Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multisensor Imaging and Virtual Simulation for Assessment, Diagnosis, Therapy Planning, and Navigation

Images and data representing morphology, function, and metabolism are medically produced in the scope of specific protocols and pathologies. Although generally assessed individually, these data can also be merged together into a multidimensional digital space that simulates the reality of the patient from many different perspectives. This space can then be navigated at will along any dimension, not only for diagnosis but also to plan, simulate, or monitor surgery or other types of therapy. These approaches can be used for addressing various research or clinical needs such as the primary and secondary assessments of complex pathologies, including cancer and epilepsy. Concepts such as those presented in this article represent an adequate foundation not only for an optimum exploitation of all available information for in-vivo assessment and therapy guidance but also for a more effective assessment of the full scope and requirements of live systems simulation(s) accurate enough for supporting clinical and research developments.
Moment Based Painterly Rendering Using Connected Color Components

Research and development of Non-Photorealistic Rendering algorithms has recently moved towards the use of computer vision algorithms to extract image features. The feature representation capabilities of image moments could be used effectively for the selection of brush-stroke characteristics for painterly-rendering applications. This technique is based on the estimation of local geometric features from the intensity distribution in small windowed images to obtain the brush size, color and direction. This thesis proposes an improvement of this method, by additionally extracting the connected components so that the adjacent regions of similar color are grouped for generating large and noticeable brush-stroke images. An iterative coarse-tofine rendering algorithm is developed for painting regions of varying color frequencies. Improvements over the existing technique are discussed with several examples
The Political Economy of Trade Policy: Papers in Honor of Jagdish Bhagwati

This collection of papers by former students and colleagues celebrates the profound impact that Jagdish Bhagwati has had on the field of international economics over the past three decades. Bhagwati, who is the Arthur Lehman Professor of Economics at Columbia University, has made pathbreaking contributions to the theory of international trade and commercial policy, including immiserizing growth, domestic distortions, economic development, and political economy. His success and influence as a teacher and mentor is widely recognized among students at both MIT and Columbia, and as founder of the Journal of International Economics, he has encouraged research on many questions of theoretical and policy relevance. The political economy of trade policy, Bhagwati's most recent area of interest, is the theme of this collection which addresses salient topics including market distortions, income distribution, and the political process of policy-making.
Routability-driven placement and white space allocation

We present a two-stage congestion-driven placement flow. First, during each refinement stage of our multilevel global placement framework, we replace cells based on the wirelength weighted by congestion level to reduce the routing demands of congested regions. Second, after the global placement stage, we allocate appropriate amounts of white space into different regions of the chip according to a congestion map by shifting cut lines in a top-down fashion and apply a detailed placer to legalize the placement and further reduce the half-perimeter wirelength while preserving the distribution of white space. Experimental results show that our placement flow can achieve the best routability with the shortest routed wirelength among publicly available placement tools on IBM v2 benchmarks. Our placer obtains 100% successful routings on 16 IBM v2 benchmarks with shorter routed wirelengths by 3.1% to 24.5% compared to other placement tools. Moreover, our white space allocation approach can significantly improve the routability of placements generated by other placement tools.
Endothelial Progenitors Exist within the Kidney and Lung Mesenchyme

The renal endothelium has been debated as arising from resident hemangioblast precursors that transdifferentiate from the nephrogenic mesenchyme (vasculogenesis) and/or from invading vessels (angiogenesis). While the Foxd1-positive renal cortical stroma has been shown to differentiate into cells that support the vasculature in the kidney (including vascular smooth muscle and pericytes) it has not been considered as a source of endothelial cell progenitors. In addition, it is unclear if Foxd1-positive mesenchymal cells in other organs such as the lung have the potential to form endothelium. This study examines the potential for Foxd1-positive cells of the kidney and lung to give rise to endothelial progenitors. We utilized immunofluorescence (IF) and fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) to co-label Foxd1-expressing cells (including permanently lineage-tagged cells) with endothelial markers in embryonic and postnatal mice. We also cultured FACsorted Foxd1-positive cells, performed in vitro endothelial cell tubulogenesis assays and examined for endocytosis of acetylated low-density lipoprotein (Ac-LDL), a functional assay for endothelial cells. Immunofluorescence and FACS revealed that a subset of Foxd1-positive cells from kidney and lung co-expressed endothelial cell markers throughout embryogenesis. In vitro, cultured embryonic Foxd1-positive cells were able to differentiate into tubular networks that expressed endothelial cell markers and were able to endocytose Ac-LDL. IF and FACS in both the kidney and lung revealed that lineage-tagged Foxd1-positive cells gave rise to a significant portion of the endothelium in postnatal mice. In the kidney, the stromal-derived cells gave rise to a portion of the peritubular capillary endothelium, but not of the glomerular or large vessel endothelium. These findings reveal the heterogeneity of endothelial cell lineages; moreover, Foxd1-positive mesenchymal cells of the developing kidney and lung are a source of endothelial progenitors that are likely critical to patterning the vasculature.
Abnormalities of White Matter Microstructure in Unmedicated Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Changes after Medication

