Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Voronoi diagrams—a survey of a fundamental geometric data structure

Computational geometry is concerned with the design and analysis of algorithms for geometrical problems. In addition, other more practically oriented, areas of computer science— such as computer graphics, computer-aided design, robotics, pattern recognition, and operations research—give rise to problems that inherently are geometrical. This is one reason computational geometry has attracted enormous research interest in the past decade and is a well-established area today. (For standard sources, we refer to the survey article by Lee and Preparata [19841 and to the textbooks by Preparata and Shames [1985] and Edelsbrunner [1987bl.) Readers familiar with the literature of computational geometry will have noticed, especially in the last few years, an increasing interest in a geometrical construct called the Voronoi diagram. This trend can also be observed in combinatorial geometry and in a considerable number of articles in natural science journals that address the Voronoi diagram under different names specific to the respective area. Given some number of points in the plane, their Voronoi diagram divides the plane according to the nearest-neighbor
Upper Body Pose Estimation for Team Sports Videos Using a Poselet-Regressor of Spine Pose and Body Orientation Classifiers Conditioned by the Spine Angle Prior

We propose a per-frame upper body pose estimation method for sports players captured in low-resolution team sports videos. Using the head-center-aligned upper body region appearance in each frame from the head tracker, our framework estimates (1) 2D spine pose, composed of the head center and the pelvis center locations, and (2) the orientation of the upper body in each frame. Our framework is composed of three steps. In the first step, the head region of the subject player is tracked with a standard tracking-by-detection technique for upper body appearance alignment. In the second step, the relative pelvis center location from the head center is estimated by our newly proposed poseletregressor in each frame to obtain spine angle priors. In the last step, the body orientation is estimated by the upper body orientation classifier selected by the spine angle range. Owing to the alignment of the body appearance and the usage of multiple body orientation classifiers conditioned by the spine angle prior, our method can robustly estimate the body orientation of a player with a large variation of visual appearances during a game, even during side-poses or self-occluded poses. We tested the performance of our method in both American football and soccer videos.
The Effect of 3.2% and 3.8% Sodium Citrate on Specialized Coagulation Tests.

CONTEXT - Coagulation testing is challenging and depends on preanalytic factors, including the citrate buffer concentration used. OBJECTIVE - To better estimate preanalytic effects of the citrate buffer concentration in use, the difference between results obtained by samples with 3.2% and 3.8% citrate was evaluated. DESIGN - In a prospective observational study with 76 volunteers, differences related to the citrate concentration were evaluated. For both buffer concentrations, reference range intervals were established according to the recommendations of the C28-A3 guideline published by the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute. RESULTS - In our reagent-analyzer settings, most parameters evaluated presented good comparability between citrated samples taken with 3.2% and 3.8% trisodium buffer. The ellagic acid containing activated partial thromboplastin time reagent (aPTT-FS) indicated a systemic and proportional difference between both buffer concentrations, leading to an alteration in its reference ranges. Further, a confirmation test for lupus anticoagulant assessment (Staclot LA) showed only a moderate correlation ( rρ = 0.511) with a proportional deviation between both citrate concentrations. Further, a statistically significant difference was found in the diluted Russell viper venom time confirmation testing, coagulation factors V and VIII, and the protein C activity, which was found to be of minor clinical relevance. CONCLUSIONS - With caution regarding the potential impact of the reagent-analyzer combination, our findings demonstrate the comparability of data assessed with 3.2% and 3.8% buffered citrated plasma. As an exception, the aPTT-FS and the Staclot LA assay were considerably affected by the citrate concentration used. Further studies are required to confirm our finding using different reagent-analyzer combinations.
Activity Crediting in Distributed Workflow Environments

Workflow Management Systems (WfMSs) are increasingly being introduced to deal with cooperative interorganisational business processes. There are many situations in these distributed workflow environments, where, for a given business process, activities might be undertaken in one enterprise that overlap with, or repeat activities undertaken elsewhere. This paper examines such situations in the context of healthcare, where duplicated tests and procedures are costly and can have negative health impacts on patients undergoing unnecessary tests and interventions. Our approach is based on a two-tier goal/process representation of business processes and an execution model comprising a candidate discovery phase, followed by a component crediting phase. We introduce the notions of full vs. partial crediting, goal-level vs. activity-level crediting and examine the role that termporal constraints play in determining candidate components for crediting.
Regulation of rat mesencephalic GABAergic neurones through muscarinic receptors

