Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Improved Fisheye Zoom Algorithm for Visualizing and Editing Hierarchical Models

Hierarchical decomposition is an important means for organizing and understanding large requirements and design models. Fisheye zoom visualization is an attractive means for viewing, navigating and editing such hierarchical models, because local detail and its surrounding global context can be displayed in a single view. However, existing fisheye view approaches have deficiencies in terms of layout stability when model nodes are zoomed-in and zoomed-out. Furthermore, most of them do not support model editing (moving, adding and deleting nodes) well. In this paper, we present an improved fisheye zoom algorithm which supports viewing and manipulating hierarchical models. Our algorithm solves the problem of having a user-editable layout which is nevertheless stable under multiple zooming operations. Furthermore, it supports multiple focal points, and runs in real-time.
A Migratory Divide in the Painted Bunting (Passerina ciris)

Divergence in migratory behavior is a potential mechanism of lineage divergence in sympatric populations and a key life history trait used in the identification of demographically independent units for conservation purposes. In the Painted Bunting (Passerina ciris), a North American songbird, populations on the Atlantic coast and interior southern United States are known to be allopatric during the breeding season, but efforts to map connectivity with wintering ranges in Mexico, Florida, and the Caribbean have been largely inconclusive. Using genomic and morphological data from natural history specimens and banded birds, we found evidence of three genetically differentiated populations with distinct wintering ranges and molt-migration phenologies. In addition to confirming that the Atlantic coast population remains allopatric throughout the annual cycle, we identified an unexpected migratory divide within the interior breeding range. Populations breeding in the Lower Mississippi River Valley winter on the Yucatán Peninsula, and are parapatric with other interior populations that winter in mainland Mexico and Central America. Across the interior breeding range, genetic ancestry is also associated with variation in wing length; suggesting that selective pressures may be promoting morphological divergence in populations with different migration strategies.
Self-reported spatial hearing abilities across different cochlear implant profiles.

PURPOSE The goal of this study was to determine how self-reported spatial hearing abilities differ across various cochlear implant (CI) profiles and to examine the degree of subjective benefit following cochlear implantation across different groups of CI users. METHOD This was a retrospective study of subjective spatial hearing ability of CI recipients. The subjects consisted of 99 unilateral CI users, 49 bilateral CI users, 32 subjects with a CI and contralateral hearing aid (bimodal users), and 37 short-electrode CI users. All subjects completed the Spatial Hearing Questionnaire (Tyler, Perreau, & Ji, 2009), a questionnaire assessing spatial hearing ability, after implantation, and a subset of the subjects completed the questionnaire pre- and postimplantation. RESULTS Subjective spatial hearing ability was rated higher for the bilateral and short electrode CI users compared to the unilateral and bimodal users. There was no significant difference in subjective spatial hearing performance between the bilateral and short electrode CI users and the unilateral CI and bimodal users. A separate analysis of pre- and postimplant performance revealed that all CI groups reported significant improvements in spatial hearing ability after implantation. CONCLUSION This study suggests that there are substantial differences in perceived spatial hearing ability among unilateral and bimodal CI users compared with bilateral and short electrode CI users.
The Sympathomimetic Actions of l-Ephedrine and d-Pseudoephedrine: Direct Receptor Activation or Norepinephrine Release?

