Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A novel approach to the detection of acromegaly: accuracy of diagnosis by automatic face classification.

CONTEXT The delay between onset of first symptoms and diagnosis of the acromegaly is 6-10 yr. Acromegaly causes typical changes of the face that might be recognized by face classification software. OBJECTIVE The objective of the study was to assess classification accuracy of acromegaly by face-classification software. DESIGN This was a diagnostic study. SETTING The study was conducted in specialized care. PARTICIPANTS Participants in the study included 57 patients with acromegaly (29 women, 28 men) and 60 sex- and age-matched controls. INTERVENTIONS We took frontal and side photographs of the faces and grouped patients into subjects with mild, moderate, and severe facial features of acromegaly by overall impression. We then analyzed all pictures using computerized similarity analysis based on Gabor jets and geometry functions. We used the leave-one-out cross-validation method to classify subjects by the software. Additionally, all subjects were classified by visual impression by three acromegaly experts and three general internists. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE Classification accuracy by software, experts, and internists was measured. FINDINGS The software correctly classified 71.9% of patients and 91.5% of controls. Classification accuracy for patients by visual analysis was 63.2 and 42.1% by experts and general internists, respectively. Classification accuracy for controls was 80.8 and 87.0% by experts and internists, respectively. The highest differences in accuracy between software and experts and internists were present for patients with mild acromegaly. CONCLUSIONS Acromegaly can be detected by computer software using photographs of the face. Classification accuracy by software is higher than by medical experts or general internists, particularly in patients with mild features of acromegaly. This is a promising tool to help detecting acromegaly.
Influence of RF Plasma Reactor Setup on Carboxylated Hydrocarbon Coatings

Functional hydrocarbon plasma polymer coatings were investigated using a low pressure RF plasma reactor. The deposition rate was examined for different CO 2 /C 2 H 4 gas ratios and different power inputs at constant pressure. The CO 2 /C 2 H 4 ratio can be used to tailor the functionality and the permanence of the plasma polymer coatings which is shown by XPS. The deposition of these plasma polymer coatings was compared in a symmetrical and asymmetrical setup of the reactor and discussed regarding energy input and plasma sheath potential for the varying plasma conditions. Furthermore, the influence of Ar admixture was examined in order to identify sputtering conditions by using an asymmetric Ag electrode. While a drop in the absolute deposition rate can be seen for Ar added in symmetrical conditions, the asymmetrical setup showed no noticeable differences.
A Two Stage Approach for Handwritten Malayalam Character Recognition

Handwritten character recognition is still a research challenge in OCR discipline, especially for Indian scripts. This paper deals with handwritten Malayalam, a major Indian script, where past work considered a small subset of characters only. In this paper we deal with complete set of basic characters, vowel and consonant signs and compound characters that may be present in the script. Here the recognition task is more difficult because of large numbers of classes and high interclass similarity. To tackle the problem, we proposed a two-stage approach. The first stage is a group classifier, where a group consists of similar characters and those that misclassify among themselves. In the second stage, a character assigned to a group in the first stage is classified to a particular character class. The proposed scheme is more accurate and efficient than a single stage scheme.
Efficacy of Selected Insecticide Sprays and Aerosols against the Common Bed Bug, Cimex lectularius (Hemiptera: Cimicidae)

We evaluated the residual efficacy of four liquid sprays and four ready-to-use aerosols that are commonly used in the U.S. against a field-collected bed bug, Cimex lectularius L. , strain with moderate resistance level to pyrethroids. The four liquid sprays were: Tandem (0.1% thiamethoxam, 0.03% lambda-cyhalothrin), Temprid SC (0.05% imidacloprid, 0.025% cyfluthrin), Transport GHP (0.05% acetamiprid, 0.06% bifenthrin), and Demand CS (0.03% lambda-cyhalothrin). The four aerosols were: Alpine (0.5% dinotefuran), Bedlam (0.4% sumithrin, 1.6% MGK 264), Bedlam Plus (0.4% sumithrin, 1% MGK 264, 0.05% imidacloprid), and Phantom (0.5% chlorfenapyr). Bed bugs were confined for 4 h to treated substrates (aged 24 h). Four substrates were tested: fabric, unpainted wood, painted wood, and vinyl. Bedlam, Demand CS, and Temprid SC resulted in ≤70% mortality on all tested substrates. Among the other five products, substrate type significantly affected their residual efficacy, except for Transport GHP, which caused ≥89.7% mortality regardless of the substrate. The effect of exposure time (5 min, 4 h, and 24 h) on the efficacy of Transport GHP and Phantom aerosol also was evaluated. A 4 h continuous exposure to Phantom aerosol or Transport GHP residue caused similar mortality to 24 h exposure and higher mortality than 5 min exposure.
A Filter-and-Refine Indexing Method for Fast Similarity Search in Millions of Music Tracks

