Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Implementation and optimization of the algorithm of automatic color enhancement in digital images

This paper studies the implementation of an algorithm to enhance the color of an image by considering global and local effects. The implementation is done on Matlab((and also on a FPGA using VHDL. The algorithm is called ACE (automatic color equalization). The paper presents the optimization of the algorithm using a subset or window. The algorithm performs the color enhancement automatically by equalizing the colors and improving the image. The results show an image with more contrast, higher number of details and visually better. Indeed, ACE maximizes the information of the image. The optimization of the algorithm reduces the complexity of the original one. Additionally, the VHDL implementation is quite faster than Matlab's.
Zonal organization of the mouse flocculus: Physiology, input, and output

The zones of the flocculus have been mapped in many species with a noticeable exception, the mouse. Here, the functional map of the mouse was constructed via extracellular recordings followed by tracer injections of biotinylated‐dextran‐amine and immunohistochemistry for heat‐shock protein‐25. Zones were identified based on the Purkinje cell complex spike modulation occurring in response to optokinetic stimulation. In zones 1 and 3 Purkinje cells responded best to rotation about a horizontal axis oriented at 135° ipsilateral azimuth, whereas in zones 2 and 4 they responded best to rotation about the vertical axis. The tracing experiments showed that Purkinje cells of zone 1 projected to the parvicellular part of lateral cerebellar nucleus and superior vestibular nucleus, while Purkinje cells of zone 3 projected to group Y and the superior vestibular nucleus. Purkinje cells of zones 2 and 4 projected to the magnocellular and parvicellular parts of the medial vestibular nucleus, while some also innervated the lateral vestibular nucleus or nucleus prepositus hypoglossi. The climbing fiber inputs to Purkinje cells in zones 1 and 3 were derived from neurons in the ventrolateral outgrowth of the contralateral inferior olive, whereas those in zones 2 and 4 were derived from the contralateral caudal dorsal cap. Purkinje cells in zones 1 and 2, but not in zones 3 and 4, were positively labeled for heat‐shock protein‐25. The present study illustrates that Purkinje cells in the murine flocculus are organized in discrete zones with specific functions, specific input — output relations, and a specific histochemical signature. J. Comp. Neurol. 497:670–682, 2006. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Bioactivity of proteins isolated from Lactobacillus plantarum L67 treated with Zanthoxylum piperitum DC glycoprotein

Lactobacilli in the human gastrointestinal tract have beneficial effects on the health of their host. To enhance these effects, the bioactivity of lactobacilli can be fortified through exogenous dietary or pharmacological agents, such as glycoproteins. To elucidate the inductive effect of Zanthoxylum piperitum DC (ZPDC) glycoprotein on Lactobacillus plantarum L67, we evaluated the radical‐scavenging activity, anti‐oxidative enzymes (SOD, GPx and CAT), growth rate, ATPase activity and β‐galactosidase activity of this strain. When Lact. plantarum L67 was treated with ZPDC glycoprotein at different concentrations, the intensities of a few SDS‐PAGE bands were slightly changed. The amount of a 23 kDa protein was increased upon treatment with increasing concentrations of ZPDC glycoprotein. The results of this study indicate that the radical‐scavenging activity for O2− and OH¯, but not for the DPPH radical, increased in a concentration‐dependent manner after treatment with ZPDC glycoprotein. The activation of anti‐oxidative enzymes (SOD, GPx and CAT), growth rate and β‐galactosidase activity also increased in a concentration‐dependent manner in response to ZPDC glycoprotein treatment, whereas ATPase activity was decreased. In summary, ZPDC glycoprotein stimulated an increase in the bioactivity of Lact. plantarum L67.
A backpressure technique for filtering spoofed traffic at upstream routers

