Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Interactive Visualization Tool with Graphic Table of Video Contents

We present an interactive visualization, called table of video contents (TOVC), for browsing structured TV programs such as news, magazines or sports. In these telecasts, getting a good segmentation can be very time-consuming, especially in an annotating context. This visualization, connected with a classical media player, offers a very handy video browser. This system allows a global overview by showing the temporal structure and by giving some semantic information. The drawn structure enables a non linear video access by suggesting relevant frames. The TOVC is created from a graphic framework designed for computing similarities on visual content, and displaying the associated proximities in a 2D map with graph representation. TOVC is one of its first applications and shows interesting capabilities.
Role of common and rare variants in SCN10A: results from the Brugada syndrome QRS locus gene discovery collaborative study.

AIMS Brugada syndrome (BrS) remains genetically heterogeneous and is associated with slowed cardiac conduction. We aimed to identify genetic variation in BrS cases at loci associated with QRS duration. METHODS AND RESULTS A multi-centre study sequenced seven candidate genes (SCN10A, HAND1, PLN, CASQ2, TKT, TBX3, and TBX5) in 156 Caucasian SCN5A mutation-negative BrS patients (80% male; mean age 48) with symptoms (64%) and/or a family history of sudden death (47%) or BrS (18%). Forty-nine variants were identified: 18 were rare (MAF <1%) and non-synonymous; and 11/18 (61.1%), mostly in SCN10A, were predicted as pathogenic using multiple bioinformatics tools. Allele frequencies were compared with the Exome Sequencing and UK10K Projects. SKAT methods tested rare variation in SCN10A finding no statistically significant difference between cases and controls. Co-segregation analysis was possible for four of seven probands carrying a novel pathogenic variant. Only one pedigree (I671V/G1299A in SCN10A) showed co-segregation. The SCN10A SNP V1073 was, however, associated strongly with BrS [66.9 vs. 40.1% (UK10K) OR (95% CI) = 3.02 (2.35-3.87), P = 8.07 × 10-19]. Voltage-clamp experiments for NaV1.8 were performed for SCN10A common variants V1073, A1073, and rare variants of interest: A200V and I671V. V1073, A200V and I671V, demonstrated significant reductions in peak INa compared with ancestral allele A1073 (rs6795970). CONCLUSION Rare variants in the screened QRS-associated genes (including SCN10A) are not responsible for a significant proportion of SCN5A mutation negative BrS. The common SNP SCN10A V1073 was strongly associated with BrS and demonstrated loss of NaV1.8 function, as did rare variants in isolated patients.
Altered MicroRNA Expression in Cervical Carcinomas

Purpose: MicroRNAs (miRNA) are small noncoding RNAs that are 18 to 25 nucleotides in length; they regulate the stability or translational efficiency of target mRNAs. Emerging evidence suggests that miRNAs might be involved in the pathogenesis of a variety of human cancers. Experimental Design: In this study, we profiled miRNA expression in 10 early stage invasive squamous cell carcinomas (ISCC) and 10 normal cervical squamous epithelial specimens using TaqMan real-time quantitative PCR array methods. In order to evaluate the role of miR-199a, one of the most significantly overexpressed in ISCCs, we transfected cervical cancer cells (SiHa and ME-180) with anti–miR-199a oligonucleotides and assessed the cell viability. Results: We found 70 genes (68 up-regulated, 2 down-regulated) with significantly different expression in the ISCCs compared with normal samples (P < 0.05). When we analyzed the expression of the 10 most significant miRNAs in 31 ISCCs, increased miR-127 expression was significantly associated with lymph node metastasis (P = 0.006). Transfection of anti–miR-199a oligonucleotides to cervical cancer cells suppressed cell growth in vitro, which was potentiated with the anticancer agent cisplatin. Conclusions: Our results show that miRNA deregulation may play an important role in the malignant transformation of cervical squamous cells. In addition, they may offer new candidate targets to be exploited for both prognostic and therapeutic strategies in patients with cervical cancer.
Joana Esther Gonzales Malaverri “ Supporting data quality assessment in eScience : a provenance based approach