Central dopamine neurones are involved in regulating cognitive and motor processes. Most of these neurones are located in the ventral mesencephalon where they receive abundant intrinsic and extrinsic GABAergic input. Cholinergic neurones, originating from mesopontine nuclei, project profusely in the mesencephalon where they preferentially synapse onto local GABAergic neurones. The physiological role of this cholinergic innervation of GABAergic neurones remains to be determined, but these observations raise the hypothesis that ACh may regulate dopamine neurones indirectly through GABAergic interneurones. Using a mesencephalic primary culture model, we studied the impact of cholinergic agonists on mesencephalic GABAergic neurones. ACh increased the frequency of spontaneous IPSCs (151 ± 49%). Selective activation of muscarinic receptors increased the firing rate of isolated GABAergic neurones by 67 ± 13%. The enhancement in firing rate was Ca2+ dependent since inclusion of BAPTA in the pipette blocked it, actually revealing a decrease in firing rate accompanied by membrane hyperpolarization. This inhibitory action was prevented by tertiapin, a blocker of GIRK‐type K+ channels. In addition to its excitatory somatodendritic effect, activation of muscarinic receptors also acted presynaptically, inhibiting the amplitude of unitary GABAergic synaptic currents. Both the enhancement in spontaneous IPSC frequency and presynaptic inhibition were abolished by 4‐DAMP (100 nm), a preferential M3 muscarinic receptor antagonist. The presence of M3‐like receptors on mesencephalic GABAergic neurones was confirmed by immunocytochemistry. Taken together, these results demonstrate that mesencephalic GABAergic neurones can be regulated directly through muscarinic receptors. Our findings provide new data that should be helpful in better understanding the influence of local GABAergic neurones during cholinergic activation of mesencephalic circuits.
Associations of Abdominal Obesity and New‐Onset Atrial Fibrillation in the General Population

Background Higher height and weight are known to be associated with higher risk of atrial fibrillation (AF); however, whether the risk of AF is related to abdominal obesity is unclear. Methods and Results We studied 501 690 adults (mean age: 47.6±14.3 years; 250 664 women [50.0%]) without baseline AF in the National Sample Cohort released by the National Health Insurance Service in Korea. Body mass index (underweight defined as <18.5; normal, 18.5 to <25.0; overweight, 25.0 to <30.0; and obese, ≥30.0) and waist circumference (abdominal obesity defined as ≥90 cm for men and ≥80 cm for women) were evaluated. During a mean follow‐up of 3.9±1.3 years, 3443 participants (1432 women [41.6%]) developed AF. In multivariable models adjusted for clinical variables, the AF risk of underweight, overweight, and obese individuals increased by 21% (95% confidence interval, 1.01–1.45, P=0.043), 14% (95% confidence interval, 1.06–1.23, P<0.001), and 52% (95% confidence interval, 1.30–1.78, P<0.001), respectively, compared with those with normal body mass index. AF risk with confounder‐adjusted hazards for abdominal obesity was 18% (95% confidence interval, 1.10–1.27, P<0.001). The increased AF risk was present in abdominally obese individuals regardless of body mass index except for the obese group. In subgroup analysis, abdominal obesity by waist circumference conferred increased risk of new‐onset AF, particularly in participants without comorbidities. Conclusions Abdominal obesity is an important, potentially modifiable risk factor for AF in nonobese Asian persons. These data suggest that interventions to decrease abdominal obesity may reduce the population burden of AF.
A Multiyear Population-Based Study of Kindergarten Language Screening Failure Rates Using the Rice Wexler Test of Early Grammatical Impairment.

Purpose The purpose of this study was to evaluate, over 2 separate school years, the school-district-wide failure rate of kindergartners on a screener of grammatical tense marking-the Rice Wexler Test of Early Grammatical Impairment (TEGI) Screening Test (Rice & Wexler, 2001)-composed of past tense (PT) and third-person singular (3S) probes. Method In the fall of 2 consecutive school years, consented and eligible kindergartners (n = 148 in Year 1, n = 126 in Year 2) in a rural southern school district were administered the TEGI Screening Test. Children who failed the screening test or either of the individual probes (PT or 3S) were administered the Primary Test of Nonverbal Intelligence. All children also completed the Test of Articulation Performance-Screen (Bryant & Bryant, 1983) and, in Year 2, the Get Ready to Read! emergent literacy screener (Whitehurst & Lonigan, 2001). Results The screening tool outcome most closely and consistently aligned with the recommended failure rate of approximately 30% (Oetting, Gregory, & Rivière, 2016; based on Tomblin et al., 1997) was the TEGI PT probe. TEGI Screening Test and 3S probe failure rates fell below the recommended level. Most children who failed the PT probe demonstrated nonverbal intelligence skills within the average range. In addition, most children who failed the PT probe would not have been readily identified on the basis of only the results of their articulation or emergent literacy screenings. Conclusions The TEGI PT probe is an efficient and reliable screener that identifies children for monitoring or additional language assessment. Children with language vulnerabilities are not necessarily identified by articulation or emergent literacy screenings at entry to kindergarten. To identify children at risk for language impairment, it is therefore necessary to directly screen oral language.
Dimension reduction for the emulation of cardiac electrophysiology models for single cells and tissue

