Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dreaming and Electroencephalographic Changes during Anesthesia Maintained with Propofol or Desflurane

Background:Dream recall is reportedly more common after propofol than after volatile anesthesia, but this may be due to delayed emergence or more amnesia after longer-acting volatiles. The electroencephalographic signs of dreaming during anesthesia and the differences between propofol and desflurane also are unknown. The authors therefore compared dream recall after propofol- or desflurane-maintained anesthesia and analyzed electroencephalographic patterns in dreamers and nondreamers and in propofol and desflurane patients for similarities to rapid eye movement and non–rapid eye movement sleep. Methods:Three hundred patients presenting for noncardiac surgery were randomized to receive propofol- or desflurane-maintained anesthesia. The raw electroencephalogram was recorded from induction until patients were interviewed about dreaming when they became first oriented postoperatively. Using spectral and ordinal methods, the authors quantified the amount of sleep spindle-like activity and high-frequency power in the electroencephalogram. Results:The incidence of dream recall was similar for propofol (27%) and desflurane (28%) patients. Times to interview were similar (median 20 [range 4–114] vs. 17 [7–86] min; P = 0.1029), but bispectral index values at interview were lower (85 [69–98] vs. 92 [40–98]; P < 0.0001) in propofol than in desflurane patients. During surgery, the raw electroencephalogram of propofol patients showed more and faster spindle activity than in desflurane patients (P < 0.001). The raw electroencephalogram of dreamers showed fewer spindles and more high-frequency power than in nondreamers in the 5 min before interview (P < 0.05). Conclusions:Anesthetic-related dreaming seems to occur just before awakening and is associated with a rapid eye movement-like electroencephalographic pattern.
An Overview of Automatic Facial Expression Recognition

Recent rapid progress of communication technology and computer science has made facial expression recognition acts as a vital role in human-machine interface and advanced communication. In recent years much research has been done on machine recognition of human facial expression. Recognition technology of facial expression is imported in many application fields. Many applications require efficient facial expression in order to achieve desired results. In this paper, an overview of facial expressions, characteristics and its applications are presented. The various steps involved in facial expression analysis and earlier works on facial expression recognition are also discussed.
Increased intake of fruits and vegetables in overweight subjects: effects on body weight, body composition, metabolic risk factors and dietary intake

Abstract A diet rich in fruits and vegetables has been associated with several health benefits. However, the effects on body weight (BW) and metabolic markers are not fully known. The present study investigated the effects of increased intake of fruits and vegetables in overweight and obese men and women on dietary habits, anthropometry and metabolic control. In a 16-week controlled intervention, thirty-four men and thirty-four women aged 35–65 years (BMI>27 kg/m2) were randomised to an intervention (IN) or a reference (RG) group. All participants received general dietary advice, and subjects in the IN group received fruits and vegetables for free, of which ≥500 g had to be eaten daily. BW, waist circumference (WC), sagittal abdominal diameter (SAD), plasma insulin, blood glucose, glycated Hb (HbA1c), serum lipids, blood pressure, plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 activity, urinary isoprostane (iso-8-PGF 2α) and serum carotenoids were measured. Diet was assessed using 3-d weighed food records. In all, thirty subjects in the IN group and thirty-two in the RG group completed the intervention. Intake of fruits and vegetables doubled in the IN group, whereas intake of fruits increased in the RG group. Serum α- and β-carotene concentrations and intakes of folate and vitamin C increased significantly in the IN group. Energy intake, BW, WC and SAD decreased significantly in both groups. Supine systolic blood pressure decreased significantly in the IN group, with no between-group differences. No significant changes were observed for other metabolic markers. Provision of fruits and vegetables led to substantially increased intakes, with subsequent favourable changes in anthropometry and insulin levels, which tended to be more pronounced in the IN group. The observed improvements may, in combination with improved nutritional markers, have health benefits in the long term.
Association of low serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels with the frailty syndrome in Mexican community-dwelling elderly

Abstract Objective: Since vitamin D is an important regulator of muscle function, the effect of vitamin D deficiency on frailty syndrome has been recently studied. This cross-sectional study aimed to determine the association between 25(OH)-vitamin D levels and frailty status in Mexican community-dwelling elderly. Methods: Sample of 331 community-dwelling elderly aged 70 or older, a subset of those included in the “Coyoacán cohort” were included. 25(OH)-vitamin D assay and frailty status were measured. Results: Mean age was 79.3 years and 54.1% were women. Those classified as frail were more likely to have lower Mini-Mental State Examination score (p = 0.015), more disability for instrumental activities of daily living (p < 0.001) and for activities of daily living (p < 0.001). Serum 25(OH)-vitamin D levels were lower in the frail subgroup when compared with the non-frail one (p < 0.001). Multivariate logistic regression analyses showed a significant association between intermediate tertile [odds ratios (OR) = 4.13; 95% confidence intervals (CI) 2.00–8.56] or insufficient tertile (OR = 8.95; 95% CI 2.41–33.30) of vitamin D levels and frailty even after adjusting for potential confounders. Conclusion: These results suggest that older adults with low 25(OH)-vitamin D levels are associated with the probability to being frail compared with those with sufficient vitamin D levels.
Constructing linkage between libraries and up-to-date news

