Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pathology of Alcoholic Liver Disease

Alcohol-attributable burden on global health is increasing, and the relationship between population alcohol consumption and liver-related deaths is strong. Longstanding scientific and clinical work has led to a relatively thorough, if not complete, understanding of the effects of alcohol consumption on the liver. Pathologic features of alcoholic liver disease (ALD) are recognized by pathologists and used to assist clinicians in diagnosing and determining severity of disease in patients suspected of ALD. In this review, we discuss the pathologic manifestations of ALD and provide salient points on their pathophysiology. In addition, the benefits and indications of liver biopsy and important differential diagnoses, including features distinguishing these entities, are reviewed.
A mutual information based framework for the analysis of multiple-subject fMRI data

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a non-invasive method of obtaining images of neural activity in response to a stimulus. The reverse process, decoding fMRI images to infer the underlying stimulus relating to a single subject, is a challenging area of work. The complexity greatly increases when the decoding process has to be sufficiently generic to cover multiple subjects and studies. In order to decode neural images with high degrees of accuracy, the process relies on an extensive database of neural signatures. This paper proposes a framework to generate the elements of the database. We also outline the process involved in decomposing an fMRI dataset into independent subsets corresponding to the neural signatures of the stimuli. Each subset is described in a standard format, based on mutual information derived from Regions of Interest, which in turn are derived by co-registering with a standard atlas.
Roll-out of reliable fiber to the cabinet: An interactive planning approach

In this paper a total approach is presented for interactive planning of a reliable fiber-to-the-cabinet network. Interactive means here that areas with 600 to 1000 cabinets can be planned roughly within minutes. The problem of telecom operators, when planning fiber to the cabinet, is to find the minimum number of cabinets that are equipped with active equipment such that a required number of customers are within a targeted distance from an activated cabinet. Next, these activated cabinets need to be clustered and connected with a highly reliable fiber ring, satisfying capacity constraints. A three-step approach is described: an activation problem, a cluster problem, and a routing problem, each in a heuristic approach. The paper shows that the total interactive approach is indeed possible by presenting several real life cases.
Differential activation of AP‐1 in human bladder epithelial cells by inorganic and methylated arsenicals

Chronic exposures to inorganic arsenic (iAs) have been linked to increased incidences of various cancers, including cancer of the urinary bladder. Mechanisms by which iAs promotes cancer may include stimulation of activator protein‐1 (AP‐1) DNA binding through increased expression and/or phosphorylation of the AP‐1 constituents. However, the role of methylated metabolites of iAs in AP‐1 activation has not been thoroughly examined. In this study, we show that short‐time exposures to 0.1–5 μM arsenite (iAsIII) or the methylated trivalent arsenicals methylarsine oxide (MAsIIIO), or iododimethylarsine (DMAsIIII) induce phosphorylation of c‐Jun and increase AP‐1 DNA binding activity in human bladder epithelial cells. DMAsIIII and especially MAsIIIO are considerably more potent than iAsIII as inducers of c‐Jun phosphorylation and AP‐1 activation. Phosphorylated c‐Jun, JunB, JunD, and Fra‐1, but not c‐Fos, FosB, or ATF2, are detected in the AP‐1‐DNA binding complex in cells exposed to trivalent arsenicals. In cells transiently transfected with an AP‐1‐dependent promoter‐reporter construct, MAsIIIO was more potent than iAsIII in inducing the AP‐1‐dependent gene transcription. Exposures to trivalent arsenicals induce phosphorylation of extracellular signal‐regulated kinase (ERK), but not c‐Jun N‐terminal kinases or p38 kinases. These results indicate that an ERK‐dependent signal transduction pathway is at least partially responsible for c‐Jun phosphorylation and AP‐1 activation in UROtsa cells exposed to inorganic or methylated trivalent arsenicals.
anterior muscle of endurance-trained athletes Transcriptional adaptations of lipid metabolism in tibialis

anterior muscle of endurance-trained athletes Transcriptional adaptations of lipid metabolism in tibialis You might find this additional info useful. 24 times a year (twice monthly) by the American Physiological Society, 9650 Rockville Pike, Bethesda MD systems with techniques linking genes and pathways to physiology, from prokaryotes to eukaryotes. It is published publishes results of a wide variety of studies from human and from informative model Physiological Genomics
Coping with cultural dominance in cross cultural interaction