Ever increasing rate of Denial of Service (DoS) attacks presents severe security threats to the internet. In this study, a backpressure scheme to filter DoS attack traffic at the earliest possible is presented. This paper utilises markings stamped in the packets by the routers to detect DoS attacks. To improve the accuracy of detection, the detection process is augmented with hop count values from IP header. A backpressure technique partially deployed at the upstream routers is also proposed to prevent congestion at victim. Simulation studies show that our scheme drops most of the attack traffic at the earliest time.
Reconstitution of lymphocyte subpopulations in children with inherited metabolic storage diseases after haematopoietic cell transplantation

We prospectively evaluated the reconstitution of lymphocyte subpopulations in nine children with lysosomal diseases who underwent 11 allogeneic haematopoietic cell transplants (HCTs) following CD34+ immunomagnetic enrichment, limited T‐cell addback and in vivo B‐cell depletion. Absolute lymphocyte count recovery was slow to cross the 5th percentile, occurring at a median of 10 months after HCT in patients with full chimaerism. Natural killer cells represented up to 90% of the total lymphoid population during the first 3 months. CD4+ lymphocyte recovery occurred 9–18 months after HCT. In most patients, CD8+ lymphocyte recovery was slow and comparable with that of CD4+ lymphocytes. The CD4+/CD8+ ratio normalised by 3–7 months after HCT in 50% of the patients. CD8+ lymphocyte recovery was enhanced in patients with viral reactivation. Reconstitution of B‐lymphocytes was particularly delayed in patients treated with rituximab. Declining chimaerism, rejection and viral reactivation were the most common problems in our series. Because of the unique graft manipulation, the pace of lymphocyte reconstitution was particularly slow, suggesting that these patients are at a significantly increased risk of infections for up to 2 years after HCT.
Taking control of word of mouth marketing: the case of an entrepreneurial hotelier

Marketing in entrepreneurial contexts, such as small business, relies heavily on word of mouth (WOM) recommendations for customer acquisition. However, we know little about how WOM processes work for small firms, or how owner‐managers can influence them. This case study of an entrepreneurial owner of an independent hotel is used to illustrate the problems associated with WOM, and potential strategies to overcome them. The owner‐manager researched existing hotel customers through face‐to‐face interviews and a questionnaire. The results confirmed the importance of WOM, but found two sets of dissonance. One was between input WOM types and sources, the other between output WOM content and targets. The owner‐manager improved the effectiveness of WOM communications through a variety of interventions, thus demonstrating that WOM can be an effective part of a marketing strategy for a small firm.
Competence-specific induction of the Bacillus subtilis RecA protein analog: evidence for dual regulation of a recombination protein

The development of competence in Bacillus subtilis is accompanied by the transcriptional activation of DNA damage-inducible (din) operons and other SOS-like responses. We report here that B. subtilis Rec protein (the analog of Escherichia coli RecA), a DNA damage-inducible protein, is substantially induced when cells differentiate to a state of competence. We quantitated the induction of B. subtilis Rec protein and the B. subtilis din-22 operon (representative of all known B. subtilis din operons) during competence development in Rec+ and DNA repair-deficient strains. We present two lines of evidence that Rec protein induction in competent cells is controlled by a competence-specific mechanism that is distinct from the SOS-like regulation that controls Rec induction following DNA damage: (i) Rec protein was significantly induced in rec mutants (recA1 and recE4) that are highly deficient in Rec induction by DNA damage, and (ii) Rec protein induction during competence development was greater than maximum Rec induction by DNA damage. On the other hand, our results suggest that the din-22 operon is induced by the same (SOS-like) mechanism both during competence development and after DNA damage.
Dementia with Lewy bodies and Alzheimer disease