Data quality is a recurrent concern in all scientific domains. Experiments analyze and manipulate several kinds of datasets, and generate data to be (re)used by other experiments. The basis for obtaining good scientific results is highly associated with the degree of quality of such datasets. However, data involved with the experiments are manipulated by a wide range of users, with distinct research interests, using their own vocabularies, work methodologies, models, and sampling needs. Given this scenario, a challenge in computer science is to come up with solutions that help scientists to assess the quality of their data. Different efforts have been proposed addressing the estimation of quality. Some of these efforts outline that data provenance attributes should be used to evaluate quality. However, most of these initiatives address the evaluation of a specific quality attribute, frequently focusing on atomic data values, thereby reducing the applicability of these approaches. Taking this scenario into account, there is a need for new solutions that scientists can adopt to assess how good their data are. In this PhD research, we present an approach to attack this problem based on the notion of data provenance. Unlike other similar approaches, our proposal combines quality attributes specified within a context by specialists and metadata on the provenance of a data set. The main contributions of this work are: (i) the specification of a framework that takes advantage of data provenance to derive quality information; (ii) a methodology associated with this framework that outlines the procedures to support the assessment of quality; (iii) the proposal of two different provenance models to capture provenance information, for fixed and extensible scenarios; and (iv) validation of items (i) through (iii), with their discussion via case studies in agriculture and biodiversity.
Proinflammatory cytokines decrease the expression of genes critical for RPE function

Purpose Proinflammatory cytokines interferon gamma (IFN-γ), tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α), and interleukin-1 beta (IL-1β) secreted by infiltrating lymphocytes or macrophages may play a role in triggering RPE dysfunction associated with age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Binding of these proinflammatory cytokines to their specific receptors residing on the RPE cell surface can activate signaling pathways that, in turn, may dysregulate cellular gene expression. The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether IFN-γ, TNF-α, and IL-1β have an adverse effect on the expression of genes essential for RPE function, employing the RPE cell line ARPE-19 as a model system. Methods ARPE-19 cells were cultured for 3–4 months until they exhibited epithelial morphology and expressed mRNAs for visual cycle genes. The differentiated cells were treated with IFN-γ, TNF-α, and/or IL-1β, and gene expression was analyzed with real-time PCR analysis. Western immunoblotting was employed for the detection of proteins. Results Proinflammatory cytokines (IFN-γ + TNF-α + IL-1β) greatly increased the expression of chemokines and cytokines in cultured ARPE-19 cells that exhibited RPE characteristics. However, this response was accompanied by markedly decreased expression of genes important for RPE function, such as CDH1, RPE65, RDH5, RDH10, TYR, and MERTK. This was associated with decreased expression of the genes MITF, TRPM1, and TRPM3, as well as microRNAs miR-204 and miR-211, which are known to regulate RPE-specific gene expression. The decreased expression of the epithelial marker gene CDH1 was associated with increased expression of mesenchymal marker genes (CDH2, VIM, and CCND1) and epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) promoting transcription factor genes (ZEB1 and SNAI1). Conclusions RPE cells exposed to proinflammatory cytokines IFN-γ, TNF-α, and IL-1β showed decreased expression of key genes involved in the visual cycle, epithelial morphology, and phagocytosis. This adverse effect of proinflammatory cytokines, which could be secreted by infiltrating lymphocytes or macrophages, on the expression of genes indispensable for RPE function may contribute to the RPE dysfunction implicated in AMD pathology.
A Commercial Internet Presence - Checklist For Consumer-Focused Functionalities

