Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Author's Personal Copy Computerized Medical Imaging and Graphics a General Framework for the Segmentation of Follicular Lymphoma Virtual Slides

In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier's archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: a b s t r a c t Follicular lymphoma (FL) is one of the most common types of non-Hodgkin's lmphomas in the world. Diagnosis of FL is based on morphological and immunohistochemical characteristics found on tissue sections. Our project's aim is to develop computer-aided analysis tools on virtual slide images (VSI) of lymphoid tissues with the purpose of improving the FL grading performed in malignant follicles. In this paper, we focus on the first step of our work, an automated system for detecting follicles in VSI of lymphoid tissues. To mimic the human expert process, the system works on low-resolution CD20 images and maps the follicle boundaries on high-resolution H&E images.
A Meta-Analysis of Environmental Impacts of Agri-Environmental Policies in the European Union

This paper applies an ANOVA-type of meta-analysis to the evaluation of agri-environmental policy in theEuropean Union. Meta-analysis is concerned with the statistical analysis of previous research results, andhas become an established technique in the medical and natural science. The paper investigates whetherspecific conditions, under which agri-environmental measures are applied, have an effect on thebehaviour of farmers with respect to three indicators, N-fertiliser, livestock density and area of grassland.The results indicate that agri-environmental policy intervention has a positive effect on the behaviour offarmers participating in agri-environmental programmes. The average premium per hectare and theabsolute value of N-fertiliser, livestock density and area of grassland appear to have a significantinfluence on the behaviour of these farmers.
Wide-Bandwidth, High Frame Rate Electrical Impedance Tomography / Spectroscopy - a Code Division Multiplexing (CDM) Approach

We present a proposal and proof-of-concept, experimental results for a new type of electrical impedance tomography / spectroscopy system that makes use of code division multiplexing to achieve two important technological advances. Assigning each channel an orthogonal code allow all the impedance measurements to be made simultaneously in time, thereby increasing the frame rate; and the use of pseudorandom input signals allows a very wide range of frequencies to be sampled simultaneously in each channel.
An All-InkJet Printed Bending Actuator with Embedded Sensing Feature and an Electromagnetic Driving Mechanism

Bending actuators are key elements in many application fields. This paper presents an InkJet Printed actuator embedding an electromagnetic driving mechanism and a resistive sensing strategy. The lateral actuation range of the device is in the order of few millimeters, while it can exert forces in the order up to 375 µN. A deep characterization of the device is presented which reveals good performance of the lab-scale prototype developed both in the static and dynamic regime. In particular, the responsivity is found to be a function of the magnetic field used to actuate the beam. Specifically, responsivities of 43.5 × 10−3 m/A, 28.3 × 10−3 m/A and 19.5 × 10−3 m/A have been estimated in the static condition in the case of magnetic fields of 98.8 mT, 70.6 mT and 37.1 mT, respectively, while at the resonance frequency of 4.1 Hz the responsivity is 51 × 10−3 m/A in case of a magnetic field of 37.1 mT.
The Boomerang Complex: Iterations and Knowledge Transfer in Joint R&d Projects

In this paper, we explore knowledge exchanges between academic laboratories and their industrial partners as the R&D activities in their joint project vary between prospect, exploration and exploitation. We propose a qualitative, longitudinal approach to investigate how the nature of a joint R&D project influences knowledge transfer between partners. First of all, we contribute to a dynamic perspective on inter-organizational knowledge transfer. We show that exploitation, exploration and prospect R&D contribute in different ways to organizational strategies and inter-organizational complementarities. Secondly, we underline the alignment between the nature of the project (exploitative, explorative or prospective) and the expected flows of knowledge as an important stake for the conduct of University-Industry R&D projects. If such an alignment should ideally be built from the design phase, we show that a lack of alignment can be corrected as the collaborative research experiences iterations. Those iterations can be experienced as highly emotional events, influencing the rest of the collaborative work, which we call the “boomerang complex”.
The Sources of Economic Growth in the Basque Country, Navarre and Spain during the period 1986-2004

This paper studies the sources of economic growth in the Basque Country and its three historic territories (Araba,Bizkaia, and Gipuzkoa), Navarre, and Spain during 1986-2004, emphasizing the role of infrastructures andInformation and Communication Technologies (ICT) on growth, and comparing the results with those of the EU andthe US. Labor and capital were the main engines of output growth during 1986-2004. The growth in TFP was residualand even declining in the period 1995-2004 due to the increasing contribution of labor. The performance in the mostrecent period 2000-2004 is even gloomier due to the negative growth rates of TFP. Those results contrast with thepattern for the US specially, where growth in TFP remained substantial. Infrastructures contributed to around 0,10% ofoutput growth. The contribution of ICT capital to output growth in the Spanish territories was around 0,35% and itincreased in the period 1995-2004, but it declined substantially in the most recent period 2000-2004. It is still far fromthe levels for the EU and specially the US. The growth rate of output per hour was below that for the EU or the US inthe period 1986-2004, specially in the Basque Country. Growth in capital intensity was the main source of growth.While the contribution of infrastructures to the growth rate of output per hour declined in the period 1995-2004, that ofICT capital increased. In contrast, ICT contributed less to the growth rate of output per hour in the most recent period2000-2004. The contribution of ICT capital to the growth rate of output per hour remains behind that for the EU andthe US
Transmembrane proteases in focus: diversity and redundancy?

