Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Median filtering forensics based on discriminative multi-scale sparse coding

Recent research has demonstrated that median filtering can be adopted as a postprocessing procedure to cover the tampering traces in many image forgeries. Hence, median filtering detection has become an important branch in digital image forensics. Most existing median filtering forensic techniques detect median filtering traces using handcraft features, but their performance degrades with smaller image size and stronger compression. To get more detailed features, automatic feature learning becomes a viable approach. In this paper, a discriminative multi-scale sparse coding based approach is proposed. This approach performs sparse coding representation in multi-scale patch domain to automatically extract distinct patterns caused by median filtering at different levels. To further improve the representative ability of sparse codes, discriminative dictionaries for various patch sizes are derived from labeled training patches of specific sizes. Based on the discriminative sparse codes, max-pooling is then employed over all corresponding patches to obtain representative features for each specific patch size. The final features are derived by concatenating all the features of various patch sizes. The experiment results show that the proposed approach out-performs three state-of-the-art approaches for median filter detection in most cases.
Three-dimensional head pose estimation in-the-wild

Estimating 3-dimensional head pose from a single 2D image is a challenging task with extensive applications. Existing approaches lack the capability to deal with multiple pose-related and - unrelated factors in a uniform way. Most of them can provide only 1-dimensional yaw estimation and suffer from limited representation ability for out-of-sample testing inputs. These drawbacks limit their performance especially on faces in-the-wild. To address this problem, we propose a new head pose estimation approach, which models the pose variation as a 3-sphere manifold embedded in the high-dimensional feature space. It can uniformly factorize multiple factors in an instance parametric subspace, where novel inputs can be synthesized under a generative framework. Moreover, our approach can effectively avoid the manifold degradation issue by learning the embedding in a novel direction. The pose estimation results on multiple databases demonstrate the superior performance of our approach compared with the state-of-the-arts.
Influence of Leishmania RNA Virus 1 on Proinflammatory Biomarker Expression in a Human Macrophage Model of American Tegumentary Leishmaniasis

Backgound Species of the Leishmania Viannia (L. V.) subgenus harbor the double-stranded Leishmania RNA virus 1 (LRV-1), previously identified in isolates from Brazil and Peru. Higher levels of LRV-1 in metastasizing strains of L. V. guyanensis have been documented in both human and murine models, and correlated to disease severity. Methods Expression of proinflammatory biomarkers, including interleukin (IL) 1β, tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α), CXCL10, CCL5, IL-6, and superoxide dismutase, in human macrophages infected with 3 ATCC and 5 clinical isolates of L. V. braziliensis, L. V. guyanensis, and L. V. panamensis for 24 and 48 hours were measured by commercial enzyme immunoassay. Analyses were performed at 24 and 48 hours, stratified by LRV-1 status and species. Results LRV-1-positive L. V. braziliensis demonstrated significantly lower expression levels of TNF-α (P = .01), IL-1β (P = .0015), IL-6 (P = .001), and CXCL10 (P = .0004) compared with LRV-1-negative L. V. braziliensis. No differences were observed in strains of L. V. panamensis by LRV-1 status. Conclusions Compared to LRV-1-negative L. V. braziliensis, LRV-1-positive strains of L. V. braziliensis produced a predominant Th2-biased immune response, correlated in humans to poorer immunologic control of infection and more severe disease, including mucosal leishmaniasis. Effects of LRV-1 on the pathogenesis of American tegumentary leishmaniasis may be species specific.
Improved right ventricular index of myocardial performance in the assessment of right ventricular function after coronary artery bypass grafting.