Background Abnormalities of myelin integrity have been reported in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) using multi-parameter maps of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). However, it was still unknown to what degree these abnormalities might be affected by pharmacological treatment. Objective To investigate whether the abnormalities of white matter microstructure including myelin integrity exist in OCD and whether they are affected by medication. Methodology and Principal Findings Parameter maps of DTI, including fractional anisotropy (FA), axial diffusivity (AD), radial diffusivity (RD) and mean diffusivity (MD), were acquired from 27 unmedicated OCD patients (including 13 drug-naïve individuals) and 23 healthy controls. Voxel-based analysis was then performed to detect regions with significant group difference. We compared the DTI-derived parameters of 15 patients before and after 12-week Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor (SSRI) therapies. Significant differences of DTI-derived parameters were observed between OCD and healthy groups in multiple structures, mainly within the fronto-striato-thalamo-cortical loop. An increased RD in combination with no change in AD among OCD patients was found in the left medial superior frontal gyrus, temporo-parietal lobe, occipital lobe, striatum, insula and right midbrain. There was no statistical difference in DTI-derived parameters between drug-naive and previously medicated OCD patients. After being medicated, OCD patients showed a reduction in RD of the left striatum and right midbrain, and in MD of the right midbrain. Conclusion Our preliminary findings suggest that abnormalities of white matter microstructure, particularly in terms of myelin integrity, are primari ly located within the fronto-striato-thalamo-cortical circuit of individuals with OCD. Some abnormalities may be partly reversed by SSRI treatment.
Frizzled-5 Receptor Is Involved in Neuronal Polarity and Morphogenesis of Hippocampal Neurons

The Wnt signaling pathway plays important roles during different stages of neuronal development, including neuronal polarization and dendritic and axonal outgrowth. However, little is known about the identity of the Frizzled receptors mediating these processes. In the present study, we investigated the role of Frizzled-5 (Fzd5) on neuronal development in cultured Sprague-Dawley rat hippocampal neurons. We found that Fzd5 is expressed early in cultured neurons on actin-rich structures localized at minor neurites and axonal growth cones. At 4 DIV, Fzd5 polarizes towards the axon, where its expression is detected mainly at the peripheral zone of axonal growth cones, with no obvious staining at dendrites; suggesting a role of Fzd5 in neuronal polarization. Overexpression of Fzd5 during the acquisition of neuronal polarity induces mislocalization of the receptor and a loss of polarized axonal markers. Fzd5 knock-down leads to loss of axonal proteins, suggesting an impaired neuronal polarity. In contrast, overexpression of Fzd5 in neurons that are already polarized did not alter polarity, but decreased the total length of axons and increased total dendrite length and arborization. Fzd5 activated JNK in HEK293 cells and the effects triggered by Fzd5 overexpression in neurons were partially prevented by inhibition of JNK, suggesting that a non-canonical Wnt signaling mechanism might be involved. Our results suggest that, Fzd5 has a role in the establishment of neuronal polarity, and in the morphogenesis of neuronal processes, in part through the activation of the non-canonical Wnt mechanism involving JNK.
Thermal phase curves of nontransiting terrestrial exoplanets - I. Characterizing atmospheres

Context. Although transit spectroscopy is a very powerful method for studying the composition, thermal properties, and dynamics of exoplanet atmospheres, only a few transiting terrestrial exoplanets will be close enough to allow significant transit spectroscopy with the current and forthcoming generations of instruments. Thermal phase curves (variations in the apparent infrared emission of the planet with its orbital phase) have been observed for hot Jupiters in both transiting and nontransiting configurations, and have been used to put constraints on the temperature distribution and atmospheric circulation. This method could be applied to hot terrestrial exoplanets. Aims. We study the wavelength and phase changes of the thermal emission of a tidally-locked terrestrial planet as atmospheric pressure increases. We address the observability of these multiband phase curves and the ability to use them to detect atmospheric constituents. Methods. We used a 3D climate model (GCM) to simulate the CO2 atmosphere of a terrestrial planet on an 8-day orbit around an M 3 dwarf and its apparent infrared emission as a function of its orbital phase. We estimated the signal to photon-noise ratio in narrow bands between 2.5 and 20 μm for a 10 pc target observed with a 6 m and a 1.5 m telescope (respectively the sizes of JWST and EChO). Results. Atmospheric absorption bands produce associated signatures in what we call the variation spectrum. Atmospheric windows probing the near surface atmospheric layers are needed to produce large, observable phase-curve amplitudes. The number and transparency of these windows, hence the observability of the phase curves and the molecular signatures, decreases with increasing pressure. Planets with no atmosphere produce large variations and can be easily distinguished from dense absorbing atmospheres. Conclusions. Photon-noise limited spectro-photometry of nearby systems could allow us to detect and characterize the atmosphere of nontransiting terrestrial planets known from radial velocity surveys. Two obvious impediments to these types of observations are the required photometric sensitivity (10 −5 ) over the duration of at least one orbit (8-days in the studied case) and the intrinsic stellar variability. However, overcoming these obstacles would give access to one order of magnitude more targets than does transit spectroscopy.
EcoSensor: Monitoring environmental pollution using mobile sensors

