Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Deep-learning Based Approach for the Automated Segmentation of Human Leg Muscle from 3 D MRI

In this paper, we present an automated algorithm for segmenting human leg muscles from 3D MRI data using deep convolutional neural network (CNN). Using a generalized cylinder model the human leg muscle can be represented by two smooth 2D parametric images representing the contour of the muscle in the MRI image. The proposed CNN algorithm can predict these two parametrized images from raw 3D voxels. We use a pre-trained AlexNet as our baseline and further fine-tune the network that is suitable for this problem. In this scheme, AlexNet predicts a compressed vector obtained by applying principal component analysis, which is then back-projected into two parametric 2D images representing the leg muscle contours. We show that the proposed CNN with a structured regression model can out-perform conventional model-based segmentation approach such as the Active Appearance Model (AAM). The average Dice score between the ground truth segmentation and the obtained segmentation image is 0.87 using the proposed CNN model, whereas for AAM score is 0.68. One of the greatest advantages of our proposed method is that no initialization is needed to predict the segmentation contour, unlike AAM. Keywords— Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), leg muscle segmentation, 3D modelling, principal component analysis (PCA), convolutional neural networks (CNN).
Drying drops of biological liquids: dynamics of the optical and mechanical properties. Application in rapid medical diagnostics

The dynamical characteristics of integral mechanical properties of drying droplets of blood serum, urine and saliva were studied by measuring the acoustic-mechanical impedance (AMI) using a computer-controlled setup described earlier. The method is based on the following idea. When a 5μl liquid drop is drying on the surface of a quartz resonator plate oscillating at a constant frequency (equal to the resonance frequency of an unloaded resonator, 60 kHz), there arises a shear wave highly sensitive to the formation and growth of a new phase at the liquid-quartz interface. The experimental setup measures a change in the complex electric conductivity of the liquid-quartz system, calculates the parameters of the AMI dynamics in the drying drop, and displays their variation on the monitor at the real time scale in the form of a curve. At a time the optical The properties of drying drops were observed. For each disease or a physiological state the geometrical features of the curves were extracted and then the shape indices were calculated. In the cases under study each "pathology" group differed from the "norm" by its specific shape index, by which diseases of other nature did not differ. Possible mechanisms behind formation of the morphological and dynamical differences in drying drops of biological liquids of healthy and sick people are discussed.
Dual Diagnosis of Ellis-van Creveld Syndrome and Hearing Loss in a Consanguineous Family

Multilocus analysis of rare or genetically heterogeneous diseases is a distinct advantage of next-generation sequencing (NGS) over conventional single-gene investigations. Recent studies have begun to uncover an under-recognized prevalence of dual molecular diagnoses in patients with a “blended” phenotype that is the result of 2 clinical diagnoses involving 2 separate genetic loci. This blended phenotype could be mistakenly interpreted as a novel clinical extension of a single-gene disorder. In this study, we ascertained a proband from a large consanguineous Iranian family who manifests postlingual, progressive, moderate hearing loss in addition to suspected Ellis-van Creveld syndrome phenotype. NGS with a customized skeletal dysplasia panel containing over 370 genes and subsequent bioinformatics analysis disclosed 2 homozygous mutations in EVC2 (c.2653C>T; p.Arg885*) and COL11A2 (c.966dup; p.Thr323Hisfs*19), respectively. This study highlights a dual molecular diagnosis in a patient with a blending of 2 distinct phenotypes and illustrates the advantage and importance of this staple technology to facilitate rapid and comprehensive genetic dissection of a heterogeneous phenotype. The differentiation between phenotypic expansion of a genetic disorder and a blended phenotype that is due to more than one distinct genetic aberration is essential in order to reduce the diagnostic odyssey endured by patients.
CFD Growth of 3C-SiC on 4H/6H Mesas