We present a filter-and-refine method to speed up acoustic audio similarity queries which use the Kullback-Leibler divergence as similarity measure. The proposed method rescales the divergence and uses a modified FastMap [1] implementation to accelerate nearest-neighbor queries. The search for similar music pieces is accelerated by a factor of 10 30 compared to a linear scan but still offers high recall values (relative to a linear scan) of 95 99%. We show how the proposed method can be used to query several million songs for their acoustic neighbors very fast while producing almost the same results that a linear scan over the whole database would return. We present a working prototype implementation which is able to process similarity queries on a 2:5 million songs collection in about half a second on a standard CPU.
Polyomavirus replication in mice: influences of VP1 type and route of inoculation

Patterns of polyomavirus replication and spread have been studied following inoculation of virus into newborn mice. Levels of virus replication in different tissues were followed in situ by using whole mouse section blots and immunoperoxidase staining for the major capsid protein VP1, as well as by tissue extraction and direct quantitation of viral DNA and infectious virus. Patterns of replication and spread were compared between the "high tumor" strain (inducing a high incidence of tumors) PTA and and the "low tumor" strain (inducing a low incidence of tumors) RA, following different routes of inoculation. The ability to induce a high tumor profile correlated with the ability to establish disseminated productive infection, with the kidney as a major site of amplification. Furthermore, results with PTA-RA recombinant viruses and site-directed mutants showed that the VP1 specificity of PTA, demonstrated earlier to be a critical determinant for induction of a high tumor profile (R. Freund, A. Calderone, C. J. Dawe, and T. L. Benjamin, J. Virol. 65:335-341, 1991), is also critical for amplification in the kidney and for establishment of disseminated infections.
A new lexicon learning algorithm for sentiment analysis of big data

Sentiment analysis is the process of identifying opinions expressed in text. It aims to analyze the users' sentiment towards particular topics, products, and other subjects. The aim of this study is to present the parallel version of a method of polarity classification of sentiment for big data. In the original method, named ALGA, a genetic algorithm is incorporated to generate lexicons. Since the fitness calculation of that method is its most time consuming part, especially in the big data, in this research, a new parallel method is presented to efficiently calculate the fitness of ALGA. The experiments are conducted on four datasets in terms of running time, speedup and time complexity. Results show that the proposed method achieves better runtimes than the sequential ALGA when the datasets are big. Therefore, in spite of the sequential ALGA, this method can employ the strength of genetic algorithm for searching the landscapes of big data mining problems.
Community social capital and tooth loss in Japanese older people: a longitudinal cohort study

Objective To date, no study has prospectively examined the association between social capital (SC) in the community and oral health. The aim of this longitudinal cohort study was to examine the association between both community-level and individual-level SC and tooth loss in older Japanese people. Design Prospective cohort study Setting We utilised data from the Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study (JAGES) performed in 2010 and 2013 and conducted in 525 districts. Participants The target population was restricted to non-institutionalised people aged 65 years or older. Participants included 51 280 people who responded to two surveys and who had teeth at baseline. Primary outcome measure The primary outcome measure was loss of remaining teeth, measured by the downward change of any category of remaining teeth, between baseline and follow-up. Results The mean age of the participants was 72.5 years (SD=5.4). During the study period, 8.2% (n=4180) lost one or more of their remaining teeth. Among three community-level SC variables obtained from factor analysis, an indicator of civic participation significantly reduced the risk of tooth loss (OR 0.93; 95% CI 0.88 to 0.99). The individual-level SC variables ‘hobby activity participation’ and ‘sports group participation’ were also associated with a reduced risk of tooth loss (OR 0.88; 95% CI 0.81 to 0.95 and OR 0.90; 95% CI 0.82 to 0.99, respectively). Conclusions Living in a community with rich SC and individuals with good SC is associated with lower incidence of tooth loss among older Japanese people.
Interfacing Sound Stream Segregation to Automatic Speech Recognition - Preliminary Results on Listening to Several Sounds Simultaneously