This paper examines how Finnish project managers engaged in highly complex, international engineering projects cope with and respond to the cultural dominance expressed by their project partners. The paper highlights that the managers not merely condescend to their subjugated positions, but also use various tactics as countermoves against the perceived dominance. Based on these findings, the paper then extends the idea of cultural determinism present in many an essentialist cultural study. That is, instead of portraying the project managers solely as "dopes" of the cultures, the paper advocates individual volition and "cultural agency", where the managers are seen to be capable of using different kinds of tactics to counteract the cultural forces at play. Concomitantly, this notion suggests caution in utilizing the ever popular cultural stereotypes in predicting and advising on cultural implications in cross cultural interaction and interfaces. Practical implications are discussed.
Mining visual complexity of images based on an enhanced feature space representation

An enhanced feature space to represent visual complexity of images, as would the HVS, is presented. Specifically, the ratio between the coherent and incoherent pixels in an image was used as a measure of the chromatic contributions to the visual complexity of an image. Similarly, the contrast, energy, entropy and homogeneity were modelled as the textural attributes of an image's visual complexity. Integrated into the SND feature space, these new (chromatic and textural) features facilitate a better and enhanced representation of visual complexity. Using the Corel 1000A dataset to validate the veracity of the proposal, the enhanced visual complexity space, the SND+ space, improves the capability to better represent visual complexity by a 16.7% increase in the exact correlation with a subjective (human) evaluation of the same dataset over the original SND space. Pursued further, the effective representation of visual complexity would have profound impacts in many areas of image processing and computer vision.
Analysis of Locally Coupled 3D Manipulation Mappings Based on Mobile Device Motion

We examine a class of techniques for 3D object manipulation on mobile devices, in which the device’s physical motion is applied to 3D objects displayed on the device itself. This “local coupling” between input and display creates specific challenges compared to manipulation techniques designed for monitor-based or immersive virtual environments. Our work focuses specifically on the mapping between device motion and object motion. We review existing manipulation techniques and introduce a formal description of the main mappings under a common notation. Based on this notation, we analyze these mappings and their properties in order to answer crucial usability questions. We first investigate how the 3D objects should move on the screen, since the screen also moves with the mobile device during manipulation. We then investigate the effects of a limited range of manipulation and present a number of solutions to overcome this constraint. This work provides a theoretical framework to better understand the properties of locally coupled 3D manipulation mappings based on mobile device motion.
Using an Ontology-based Model for Knowledge Representation in Rural Landscape ⋆

In the ﬁeld of the territorial planning the problems related to the management of information increase everyday. This process needs of more and more eﬀective and eﬃcient Knowledge Management techniques. Such techniques lead to a suitable organization (and therefore to a more detailed analysis) of the phenomena, which in turn suggests how to choose the actions to perform. At the same time, the interoperability between heterogeneous subjects at diﬀerent levels of the planning process and belonging to multiple disciplinary ﬁelds becomes an unavoidable element. Information represents a strategic resource for the subjects in charge of territory planning: it is in fact raw material, job tool and ﬁnal product. In a complex research scenario such as the territorial science, some fundamental elements, useful to analyze and resolve several problems, can be represented using a framework based on an ontological approach. Amongst the diﬀerent territorial planning ﬁelds, we chose as case study the issue of landscaping, in particular the one related to rural landscapes. This choice is motivated by the cultural and scientiﬁc innovations, which led in recent years to a completely new interpretation of landscape, as a good to be preserved (being it an expression of the ecological and social transformations on the territory resulting from the community activity). The paper aim is to resolve conceptual misun-derstanding and semantic ambiguity and, on the other hand, we need a precise and accurate description of our knowledge, i.e. of the terminologies representing our concepts, which inﬂuence goals and entail actions to be implemented. Due to those considerations we propose a suitable ontology-based model implemented in a system to manage ontologies.
A Taxonomy for Human-Robot Interaction