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to construct the linkage between libraries and up-to-date news. This study developed a system to recommend libraries’ resources to those daily news readers who are interested in the topics of the target news. The analysis of experiments results served as the reference for the development and improvement of linking libraries’ resources with other web resources. Design/methodology/approach – Up-to-date news were gathered through the news feeds to make the integration with the libraries’ records. In task 1, the libraries’ records were linked and recommended to the target libraries’ records which are of the same topics. In task 2, the system aimed to find the relevant libraries’ records for target news. Three recommendation methods were compared in both tasks to find the most effective approach to the system. Findings – Experiment results showed that: at first, in task 1, the system can assign the libraries’ records of the related topics effectively; second, in task 2, t.
Managing metadata in open learning repositories and P2P networks

“Now, miraculously, we have the Web. For the documents in our lives, everything is simple and smooth. But for data, we are still pre-Web. ” (Tim Berners-Lee, Business Model for the Semantic Web) The successful use and re-use, search, and operation of data, depends on the effective definition, use and management of metadata. The first part of this thesis considers the issues related to learning metadata, which are the nuts and bolts of any application in the field of e-learning. More precisely we investigate learning metadata issues in the context of a “local” open learning repository (OLR for short). Thereby, we stress the pedagogical background in handling metadata, discussing metadata standards, and structuring learning materials. We demonstrate, inter alia, the lack of addressing learning processes and instructional theories in the learning object metadata standard (LOM). Then, we propose an extension of LOM based on the introduction of an abstraction layer and the notion of instructional roles. We also structure several courses based on different instructional models. Our open learning repositories can be considered as a framework and a testbed where metadata modeling languages, learning metadata standards, and metadata management are presented and discussed within an interdisciplinary team. In the second part, we generalize the learning metadata issues, particularly metadata management, to issues related to the broadly used metadata that annotate any resource on the Web. We also expand the metadata management from the local environment of open learning repositories to the distributed environment of peerto-peer networks. The open learning repositories play then the role of special peers, themetadata providers , in the P2P network. Unfortunately, although quite a few database techniques can be re-used in the P2P context, P2P metadata management infrastructures pose additional challenges caused by the open and dynamic nature of these networks. The main task here is to enable an efficient dynamic distributed query processing. For this purpose, we briefly present our super-peer based topology and schema-aware distributed routing indices extended with suitable statistics. Then, we show how these indices facilitate the distribution and dynamic expansion of query plans. After that, we propose a set of transformation rules to optimize query plans and discuss different optimization strategies in detail. In addition to the optimization of complex distributed query processing, we also investigate semantic caching strategies for P2P networks, in order to optimize the query response time and reduce the network load.
A new multiple attribute decision making method based on preference and projection pursuit clustering model

A new combination assigning weight approach based on decision maker's preference and projection pursuit clustering model is proposed to overcome the shortages of subjective and objective assigning weight approaches. The multidimensional data are easily transformed into low dimensional space and the structural feature of multidimensional data can be revealed through applying projection pursuit clustering model in multiple attribute decision making problems. The optimum projection and the value of projection function can be obtained by the adaptive clustering differential evolution algorithm raised in this paper. The simulation results verify the validity and efficiency of this approach.
Construction of a pre-clinical High Resolution Tomographic Scintillation camera system

We are constructing a High Resolution Tomographic Scintillation Camera System for small animal imaging. The system consists of a CsI(Tl) scintillator coupled to a military surplus image intensifier with a CCD camera focused on the output window. The system operates in photons counting mode and the spatial resolution is improved by centroid calculations for every photon interaction. The system can be mounted on an optical rail together with a pinhole collimator and a rotating table. A hot rod phantom was filled with 201Tl or 99mTc solute and imaged. The phantom rod diameters range from 1.1 to 1.6 mm. 64 projections were acquired (300 s/projection) with 1 mm pinhole insert. Data was reconstructed using an OSEM algorithm. Image data was corrected for decay, position non-linearities in image intensifier and the angular dependence of the pinhole. The reconstructed resolution is 1.3 mm (by visual inspection) for both 99mTc and 201Tl. Higher spatial resolution is achievable with smaller pinhole diameters. Future work includes optimizing spatial resolution and sensitivity of a single system using analytical calculations, experiments and simulations. With the conclusions drawn from those calculations we plan to construct a multi-camera system.
Mobile device access control: an improved correlation based face authentication scheme and its Java ME application

