Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Description of HIV-1 Group M Molecular Epidemiology and Drug Resistance Prevalence in Equatorial Guinea from Migrants in Spain

Background The HIV epidemic is increasing in Equatorial Guinea (GQ), West Central Africa, but few studies have reported its HIV molecular epidemiology. We aimed to describe the HIV-1 group M (HIV-1M) variants and drug-resistance mutations in GQ using sequences sampled in this country and in Spain, a frequent destination of Equatoguinean migrants. Methods We collected 195 HIV-1M pol sequences from Equatoguinean subjects attending Spanish clinics during 1997-2011, and 83 additional sequences sampled in GQ in 1997 and 2008 from GenBank. All (n = 278) were re-classified using phylogeny and tested for drug-resistance mutations. To evaluate the origin of CRF02_AG in GQ, we analyzed 2,562 CRF02_AG sequences and applied Bayesian MCMC inference (BEAST program). Results Most Equatoguinean patients recruited in Spain were women (61.1%) or heterosexuals (87.7%). In the 278 sequences, the variants found were CRF02_AG (47.8%), A (13.7%), B (7.2%), C (5.8%), G (5.4%) and others (20.1%). We found 6 CRF02_AG clusters emerged from 1983.9 to 2002.5 with origin in GQ (5.5 sequences/cluster). Transmitted drug-resistance (TDR) rate among naïve patients attended in Spain (n = 144) was 4.7%: 3.4% for PI (all with M46IL), 1.8% for NRTI (all with M184V) and 0.9% for NNRTI (Y188L). Among pre-treated patients, 9/31 (29%) presented any resistance, mainly affecting NNRTI (27.8%). Conclusions We report a low (<5%) TDR rate among naïve, with PI as the most affected class. Pre-treated patients also showed a low drug-resistance prevalence (29%) maybe related to the insufficient treatment coverage in GQ. CRF02_AG was the prevalent HIV-1M variant and entered GQ through independent introductions at least since the early 1980s.
Using Subdivision Surfaces for 3 – D Reconstruction from Noisy Data

In this work, we developed a method which effectively uses su bdivision surfaces to fit deformable models to noisy 3–D data. The subdivis ion models provide a compact low dimensional representation of model p arameter space. They also allow a free form deformation of the objects of arbi trary geometry. These two properties make them ideal for fitting deformable m odels to noisy data. We tested our approach on stereo data acquired from uncalibr ated monocular video sequences, then on data acquired from low quality l ser scans, and compared them. We have shown that it can be successfully used to r construct human faces as well as the other 3D objects of arbitrar y geometry.
Petrogenetic modelling of strongly residual metapelitic xenoliths within the southern Platreef, Bushveld Complex, South Africa

Xenoliths of quartz‐absent Fe‐rich aluminous metapelite are common within the platinum group element‐rich mafic/ultramafic magmatic rocks of the Platreef. Relative to well‐characterized protoliths, the xenoliths are strongly depleted in K2O and H2O, and have lost a substantial amount of melt (>50 vol.%). Mineral equilibria calculations in the NCKFMASHTO system yield results that are consistent with observations in natural samples. Lower‐grade rocks that lack staurolite constrain peak pressures to ∼2.5 kbar in the southern Platreef. Smaller xenoliths and the margins of larger xenoliths comprise micro‐diatexite rich in coarse acicular corundum and spinel, which record evidence for the metastable persistence of lower‐grade hydrous phases and rapid melting consequent on a temperature overstep of several hundred degrees following their incorporation in the mafic/ultramafic magmas. In the cores of larger xenoliths, temperatures increased more slowly enabling progressive metamorphism by continuous prograde equilibration and the loss of H2O by subsolidus dehydration; the H2O migrated to xenolith margins where it may have promoted increased melting. According to variations in the original compositional layering, layers became aluminosilicate‐ and/or cordierite‐rich, commonly with spinel but only rarely with corundum. The differing mineralogical and microstructural evolution of the xenoliths depends on heating rates (governed by their size and, therefore, proximity to the Platreef magmas) and the pre‐intrusive metamorphic grade of the protoliths. The presence or absence of certain phases, particularly corundum, is strongly influenced by the degree of metastable retention of lower‐grade hydrates in otherwise identical protolith bulk compositions. The preservation of fine‐scale compositional layering that is inferred to be relict bedding in xenolith cores implies that melt loss by compaction was extremely efficient.
Controlled Permanent Magnet Drives

