Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Estudo de elementos Galluhop e Cr1-like nos genomas de aves

Elementos transponiveis (TEs, do ingles Transposable Elements) sao sequencias que possuem a particularidade de se mobilizar dentro e entre genomas, estando presentes ubiquamente nos organismos e distribuidos por todos os ramos da arvore da vida. Os TEs influenciam os genomas hospedeiros de diferentes maneiras tendo um papel fundamental na evolucao dos mesmos. Sao classificados em duas grandes classes, com base no seu intermediario de transposicao: Classe I (retrotransposons) se transpoe via RNA, Classe II (transposons) se movem via DNA. Em aves, o conhecimento sobre elementos transponiveis ainda e muito insipiente, restringindo-se a poucos genomas sequenciados, principalmente o de Gallus gallus. Neste trabalho foram estudados dois tipos distintos de TEs: galluhop - elemento de Classe II, pertencente a superfamilia mariner/Tc1, e CR1 - elemento de Classe I, ordem conhecida como LINE (do ingles Long Interspersed Nuclear Element), pertencente a superfamilia CR1. Os objetivos desse trabalho foram caracterizar a historia evolutiva das sequencias de homologas de galluhop encontradas em genomas disponiveis de aves e, tambem, caracterizar a distribuicao cromossomica de CR1-like em genomas de aves Piciformes (pica-paus). No primeiro capitulo, atraves de analises in silico, foi possivel estimar a diversidade de copias, as caracteristicas estruturais e funcionais, a distribuicao descontinua na linhagem aviaria, a descricao de uma nova subfamilia para familia mariner e sugerir um evento de transferencia horizontal do elemento galluhop. Destacamos nesta abordagem o primeiro registro de uma possivel transferencia horizontal de elemento transponivel entre aves, e a nova subfamilia Gallus restrita, ate o momento, a elementos galluhop encontrados em aves. No segundo capitulo, mostramos por meio da tecnica de FISH, a distribuicao cromossomica de um mesmo elemento transponivel, CR1-E-like, em diferentes genomas de aves, evidenciando padrao de distribuicao muito diferente em cada genoma, mesmo entre especies do mesmo genero.
Weather induced uncertainty in the European Crop Growth Monitoring System

Agrometeorological models that simulate crop growth are used operationally in many parts of the world for monitoring the effect of weather conditions on crop growth and for predicting crop yields on regional to continental scales. These crop monitoring systems typically operate at resolutions of 10 to 100 km. Finding meteorological input data and carrying out model calibrations at these scales becomes a challeging task. Particularly meteorological data is subject to large uncertainty because often interpolations are necessary from scattered weather stations or grid points of low resolution numerical weather prediction models. This paper describes the result of a study on the effect of uncertainty in the meteorological data that are used as input in the European Crop Growth Monitoring System (CGMS). The interpolated radiation and precipitation values of the CGMS 50x50 km grid were replaced by estimates of the highly accurate and high resolution ELDAS radiation and precipitation databases. Next, CGMS was applied to a test site consisting of France and Germany and the differences in the CGMS crop model output were evaluated. The results demonstrate that there is large uncertainty in the CGMS radiation and precipitation estimates and that this translates into a large uncertainty in the CGMS crop simulations at the level of 50x50 km grids, particularly in the waterlimited simulations. However, when the CGMS output is aggregated to larger spatial regions (NUTS 1) the uncertainty decreases. Since CGMS results are currently used only at national or subnational level, the influence of the uncertainty on the yield forecast is probably limited. However, it demonstrates that CGMS output should not be used for making decisions on small areas (i.e. a single grid cell.). Also the aspect of subgrid variability and spatial scaling was investigated in this study by exploiting the high spatial resolution of the ELDAS databases. CGMS results at the 50x50 km grid were compared with results obtained with an adapted CGMS that used a 10x10 km grid. Our results demonstrate that the variability in the crop simulation results as a result of variability in precipiation and radiation within a 50x50 km grid is large. However, the average of the 10x10 km grids shows an almost perfectly linear relationship with the results at the 50x50 km grid. We therefore conclude that the 50x50 km grid size is a proper spatial resolution for CGMS. The main challenge is to find representative ‘average’ values for radiation and precipitation at this scale level, rather then to increase the spatial resolution of the system.
Early Rapid Decline in Kidney Function in Medically Managed Patients With Atherosclerotic Renal Artery Stenosis