OBJECTIVES Decreased right ventricular (RV) longitudinal function following coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), as assessed by tricuspid annular systolic excursion (TAPSE) and RV peak systolic velocity (RVS') is a known condition. We aimed to explore the feasibility of the right ventricular index of myocardial performance (RIMP) in the assessment of RV function after CABG at rest and during peak dobutamine stress echocardiography (DSE). METHODS Forty-two patients indicated for CABG were included in this study. Coronary angiography, DSE and exercise bicycle test were performed within 6 weeks before and 3 months after CABG. The RIMP, RVS' and TAPSE at the lateral tricuspid annulus were also assessed. The results were presented as mean ± standard deviation. RESULTS The RIMP improved after CABG both at rest (0.45 ± 0.11 before vs 0.38 ± 0.08 after CABG, P = 0.013) and during DSE (0.75 ± 0.23 vs 0.49 ± 0.14, P < 0.001). TAPSE declined significantly when comparing the values from before CABG to after CABG both at rest (23.9 ± 4.46 vs 14.6 ± 3.67, P < 0.001) and during DSE (20.9 ± 4.16 vs 11.9 ± 3.60, P < 0.001). RVS' also decreased after CABG both at rest (11.9 ± 2.40 vs 8.5 ± 1.93, P < 0.001) and during DSE (15.6 ± 4.30 vs 10.5 ± 3.21, P < 0.001). On the other hand, exercise capacity improved after CABG compared with baseline (128.4 ± 40.12 W vs 142.1 ± 46.73 W, P = 0.014). CONCLUSIONS RIMP improved after CABG both at rest and during DSE. The reduction in TAPSE and RVS' after CABG indicate reduced regional mechanical RV function along the long axis rather than reduced global RV function.
Bracing For Hurricanes: A Qualitative Analysis of the Extent and Level of Preparedness Among Older Adults

Background and Objectives Older adults are at greater risk than other age groups throughout all stages of a disaster. To date, the bulk of empirical disaster research concerning older adults has centered on the consequences of a disaster. This study focuses on older residents in a hurricane-prone community and investigates the extent and level of their reported preparedness for hurricanes, which takes place prior to a disaster. Research Design and Methods This study engaged year-round older residents of Sarasota County, Florida. Semi-structured interviews were conducted for 30 older individuals of 60-90 years of age. Transcripts were analyzed by qualitative content analysis integrating both inductive and deductive coding approaches. Results Older respondents overwhelmingly practiced survival preparedness by only storing water and food supplies, but lacked efforts in planning and structural preparedness due to insufficient awareness and financial resources. Most respondents asserted hurricane readiness despite the shortage of preparation practices because "being prepared" is defined differently for different individuals. Many respondents claimed hurricane experience and subjective interpretation rather than objective nature of prior exposure appeared to have a greater influence over respondents' reported preparedness behavior. Discussion and Implications This study adds to the emerging, but highly limited body of work specifically addressing disaster preparedness among older adults. The interview data inclusive of respondents' voices and values suggest that expectations by emergency managers that older individuals will follow hurricane preparedness recommendations may be misplaced. More practical and age-specific interventions are needed to promote disaster preparedness of older adults.
A filter design method for beam hardening correction in middle-energy x-ray computed tomography

Beam hardening artifact is common in X-ray computed tomography (X-CT). Using the metal sheet as a filter to preferentially attenuate low-energy photons is a simple and effective way for beam hardening artifact correction. However, generally it requires a large quantity of experiments to compare the filter material and thickness, which is lack of guidance of theory. In this paper, a novel filter design method for beam hardening correction, especially for middle energy X-CT, is presented. First, the spectrum of X-ray source under a certain tube voltage is estimated by Monte Carlo (MC) simulation or other simulation methods. Next, according to the X-ray mass attenuation coefficients of the object material, the energy range to be retained can be roughly determined in which the attenuation coefficients change slowly. Then, the spectra filtering performance with different filter materials and thicknesses can be calculated using the X-ray mass attenuation coefficients of each filter material and the simulated primitive spectrum. After that, the mean energy ratio (MER) of post-filter mean energy to pre-filter mean energy is obtained. Finally, based on the spectrum filtering performance and MER of the metal material, a suitable filter strategy is easily selected. Experimental results show that, the proposed method is simple and effective on beam hardening correction as well as increasing the image quality.
Pathogenicity of ocular isolates of Acinetobacter baumannii in a mouse model of bacterial endophthalmitis.