This paper integrates research and ideas in the fields of Human-Computer Interaction and Robotics for the creation of a taxonomy for human-robot interaction. By drawing from multiple research fields, a more complete taxonomy is attained. Taxonomy categories include team composition (ratio of people to robots, types of robots), amount of required interaction, decision support provided for the user, and space-time location.
A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Supraja Nagalla IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE

Information Retrieval is a field of computing which traditionally deals with searching a large collection of documents and retrieving documents based on their similarity to the query. INEX [10] provides a platform (e.g., document collection, queries and uniform evaluation metrics) for the development and evaluation of retrieval algorithms for XML documents. The focus of INEX is to reduce the granularity of search results from the entire document to the element level. In 2011, INEX introduced a new track, called the Snippet Retrieval Track. In 2012, INEX improved this track to make the task of assessment easier. Its goal is to determine how best to generate informative snippets for search results. Such snippets should provide sufficient information to allow the user to determine the relevance of each document without viewing the document itself. The Snippet Retrieval track uses the 50.7GB INEX Wikipedia collection of about 2.7 million articles. We use the Smart [15] experimental retrieval system, based on the Vector Space Model [16], for indexing and retrieval. This thesis describes the approaches taken by UMD to generate runs to participate in the INEX 2011 and 2012 Snippet Retrieval track. We use our method of dynamic element retrieval [7] to generate the element vectors of the XML document tree at run time, thus producing a rank-ordered list of elements from each highly correlated document. These elements are further processed using our methods to generate snippets. The methods used, experimental results, and conclusions are described herein.
Optimizing Seam Carving on multi-GPU systems for real-time image resizing

Image resizing is increasingly important for picture sharing and exchanging between various personal electronic equipments. Seam Carving is a state-of-the-art approach for effective image resizing because of its content-aware characteristic. However, complex computation and memory access patterns make it time-consuming and prevent its wide usage in real-time image processing. To address these problems, we propose a novel algorithm, called Non-Cumulative Seam Carving (NCSC), which removes main computation bottleneck. Furthermore, we also propose an adaptive multi-seam algorithm for better parallelism on GPU platforms. Finally, we implement our algorithm on a multi-GPU platform. Results show that our approach achieves a maximum 140× speedup on a two-GPU system over the sequential version. It only takes 0.11 second to resize a 1024×640 image by half in width compared to 15.5 seconds with the traditional seam carving.
The Populus Superoxide Dismutase Gene Family and Its Responses to Drought Stress in Transgenic Poplar Overexpressing a Pine Cytosolic Glutamine Synthetase (GS1a)

Background Glutamine synthetase (GS) plays a central role in plant nitrogen assimilation, a process intimately linked to soil water availability. We previously showed that hybrid poplar (Populus tremula X alba, INRA 717-1B4) expressing ectopically a pine cytosolic glutamine synthetase gene (GS1a) display enhanced tolerance to drought. Preliminary transcriptome profiling revealed that during drought, members of the superoxide dismutase (SOD) family were reciprocally regulated in GS poplar when compared with the wild-type control, in all tissues examined. SOD was the only gene family found to exhibit such patterns. Results In silico analysis of the Populus genome identified 12 SOD genes and two genes encoding copper chaperones for SOD (CCSs). The poplar SODs form three phylogenetic clusters in accordance with their distinct metal co-factor requirements and gene structure. Nearly all poplar SODs and CCSs are present in duplicate derived from whole genome duplication, in sharp contrast to their predominantly single-copy Arabidopsis orthologs. Drought stress triggered plant-wide down-regulation of the plastidic copper SODs (CSDs), with concomitant up-regulation of plastidic iron SODs (FSDs) in GS poplar relative to the wild type; this was confirmed at the activity level. We also found evidence for coordinated down-regulation of other copper proteins, including plastidic CCSs and polyphenol oxidases, in GS poplar under drought conditions. Conclusions Both gene duplication and expression divergence have contributed to the expansion and transcriptional diversity of the Populus SOD/CCS families. Coordinated down-regulation of major copper proteins in drought-tolerant GS poplars supports the copper cofactor economy model where copper supply is preferentially allocated for plastocyanins to sustain photosynthesis during drought. Our results also extend previous findings on the compensatory regulation between chloroplastic CSDs and FSDs, and suggest that this copper-mediated mechanism represents a common response to oxidative stress and other genetic manipulations, as in GS poplars, that affect photosynthesis.
What is New in the Clinical Assessment and Treatment of the InfertileMale

