is to create, apply and evaluate a multi objective model that aims at the simultaneous maximization of farmer’s welfare and employment in region and the minimization of the consequent environmental burden. More specifically, constraint multi objective programming technique is employed. This technique is implemented on a representative farm area around “Tayebad” in Iran to seek for a solution - in terms of area and water allocation under different crops. Results showed that application of a multi-criteria analysis may lead to an improved water resources use and less water overexploitation or pollution.
Chemoradiotherapy in gallbladder cancer

Gallbladder cancer (GC) is considered a rare disease associated with a poor prognosis. Unfortunately, the low number of cases makes the performance of trials addressing the role of adjuvant, neoadjuvant, and/or palliative therapy difficult. For a long time, the majority of trials were 5‐fluorouracil (5 FU)‐based, and results were uniformly poor. Since the introduction of Gemcitabine, response rates of approximately 30% have been observed through the use of this drug and new approaches have been tested. In this sense, drugs such as Cisplatin and Capecitabine have been employed concurrently with gemcitabine and/or radiation. Since a recurrence pattern is both distant and local, chernoradiation seems a logical option to deal with the disease. However, at the present time, the lack of valid and scientific evidence means that most of the recommendations originate from trials dealing with other tumors, such as pancreas cancer and biliary tract cancer (BTC). The aforementioned treatment alternatives warrant further evaluation focusing on GC. J. Surg. Oncol. 2006;93:699–704. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Relationship between adiposity, emotional status and eating behaviour in obese women: role of inflammation

Background Obesity is characterized by chronic low-grade inflammation that may lead to emotional distress and behavioural symptoms. This study assessed the relationship between adiposity, low-grade inflammation, eating behaviour and emotional status in obese women awaiting gastric surgery and investigated the effects of surgery-induced weight loss on this relationship. Method A total of 101 women with severe or morbid obesity awaiting gastric surgery were recruited. Assessments were performed before and at 1 year post-surgery and included the measurement of neuroticism and extraversion using the revised Neuroticism–Extraversion–Openness personality inventory (NEO-PI-R) and eating behaviour using the Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire (TFEQ). Blood samples were collected for the measurement of serum inflammatory markers [interleukin-6 (IL-6), high-sensitive C-reactive protein (hsCRP)] and adipokines (leptin, adiponectin). Results At baseline, body mass index (BMI) was positively correlated with inflammatory markers and adipokines. Regression analyses adjusting for age and diabetes revealed that baseline concentrations of IL-6 and hsCRP were associated with the depression and anxiety facets of neuroticism, with higher inflammation predicting higher anxiety and depression. This association remained significant after adjusting for BMI. Gastric surgery induced significant weight loss, which correlated with reduced inflammation. After controlling for BMI variations, decreases in inflammatory markers, notably hsCRP, were associated with reduced anxiety and TFEQ-cognitive restraint scores. Conclusions These findings indicate strong associations between adiposity, inflammation and affectivity in obese subjects and show that surgery-induced weight loss is associated concomitantly with reduced inflammation and adipokines and with significant improvement in emotional status and eating behaviour. Inflammatory status appears to represent an important mediator of emotional distress and psychological characteristics of obese individuals.
NMF and FLD based feature extraction with application to Synthetic Aperture Radar target recognition

Feature extraction is a very important step in Synthetic Aperture Radar automatic target recognition (SAR ATR). In this paper, a feature extraction procedure based on the nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) and Fisher linear discriminant (FLD) analysis is proposed for target recognition in SAR images. Firstly, segmented SAR images are processed by the NMF algorithm, which can extract nonnegative features that contain the local spatial structure information of targets. Then the FLD method is applied to the extracted features, thus the discriminability of the features can be enhanced. Both the spatial locality and separability between classes are enforced by this two-phase feature extracting procedure. Finally, the obtained features are used for automatic target recognition. Compared to several other methods, experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed method for target feature extraction and recognition in SAR images.
Aquatitan garments extend joint range of motion without effect on run performance.

