Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bone mineral density in systemic lupus erythematosus: comparison with rheumatoid arthritis and healthy controls

OBJECTIVES To examine bone mineral density (BMD) frequency of osteoporosis and reduced bone mass in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), and compare the data of the SLE patients with matched rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients and healthy controls. Secondly, to study possible correlations between BMD, demographic and disease variables in the SLE patients. METHODS Measures of BMD assessed by dual energy x ray absorptiometry were obtained from 75 SLE patients aged ⩽ 70 years, 75 RA patients matched for age, sex and disease duration, and from 75 healthy controls matched for age, sex and geographical area. Disease activity and accumulated organ damage were assessed in the SLE patients. RESULTS The SLE patients had significantly lower BMD values at lumbar spine L2-L4 and hip, and higher frequency of osteoporosis at all sites of measurement compared with matched healthy controls. The matched SLE and RA patients had similar BMD, prevalence of osteoporosis and reduced bone mass. In the SLE patients BMD was more strongly correlated with accumulated organ damage than with markers of disease activity or duration. In multivariate analyses BMD was at all sites predicted by age and body mass, at lumbar spine also by the current corticosteroid dose. CONCLUSION The study showed reduced BMD in patients with SLE compared with matched healthy controls. Premenopausal women taking corticosteroids were especially affected. Furthermore, the BMD of matched SLE and RA patients was reduced to a similar extent.
Ocular Motor Nerve Development in the Presence and Absence of Extraocular Muscle

Purpose To spatially and temporally define ocular motor nerve development in the presence and absence of extraocular muscles (EOMs). Methods Myf5cre mice, which in the homozygous state lack EOMs, were crossed to an IslMN:GFP reporter line to fluorescently label motor neuron cell bodies and axons. Embryonic day (E) 11.5 to E15.5 wild-type and Myf5cre/cre:IslMN:GFP whole mount embryos and dissected orbits were imaged by confocal microscopy to visualize the developing oculomotor, trochlear, and abducens nerves in the presence and absence of EOMs. E11.5 and E18.5 brainstems were serially sectioned and stained for Islet1 to determine the fate of ocular motor neurons. Results At E11.5, all three ocular motor nerves in mutant embryos approached the orbit with a trajectory similar to that of wild-type. Subsequently, while wild-type nerves send terminal branches that contact target EOMs in a stereotypical pattern, the Myf5cre/cre ocular motor nerves failed to form terminal branches, regressed, and by E18.5 two-thirds of their corresponding motor neurons died. Comparisons between mutant and wild-type embryos revealed novel aspects of trochlear and oculomotor nerve development. Conclusions We delineated mouse ocular motor nerve spatial and temporal development in unprecedented detail. Moreover, we found that EOMs are not necessary for initial outgrowth and guidance of ocular motor axons from the brainstem to the orbit but are required for their terminal branching and survival. These data suggest that intermediate targets in the mesenchyme provide cues necessary for appropriate targeting of ocular motor axons to the orbit, while EOM cues are responsible for terminal branching and motor neuron survival.
Effects of astaxanthin in mice acutely infected with Trypanosoma cruzi

During Trypanosoma cruzi infection, oxidative stress is considered a contributing factor for dilated cardiomyopathy development. In this study, the effects of astaxanthin (ASTX) were evaluated as an alternative drug treatment for Chagas disease in a mouse model during the acute infection phase, given its anti-inflammatory, immunomodulating, and anti-oxidative properties. ASTX was tested in vitro in parasites grown axenically and in co-culture with Vero cells. In vivo tests were performed in BALB/c mice (4–6 weeks old) infected with Trypanosoma cruzi and supplemented with ASTX (10 mg/kg/day) and/or nifurtimox (NFMX; 100 mg/kg/day). Results show that ASTX has some detrimental effects on axenically cultured parasites, but not when cultured with mammalian cell monolayers. In vivo, ASTX did not have any therapeutic value against acute Trypanosoma cruzi infection, used either alone or in combination with NFMX. Infected animals treated with NFMX or ASTX/NFMX survived the experimental period (60 days), while infected animals treated only with ASTX died before day 30 post-infection. ASTX did not show any effect on the control of parasitemia; however, it was associated with an increment in focal heart lymphoplasmacytic infiltration, a reduced number of amastigote nests in cardiac tissue, and less hyperplasic spleen follicles when compared to control groups. Unexpectedly, ASTX showed a negative effect in infected animals co-treated with NFMX. An increment in parasitemia duration was observed, possibly due to ASTX blocking of free radicals, an anti-parasitic mechanism of NFMX. In conclusion, astaxanthin is not recommended during the acute phase of Chagas disease, either alone or in combination with nifurtimox.
GRAPH MATCHING ALGORITHM-THROUGH ISOMORPHISM DETECTION