PURPOSE To determine the virulence properties of ocular isolates of Acinetobacter baumannii in causing endophthalmitis in a mouse model. METHODS Endophthalmitis was induced by intravitreal injections of the bacteria into C57BL/6 (B6) mouse eyes. The disease progression was monitored by ophthalmoscopic, electroretinography (ERG), histologic, cell death (TUNEL labeling), and microbiological parameters. The expression of cytokines/chemokines was checked by quantitative RT-PCR (qRT-PCR) and ELISA. Flow cytometry was used to determine cellular infiltration. The role of neutrophils was determined using neutropenic mice. The virulence traits (biofilm formation, adherence, and cytotoxicity) of the ocular isolates were tested using corneal epithelial cells. RESULTS Among the three clinical isolates and a standard ATCC 19606 strain tested, a biofilm producing multidrug resistant (MDR) strain of A. baumannii AB12 caused severe endophthalmitis (100% destruction of the eyes) leading to the loss of retinal function as assessed by ERG analysis. Elevated levels of inflammatory mediators (TNF-α, IL-1β, CXCL2, and IL-6) were detected in AB12-infected eyes. Histologic and TUNEL staining revealed increased retinal cell death and the flow cytometry data showed the presence of inflammatory cells, primarily neutrophils (CD45(+)/Ly6G(+)). Neutropenic mice showed an increased bacterial burden, reduced inflammatory response, and severe tissue destruction. CONCLUSIONS These results indicate that A. baumannii causes severe intraocular inflammation and retinal damage. Furthermore, neutrophils play an important role in the pathogenesis of A. baumannii endophthalmitis.
Molecular Features of Triple Negative Breast Cancer: Microarray Evidence and Further Integrated Analysis

Purpose Breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease usually including four molecular subtypes such as luminal A, luminal B, HER2-enriched, and triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). TNBC is more aggressive than other breast cancer subtypes. Despite major advances in ER-positive or HER2-amplified breast cancer, there is no targeted agent currently available for TNBC, so it is urgent to identify new potential therapeutic targets for TNBC. Methods We first used microarray analysis to compare gene expression profiling between TNBC and non-TNBC. Furthermore an integrated analysis was conducted based on our own and published data, leading to more robust, reproducible and accurate predictions. Additionally, we performed qRT-PCR in breast cancer cell lines to verify the findings in integrated analysis. Results After searching Gene Expression Omnibus database (GEO), two microarray studies were obtained according to the inclusion criteria. The integrated analysis was conducted, including 30 samples of TNBC and 77 samples of non-TNBC. 556 genes were found to be consistently differentially expressed (344 up-regulated genes and 212 down-regulated genes in TNBC). Functional annotation for these differentially expressed genes (DEGs) showed that the most significantly enriched Gene Ontology (GO) term for molecular functions was protein binding (GO: 0005515, P = 6.09E-21), while that for biological processes was signal transduction (GO: 0007165, P = 9.46E-08), and that for cellular component was cytoplasm (GO: 0005737, P = 2.09E-21). The most significant pathway was Pathways in cancer (P = 6.54E-05) based on Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG). DUSP1 (Degree = 21), MYEOV2 (Degree = 15) and UQCRQ (Degree = 14) were identified as the significant hub proteins in the protein-protein interaction (PPI) network. Five genes were selected to perform qRT-PCR in seven breast cancer cell lines, and qRT-PCR results showed that the expression pattern of selected genes in TNBC lines and non-TNBC lines was nearly consistent with that in the integrated analysis. Conclusion This study may help to understand the pathogenesis of different breast cancer subtypes, contributing to the successful identification of therapeutic targets for TNBC.
Effects of Configuration and Dimension of Concentric Ring Electrodes in EEnG Recording Applications