Widespread variability in the electrophysiological behaviour of individual cardiac cells, as well as between the hearts of different members of a population, presents a significant challenge to both the biological and mathematical understanding of cardiology. This variability underpins the differential responses to heterogeneities in pathologies of the heart, and to drug treatments, and so a thorough understanding is critical. A range of techniques exist for both uncertainty quantification and exploration of variability in mathematical models, but these require evaluation of the model at large numbers of points in a parameter space and the complexity of these models can make such analyses prohibitively computationally expensive. We demonstrate the use of dimension reduction to allow Gaussian processes to emulate the complex spatiotemporal outputs of heart models, thus making studies of variability feasible. Significant improvements in computational speed are achieved.
Frontline treatment of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma in elderly: a systematic review of clinical trials in post-rituximab era

Abstract Treatment of diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) remains challenging in elderly population and systematic reviews are lacking in this area. Medline and Cochrane Register of Controlled Trials in addition to conference proceedings were searched for therapeutic clinical trials on frontline treatment of DLBCL in adults ≥60 in post-rituximab era. Forty-one out of 713 reviewed papers met our inclusion criteria. Six cycles of rituximab, cyclophosphamide, vincristine, prednisone (R-CHOP) administered every 21 d remain the standard treatment for fit elderly, with no role for maintenance rituximab. For individuals ≥80, the strongest evidence favors rituximab/ofatumumab-miniCHOP. Numerous alternative approaches including the use of liposomal anthracyclines, dose and regimen adjustment to frailty/comorbidity score, brief duration regimens, and consolidative radioimmunotherapy have produced promising outcomes and could be considered for R-CHOP inappropriate elderly. Phase III randomized trials studying the efficacy of liposomal vincristine, extended-exposure rituximab, and lenalidomide plus R-CHOP are ongoing.
Exploring movement and energy in human P-glycoprotein conformational rearrangement

Human P-glycoprotein (P-gp), a kind of ATP-Binding Cassette transporter, can export a diverse variety of anti-cancer drugs out of the tumor cell. Its overexpression is one of the main reasons for the multidrug resistance (MDR) of tumor cells. It has been confirmed that during the substrate transport process, P-gp experiences a large-scale structural rearrangement from the inward- to outward-facing states. However, the mechanism of how the nucleotide-binding domains (NBDs) control the transmembrane domains (TMDs) to open towards the periplasm in the outward-facing state has not yet been fully characterized. Herein, targeted molecular dynamics simulations were performed to explore the conformational rearrangement of human P-gp. The results show that the allosteric process proceeds in a coupled way, and first the transition is driven by the NBDs, and then transmitted to the cytoplasmic parts of TMDs, finally to the periplasmic parts. The trajectories show that besides the translational motions, the NBDs undergo a rotation movement, which mainly occurs in xy plane and ensures the formation of the correct ATP-binding pockets. The analyses on the interaction energies between the six structure segments (cICLs) from the TMDs and NBDs reveal that their subtle energy differences play an important role in causing the periplasmic parts of the transmembrane helices to separate from each other in the established directions and in appropriate amplitudes. This conclusion can explain the two experimental phenomena about human P-gp in some extent. These studies have provided a detailed exploration into human P-gp rearrangement process and given an energy insight into the TMD reorientation during P-gp transition.
LABORATORY PHOTO-CHEMISTRY OF PAHs: IONIZATION VERSUS FRAGMENTATION

Interstellar polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are expected to be strongly processed by vacuum ultraviolet photons. Here, we report experimental studies on the ionization and fragmentation of coronene (C24H12), ovalene (C32H14) and hexa-peri-hexabenzocoronene (HBC; C42H18) cations by exposure to synchrotron radiation in the range of 8–40 eV. The results show that for small PAH cations such as coronene, fragmentation (H-loss) is more important than ionization. However, as the size increases, ionization becomes more and more important and for the HBC cation, ionization dominates. These results are discussed and it is concluded that, for large PAHs, fragmentation only becomes important when the photon energy has reached the highest ionization potential accessible. This implies that PAHs are even more photo-stable than previously thought. The implications of this experimental study for the photo-chemical evolution of PAHs in the interstellar medium are briefly discussed.
Best core stabilization exercise to facilitate subcortical neuroplasticity: A functional MRI neuroimaging study.