This article describes growth and characterization of the highest quality reproducible 3C-SiC heteroepitaxial films ever reported. By properly nucleating 3C-SiC growth on top of perfectly on-axis (0001) 4H-SiC mesa surfaces completely free of atomic scale steps and extended defects, growth of 3C-SiC mesa heterofilms completely free of extended crystal defects can be achieved. In contrast, nucleation and growth of 3C-SiC mesa heterofilms on top of 4H-SiC mesas with atomic-scale steps always results in numerous observable dislocations threading through the 3C-SiC epilayer. High-resolution X-ray diffraction (HRXRD) and high resolution cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy (HRXTEM) measurements indicate non-trivial, in-plane, lattice mismatch between the 3C and 4H layers. This mismatch is somewhat relieved in the step-free mesa case via misfit dislocations confined to the 3C/4H interfacial region without dislocations threading into the overlying 3C-SiC layer. These results indicate that the presence or absence of steps at the 3C/4H heteroepitaxial interface critically impacts the quality, defect structure, and relaxation mechanisms of single-crystal heteroepitaxial 3C-SiC films.
A new feature parametrization for monocular SLAM using line features

SUMMARY This paper presents a new monocular SLAM algorithm that uses straight lines extracted from images to represent the environment. A line is parametrized by two pairs of azimuth and elevation angles together with the two corresponding camera centres as anchors making the feature initialization relatively straightforward. There is no redundancy in the state vector as this is a minimal representation. A bundle adjustment (BA) algorithm that minimizes the reprojection error of the line features is developed for solving the monocular SLAM problem with only line features. A new map joining algorithm which can automatically optimize the relative scales of the local maps is used to combine the local maps generated using BA. Results from both simulations and experimental datasets are used to demonstrate the accuracy and consistency of the proposed BA and map joining algorithms.
Low leakage write-enhanced robust 11T SRAM cell with fully half-select-free operation

SRAM circuit design faces new challenges, mainly high leakage power and stability issue in modern scaled technology. This work proposed a new low leakage fully half-select-free robust 11T SRAM cell, which eliminates read disturb and significantly improves the write performance by using power cut-off and write ‘0’ only technique. It also avoids the floating-VDD situation of storage nodes as encountered in earlier power cut-off cells. The proposed cell offers 23.8% and 37.4% improvement in the effective mean of RSNM and WM as compared with existing 11T cell (at VDD=0.5V). At the same supply voltage, it also reduces the leakage power by 35% and 12% as compared with 6T and existing 11T cell. Therefore, the proposed cell could be a good choice for applications that demands high stability and low power and can also be implemented in bit-interleaving architecture to achieve soft error immunity with error correction code (ECC).
Thioredoxin Selectivity for Thiol-based Redox Regulation of Target Proteins in Chloroplasts*

Background: Thioredoxin (Trx) plays a pivotal role in the redox regulation of target proteins. Results: Functional diversity of chloroplast Trxs was determined by observing Trx-dependent redox shifts of several thiol-modulated enzymes in vitro and in vivo. Conclusion: Novel insights into the chloroplast redox network were provided. Significance: Our results shed light on the molecular basis of the light-responsive adjustment of chloroplast functions. Redox regulation based on the thioredoxin (Trx) system is believed to ensure light-responsive control of various functions in chloroplasts. Five Trx subtypes have been reported to reside in chloroplasts, but their functional diversity in the redox regulation of Trx target proteins remains poorly clarified. To directly address this issue, we studied the Trx-dependent redox shifts of several chloroplast thiol-modulated enzymes in vitro and in vivo. In vitro assays using a series of Arabidopsis recombinant proteins provided new insights into Trx selectivity for the redox regulation as well as the underpinning for previous suggestions. Most notably, by combining the discrimination of thiol status with mass spectrometry and activity measurement, we identified an uncharacterized aspect of the reductive activation of NADP-malate dehydrogenase; two redox-active Cys pairs harbored in this enzyme were reduced via distinct utilization of Trxs even within a single polypeptide. In our in vitro assays, Trx-f was effective in reducing all thiol-modulated enzymes analyzed here. We then investigated the in vivo physiological relevance of these in vitro findings, using Arabidopsis wild-type and Trx-f-deficient plants. Photoreduction of fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase was partially impaired in Trx-f-deficient plants, but the global impact of Trx-f deficiency on the redox behaviors of thiol-modulated enzymes was not as striking as expected from the in vitro data. Our results provide support for the in vivo functionality of the Trx system and also highlight the complexity and plasticity of the chloroplast redox network.
Antagonism of Interleukin-17A ameliorates experimental hepatic fibrosis by restoring the IL-10/STAT3-suppressed autophagy in hepatocytes