Recent advances have led to the identification and characterization of an array of transmembrane proteases that mediate the proteolysis of various substrates (including bioactive peptides, components of the extracellular matrix, and integral proteins) and cell‐cell or cell‐matrix adhesion. The membrane proteases known to participate in these processes currently include the ectopeptidases, the membrane‐type matrix metalloproteases (MT‐MMPs), the ADAM (a disintegrin and metalloprotease) family, the meprins, and the secretases, and this list may be expected to grow. The roles that these molecules play within neoplastic and inflammatory sites are being investigated actively. The capacity of these ectoenzymes to transmit intracellular‐transduction signals through the plasma membrane has to be considered. An appreciation of their functional redundancy is emerging.
Independence between age-related changes in refraction, accommodation and convergence in primary school children

The parameters which describe how refraction, accommodation and convergence develop during childhood are well understood, but the possible interdependencies between these agerelated changes are not known. Hence it is unknown whether refractive development is associated with development of accommodation and convergence. Four-hundred and fifty-two unselected 7-13 year old school children were subjected to autorefraction and unilateral cover test, and measurement of visual acuity, amplitude of accommodation, monocular accommodation facility, near phoria, near point of convergence, and positive and negative fusional vergence using subjective techniques. Linear regression was used to study the correlation of these parameters with age, followed by study of correlations between age-dependent parameters. There was a significant reduction in hyperopia ( 0.13 D/year, 95% CI [- 0.20 , - 0.06 ]), a significant increase in the monocular accommodation facility ( 0:48 cpm/year, 95% CI [ 0.18 , 0.79 ]), and a non-significant shift towards convergence of the midpoint of the fusional range ( 0.43 Δ D/year, 95% CI [ 0.12 , 0.74 ]) with age. Age-dependent variables were not significantly correlated. Autorefraction was not correlated with any other variable. None of the other parameters showed any significant correlations with age. Age-related changes in refraction, monocular accommodation facility and midpoint of fusional range were independent. This indicates that the development of these parameters involves separate processes, and suggests that therapeutic intervention may be performed on these parameters individually without a derived effect on the other age-related parameters.
Conditional Probabilities for Euro Area Sovereign Default Risk

We propose a novel empirical framework to assess the likelihood of joint and conditional failure for Euro area sovereigns. Our model is based on a dynamic skewed-t copula which captures all the salient features of the data, including skewed and heavy-tailed changes in the price of CDS protection against sovereign default, as well as dynamic volatilities and correlations to ensure that failure dependence can increase in times of stress. We apply the framework to Euro area sovereign CDS spreads from 2008 to mid-2011. Our results reveal significant time-variation in risk dependence and considerable spill-over effects in the likelihood of sovereign failures. We also investigate distress dependence around a key policy announcement by Euro area heads of state on May 9, 2010, and demonstrate the importance of capturing higher-order time-varying moments during times of crisis for the correct assessment of interacting risks.
Erythrocyte Binding Preference of Human Pandemic Influenza Virus A and Its Effect on Antibody Response Detection

Background Validation of hemagglutination inhibition (HI) assays is important for evaluating antibody responses to influenza virus, and selection of erythrocytes for use in these assays is important. This study aimed to determine the correlation between receptor binding specificity and effectiveness of the HI assay for detecting antibody response to pandemic influenza H1N1 (pH1N1) virus. Methods Hemagglutination (HA) tests were performed using erythrocytes from 6 species. Subsequently, 8 hemagglutinating units of pH1N1 from each species were titrated by real-time reverse transcription-PCR. To investigate the effect of erythrocyte binding preference on HI antibody titers, comparisons of HI with microneutralization (MN) assays were performed. Results Goose erythrocytes showed most specific binding with pH1N1, while HA titers using human erythrocytes were comparable to those using turkey erythrocytes. The erythrocyte binding efficiency was shown to have an impact on antibody detection. Comparing MN titers, HI titers using turkey erythrocytes yielded the most accurate results, while those using goose erythrocytes produced the highest geometric mean titer. Human blood group O erythrocytes lacking a specific antibody yielded results most comparable to those obtained using turkey erythrocytes. Further, pre-existing antibody to pH1N1 and different erythrocyte species can distort HI assay results. Conclusions HI assay, using turkey and human erythrocytes, yielded the most comparable and applicable results for pH1N1 than those by MN assay, and using goose erythrocytes may lead to overestimated titers. Selection of appropriate erythrocyte species for HI assay allows construction of a more reliable database, which is essential for further investigations and control of virus epidemics.
USE OF DECISION MODELS IN A DIVERSE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