OBJECTIVE To investigate the effects of conscious (ADIM) and subconscious (DNS) core stabilization exercises on cortical changes in adults with core instability. PARTICIPANTS Five non-symptomatic participants with core instability. METHODS A novel core stabilization task switching paradigm was designed to separate cortical or subcortical neural substrates during a series of DNS or ADIM core stabilization tasks. RESULTS fMRI blood BOLD analysis revealed a distinctive subcortical activation pattern during the performance of the DNS, whereas the cortical motor network was primarily activated during an ADIM. Peak voxel volume values showed significantly greater DNS (11.08 ± 1.51) compared with the ADIM (8.81 ± 0.21) (p= 0.043). CONCLUSION The ADIM exercise activated the cortical PMC-SMC-SMA motor network, whereas the DNS exercise activated both these same cortical areas and the subcortical cerebellum-BG-thalamus-cingulate cortex network.
Generative Spectrogram Factorization Models for Polyphonic Piano Transcription

We introduce a framework for probabilistic generative models of time-frequency coefficients of audio signals, using a matrix factorization parametrization to jointly model spectral characteristics such as harmonicity and temporal activations and excitations. The models represent the observed data as the superposition of statistically independent sources, and we consider variance-based models used in source separation and intensity-based models for non-negative matrix factorization. We derive a generalized expectation-maximization algorithm for inferring the parameters of the model and then adapt this algorithm for the task of polyphonic transcription of music using labeled training data. The performance of the system is compared to that of existing discriminative and model-based approaches on a dataset of solo piano music.
Modularized Extracellular Vesicles: The Dawn of Prospective Personalized and Precision Medicine

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are ubiquitous nanosized membrane vesicles consisting of a lipid bilayer enclosing proteins and nucleic acids, which are active in intercellular communications. EVs are increasingly seen as a vital component of many biological functions that were once considered to require the direct participation of stem cells. Consequently, transplantation of EVs is gradually becoming considered an alternative to stem cell transplantation due to their significant advantages, including their relatively low probability of neoplastic transformation and abnormal differentiation. However, as research has progressed, it is realized that EVs derived from native‐source cells may have various shortcomings, which can be corrected by modification and optimization. To date, attempts are made to modify or improve almost all the components of EVs, including the lipid bilayer, proteins, and nucleic acids, launching a new era of modularized EV therapy through the “modular design” of EV components. One high‐yield technique, generating EV mimetic nanovesicles, will help to make industrial production of modularized EVs a reality. These modularized EVs have highly customized “modular design” components related to biological function and targeted delivery and are proposed as a promising approach to achieve personalized and precision medicine.
Learning a Set of Interrelated Tasks by Using Sequences of Motor Policies for a Strategic Intrinsically Motivated Learner

We propose an active learning architecture for robots, capable of organizing its learning process to achieve a field of complex tasks by learning sequences of motor policies, called Intrinsically Motivated Procedure Babbling (IM-PB). The learner can generalize over its experience to continuously learn new tasks. It chooses actively what and how to learn based by empirical measures of its own progress. In this paper, we are considering the learning of a set of interrelated tasks outcomes hierarchically organized. We introduce a framework called ""procedures", which are sequences of policies defined by the combination of previously learned skills. Our algorithmic architecture uses the procedures to autonomously discover how to combine simple skills to achieve complex goals. It actively chooses between 2 strategies of goal-directed exploration: exploration of the policy space or the procedural space. We show on a simulated environment that our new architecture is capable of tackling the learning of complex motor policies, to adapt the complexity of its policies to the task at hand. We also show that our ""procedures"" framework helps the learner to tackle difficult hierarchical tasks.
The generalized distance spectrum of a graph and applications

ABSTRACT The generalized distance matrix of a graph is the matrix whose entries depend only on the pairwise distances between vertices, and the generalized distance spectrum is the set of eigenvalues of this matrix. This framework generalizes many of the commonly studied spectra of graphs. We show that for a large class of graphs these eigenvalues can be computed explicitly. We also present the applications of our results to competition models in ecology and rapidly mixing Markov chains.
Dynamics analysis of a predator–prey system with harvesting prey and disease in prey species

ABSTRACT In this paper, a predator–prey system with harvesting prey and disease in prey species is given. In the absence of time delay, the existence and stability of all equilibria are investigated. In the presence of time delay, some sufficient conditions of the local stability of the positive equilibrium and the existence of Hopf bifurcation are obtained by analysing the corresponding characteristic equation, and the properties of Hopf bifurcation are given by using the normal form theory and centre manifold theorem. Furthermore, an optimal harvesting policy is investigated by applying the Pontryagin's Maximum Principle. Numerical simulations are performed to support our analytic results.