The considered converter-fed permanent magnet motor could alternatively be operated in two basically different states − the vector control mode or alternatively the brushless dc, also known as electronically commutated mode. Several quality aspects concerning the system performance have been comparatively investigated in practical as well as theoretical manner. Focus is thereby given to the numerical analysis and previous evaluation of the well interaction between the novel axially un-skewed higher harmonic air-gap wave based permanent magnet motor design and both completely different control algorithms.
A SUPERVISED CLASSIFICATION APPROACH TOWARDS QUALITY SELF-DIAGNOSIS OF 3 D BUILDING MODELS USING DIGITAL AERIAL IMAGERY

In the context of 3D building model production or updating, the models have to be manually checked one by one by a human operator in order to ensure their quality. In this paper, we investigate a new approach to perform a quality self-diagnosis of building models in dense urban areas from high resolution aerial images. Hence, we aim at reliably identifying roof facets that do not comply with quality specifications. The self-diagnosis process will highlight potential incorrect facets for their inspection by a human operator. A set of calibrated aerial images enable us to collect positive or negative evidences of roof facet existence and consistency. A particular attention has been paid to the definition of a set of low-level, complementary, robust and consistent image processing measures. Four quality classes have been defined and are used to classify roof facet quality. A supervised classifier and robust decision rules are then applied to perform an effective self-diagnosis according to the traffic light paradigm. Finally, the work in progress leads to a promising quantitative and qualitative evaluation in the context of dense urban areas.
Detection of clicks in audio signals using warped linear prediction

Warped linear prediction (WLP) is applied to a model-based method to detect impulsive disturbances in audio signals. According to simulations performed on artificially corrupted audio signals, the adoption of negative values for the warping factor favors the click detection scheme. As a consequence, for equal levels of missing (false) detection, the WLP-based scheme yields a consistently lower percentage of false (missing) detection than the conventional method.
Using K-means cluster based techniques in external plagiarism detection

Text document categorization is one of the rapidly emerging research fields, where documents are identified, differentiated and classified manually or algorithmically. The paper focuses on application of automatic text document categorization in plagiarism detection domain. In today's world plagiarism has become a prime concern, especially in research and educational fields. This paper aims on the study and comparison of different methods of document categorization in external plagiarism detection. Here the primary focus is to explore the unsupervised document categorization/ clustering methods using different variations of K-means algorithm and compare it with the general N-gram based method and Vector Space Model based method. Finally the analysis and evaluation is done using data set from PAN-20131 and performance is compared based on precision, recall and efficiency in terms of time taken for algorithm execution.
Three new factors of Fermat numbers

We report the discovery of a new factor for each of the Fermat numbers F 13 , F 15 , F 16 These new factors have 27, 33 and 27 decimal digits respectively. Each factor was found by the elliptic curve method. After division by the new factors and previously known factors, the remaining cofactors are seen to be composite numbers with 2391, 9808 and 19694 decimal digits respectively.
Placental Lipases in Pregnancies Complicated by Gestational Diabetes Mellitus (GDM)

