Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A vector polar histogram method based obstacle avoidance planning for AUV

In this paper we will present a vector polar histogram method for obstacle avoidance planning of autonomous underwater vehicle (Abbr. AUV), which is based on underwater sonar measurement. By applying this new method, we can solve the local minimum and frequent vibration problem in potential field method, and overcome the shortcoming in enhanced vector field method where different effect of obstacles in various directions on AUV motion is not considered and AUV real-time speed is neglected in construction of threshold function. This new method is much more suitable for calculation of optimal moving direction when AUV makes online planning of obstacle avoidance. In the beginning of design, distance between AUV and each obstacle is measured by underwater sonar from different directions and information relating to distance distribution is transformed and expressed as the histogram in polar coordinates. Then threshold function is constructed and used for transformation from vector polar histogram to dualistic histogram. Finally the optimal moving direction is adopted through calculation of cost function in dualistic histogram. Simulation results show that the method presented in this paper is more efficient for calculation of optimal AUV moving direction and much more suitable for online planning of obstacle avoidance.
Ilizarov’s method for treatment of nonunion of diaphyseal fractures of the humerus

Background: Nonunion in diaphyseal fractures of the humerus can be treated by various modalities like plating and bone grafting, exchange nailing, fibular strut grafting and Ilizarov’s method of ring fixation. To achieve union in infected nonunion in which multiple surgeries have already been done is further challenging. We conducted a prospective study wherein the outcome of the treatment of nonunion of diaphyseal fractures of the humerus by Ilizarov’s method was analyzed. Materials and Methods: Nineteen patients with diaphyseal nonunion of the humerus were treated by Ilizarov’s external fixator. These included nonunion after plating (n=11), intramedullary nailing (n=1) or conservative methods (n=7). In post-surgical infected nonunion (n=6), the implants were removed, debridement done, bone fragments were docked followed by application of ring fixator and compression. In aseptic nonunion (n=13), distraction for three weeks followed by compression was the protocol. Early shoulder and elbow physiotherapy was instituted. The apparatus was removed after clinical and radiological union and the results were assessed for bone healing and functional status. Results: Fracture union was achieved in all the 19 cases. Pin site infection was seen in 2 cases (10.52%). The bone healing results were excellent in eighteen cases (94.73%) and good in one case (5.26%). The functional results were found to be excellent in fourteen cases (73.68%), good in four (21.05%) and fair in one case (5.26%). Conclusion: Ilizarov’s method is an excellent option for treatment of septic and aseptic non union of diaphyseal fractures of the humerus as it addresses all the problems associated with non union of the humerus like infection, deformity and joint stiffness.
Risk Taking in Adolescence: What Changes, and Why?

Abstract: Extant studies of age differences in cognitive processes relevant to risk taking and decision making, such as risk perception and risk appraisal, indicate few significant age differences in factors that might explain why adolescents engage in more risk taking than adults. The present analysis suggests that the greater propensity of adolescents to take risks is not due to age differences in risk perception or appraisal, but to age differences in psychosocial factors that influence self‐regulation. It is argued that adolescence is a period of heightened vulnerability to risk taking because of a disjunction between novelty and sensation seeking (both of which increase dramatically at puberty) and the development of self‐regulatory competence (which does not fully mature until early adulthood). This disjunction is biologically driven, normative, and unlikely to be remedied through educational interventions designed to change adolescents' perception, appraisal, or understanding of risk. Interventions should begin from the premise that adolescents are inherently more likely than adults to take risks, and should focus on reducing the harm associated with risk‐taking behavior.
Attitude Estimation Using Redundant Inertial Measurement Units for the Control of a Camera Stabilization Platform

In this brief, a three-axis gimbaled platform for the active stabilization of film and broadcast cameras is considered. To decouple the attitude of the camera from the motion of the operator, accurate estimation of the platform attitude is necessary. Attitude estimation strategies based on extended Kalman filter (EKF) and unscented Kalman filter (UKF) are developed, which fuse redundant measurements of inertial measurement units (IMUs) mounted at different positions of the platform. This brief extends the state of the art, where typically a single IMU or redundant IMUs placed at the same position are used. The performance of the EKF and UKF is analyzed and compared with an EKF using only a single IMU by measurement results of a prototype platform.
Adaptive distributed observers for a class of linear dynamical systems

