Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Clonal fluctuation within the haematopoietic system of mice reconstituted with retrovirus‐infected stem cells.

The clonal make‐up of the haematopoietic system of mice reconstituted with retrovirus‐infected bone marrow cells was analysed at two different points in time following reconstitution. We have found that under these conditions, the haematopoietic system consists of clones that persist throughout the 5 month course of the experiment as well as those which undergo temporal changes. The various changes that we have observed included the appearance of a new clone(s) in all lineages, the loss of a clone from some lineages and the shift in the appearance of a clone from one lineage to another. In addition, we provide evidence which suggests that the clonal make‐up of the thymus changes with time; early after reconstitution it consists of many clones, whereas at the later time‐points it contains a limited number of predominant clones. These studies document the dramatic clonal changes which occur within the various lineages for a long time following reconstitution and highlight the difficulty in demonstrating lineage‐specific stem cells.
Biosensors in Health Care: The Milestones Achieved in Their Development towards Lab-on-Chip-Analysis

Immense potentiality of biosensors in medical diagnostics has driven scientists in evolution of biosensor technologies and innovating newer tools in time. The cornerstone of the popularity of biosensors in sensing wide range of biomolecules in medical diagnostics is due to their simplicity in operation, higher sensitivity, ability to perform multiplex analysis, and capability to be integrated with different function by the same chip. There remains a huge challenge to meet the demands of performance and yield to its simplicity and affordability. Ultimate goal stands for providing point-of-care testing facility to the remote areas worldwide, particularly the developing countries. It entails continuous development in technology towards multiplexing ability, fabrication, and miniaturization of biosensor devices so that they can provide lab-on-chip-analysis systems to the community.
Domain decomposition and high order methods for the solution of partial differential systems of equations. Application to fluid dynamics and electromagnetism

My main research topic is about developing new domain decomposition algorithms for the solution of systems of partial differential equations. This was mainly applied to fluid dynamics problems (as compressible Euler or Stokes equations) and electromagnetics (time-harmonic and time-domain first order system of Maxwell's equations). Since the solution of large linear systems is strongly related to the application of a discretization method, I was also interested in developing and analyzing the application of high order methods (such as Discontinuos Galerkin methods) to Maxwell's equations (sometimes in conjuction with time-discretization schemes in the case of time-domain problems). As an active member of NACHOS pro ject (besides my main afiliation as an assistant professor at University of Nice), I had the opportunity to develop certain directions in my research, by interacting with permanent et non-permanent members (Post-doctoral researchers) or participating to supervision of PhD Students. This is strongly refflected in a part of my scientific contributions so far. This memoir is composed of three parts: the first is about the application of Schwarz methods to fluid dynamics problems; the second about the high order methods for the Maxwell's equations and the last about the domain decomposition algorithms for wave propagation problems.
Statin Adherence, Utilisation, and Prescribing Patterns. Improving effectiveness of treatment

Heli Halava Statin adherence, utilisation, and prescribing patterns. Improving effectiveness of treatment. University of Turku, Faculty of Medicine Department of Public Health and Department of Pharmacology, Drug Development and Therapeutics University of Turku Doctoral Programme of Clinical Investigation Annales Universitatis Turkuensis, Medica-Odontologica, Turku, Finland, 2016 Statins are one of the most widely studied and evidence-based medications. Randomised controlled trials have provided convincing evidence on the benefits of statin therapy in preventing cardiovascular events. Despite proven benefits, low costs, and few adverse effects, everyday effectiveness of statins is limited, since adherence to statin therapy is poor. This thesis was conducted as four pharmacoepidemiological studies using register data on statin users in real clinical care. The main purpose of the study was to evaluate prescribing patterns and to discover the lifestyle factors predicting statin nonadherence and discontinuation. This knowledge is essential in order to help physicians to motivate the adherence of their patients to treatment. In Finland, from 1998 to 2004, the number of statin initiators nearly doubled. The discovered channelling of atorvastatin and simvastatin may have affected the treatment outcomes at the public health level. It is possible that money spent on statins in Finland in 1998‒2004 could have been used in a more cost-effective way. In 2015, the percentage of patients receiving reimbursement for statins was 12% of the total population. Thus, it is a major public health and economic challenge to improve statin effectiveness and allocate therapy correctly. Among the participants with cardiovascular comorbidities, risky alcohol use or clustering of lifestyle risks were predictors of nonadherence. In addition, the prevalence of nonadherence to statins increased after retirement among both men and women. This increase in post-retirement nonadherence was highest among those receiving statins for secondary prevention. Discontinuation of statin therapy was predicted by high patient co-payment, and in women, by risky alcohol use. Recognising the predictors of nonadherence to statins is important because nonadherence is associated with an increased risk of adverse cardiovascular outcomes and higher healthcare costs. In conclusion, optimal outcomes in medical therapy require both efficacious medications and adherence to those treatments. When prescribing statins to eligible patients, the physician’s clinical expertise in recognising patients at risk of statin discontinuation and nonadherence, as well as their ability to increase adherence, may have a great effect on public health.
HLA-G Gene Polymorphism in Human Placentas: Possible Association of G*0106 Allele with Preeclampsia and Miscarriage

