Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Magnetic resonance colonography in rats with TNBS‐induced colitis: A feasibility and validation study

Background: Magnetic resonance colonography (MRC) has been recently developed to assess bowel inflammation in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients. Evaluating animal models of inflammation with MRC may be important in new drug‐screening processes. The aim of this study was to assess the feasibility of MRC in colitic rats and confront it with model characteristics. Methods: Colitis was induced by rectal injection of trinitrobenzene‐sulfonic acid (TNBS) in 13 rats while six rats received the vehicle. MRC was performed at day 2. Colon inflammation and production of inflammatory mediators were evaluated. Image quality was assessed by wall and motion artifacts. MRC criteria were bowel wall thickness, wall signal intensity on T2‐weighted (T2w) and T1w images, the appearance of a target sign pattern, and irregular patterns of mucosal surface. Results: MRC quality was good or excellent in 16/21 examinations with no difference between groups. Colitis rats were significantly different from controls in terms of wall thickness (P = 0.004), the appearance of a target sign pattern (P = 0.02), irregular patterns of mucosal surface (P = 0.01), and hyperintensity on T1w images (P = 0.03). All MRC criteria except maximal bowel wall thickness were associated with colon weight:length ratio and inflammatory biomarkers (all P < 0.05). Minimal bowel wall thickness and wall signal intensity on T2w images were associated with histological score (P < 0.05). Conclusions: MRC is feasible and reliable in rats with TNBS‐induced colitis. MRC criteria including colon wall thickness, wall signal intensity on T2w images, hyperintensity in T1w sequence, and the appearance of a target sign pattern may be potential targets for new IBD drugs. (Inflamm Bowel Dis 2012)
Environmental and occupational disorders Housing characteristics, reported mold exposure, and asthma in the European Community Respiratory Health Survey

Background: The effects of home dampness and mold exposure on adult asthma are not clear. Objective: We aimed to investigate the associations between housing characteristics related to dampness, mold exposure, and house dust mite levels and adult asthma in 38 study centers from the European Community Respiratory Health Survey. Methods: Data about the present home, heating and ventilation systems, double glazing, floor covers, recent water damage, and mold exposure were obtained by means of an inter-viewer-led questionnaire. The associations between these factors and asthma, as defined on the basis of symptoms in the last year, and of bronchial responsiveness, as determined with methacholine challenge, were evaluated. Odds ratios (ORs) were obtained by using random-effects meta-analyses adjusted within study centers for sex, age group, and smoking status. Results: Fitted carpets and rugs in the bedroom were related to fewer asthma symptoms and bronchial responsiveness (OR range, 0.69-0.91). This effect was consistent across centers and more pronounced among house dust mite–sensitized individuals. Reported mold exposure in the last year was associated with asthma symptoms and bronchial responsiveness (OR range, 1.14-1.44). This effect was homogeneous among centers and stronger in subjects sensitized to Cladosporium species. In centers with a higher prevalence of asthma, the prevalence of reported indoor mold exposure was also high. This association was observed for reported mold exposure by asthmatic subjects (Spearman r s = 0.46), as well as reported mold exposure by nonasthmatic subjects ( r s = 0.54). Reported mold exposure was highest in older houses with recent water damage. Conclusion: We conclude that indoor mold growth has an adverse effect on adult asthma. (J Allergy Clin Immunol 2002;110:285-92.)
The application of capture-recapture log-linear models to software inspections data

Re-inspection has been deployed in industry to improve the quality of software inspections. The number of remaining defects after inspection is an important factor affecting whether to re-inspect the document or not. Models based on capture-recapture (CR) sampling techniques have been proposed to estimate the number of defects remaining in the document after inspection. Several publications have studied the robustness of some of these models using software engineering data. Unfortunately, most of the existing studies did not examine the log linear models with respect software inspection data. In order o explore the performance of the log linear models, we evaluated their performance for three person inspection teams. Furthermore, we evaluated the models using an inspection data set that was previously used to asses different CR models. Generally speaking, the study provided very promising results. According to our results, the log linear models proved to be more robust that all CR based models previously assessed for three-person inspections.
Constitution d'un corpus de la langue Arabe à partir du Web

La toile est une source intarissable de donnees textuelles. Ces dernieres annees la communaute travaillant sur les differents aspects de la langue s'est tournee vers le web afin de beneficier de cette masse impressionnante d'informations. Cet article decrit un outil de construction de corpus pour l'Arabe. Il permet de recueillir automatiquement une liste de sites dedies a la langue Arabe. Ensuite le contenu de ces sites est extrait et est normalise. Le corpus ainsi constitue peut etre utilise dans diverses applications de traitement du langage naturel et plus particulierement dans le calcul de modeles de langage statistiques.
Improved Multi-Bernoulli Filter for Extended Stealth Targets Tracking Based on Sub-Random Matrices