Infants of women with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) are more likely to be born large for gestational age with a higher percentage body fat. Elevated maternal lipids may contribute to this. Placental lipases such as lipoprotein lipase (LPL), endothelial lipase (EL) and hormone sensitive lipase (HSL) are involved in transferring lipids from mother to fetus. Previous studies of expression of these lipases in placentae in women with diabetes in pregnancy have reported divergent results. Intracellular lipases such as adipose triglyceride lipase (ATGL), and HSL are central to lipid droplet metabolism. The activities of these lipases are both influenced by Perilipin 1, and ATGL is also activated by a co-factor comparative gene identification-58 (CGI-58) and inhibited by G0/G1 switch gene 2 (GS02). None of these modifying factors or ATGL have been examined previously in placenta. The purpose of this study was therefore to examine the expression of ATGL, HSL, LPL, EL, as well as Perilipin 1, GS02 and CGI-58 in term pregnancies complicated by GDM. mRNA and protein expression of the lipases were measured in placentae from 17 women with GDM and 17 normoglycaemic pregnancies, matched for maternal BMI and gestational age of delivery. ATGL mRNA expression was increased and HSL mRNA expression reduced in placentae from GDM although there was no differences in protein expression of any of the lipases. All lipases were localised to trophoblasts and endothelial cells. The expression of Perilipin 1 and CGI-58 mRNA was increased and GS02 not altered in GDM. These results suggest that there is no difference in expression in these four lipases between GDM and normoglycaemic placentae, and therefore altered lipid transfer via these lipases does not contribute to large for gestational age in infants of women with GDM.
Reinforcing the reliability of pedestrian detection in far-infrared sensing

In this contribution we describe a method to improve the reliability of monocular far-infrared pedestrian detection. In contrast to many other solutions using heuristic approaches, we use a statistical approach, i.e., a pixel classification for head detection in comparison with a classifier for body detection to investigate the performance of pedestrian detection. Using a head detector leads to a significant improvement in the detection precision and promises further advantages in combination with a body detector.
Measurement of the hygroscopic swelling coefficient in mold compounds using moiré interferometry

An experimental method is proposed to characterize the hygroscopic swelling of mold compounds. The method utilizes moire interferometry, which measures in-plane displacements over a relatively large gage length with submicron measurement sensitivity. Deformations caused by the absorption of moisture in mold compounds are analyzed to determine the coefficient of hygroscopic swelling (CHS). The large gage length nullifies the pointto-point variation within the sample, and the high sensitivity provides the measurement accuracy required for the small hygroscopic deformation. Representative results obtained from a commercially available mold compound are presented.
On scalability of platoon of automated vehicles for leader-predecessor information framework

It is well known and broadly accepted that the leader-predecessor framework has been proposed to fix the string instability which is caused by applying the single-predecessor information framework. However, a reasonable but easily neglected fact is that the communication delay between the leading vehicle and the following vehicle is larger than the communication delay between the immediate preceding vehicle and the following vehicle when the large platoon is under consideration. The scalability issue arisen immediately is that whether or not the proposed control laws guaranteeing string stability for the small/medium platoon are suitable for the large platoon. This paper firstly proposes PD control law and sliding model control law for constant distance spacing policy and constant time headway spacing policy respectively, and then proves that both of the two control laws can guarantee string stability for the small/medium platoon. Secondly, it demonstrates that the PD control law for constant distance spacing policy can not guarantee string stability for the large platoon but the sliding model control law for constant time headway spacing policy can. In other words, the sliding model control law for constant time headway spacing policy can make the platoon applying leader-predecessor information framework scalable.
Integrated segmentation of noisy image based on the spatial relationship

In this paper, we propose a new algorithm for an integrated image segmentation based on the combination of both Markov Random Fields (MRF) and Graph Cuts (GC). In the well-known GrabCut method, the T-link weights do not take into account the spatial relationship between the neighboring pixels. The proposed algorithm, unlike GrabCut method, incorporates this spatial relationship right into the T-link weights. The performance results obtained using natural images clearly demonstrate the robustness, accuracy and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, as compared to other known methods.
Audio classification based on SVM-UBM

Audio classification is an important issue in current audio processing and content analysis researches. In this paper we present a high-accuracy audio classification algorithm based on SVM-UBM using MFCCs as classification features. Firstly MFCCs are extracted in frame level, then a Universal Background Gaussian Mixture Model (UBM) is employed to integrate these sequences of frame-level MFCCs within a clip to form the clip-level feature, finally audio classification is performed using SVM with these clip-level features. Four audio types are considered: speech, music, speech over music and environmental sound. The experimental results show that our classification algorithm performs superior to other SVM-based classification system using traditional clip-level features.
The Dilemmas Sorted: A Story of Being Supervised