The basic mechanisms by which ephedrine is preferred over other vasopressors in obstetric anesthesia have not been clearly defined. We examined the sympathomimetic effects of l-ephedrine, currently used as a vasopressor, and d-pseudoephedrine, currently used as a decongestant. In anesthetized rats, l-ephedrine and d-pseudoephedrine caused dose-dependent increases in arterial blood pressure and heart rate, and these effects disappeared after destruction of the sympathetic nerve terminals with 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) pretreatment. The two ephedrine isomers produced concentration-dependent increases in tension of anococcygeal muscle and sinus rate of right atrium from rats. However, the anococcygeal and atrial responses to d-pseudoephedrine were abolished after 6-OHDA pretreatment, whereas approximately 50% of the responses to l-ephedrine were 6-OHDA-resistant. In human umbilical artery and vein, the two isomers failed to generate any contraction when given at the concentration that is capable of producing significant effects on anococcygeal and atrial tissues. Although direct adrenoceptor activation with l-ephedrine was detectable at tissue levels, the pressor response in vivo was entirely attributable to norepinephrine release from sympathetic nerves. This indirect mechanism could partly explain why l-ephedrine is better at increasing maternal arterial blood pressure while preserving the uteroplacental blood flow that is devoid of the involvement of the sympathetic innervation.
Assess drug resistance pattern and genetic profile of Mycobacterium tuberculosis clinical isolates by molecular typing methods using direct repeats and IS6110 in pulmonary tuberculosis cases

Background: Tuberculosis (TB), a highly contagious disease that sees no gender, age, or race is mainly a disease of lungs. According to World Health Organization, a TB patient can be completely cured with 6–9 months of anti-TB treatment under directly observed treatment short course. Objectives: The aim of this study was to check the mono, multi- and triple-drug resistance to first line drugs (FLDs) among TB patients and to access their genetic profile using DR 3074, DR 0270, DR 0642, DR 2068, and DR 4110 using molecular techniques. Material and Methods: To gain a better understanding of drug resistant TB, we characterized 121 clinical isolates recovered from 159 drug resistant pulmonary tuberculosis patients by IS6110 genotyping. MTB isolates recovered from HIV- negative, and smear positive cases of both genders, age varied from 18 to 70 years with drug resistant-TB that was refractory to chemotherapy given for > 12 months. Of a total of 159 sputum smear positive patients sum number of male and female patients was 121 (76.10%) and 38 (23.89%), respectively. Among these patients, number of literate and illiterate patients were 123 (77.3%) and 36 (22.6%). 25 (15.7%) patients had farming as their occupation, 80 (50.3%) had nonagricultural occupation and 54 (33.9%) women were housewives. Results: Mono drug resistant, multi-drug resistant, and totally drug resistant (TDR) cases of TB were calculated as 113.83%, 125.1%, and 67.9%. Isoniazid showed the highest percentage of resistance among the patients. Conclusion: Any noncompliance to TB medications, lack of knowledge, and poor management in health centers, etc., results in the emergence of deadly direct repeat forms of TB, which are further complicated and complex to treat.
A perspective on food policies evolution and poverty in the Indian Republic (1950-2001)

This paper analyses the rural food sector of the Indian Republic in an intertemporal growth context. A model is developed which includes the government's conflict between its poverty reducing attempts through public distribution of food, subsidized issue and support food prices and long term developmental goals. The ARDL cointegration procedure for mixed order dynamic processes identifies the major determinants of rural head count poverty for the period, 1953-2000. The long run elasticity estimates clearly show the real consumer subsidised issue price and the real producer support price dominate the quantity effects of the per capita public distribution on rural head count poverty. Development expenditure and measures of productivity and demographic supply are also found to be important determinants of long run rural poverty. In contrast, the real issue and producer prices do not have easily identifiable influences on the short run equilibrating adjustments in rural poverty. The model predicts that rural head count poverty, which at 27.6% in 2000 is below trend, will increase to between 29.1 % to 30.3% in 2001. The significant cause of the projected increase is the sizeable increase in the issue price of rice (relative to the CPI for agricultural workers) from 1999 to 2000. The paper argues that, while productivity and demographic supply improvements are important, real issue and support prices for the major staples, wheat and rice are also key determmants of long term trends in rural poverty. However, because these relative prices have complicated short term effects, the authorities should not manipulate real foodgrain issue and producer prices to achieve short term goals. Pricing policies should be designed to achieve desired long term resource allocation.
A Linear Pentapeptide Is a Quorum-Sensing Factor Required for mazEF-Mediated Cell Death in Escherichia coli

mazEF is a toxin-antitoxin module located on many bacterial chromosomes, including those of pathogens. Here, we report that Escherichia coli mazEF-mediated cell death is a population phenomenon requiring a quorum-sensing molecule that we call the extracellular death factor (EDF). Structural analysis revealed that EDF is a linear pentapeptide, Asn-Asn-Trp-Asn-Asn. Each of the five amino acids of EDF is important for its activity.
Epinephrine-enhanced knee arthrography.