The problem of distributed state estimation over a sensor network in which a set of nodes collaboratively estimates the state of continuous-time linear systems is considered. Distributed estimation strategies improve estimation and robustness of the sensors to environmental obstacles and sensor failures in a sensor network. In particular, this dissertation focuses on the benefits of weight adaptation of the interconnection gains in distributed Kalman filters, distributed unknown input observers, and distributed functional observers. To this end, an adaptation strategy is proposed with the adaptive laws derived via a Lyapunov-redesign approach. The justification for the gain adaptation stems from a desire to adapt the pairwise difference of estimates as a function of their agreement, thereby enforcing an interconnection-dependent gain. In the proposed scheme, an adaptive gain for each pairwise difference of the interconnection terms is used in order to address edgedependent differences in the estimates. Accounting for node-specific differences, a special case of the scheme is presented where it uses a single adaptive gain in each node estimate and which uniformly penalizes all pairwise differences of estimates in the interconnection term. In the case of distributed Kalman filters, the filter gains can be designed either by standard Kalman or Luenberger observers to construct the adaptive distributed Kalman filter or adaptive distributed Luenberger observer. Stability of the schemes has been shown and it is independent of the graph topology and therefore the schemes are applicable to both directed and undirected graphs. The proposed algorithms offer a significant reduction in communication costs associated with information flow by the nodes compared to other distributed Kalman filters. Finally, numerical studies are presented to illustrate the performance and effectiveness of the proposed adaptive distributed Kalman filters, adaptive distributed unknown input observers, and adaptive distributed functional observers. i
QoE-driven cross-layer optimization in wireless networks addressing system efficiency and utility fairness

We address a multi-criteria Quality of Experience (QoE) driven optimization problem for multi-user wireless video delivery. The optimization is done in a cross-layer fashion by using parameterized models of application and link layer in order to determine the application data rate and the network resources that fulfill the criteria. Mean Opinion Score (MOS) is used as a unified utility metric that encompasses the user-perceived quality under certain receiving conditions for the user application. We consider two partially contrary objectives, which are maximizing the total perceived quality of the whole system and maximizing the utility fairness among all users. A tuning mechanism is proposed, which allows the network operator to change dynamically its operating point of the resource allocation based on its pre-defined policy of any combinations of these two objectives. We implemented the proposed tuning algorithm in an emulated Long-Term Evolution (LTE) system and verified its feasibility through simulations.
White Matter Integrity Deficit Associated with Betel Quid Dependence

Betel quid (BQ) is a commonly consumed psychoactive substance, which has been regarded as a human carcinogen. Long-term BQ chewing may cause Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV dependence symptoms, which can lead to decreased cognitive functions, such as attention and inhibition control. Although betel quid dependence (BQD) individuals have been reported with altered brain structure and function, there is little evidence showing white matter microstructure alternation in BQD individuals. The present study aimed to investigate altered white matter microstructure in BQD individuals using diffusion tensor imaging. Tract-based spatial statistics was used to analyze the data. Compared with healthy controls, BQD individuals exhibited higher mean diffusivity (MD) in anterior thalamic radiation (ATR). Further analysis revealed that the ATR in BQD individuals showed less fractional anisotropy (FA) than that in healthy controls. Correlation analysis showed that both the increase of MD and reduction of FA in BQD individuals were associated with severity of BQ dependence. These results suggested that BQD would disrupt the balance between prefrontal cortex and subcortical areas, causing declined inhibition control.
Measuring renal function in critically ill patients: tools and strategies for assessing glomerular filtration rate

Purpose of reviewAlterations in kidney function are common in critically ill patients and are generally assessed by changes in serum creatinine (sCr) or urine output, which are considered surrogates for glomerular filtration rate (GFR) but do not reflect the overall kidney function. There is a great need for more reliable measurements of glomerular filtration in order to guide diagnosis and therapy for acute kidney injury. In this review, we will focus on recent advances to measure GFR that could help to better evaluate kidney function and improve patient care. Recent findingsStandardized assays for sCr measurements, the use of a more precise scale with more frequent measurements, and the interpretation of the results based on patient's characteristics can increase the clinical value of sCr. New endogenous and exogenous markers will provide a more precise estimation. Imaging techniques are being developed and will probably be available in the near future. New gold standards for glomerular filtration will help in the development and improvement in the use of new biomarkers of kidney injury.
Proteomic tracking and analysis of a bacterial mixed culture

To improve the understanding of microbial behaviors in communities, proteomic tracking, an approach for relative quantification of species‐specific population dynamics of mixed cultures, was developed. Therefore, a bacterial mixed culture was analyzed during batch cultivations with and without addition of the antibiotic Ceftazidime. The community was composed of Burkholderia cepacia, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Staphylococcus aureus, pathogens causing infections in cystic fibrosis patients. Gel‐based proteomics and mass spectrometry were used to obtain qualitative and quantitative proteomic data. During cultivation, P. aeruginosa became dominant within the mixed culture while S. aureus was inhibited in growth. Analysis of samples – taken along cultivation – revealed about 270 differentially expressed proteins. Some of those proteins are related to bacterial interactions, response to antibiotic treatment or metabolic shifts. For instance, the enzymes PhzS(flavin‐containing monooxygenase), PhzD (phenazine biosynthesis protein), and PhzG2 (pyridoxamine 5′‐phosphate oxidase) indicated the production of the antibiotic pigment pyocyanine by P. aeruginosa that is related to oxidative stress and therefore, might inhibit growth of S. aureus. Overall, the strategy applied not only allows species‐specific tracking of the community composition but also provides valuable insights into the behavior of mixed cultures.
Early discontinuation of antibiotic treatment in newborn admitted to rule out sepsis: a decision rule