This paper reports the preliminary results of experiments on listening to several sounds at once. Two issues are addressed: segregating speech streams from a mixture of sounds, and interfacing speech stream segregation with automatic speech recognition (ASR). Speech stream segregation (SSS) is modeled as a process of extracting harmonic fragments, grouping these extracted harmonic fragments, and substituting some sounds for non-harmonic parts of groups. This system is implemented by extending the harmonic-based stream segregation system reported at AAAI-94 and IJCAI-95. The main problem in interfacing SSS with HMM-based ASR is how to improve the recognition performance which is degraded by spectral distortion of segregated sounds caused mainly by the binaural input, grouping, and residue substitution. Our solution is to re-train the parameters of the HMM with training data binauralized for four directions, to group harmonic fragments according to their directions, and to substitute the residue of harmonic fragments for non-harmonic parts of each group. Experiments with 500 mixtures of two women's utterances of a word showed that the cumulative accuracy of word recognition up to the 10th candidate of each woman's utterance is, on average, 75%.
Examining Hedonic and Utilitarian Bidding Motivations in Online Auctions: Impacts of Time Pressure and Competition

ABSTRACT Hedonic and utilitarian bidding motivations have seldom been studied in the context of consumer-to-consumer (C2C) online auctions. Drawing on the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) framework, this study establishes a structural equation model to examine how competition and time pressure (stimulus) influence bidders’ hedonic and utilitarian motivations (organism) and how these motivations further affect impulse bidding and satisfaction with the bidding process (responses). Our results show that time pressure is a significant predictor of utilitarian motivation but is not significantly related to hedonic motivation. Moreover, hedonic motivation tends to increase impulse bidding, whereas utilitarian motivation discourages it. Finally, this study finds the relationship between impulse bidding and satisfaction to be significant. Our findings contribute to theory by describing the roles that bidders’ hedonic and utilitarian motivations play in C2C online auctions and elucidating the important implications for practice in attracting individuals to bid in such auctions.
Thermodynamics of Fe–S Melts between 1100° and 1300°C

The relationship between composition and activity in Fe-S melts is necessary in thermodynamic analyses of various commercial mattes. No measurements have been made for the Fe-S solutions ranging from the Fe-saturated to the FeS composition. Although some fragmentary data are available for melt compositions near FeS, such data do not yield the activity of iron and therefore do not yield any other thermodynamic functions of the melts. In the present work, a previously-described(1) apparatus together with H2S-H2 gas mixtures was employed to measure the sulfur partial pressure over Fe-S melts
Manual-Protocol Inspired Technique for Improving Automated MR Image Segmentation during Label Fusion

Recent advances in multi-atlas based algorithms address many of the previous limitations in model-based and probabilistic segmentation methods. However, at the label fusion stage, a majority of algorithms focus primarily on optimizing weight-maps associated with the atlas library based on a theoretical objective function that approximates the segmentation error. In contrast, we propose a novel method—Autocorrecting Walks over Localized Markov Random Fields (AWoL-MRF)—that aims at mimicking the sequential process of manual segmentation, which is the gold-standard for virtually all the segmentation methods. AWoL-MRF begins with a set of candidate labels generated by a multi-atlas segmentation pipeline as an initial label distribution and refines low confidence regions based on a localized Markov random field (L-MRF) model using a novel sequential inference process (walks). We show that AWoL-MRF produces state-of-the-art results with superior accuracy and robustness with a small atlas library compared to existing methods. We validate the proposed approach by performing hippocampal segmentations on three independent datasets: (1) Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Database (ADNI); (2) First Episode Psychosis patient cohort; and (3) A cohort of preterm neonates scanned early in life and at term-equivalent age. We assess the improvement in the performance qualitatively as well as quantitatively by comparing AWoL-MRF with majority vote, STAPLE, and Joint Label Fusion methods. AWoL-MRF reaches a maximum accuracy of 0.881 (dataset 1), 0.897 (dataset 2), and 0.807 (dataset 3) based on Dice similarity coefficient metric, offering significant performance improvements with a smaller atlas library (< 10) over compared methods. We also evaluate the diagnostic utility of AWoL-MRF by analyzing the volume differences per disease category in the ADNI1: Complete Screening dataset. We have made the source code for AWoL-MRF public at: https://github.com/CobraLab/AWoL-MRF.
Antibody-based protein detection using piezoresistive cantilever arrays

