Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multiscale surveillance of Riemannian manifolds

When surveying a surface, such as a spherical shell around a planet or a mine field, it is often desirable to survey a pre-chosen distribution while simultaneously respecting all its length scales. We review the Mix Norm developed by Mathew and Mezic and their application for a multiscale coverage algorithm on the unit square and torus.We then develop tools to do multiscale surveillance on arbitrary Riemannian manifolds (M, g). Next, we study the effects of applying the mix norm algorithm to more realistic scenarios where we have vehicles with different maximum speeds and frequency responses. We demonstrate this by applying the algorithm on the unit square to the case of a slow vehicle and a fast vehicle simultaneously exploring different spatial scales; we then test how well the uniform coverage algorithm allows a vehicle to estimate a function in a least squares sense. We also study the effects of varying the parameter s in the definition of mix norm for (M, g). In future work, we plan to apply a motions primitive based approach and explore ways of working with more general surfaces using triangular meshes.
The Art of the Watchdog: Fighting Fraud, Waste, Abuse and Corruption in Government

Who monitors government in America, and how do they perform their work? Daniel L. Feldman and David R. Eichenthal tackle this topic in their recent book, The Art of the Watchdog: Fighting Fraud, Waste, Abuse and Corruption in Government, which comes from a very personal place for both men. Based on their extensive professional experience in both elect ed and appointed roles in government, they provide a near-encyclopedic description of types of gov ernmental oversight entities, coup led with an exhortation to citizens of all political stripes to recognize the importance of moni tor ing in preserving and promoting the integrity of gov ernment. Although more anec dotal than empir ical, the book provides public affairs professors and students rich material to explore.
Quadriceps tendon rupture - treatment results.

INTRODUCTION Quadriceps tendon rupture is a rare but rather serious injury. If this injury is not promptly recognized and early operated, it may lead to disability. This research was aimed at pointing out the results and complications of the quadriceps tendon rupture surgical treatment. MATERIAL AND METHODS This retrospective multicentric study was conducted in a group of 29 patients (mostly elderly men). Lysholm knee scoring scale was used to evaluate the surgical results. The post-operative results were compared in relation to the type of tendon rupture reconstructions (acute or chronic), various surgical techniques, type of injuries (unilateral or bilateral) as well as the presence or absence of comorbid risk factors in the patients. RESULTS The average value of a Lysholm score was 87.6. Excellent and satisfactory Lysholm score results dominated in our sample of patients. Better post-operative results were recorded in the group of patients without risk factors, in case of a bilateral injury, and in case of an acute injury. The best result was obtained after performing the reconstruction using anchors, and the worst result came after using Codivilla technique. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION Early diagnosis and surgical treatment are an absolute imperative in management of this injury. We have not proven that a certain surgical technique has an advantage over the others. A comorbid risk factor is related to a lower Lysholm score. Despite a few cases of complications, we can conclude that the surgical treatment yields satisfactory results.
Joint Carrier Phase Estimation and Symbol Decoding of Trellis Codes

We use the Expectation-Maximization algorithm to deduce an iterative method for carrier phase estimation and symbol decoding. The method applies to all trellis-based codes. Carrier phase offset and noise variance estimation is based on the maximum likelihood criterion. The Markovian properties of the encoder state sequence enable us to calculate the required likelihoods using a forward-backward algorithm. Given the phase estimate, the calculated likelihood functions can easily give optimum decisions on information symbols which minimize the symbol error probability. Simulation results which show rapid convergence are given.
Nef Does Not Affect the Efficiency of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Fusion with Target Cells

ABSTRACT The human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) accessory protein Nef stimulates viral infectivity by an unknown mechanism. Recent studies have suggested that Nef may act by regulating the efficiency of virus entry into cells. Here we provide evidence to the contrary. Using a quantitative assay of HIV-1 virus-cell fusion, we observed equivalent rates and extents of fusion of wild-type and Nef-defective HIV-1 particles with MT-4 cells and CD4-expressing HeLa cells. In studies using soluble CD4 (sCD4) to inhibit infection, wild-type and Nef-defective HIV-1 escaped the sCD4 block with similar kinetics. We conclude that Nef acts at a postentry step in infection, probably by facilitating intracellular transport of the HIV-1 ribonucleoprotein complex.
Planning, Implementation, and Process Monitoring for Prehospital 12-Lead ECG Diagnostic Programs