A necessity for a framework for orientation arises due to the number of functionalities applicable for commercial Internet presences. Therefore, the paper presents a checklist for consumer-focused functionalities. This checklist has been confirmed through a pilot study among best practice Internet presences. An additional study, still running, sketches the use of the functionalities identified by commercial Internet presences belonging to companies creating the highest turnovers in their industries in Europe. Further, a follow-up study will be designed in order to create connections describing the preferences and needs of customers based on the functionalities encountered.
Optimizing MapReduce for Multicore Architectures

MapReduce is a programming model for data-parallel programs originally intended for data centers. MapReduce simplifies parallel programming, hiding synchronization and task management. These properties make it a promising programming model for future processors with many cores, and existing MapReduce libraries such as Phoenix have demonstrated that applications written with MapReduce perform competitively with those written with Pthreads [11]. This paper explores the design of the MapReduce data structures for grouping intermediate key/value pairs, which is often a performance bottleneck on multicore processors. The paper finds the best choice depends on workload characteristics, such as the number of keys used by the application, the degree of repetition of keys, etc. This paper also introduces a new MapReduce library, Metis, with a compromise data structure designed to perform well for most workloads. Experiments with the Phoenix benchmarks on a 16-core AMD-based server show that Metis’ data structure performs better than simpler alternatives, including Phoenix.
Recovery in forensic services: facing the challenge

Although there is an increasing focus on recovery within mental health services, there has been limited exploration of the applicability of these principles within forensic services. The authors draw on their experiences within forensic rehabilitation services to discuss the potential obstacles to secure recovery, exploring the systemic and risk management aspects of such a setting as well as considering attachment theory within this context. Some proposals based on clinical experience are given on how such obstacles are faced and tackled.
Development of intuitive operation interface for under floor inspection robot

In underfloor inspection, the worker have to crawl on the ground of the height of 50 cm in dusty floor to inspect posts and basement of the underfloor. Consequently the worker bears heavy load in this work. And these days, a case of an illegal business happens in the underfloor inspection. To solve these problems in the underfloor inspection, we developed an underfloor inspection robot. The robot moves in the underfloor autonomously, and it generates an environmental map with SLAM (simultaneous localization and mapping). In this paper, we show the GUI system for the environment map, with a touch pen of the autonomous inspection robot.
Hybrid fuzzy-feedback linearization controller for precise positioning of a pneumatic system

Feedback linearization control as a powerful technique guarantees the stability and high accuracy tracking in the pneumatic systems. Besides one of the properties of the feedback linearization control is its dependence on the system mathematical equations. Hence in this study, according to the unavoidable simplifications in the model and also the existence of uncertainties, a static state input-output feedback linearization is combined with a fuzzy control system which doesn't need an accurate mathematical model of the system. The presented control system is capable to overcome the nonlinear behaviours and uncertainties. The obtained results indicate the superior performance of the proposed control approach.
Mfold web server for nucleic acid folding and hybridization prediction

The abbreviated name, 'mfold web server', describes a number of closely related software applications available on the World Wide Web (WWW) for the prediction of the secondary structure of single stranded nucleic acids. The objective of this web server is to provide easy access to RNA and DNA folding and hybridization software to the scientific community at large. By making use of universally available web GUIs (Graphical User Interfaces), the server circumvents the problem of portability of this software. Detailed output, in the form of structure plots with or without reliability information, single strand frequency plots and 'energy dot plots', are available for the folding of single sequences. A variety of 'bulk' servers give less information, but in a shorter time and for up to hundreds of sequences at once. The portal for the mfold web server is http://www.bioinfo. rpi.edu/applications/mfold. This URL will be referred to as 'MFOLDROOT'.
Genetic Differentiation in Species of Anopheles from the Subgenera Nyssorhynchus Based on Mitochondrial DNA