A piezoresistive cantilever array platform with electrical read-out was applied for protein detection using GST (glutathione-S-transferase) and GST antibodies as a model system. Sensing was performed in the static deflection mode under constant flow conditions. The GST antibodies were directly immobilized on the cantilever gold surface by means of free thiol groups. The setup allowed simultaneous deflection measurements with sensor and control-antibody-immobilized reference cantilevers and enabled detection of 1 ng µl−1 (40 nM) of GST protein, which is similar to the sensitivity reported for cantilever sensors using an optical read-out system.
TiO2 micro/nano-composite structured electrodes for quasi-solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells

Micro/nano-composite TiO2 porous films are prepared in a nutshell by the electro-hydrodynamic (EHD) method, and are applied to dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) successfully. Considering that micro/nano-composite structures based on the EHD technique are better for the filling of ionic liquid and quasi-solid-state electrolytes than liquid state electrolytes, a fill factor (ff) of 78.9% and a total photoelectric conversion efficiency (η) of 6.4% for ionic liquid electrolyte and an ff of 75.3% and an η of 5.3% for quasi-solid-state electrolyte are obtained. Moreover, this kind of composite hierarchical structure may be of benefit for light collection because of strong light scattering. In order to obtain optimized devices, we probe into the influence of adding an amount of polymer on the photovoltaic performance, and find that by changing the concentration of the polymer during the EHD process the specific surface area of the films changes, which leads to different photovoltaic behaviour of solar cells.
GM-CSF and IL-4 synergistically trigger dendritic cells to acquire retinoic acid-producing capacity

Retinoic acid (RA) produced by intestinal dendritic cells (DCs) imprints gut-homing specificity on lymphocytes and enhances Foxp3+ regulatory T-cell differentiation. The expression of aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) 1A in these DCs is essential for the RA production. However, it remains unclear how the steady-state ALDH1A expression is induced under specific pathogen-free (SPF) conditions. Here, we found that bone marrow-derived dendritic cells (BM-DCs) generated with granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) expressed Aldh1a2, an isoform of Aldh1a, but that fms-related tyrosine kinase 3 ligand-generated BM-DCs did not. DCs from mesenteric lymph nodes (MLN) and Peyer's patches (PP) of normal SPF mice expressed ALDH1A2, but not the other known RA-producing enzymes. Employing a flow cytometric method, we detected ALDH activities in 10–30% of PP-DCs and MLN-DCs. They were CD11chighCD4−/lowCD8αintermediateCD11b−/low F4/80low/intermediateCD45RBlowCD86highMHC class IIhighB220−CD103+. Equivalent levels of aldehyde dehydrogenase activity (ALDHact) and ALDH1A2 expression were induced synergistically by GM-CSF and IL-4 in splenic DCs in vitro. In BM-DCs, however, additional signals via Toll-like receptors or RA receptors were required for inducing the equivalent levels. The generated ALDH1A2+ DCs triggered T cells to express gut-homing receptors or Foxp3. GM-CSF receptor-deficient or vitamin A-deficient mice exhibited marked reductions in the ALDHact in intestinal DCs and the T cell number in the intestinal lamina propria, whereas IL-4 receptor-mediated signals were dispensable. GM-CSF+CD11c−F4/80+ cells existed constitutively in the intestinal tissues. The results suggest that GM-CSF and RA itself are pivotal among multiple microenvironment factors that enable intestinal DCs to produce RA.
Research on Surface Residual Stress of Nano-Composite Ceramics under Multi-Frequency Ultrasonic Grinding and Dressing