Abstract Prehospital 12-lead electrocardiographic (ECG) diagnostic strategies have been proven feasible and effective, provided they are designed and implemented properly. The authors of this communication have expended considerable time and effort in determining appropriate planning, implementation, and process monitoring necessary for successful implementation of a variety of prehospital diagnostic strategies. Many of these issues may not be obvious to an emergency medical services (EMS) director initiating a 12-lead ECG program. This level of attention to protocol development, education, training, inservice education, coordination of the health-care community, objective program assessment, monitoring and continuos quality improvement can serve as a model for other diagnostic EMS programs that may develop as an expanded role for EMS.
Formant-based frequency warping for improving speaker adaptation in HMM TTS

Vocal Tract Length Normalization (VLTN), usually implemented as a frequency warping procedure (e.g. bilinear transformation), has been used successfully to adapt the spectral characteristics to a target speaker in speech recognition. In this study we exploit the same concept of frequency warping but concentrate explicitly on mapping the first four formant frequencies of 5 long vowels from source and target speakers. A universal warping function is thus constructed for improving MLLR-based speaker adaptation performance in TTS. The function first warps the frequency scale of the source speaker ’ s speech data toward that of the target speaker and an HMM of the warped features is trained. Finally, MLLR-based speaker adaptation is applied to the trained HMM for synthesizing the target speaker ’ s speech. When tested on a database of 4,000 sentences (source speaker) and 100 sentences of a male and a female speaker (target speakers), the formant based frequency warping has been found very effective in reducing the objective, log spectral distortion over the system without formant frequency warping. The improvement is also subjectively confirmed in AB preference and ABX speaker similarity listening tests.
RemoS - Reference model for non-medical support services in hospitals

III List of Figures . V List of Abbreviations . V 1. Introduction . 1 1.1. Starting Position . 1 1.2. Objective . 1 1.3. Benefit / Application . 1 1.4. Methodology . 1 1.5. Delimitation . 4 1.6. Links / Connections with other topics . 4 1.7. Outlook . 4 2. Theory in relation to (Reference) Modelling . 5 2.1. Reference models . 5 2.2. Modelling languages . 5 2.3 Generally accepted modelling principles . 5 3. RemoS – Reference model for non-medical support services in hospitals Version 1.0 . 7 3.1 Choice of the modelling language . 7 3.2 Connections within the reference model . 7 References . 10
The Bright Side of Earnings Management

This paper demonstrates the usefulness of earnings management in correcting stock underpricing. We find that underpricing, measured using mutual fund fire sales or the 2003 trading scandal as a shock, increases the likelihood of firms meeting or marginally beating analyst forecasts. Firms beat earnings targets by cutting R&D as well as making income-increasing reporting choices, but lean towards R&D reduction if reporting manipulation becomes costly. While both types of manipulation accelerate price reversal after fire sales, firms cutting R&D underperform those using accruals in the long-run. These results suggest that reporting discretion can sometimes be desirable to avoid real consequences.
The Role of Integrated Change Control in Project Success within the Telecommunication Industry in Uganda: A case of Airtel Networks LTD, Uganda

The purpose of this research study was to investigate the role of integrated change control in project success within the telecommunication industry in Uganda. Integrated change control allows for documentation of all the requested, approved or rejected changes to the project with an aim of reducing project risks, cost and time without having to consider the overall project objective plans. The target population for this study was the technical staff within IT department, change management team involved in implementing and configuring changes and the management team involved in approving or rejecting changes in Airtel Networks LTD Uganda. The study concluded that, change readiness, communication change plans, change management execution, trainings and change documentation availability and feedback elicitation from all relevant stakeholders play a bigger role in the level of project change success. It was noted further that it is necessary to have a unified change management process that incorporates an integrated change control section comprised of Change board that sits down to review, analyze, approve, reject or return change requests raised by different stakeholders of the organization at any point in time. The study recommended that Airtel Networks LTD Uganda continuously engages in the Change management process with emphasis on integrated change control to exploit fully its internal resources in the strategy implementation process while remaining relevant not only to its own operations but also to the ever-changing environmental dynamics in the telecommunication industry.
A Novel Inpainting Model for Partial Differential Equation Based on Curvature Function