Air pollution monitoring has become an essential requirement for cities worldwide. Currently, the most extended way to monitor air pollution is via fixed monitoring stations, which are expensive and hard to install. To solve this problem, we have developed EcoSensor, a solution to monitor air pollution through mobile sensors. It is deployed with off-the-shelf hardware such as Waspmote (based on the Arduino platform), low-end sensors, and Raspberry Pi devices.
The missing ones: Key ingredients towards effective ambient assisted living systems

The population of elderly people keeps increasing rapidly in the past decades, which becomes a predominant aspect of our societies. As such, solutions both efficacious and cost-effective need to be sought. Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) is a new approach which promises to address the needs from elderly people. In this paper, we claim that human participation is a key ingredient towards effective AAL systems, which not only saves social resources, but also has positive influence on the psychological health of the elderly people. Challenges in increasing human participation in ambient assisted living are dis-cussed in this paper and solutions to meet those challenges are also proposed. We use our proposed mutual assistance commu-nity, which is built with service oriented architecture, as an example to demonstrate how to integrate human tasks in AAL sys-tems. Our preliminary simulation results are presented, which support the effectiveness of human participation.
Entrepreneurial Social Capital Unplugged

First, we develop a macro level explanation for how changes in social capital occur. Second, we apply a dynamic approach to social capital by examining on a more micro level the activities which are involved with and contribute to the increase or decrease in social capital in, largely dyadic, relationships within entrepreneurial networks.Third, we propose a more robust notion of social capital.We found that five key relationship-driving forces were involved in developing social capital.The research findings suggested that entrepreneurs seem to have a strikingly similar modus operandi when it comes to creating and destroying their network social capital. Activities such as the reciprocal trading of favours, socializing, joint problem-solving, delivering to expectation and using transparent communications were crucial to both. Finally, we discovered that entrepreneurs managed their network relationships heuristically relying on social capital, particularly by leveraging the productive ambiguity of this crucial [net]work asset.
An Approach for Predicting Related Word for the Hindi Language

Without motivation, writing may be a cumbersome process. In this work, a methodology is proposed which will assist user by providing some reference information e.g. related words while composing an article or message. Smart systems with related word prediction have turned out to be extremely prevalent for English language but there is no such big efforts for Hindi language. The main goal of this dissertation work is to provide syntactically and semantically related words based on continuous feature vector representation. Continuous Bag of Words (CBOW) language model is used to get the feature vector representation of each word in training set. Cosine Distance and rule based strategy is used as measurement to find the most related word in context. In a comparative study we reasoned that our method excels in accuracy estimation than existing method. This approach will help Hindi writing in an effective and creative manner. General Terms Natural Language Processing, Neural Network.
The Distribution and the Effects of Opportunity To Learn on Mathematics Achievement.

The focus of this paper is to further understanding of the distribution and the effects of an expanded conception of opportunity to learn on student mathematics achievement. In addition to descriptive statistics, a set of two-level hierarchical linear models was employed to analyze a subset of the restricted-use National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 database. The results revealed that on different scales, various kinds of opportunities to learn mathematics are associated with student mathematics achievement, and opportunities are unequally distributed among different categories of schools. Four implications for educational policymaking are provided. They are: (1) the need to recruit, retrain, and retain teachers with adequate mathematical knowledge; (2) to encourage high content and level of instruction (including a high level of instruction, broad coverage, and an optimum amount of homework, which should be meaningful rather than merely busywork); (3) to provide more advanced mathematics courses, including replacing general mathematics with more advanced courses for the majority of the student body without decreasing the content; and (4) to increase learning opportunities in disadvantaged areas. Contains 85 references and 4 data tables. (Author/PVD) ******************************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ******************************************************************************** THE DISTRIBUTION AND THE EFFECTS OF OPPORTUNITY TO LEARN ON MATHEMATICS ACHIEVEMENT
Adaptive Designs in Clinical Drug Development—An Executive Summary of the PhRMA Working Group