Interleukin-17A has been identified as a driver of hepatic stellate cell activation and plays a critical role in the pathogenesis of hepatic fibrosis. However, the underlining fibrosis-promoting mechanism of IL-17A is far from understood. Here we aimed to define whether hepatocytes directly respond to IL-17A stimulation and are associated with the development of hepatic fibrosis. The functional significance of IL-17A was evaluated in bile duct ligation (BDL) or thioacetamide (TAA) injection-induced mouse models of hepatic fibrosis. Human cirrhosis and control tissues were obtained from the patients with cirrhosis who received an open surgical repair process. Neutralizing IL-17A promoted the resolution of BDL or TAA-induced acute or chronic inflammation and fibrosis, resulted in a shift of the suppressive immune response in fibrotic liver toward a Th1-type immune response, and restored autophagy activity in both cholestatic and hepatotoxic liver injury induced fibrotic liver tissues, which was accompanied by a significant inhibition of STAT3 phosphorylation. Moreover, we found that IL-17A stimulated the concentration-and time-dependent phosphorylation of STAT3 in AML-12 liver cells. Blocking STAT3 with a specific inhibitor STATTIC or STAT3 siRNA protected from the IL-17A-induced autophagy suppression in AML-12 cells, indicating that STAT3 mediates IL-17A-suppressed autophagy. Administration of IL-10, which activated STAT3 and inhibited autophagy, reversed the therapeutic effect of IL-17A antagonism in vivo. Our study suggests that the IL-17A/STAT3 signaling pathway plays a crucial role in the pathogenesis of hepatic fibrosis through suppressing hepatocellular autophagy and that blocking this pathway may provide therapeutic benefits for the treatment of hepatic fibrosis.
Intracerebroventricular administration of growth hormone induces morphological changes in pyramidal neurons of the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex in adult rats

A growing body of evidence suggests that growth hormone (GH) affects synaptic plasticity at both the molecular and electrophysiological levels. However, unclear is whether plasticity that is stimulated by GH is associated with changes in neuron structure. This study investigated the effect of intracerebroventricular (ICV) administration of GH on the morphology of pyramidal neurons of the CA1 region of the dorsal hippocampus and layer III of the prefrontal cortex. Male Wistar rats received daily ICV injections of GH (120 ng) for 7 days, and they were euthanized 21 days later. Changes in neuronal morphology were evaluated using Golgi‐Cox staining and subsequent Sholl analysis. GH administration increased total dendritic length in the CA1 region of the dorsal hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. The Sholl analysis revealed an increase in dendritic length of the third to eighth branch orders in the hippocampus and from the third to sixth branch orders in the prefrontal cortex. Interestingly, GH treatment increased the density of dendritic spines in both brain regions, favoring the presence of mushroom‐like spines only in the CA1 hippocampal region. Our results indicated that GH induces changes in the length of dendritic trees and the density of dendritic spines in two high‐plasticity brain regions, suggesting that GH‐induced synaptic plasticity at the molecular and electrophysiological levels may be associated with these structural changes in neurons.
Noncognitive Attributes in Physician Assistant Education