Background Early rapid declines of kidney function may occur in patients with atherosclerotic renal artery stenosis with institution of medical therapy. The causes and consequences are not well understood. Methods and Results Patients enrolled in the medical therapy–only arm of the CORAL (Cardiovascular Outcomes With Renal Artery Lesions) study were assessed for a rapid decline (RD) in estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), defined as a ≥30% decrease from baseline to either 3 months, 6 months, or both. In the medical therapy–only cohort, eGFR was available in 359 subjects at all time points, the subjects were followed for a median of 4.72 years, and 66 of 359 (18%) subjects experienced an early RD. Baseline log cystatin C (odds ratio, 1.78 [1.11–2.85]; P=0.02), age (odds ratio, 1.04 [1.00–1.07]; P<0.05), and Chronic Kidney Disease Epidemiology Collaboration creatinine eGFR (odds ratio, 1.86 [1.15–3.0]; P=0.01) were associated with an early RD. Despite continued medical therapy only, the RD group had an improvement in eGFR at 1 year (6.9%; P=0.04). The RD and nondecline groups were not significantly different for clinical events and all‐cause mortality (P=0.78 and P=0.76, respectively). Similarly, renal replacement therapy occurred in 1 of 66 (1.5%) of the RD patients and in 6 of 294 (2%) of the nondecline patients. The regression to the mean of improvement in eGFR at 1 year in the RD group was estimated at 5.8±7.1%. Conclusions Early rapid declines in kidney function may occur in patients with renal artery stenosis when medical therapy is initiated, and their clinical outcomes are comparable to those without such a decline, when medical therapy only is continued.
Influence of clustering pre-processing on genetically generated fuzzy knowledge bases

Automatic knowledge base generation using techniques such as genetic algorithms tend to be highly dependent on the quality and size of the learning data. First of all, large data sets can lead to unnecessary time loss, when smaller data sets could describe the problem as well. Second of all, the presence of noise and outliers can cause the learning algorithm to degenerate. Clustering techniques allow compressing and filtering the data, thus making the generation of fuzzy knowledge bases faster and more accurate. Different clustering algorithms are compared and the validation of the results through a theoretical 3D surface, shows that when compressing the data to 5% of its original size, clustering algorithms accelerate the learning process by up to 94%. Moreover, when the learning data contains noise and/or a large amount of outliers, clustering algorithms can make the results more stable and improve the fitness of the obtained FKBs.
Evolution of Larval Segment Position across 12 Drosophila Species

Many developmental traits that are critical to the survival of the organism are also robust. These robust traits are resistant to phenotypic change in the face of variation. This presents a challenge to evolution. In this paper, we asked whether and how a well-established robust trait, Drosophila segment patterning, changed over the evolutionary history of the genus. We compared segment position scaled to body length at the first instar larval stage among 12 Drosophila species. We found that relative segment position has changed many times between species. Changes were frequent, but primarily small in magnitude. Phylogenetic analysis demonstrated that rates of change in segment position are variable along the Drosophila phylogenetic tree, and that these changes can occur in short evolutionary timescales. Correlation between position shifts of segments decreased as the distance between two segments increased, suggesting local control of segment position. The posterior-most abdominal segment showed the highest magnitude of change on average, had the highest rate of evolution between species, and appeared to be evolving more independently as compared to the rest of the segments. This segment was exceptionally elongated in the cactophilic species in our dataset, raising questions as to whether this change may be adaptive.
Soluble CD25 as a predictor of hepatocellular carcinoma compared with alpha-fetoprotein