Knee arthrograms were obtained with and without the addition of intra-articular epinephrine in 50 patients. Two concentrations of intra-articular positive contrast medium (60 and 76% meglu mine-sodium diatrizoate) were compared, and no difference in intra-articular detail was observed. Admixture of epinephrine resulted in an initial improvement in the sharpness of the contrast-outlined intra-articular structures as well as in the persistence of this enhanced detail on delayed radiographs.
Static Progressive Stretch Brace as a Treatment of Pain and Functional Limitations Associated With Plantar Fasciitis

Plantar fasciitis is a common and hard-to-treat disorder of the foot. Numerous studies have compared various stretching exercises, but the use of a day-wear static progressive stretch brace has not been studied. A randomized, single-blinded trial was conducted to compare the effectiveness of a static progressive stretch brace to standard care of active stretching exercises. Thirteen subjects (12 women and 1 man; mean age, 42 ± 9.0 years) with plantar fasciitis participated in this study between January 2004 and March 2007. Subjects were randomized to either an exercise group (static stretch group, n = 8) or a brace group (static progressive stretch group, n = 9) for an 8-week treatment period and 1-month follow up. Both groups received basic off-the-shelf foot orthoses. Data were available for 7 subjects in the exercise group and 6 in the brace group. Pain and functional limitations were evaluated with the Foot Functional Index pain subscale, the American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society Ankle-Hindfoot Scale, and great toe extension motion. Overall pain and morning pain improved in both groups as compared with baseline measures (repeated-measures analysis of variance, P = .04 and P = .02, respectively). Functional rating also improved in both groups (repeated-measures analysis of variance, P = .005). No changes were found in either group with great toe extension range of motion. In addition, there was no significant group difference or interaction with time and group with any measures. Both interventions (static, exercise, and brace stretching) were beneficial for treating pain and functional limitations, suggesting that static progressive stretch brace is an effective alternative option to static stretching exercises for people with plantar fasciitis.
Stem cell-mediated regeneration of the infarcted heart

In Nederland is 34 procent van de jaarlijkse sterfte te wijten aan hart- en vaatziekten. Een hartaanval (myocardinfarct) is de belangrijkste oorzaak. Tijdens een hartaanval verstoppen een of meerdere kransslagaders. De spiercellen van het hart sterven af en er komt een proces van wondgenezing op gang. Hierbij treedt altijd een ontstekingsreactie op. Promovendus Susanne van der Velde onderzocht hoe de hartspierwand na myocardinfarct hersteld kan worden door middel van stamcellen. Hierbij richtte zij haar aandacht op de rol van het ontstekingsproces in het geinfarceerde hart. Ze bracht de ontstekingsreactie in kaart en onderzocht welke factoren een gunstig effect zouden kunnen hebben op het regeneratie­proces. Ze concludeert dat goede timing van stamcel-gemedieerde therapie belangrijk is. In de periode nadat de dode cellen en gevaarlijke ontstekingscellen zijn opgeruimd en voordat de definitieve littekenvorming is begonnen, is het in principe mogelijk voor stamcellen om te infiltreren en uit te groeien tot hartweefsel. Daarvoor moeten de stamcellen wel worden geholpen om het afgestorven hart te regenereren, bijvoorbeeld door het toedienen van groeifactoren.
Instantaneous phase tracking in power networks by demodulation