In this paper, we address a radar detection and tracking of multi-stealth targets. Multi-Bernoulli filter is a provable optimal Bayes approach of multi-target filtering and shows excellent performance over the other filters. The original multi-Bernoulli filters rely on the assumption that the interest targets are point source objects. Normally, in realistic scenarios, the point source assumption is not suitable for estimating the extent stealth targets (ESTs) scenarios. Recently, the random matrices approach has been proposed for ellipsoidal extended object tracking by additional state variables. In multiple EST scenarios, although the extension ellipsoid is efficient, it may not be accurate enough because of lacking useful information, such as size, shape, and orientation. To this point, we introduce a non-ellipsoidal EST composed of multiple ellipsoidal sub-objects, and each one is represented by a random matrix. Based on such models, a multi-Bernoulli filter is used to estimate kinematic states and extensions of sub-objects for each EST. However, in multiple EST scenarios, the detection profile is prior unknown due to fluctuation of EST parameters. The parameter, such as detection probability, is of critical importance in this extended filter. To tackle these problems, a beta Gaussian inverse Wishart implementation is proposed to estimate the EST extent augment with unknown detection probability and kinematic state. The results show that the proposed filter has more accurate cardinality estimation and smaller optimal sub-pattern assignment errors than the recently extended probability hypothesis density (PHD) and cardinalized PHD filters.
Visualization Bio-Mimetic Model of Muscular Drive

There exist large numbers of papers on muscle modeling for biomechanics or virtual reality but, in our opinion, they are inconvenient as a practicable method for muscular drive modeling for robotic joint or bio-mechanisms. We now propose a computational approach to modeling artificial muscle for robotic joint or bio-mechanisms drive. In the full paper, we explain in detail the proposed efficient method; in this abstract we just summarize briefly how we developed our visualization muscular drive model. This paper advocates a two-element model representing the complex mechanical properties of artificial muscles, the model utilizes Zajac's method and neglects the effect of series elastic element, in addition, its three-dimensional geometry entity is designed. In order to build this muscle model rapidly, a software plugin is developed based on ADAMSTM that allows the creation of control module and multi-body dynamic system for use in bio-mechanisms. As an example, a bio-mimetic joint actuator for robots comprising four muscle models is built and analyzed. The results show that our visualization model of muscular drive has good simplicity and accuracy.
Joint Visual and Textual Mining on Social Media

In modern social media, massive visual and textual data are collected and uploaded to social Web sites everyday. How to extract useful knowledge from such multiple modality data and organize it in an efficient way remains an important problem. The goal of this dissertation is to investigate joint visual and textual mining for social media data. My dissertation aims at contributing to our theoretical understanding on weakly supervised learning, as well as systematically building a visual and textual knowledgebase. This research focuses on three phases of investigation: 1) how textual data like tags help weakly supervised visual parsing, 2) how to build a large scale knowledge base by mapping visual and textual concepts on social media, 3) with such a knowledgebase, how can we interpret/organize social media data in a more reliable and effective way.
Rationale and Design of a Multicenter Echocardiographic Study to Assess the Relationship Between Cardiac Structure and Function and Heart Failure Risk in a Biracial Cohort of Community-Dwelling Elderly Persons: The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study

Background—Heart failure is an important public health concern, particularly among persons >65 years of age. Women and blacks are critically understudied populations that carry a sizeable portion of the heart failure burden. Limited normative and prognostic data exist on measures of cardiac structure, diastolic function, and novel measures of systolic deformation in older adults living in the community. Methods and Results—The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study is a large, predominantly biracial, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute–sponsored epidemiological cohort study. Between 2011 and 2013, ≈6000 surviving participants, now in their seventh to ninth decade of life, are expected to return for a fifth study visit during which comprehensive 2-dimensional, Doppler, tissue Doppler, and speckle-tracking echocardiography will be performed uniformly in all cohort clinic visit participants. The following objectives will be addressed: (1) to characterize cardiac structural and functional abnormalities among the elderly and to determine how they differ by sex and race/ethnicity, (2) to determine the relationship between ventricular and vascular abnormalities, and (3) to prospectively examine the extent to which these noninvasive measures associate with incident heart failure. Conclusions—We describe the design, imaging acquisition and analysis methods, and quality assurance metrics for echocardiography in visit 5 of the ARIC cohort. A better understanding of the differences in cardiac structure and function through the spectrum of heart failure stages in elderly persons generally, and between sexes and racial/ethnic groups specifically, will deepen our understanding of the pathophysiology driving heart failure progression in these at-risk populations and may inform novel prevention or therapeutic strategies.
Performance of Value at Risk models in the midst of the global financial crisis in selected CEE emerging capital markets