This Paper delivers a new algorithm to the problem of graph isomorphism detection. Basically this method is designed in such a way that, a model graph which is known prior is compared with an unknown graph called input graph. Now the problem to be solved is to find a graph isomorphism from the input graph which is given online with the one which is known as model graph. At dynamic time the input graph is compared with the entire model graph for which there exists a graph isomorphism from the input graph are detected. The time complexity depends on the number of input graphs given and size of the graphs. Furthermore it is independent of number of model graphs given and the number of edges in any of the graph.
Statistics-based face rendering and its application to face recognition

Realistic rendering of human faces and robust face recognition are two topics that have wide applicability, ranging from video conferencing to entertainment to security systems. Consequently they have received much research attention in recent years. Many proposed techniques have advanced the state of the art: in terms of rendering, the synthesized face images are of such good quality as to be virtually indistinguishable from an actual photograph; while in terms of face recognition, current systems work well enough to be deployed at airports or city centers. Yet there are still a number of deficiencies. On the one hand, many rendering techniques are ad hoc, lacking in theoretical justification. For instance, there is no quantifiable way to know if the rendered image is optimal. On the other hand, face recognition systems are not robust enough to deal with simultaneous changes in illumination, head pose, etc. Finding a unifying approach to deal with this problem appears to be elusive. In this dissertation, we introduce an approach for rendering faces that is principled, statistically optimal, and that possesses several good theoretical properties. A unique feature of our approach is that we regard the shape of the face as an intermediate variable only, and do not explicitly recover it in the rendering process. We also present a new approach to face recognition that takes into account the (limited) training data, that is robust against illumination variation, and that has the potential for robustness against other kinds of variation.
Wireless brain signal recordings based on capacitive electrodes

In this paper the development of a wireless electroencephalogram (EEG) monitoring system is presented. The system is capable of processing brain signals on-board recorded from non-contact sensors. The non-contact sensor was designed utilizing capacitive coupling as recording interface. The on-board multi-channel signal processing is performed on a tiny computer module with low power consumption, high performance embedded computing platform that can communicate via WiFi or Bluetooth. It provides an excellent option for developing a compact Brain Computer Interface (BCI) with a direct connection to the external device e. g. robot or prosthesis without employing a personal computer (PC).
Sleep study of subjects given diazepam.

Sleep study is important for the diagnosis of the sleep apnea syndrome (SAS), but it is somewhat difficult to perform and cannot be used to all patients with SAS. We propose a modified test, which may be easier and more useful. Patients are sedated with diazepam, and pernasal endoscopy is carried out to reveal the contracted portion of the upper respiratory tract and/or the origin of the snore. The frequency of apneic episodes is recorded at the same time. We examined six patients, three with sleep apnea syndrome and three with simple snoring, both with and without diazepam sedation. 1) Apneic episodes were increased by diazepam treatment in SAS patients, but they were unchanged in simple snorers. 2) The duration of apnea in SAS patients was not affected by diazepam treatment. 3) The other characteristics of apnea ordinarily seen in SAS patients were not affected by diazepam. It is concluded that our new test can be useful in the diagnosis of SAS and the demonstration of the cause of snoring and the location of contractions of the air way.
Functionality-Driven Clustering of Web Service Registries

Web service registries play an important role in service oriented applications. They constitute the market where service consumers and providers go to search and advertise Web services. With the proliferation of Web service registries, finding an adequate registry has become a complex task for a service requester. In this paper we propose a semantic model for Web services registry description (WSRD). WSRD descriptions depict the functionalities offered by services advertised by a given registry since they rely on these descriptions. We also propose a functionality-driven clustering approach for distributed Web service registries. This approach is based on a fuzzy clustering technique and allows structuring distributed registries based on their WSRD descriptions without any additional data. This clustering will be helpful for selecting an adequate registry for service requesters.
The University of Birmingham ( Live System ) Intrinsic variability in the human response to pain is assembled from multiple , dynamic brain processes

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RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY OF AN ACCELEROMETRIC SYSTEM FOR ASSESSING VERTICAL JUMPING PERFORMANCE

The validity of an accelerometric system (Myotest©) for assessing vertical jump height, vertical force and power, leg stiffness and reactivity index was examined. 20 healthy males performed 3×“5 hops in place”, 3×“1 squat jump” and 3× “1 countermovement jump” during 2 test-retest sessions. The variables were simultaneously assessed using an accelerometer and a force platform at a frequency of 0.5 and 1 kHz, respectively. Both reliability and validity of the accelerometric system were studied. No significant differences between test and retest data were found (p < 0.05), showing a high level of reliability. Besides, moderate to high intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) (from 0.74 to 0.96) were obtained for all variables whereas weak to moderate ICCs (from 0.29 to 0.79) were obtained for force and power during the countermovement jump. With regards to validity, the difference between the two devices was not significant for 5 hops in place height (1.8 cm), force during squat (-1.4 N · kg−1) and countermovement (0.1 N · kg−1) jumps, leg stiffness (7.8 kN · m−1) and reactivity index (0.4). So, the measurements of these variables with this accelerometer are valid, which is not the case for the other variables. The main causes of non-validity for velocity, power and contact time assessment are temporal biases of the takeoff and touchdown moments detection.
Modeling of power distribution feeder and analysis of small PV plant penetration in Kerala low voltage distribution system