Writing is an important expression of human experiences. In this article, I try to (re)present my experience as a supervisee. I employ autobiographical or autoethnographical style to portray an incident within which my supervisor and I were involved in a meaningful interactive supervision processes. Some references quoted are not to frame the idea of my writing, but rather, as a referent which could justify, confirm, or criticize my experience. The use of the first single person style is legitimized and the question of whether this kind of writing is scientific or not, should be put aside when we were within the context of qualitative inquiry.
A Gene-Level Hybrid Crossover Operator for Multiobjective Evolutionary Algorithm

This study proposes a novel recombination operator, called hybrid crossover operator (HX), which is performed in gene level of chromosome to enhance the optimization performance of multi-objective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs). The proposed HX operator combines the advantages of simulated binary crossover with local search ability and differential evolution with strong global search capability. When HX is embedded into two state-of-the-art MOEAs, i.e., NSGA-II and MOEA/D-DE, the experimental results validate the improvement of HX when compared to the original counterpart.
Cutting Edge: Toll-Like Receptor (TLR)2- and TLR4-Mediated Pathogen Recognition in Resistance to Airborne Infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis1

Innate resistance against Mycobacterium tuberculosis is thought to depend critically on engagement of pattern recognition receptors on macrophages. However, the relative contribution of these receptors for containing M. tuberculosis infection has remained unexplored in vivo. To address this issue, we infected mice defective in CD14, TLR2, or TLR4 with M. tuberculosis by aerosol. Following infection with 100 mycobacteria, either mutant strain was as resistant as congenic control mice. Granuloma formation, macrophage activation, and secretion of proinflammatory cytokines in response to low-dose aerosol infection were identical in mutant and control mice. However, high-dose aerosol challenge with 2000 CFU M. tuberculosis revealed TLR2-, but not TLR4-defective mice to be more susceptible than control mice. In conclusion, while TLR2 signaling contributes to innate resistance against M. tuberculosis in borderline situations, its function, and that of CD14 and TLR4, in initiating protective responses against naturally low-dose airborne infection is redundant.
Neurofilament Heavy Polypeptide Regulates the Akt-β-Catenin Pathway in Human Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Aerobic glycolysis and mitochondrial dysfunction are common features of aggressive cancer growth. We observed promoter methylation and loss of expression in neurofilament heavy polypeptide (NEFH) in a significant proportion of primary esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) samples that were of a high tumor grade and advanced stage. RNA interference-mediated knockdown of NEFH accelerated ESCC cell growth in culture and increased tumorigenicity in vivo, whereas forced expression of NEFH significantly inhibited cell growth and colony formation. Loss of NEFH caused up-regulation of pyruvate kinase-M2 type and down-regulation of pyruvate dehydrogenase, via activation of the Akt/β-catenin pathway, resulting in enhanced aerobic glycolysis and mitochondrial dysfunction. The acceleration of glycolysis and mitochondrial dysfunction in NEFH-knockdown cells was suppressed in the absence of β-catenin expression, and was decreased by the treatment of 2-Deoxyglucose, a glycolytic inhibitor, or API-2, an Akt inhibitor. Loss of NEFH activates the Akt/β-catenin pathway and increases glycolysis and mitochondrial dysfunction. Cancer cells with methylated NEFH can be targeted for destruction with specific inhibitors of deregulated downstream pathways.
The Effect of Information About Gynecological Examination on the Anxiety Level of Women Applying to Gynecology Clinics: A Prospective, Randomized, Controlled Study