This paper investigates face authentication based access control solutions for camera‐equipped mobile devices. A new hierarchical correlation based face authentication (HCFA) scheme is proposed, which suits resource‐constrained mobile devices such as mobile phones and personal digital assistants. The idea of HCFA is conducting a partial correlation output peak analysis (analyze the relationship between each cross‐correlation output peak generated from selected sub‐regions of a face), in conjunction with conventional direct cross‐correlation methods. The experimental results on the public domain database demonstrate that the proposed scheme achieved better performance than that of the conventional direct correlation based schemes. Furthermore, HCFA was implemented on the Nokia S60 CLDC emulator using Java ME (previously J2ME) programming technology in order to test the applicability and implementability. The test results show that the proposed algorithm is implementable on mobile devices. It not only shortens processing time but also reduces resource demand significantly, compared with the direct correlation algorithms. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Expression and Biochemical Properties of a Ferredoxin-Dependent Heme Oxygenase Required for Phytochrome Chromophore Synthesis1

The HY1 gene of Arabidopsis encodes a plastid heme oxygenase (AtHO1) required for the synthesis of the chromophore of the phytochrome family of plant photoreceptors. To determine the enzymatic properties of plant heme oxygenases, we have expressed theHY1 gene (without the plastid transit peptide) inEscherichia coli to produce an amino terminal fusion protein between AtHO1 and glutathione S-transferase. The fusion protein was soluble and expressed at high levels. Purified recombinant AtHO1, after glutathione S-transferase cleavage, is a hemoprotein that forms a 1:1 complex with heme. In the presence of reduced ferredoxin, AtHO1 catalyzed the formation of biliverdin IXα from heme with the concomitant production of carbon monoxide. Heme oxygenase activity could also be reconstituted using photoreduced ferredoxin generated through light irradiation of isolated thylakoid membranes, suggesting that ferredoxin may be the electron donor in vivo. In addition, AtHO1 required an iron chelator and second reductant, such as ascorbate, for full activity. These results show that the basic mechanism of heme cleavage has been conserved between plants and other organisms even though the function, subcellular localization, and cofactor requirements of heme oxygenases differ substantially.
Adaptive inverse quadratics interpolation with applications to vector fitting and the hankel transform of spectral domain green’s functions

In this contribution we discuss the translation- invariant interpolation of univariate functions by means of inverse quadratics radial basis functions. For the implementation we use an adaptive interpolation process which is a variant of a recently introduced adaptive residual subsampling method. It is shown that the interpolation process with the inverse quadratics kernel also provides an excellent pre-processing interface when used in conjunction with the popular vector fitting algorithm. This results in a composite algorithm, performing the sampling and modelling of the given function in a fully automatic way. It also provides a platform for calculating the Hankel transform of spectral domain Green's functions.
Residues beyond the selectivity filter of the K+ channel Kir2.1 regulate permeation and block by external Rb+ and Cs+

1 Kir2.1 channels are blocked by Rb+ and Cs+ in a voltage‐dependent manner, characteristic of many inward rectifier K+ channels. Mutation of Ser165 in the transmembrane domain M2 to Leu (S165L) abolished Rb+ blockage and lowered Cs+ blocking affinity. At negative voltages Rb+ carried large inward currents. 2 A model of the Kir2.1 channel, built by homology with the structure of the Streptomyces lividans K+ channel KcsA, suggested the existence of an intersubunit hydrogen bond between Ser165 and Thr141 in the channel pore‐forming P‐region that helps stabilise the structure of this region. However, mutations of Thr141 and Ser165 did not produce effects consistent with a hydrogen bond between these residues being essential for blockage. 3 An alternative alignment between the M2 regions of Kir2.1 and KcsA suggested that Ser165 is itself a pore‐lining residue, more directly affecting blockage. We were able to replace Ser165 with a variety of polar and non‐polar residues, consistent with this residue being pore lining. Some of these changes affected channel blockage. 4 We tested the hypothesis that Asp172 – a residue implicated in channel gating by polyamines – formed an additional selectivity filter by using the triple mutant T141A/S165L/D172N. Large Rb+ and Cs+ currents were measured in this mutant. 5 We propose that both Thr141 and Ser165 are likely to provide binding sites for monovalent blocking cations in wild‐type channels. These residues lie beyond the carbonyl oxygen tunnel thought to form the channel selectivity filter, which the blocking cations must therefore traverse.
FPGA implementation of the super-resolution algorithm for plenoptic cameras