Aim of the study We aimed to evaluate soluble CD25 (sCD25) as a marker for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) diagnosis. Material and methods Eighty-eight subjects were enrolled in our study in the years 2017-2018. They were divided into three groups as follows: group 1 – HCC group (n = 44) patients, represented by BCLC stage A (n = 16) patients, stage B (n = 14) patients and stage C (n = 14) patients for each stage. All HCC patients were on top of cirrhosis. Group 2 – group of cirrhotic patients without HCC (n = 32); 50% of them were Child-Turcotte-Pugh class A (n = 16) while class B was represented only by 43.7% (n = 14) of patients. Group 3 – control group (n = 12) of healthy subjects. Results The levels of sCD25 and AFP were higher in HCC patients than cirrhotic and control groups without a statistically significant difference between the three groups (p-value > 0.05). For HCC presence, sensitivity and specificity of sCD25 were 86.4% and 29.5% respectively at a cut-off value of 1.1 × 103 pg/ml (AUC = 0.619, p-value = 0.054, PPV = 33.2%, NPV = 68.44%). For early detection of HCC, sCD25 had a sensitivity of 70.5% and a specificity of 30.9% at a cut-off value of 1.575 × 103 pg/ml (AUC = 0.577, p-value = 0.251, PPV = 58.5%, NPV = 43.1%), while the sensitivity and specificity of AFP were 75% and 62.5% respectively at a cut-off value of 9.5 ng/ml (AUC = 0.828, p = 0.000, PPV = 73.4%, NPV = 64.4%) in the same settings. Conclusions sCD25 seems to offer no better detection rate of HCC compared to AFP with lower sensitivity and specificity.
The Art of the Storyboard: Storyboarding for Film, TV, and Animation

The Storyboard's Beginnings The Storyboard Artist: Team Player Drawing the Basic Storyboard How the Storyboard Meets the Needs of Each Member of the Production Team Drawing the Components of the Storyboard More Basic Drawing Techniques Giving Order and Increased Reality To the Visuals Within the Storyboard Depth of Field/Manipulating Light Perspective and Depth of Field/More on Receding Planes The Shot Part I The Shot Part II Appendix 1: A Word About Cartoons, Commercials, and Multimedia Appendix 2: Interviews
Effect of addition of bioactive glass to resin modified glass ionomer cement on enamel demineralization under orthodontic brackets

Background Enamel demineralization and white spot lesions around orthodontic brackets is a common problem associated with fixed orthodontic treatment. Glass ionomer cements (GICs) are commonly used for bracket bonding and recently, bioactive glass (BAG) was added to GICs to enhance deposition of calcium phosphate in adjacent dental structure. This study sought to assess the effect of addition of BAG particles to resin modified GIC (RMGIC) on enamel demineralization under orthodontic brackets. Material and Methods In this in vitro, experimental study, 60 sound human premolars were immersed in distilled water at 6°C. The teeth were randomly divided into three groups. Using a sticker, a window measuring 7x7 mm was created on the buccal surface. The remaining surfaces were coated with nail varnish twice with a 3-hour interval. After 24 hours, the stickers were removed. Brackets were bonded to tooth surfaces using Transbond XT (control), Fuji II LC RMGIC and Fuji II LC containing 30% BAG particles. To induce acid attacks, the teeth were immersed in demineralizing solution for 6 hours. For pH cycling, the teeth were then immersed in remineralizing solution for 18 hours. This process was repeated for 21 days. Next, the teeth were longitudinally sectioned into two halves and the depth of demineralization was measured from the deepest point to the surface under a polarized light microscope. Data were analyzed using one-way ANOVA, and pairwise comparisons were carried out using Tukey’s test. Results The mean depth of demineralization was 73.8±22.29, 118.08±29.42 and 182.98±20.69 µm in the BAG, RMGIC and Transbond XT groups, respectively. One-way ANOVA showed significant differences in terms of depth of demineralization among the three groups (P=0.0001). Tukey’s test revealed significant differences in depth of demineralization. Conclusions Addition of BAG to RMGIC can significantly decrease the depth of enamel demineralization under orthodontic brackets in vitro. Key words:Remineralization, demineralization, orthodontic brackets, bioactive glass, resin modified glass ionomer cement.
Non-Invasive Vibration-Stress of the Cirrhotic Liver of Patients Waiting for Transplantation Induces of Circulating CD133+ Stem Lymphocytes Committed Phenotypically toward the Liver