Students in general, but particularly those in introductory courses and/or those from campuses with a multicultural student population, have very definite but decidely different information gathering and processing styles. In environments such as those described above there is a need for both student awareness of their cognitive preferences and use of a cognitive model by faculty in course design and teaching. Cognitive models describe four different information gathering and processing types. The purpose of this paper is to explain the importance of this cognitive model in a diverse learning environment.
Chelator-Accelerated One-Pot ‘Click’ Labeling of Small Molecule Tracers with 2-[18F]Fluoroethyl Azide

2-[18F]Fluoroethyl azide ([18F]FEA) can readily be obtained by nucleophilic substitution of 2-azidoethyl-4-toluenesulfonate with [18F]fluoride (half-life 110 min), and has become widely used as a reagent for ‘click’ labeling of PET tracers. However, distillation of [18F]FEA is typically required, which is time-consuming and unpractical for routine applications. In addition, copper(I)-catalyzed cycloaddition of [18F]FEA with non-activated alkynes, and with substrates containing labile functional groups, can be challenging. Herein, we report a highly efficient and practical ligand-accelerated one-pot/two-step method for ‘click’ labeling of small molecule tracers with [18F]FEA. The method exploits the ability of the copper(I) ligand bathophenanthrolinedisulfonate to accelerate the rate of the cycloaddition reaction. As a result, alkynes can be added directly to the crude reaction mixture containing [18F]FEA, and as cyclisation occurs almost immediately at room temperature, the reaction is tolerant to labile functional groups. The method was demonstrated by reacting [18F]FEA with a series of alkyne-functionalized 6-halopurines to give the corresponding triazoles in 55–76% analytical radiochemical yield.
An intelligent algorithm for improving QOS in a delay-based end-to-end congestion avoidance scheme

This paper proposes an intelligent algorithm which includes a fuzzy proportional derivative controller to complement a recently proposed delay-based end-to-end congestion avoidance scheme (L. Yan et al., 2004). Aimed to enhance the overall network performance, the proposed fuzzy controller intends to tune control gains based on the stability of the sending rate. The adaptive set point derived assists the controller to stabilize the sending rate so that delay jitter and the loss ratio can be reduced when connections experience propagation delays. The proposed algorithm can work with a wide range of traffic mixtures and propagation delays. The paper demonstrates the improved network performance achieved in comparison with existing algorithms through the use of extensive simulations.
Developing an Effective Strategy For Managing Intellectual Assets

OVERVIEW: Although many companies today are exploring ways to extract value from their patent portfolios, most use ad hoc approaches that are inefficient and lead to disappointing results. Leading firms, on the other hand, take a proactive approach and systematically tie their intellectual asset management strategy to the core strategies of the firm. A study of more than 70 firms illuminates two key aspects of this approach: how to strategically organize the firm's intellectual asset portfolio and how to extract value from that portfolio. This article describes how firms strategically organize their intellectual assets to maximize their value to the firm. A subsequent article will describe specific methods firms use to extract value from their intellectual asset portfolio.
Security and Privacy Challenges Mona in Cloud Computing Using Signature Generation

Cloud storage enables users to remotely store their data and enjoy the on-demand high quality cloud applications without the burden of local hardware and software management. Though the benefits are clear, such a service is also relinquishing users’ physical possession of their outsourced data, which inevitably poses new security risks towards the correctness of the data in the cloud. In order to address this new problem and further to achieve a secure and dependable cloud storage service, in this paper a new cryptosystem is developed for fine-grained sharing of encrypted data that we call Cipher-Policy AttributeBased Encryption (CP-ABE) with verifiable outsourced decryption. In our cryptosystem, cipher texts are labeled with sets of attributes and private keys are associated with access structures that control which cipher texts a user is able to decrypt. This scheme also eliminates the overhead caused due to the large number of pairing operations in decryption. Attributebased encryption (ABE) has been envisioned as a promising cryptographic primitive for realizing secure and flexible access control. So, in order to check the correctness of the transformation done and introduce the concept of verifiability. The proposed design consists of efficient methods that enable ondemand data correctness verification. ABE [Attribute based Encryption] extends the ASBE algorithm with a hierarchical structure to improve scalability and flexibility while at the same time inherits the features of fine-grained access control of ABE. A traditional Cloud security concept ensures the Identity based Cryptography, which results in securing outsourcing of cloud
Evolving Fuzzy Neural Networks by Particle Swarm Optimization with Fuzzy Genotype Values