Male infertility is a fast-evolving area. Recently published evidence has challenged several established concepts and added to the knowledge in the field. Traditionally, the clinical assessment of the subfertile male includes a history and physical examination, hormonal evaluation and semen analyses. Regarding the latter, the World Health Organization has established new reference values that in general include lower limits than those of previous editions. Specialized sperm function assays, such as sperm DNA integrity and measurements of oxidative stress, are now clinically available and may be integrated to the conventional semen analysis to provide a more comprehensive evaluation of a man’s fertility status. Also, molecular biology genetic testing involving the Y-chromosome can correctly identify oligozoospermic and azoospermic men misdiagnosed as having idiopathic infertility and be of prognostic value for sperm retrieval in non-obstructive azoospermia. In the field of treatment, emerging evidence suggests that antioxidant therapy along with life-style modifications improve the male reproductive health. Microsurgery has increased the success rates for both varicocele treatment and sperm retrieval for assisted conception. Microsurgical treatment of clinical varicoceles may optimize reproductive outcome of couples undergoing intracytoplasmic sperm injection or microsurgical testicular sperm extraction. Men with non-obstructive azoospermia, elevated follicle-stimulating hormone levels and small testes may no longer be considered sterile. Modern retrieval techniques are used to collect testicular sperm that can be used to produce a healthy biological offspring via assisted conception. This article reviews what is new in the clinical assessment and treatment of the infertile male, including the implications of this increased knowledge in the management of the infertile couple and assisted reproduction technology outcomes.
Instability results for an elliptic equation on compact Riemannian manifolds with non-negative Ricci curvature

We prove nonexistence of nonconstant local minimizers for a class of functionals, which typically appears in the scalar two-phase field model, over a smooth N-dimensional Riemannian manifold without boundary with non-negative Ricci curvature. Conversely for a class of surfaces possessing a simple closed geodesic along which the Gauss curvature is negative we prove existence of nonconstant local minimizers for the same class of functionals.
Widely Linear MVDR Beamformers for the Reception of an Unknown Signal Corrupted by Noncircular Interferences

For nonstationary observations, potentially second-order (SO) noncircular, the SO optimal complex filters are time variant (TV) and, under some conditions of noncircularity, widely linear (WL). Moreover, for applications such as spectrum monitoring or passive listening, the sources' waveforms are unknown and no training sequence or spreading code is a priori available. In this context, this paper aims at introducing the time invariant (TI) WL minimum variance distortionless response (MVDR) beamformer for the optimal reception of an unknown signal, whose waveform is unknown but whose steering vector is known, corrupted by potentially noncircular interferences. Its properties, performance, and adaptive implementation in noncircular contexts are analyzed in this paper. This optimal beamformer is shown to always improve, in the steady state, the performance of the well-known Capon's beamformer for noncircular interferences. Moreover, it should be noticed that this optimal beamformer allows the processing of up to 2 (N-1) rectilinear interferences from an array of N sensors. Finally, at the end of this paper, a TV extension of this TI WL MVDR beamformer is presented to process SO noncircular interferences having a nonnull carrier residue or frequency offset.
Molecular Characterization and Variation of the Broad bean wilt virus 2 Isolates Based on Analyses of Complete Genome Sequences