A technique for instantaneous monitoring of phase angles during transients in power networks is presented. The proposed algorithm is based on demodulation and subsequent filtering of the measured signal, which allows very accurate tracking of transient phase angles (within 1 degree). The simplicity of this method and its performance make it an excellent candidate for real-time implementation. A number of simulated scenarios are presented to demonstrate the performance of the algorithm on signals which represent transient conditions in power networks. The technique maintains accuracy within the required tolerances of 1 degree while placing relatively moderate computational burden on the measurement hardware. The maximum error of the phase angle estimates occurs at the very beginning of the transient and dies out relatively quickly in all the simulated situations, which implies that better than required accuracy may be expected. <<ETX>>
Blind Color Image Watermarking Based on DWT and LU Decomposition

In watermarking schemes, the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) is broadly used because its frequency component separation is very useful. Moreover, LU decomposition has little influence on the visual quality of the watermark. Hence, in this paper, a novel blind watermark algorithm is presented based on LU transform and DWT for the copyright protection of digital images. In this algorithm, the color host image is first performed with DWT. Then, the horizontal and vertical diagonal high frequency components are extracted from the wavelet domain, and the sub-images are divided into 4×4 non-overlapping image blocks. Next, each sub-block is performed with LU decomposition. Finally, the color image watermark is transformed by Arnold permutation, and then it is inserted into the upper triangular matrix. The experimental results imply that this algorithm has good features of invisibility and it is robust against different attacks to a certain degree, such as contrast adjustment, JPEG compression, salt and pepper noise, cropping, and Gaussian noise.
Teaching neural networks to guide a vehicle through an obstacle course by emulating a human teacher

An interesting application of neural networks in man-machine systems is the identification of human operator behavior by observation. A network trained to emulate human strategies may subsequently be used to monitor the human online, to detect possibly dangerous system states and set alarms, or to take over automatically in cases of emergency. The feasibility of this approach is studied using the navigation of a vehicle through an obstacle course as a paradigm. Network architectures for vehicle control and path optimization are developed and tested. This includes a novel technique called functional-link net. The functionality of a demonstrator prototype is described
Search of objects of interest in videos

The paper addresses the problem of object search in video content. Both Query-By-Example paradigm and context search are explored. In QBE paradigm the object of interest is searched by matching of object signatures built from SURF descriptors with on-the-fly computed signatures in frames. The ”context” search is understood as a query on the whole frame with features extracted after a region-based segmentation. Both kinds of features are transcribed in Bag-Of-Words framework. The combination of Bag-of-Visual-Words and Bag-of-Region-Words gives promising results in TRECVID'2011 Instance Search Task.
Whose idea was that? Source monitoring for idea ownership following elaboration

Unconscious plagiarism (UP) occurs when an individual claims a previously experienced idea as their own. Previous studies have explored the cognitive precursors of such errors by manipulating the ways that ideas are thought about between initial idea exposure and later test. While imagining other's ideas does not increase rates of UP relative to control on either a recall-own or generate-new task, improving others’ ideas substantially increases such errors in the recall-own task. This study explored the effects of elaboration on rates of UP when a source-monitoring test replaced the recall-own test. Plagiarism was again observed following idea improvement but not idea imagery even though participants engaged explicit source evaluation. Thus the probability of plagiarising another's idea appears linked to the generative nature of the idea processing performed.
Detection and classification of ground targets using a Doppler RADAR