PURPOSE To investigate the effects of uniquely processed titanium-permeated garments (Aquatitan) on the performance of and recovery from a high-intensity intermittent exercise. METHODS In a crossover, 14 nationally and regionally competing male soccer/hockey players performed two 5-d trials composed of a Loughborough Intermittent Shuttle Test on day 1, followed by 4 d of recovery assessment wearing randomly allocated Aquatitan- and placebo-treated clothing that covered their torso, limbs, and feet continuously throughout the study. Repeated sprint time was measured during the shuttle test, and muscle damage, joint range of motion, isometric strength, and running performance were measured during recovery. RESULTS The increase in sprint performance during the shuttle test (0.7%, 90% confidence interval = +/-0.9%) was likely trivial. During recovery, wearing of Aquatitan had a possible harmful effect on peak run velocity on day 3 (-1.1% +/- 1.6%) but a likely small benefit on day 5 (2.0% +/- 1.6%); combined (0.4% +/- 1.3%) and standardized outcomes suggest an overall trivial benefit. Aquatitan increased range of motion. For example, voluntary leg extension increased by 2.6% (+/-4.0%), hip flexion increased by 1.8% (+/-1.2%), plantarflexion increased by 4.8% (+/-2.8%), and shoulder extension and flexion increased by 4.2% (+/-3.0%) and 1.3% (+/-0.6%), respectively; forced voluntary differences at the hip and shoulder were trivial. Running efficiency was possibly increased on days 3 and 5. The effects on isometric strength were largely trivial, but a slight enhancement of the psychological state was observed. In a separate perception experiment, participants perceived tactile differences that were influenced by the knowledge of treatment. CONCLUSIONS For competitive subelite male soccer/hockey players, performance gains in response to wearing Aquatitan-treated garments are likely of trivial consequence. However, improved joint range of motion during recovery indicates that the garments reduced muscle–tendon stiffness, suggesting enhanced compliance, which warrants further investigation. Garment feel may also explain the outcomes.
A Passive Impedance Matching Interface Using a PC Permalloy Coil for Practically Enhanced Piezoelectric Energy Harvester Performance at Low Frequency

This paper presents an analytical and experimental study of a passive impedance matching interface based on a large inductive reactance but with a centimeter-scaled size for practically enhanced piezoelectric energy harvester performance at low frequency. Low frequency vibration normally leads to a large capacitive reactance value for small-sized piezoelectric energy harvesters and it is impractical to achieve the maximum power transfer condition by use of a conventional inductor as its volume would be of a few cubic meters. In this paper, PC permalloy material was used to implement a passive impedance matching interface in order to reduce the size of the inductor to a few cubic centimeters as it has a very high initial magnetic permeability of 6×104 H/m. The implemented interface is capable to practically perform the complex conjugate load matching of a macrofiber composite energy harvester at a frequency ≤10 Hz. The effects of the interface on the voltage, current, and power transferred to resistive loads were examined through comparisons of the results between configurations with and without the interface for applied strain levels and frequencies in the range between 480-1170-με peak-to-peak and 2.5-10 Hz, respectively. An increment of the power around 94.6% was obtained under an excitation of 480 με at 10 Hz in correspondence to an optimal resistive load reduced by over 70%. Compared with the state-of-the-art active impedance matching techniques, which use additional power sources to control the signal generated by piezoelectric energy harvesters, the developed interface is totally passive, easier to be implemented, and can be potentially used for the enhancement of vibration energy harvesting performance.
Blue Horizons Study Assesses Future Capabilities and Technologies for the United States Air Force

The purpose of the Blue Horizons study was to determine the capabilities and technologies in which the United States Air Force would need to invest to maintain dominant air, space, and cyberspace capabilities in the year 2030. The study used two methodologies, scenario analysis and multiobjective decision analysis, to evaluate 58 future-system concepts and 172 key enabling technologies. The paper outlines the study's key conclusions and recommendations to the Air Force, including recommendations on how future concepts and technologies would help it to prepare for disparate potential challenges, such as rising peer competitors, the problem of failed states, and continued insurgencies in far-flung parts of the world.
HOTPAPER demonstration: multimedia interaction with paper using mobile phones

HotPaper enables users to electronically interact with paper documents by pointing their camera phones at a document. Electronic interaction is in the form of reading and/or writing images, audio and video clips, urls, notes, etc to the paper. HotPaper does not require any machine readable code, such as a barcode or watermark, to be present on the document. It utilizes our Brick Wall Coding document recognition algorithm [1] that uses a small document patch image to retrieve electronic versions of documents without performing OCR. The HotPaper demonstration runs on a Treo 700w 312 MHz mobile phone and performs document recognition at 4 frames per second using 176x144 video input.
A Cross-Sectional Study in Kerman, Iran, on the Effect of Diabetic Foot Ulcer on Health-Related Quality of Life

This study describes the impact of diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs) on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) using a generic instrument including 8 domains. Data were obtained from 54 patients with DFU who were compared with 78 patients who had diabetes without foot ulcer. HRQoL was measured using the Iranian version of Medical Outcome Study–Short Form (SF-36). The fasting plasma glucose, creatinine, glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c), and urine microalbumin as well as ankle-brachial pressure index (ABI) were measured for all participants in the 2 groups. In all, 51.9% of patients with DFU had ABI scores of <0.9 compared with only 11.8% of the control group (P < .001). No differences were found in any of the treatment characteristics (oral/insulin therapy) between the 2 groups (case/control). HRQoL evaluated by the SF-36 questionnaire, in particular in the areas of physical function, is lower in patients with diabetes with foot ulcers compared with patients with diabetes without foot ulcers (41.04 ± 22.69 vs 56.67 ± 25.57; P < .01). After adjusting by sex, 2 domains of physical functioning and bodily pain as well as the total HRQoL score in patients with DFU were lower than in patients with diabetes (P < .001). This study showed that physical functioning and bodily pain along with total score of HRQoL were important aspects that were lower in patients with DFU than in patients with diabetes. Gender was considered as a confounding factor, which was omitted in multivariate analysis.
Aerial Drop of Robots and Sensors for Optimal Area Coverage

