Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Quantitative analysis of molecules which distinguish functional compartments within germinal centers

Five zones in the secondary follicles of human tonsils are described, which are distinguished by the phenotype of their constituent cells. Moving from the apex to the base of the follicle the zones are termed: follicular mantle, outer zone, apical light zone, basal light zone and dark zone. The dark zone contains proliferating, CD77high, centroblasts and thin, widely spaced processes of follicular dendritic cells (FDC). The apical and basal light zones on the other hand contain a dense network of FDC which express CD21 and CD54 strongly. The FDC of the apical light zone differ from those of the basal light zone by their high expression of CD23. Centroblasts of the dark zone give rise to non‐proliferating centrocytes which move apically through the light zone (Eur. J. Immunol. 1991. 21: 2951). The centrocytes of the basal light zone are more pyroninophilic, more closely‐packed and larger than those in the apical light zone. Consequently, by conventional histology the basal light zone appears to be part of the dark zone. The nomenclature adopted, however, adheres to the convention that the dark zone is filled with proliferating centroblasts. Cells undergoing apopotosis were identified both in the dark and light zones, but more than half of these cells were located in the basal light zone. This is consistent with the concept that the progeny of cells which undergo somatic mutation in their immunoglobulin variable region genes in the dark zone migrate to the light zone where they are selected on the basis of their capacity to bind to antigen held on FDC. Cells receiving an antigen‐dependent signal survive while those that do not kill themselves by apoptosis. The outer zone does not contain CD23high cells and in this way is distinguished from the adjacent follicular mantle and apical light zone. It contains small lymphoid cells, blasts and plasmacytoid cells. Many cells of the outer zone express CDw75 strongly. The outer zone also extends as a narrow band around the dark zone. Possible roles of FDC and T cells of the light zone and outer zone in inducing centrocytes to differentiate to memory cells or plasmablasts are discussed.
Quadriceps muscle use in the flywheel and barbell squat.

BACKGROUND Resistance exercise has been proposed as an aid to counteract quadriceps muscle atrophy in astronauts during extended missions in orbit. While space authorities have advocated the squat exercise should be prescribed, no exercise system suitable for in-flight use has been validated with regard to quadriceps muscle use. We compared muscle involvement in the terrestrial "gold standard" squat using free weights and a nongravity dependent flywheel resistance exercise device designed for use in space. METHODS The subjects were 10 strength-trained men who performed 5 sets of 10 repetitions using the barbell squat (BS; 10 repetition maximum) or flywheel squat (FS; each repetition maximal), respectively. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and surface electromyography (EMG) techniques assessed quadriceps muscle use. Exercise-induced contrast shift of MR images was measured by means of transverse relaxation time (T2). EMG root mean square (RMS) was measured during concentric (CON) and eccentric (ECC) actions and normalized to EMG RMS determined during maximal voluntary contraction. RESULTS The quadriceps muscle group showed greater exercise-induced T2 increase following FS compared with BS. Among individual muscles, the rectus femoris displayed greater T2 increase with FS (+24 +/- 14%) than BS (+8 +/- 4%). Normalized quadriceps EMG showed no difference across exercise modes. DISCUSSION Collectively, the results of this study suggest that quadriceps muscle use in the squat is comparable, if not greater, with flywheel compared with free weight resistance exercise. Data appear to provide support for use of flywheel squat resistance exercise as a countermeasures adjunct during spaceflight.
MEASURING THE IMPACT OF FINANCIAL INTERMEDIATION: LINKING CONTRACT THEORY TO ECONOMETRIC POLICY EVALUATION