For the curvature function of Curvature-Driven Diffusions model (CDD), this paper studies the impact of the CDD on the inpainting, and a novel inpainting model based on partial differential equation (PDE) is proposed which contains five sub-models. For simplification, a discrete model based on this PDE is given. Experimental results show that we can obtain better inpainting effects compared with each other from those sub-models.
Etude et mise en oeuvre de modules de puissance MOSFET SiC pour leurs futures utilisations dans des convertisseurs ferroviaires

Le Carbure de Silicium (SiC) va permettre de repousser les limites des convertisseurs dans trois directions : tenue en tension elevee, haute temperature de fonctionnement et forte vitesse de commutation. Aujourd’hui, les premiers modules MOSFET SiC sont disponibles sur le marche et semblent prometteurs. L’objectif de ces travaux de these consiste plus particulierement a mettre en œuvre des montages permettant de caracteriser ces premiers modules de puissance MOSFET SiC en vue de les utiliser dans les convertisseurs ferroviaires. Le premier chapitre est consacre a l’etat de l’art d’une chaine de traction de Tramway. C’est ce type de chaine de traction sur lequel se concentrent les etudes des premieres implantations de composants en SiC. Le deuxieme chapitre presente un etat de l’art des composants semi-conducteurs de puissance en SiC. Il rappelle tout d’abord les proprietes du materiau et detaille ensuite differentes structures de composants en SiC. Le troisieme chapitre concerne les modelisations et les simulations de modules de puissance MOSFET SiC au sein d’une cellule de commutation. Les phases de commutation de ces composants sont etudiees en detail, les influences de differents parametres sont mises en evidence et des simulations multi-physiques permettent de concevoir les bancs d’essais necessaires a la caracterisation. Le quatrieme chapitre presente les resultats des caracterisations statiques et dynamiques de modules de puissance MOSFET SiC. Ces resultats d’essai sont compares a des modules IGBT Si de meme calibre. Le cinquieme chapitre est consacre a la mise en œuvre d’un banc d’essai utilisant la « methode d’opposition ». Celui-ci permet de comparer les modules IGBT Si et les MOSFET SiC en fonctionnement onduleur grâce a des mesures electriques et calorimetriques. Le sixieme et dernier chapitre presente des conclusions et donne des perspectives d’utilisation des composants MOSFET SiC dans les convertisseurs ferroviaires. Differents projets visant a utiliser des MOSFET SiC sur des applications ferroviaires y sont presentes.
Signs and Meanings: World and Text in Ancient Christianity

This work is based on the author's Forwood Lectures for 1995 in the University of Liverpool. The first two chapters incorporate the full text of these and study early Christian conceptions of signs and signification, and investigate the ways in which Christian authors, especially Augustine of Hippo and Gregory the Great, made use of these theories of meaning in their ways of interpreting scriptures. Their interest in the notions of communities based on shared traditions of reading, understanding and interpretation is given special attention. The author also considers the question of the ways in which different approaches to the Bible have had more far-reaching implications for their authors' world-views: to what extent biblical hermeneutics helped to shape their hermemeutics of experience. Their differing ways of approaching the Bible is related to the huge change in Christian self-understanding between Augustine and Gregory the Great: ascetic habits of reading come to shape a general response to the world as well as to the biblical text. The lecture texts are complimented by further chapters devoted specifically to the theory of signs and meaning, and to some of its applications in special contexts, such as magic and ritual.
Intelligent Advancements in Location Management and C-RAN Power-Aware Resource Allocation