Background: Numerous studies of tissues’ regeneration have confessed the recovery of damaged liver by hematopoietic stem cells. The cells act not only by cell replacement in the target organ but also by delivering trophic factors that support endogenous liver regeneration. A little is known of how organ-derived signals recruit such committed cells into circulation. Objective: We investigated the roles of noninvasive mechanical percutaneous stress of cirrhotic human liver in numbers fluctuation of trophic, liver-specific alpha-fetoprotein-positive fraction of CD133-positive hematopoietic stem cells in lymphocytes of patients waiting for liver transplantation. Methods: To promote in blood the number of the alpha-fetoprotein-positive fraction of CD133-positive hematopoietic stem cells, committed to liver’ tissue, we activated mechanically the cirrhotic liver of patient by transcutaneous micro vibration received from skin-contacted electro-magnetic vibraphones generated mechanical pulses with amplitude 10 μm and smoothly changing frequency from 0.03 kHz to 18 kHz and back forth during one cycle duration 1 minute. The number of the alpha-fetoprotein-positive fraction of CD133-positive hematopoietic stem cells in lymphocytes of potential recipients was controlled by flow cytometry before and during daily sonication of skin area, which corresponds to liver projection on it. The 15 minutes cyclic sonication of the liver area performed daily for three weeks. Results: The sonication increased significantly averaged number of liver-specific alpha-fetoprotein-positive CD133-positive blood lymphocytes in 2 - 3 times compared to a base lane. The second similar sonication, the same zone after three weeks break showed differences with baseline, but it was statistically insignificant. The result was specifically related to the liver as it showed the control sonication of the backbone’s projection on the skin of a separate group of patients with cirrhotic liver from the waiting list. Conclusion: The stem cells committed to the liver recruit from the bone marrow into circulation, when organ mechanically stresses and secretes specific humoral signals to provoke of lymphopoiesis on host liver repair.
The Upper Limb Nociceptive Reflex: Methodological Considerations in the Assessment of Central Sensitization in Humans

THE UPPER LIMB NOCICEPTIVE REFLEX: METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS IN THE ASSESSMENT OF CENTRAL SENSITIZATION IN HUMANS Lukas David Linde University of Guelph, 2019 Advisor: Dr. John Z. Srbely Central Sensitization (CS) is the underlying neurophysiological adaptation that contributes to the development of chronic pain pathologies. The nociceptive reflex (NR) has been used to objectively measure of CS, however, its predominate use in the lower limb may limit the ability to assess CS within cervical spine pathologies. The aim of this thesis was to investigate technical considerations of the upper limb NR in detecting changes in CS. Study 1 observed a selective reduction of upper limb NR thresholds following the experimental induction of CS, representing functional adaptations of the upper limb NR through synergistic muscle responses to noxious stimuli. This provided the first evidence of cervical CS detection via the upper limb NR threshold. Study 2 verified an automated method of NR response detection, enabling the assessment of NR thresholds in real time. This improved the feasibility of the NR technique and provided a method to assess NR amplitudes in the upper limb. Study 3 demonstrated the synergistic effect of heat and topical capsaicin in the experimental induction of CS within the first 30 minutes of capsaicin application. This provided a non-invasive method to experimentally induce varying levels of CS, and subsequently study this effect on upper limb NR outcomes. Study 4 observed no significant effect of induced CS on NR threshold, NR amplitudes, or NR temporal summation amplitudes. This was most notably due to observed habituation to repeated noxious stimuli. This unexpected finding underscores the need to develop novel methods of noxious stimulus delivery in upper limb NR assessments. Collectively, this thesis provides methodological insight into the use of the upper limb NR for the assessment of CS within cervical spine segments. These findings have implications for future research aiming to elucidate underlying mechanisms of CS and its manifestation across a profile of chronic pain pathologies
An evaluation of proper inhaler technique and adherence to treatment in asthma patients