We study the impact that financial intermediation can have on productivity through the alleviation of credit constraints in occupation choice and/or an improved allocation of risk, using both static and dynamic structural models as well as reduced-form OLS and IV regressions. Our goal in this paper is to bring these two strands of the literature together. Even though, under certain assumptions, IV regressions can accurately recover the true model-generated local average treatment effect, this is quantitatively different, in order of magnitude and even sign, from other policy impact parameters (e.g., ATE and TT). We also show that laying out clearly alternative models can guide the search for instruments. On the other hand, adding more margins of decision, that is, occupation choice and intermediation jointly, or adding more periods with promised utilities as key state variables, as in optimal multiperiod contracts, can cause the misinterpretation of IV as the causal effect of interest.
Management of Acute Stroke: A Debate Paper on Clinical Priorities. A Literature Review

Stroke is a leading cause of death and disability globally. Also, it is expected that the burden of stroke will increase due to the rise of the elderly population within societal age structures. The aim of this literature review is to present in detail the important issues regarding contemporary management of stroke. For this reason, a thorough search was undertaken via Medline, CINHAL and ELIN from 2004 to 2014. Analysis of the search results led to the corresponding domains as presented below, namely: nursing implications for stroke, interventions in the acute phase, investigations/other treatment options and cost implications. In this context, a number of goals for more efficient care of stroke patients are now set, using advanced, integrated care plans and critical pathways. From the above, it can be concluded that stroke has a major impact on society and hospital resources and its high incidence and frequency of prolonged survival requires a heavy investment in human and financial recourses for provision of care. On the other hand, the rising hospital costs coupled with a growing elderly population are limiting the financial resources of the health care system, and therefore, an improved development of the long-term care continuum is required.
Evaluating a push-pull strategy for management of Drosophila suzukii Matsumura in red raspberry.

BACKGROUND Drosophila suzukii Matsumura is a serious pest of small fruits that lays its eggs in growing fruit. Current management strategies rely on an unsustainable schedule of foliar applications of chemical insecticides. Alternative approaches to suppressing oviposition are under investigation, such as attract-and-kill and the use of oviposition deterrents. Here, we evaluated two behavioral control approaches in combination as a push-pull strategy using laboratory and field assays. RESULTS In laboratory caged assays, both an attractive mass trapping device (pull) and an oviposition deterrent (push: 1-octen-3-ol) reduced oviposition by D. suzukii, and the combination of the two (push-pull) resulted in significantly greater reduction than either treatment alone. In field experiments, oviposition reduction was observed in fruit from plots treated with oviposition deterrent (push) or a combination of mass trapping devices and deterrent (push-pull) compared with fruit from control plots. However, oviposition in plots with mass trapping devices (pull) was higher than observed in all other treatments. Additionally, the protection provided by the deterrent in push plots extended to the entire plot rather than just in fruit closest to deterrent dispensers. CONCLUSION Push-pull treatments negatively affected D. suzukii infestation in both laboratory and field experiments. The reduction in oviposition observed in laboratory experiments was based on the additive effect of push and pull components acting on a finite population, while the reduction observed in field experiments appeared to be mainly based on the effect of pull components. We discuss potential underlying reasons for the discrepancy results and suggest potential improvements. © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry.
Efficient fair queueing using deficit round robin

Fair queuing is a technique that allows each flow passing through a network device to have a fair share of network resources. Previous schemes for fair queuing that achieved nearly perfect fairness were expensive to implement: specifically, the work required to process a packet in these schemes was O(log(n)), where n is the number of active flows. This is expensive at high speeds. On the other hand, cheaper approximations of fair queuing that have been reported in the literature exhibit unfair behavior. In this paper, we describe a new approximation of fair queuing, that we call Deficit Round Robin. Our scheme achieves nearly perfect fairness in terms of throughput, requires only O(1) work to process a packet, and is simple enough to implement in hardware. Deficit Round Robin is also applicable to other scheduling problems where servicing cannot be broken up into smaller units, and to distributed queues.
Contour Estimation on Piecewise Homogeneous Random Fields