The evolving of cellular networks within the last decade continues to focus on delivering a robust and reliable means to cope with the increasing number of users and demanded capacity. Recent advancements of cellular networks such as Long-Term Evolution (LTE) and LTE-advanced offer a remarkable high bandwidth connectivity delivered to the users. Signalling overhead is one of the vital issues that impact the cellular behavior. Causing a significant load in the core network hence effecting the cellular network reliability. Moreover, the signaling overhead decreases the Quality of Experience (QoE) of users. The first topic of the thesis attempts to reduce the signaling overhead by developing intelligent location management techniques that minimize paging and Tracking Area Update (TAU) signals. Consequently, the corresponding optimization problems are formulated. Furthermore, several techniques and heuristic algorithms are implemented to solve the formulated problems. Additionally, network scalability has become a challenging aspect that has been hindered by the current network architecture. As a result, Cloud Radio Access Networks (C-RANs) have been introduced as a new trend in wireless technologies to address this challenge. C-RAN architecture consists of: Remote Radio Head (RRH), Baseband Unit (BBU), and the optical network connecting them. However, RRH-to-BBU resource allocation can cause a significant downgrade in efficiency, particularly the allocation of the computational resources in the BBU pool to densely deployed small cells. This causes a vast increase in the power consumption and wasteful resources. Therefore, the second topic of the thesis discusses C-RAN infrastructure, particularly where a pool of BBUs are gathered to process the computational resources. We
Prostate carcinoma: MR imaging findings after cryosurgery.

PURPOSE To determine the morphologic changes in the prostate gland after cryosurgery and to assess the value of magnetic resonance (MR) imaging in detecting residual tumor. MATERIALS AND METHODS Twenty-seven patients with prostate carcinoma underwent endorectal MR imaging after cryosurgery. Eighteen patients also underwent MR imaging before cryosurgery. MR findings were correlated with posttreatment clinical data, prostate-specific antigen level, and biopsy results. RESULTS Mean prostate volume had decreased by 52% in patients examined 8 weeks or more after cryosurgery. Zonal differentiation was lost in 22 of 27 patients (81%). Areas of intraprostatic necrosis were identified in 14 of 27 patients (52%). A thick capsule enveloped the gland and neurovascular bundles in 24 of 27 patients (89%). Osteonecrosis of the symphysis pubis was seen in six of 27 patients (22%). Positive and negative predictive values for MR assessment of recurrent tumor were 44% and 73%, respectively. CONCLUSION Cryosurgery-induced changes in the prostate gland preclude reliable detection of residual prostate carcinoma at MR imaging.
Subunit Arrangement in P 2 X Receptors

ATP-gated ionotropic receptors (P2X receptors) are distributed widely in the nervous system. For example, a hetero-oligomeric receptor containing both P2X2 and P2X3 subunits is involved in primary afferent sensation. Each subunit has two membrane-spanning domains. We have used disulfide bond formation between engineered cysteines to demonstrate close proximity between the outer ends of the first transmembrane domain of one subunit and the second transmembrane domain of another. After expression in HEK 293 cells of such modified P2X2 or P2X4 subunits, the disulfide bond formation is evident because an ATP-evoked channel opening requires previous reduction with dithiothreitol. In the hetero-oligomeric P2X2/3 receptor the coexpression of doubly substituted subunits with wild-type partners allows us to deduce that the hetero-oligomeric channel contains adjacent P2X3 subunits but does not contain adjacent P2X2 subunits. The results suggest a “head-to-tail” subunit arrangement in the quaternary structure of P2X receptors and show that a trimeric P2X2/3 receptor would have the composition P2X2(P2X3 )2.
Antibody Protein Array Analysis of the Tear Film Cytokines