The surface residual stress of nano-composite ceramics prepared by mixed coherence system and machined both in ordinary grinding(OG) and ultrasonic vibration grinding(TDUVG) respectively were described. Researches showed that the characteristics of residual stress on ceramic surface is affected by grinding load, ultrasonic vibration frequency and released stress induced by generation of cracks whose magnitude is affected by material removal mechanism. Whether in ordinary grinding or ultrasonic grinding, tangential residual stress (TRS) in X direction is tensile stress, and in Y direction is compressive stress. The surface residual tensile stress in ordinary grinding is larger than that in ultrasonic grinding with the same grinding conditions. The influences of multi-frequency on the residual stress are studied.
Optimization of UHPFRC beams subjected to bending using genetic algorithms

AbstractUltra high performance fibre reinforced concrete (UHPFRC) is cementitious composite with very high strength, and when compared with ordinary concrete it is a more superior material both in terms of its mechanical properties and its durability. In order to predict the behaviour of UHPFRC beams, first of all, experiments were carried out to investigate the mechanical properties of composites containing 2% and 4% of steel fibres. Following this, four beams of 2 m in length were tested by subjecting to four point bending. Two beams contained only micro steel fibres, while the remaining two contained conventional steel bar reinforcement. On the basis of experimental studies and recommendations by the AFGC for UHPC, the behaviour of the beams was modelled and optimization was carried out using genetic algorithms (GA) according to the criterion of minimum price. In this paper, the prices of individual UHPFRC beams are also shown in comparison with beams, which contain steel bars or prestressed reinforcement.
Surface Mutagenesis of the Bovine Papillomavirus E1 DNA Binding Domain Reveals Residues Required for Multiple Functions Related to DNA Replication

ABSTRACT The E1 protein from papillomaviruses is a multifunctional protein with complex functions required for the initiation of viral DNA replication. We have performed a surface mutagenesis of the well-characterized E1 DNA binding domain (DBD). We demonstrate that substitutions of multiple residues on the surface of the E1 DBD are defective for DNA replication without affecting the DNA binding activity of the protein. The defects of individual substitutions include failure to form the double trimer that melts the ori and failure to form the double hexamer that unwinds the ori. These results demonstrate that the DBD plays an essential role in multiple DNA replication-related processes apart from DNA binding.
NSC23766, a Widely Used Inhibitor of Rac1 Activation, Additionally Acts as a Competitive Antagonist at Muscarinic Acetylcholine Receptors

Small molecules interfering with Rac1 activation are considered as potential drugs and are already studied in animal models. A widely used inhibitor without reported attenuation of RhoA activity is NSC23766 [(N6-[2-[[4-(diethylamino)-1-methylbutyl]amino]-6-methyl-4-pyrimidinyl]-2-methyl-4,6-quinolinediamine trihydrochloride]. We found that NSC23766 inhibits the M2 muscarinic acetylcholine receptor (M2 mAChR)-induced Rac1 activation in neonatal rat cardiac myocytes. Surprisingly, NSC27366 concomitantly suppressed the carbachol-induced RhoA activation and a M2 mAChR-induced inotropic response in isolated neonatal rat hearts requiring the activation of Rho-dependent kinases. We therefore aimed to identify the mechanisms by which NSC23766 interferes with the differentially mediated, M2 mAChR-induced responses. Interestingly, NSC23766 caused a rightward shift of the carbachol concentration response curve for the positive inotropic response without modifying carbachol efficacy. To analyze the specificity of NSC23766, we compared the carbachol and the similarly Giβγ-mediated, adenosine-induced activation of Gi protein–regulated potassium channel (GIRK) channels in human atrial myocytes. Application of NSC23766 blocked the carbachol-induced K+ current but had no effect on the adenosine-induced GIRK current. Similarly, an adenosine A1 receptor-induced positive inotropic response in neonatal rat hearts was not attenuated by NSC23766. To investigate its specificity toward the different mAChR types, we studied the carbachol-induced elevation of intracellular Ca2+ concentrations in human embryonic kidney 293 (HEK-293) cells expressing M1, M2, or M3 mAChRs. NSC23766 caused a concentration-dependent rightward shift of the carbachol concentration response curves at all mAChRs. Thus, NSC23766 is not only an inhibitor of Rac1 activation, but it is within the same concentration range a competitive antagonist at mAChRs. Molecular docking analysis at M2 and M3 mAChR crystal structures confirmed this interpretation.