Contour Estimation, Bayesian Estimation, Random Fields, Dynamic Programming, Multigrid Methods. This paper addresses contour estimation on images modeled as piecewise homogeneous random elds. It is therefore assumed that images are samples of random elds composed of a set of homogeneous, in a statistical sense, regions; pixels within each region are assumed to be independent samples of a given random variable. Particular attention is given to Gaussian, Rayleigh, and Poisson densities. The model just described accurately ts many class of problems on image modalities such as optical, ultrasound, X-rays, emission tomography, and confocal microscopy, only to name a few. The followed approach is Bayesian: contours are assumed to be non-causal Markov random elds. This description is appropriate to include a priori information such as continuity, smoothness, elasticity, and rigidity. The selected estimation criterion is the maximum a posteriori (MAP). In the present context, MAP estimation, although simpler than others (e.g., minimum mean square error or minimum absolute error), leads to a huge non-linear optimization problem. By using dynamic programming associated to a multigrid resolution technique, quasi-optimal contour estimates are computed with an acceptable complexity. A set of tests using synthetic and real images illustrates the appropriateness of the proposed methodology.
ScienceDirect Information Technology and Quantitative Management ( ITQM 2015 ) A Performance Measure to Support Decision-Making in Agricultural Research Centers in Brazil

The assessment of productive efficiency of a public research institution is of fundamental importance for its administration. A better management of available resources may be accomplished if managers have at their disposal meaningful quantitative measurements of the production process. In this paper we use Multivariate Analysis and Data Envelopment Analysis to define a performance measure for the research centers of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation. Multiple production indicators are reduced to three output variables by means of maximum likelihood factor analysis. Performance is determined on the basis of this output vector and a three dimensional input vector defined by cost components. We impose restrictions on the optimization algorithm to guarantee usage of all outputs and inputs in the optimal solutions. Types of research centers are compared by using fractional regression models, quasi-maximum likelihood estimation and bootstrap. The analysis also provides a weighting system to compute a goal achievement index and therefore support managerial decision-making. © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of the organizers of ITQM 2015
Mesh considerations for adaptive finite element analyses of cement failure in total hip replacement

Failure of the cement mantle has been identified as a possible mode of failure of the implanted femur in total hip replacement (THR) [1]. Finite element (FE) analyses have been used to investigate the stresses experienced in the cement mantle [2] and to predict the life of the cement mantle when taking different factors into account [3]. The number of elements used, or mesh density, is an important consideration when creating a FE model. A model with an insufficient mesh density will not be able to fully capture the stress state in the area of interest, but increasing the mesh density dramatically increases the computational cost of the analysis. The aim of this study is to determine the mesh density necessary to model creep and damage accumulation in the cement mantle of a cemented implanted femur. We compare the initial stress state and damage accumulation rate for different mesh densities and different element types.
Characterization of the Modular Design of the Autolysin/Adhesin Aaa from Staphylococcus Aureus

Background Staphylococcus aureus is a frequent cause of serious and life-threatening infections, such as endocarditis, osteomyelitis, pneumonia, and sepsis. Its adherence to various host structures is crucial for the establishment of diseases. Adherence may be mediated by a variety of adhesins, among them the autolysin/adhesins Atl and Aaa. Aaa is composed of three N-terminal repeated sequences homologous to a lysin motif (LysM) that can confer cell wall attachment and a C-terminally located cysteine, histidine-dependent amidohydrolase/peptidase (CHAP) domain having bacteriolytic activity in many proteins. Methodology/Principal Findings Here, we show by surface plasmon resonance that the LysM domain binds to fibrinogen, fibronectin, and vitronectin respresenting a novel adhesive function for this domain. Moreover, we demonstrated that the CHAP domain not only mediates the bacteriolytic activity, but also adherence to fibrinogen, fibronectin, and vitronectin, thus demonstrating for the first time an adhesive function for this domain. Adherence of an S. aureus aaa mutant and the complemented aaa mutant is slightly decreased and increased, respectively, to vitronectin, but not to fibrinogen and fibronectin, which might at least in part result from an increased expression of atl in the aaa mutant. Furthermore, an S. aureus atl mutant that showed enhanced adherence to fibrinogen, fibronectin, and endothelial cells also demonstrated increased aaa expression and production of Aaa. Thus, the redundant functions of Aaa and Atl might at least in part be interchangeable. Lastly, RT-PCR and zymographic analysis revealed that aaa is negatively regulated by the global virulence gene regulators agr and SarA. Conclusions/Significance We identified novel functions for two widely distributed protein domains, LysM and CHAP, i.e. the adherence to the extracellular matrix proteins fibrinogen, fibronectin, and vitronectin. The adhesive properties of Aaa might promote S. aureus colonization of host extracellular matrix and tissue, suggesting a role for Aaa in the pathogenesis of S. aureus infections.
Propositional Fragments for Knowledge Compilation and Quantified Boolean Formulae