A PhRMA Working Group on adaptive clinical trial designs has been formed to investigate and facilitate opportunities for wider acceptance and usage of adaptive designs and related methodologies. A White Paper summarizing the findings of the group is in preparation; this article is an Executive Summary for that full White Paper, and summarizes the findings and recommendations of the group. Logistic, operational, procedural, and statistical challenges associated with adaptive designs are addressed. Three particular areas where it is felt that adaptive designs can be utilized beneficially are discussed: dose finding, seamless Phase II/III trials designs, and sample size reestimation.
Two-Stage Beamformer Design for Massive MIMO Downlink By Trace Quotient Formulation

In this paper, the problem of outer beamformer design based only on channel statistic information is considered for two-stage beamforming for multi-user massive MIMO downlink, and the problem is approached based on signal-to-leakage-plus-noise ratio (SLNR). To eliminate the dependence on the instantaneous channel state information, a lower bound on the average SLNR is derived by assuming zero-forcing (ZF) inner beamforming, and an outer beamformer design method that maximizes the lower bound on the average SLNR is proposed. It is shown that the proposed SLNR-based outer beamformer design problem reduces to a trace quotient problem (TQP), which is often encountered in the field of machine learning. An iterative algorithm is presented to obtain an optimal solution to the proposed TQP. The proposed method has the capability of optimally controlling the weighting factor between the signal power to the desired user and the interference leakage power to undesired users according to different channel statistics. Numerical results show that the proposed outer beamformer design method yields significant performance gain over existing methods.
Infanoid: An Experimental Tool for Developmental Psycho-Robotics

Recent studies of humanoid robotics (Brooks 1998) have claimed that natural communication with human beings requires that the artificial agent possesses two essential features: embodiment, sharing a structurally and functionally similar body with the interlocutor, and situatedness, being embedded in the same socio-cultural environment (Zlatev 1999). However, almost no specific methods have been proposed so far to bridge the gap between these two prerequisites and thereby answer the question: how do artificial embodied agents become situated in a shared socio-cultural environment?
Localization of extended intracerebral current sources: Application to epilepsy

We propose a new method for localizing intracerebral current sources at the origin of epileptic spikes from non-invasive EEG/MEG data. This method was designed to account for three main constrains. First, most relevant spike generation models assume that sources are extended, i.e. spatially distributed over a focal or muti-focal area. Second, the background activity of the brain also contributes to EEG/MEG signals recorded during epileptic events. In this context, it can be seen as a penalizing Gaussian and spatially correlated noise. Third the array manifold is usually corrupted by errors due to the complexity of the conduction head volume. The proposed method is an adaptation of the well-established MUSIC method, that allows for the localization of Extended Sources (ExSo) assuming that all current dipoles comprised in the extended source are synchronous. In addition, we use Higher Order (HO) statistics, which are asymptotically insensitive to a Gaussian noise of unknown spatial coherence and which offer a greater robustness with respect to modeling errors. The method is called 2q-ExSo-MUSIC (q ≥ 2) as it combines the ExSo-MUSIC principle with the use of HO statistics. Using computer simulations of EEG signals, it is shown to highly increase the performance of classical MUSIC-like algorithms when physiologically relevant models for current sources and for volume conduction are considered.
Análisis de las funciones de importación y exportación de México (1980-2000)

En este articulo se estudian las funciones de largo plazo y la dinamica del comercio exterior de Mexico con datos agregados y desagregados. Las exportaciones totales dependen del indice de la produccion industrial de los Estado Unidos y del tipo de cambio real. El nivel de las importaciones totales es funcion del indice de produccion industrial en Mexico, del nivel de las exportaciones totales y del tipo de cambio real. Un resultado importante es que casi todas la funciones, tanto de largo como de corto plazos, son estables para el periodo 1990-2000, mientras que ninguna lo es para toda la muestra. Esto sugiere que la apertura comercial de los anos ochenta provoco un cambio estructural muy pronunciado en el comercio exterior mexicano y que el TLCAN es la continuacion natural de dicho proceso.
A Framework for the Computational Approach to Cellular Metabolism Supporting Neuronal Activity (Invited Paper)

An organic suspension, such as sewage sludge, is conditioned by adding a conditioner and then filtering the suspension through a filter element to form a filter cake on the element. Improved dryness properties of the cake are obtained by using as conditioner during the formation of at least the first half (by weight solids), but not all, of the cake a high molecular weight polyelectrolyte conditioner and by using as conditioner during the formation of the remainder of the cake an inorganic conditioner or a low molecular weight polyelectrolyte conditioner.