Particle swarm optimization (PSO) is a well-known instance of swarm intelligence algorithms and there have been many researches on PSO. In this paper, the author proposes an extension of PSO for solving fuzzy-valued optimization problems. In the proposed extension, genotype values (i.e. values in particle position vectors) are not real numbers but fuzzy numbers. Search processes in PSO are extended so that PSO can handle genotype instances with fuzzy numbers. The proposed method is experimentally applied to evolution of neural networks with fuzzy weights and biases. Experimental results showed that fuzzy neural networks evolved by the proposed method could model hidden target fuzzy functions despite the fact that no training data was explicitly provided.
The Use of Control Charts in Health-Care and Public-Health Surveillance

There are many applications of control charts in health-care monitoring and in public-health surveillance. We introduce these applications to industrial practitioners and discuss some of the ideas that arise that may be applicable in industrial monitoring. The advantages and disadvantages of the charting methods proposed in the health-care and public-health areas are considered. Some additional contributions in the industrial statistical process control literature relevant to this area are given. There are many application and research opportunities available in the use of control charts for health-related monitoring.
Design Scenario-Based Power Saving Scheme of Virtual Environment in Cloud Computing

A data center is equipped with a large quantity of servers, storage devices, and networking facilities. Aided by virtualization technology, the population of a data center can be decreased, thus enabling a very significant reduction in power consumption, enhancing a corporation’s competitive advantage, while concurrently lowering operational costs. Hence, built upon the virtualization technology and resource distribution principle, this paper will apply the pre-defined scenario model on the virtual environment to propose the SPS scheme for reducing power consumption in cloud servers. Also, this paper integrates the Linux platform to design the management module for SPS, called SPSM. Subsequently, the SPS can automatically optimize the power distribution based on the pre-defined scenario model via SPSM. When the monitor program discovers an increase in the VM’s workload, the wake-up function of the SPS can activate the server and then perform live migration among VMs by utilizing the automatic workload balancing in the virtual environment. By analyzing the experimental results, the applications of the SPS scheme can obtain higher CPU and memory utilizations of servers to achieve a 21% reduction in power consumption. Finally, the purposes of the proposed SPS are to attain better processing performance and obtain higher resource utilizations of VMs in cloud computing.
An Automated Signature-Based Approach against Polymorphic Internet Worms

Capable of infecting hundreds of thousands of hosts, worms represent a major threat to the Internet. However, the defense against them is still an open problem. This paper attempts to answer an important question: How can we distinguish polymorphic worms from normal background traffic? We propose a new worm signature, called the position-aware distribution signature (PADS), which fills the gap between traditional signatures and anomaly-based intrusion detection systems. The new signature is a collection of position-aware byte frequency distributions. It is more flexible than the traditional signatures of fixed strings while it is more precise than the position-unaware statistical signatures. We propose two algorithms based on Expectation-Maximization (EM) and Gibbs Sampling to efficiently compute PADS from a set of polymorphic worm samples. We also discuss how to separate a mixture of different polymorphic worms such that their respective PADS signatures can be calculated. We perform extensive experiments to demonstrate the effectiveness of PADS in separating new worm variants from normal background traffic.
The Institution As A Citizen: How Colleges and Universities Enhance Their Civic Roles

This paper is premised on the assumption that civic responsibility is the contemporary version of higher education's historical outreach mission. With that as an understanding, it considers how best colleges and universities can fulfil this commitment of service to external communities, broadly defined to include local, national, and international concerns. The paper offers typologies of ways that institutions structure academic outreaCh, responsive curricula, land-grant and extension school programs, faculty professional service, coordinating student volunteerism and encouraging public access to campus for athletic or cultural events. Institutions interested in enhancing their civic role can take from this paper strategies for enhancing an institution's civic life. They can use this paper as a yardstick for their own practice.
Quantifying Changes in Economic and Social Justice : The U . S . 1960-2000

The notion of Equality of Opportunity (EO) has pervaded much of economic and social justice policy and research over the last half century. The sense that differences in agent outcomes that are the consequence of their individual choice and effort are acceptable, whereas variation in agent outcomes that are the consequence of circumstances beyond their control are not has underpinned much gender, race, education and family law and policy over that period, making it a many dimensioned issue. Here a new approach to evaluating levels of and changes in EO which readily accommodates these many dimensions is introduced and progress in the extent of equality of opportunity in the United States is studied over the period 1960-2000. The evidence is that gains were made in all categories throughout the period, more so for boys than girls (though girls were better off in an EO sense to start with), more so for children in single parent circumstances, and more so for the poorly endowed.