Photo Voltaic plant interconnection to grid is increasing day by day. Major share of them are single phase small plants connected at distribution level by domestic consumers. Distribution system is inherently in phase unbalance due to single phase loads. Domestic load during daytime is low. Higher penetration of single phase PV plants in low voltage feeder needs proper analysis. The modeling of exact state of distribution feeder is not easy. A more realistic model is attempted by parameter approximation. Effects of improper joints, section fuses, etc are accounted using voltage regulation data. A real feeder of Kerala State Electricity Board is considered. OpenDSS software tool is used for the analysis. The voltage profile, phase unbalance, line loss and voltage spread along the feeder are presented. This will help the planning and management of power distribution system.
WaveCluster with Differential Privacy

WaveCluster is an important family of grid-based clustering algorithms that are capable of finding clusters of arbitrary shapes. In this paper, we investigate techniques to perform WaveCluster while ensuring differential privacy.Our goal is to develop a general technique for achieving differential privacy on WaveCluster that accommodates different wavelet transforms. We show that straightforward techniques based on synthetic data generation and introduction of random noise when quantizing the data, though generally preserving the distribution of data, often introduce too much noise to preserve useful clusters. We then propose two optimized techniques, PrivTHR and PrivTHRem, which can significantly reduce data distortion during two key steps of WaveCluster: the quantization step and the significant grid identification step. We conduct extensive experiments based on four datasets that are particularly interesting in the context of clustering, and show that PrivTHR and PrivTHRem achieve high utility when privacy budgets are properly allocated, conforming to our theoretical analysis.
Transcriptional Regulation of Patterning of the Cerebral Cortex

Author(s): Pattabiraman, Kartik | Advisor(s): Rubenstein, John L | Abstract: The adult human cortex is divided into histologically and functionally distinct domains, which are specified early in development prior to neuronal differentiation. A handful of transcription factors (TFs) have been shown to be involved in pallial regionalization. Analysis of E11.5 expression data for 722 TFs has identified putative novel patterning TFs, which are expressed in gradients in pallium. From our analysis, we choose to study 28 TFs in more detail at E11.5. We investigated their expression in CoupTFI, Emx2 and Pax6 mouse mutants, TFs previously described to be involved in patterning.TFs with rostrocaudal gradients of expression showed similar changes in the Pax6 and CoupTf1 mutant. This finding is unexpected based on their opposing roles in patterning. We provide evidence that Pax6 and CoupTf1 work together in ventral cortical development. Furthermore, both TFs bind together on putative regulatory regions of genes involved in forebrain development. TFs that embryonically regulate pallial regionalization are expressed in gradients, raising the question of how discrete domains are generated. We provide evidence that small enhancer elements active in protodomains integrate broad transcriptional information. CreERT2 and GFP expression from 14 different enhancer elements in stable transgenic mice allowed us to define the first comprehensive regional fate map of the pallium. We explored transcriptional mechanisms that control the activity of the enhancers using informatics, in vivo occupancy by TFs that regulate cortical patterning (CoupTFI, Pax6 and Pbx1), and analysis of enhancer activity in Pax6 mutants. Overall, the results provide novel insights into how broadly expressed patterning TFs regulate the activity of small enhancer elements that drive gene expression in pallial protodomains that fate map to distinct cortical regions.
Amplitude Spectrum based Excitation Model for HMM-based Speech Synthesis

This paper describes an excitation model based on amplitude spectrum for hidden Markov model (HMM)-based speech synthesis system (HTS). Residual signal obtained from inverse filtering is decomposed into periodic and aperiodic spectrums in frequency domain. Amplitude spectrum of half pitch period length is reserved as periodic component in synthesis stage and zero-phase criterion and pitch synchronous overlap add method (PSOLA) are adopted to reconstruct the residual signal. Before integrating this excitation model into HTS, these periodic spectrums are normalized and Linde-Buzo-Gray (LBG) algorithm is adopted to construct codebooks for every Mandarin final1. Then index parameters from these codebooks which are indicated as excitation information are taken into HTS training together with spectral, F0 and aperiodic parameters. Listening test showed that for female voice the analysis-synthesis result of the vocoder based on proposed excitation model is comparable with that of STRAIGHT and when integrating into HTS, the quality of generated speech is also improved.
Wide Band Spectrum Sensing GOR Cognitive Radios : An Enhanced MSWF Prespective