Purpose. Many bioactive proteins including cytokines are reported to increase in dry eye disease although the specific profile and concentration of inflammatory mediators varies considerably from study to study. In part, this variability results from inherent difficulties in quantifying low abundance proteins in a limited sample volume using relatively low sensitivity dot ELISA methods. Additional complexity comes with the use of pooled samples collected using a variety of techniques and intrinsic variation in the diurnal pattern of individual tear proteins. The current study describes a recent advance in the area of proteomics that has allowed the identification of dozens of low abundance proteins in human tear samples. Methods. Commercially available stationary phase antibody protein arrays were adapted to improve suitability for use in small volume biological fluid analysis with particular emphasis on tear film proteomics. Arrays were adapted to allow simultaneous screening for a panel of inflammatory cytokines in low volume tear samples collected from individual eyes. Results. A preliminary study comparing tear array results in a small population of Sjögren’s syndrome patients was conducted. The multiplex microplate array assays of cytokines in tear fluid present an unanticipated challenge due to the unique nature of tear fluid. The presence of factors that exhibit an affinity for plastic, capture antibodies and IgG and create a complex series of matrix effects profoundly impacting the reliability of dot ELISA, including with elevated levels of background reactivity and reduction in capacity to bind targeted protein. Conclusions. Preliminary results using tears collected from patients with Sjögren’s syndrome reveal methodological advantages of protein array technology and support the concept that autoimmune-mediated dry eye disease has an inflammatory component. They also emphasize the inherent difficulties one can face when interpreting the results of micro-well arrays that result from blooming effects, matrix effects, image saturation and cross-talk between capture and probe antibodies that can greatly reduce signal-to-noise and limit the ability to obtain meaningful results.
A population based case-cohort study of drug-induced anaphylaxis.

1. In order to determine the risk of anaphylaxis as an adverse reaction to drugs, a case-cohort study was performed. Cases consisted of all admissions in 1987 and 1988 to all Dutch hospitals with anaphylaxis as the principal diagnosis, and a random sample of admissions with related symptoms. Hospital discharge summaries were classified according to probability to anaphylaxis by a blinded Audit Committee. Of admissions classified as probable or possible anaphylaxis, the causative agent was assessed. The reference cohort consisted of all persons in the catchment area of a sample of pharmacies in The Netherlands, in the period between January 1, 1987 and December 31, 1988. 2. Out of 934 admissions, discharge summaries on 811 admissions were received, of which 727 contained enough clinical details. Out of 727, 391 were classified as probable or possible anaphylaxis. In 336 of these 391, anaphylaxis was reason for admission. This group consisted of 158 men and 178 women. Drug-induced anaphylaxis occurred in 107 patients. 3. Drug-induced anaphylaxis was most frequently caused by penicillins, analgesics and non-steroidal antiinflammatory drugs (NSAID) with the highest point estimate of the risk relative to all other drugs of 10.7, 6.9 and 3.7 respectively. 4. In the cases of probable anaphylaxis, the risk of anaphylaxis to glafenine relative to all other drugs was 167.7 in 1987 (95%-CI: 63.0-446.4) and 128.6 in 1988 (95%-CI: 50.4-328.5), to amoxycillin 15.2 in 1987 (95%-CI: 5.0-46.0) and 4.4 in 1988 (95%-CI: 1.03-18.9) and to diclofenac 6.1 in 1988 (95%-CI: 1.4-26.1). (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Coping and Burden Among Informal HIV Caregivers

Objective: The aim of this study was to examine the role of coping on caregiver burden among a heterogeneous group of caregivers of persons living with HIV during the era of highly active antiretroviral therapy. Methods: Burden and coping were examined among 176 caregivers of persons living with HIV. Three styles of coping were examined using a 7-item scale: active-approach (task), blame–withdrawal (emotion), and distancing (avoidance). Results: A total of 58.8% of the caregivers were women. They had a mean age of 42 years; 61.9% cohabited with the persons living with HIV who had a mean CD4 count of 401. All three styles of coping were significantly positively correlated with caregiver burden. After controlling for demographic variables and caregiver depression, active-approach coping and distancing coping independently moderated the relationship between perceived severity of HIV-related symptoms (stress) and caregiver burden; however, some caregivers experienced burden even at low levels of stress. Conclusions: These results indicate that in the era of highly active antiretroviral therapy, coping mitigates the effect of stress on burden. AIDS = acquired immune deficiency syndrome; HAART = highly active antiretroviral therapy; HIPAA = Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act; HIV = human immunodeficiency virus; PLWH = person living with HIV; CSI = Caregiver Strain Index.