Our group analyzed species of Anopheles of the subgenus Nyssorhynchus (An. darlingi, An. marajoara, An. oswaldoi, An. benarrochi, An. triannulatus and An. rangeli) and a single species of the subgenus Anopheles (An. mattogrossensis), originating in the Amazon, based on the mitochondrial DNA control region. The fragment had 381 pb and the nucleotide composition in A+T ranged from 85.8 to 89.5%. DNA polymorphism analysis of the species detected 15 haplotypes, with the presence of 81 polymorphic loci, 95 mutations, haplotypic divergence of 0.879, nucleotide diversity of 0.06507, nucleotide differences pair the pair mean of 23.1749, and the observed and expected variances of 113.840 and 8.33, respectively. The genetic distance among the Anopheles species varied from 0.06 to 1.37%. An. oswaldoi and An. rangeli were the most similar, with nucleotide divergence of 0.17%. The An. benarrochi populations of Ji-Parana and Bolivia showed nucleotide divergence of 0.06%. An. darlingi, An. marajoara and An. triannulatus presented nucleotide divergences of 0.35% between An. triannulatus and An. darlingiand of 0.47% between An. darlingi and An. marajoara. This data showed ample interspecific nucleotide variation, though with low nucleotide divergence. The cladogram separated the species of the subgenus Nyssorhynchus and those of the subgenera Cellia and Anopheles, with 98% bootstrap. The region control data did not show strong phylogenetic support, as indicated by the transition/transversion mean rate (0.4643), which is necessary for increasing fragment size and using other more conservative genes for greater inference concerning the phylogeny of the Anopheles species of the subgenus Nyssorhynchus.
Recovering Dense Stereo Depth Maps Using a Single Gaussian Blurred Structured Light Pattern

In this paper, we present a new single shot structured light method to recover dense depth maps. Contrary to most temporal coding methods which require projecting a series of patterns, our method needs one color pattern only. Unlike most single shot spatial coding methods which establish correspondence along the edges of the captured images, our method produces a dense set of correspondences. Our method is built based on a new important observation that a Gaussian blurred De Bruijn pattern preserves the desirable windowed uniqueness property. A Gaussian blurred De Bruijn pattern is used so that the color of every illuminated pixel is used to its fullest advantage. The simulated experiments show that the proposed method establishes a correspondence set whose density and accuracy are close to that of using a temporal coding method. We also demonstrate the robustness of our approach by applying it to several real-world datasets.
Monte Carlo simulations for clutter statistics in minefields: AP-mine-like-target buried near a dielectric object beneath 2-D random rough ground surfaces

A rigorous three-dimensional (3-D) electromagnetic model is developed to analyze the scattering from anti-personnel (AP) nonmetallic mine-like target when it is buried near a clutter object under two-dimensional (2-D) random rough surfaces. The steepest descent fast multipole method (SDFMM) is implemented to solve for the unknown electric and magnetic surface currents on the ground surface, on the target and on the clutter object. A comprehensive numerical investigation of two clutter sources; the ground roughness and the nearby benign object, is presented based on using more than 800 random rough surface realizations which could not be achieved without using fast algorithms such as the SDFMM. The statistics of the scattered near-electric fields are computed using the Monte Carlo simulations for both polarizations. For the parameters used here, the results show that the average and the standard deviation of the target signature represent 5-7% and 3-3.5% of the total scattered signal, respectively, while they represent 16-20% and 7-12% of the signal for the clutter object, respectively. This study indicates the high possibility of a false alarm during the detection process when the target is located nearby a realistic object such as a piece of a tree root.
An approach to a new innovation model in the media sector: an exploratory case study

The main objective of this paper is to present a new model in order to understand and define the innovation capacity based on the results obtained from a multiple case study in the media sector. This model states that four organizational processes form the innovation capacity: knowledge creation, knowledge absorption, knowledge integration and knowledge reconfiguration, which are underpinned by a coherent mix of four organizational resources. Furthermore, the best practices supporting each one of these resources have been identified.
New Dimensional Staging of Bisphosphonate-Related Osteonecrosis of the Jaw Allowing a Guided Surgical Treatment Protocol: Long-Term Follow-Up of 266 Lesions in Neoplastic and Osteoporotic Patients from the University of Bari