Cognitive Radio is a promising method of radio communication which enables efficient use of the frequency spectrum. The efficiency is obtained by influentially alloting frequency bands within the spectrum to different users even if they are not licensed. In Cognitive Radios, various parameters of the system must be taken into account in order to obtain an ideal system. This process incorporates processes for sensing whether the spectrum is available, sensing which area is best for use which ensure all users achieve an adequate quality of service. This paper presents the performance of Cognitive Radio in different Signal to noise ratios along with probability of detection and misdetection. The paper compares different simulation results and identifies significance of their efficiencies using Energy detection spectrum sensing method.
Probabilities improve stress-prediction in a CFG of Hawaiian phonology

Should probability play a role in linguistics? Whereas Chomsky (1957: 16–17) influentially rejected probability in syntactic theory, “[i]n phonological theory, probability has not so much been rejected as disregarded” (Coleman, 2003: 89). Disregard has, however, given way to a growing literature on the use of probability across the various linguistic sub-disciplines (see, e.g., Bod et al., 2003; Coleman, 2003). This paper is a case-study of probability in phonology, both as it applies to an improved description of Hawaiian stress-assignment, and as this description, in turn, reflects back on the probability question, above.
Under-sampling trajectory design for compressed sensing MRI

The under-sampling trajectory design plays a key role in compressed sensing MRI. The traditional design scheme using probability density function (PDF) is based up observation on energy distribution in k-space rather than systematic optimization, which results in non-deterministic trajectory even with a fixed PDF. Guidance-based method like Bayesian inference scheme is always bothered with high computational complexity on entropy. In this paper, we study how to adaptively design an under-sampling trajectory in the context of CS with systematic optimization and small complexity. Simulation results conducted on images from different slices and dynamic sequence demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method by comparing the designed trajectory with those by traditional method.
Dynamic Approaches for Snow Depth Retrieval From Spaceborne Microwave Brightness Temperature

Snow depth (SD) can be retrieved from spaceborne data through linear regression against the microwave brightness temperature difference between 19 and 37 GHz (or similar frequencies). Other methods use snow physical and/or snow electromagnetic (EM) models to estimate SD. Here, we introduce novel retrieval approaches that dynamically combine ancillary SD information (e.g., from snow physical models driven with surface meteorological data) with established algorithms based on regression or EM modeling. The basic idea is to recalibrate regression coefficients (or the effective grain size in the case of EM models) once per week in a simple data assimilation scheme. SD is retrieved from Special Sensor Microwave Imager brightness temperature data and evaluated against in situ observations from 37 stations throughout the Northern Hemisphere. As expected, the SD retrievals perform better with (weekly) ancillary SD inputs from in situ measurements (not used in validation) than with (weekly) ancillary SD inputs from snow physical modeling. The best results are obtained with the regression-based approach using dynamically recalibrated coefficients and ancillary SD inputs from in situ observations (rmse = 6 cm). The regression approach still performs better with the time average of the dynamic coefficients (rmse = 8 cm) than with standard literature values based on climatology ("REGR-CLIM"; rmse = 50 cm). For SD retrieval with an EM model, we obtain results comparable to REGR-CLIM (rmse = 44 cm). Driving the novel regression approaches with SD estimates from snow physical modeling still results in improvements over REGR-CLIM for all approaches (rmse = 15 cm). Comparable SD estimates are obtained from the snow physical model alone.
Listening and Interpersonal Skills Review

A solution containing a compound having the general formula XF.nH2O2, wherein X is K+, Na+ or NH4+ and n is an integer from 1 to 3 (e.g., a peroxysolvate of potassium fluoride compound such as potassium fluoride hydroperoxide (KF.H2O2)) is injected into a subterranean formation in order to increase its permeability, especially with respect to hydrocarbon flow. These compounds serve to dissolve a wide variety of subterranean formation minerals (e.g., siliceous materials as well as carbonaceous materials). Potassium hydrofluoride (KHF2), can be employed with these compounds to produce particularly efficacious subterranean formation treatment solutions.
Analysis of Single-Event Transients in Integer-$N$ Frequency Dividers and Hardness Assurance Implications for Phase-Locked Loops

Single-event transients (SET) are analyzed in integer-N frequency dividers configured internal and external to a closed-loop phase-locked loop (PLL) circuit. Simulations, corroborated by experimental results, indicate that the location and gain of the frequency divider in any PLL arrangement strongly influence both the error rate of the PLL circuit and the propagation of transients through the closed-loop. The probability of an ion-strike causing output phase displacement values on the order of the operating-period can be significantly reduced by increasing the divisor of the stand-alone output frequency divider. Conversely, increasing the feedback divisor is shown to magnify SETs propagating through the closed-loop PLL.