In this article, we address the problems of detection and classification of ground moving targets. We have applied different known Constant False Alarm Rate (CFAR) detectors in the Time-Frequency domain. The transformation to the frequency domain is done first by a simple short time Fourier transformation (STFT) then, due to the micro-Doppler signal properties, we have introduced the high resolution spectral method which is MUltiple SIgnal Classification (MUSIC). The studied detectors are: cell averaged (CA), SO, GO, OS and CMLD CFAR. With the second problem, we applied the hierarchical classification using five stages. We used in each stage a method of classification based either on GMM (Gaussian Mixture Model), MFCC (Mel-frequency Cepstral Coefficients), the dominant frequencies extracted by ESPRIT or the modulation of the micro-Doppler gait signature. The data base of μD signals is obtained from a Doppler radar and the obtained results are acceptable.
Pediatric tibia fractures: current concepts.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW Fracture of the tibia is a common occurrence in children. The operative treatment of pediatric tibia fractures has undergone a recent change. However, there is no clear consensus regarding the superiority of one treatment option. RECENT FINDINGS The literature clearly supports the fact that the vast majority of pediatric tibia fractures can and should be managed nonoperatively. This is secondary to their inherent stability. A variety of factors including fracture type, location, severity and patient age determine the best treatment options for a particular fracture. A thorough understanding of these factors and how they affect outcome, help the clinician formulate the proper plan of treatment. SUMMARY A randomized prospective controlled trial will be necessary to establish which surgical options are superior for which type of pediatric tibia fracture. Until then, recent studies have indicated that flexible intramedullary nails may lead to a shorter time to union and a decreased rate of refracture when compared with external fixation of unstable tibial shaft fractures. What remains unclear are the specific indications and contraindication for the use of flexible nails. External fixation still remains a successful treatment option for unstable tibial shaft fractures.
High-throughput clonal selection of recombinant CHO cells using a dominant selectable and amplifiable metallothionein-GFP fusion protein.

Transfected mammalian cells can be used for the production of fully processed recombinant proteins for medical and industrial purposes. However, the isolation of high-producing clones is traditionally time-consuming. Therefore, we developed a high-throughput screening method to reduce the time and effort required to isolate high-producing cells. This involved the construction of an expression vector containing the amplifiable gene metallothionein (MT), fused in-frame to green fluorescent protein (GFP). The fusion gene (MTGFP) confers metal resistance similar to that of the wild-type metallothionein and expression can be monitored using either flow cytometry or a fluorometer to measure green fluorescence. Expression of MTGFP acted as a dominant selectable marker allowing rapid and more efficient selection of clones at defined metal concentrations than with the antibiotic G418. Cells harboring MTGFP responded to increasing metal concentrations with a corresponding increase in fluorescence. There was also a corresponding increase in recombinant protein production, indicating that MTGFP could be used as a selectable and amplifiable gene for the coexpression of foreign genes. Using our expression vector encoding MTGFP, we demonstrate a high-throughput clonal selection protocol for the rapid isolation of high-producing clones from transfected CHO cells. We were able to isolate cell lines reaching specific productivities of >10 microg hGH/10(6) cells/day within 4 weeks of transfection. The advantage of this method is that it can be easily adapted for automated procedures using robotic handling systems.
Impact of literacy on the prevalence, awareness, treatment and control of hypertension in adults in Golestan Province (northern Iran).

UNLABELLED Background : Hypertension is considered as a major health problem in our society. The association between educational level with hypertension and its control in the Golestan Province (northern Iran) were the main objectives of this study. METHODS This was a population-based cross-sectional study that enrolled 3497 subjects aged 15-65 years using stratified and cluster sampling. The interviewers recorded the data using a multidimensional questionnaire, including blood pressure level. Blood pressure was measured three times with 5 minutes interval and defined based on Join National Committee (JNC-7). RESULTS Totally, 741 (21.2 %) cases suffered from hypertension and illiterate people were significantly more aware of their disease (p=0.011). In the aware group, 435 (89.6%) cases used one method to control their disease and it was not statistically significant as far as educational levels was concerned. The control of hypertension was significantly greater in college educated group than the illiterate one (32.4% vs 68.8%) (p=0.001). Logistic regression analysis revealed that illiteracy is a risk factor for hypertension (p<0.001). CONCLUSION In spite of awareness in the illiterate people was high, the rate of hypertension control was low in this group. Prevention, detection, treatment, and control of hypertension especially the illiterate people should be given high priority.