The super-resolution algorithm was first implemented in FPGA in the context of a project in the master of Engineering Electronics. This is a multidisciplinary project, as has been required, by the student, basic knowledge of optics, Matlab programming, image processing, fixed point arithmetic, and the design methodology based on VHDL-FPGA.
Relative dielectric constants and selectivity ratios in open ionic channels

Abstract We investigate the effects of the relative dielectric coefficient on ionic flows in open ion channels, using mathematical analysis of reasonably general Poisson-Nernst-Planck type models that can include the finite sizes of ions. The value of the relative dielectric coefficient is of course a crucial parameter for ionic behavior in general. Using the powerful theory of singularly perturbed problems in applied mathematics, we show that some properties of open channels are quite insensitive to variation in the relative dielectric coefficient, thereby explaining such effects seen unexpectedly in simulations. The ratio between the total number of one ion species and that of another ion species, and the ratio between the flux of one ion species and that of another ion species do not depend significantly on the relative dielectric coefficient.
A clinical comparison of two radioimmunoassays for carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA).

Aliquots of the same blood samples were assayed for CEA by both the Gold and Hansen techniques. Levels of antigenemia and “positivity” vs. “negativity” were compared in 291 patients with various malignant and nonmalignant diseases. Both assays detected CEA in all disease categories studied with an overall correlation of 83-86% (p<.001). Apparent “differences” between the two assays were primarily quantitative. Hansen (Nutley) values were slightly higher than Hansen (Boston) values and both were slightly higher than Gold values in the low ranges of antigenemia. The Gold assay tended to read higher than either Hansen assay in the group with alcoholic liver disease, when values (Gold) were greater than 4 ng/ml.The lowest frequency of agreement between assays occurred in those groups with low-levels of antigen such as the postoperative colon carcinoma and the inflammatory bowel disease patients. This reflects variations inherent in the assays as currently performed. Variation of ± 1 around the 2.5 ng/ml “cut-o.
Evaluation of transfer functions for punctured turbo codes

Fig. 2 shows a plot of the measured temporal waveform of the returned THz signal. The first signal (left) is the THz reflection from the metallic chopper blade once the chopper blade was set to be perpendicular to the propagation direction of the THz beam, and the second peak is the THz signal transmitted through the chopper but reflected back from the metallic mirror. Because there is a n phase difference between the phases of the transmitted and reflected THz beam from the chopper blade (compared to the chopper reference and measured with the lock-in amplifier), these two signals reflected from the chopper and the mirror show opposite polarities. The time delay between two THz signals is the round trip time of a THz pulse which has travelled between the chopper and the metallic mirror. The reflection from the chopper blade automatically serves as a reference marker for the system calibration. Because the photocurrent generated by the optical beams (both pump and probe) and the bias voltage contributes to the noise, the measured THz waveform has a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 200. Nevertheless, with better selection of the filtering circuit and operational conditions (such as a modulation frequency of several kilohertz), we expect a substantial improvement in the SNR. A noise characterisation and analysis are currently being carried out.
Nrg1 Is a Transcriptional Repressor for Glucose Repression of STA1 Gene Expression inSaccharomyces cerevisiae

ABSTRACT Expression of genes encoding starch-degrading enzymes is regulated by glucose repression in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We have identified a transcriptional repressor, Nrg1, in a genetic screen designed to reveal negative factors involved in the expression of STA1, which encodes a glucoamylase. TheNRG1 gene encodes a 25-kDa C2H2zinc finger protein which specifically binds to two regions in the upstream activation sequence of the STA1 gene, as judged by gel retardation and DNase I footprinting analyses. Disruption of theNRG1 gene causes a fivefold increase in the level of theSTA1 transcript in the presence of glucose. The expression of NRG1 itself is inhibited in the absence of glucose. DNA-bound LexA-Nrg1 represses transcription of a target gene 10.7-fold in a glucose-dependent manner, and this repression is abolished in bothssn6 and tup1 mutants. Two-hybrid and glutathione S-transferase pull-down experiments show an interaction of Nrg1 with Ssn6 both in vivo and in vitro. These findings indicate that Nrg1 acts as a DNA-binding repressor and mediates glucose repression of the STA1 gene expression by recruiting the Ssn6-Tup1 complex.
Throughput Multiplexing Efficiency for MIMO Antenna Characterization

The antenna-channel effects on multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) throughput are characterized in terms of spatial multiplexing (SM) efficiency. In order to show the antenna effects explicitly, the SM efficiency of an MIMO system (with imperfect transmit antennas) is derived analytically at high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regime. It is shown that correlation and power imbalance affect the throughput adversely (as expected) and independently. Although derived for imperfect transmit antennas, the close-form SM efficiency formula turns out to be accurate for 2 × 2 MIMO systems with imperfect receive antennas as well. It is also shown that the derived SM efficiency formula even reasonably predicts the measured SM efficiency of a Long Term Evolution (LTE) system.