Abstract Physician assistant (PA) admissions processes have typically given more weight to cognitive attributes than to noncognitive ones, both because a high level of cognitive ability is needed for a career in medicine and because cognitive factors are easier to measure. However, there is a growing consensus across the health professions that noncognitive attributes such as emotional intelligence, empathy, and professionalism are important for success in clinical practice and optimal care of patients. There is also some evidence that a move toward more holistic admissions practices, including evaluation of noncognitive attributes, can have a positive effect on diversity. The need for these noncognitive attributes in clinicians is being reinforced by changes in the US health care system, including shifting patient demographics and a growing emphasis on team-based care and patient satisfaction, and the need for clinicians to help patients interpret complex medical information. The 2016 Physician Assistant Education Association Stakeholder Summit revealed certain behavioral and affective qualities that employers of PAs value and sometimes find lacking in new graduates. Although there are still gaps in the evidence base, some tools and technologies currently exist to more accurately measure noncognitive variables. We propose some possible strategies and tools that PA programs can use to formalize the way they select for noncognitive attributes. Since PA programs have, on average, only 27 months to educate students, programs may need to focus more resources on selecting for these attributes than teaching them.
Recovery Principles in MySQL Cluster 5.1

MySQL Cluster is a parallel main memory database. It is using the normal MySQL software with a new storage engine NDB Cluster. MySQL Cluster 5.1 has been adapted to also handle fields on disk. In this work a number of recovery principles of MySQL Cluster had to be adapted to handle very large data sizes. The article presents an efficient algorithm for synchronizing a starting node with very large data sets. It provides reasons for the unorthodox choice of a no-steal algorithm in the buffer manager. It also presents the algorithm to change the data.
Closed-loop Helium Circulation System for Actuation of a Continuously Operating Heart Catheter Pump

Background Currently available, pneumatic-based medical devices are operated using closed-loop pulsatile or open continuous systems. Medical devices utilizing gases with a low atomic number in a continuous closed loop stream have not been documented to date. This work presents the construction of a portable helium circulation addressing the need for actuating a novel, pneumatically operated catheter pump. The design of its control system puts emphasis on the performance, safety and low running cost of the catheter pump. Methods and results Static and dynamic characteristics of individual elements in the circulation are analyzed to ensure a proper operation of the system. The pneumatic circulation maximizes the working range of the drive unit inside the catheter pump while reducing the total size and noise production. Separate flow and pressure controllers position the turbine's working point into the stable region of the pressure creation element. A subsystem for rapid gas evacuation significantly decreases the duration of helium removal after a leak, reaching subatmospheric pressure in the intracorporeal catheter within several milliseconds. Conclusions The system presented in the study offers an easy control of helium mass flow while ensuring stable behavior of its internal components.
Increasing of Thermal Conductivity from Mixing of Additive on a Domestic Compacted Bentonite Buffer

has been considered as a standard buffer material for the disposal of high level waste in KAERI disposal system design. But it had relatively lower thermal conductivity compared with other surrounding materials, that was one of key parameters to limit the increase of the disposal density in the disposal system. In this study, various additives were selected and mixed with the Ca-bentonite in different mixing methods in order to increase the thermal conductivity from 0.8 W/mK to 1.0 W/mK. As an additive, CNT (Cabon Nano Tube), graphite, alumina, CuO, and Fe
Accurate quantile estimation for skewed data streams

Quantile estimation is a fundamental method to generate descriptions of the distribution of data for data management and analysis. Although the investigation and design of efficient quantile estimation algorithm has attracted much study, the problem of accurately finding quantiles in the case of skewed data streams, which are prevalent in many data sources like IP traffic streams in the 4G mobile network and text data, is still not well addressed. In this paper we specifically address the problem of estimating the quantiles of massive skewed data streams by designing and implementing an incremental quantile estimation with nonlinear-interpolation algorithm. The comprehensive experimental evaluation results demonstrate that the estimated quantiles of the proposed algorithm are highly accurate than existing methods in the literature on both synthetic and real-world datasets, especially on important extreme quantiles.
Negative $\varepsilon$ Dragging Technique for Pattern Classification