Objective: To identify the patterns of diffusivity changes in patients with dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and Alzheimer disease (AD) and to determine whether diffusion tensor MRI (DTI) is complementary to structural MRI in depicting the tissue abnormalities characteristic of DLB and AD. Methods: We studied clinically diagnosed age-, gender-, and education-matched subjects with DLB (n = 30), subjects with AD (n = 30), and cognitively normal (CN) subjects (n = 60) in a case-control study. DTI was performed at 3T with a fluid-attenuated inversion recovery–based DTI sequence that enabled cortical diffusion measurements. Mean diffusivity (MD) and gray matter (GM) density were measured from segmented cortical regions. Tract-based diffusivity was measured using color-coded fractional anisotropy (FA) maps. Results: Patients with DLB were characterized by elevated MD in the amygdala and decreased FA in the inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF). ILF diffusivity was associated with the presence of visual hallucinations (p = 0.007), and amygdala diffusivity was associated with Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (r = 0.50; p = 0.005) in DLB. In contrast, patients with AD were characterized by elevated MD in the medial temporal, temporal, and parietal lobe association cortices and decreased FA in the fornix, cingulum, and ILF. Amygdala diffusivity was complementary to GM density in discriminating DLB from CN; hippocampal and parahippocampal diffusivity was complementary to GM density in discriminating AD from CN. Conclusion: Increased amygdalar diffusivity in the absence of tissue loss in dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) may be related to microvacuolation, a common pathology associated with Lewy body disease in the amygdala. Diffusivity measurements were complementary to structural MRI, demonstrating that measures of diffusivity on diffusion tensor MRI are valuable tools for characterizing the tissue abnormalities characteristic of Alzheimer disease and DLB.
Regional Cerebral Blood Flow and Angiography in Apoplexy

Cerebral lesions may be demonstrated roentgenographically not only as changes in anatomical structures but also as localized or generalized changes in the dynamic circulatory pattern. Such changes in the cerebral blood flow have also been demonstrated by means of quantitative measurements of the cerebral blood flow (EKBERG, CRONQVIST & INGVAR 1965, CRONQVIST, EKBERG & INGVAR 1965) . A series of cases of focal cerebrovascular lesions were investigated both by cerebral angiography and measurement of the regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF). New pathologic aspects on the focal cerebrovascular lesions were suggested by the combination of the two procedures, and new roentgendiagnostic criteria in focal cerebral ischaemia were indicated. Preliminary reports on the present material have recently been published (CRONQVIST 1966, CRONQVIST & LAROCHE 1967).
Stand and self-thinning dynamics in natural Abies stands in northern Hokkaido, Japan

Stand dynamics and self-thinning were analyzed in relation to the dynamics of above-ground biomass in natural Abies sachalinensis stands growing on sand dunes in northern Hokkaido, Japan. This was done in order to examine wave-type regeneration in the stands. Fifty-two plots were established in almost pure Abies stands that ranged from saplings to the mature and collapsing growth stages. Above-ground biomass and tree height reached asymptotic levels prior to the collapsing phase, unlike wave-regeneration Abies stands in central Japan and North America. Stand density was high in the young growth stages, but the self-thinning rate, that is, the density decrease per biomass growth in the study stands was greater than in wave-regeneration stands in central Japan, as indicated by a large self-thinning exponent (−1.26 by reduced major axis regression). The range of tree height distribution was very narrow, and the stands’ vertical structure was typically single-layered. The slenderness ratio of trees was large, except in young stands. In mature and collapsing stands, advanced seedling density increased markedly. These stand and tree characteristics were considered to be correlated with the wave-type regeneration in the study stands, and it is assumed that prevailing winds affect tree mortality.
Intact sorting, targeting, and clustering of γ‐aminobutyric acid A receptor subtypes in hippocampal neurons in vitro