Background: Crowded hospital outpatient clinics and endless waiting lines that make patients feel overlooked tend to exaggerate patients’ anxiety levels. In addition, fear of pain, shyness, religious and traditional thoughts, women’s sexual role in society, and previous information and experience also contribute to people’s anxiety levels with regard to gynecologic examination. Objectives: We aimed to analyze the effect of specific information about gynecologic examination on anxiety levels of women applying to gynecology clinics. Materials and Methods: In this randomized prospective study, the women applying for a gynecological examination were randomly allocated into control, intervention 1, and intervention 2 groups. Power analysis indicated that in order to achieve a one-point decrease from the previous anxiety score of 43.85 ± 5.41 at one side alpha 0.05 with a power of 80%, at least 79 women were needed in each group. Four medical school students interviewed 75 women (25 in control, 25 in intervention 1, and 25 in intervention 2). The data were collected using the demographic, social, and economic data form, and the Turkish version of the state-trait anxiety inventory (STAI). The women in the intervention 1 and 2 groups were instructed to read a paper that contained brief information about the gynecological examination procedure and the profits obtained from forests, respectively. All participants, including the women in the control group, filled the STAI by themselves. The three groups were compared appropriately. Results: The demographics pertaining to age, gravidity and parity, miscarriage, induced abortion, ectopic pregnancy, offspring number, place of residence, working status, education level and previous experience of gynecological examination did not differ among the groups (P > 0.05). According to the STAI scores, all groups had mild state (control: 40.20 ± 10.53, intervention 1: 42.00 ± 11.98, and intervention 2: 39.53 ± 10.32) and severe continuous (control: 46.78 ± 8.65, Intervention 1: 47.25 ± 9.57, and intervention 2: 46.60 ± 9.72) anxiety levels. However, both state and continuous anxiety scores were not significantly different in all groups (P > 0.05). Conclusions: Providing brief written information about the gynecological examination procedure and the clinic’s working discipline is not sufficient to lower the anxiety of women applying for a gynecological examination.
Adverse drug reactions to tocolytic treatment for preterm labour: prospective cohort study

Objective To evaluate the incidence of serious maternal complications after the use of various tocolytic drugs for the treatment of preterm labour in routine clinical situations. Design Prospective cohort study. Setting 28 hospitals in the Netherlands and Belgium. Participants 1920 consecutive women treated with tocolytics for threatened preterm labour. Main outcome measures Maternal adverse events (those suspected of being causally related to treatment were considered adverse drug reactions) leading to cessation of treatment. Results An independent panel evaluated the recorded adverse events, without knowledge of the type of tocolytic used. Of the 1920 women treated with tocolytics, 1327 received a single course of treatment (69.1%), 282 sequential courses (14.7%), and 311 combined courses (16.2%). Adverse drug reactions were categorised as serious or mild in 14 cases each. The overall incidence of serious adverse drug reaction was 0.7%. Compared with atosiban, the relative risk of an adverse drug reaction for single treatment with a β adrenoceptor agonist was 22.0 (95% confidence interval 3.6 to 138.0) and for single treatment with a calcium antagonist was 12 (1.9 to 69). Multiple drug tocolysis led to five serious adverse drug reactions (1.6%). Multiple gestation, preterm rupture of membranes, and comorbidity were not independent risk factors for adverse drug reactions. Conclusions The use of β adrenoceptor agonists or multiple tocolytics for preventing preterm birth is associated with a high incidence of serious adverse drug reactions. Indometacin and atosiban were the only drugs not associated with serious adverse drug reactions. A direct comparison of the effectiveness of nifedipine and atosiban in postponing preterm delivery is needed.
C-JDBC: a Middleware Framework for Database Clustering

Clusters of workstations become more and more popular to power data server applications such as large scale Web sites or e-Commerce applications. Successful open-source tools exist for clustering the front tiers of such sites (web servers and application servers). No comparable success has been achieved for scaling the backend databases. An expensive SMP machine is required if the database tier becomes the bottleneck. The few tools that exist for clustering databases are often database-specific and/or proprietary. Clustered JDBC (C-JDBC) addresses this problem. It is an open-source, flexible and efficient middleware for database clustering. C-JDBC implements the Redundant Array of Inexpensive Databases (RAIDb) concept. It presents a single virtual database to the application through the JDBC interface and does not require any modification to existing applications. Furthermore, C-JDBC works with any database engine that provides a JDBC driver, without modification to the database engine. The C-JDBC framework is open, configurable and extensible to support large and complex database cluster architectures offering various performance, fault tolerance and availability tradeoffs.