We developed a decision rule to define a group of newborns eligible for discontinuation of antibiotic treatment 24 hours after initiation. The decision rule is based on two clinical assessments, three demographic variables, four maternal risk factors and six laboratory studies. The rule was created by retrospective analysis of all admissions to rule out sepsis at 10 Kaiser Permanente Northern California Region nurseries during a 2-month period in 1990. Of the 214 study subjects, 11 (5%) had a positive bacterial or viral culture result. No deaths occurred, but three babies who had negative culture results experienced late deterioration (after 24 hours in the special care nursery). After 24 hours of antibiotic treatment, 133 (67%) of the 199 babies who had negative culture results were asymptomatic, 36 (18%) had clear signs of illness and 30 (15%) had questionable signs of illness. The rule correctly identified all babies with positive culture results as well as persistently symptomatic babies with negative culture results. The rule also identified 57 low-risk babies eligible for only 24 hours of antibiotic treatment. We tested the rule on a second data set. The rule identified 19 of 20 newborns with positive culture results in this independent group. The 20th baby was not identified because a required test (complete blood count at 12 to 24 hours of age) was not done. Under controlled clinical conditions, this baby could have returned to the nursery to complete antibiotic treatment. We concluded that early discontinuation of antibiotic treatment in selected newborns is safe and could lead to a 1 to 2% decrease in special care nursery days in our 10 hospitals.
METHODS-TOWARDS MORE EFFICIENT LITERATURE RESEARCH WITH LATENT SEMANTIC INDEXING

Nowadays, the facilitated access to increasing amounts of information and scientific resources means that more and more effort is required to conduct comprehensive literature reviews. Literature search, as a fundamental, complex, and time-consuming step in every literature research process, is part of many established scientific methods. However, it is still predominantly supported by search techniques based on conventional term-matching methods. We address the lack of semantic approaches in this context by proposing an enhancement of established literature review methods. For this purpose, we followed design science research (DSR) principles in order to develop artifacts and implement a prototype of our Tool for Semantic Indexing and Similarity Queries (TSISQ) based on the core concepts of latent semantic indexing (LSI). Its applicability is demonstrated and evaluated in a case study. Results indicate that the presented approach can help save valuable time in finding basic literature in a desired research field or increasing the comprehensiveness of a review by efficiently identifying sources that otherwise would not have been taken into account. The target audience for our findings includes researchers who need to efficiently gain an overview of a specific research field, deepen their knowledge or refine the theoretical foundations of their research.
Anti-homosexual legislation and HIV-related stigma in African nations: what has been the role of PEPFAR?

ABSTRACT Background: Gay men and other men who have sex with men are disproportionately burdened by HIV infection. Laws that penalize same-sex intercourse contribute to a cycle of stigma, homonegativity and discrimination. In many African nations, laws criminalizing homosexuality may be fueling the epidemic, as they dissuade key populations from seeking treatment and health care providers from offering it. Objectives: We analyzed the ways in which policies and practices of the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) program addressed pervasively harsh anti-homosexuality laws across Africa. Given the aim of the US PEPFAR program to reduce stigma surrounding HIV, we explored how PEPFAR may have used its influence to reduce the criminalization of homosexuality in the countries where it operated. Methods: We assessed homosexuality laws in 21 African countries where PEPFAR funding sought to reduce the HIV epidemic. We examined PEPFAR Policy Framework agreements associated with those countries, and other PEPFAR documents, for evidence of attempts to reduce stigma by decriminalizing homosexuality. Results: We found 16 of Africa’s 21 PEPFAR-funded countries had laws characterized as harsh in relation to homosexuality. Among the top eight PEPFAR-funded countries in Africa, seven had harsh anti-homosexuality laws. Most (14) of the 16 African ‘Partnership Framework’ (PEPFAR) policy agreements between African governments and the US State Department call for stigma reduction; however, none call for reducing penalties on individuals who engage in homosexual behavior. Conclusions: We conclude that while PEPFAR has acknowledged the negative role of stigma in fueling the HIV epidemic, it has, so far, missed opportunities to explicitly address the role of the criminalization of homosexuality in feeding stigmatizing attitudes. Our analysis suggests mechanisms like PEPFAR Partnership Framework agreements could be ideal vehicles to call for removal of anti-homosexuality legislation.
MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) Part One: Mechanisms for Specifying and Describing the Format of Internet Message Bodies