Background: Medications used to manage Asthma is delivered via inhaler devices. Proper usage of these devices are required for effective medication delivery. Aim of this study is assess the degree of proper inhaler technique and adherence to treatment among adult asthma patients.Methods: Patients using inhalers were identified and interviewed regarding inhaler use. Checklists were used to document the adherence to manufacturers’ directions for each respective inhaler, and data were then tabulated and assessed for the types of inhalers used, incorrectly performed steps in using the inhalers, as well as demographic information of patients.Results: Out of 120 patients that taken as subjects, twenty-four percent of inhalers (29/120) used incorrectly, with the most common errors being improper priming, lack of proper exhalation prior to inhaling the medication, and absence of rinsing mouth following the use of inhaled corticosteroid. Furthermore, only 60% of the patients are adherent to asthma medications.Conclusions: Inhaler technique among adult patients is substandard and is considered a key area for physicians to more proactive in educating patients. For obtaining most accurate therapeutic advantage among patients with inhalers, proper instruction and demonstration regarding inhaler use need to be given to all patients, particularly elderly patients.
Real Time Tracking using Feedback Learning

Present methods for object tracking perform adaptive tracking-by-detection, meaning that a detector predicts the position of an object and adapts its parameters to the object’s appearance at the same time. To enable long-term tracking, there are a number of problems which need to be addressed. The key problem is the detection of the object when it reappears in the camera’s field of view or the object may change its appearances from the initial frame. Long-term tracker should handle scale and illumination changes, background here we propose the TLD framework that overcomes these problem. PN learning algorithm is proposed which uses background subtraction technique to increase speed of the frame processing for object detection. Template Matching algorithm is used to match cropped image with region of interest in the current frame to mark the Object Location. If match is found then Principle Component Analysis algorithm is used for detection of the fast moving object which is the advantage over the existing systems. If match does not found then Proposed Modified PN learning processing is applied to detect the image in rapid motion video. Keywords— Long Term Tracking,Principle component Analysis, Template matching, PN learning.
Periodic attachment in future mobile telecommunications

In mobile telecommunications the network needs to monitor the terminal status, i.e., switched on, switched off, busy, idle. Once a mobile terminal is switched on, it automatically informs the network accordingly (attachment action). Regarding the way that the network identifies that a terminal is switched off (detachment), a procedure called periodic attachment is proposed: the terminal (when switched on) periodically reports to the network its active status. If the network detects silence for more than an agreed time period it considers the terminal switched off. Paging signalling savings can be achieved if the network is informed early that a mobile terminal is switched off. However, periodic attachment requires access to the network database system, which might cause a bottleneck. In this paper the performance characteristics of periodic attachment and the induced signalling load are evaluated as influenced by the selection of the time-out period. A constant time-out period for the whole day can cause a large amount of database transactions especially during low traffic hours. A method for dynamic time-out period selection to fit the varying conditions during the day is proposed and evaluated. >
Zur Beschreibung von Petri-Netzen als Abtastsystem

Petri nets provide a tool for modelling discrete-event systems. Usually the properties of the net are investigated via graph theoretical analysis. In this paper it is shown that an arithmetic version of Shegalkin polynomials proposed by D. Franke for modelling sequential finite state machines is also suitable for a vector representation of the over-all behaviour of a Petri net. This allows to model the behaviour of a Petri net as a generally multilinear classical discrete-time system
Learning control for production machine

Genetic Algorithms (GAs) are generally used as an optimization technique to search the global optimum of a function. However, this is not the only possible use for GAs. Other fields of applications where robustness and global optimization are needed could also benefit greatly from the use of GAs. The two most important domains using GAs as the underlying methodology are Genetic Based Machine Learning (GBML) [1] and Genetic Programming [2]. There has been a growing interest in applying evolution programming techniques to machine learning. This was due to the attractive idea that chromosomes, representing knowledge, are treated as data to be manipulated by genetic operators, and, at the same time, as executable code to be used in performing some task.
Implementation of algorithm to decode two-dimensional barcode PDF-417

We present a barcode reader to decode two-dimensional symbology PDF-417 and propose a novel method to extract the bar-space patterns directly from the gray-level barcode image, which employs the location and the distance between extreme points of each row of the barcode image. This algorithm proves to be very robust for high convolution distortion environments such as defocussing and warping, even under bad illumination conditions. If the scanned barcode image is a result of the convolution of a Gaussian-shaped point spread function with a bilevel image, popular image segmentation methods such as image thresholding cannot distinguish between very narrow bar-space patterns which are a couple of pixels wide. The proposed algorithm shows improved performance over current barcode readers.