The aim of this paper is to investigate the performance of Value at Risk (VaR) models in selected Central and Eastern European (CEE) emerging capital markets. Daily returns of Croatian (CROBEX), Czech (PX50), Hungarian (BUX) and Romanian (BET) stock exchange indices are analysed for the period January, 2000 – February, 2012, while daily returns of the Serbian (BELEX15) index is examined for the period September, 2005 – February, 2012. In recent years there has been much research conducted into VaR in developed markets, while papers dealing with VaR calculation in CEE are rare. Furthermore, VaR models created and suited for liquid and well-developed markets that assume normal distribution are less reliable for capital markets in emerging economies, such as Central and Eastern European Union member and candidate states. Since capital markets in European emerging economies are highly volatile, less liquid and strongly dependent on the unexpected external shocks, market risk estimation based on normality assumption in CEE countries is more problematic. This motivates us to implement GARCH-type methods that involve time varying volatility and heavy tails of the empirical distribution of returns. We test the hypothesis that using the assumption of heavy tailed distribution it is possible to forecast market risk more precisely, especially in times of crisis, than under the assumption of normal distribution or using historical simulations method. Our backtesting results for the last 500 observations are based on the Kupiec POF and Christoffersen independence test. They show that GARCH-type models with t error distribution in most analysed cases give better VaR estimation than GARCH type models with normal errors in the case of a 99% confidence level, while in the case of a 95% confidence level it is the opposite. The results of backtesting analysis for the crisis period (after the collapse of Lehman Brothers) show that GARCH-type models with t-distribution of residuals provide better VaR estimates compared with GARCH-type models with normal distribution, historical simulations and RiskMetrics methods. The RiskMetrics method in the most cases underestimates market risk.
New Mandibular Advancement Device (BestMAD) in the Treatment of Obstructive Sleep Apnea: A Preliminary Study

Background: Oral appliances have emerged as an important alternative in treating patients with mild-moderate obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). They are effective, simple to use and well tolerated by the patient compared to other therapeutic solutions, such as continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) or surgery of the upper airways. Aim: The aim of this preliminary study was to assess the effectiveness of a new mandibular advancement device, the BestMAD, in the treatment of OSA patients. Materials and methods: We selected 10 patients, 9 males and 1 female, with an average age of 51.5 years, affected by OSA, with a BMI (Body Mass Index) value ≤25 kg/m2. All patients used the BestMAD for at least 6 months. A control polysomnography was repeated after 6 months and a questionnaire was administered to assess the side effects eventually felt by the patient. Results: After treatment with BestMAD, a statistically significant improvement was found in AHI (p=0.0051), RDI (p=0.0051) and ESS (p=0.0049). With regard to adherence to the treatment, 8 patients claimed to have used the BestMAD for the entire duration of nocturnal rest, while the remaining 2 only for a few hours at night. Conclusions: BestMAD is a comfortable device which has proved effective in improving the polysomnographic parameters.
Transmission resonances in plasmonic metallic gratings

Using the Fourier modal method (FMM) we report our analysis of the transmission resonances of a plasmonic grating with subwavelength period and extremely narrow slits for wavelengths of the incoming, transverse magnetic (TM)-polarized, radiation ranging from 240nm to 1500nm and incident angles from 0° to 90°. In particular, we study the case of a silver grating placed in vacuo. Consistent with previous studies on the topic, we highlight that the main mechanism for extraordinary transmission is a TM-Fabry-Perot (FP) branch supported by waveguide modes inside each slit. The TM-FP branch may also interact with surface plasmons (SPs) at the air/Ag interface through the reciprocal lattice vectors of the grating, for periods comparable with the incoming wavelength. When the TM-FP branch crosses an SP branch, a bandgap is formed along the line of the SP dispersion. The gap has a Fano-Feshbach resonance at the low frequency band edge and a ridge resonance with extremely long lifetime at the high frequency band edge. We discuss the nature of these dispersion features, and in particular we describe the ridge resonance in the framework of guided-mode resonances (GMRs). In addition, we elucidate the connection of the coupling between the TM-FP branch and SPs within the Rayleigh condition. We also study the peculiar characteristics of the field localization and the energy transport in two topical examples.
Identifying Flow in Video Games: Towards a New Observation-Based Method

The flow, or optimal experience, is a highly focused mental state leading to immersion and high performance. Although flow theory has been widely applied to research on videogames, methods based on behavior observation to identify flow states are limited in this domain. The aim of the present study was to develop a new method to detect flow episodes occurring during a gaming session from observation of players' behaviors and analysis of game replays. The authors developed an optimal experience behavior pattern and a related coding scheme. In-depth interviews were then conducted to determine whether episodes coded as flow by researchers were also described as such by the players themselves. Findings showed that intense concentration followed by an expression of satisfaction could be a useful pattern to detect flow. Unexpectedly, the interviews suggested that frustration, as well as joy, may also be an emotional signature of flow. This study shed new light on the relationship between gameplay and flow.
Construction of a recombinant plasmid harbouring the rhoptry protein 1 gene of Toxoplasma gondii and preliminary observations on DNA immunity.