STD 11, RFC 822 defines a message representation protocol which specifies considerable detail about message headers, but which leaves the message content, or message body, as flat ASCII text. This document redefines the format of message bodies to allow multi-part textual and non-textual message bodies to be represented and exchanged without loss of information. This is based on earlier work documented in RFC 934 and STD 11, RFC 1049, but extends and revises that work. Because RFC 822 said so little about message bodies, this document is largely orthogonal to (rather than a revision of) RFC 822.
Report on the Expert Panel on Health Effects of Asbestos and Synthetic Vitreous Fibers : The Influence of Fiber Length Prepared for : Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry Division of Health Assessment and Consultation

Papelera Puertorriqueña, Inc. (PPI) is located in Utuado, Puerto Rico. The facility is situated on a steep embankment within 40 feet of the Vivi River. PPI has operated at this location since 1965. It is an active facility that manufactures paper and plastic bags (coffee bags, bags for bakery products, rice bags, supermarket bags), and cardboard boxes (pizza boxes). Other paper-based products (greetings cards and paper gift wraps) are stored on site and distributed by PPI. Inks and solvents are used in the manufacturing process.
Cooperative cluster for geographic routing with location errors in wireless ad hoc networks

Geographic routing protocols establish scalable and robust routes for multi-hop trsdansmission in wireless mobile ad-hoc networks, where accurate location information of the mobile nodes is needed. Aiming to alleviate the influence of location errors, existing works focus on modifying routing protocols through modeling the error sources and mobility prediction. In this paper, we propose a cooperative cluster based geographic routing (CCGR) protocol, which views the cooperative cluster as one virtual relay node, and lessens the impact of location errors through opportunistic receiving and cooperative radio range extension. Opportunistic receiving achieves the link diversity and radio range extension enlarges the transmission distance of one hop. The performance of CCGR is analyzed under scenarios of both static and mobility location errors in terms of reliability index, which is defined to represent the link stability. Further more, numerical results demonstrate that our proposed transmission scheme CCGR outperforms non-cooperative routing schemes in terms of link error probability with location errors.
A novel approach to multi-resolution technique for fast pattern recognition

Multi-resolution is a commonly used acceleration algorithm for pattern search. However, there still exist two unsolved questions: “how many levels of image pyramid should be built” and “how to propagate the badly degraded truth patterns to the next pyramid level”. We address these two questions through a novel distinction analysis and propagation strategy based on multimodality analysis. Experimental results show that this method has good practicability and advantage.
Synaptic neuropil in nerves of the crustacean stomatogastric nervous system: An immunocytochemical and electron microscopical study

Patches of peptide‐immunoreactive varicosities have been found in nerves of the stomatogastric nervous system (STNS) of decapod crustaceans. In the present study, these patches were examined in detail in the stomatogastric nerve (stn) and in the superior oesophageal nerve (son) of the crayfish Cherax destructor by using whole‐mount immunocytochemical techniques combined with confocal microscopy and, in addition, electron microscopy. Double‐labeling experiments with antibodies generated against the peptides allatostatin, FMRFamide and proctolin, combined with an antibody generated against the small vesicle protein synapsin, suggest that each patch contains small synaptic vesicles in addition to all three peptides. The neuropil regions of the ganglia of the STNS were also strongly stained by the synapsin antibody. Synapsin‐like immunoreactivity was also studied in the crab Cancer pagurus and the lobster Homarus americanus. A similar pattern of staining was found for all three species, but the distribution within the stn varied. In H. americanus, a lightly stained weblike structure was found on the surface of nerves including the inferior oesophageal nerve, the son, and the anterior stn. By using electron microscopy, synapses were found in the core of the stn–son junction of C. destructor, in the same region where the synapsin‐like and the peptide staining was localized. In addition, putative neurohemal release sites were found in the peripheral sheath of the stn. The presynaptic profiles found in the core of the stn seem to correspond to the types of presynaptic profiles found in the neuropil of the stomatogastric ganglion. These findings demonstrate that synaptic neuropil is present in the nerves of the STNS of a decapod crustacean. J. Comp. Neurol. 420:373–397, 2000. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
TV Corner-Logo Adaptive Threshold Segmentation Algorithm Based on Saliency Detection

TV corner-logo is widely used in current video program, and becomes one of the hot spots in information extraction and analysis. TV corner-logo detection and segmentation algorithm is important for information extraction. In this paper, we presented an adaptive threshold segmentation algorithm, based on the combined time-averaged edge detection and saliency detection, to effectively separate and extract the TV corner-logo from the video sequence. First, we applied Canny operator to detect edges and then calculate the weighted average edge of ten frames, so as to get the time-averaged edge image. Then we combine the time-averaged edge image with the saliency map to get a more accurate segmentation. Finally, we used the adaptive threshold segmentation algorithm to separate the corner-logo. Experimental results show that, this method can effectively detect and separate the corner-logo from the background.