The problem of rapid optimal coverage through the distribution a team of robots or static sensors via means of aerial drop is the topic of this work. Considering a nonholonomic (fixed-wing) aerial robot that corresponds to the carrier of a set of small holonomic (rotorcraft) aerial robots as well as static modules that are all equipped with a camera sensor, we address the problem of selecting optimal aerial drop times and configurations while the motion capabilities of the small aerial robots are also exploited to further survey their area of responsibility until they hit the ground. The overall solution framework consists of lightweight path-planning algorithms that can run on virtually any processing unit that might be available on-board. Evaluation studies in simulation as well as a set of elementary experiments that prove the validity of important assumptions illustrate the potential of the approach.
Salient Feature Detection for optical flow computation

A dynamic block scale-invariant (DBSI) method for extracting salient feature key points that can be used to perform fast and accurate sparse optical flow computation is presented. With a more in-depth development and analysis of the Dynamic Block-Based feature selection and the Scale-space Extrema Detection stage, we propose a solution that correctly estimated the optical flow 2D motion vectors in the region of DBSI salient features, which are robust against noise, brightness and scale changes. The effectiveness of our method is demonstrated on the Middlebury optical flow benchmark and the experiment results show that it is competitive with the state-of-the-art.
The POLDER mission: instrument characteristics and scientific objectives

This paper introduces the new Polarization and Directionality of the Earth's Reflectances (POLDER) instrument. The spaceborne POLDER sensor, which is selected to fly aboard the Japanese ADEOS satellite scheduled for launch in early 1996, has nearly completed phase C of its development at the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales, the French space agency. To prepare for the 1996 space mission, airborne prototypes are being tested and evaluated in the framework of various measurement campaigns. The POLDER sensor is designed to collect global observations of polarized and directional solar radiation reflected by the Earth-atmosphere system for climate and global change studies. Aboard the ADEOS platform, the POLDER mission will provide near-daily coverage of the Earth at 6/spl times/7 km/sup 2/ resolution. The POLDER system will offer unprecedented opportunities to observe biophysical parameters over the oceans and land surfaces. The sensor's unique features, when compared to current and planned spaceborne instruments, include its ability to: 1) measure polarized reflectance in the visible and near-infrared spectral regions; 2) observe Earth target reflectance from 12 directions during a single satellite pass; and 3) operate in two dynamic modes in order to achieve both high signal to noise ratio and wide dynamic range. Six of POLDER's eight channels are optimized for observing atmospheric aerosols, clouds, ocean color, and land surfaces. The other two are centered on the H/sub 2/O and O/sub 2/ absorption bands for retrieving atmospheric water vapor amount and cloud top altitude, respectively. POLDER data will be subject to the high calibration standards defined by the POLDER mission team, with absolute calibration accuracies of 2% for the shorter wavelength channels (/spl lambda//spl les/565 nm) and 3% for the longer wavelengths. A 1% accuracy is the goal for the intercalibration between the spectral channels. The POLDER instrument aboard ADEOS will contribute significantly to climate-related research on aerosol cycling, cloud-radiation interactions, the Earth radiation budget, ocean primary productivity, and continental biosphere dynamics. POLDER mission's scientific objectives will be to: 1) map atmospheric aerosols, including their sources and transport, and study their influence on the Earth radiation budget; 2) assess cloud properties, namely their height, phase and type; 3) estimate total integrated water vapor amount; 4) improve Earth radiation budget estimates; 5) estimate chlorophyll-like pigment content in the ocean surface layer and its role in the carbon cycle; and 6) characterize land surface properties and vegetation cover. >
Bisimulation can't be traced. Preliminary report

Bisimulation is the primitive notion of equivalence between concurrent processes in Milner's Calculus of Communicating Systems (CCS); there is a nontrivial game-like protocol for distinguishing nonbisimular processes. In contrast, process distinguishability in Hoare's theory of Communicating Sequential processes (CSP) is determined soley on the basis of traces of visible actions. The authors examine what additional operations are needed to explain bisimulation similarly-specifically in the case of finitely branching processes without silent moves. They formulate a general notion of Structured Operational Semantics for processes with Guarded recursion (GSOS), and demonstrate that bisimulation does not agree with trace congruence with respect to any set of GSOS-definable contexts. In justifying the generality and significance of GSOS's, some of the basic proof theoretic facts are worked out that justify the SOS discipline.