The cellular and subcellular distribution of four GABAA receptor subtypes, identified by the presence of the α1, α2, α3, or α5 subunit, was investigated immunocytochemically in dissociated cultures of hippocampal neurons. We addressed the questions whether (1) cell‐type specific expression, (2) axonal/somatodendritic targeting, and (3) synaptic/extrasynaptic clustering of GABAA receptor subtypes was retained in vitro. For comparison, the in vivo distribution pattern was assessed in sections from adult rat brain. The differential expression of GABAA receptor subunits allowed to identify five morphologically distinct cell types in culture: the α1 subunit was observed in glutamic acid decarboxylase–positive interneurons, the α2 and α5 subunits marked pyramidal‐like cells, and the α3 subunit labeled three additional cell types, including presumptive hilar cells. All subunits were found in the somatodendritic compartment. In addition, appropriate axonal targeting was evidenced by the intense α2, and sometimes α3 subunit labeling of axon‐initial segments (AIS) of pyramidal cells and hilar cells, respectively. Accordingly, both receptor subtypes were targeted to AIS in vivo, as well. Synaptic receptors were identified by colocalization with gephyrin, a postsynaptic clustering protein, and apposition to presynaptic terminals labeled with synapsin I. In vitro and in vivo, α1‐ and α2‐receptor subtypes formed numerous synaptic clusters, α3‐GABAA receptors were located either synaptically or extrasynaptically depending on the cell type, whereas α5‐GABAA receptors were extrasynaptic. We conclude that receptor targeting to broad subcellular locations does not require specific GABAergic innervation patterns, which are disturbed in vitro, but depends on protein‐protein interactions in the postsynaptic cell that are both subunit‐ and neuron‐specific. J. Comp. Neurol. 443:43–55, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Attention-based Recurrent Convolutional Neural Network for Automatic Essay Scoring

Neural network models have recently been applied to the task of automatic essay scoring, giving promising results. Existing work used recurrent neural networks and convolutional neural networks to model input essays, giving grades based on a single vector representation of the essay. On the other hand, the relative advantages of RNNs and CNNs have not been compared. In addition, different parts of the essay can contribute differently for scoring, which is not captured by existing models. We address these issues by building a hierarchical sentence-document model to represent essays, using the attention mechanism to automatically decide the relative weights of words and sentences. Results show that our model outperforms the previous state-of-the-art methods, demonstrating the effectiveness of the attention mechanism.
OFDM channel estimation Algorithm based on Frequency-Selective and Time-Varying Channels

Channel estimation based on comb-type pilot pattern has a good performance in frequency-selective channels with the help of MMSE algorithm. But MMSE is too complex for practical implementation and its performance deteriorates rapidly in time-varying channels due to extremely Doppler effects. In this paper, we present an optimized Kalman filter algorithm, which performs iteration operations within separate symbols. Optimized pilot matrices have been posted, where pilots in the special sub-carrier were inserted into rectangle pilot matrices. The modified Kalman filter estimation in the special sub-carrier refines estimation in other pilot sub-carriers. We also propose a low-pass-filter interpolation and FFT transform in time domain and frequency domain respectively. This three-step solution offers a better performance than that of MMSE algorithm. Compared with conventional Kalman estimator the proposed estimator has higher spectral efficiency, while its performance is comparable.
Cerebrospinal fluid and interstitial fluid volume measurements in the human brain at 3T with EPI

Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) diffusion into periventricular white matter is one of the pathophysiological features of hydrocephalus of any kind. In standard clinical routine periventricular hyperintensities, size of the ventricular system, and invasive CSF pressure measurement are the key diagnostic methods. Recently a method called quantitative blood oxygenation level‐dependent (qBOLD) was proposed by He and Yablonskiy (Magn Reson Med 2007;57:115–126), which uses the signal evolution of a GESSE sequence to extract quantitative information about hemodynamic parameters. In this study a similar method was used to extract volume fraction information of CSF and interstitial fluid (ISF) in the human brain. A standard gradient recalled echo / echo planar imaging (GRE‐EPI) sequence with variable echo time was used for the acquisition of the MRI signal. A first test on healthy subjects yielded consistent results for ISF/CSF volume fraction, which were in good agreement with results found in the literature. Magn Reson Med, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Detection of Breast Cancer Cells in the Bone Marrow or Peripheral Blood: Methods and Prognostic Significance