The full-genome sequences of fourteen isolates of Broad bean wilt virus 2 (BBWV2), collected from broad bean, pea, spinach, bell pepper and paprika plants in Korea during the years 2006–2012, were determined and analyzed comparatively along with fifteen previously reported BBWV2 genome sequences. Sequence analyses showed that RNA-1 and RNA-2 sequences of BBWV2 Korean isolates consisted of 5950–5956 and 3568–3604 nucleotides, respectively. Full-length genome sequence-based phylogenetic analyses revealed that the BBWV2 Korean isolates could be divided into three major groups comprising GS-I (isolates BB2 and RP7) along with isolate IP, GS-II (isolates BB5, P2, P3 and RP3) along with isolate B935, and GS-III including 16 BBWV2 Korean isolates. Interestingly, GS-III appears to be newly emerged and predominant in Korea. Recombination analyses identified two recombination events in the analyzed BBWV2 population: one in the RNA-1 of isolate K and another one in the RNA-2 of isolate XJ14-3. However, no recombination events were detected in the other 21 Korean isolates. On the other hand, out of 29 BBWV2 isolates, 16 isolates were found to be reassortants, of which each RNA segment (i.e. RNA1 and RNA2) was originated from different parental isolates. Our findings suggested that reassortment rather than recombination is a major evolutionary force in the genetic diversification of BBWV population in Korea.
The convergent validity of four fine motor assessment tools in 5 to12 years old children

1Faculty of Kinesiology and Rehabilitation Sciences, Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, KU Leuven, O & N IV, Bus 1510, B 3000 Leuven, Belgium, Johan.simons@kuleuven.be 2Faculty of Kinesiology and Rehabilitation Sciences, Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, KU Leuven, O & N IV, Bus 1510, B 3000 Leuven, Belgium University Psychiatric Centre, Campus Leuven, Gasthuisberg, Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, Herestraat 49, B 3000 Leuven, Belgium, Tine.vandamme@kuleuven.be 3Faculty of Kinesiology and Rehabilitation Sciences, Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, KU Leuven, O & N IV, Bus 1510, B 3000 Leuven, Belgium,
Capacity Estimation for Vehicle-to-Grid Frequency Regulation Services With Smart Charging Mechanism

Due to various green initiatives, renewable energy will be massively incorporated into the future smart grid. However, the intermittency of the renewables may result in power imbalance, thus adversely affecting the stability of a power system. Frequency regulation may be used to maintain the power balance at all times. As electric vehicles (EVs) become popular, they may be connected to the grid to form a vehicle-to-grid (V2G) system. An aggregation of EVs can be coordinated to provide frequency regulation services. However, V2G is a dynamic system where the participating EVs come and go independently. Thus, it is not easy to estimate the regulation capacities for V2G. In a preliminary study, we modeled an aggregation of EVs with a queueing network, whose structure allows us to estimate the capacities for regulation-up and regulation-down separately. The estimated capacities from the V2G system can be used for establishing a regulation contract between an aggregator and the grid operator, and facilitating a new business model for V2G. In this paper, we extend our previous development by designing a smart charging mechanism that can adapt to given characteristics of the EVs and make the performance of the actual system follow the analytical model.
"Together we stand : group cognitions as strategies to deflect the negative impact of discrimination"

Dans cette thèse, nous nous penchons sur les effets que peut avoir la discrimination sociale sur le bienêtre des personnes qui en sont victimes, et en particulier, sur les stratégies psychologiques que ces dernières mettent en oeuvre pour s'en protéger. Parmi les cognitions qui susceptibles de faire office de " tampon ", certaines sont liées directement à l'appartenance groupale et donc potentiellement spécifiques à l'expérience de discrimination. Dans une première partie théorique, nous nous attardons sur une définition précise des concepts qui nous intéressent et décrivons en détail la littérature pertinente à notre sujet. Le premier chapitre traite de la notion de discrimination en elle-même, et de ses différences avec des concepts voisins, tels la stigmatisation, le bas statut et la privation relative. L'objectif de cette première section est de préciser notre objet d'étude. Dans un second chapitre, nous abordons la multitude de données existant sur les.