Implementing Laplacian techniques through ring electrodes in bioelectrical records can improve the signal quality and spatial resolution in comparison to that obtained with conventional disk electrodes. Different dimensions of the rings and recording settings in one electrode can facilitate bioelectric mapping, and provide flexibility to studies in the field of bioelectrical signal recording. A concentric multi-ring electrode (multi-CRE), flexible, with gel, auto-adhesive, that can be configured for monopolar and bipolar records is presented in this paper. Simultaneous recording of intestinal myoelectric activity (electroenterogram, EEnG) by means of multi-CRE and conventional disk electrodes, respiration and electrocardiogram signals were performed in healthy subjects. The results revealed that the ability to detect intestinal slow waves was greatly influenced by the ability to reject its main interferences. Regarding the recording configuration, it can be concluded that the use of flexible concentric electrodes in bipolar configuration improves the quality of EEnG signals. Regarding to the effect of the electrode size, the middle ring (30 mm) reached a balance between better performance against respiratory interference of small rings and better response to low frequency interference of large rings.
On-surface synthesis on a bulk insulator surface

On-surface synthesis has rapidly emerged as a most promising approach to prepare functional molecular structures directly on a support surface. Compared to solution synthesis, performing chemical reactions on a surface offers several exciting new options: due to the absence of a solvent, reactions can be envisioned that are otherwise not feasible due to the insolubility of the reaction product. Perhaps even more important, the confinement to a two-dimensional surface might enable reaction pathways that are not accessible otherwise. Consequently, on-surface synthesis has attracted great attention in the last decade, with an impressive number of classical reactions transferred to a surface as well as new reactions demonstrated that have no classical analogue. So far, the majority of the work has been carried out on conducting surfaces. However, when aiming for electronic decoupling of the resulting structures, e.g. for the use in future molecular electronic devices, non-conducting surfaces are highly desired. Here, we review the current status of on-surface reactions demonstrated on the (10.4) surface of the bulk insulator calcite. Besides thermally induced C–C coupling of halogen-substituted aryls, photochemically induced [2 + 2] cycloaddition has been proven possible on this surface. Moreover, experimental evidence exists for coupling of terminal alkynes as well as diacetylene polymerization. While imaging of the resulting structures with dynamic atomic force microscopy provides a direct means of reaction verification, the detailed reaction pathway often remains unclear. Especially in cases where the presence of metal atoms is known to catalyze the corresponding solution chemistry reaction (e.g. in the case of the Ullmann reaction), disclosing the precise reaction pathway is of importance to understand and generalize on-surface reactivity on a bulk insulator surface. To this end, density-functional theory calculations have proven to provide atomic-scale insights that have greatly contributed to unravelling the details of on-surface synthesis on a bulk insulator surface.
Spatial Feature Reduction in Long-term EEG for Patient-specific Epileptic Seizure Event Detection

Seizure is a common phenomenon among patients with epilepsy. Detection of seizure at the onset enables immediate actions to be taken. However, real-time seizure event and onset detection in an ambulatory epilepsy patient using continuous scalp EEG monitoring proves to be difficult with the hardware associated with signal acquisition. Furthermore, developing a universal seizure detection algorithm is not applicable due to the patient dependence. The prominent challenge in working with EEG its non-stationarity. Hence, time-frequency methods such as wavelet analysis have been used in recent research, to develop algorithms. In this study, we develop patient specific seizure detection system in which, Discrete Wavelet Packet Transform (DWPT) is used to extract wavelet packet energy and use a single EEG channel to train an offline SVM classifier. This study is conducted to prove that accurate seizure prediction can be performed using at most two channels for most patients and develop a system for real-time monitoring and seizure event detection. The objective is to maintain a high level of accuracy despite the drastic reduction in spatial features and achieve a low latency of detection so that this algorithm could be used in seizure alert devices with less hardware complexity. CHB-MIT Scalp EEG database has been used in this study and an average sensitivity of detection of 90.3% an average specificity of 99% with an average latency of 3.41s have been achieved for 60% of the epileptic seizure subjects considered.
Critical Evaluation of Branch Polarity and Apical Dominance as Dictators of Colony Astogeny in a Branching Coral