Bisphosphonate-related osteonecrosis of the jaw (BRONJ) is the most serious side effect in patients receiving bisphosphonates (BPs) for neoplastic disease and osteoporosis. The aim of this study is to propose a new dimensional stage classification, guiding the surgical treatment of BRONJ patients, and to evaluate the success rate of this new management. From 2004 to 2013, 203 neoplastic and osteoporotic patients with 266 BRONJ lesions were referred to the Odontostomatology Unit of the University of Bari. All patients underwent surgery after suspension of BPs therapy and antibiotic treatment. The surgical procedure was complemented by piezosurgery and followed by the application of hyaluronate and amino acids. The new dimensional staging suggests the choice of the surgical approach, and allows the prediction of postoperative complications and soft and hard tissues healing time, guiding the surgical treatment protocol. This protocol could be a successful management strategy for BRONJ, considering the low recurrences rate and the good stabilisation of the surgical sites observed after a long-term follow-up.
Exploring heterogeneity of unreliable machines for P2P backup

P2P architecture is a viable option for enterprise backup. In contrast to dedicated backup servers, nowadays a standard solution, making backups directly on organization's workstations should be cheaper (as existing hardware is used), more efficient (as there is no single bottleneck server) and more reliable (as the machines are geographically dispersed). We present the architecture of a p2p backup system that uses pairwise replication contracts between a data owner and a replicator. In contrast to standard p2p storage systems using directly a DHT, the contracts allow our system to optimize replicas' placement depending on a specific optimization strategy, and so to take advantage of the heterogeneity of the machines and the network. Such optimization is particularly appealing in the context of backup: replicas can be geographically dispersed, the load sent over the network can be minimized, or the optimization goal can be to minimize the backup/restore time. However, managing the contracts, keeping them consistent and adjusting them in response to dynamically changing environment is challenging. We built a scientific prototype and ran the experiments on 150 workstations in the university's computer laboratories and, separately, on 50 PlanetLab nodes. We found out that the main factor affecting the quality of the system is the availability of the machines. Yet, our main conclusion is that it is possible to build an efficient and reliable backup system on highly unreliable machines (our computers had just 13% average availability).
Efficient solar energy harvester for wireless sensor nodes

An efficient solar energy harvester for low power wireless sensor node is proposed in this paper. In the proposed harvester, maximum power point tracking (MPPT) is achieved by using constant voltage tracking principle. The implementation of the MPPT control circuit is carried out using analog discrete components. This is to minimize the energy consumption in the electronic circuits. Experimental test results obtained from a Polycrystalline solar panel of 45 mm × 76 mm in the laboratory environment shows an average power harvesting of 400 mW under 1 sun solar insolation. The proposed harvester is used to power a battery which subsequently feeds a sensor node. The harvester system provides an overall efficiency of around 93%. The efficiency calculation takes care of power losses in the power management circuit. The solar energy harvester is also tested with a crossbow wireless sensor node (WSN) to monitor temperature in the actual outdoor field environment. The harvester is able to extend the lifetime of the wireless sensor node to almost indefinite period whereas the battery powered WSN becomes inactive after 150 hours of operation.
Cognitive follow up of a small cohort of Huntington’s disease patients over a 5 year period.

A small group of patients with manifest Huntington's disease (HD) were followed longitudinally to assess cognitive decline in relation to time from disease diagnosis. This article looks at performance on a range of computerised and pencil and paper cognitive tasks in patients 5 years post diagnosis, who were assessed annually for a 5 year follow up period. The almost universal cognitive decline reported in other longitudinal studies of HD was not replicated in this study. It was proposed that longitudinal follow up in HD is complicated by the varying degree to which different tasks are able to withstand repeated administration; a finding which would have significant implications on study design in future trials of cognitive enhansing interventions.