Several propositional fragments have been considered so far as target languages for knowledge compilation and used for improving computational tasks from major AI areas (like inference, diagnosis and planning); among them are the (quite influential) ordered binary decision diagrams, prime implicates, prime implicants, "formulae" in decomposable negation normal form. On the other hand, the validity problem QBF for Quantified Boolean Formulae (QBF) has been acknowledged for the past few years as an important issue for AI, and many solvers have been designed for this purpose. In this paper, the complexity of restrictions of QBF obtained by imposing the matrix of the input QBF to belong to such propositional fragments is identified. Both tractability and intractability results (PSPACE-completeness) are obtained.
Can We Identify NAT Behavior by Analyzing Traffic Flows?

It is shown in the literature that network address translation devices have become a convenient way to hide the source of malicious behaviors. In this research, we explore how far we can push a machine learning (ML) approach to identify such behaviors using only network flows. We evaluate our proposed approach on different traffic data sets against passive fingerprinting approaches and show that the performance of a machine learning approach is very promising even without using any payload (application layer) information.
Fabrication of barium titanate nanoparticles‐epoxy resin composite films and their dielectric properties

A method for fabricating epoxy resin films dispersing the surface-modified barium titanate (BT) particles (BT-epoxy resin composite films) are proposed. BT particles with a size of 7.8 nm and a crystal size of 8.6 nm were synthesized with a complex alkoxide method. To introduce epoxy groups on the BT particle surface, the BT particles were surface-modified with 2-(3,4-epoxycyclohexyl)-ethyltrimethoxysilane. A precursor solution, which was prepared by prereacting 2,2-bis(4-glycidyloxyphenyl)propane (BGPP) and phthalic anhydride in 4-butyrolactone and adding the surface-modified BT particles to the prereacting solution, was spin-coated on glass substrates to fabricate the composite films. An increase in BT volume fraction in film increased dielectric constant of the composite film while keeping dissipation factor below 0.03. The dielectric constant attained 10.8 at a BT volume fraction of 30% in film that was around twice higher than pure epoxy resin film. POLYM. COMPOS. , 31:1179–1183, 2010. © 2009 Society of Plastics Engineers
Observability of Strapdown INS Alignment: A Global Perspective

Alignment of the strapdown inertial navigation system (INS) has strong nonlinearity, even worse when maneuvers, e.g., tumbling techniques, are employed to improve the alignment. There is no general rule to attack the observability of a nonlinear system, so most previous works addressed the observability of the corresponding linearized system by implicitly assuming that the original nonlinear system and the linearized one have identical observability characteristics. Strapdown INS alignment is a nonlinear system that has its own characteristics. Using the inherent properties of strapdown INS, e.g., the attitude evolution on the SO(3) manifold, we start from the basic definition and develop a global and constructive approach to investigate the observability of strapdown INS static and tumbling alignment, highlighting the effects of the attitude maneuver on observability. We prove that strapdown INS alignment, considering the unknown constant sensor biases, will be completely observable if the strapdown INS is rotated successively about two different axes and will be nearly observable for finite known unobservable states (no more than two) if it is rotated about a single axis. Observability from a global perspective provides us with insights into and a clearer picture of the problem, shedding light on previous theoretical results on strapdown INS alignment that were not comprehensive or consistent. The reporting of inconsistencies calls for a review of all linearization-based observability studies in the vast literature. Extensive simulations with constructed ideal observers and an extended Kalman filter are carried out, and the numerical results accord with the analysis. The conclusions can also assist in designing the optimal tumbling strategy and the appropriate state observer in practice to maximize the alignment performance.
Exploiting Sensor Symmetry for Generalized Tactile Perception in Biomimetic Touch