OBJECTIVE To observe the immune responses elicited in BALB/c mice by a DNA vaccine. A gene encoding rhoptry protein 1 (ROP1) from Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) was cloned into vector pcDNA3. METHODS Amplifyied gene fragments coding for ROP1 from the genomic DNA of T. gondii ZS2 were inserted into cloning vector, pUC18, and sub-cloned into pcDNA3. Mice were injected at a dosage of 100 micrograms recombinant plasmid DNA by intramuscular injection and boosted after 2 weeks. pcDNA3 and normal saline were used as control. 30, 50 and 70 days after the second immunization, NK cell activity, T lymphocyte proliferation and sub-clusters and serum IgG antibody were assayed. RESULTS The specific gene fragment coding for ROP1 was amplified and a pcROP1 recombinant was constructed. At 30 days after immunization, the spleens of the mice were obviously enlarged evidently. NKC activity and the proliferation of spleen T lymphocytes seen on MTT assay were higher in pcROP1 group than in the controls. The number of CD4+ T cells exhibited no obvious increase compared with that of the control, but CD8+ T cells were obviously increased (P < 0.05). At 90 days after vaccination, the titer of IgG antibody in the serum of vaccinated mice was positive (1:100). CONCLUSION pcROP1 was constructed and it could elicit both cellular and humoral immune responses in immunized mice.
Information Logistics and Fog Computing: The DITAS* Approach

Data-intensive applications are usually developed based on Cloud resources whose service delivery model helps towards building reliable and scalable solutions. However, especially in the context of Internet of Things-based applications, Cloud Computing comes with some limitations as data, generated at the edge of the network, are processed at the core of the network producing security, privacy, and latency issues. On the other side, Fog Computing is emerging as an extension of Cloud Computing, where resources located at the edge of the network are used in combination with cloud services. The goal of this paper is to present the approach adopted in the recently started DITAS project: the design of a Cloud platform is proposed to optimize the development of data-intensive applications providing information logistics tools that are able to deliver information and computation resources at the right time, right place, with the right quality. Applications that will be developed with DITAS tools live in a Fog Computing environment, where data move from the cloud to the edge and vice versa to provide secure, reliable, and scalable solutions with excellent performance.
Lithic assemblages from the Chang Tang Region, Northern Tibet

Archaeological evidence from the Chang Tang Reserve suggests that humans may have first colonized the Tibetan Plateau during the late Pleistocene. Blade, bladelet and microblade technologies are found as surface assemblages in a variety of contexts above 4500 m elevation. The lack of modern analogues for foraging populations in high-elevation environments brings about a reconsideration of the diversity and organization of Pleistocene hunter-gatherer adaptations.
Elements of Mediterranean diet improve oxidative status in blood of kidney graft recipients

Patients were fully informed as to the study objectives and benefits, and provided written consent prior to enrolment. The study protocol was approved by the Committee on Human Research at the Pomeranian Medical University, Szczecin, Poland. An intensification of free-radical reactions may contribute to accelerated atherosclerosis in kidney graft recipients. We examined the effect of a Mediterranean-type diet (MD) on the oxidative status of the plasma and erythrocytes of kidney graft recipients. Two patient groups were formed: a study group consuming the MD diet and a control group with a low-fat diet. C-reactive protein levels in plasma, oleic acid C18: 1n-9 and linoleic acid C18: 2n-6 concentrations in triacyloglycerols were determined. To determine the oxidative status, we measured the concentrations of α-tocopherol in plasma, the content of thiobarbituric acid-reactive species (TBARS) in plasma and erythrocytes, and the activities of superoxide dismutase, catalase and glutathione peroxidase in erythrocytes. In the MD group, the activities of erythrocyte enzymes changed significantly: those of superoxide dismutase increased (P<0.001 after 6 months), catalase decreased (P<0.001 after 6 months) and glutathione peroxidase decreased (P<0.05 after 2 months). The oleic acid content of triacylglycerols was increased (P<0.006) whereas that of linoleic acid was decreased (P<0.00005), α-tocopherol levels remaining unchanged. TBARS in plasma were decreased after 6 months of MD (P<0.05). No significant correlations were observed between TBARS, oleic acid, linoleic acid and α-tocopherol levels in plasma. MD appears to protect the erythrocytes against the action of free radicals, as reflected in the modified activities of some enzymes regulating the oxidative status of these blood cells.