Tumor cells can reach every anatomic district, organ and tissue through the peripheral blood circulation. Tumor cell shedding is considered an early event in the multi-phase process of metastasis, and the possibility of detecting tumor cells in the bloodstream and/or bone marrow before clinical evidence of distant metastases needs to be explored. The use of new sophisticated diagnostic and investigative techniques has boosted the study of tumor cell contamination of bone marrow and peripheral blood. Molecular techniques, such as reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction, may be useful tools to reach this target, but, today, immunocytochemistry is still considered the gold standard to assess new techniques to detect isolated tumor cells in hematopoietic tissue. Little is known about the biology of isolated tumor cells in the peripheral blood or bone marrow. Two crucial points need to be evaluated: the identification of specific markers of breast cancer cells with clonogenic potential and their biologic properties, and the prognostic impact of the detection of isolated tumor cells in the bone marrow or peripheral blood stem cell collections.
A chopped front-end system with common-mode feedback for real time ECG applications

A Front-End system composed of an instrumentation amplifier with common-mode feedback and a second-order sigma-delta analog to digital converter is proposed. Chopping techniques are used to remove offset and low-frequency noise to guarantee a noise floor below the signal of interest. Measurements show that common-mode feedback adds 71 dB to the CMRR at 50 Hz and the input referred noise is 1.17 μVRMs over the frequency range of 0.1 Hz to 400 Hz.
Epidemiology of Aortic Aneurysm Repair in the United States from 1993 to 2003

Abstract: The epidemiology of abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) disease has been well described over the preceding 50 years. This disease primarily affects elderly males with smoking, hypertension, and a positive family history contributing to an increased risk of aneurysm formation. The aging population as well as increased screening in high‐risk populations has led some to suggest that the incidence of AAAs is increasing. The National Inpatient Sample (1993–2003), a national representative database, was used in this study to determine trends in mortality following AAA repair in the United States. In addition, the impact of the introduction of less invasive endovascular AAA repair was assessed. Overall rates of treated unruptured and ruptured AAAs remained stable (unruptured 12 to 15/100,000; ruptured 1 to 3/100,000). In 2003, 42.7% of unruptured and 8.8% of ruptured AAAs were repaired through an endovascular approach. Inhospital mortality following unruptured AAA repair continues to decline for open repair (5.3% to 4.7%, P= 0.007). Mortality after elective endovascular AAA repair also has statistically decreased (2.1% to 1.0%, P= 0.024) and remains lower than open repair. Mortality rates for ruptured AAAs following repair remain high (open: 46.5% to 40.7%, P= 0.01; endovascular: 40.0% to 35.3%, P= 0.823). These data suggest that the numbers of patients undergoing elective AAA repair have remained relatively stable despite the introduction of less invasive technology. A shift in the treatment paradigm is occurring with a higher percentage of patients subjected to elective endovascular AAA repair compared to open repair. This shift, at least in the short term, appears justified as the mortality in patients undergoing elective endovascular AAA repair is significantly reduced compared to patients undergoing open AAA repair.
Information technology-enabled intrapreneurship culture and firm performance

– The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationships among two types of information technology (IT) resources (technological IT and managerial IT resources), the intrapreneurship culture and firm performance. , – The paper is consistent with the perspective on IT‐enabled organizational capabilities. A proposed research model and hypotheses are tested using cross‐sectional survey data from a sample of 203 leading Spanish firms. , – Data analysis shows that intrapreneurship culture is a valuable key capability that predicts firm market performance; both technological IT and managerial IT resources have a positive effect on the development of an intrapreneurship culture in the firm, and investment in both technological IT and managerial IT resources influences firm performance positively by means of the capability of intrapreneurship culture. , – Among other limitations, the paper uses data provided by only one key informant per firm, and the results can be generalized to only 25 business sectors among Spanish firms. , – The research findings have important implications for practising managers. First, our results suggest that the deployment of technological IT and managerial IT resources increases firms' ability to develop an innovation‐supportive culture. Second, intrapreneurship culture is an important intermediate organizational capability through which the benefits of both technological IT and managerial IT resources are converted into performance effects at the corporate level. , – First, this paper reveals how firms can develop an intrapreneurship culture. Specifically, the findings of the paper show the key role of IT‐based resources in the development of this type of organizational culture. Second, this paper shows theoretically and empirically how firms can generate business value from IT‐enabled intrapreneurship culture, a topic that has received little attention to date.