The high morphological resemblance between branching corals and trees, can lead to comparative studies on pattern formation traits, best exemplified in plants and in some cnidarians. Here, 81 branches of similar size of the hermatypic coral Stylophora pistillata were lopped of three different genets, their skeletons marked with alizarin red-S, and divided haphazardly into three morphometric treatment groups: (I) upright position; (II) horizontal position, intact tip; and (III) horizontal position, cut tip. After 1 y of in-situ growth, the 45 surviving ramets were brought to the laboratory, their tissues removed and their architectures analyzed by 22 morphological parameters (MPs). We found that within 1 y, isolated branches developed into small coral colonies by growing new branches from all branch termini, in all directions. No architectural dissimilarity was assigned among the three studied genets of treatment I colonies. However, a major architectural disparity between treatment I colonies and colonies of treatments II and III was documented as the development of mirror structures from both sides of treatments II and III settings as compared to tip-borne architectures in treatment I colonies. We did not observe apical dominance since fragments grew equally from all branch sides without documented dominant polarity along branch axis. In treatment II colonies, no MP for new branches originating either from tips or from branch bases differed significantly. In treatment III colonies, growth from the cut tip areas was significantly lower compared to the base, again, suggesting lack of apical dominance in this species. Changes in branch polarity revealed genet associated plasticity, which in one of the studied genets, led to enhanced growth. Different genets exhibited canalization flexibility of growth patterns towards either lateral growth, or branch axis extension (skeletal weight and not porosity was measured). This study revealed that colony astogeny in S. pistillata is a regulated process expressed through programmed events and not directly related to simple energy trade-off principles or to environmental conditions, and that branch polarity and apical dominance do not dictate colony astogeny. Therefore, plasticity and astogenic disparities encompass a diversity of genetic (fixed and flexible) induced responses.
Compensation of DC-Link Voltage Fluctuation for Railway Traction PMSM in Multiple Low-Switching-Frequency Synchronous Space Vector Modulation Modes

DC-link voltage fluctuation, originated from the single-phase power supply, has a significant impact on the railway traction drive system. Instead of employing a large LC filter to suppress the fluctuation, software solutions are of more interests, since they do not add additional components to the system. A state-of-the-art feedforward strategy predicts the dc-link voltage pattern based on its repetitive nature and directly modifies the duty cycle fed to the inverter to eliminate the impact of the fluctuation. Yet this strategy requires a symmetrical and consistent pulse pattern. In this paper, a compensation approach for synchronous space vector modulation with multiple pulse patterns is proposed. It utilizes the prediction of the dc-link voltage pattern and, based on the volt–second balancing principle, modifies the switching instants corresponding to different pulse patterns. Simulation and experimental results show that the proposed method can significantly eliminate the impact of the fluctuation.
A Simplified Geboes Score for Ulcerative Colitis

Background and Aims The original Geboes Score [OGS] is the most commonly used histological score in ulcerative colitis [UC], but rather complicated to use in daily clinical practice. The aim of this study was to develop a Simplified Geboes Score [SGS] and to compare it with the OGS in patients newly diagnosed with UC. Methods All patients diagnosed with UC at a tertiary referral centre between 2005 and 2010, who had serial colonoscopies with biopsies, were retrospectively included. The 5-year endoscopic/histological evolution after diagnosis was recorded. Histological activity was scored by an experienced inflammatory bowel disease pathologist and three trained readers using the OGS and also the new SGS that only includes variables linked to active inflammatory disease. The correlation between endoscopic and histological activity and the histological inter-observer agreement were measured. Results A total of 528 slides from 339 colonoscopies of 103 UC patients were reviewed. Forty [12%] colonoscopies presented Mayo 0, 74 [22%] Mayo 1, 107 [31%] Mayo 2 and 118 [35%] Mayo 3. Active microscopic disease [≥ 3.1 in both scores] was described in 10/40 [25%] patients who were in complete endoscopic remission [Mayo 0], and 62/74 [84%] with mild endoscopic lesions [Mayo 1]. The correlation analysis between endoscopy and OGS/SGS did not show significant differences between the histological scores. The inter-observer agreement was moderate for all the grades of the SGS. Conclusions The assessments of histological activity based on the OGS and the SGS were comparable in newly diagnosed active UC patients. Further prospective validation should now be done to replace the OGS with the SGS.