Abstract Definite causes for several pathologies of pregnancy remain unknown. In light of several recent studies, however, diminished or aberrant HLA-G expression may be associated with certain complication of pregnancy and be linked to HLA-G polymorphism. We analyzed DNA from 60 normal placentas (controls), 140 placentas from miscarriage, 36 placentas from preeclampsia, 76 placentas from fetal hypotrophy, and 34 placentas with hypoxia for variations in coding regions (allelic groups G*0101 to G*0107) and the 14-bp deletion/insertion into the 3′-untranslated region. No statistically significant differences were observed in the distribution of allelic group between pathological placentas and controls with the exception of G*0106 allele frequency in preeclamptic compared with control placentas (21.2% and 6.6%, respectively). A greater frequency of this allele also was observed in the two subgroups of miscarriage and hypoxia compared with that in controls. In addition, presence of the 14-bp sequence was prominent in preeclampsia compared with controls (60.8% vs. 35%, respectively), and homozygotes with deletion were not detected in the pathology. The results suggest that the G*0106 allele, which is coupled with the presence of the 14-bp sequence, contributes and/or is a relevant marker in some specific complications of pregnancy, especially preeclampsia.
The destabilizing elements in the coding region of c-fos mRNA are recognized as RNA

The protein-coding region of the c-fos proto-oncogene transcript contains elements that direct the rapid deadenylation and decay of this mRNA in mammalian cells. The function of these coding region instability determinants requires movement of ribosomes across mRNAs containing them. Three types of mechanisms could account for this translational requirement. Two of these possibilities, (i) that rapid mRNA decay might be mediated by the nascent polypeptide chain and (ii) that it might result from an unusual codon usage, have experimental precedent. Here, we present evidence that the destabilizing elements in the c-fos coding region are not recognized in either of these two ways. Instead, the ability of the c-fos coding region to function as a potent mRNA destabilizer when translated in the +1 reading frame indicates that the signals for rapid deadenylation and decay reside in the sequence or structure of the RNA comprising this c-fos domain.
Layered and weighted methodology to Workflow evaluation

Software quality improvement for product or service must begin from its root, i.e., Workflow (WF) processes and consequently extend its benefits to knowledge management. However, most research on Workflow Management Systems (WFMS) focus on prediction, tracking and monitoring, not on evaluation of these processes. We propose a weighted layered methodology to assess diverse WF to form best WF practices, consequently enhancing the value of managed knowledge and to enable update, reuse and refinement of codified knowledge in meta-models and reference meta-models, which subsequently can function as implementation roadmaps. Findings from surveys on two airline systems are presented.
Development of Complex Software with Agile Method

Agile Software Development (ASD) has been on mainstream through methodologies such as XP and Scrum enabling them to be applied in the development of complex and reliable software systems. This paper is the end result of the Master's dissertation of the main author, and proposes a solution to guide the development of complex systems based on components by adding exceptional behavior modeling practices to Scrum, resulting in the Scrum+CE method (Scrum with Exceptional Behavior). In order to evaluate the proposed method, a synthetic controlled experiment was conducted with three groups. We compared the efficiency of the new process in relation to plain Scrum and the results were the production of a better quality software but with less features implemented during the same amount of time.
Contour following parallel thinning for simple binary images

Thinning is a process of reducing the width of an image to just a single pixel. The resulting thinned pattern is useful for topological analysis and classification for the shape of patterns containing elongated or line-like parts such as printed or handwritten characters. Some existing well-known thinning algorithms were studied. Based on the information obtained from the study, we designed and implemented a new thinning algorithm known as CFPTA. The algorithm uses contour following parallel processing and a lookup table for the determination of pixel deletion. The processing time of CFPTA is fast in general. Although the skeletons generated are not perfect, edges are shortened, and all other characters of the images are preserved. This is adequate for applications of simple binary images such as character recognition.
Automatic Off-line Signature Verification Systems: A Review

The use of biometric technologies for human identity verification is growing rapidly in civilized society and showing its advancement towards the usability of biometrics for security. Off-line signature verification is considered as a behavioral characteristic based biometric trait in the field of security and the prevention of fraud. So, offline signatures are extensively used as a means of personal verification and identification. Manual signature-based authentication of a large number of documents is a very difficult and time consuming task. Consequently for many years, in the field of protected communication and financial applications, we have observed an explosive growth in biometric personal authentication systems that are closely connected with measurable physical unique characteristics (hand geometry, iris scan, finger prints or DNA). Human signatures also provide secure means for confirmation and authorization in legal documents. So nowadays, automatic signature verification becomes an essential component. In order to convey the state-of-the-art in the field to researchers, in this paper we present a survey of off-line signature verification systems.
Single view mammography. A simple and efficient approach to breast cancer screening

In 1974 a new approach to breast cancer screening was introduced–‐the single view mammography method. An urban nonselected population of 6845 women of more than 34 years of age were screened with one roentgenogram of each breast. By this method it has been possible to reduce the radiation dose, while the patient flow is increased and the costs are decreased to an acceptable level. Forty cases of breast carcinoma were detected (6.7/1000). Twenty cases were preclinical.
Fast superresolution for image sequences using motion adaptive relaxation parameters

This paper presents a novel fast superresolution algorithm using motion adaptive relaxation parameters. By adopting the fast iterative algorithm based on pre-conditioner, the proposed algorithm can rapidly restore high resolution details in the original high resolution image. Moreover, the proposed algorithm provides a better interpolated images by using the motion adaptive relaxation parameter which controls the convergence rate. Finally, it can be applied to the general image sequence with differently moving objects. As a result, we can obtain high resolution frames from image sequences in almost real-time.
Venous Air Embolism and Cervical Microdiscectomy

V enous air embolism (VAE) is a potential complication of all surgical procedures in which the operative field is vertically superior to the level of the heart. Although VAE may occur in a variety of surgical positions, this phenomenon is most associated with the sitting position (1). The incidence of Doppler-detected VAE is as high as 45% in sitting craniectomy patients and 24% in sitting cervical surgeries. Losasso et al. (2) report Doppler-detected VAE in 7% of patients undergoing cervical spine surgery. Matjasko et al. (3) note an incidence of Dopplerdetected VAE of 8.2% (18/220 patients) during cervical foraminotomy. Cervical microdiscectomy is one type of cervical spine surgery which may or may not be performed using the sitting position and which requires a smaller incision (2 cm) than is used for cervical laminectomy. Because our experience with the microdiscectomy procedure in the sitting position suggested an incidence of Doppler-detected VAE of less than the 7% previously reported (21, we retrospectively examined 121 consecutive cervical microdiscectomies performed in the sitting position.
Discovery of fuzzy inclusion dependencies in fuzzy relational databases

Inclusion dependencies express subset-relationships between databases and are thus important indicators for redundancies between databases. In the context of database integration, it can help to solve a very common and difficult problem: "discovering redundancies across crisp databases". Inclusion dependencies in crisp databases are well known and some related work can be found in the literature, however, the idea of fuzzy inclusion dependencies in fuzzy relational databases is new that we have introduced in This work and derived the inference rules on such dependencies. An algorithm has also been proposed for the discovery of FIDs that may exist between two given fuzzy relations stored in one or more fuzzy relational databases.
Preliminary analysis of cryopreservation of Dendrobium Bobby Messina orchid using an encapsulation-dehydration technique with Evans blue assay

In vitro grown protocorm-like bodies (PLBs) of Dendrobium Bobby Messina hybrid were cryopreserved in liquid nitrogen (LN) at -196°C by an encapsulation-dehydration technique. PLBs (1 to 2 and 3 to 4 mm) were precultured in half strength semi-solid MS media supplemented with six different concentrations of sucrose (0.0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8 and 1.0 M). The PLBs were then encapsulated to form the beads in halfstrength liquid MS media supplemented with different concentrations of sodium alginate (2.5, 3.0 and 3.5%). The beads were placed in 2 ml cryovials and plunged into LN for 24 h. The beads were then thawed in a 40°C water bath for 90 s and were placed in recovery media composed of half strength semisolid MS media supplemented with 2% sucrose for four days under dark condition. After 12 days, the Evans blue dye assay was carried out to determine the viability of the PLBs. The highest viability was found in 1 to 2mm PLBs precultured in half strength semi-solid MS media supplemented with 1.0 M sucrose and encapsulated in 2.5% sodium alginate. Biochemical content analyses (chlorophyll, total soluble protein and peroxidase activities) were done to investigate the physiological responses of the PLBs after cryopreservation.
Sport concussion education and prevention.

There has been a remarkable increase in the past 10 years in the awareness of concussion in the sports and recreation communities. Just as sport participants, their families, coaches, trainers, and sports organizations now know more about concussions, health care professionals are also better prepared to diagnose and manage concussions. As has been stated in the formal articles in this special issue on sport-related concussion, education about concussion is one of the most important aspects of concussion prevention, with the others being data collection, program evaluation, improved engineering, and introduction and enforcement of rules. Unfortunately, the incidence of concussion appears to be rising in many sports and thus, additional sports-specific strategies are required to reduce the incidence, short-term effects, and long term consequences of concussion. Enhanced educational strategies are required to ensure that individual participants, sports organizations, and health care professionals recognize concussions and manage them proficiently according to internationally recognized guidelines. Therefore, this paper serves as a “brief report” on a few important aspects of concussion education and prevention.
A Review on Forensic Photo Sketch Matching Using Local Feature Texture Analysis

Face recognition is considered one of the most essential applications of Biometrics for personal identification. Face sketch recognition is a special case of face recognition, and it is very important for forensic applications. We propose an generalize method for face photo-sketch recognition by generalizing a pseudo-sketch from a single photo. The proposed method is the first generalize method that deals with face sketch recognition. The proposed photo-sketch synthesis step consists of two main steps, namely: edge detection and hair detection, which are applied on the grayscale image of the photo image. In the recognition step, the artist sketch is compared with the generated pseudo-sketch. PCA and LDA are used to extract features from the sketch images. The k-nearest neighbor classifier with Euclidean distance is used in the classification step. We use the CUHK database to test the performance of the proposed Method. Results for the synthesized sketches are compared with state-of-the-art methods, e.g., Local Linear Embedding (LLE) and Eigen transformation. The experimental results show that the proposed method generates a clear synthesis sketch and it defines persons more accurate than other methods.
A practical and efficient approach to imidazo[1,2-a]pyridine-fused isoquinolines through the post-GBB transformation strategy

Diversity-oriented synthesis of the biologically intriguing imidazo[1,2-a]pyridine-fused isoquinoline systems from readily available starting materials was achieved through the Groebke–Blackburn–Bienaymé reaction followed by a gold-catalyzed cyclization strategy. The synthetic approach is characterized by mild reaction conditions and a broad substrate scope, allowing for the rapid construction of structurally complex and diverse heterocycles in moderate to good yields.
Fat suppression for 1H MRSI at 7T using spectrally selective adiabatic inversion recovery

Proton magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging (1H MRSI) at 7T offers many advantages, including increased SNR and spectral resolution. However, technical difficulties associated with operating at high fields, such as increased B1 and B0 inhomogeneity, severe chemical shift localization error, and converging T1 values, make the suppression of the broad lipid peaks which can obscure targeted metabolite signals, particularly challenging. Conventional short tau inversion recovery can successfully suppress fat without restricting the selected volume, but only with significant metabolite signal loss. In this work, we have designed two new pulses for frequency‐selective inversion recovery that achieve B1‐insensitive fat suppression without degrading the signal from the major metabolites of interest. The first is a spectrally selective adiabatic pulse to be used in a volumetric 1H MRSI sequence and the second is a spatial‐spectral adiabatic pulse geared toward multi‐slice 1H MRSI. Partial interior volume selection may be used in addition to the pulses, to exclude areas with severe B0 inhomogeneity. Some differences in the spectral profile as well as degree of suppression make each pulse valuable for different applications. 7T phantom and in vivo data show that both pulses significantly suppress fat, while leaving most of the metabolite signal intact. Magn Reson Med 59:980–988, 2008. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Vibration Control of FGM Piezoelectric Plate Based on LQR Genetic Search

Active vibration control of functionally graded material (FGM) plate with integrated piezoelectric layers is studied. In this regard, a finite element model based on the classical plate theory is adopted and extended to the case of FGM plate to obtain a space state equation. Rectangular four node and eight node elements are used for the analysis purpose. The material proprieties of FG plate are assumed to be graded along the thickness direction. In order to control the vibration of the plate, an LQR controller has been designed and developed. The weighing factors are obtained by using genetic algorithm. The proposed results of finite element modeling are verified with the results obtained using ANSYS. Also the validation of methodology is done with comparing the results with that of available in literature and found in well agreement. Further analysis is performed for three sets of power law exponent n = 0, 1 and 100 which gives benchmark results for vibration control of FGM piezoelectric plate.
An Influence Maximization based approach to the Engagement of Silent Users in Online Social Networks

We discuss a targeted influence maximization (TIM) approach, based on the linear threshold (LT) diffusion model, which is designed to support the engagement of silent members, a.k. a. lurkers, of an online social network. A key aspect of this approach is the objective function of the underlying optimization problem, which is defined in terms of the lurking scores associated with the nodes in the final active set, or delurking capital. The resulting TIM problem shares the computational intractability with classic influence maximization (IM) problems. However, since the proposed objective function is shown to be monotone and submodular under the LT model, a greedy algorithm (with a guaranteed approximation ratio) is provided to compute a k-node set that maximizes the delurking capital in the network, for a given lurking threshold. Results have demonstrated the significance of our approach. A comparative evaluation with state-of-the-art algorithms for non-targeted and targeted LT-based IM has also shown the superiority of our approach in terms of the estimated overall delurking capital.