In this paper, we propose the negative <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\varepsilon $ </tex-math></inline-formula> dragging technique for robust classification of noisy and contaminated data. Different from the naïve <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\varepsilon $ </tex-math></inline-formula> dragging technique, the negative <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\varepsilon $ </tex-math></inline-formula> dragging technique argues that robust results can be obtained by properly reducing the class margin of conventional least squares regression when performing classification on noisy data. The underlying rationale of the negative <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\varepsilon $ </tex-math></inline-formula> dragging technique assumes that setting a relative small class margin for the training procedure of least squares regression leads to desirable generalization capability, which, therefore, considerably contributes to boosting the classification performance for the data corrupted with noise. The experimental results indicate that our technique obtains better classification accuracy.
The Application Of Angular Resolved Scatter To The Documentation Of Damage To Smooth Mirrors

Mirrors designed to survive exposure to damaging radiation are being irradiated and then measured to determine the mechanisms of failure and to improve the ability of analysis codes to predict an exposure damage threshold. The differences between survival and catastrophic failure are easily recognized and recorded by macro photography. However, the goal of this project is to quantify the onset of mirror degradation utilizing non contact methods that have good measurement sensitivity to small changes in reflectivity (material properties) and light scatter (roughness). A new angular resolved scatterometer is described that has an extended dynamic range and integrated analysis capable of displaying the surface power spectral density (PSD) over large bandwidths of surface spatial frequencies. Graphical displays of the scattered light power before and after exposure to the radiation are compared and integrated over equivalent spatial bandwidths of sensitivity for other instruments to compare calculated RMS roughness values.
Ethical implications of excessive cluster sizes in cluster randomised trials

The cluster randomised trial (CRT) is commonly used in healthcare research. It is the gold-standard study design for evaluating healthcare policy interventions. A key characteristic of this design is that as more participants are included, in a fixed number of clusters, the increase in achievable power will level off. CRTs with cluster sizes that exceed the point of levelling-off will have excessive numbers of participants, even if they do not achieve nominal levels of power. Excessively large cluster sizes may have ethical implications due to exposing trial participants unnecessarily to the burdens of both participating in the trial and the potential risks of harm associated with the intervention. We explore these issues through the use of two case studies. Where data are routinely collected, available at minimum cost and the intervention poses low risk, the ethical implications of excessively large cluster sizes are likely to be low (case study 1). However, to maximise the social benefit of the study, identification of excessive cluster sizes can allow for prespecified and fully powered secondary analyses. In the second case study, while there is no burden through trial participation (because the outcome data are routinely collected and non-identifiable), the intervention might be considered to pose some indirect risk to patients and risks to the healthcare workers. In this case study it is therefore important that the inclusion of excessively large cluster sizes is justifiable on other grounds (perhaps to show sustainability). In any randomised controlled trial, including evaluations of health policy interventions, it is important to minimise the burdens and risks to participants. Funders, researchers and research ethics committees should be aware of the ethical issues of excessively large cluster sizes in cluster trials.
Towards verifiable file search on the cloud

Cloud storage security has attracted a lot of research interest in recent years with the large-scale application of cloud computing. Although there is considerable work on verifying the integrity of the outsourced data in the cloud, research on verifying the file search results returned from the cloud is still lacking. To fill this gap, in this paper, we tackle the verifiable file search problem and propose two protocols to solve the verifiable file search problem. The baseline protocol can achieve the key verifiability property and the enhanced full-fledged protocol can further preserve the user's privacy by protecting the confidentiality of queried filenames while achieving the same level of verifiability as the baseline protocol. We conduct theoretical analysis to prove the correctness of the developed protocols and their security and privacy properties, along with overhead. We implement both the baseline and enhanced protocols and the resulting experimental data validates the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed protocols.