Tactile perception methods rely on creating mappings from tactile data to percepts. In many approaches to artificial tactile perception, this involves extensive sampling of the object during the training phase. We introduce here a method to instead generalize tactile features across different orientations. This method is applied to the TacTip v2, a three-dimensional printed optical tactile sensor with internal pins acting as taxels arranged with a 12-fold rotational symmetry. By rotating a small sample of tactile images, we are able to generalize tactile stimuli to new orientations. The method was validated across several tactile stimuli on an edge orientation classification task. Data were then generalized for a combination of orientations and locations of one of these stimuli, and this dataset was used as the basis for an exploratory control task: contour following around a circular disk. The generalization method leads to a strong reduction in the time needed to gather training data and only a moderate increase in classification error, and is particularly suited for multidimensional tactile data sampling in complex tasks such as tactile manipulation. We expect the method to generalize well to other tactile stimuli.
Thermal decomposition assisted synthesis and upconversion property of Fe3O4@YPO4:Tm/Yb hybrid nano-composite phosphor

Hybrid nano-composite phosphor has been successfully synthesized through thermal decomposition method. The dual phase of samples assigned by XRD analysis shows the formation of nano-composite with crystallite size 20 nm and 12 nm for YPO4: Tm/Yb and Fe3O4@YPO4:Tm/Yb respectively. The FESEM images show the spherical shape and non agglomerated formation of nanoparticles. Three bands in upconversion emission mode were found in intense blue at 472 nm, red at 662 nm and NIR at 798 nm regions corresponding to1G4 → 3H6, 1G4 → 3F4 and 3H4 → 3H6 transition states respectively. The lifetime for1G4 → 3H6 level is found 1150 microsecond and 1400 microsecond for YPO4: Tm/Yb and Fe3O4@YPO4:Tm/Yb samples respectively.
Mugshot Identification from Manipulated Facial Images

Editing on digital images is ubiquitous. Identification of deliberately modified facial images is a new challenge for face identification system. In this paper, we address the problem of identification of a face or person from heavily altered facial images. In this face identification problem, the input to the system is a manipulated or transformed face image and the system reports back the determined identity from a database of known individuals. Such a system can be useful in mugshot identification in which mugshot database contains two views (frontal and profile) of each criminal. We considered only frontal view from the available database for face identification and the query image is a manipulated face generated by face transformation software tool available online. We propose SIFT features for efficient face identification in this scenario. Further comparative analysis has been given with well known eigenface approach. Experiments have been conducted with real case images to evaluate the performance of both methods.
Low-Rank Tensor Krylov Subspace Methods for Parametrized Linear Systems

We consider linear systems $A(\alpha) x(\alpha) = b(\alpha)$ depending on possibly many parameters $\alpha = (\alpha_1,\ldots,\alpha_p)$. Solving these systems simultaneously for a standard discretization of the parameter range would require a computational effort growing drastically with the number of parameters. We show that a much lower computational effort can be achieved for sufficiently smooth parameter dependencies. For this purpose, computational methods are developed that benefit from the fact that $x(\alpha)$ can be well approximated by a tensor of low rank. In particular, low-rank tensor variants of short-recurrence Krylov subspace methods are presented. Numerical experiments for deterministic PDEs with parametrized coefficients and stochastic elliptic PDEs demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach.