Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Automated Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Detection with Dynamic Gadolinium-Enhanced MR Imaging

Summary Objectives: The purpose of this research is to develop an automatic medical diagnosis for segmenting nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) with dynamic gadolinium-enhanced MR imaging. Methods: This system is a multistage process, involving motion correction, head mask generation, dynamic MR data quantitative evaluation, rough segmentation, and rough segmentation refinement. Two approaches, a relative signal increase method and a slope method, are proposed for the quantitative evaluation of dynamic MR data. Results: The NPC detection results obtained using the proposed methods had a rating of 85% in match percent compared with these lesions identified by an experienced radiologist. The match percent for the two proposed methods did not have significant differences. However, the computation cost for the slope method was about twelve times faster than the relative signal increase method. Conclusions: The proposed methods can identify the NPC regions quickly and effectively. This system can enhance the performance of clinical diagnosis.
Wearable System for the Localization of Shipping Containers in a Maritime Terminal

Navigation systems are currently used in a wide set of applications. The work we present shows their role in an augmented reality system whose aim is obtaining on-line information for containers in a storage terminal. We describe a first prototype that combines spatial location devices and image processing to satisfy the fore mentioned task. Our development integrates a compass to obtain the Euler angles and a GPS to provide the system location in the terminal to identify which set of containers is facing the vision subsystem. The fusion of the data from the sensor has been by means of an extended Kalman filter. Offline characterization of this device and set of outdoor test shown how a good choice of the filter parameters can give an accurate enough estimation of the system orientation
A novel concept of unidirectional bridgeless combined boost-buck converter for EV battery chargers

This paper presents a novel concept of unidirectional bridgeless combined boost-buck converter for electric vehicles (EVs) battery chargers. The proposed converter is composed by two power stages: an ac-dc front-end converter used to interface the power grid and the dc-link, and a dc-dc back-end converter used to interface the dc-link and the batteries. The ac-dc converter is a bridgeless boost-type converter and the dc-dc converter is an interleaved buck-type converter. The proposed converter operates with sinusoidal grid current and unitary power factor for all operating power levels. Along the paper is described in detail the proposed converter for EV battery chargers: the circuit topology, the different stages describing the principle of operation, the power control theory, and the current control strategy, for both converters. Along the paper are presented several simulation results for a maximum power of 3.5 kW.
Oscillatory Behavior in the CO-oxidation over Bulk Ruthenium Dioxide — the Effect of the CO/O2 Ratio

Abstract CO oxidation over polycrystalline ruthenium dioxide was monitored in an in-situ XRD setup. The evolution of the bulk state of the catalyst was followed by in-situ XRD during reaction, while the surface morphology and chemical state before and after reaction were investigated by HRSEM and EDX. The commercial RuO2 powder was calcined prior reaction to ensure the formation of completely oxidized RuO2. This pre-calcined RuO2 is initially inactive in CO oxidation regardless of the CO/O2 feed ratio and requires an induction period, the length of which strongly depends whether the catalyst is diluted with boron nitride or not. After this induction period oscillations in the CO2 yield occur under O2-rich conditions only. These oscillations exhibit two time constants for the diluted catalyst, while the low frequency oscillations were not observed in the case of undiluted RuO2. Furthermore, the state of the catalyst after activation in O2-rich feed conditions differs dramatically from the state after activation in CO-rich feed conditions. Firstly, the catalyst activated in an O2-rich atmosphere remains inactive under CO-rich conditions in contrast to the catalyst activated in CO-rich conditions which is afterwards active under all feed ratios examined. Secondly, the surface morphology of the catalyst is quite different. While the apical surfaces of the RuO2 crystals become roughened upon activation in the CO-rich feed, they become facetted under O2 rich activation conditions. Therefore, we conclude that at least two different active surface states on the bulk RuO2 catalyst exist.
DCU at MediaEval 2011: Rich Speech Retrieval

We describe our runs and results for the Rich Speech Retrieval (RSR) Task at MediaEval 2011. Our runs examine the use of alternative segmentation methods on the provided ASR transcripts to locate the beginning of the topic, assuming that this will capture or get close to the starting point of the relevant segment; combination of various types of queries and weighting of metadata to move the relevant segment higher in the ranked list; and different ASR transcripts to compare the influence of the ASR transcripts quality. Our results show that newer versions of the transcripts and use of metadata produce better results on average. So far we have not used information about the illocutionary act type corresponding to each query, but analysis of the retrieval results shows difference in behaviour for queries associated with certatin classes of act.
Force–conductance correlation in individual molecular junctions

Conducting atomic force microscopy is an attractive approach enabling the correlation of mechanical and electrical properties in individual molecular junctions. Here we report on measurements of gold–gold and gold–octanedithiol–gold junctions. We introduce two-dimensional histograms in the form of scatter plots to better analyze the correlation between force and conductance. In this representation, the junction-forming octanedithiol compounds lead to a very clear step in the force–conductance data, which is not observed for control monothiol compounds. The conductance found for octanedithiols is in agreement with the idea that junction conductance is dominated by a single molecule.
Blunt traumatic pneumomediastinum: using CT to reveal the Macklin effect.

P neumomediastinum, also known as mediastinal emphysema, is the condition of free air around mediastinal structures. It occurs in up to 10% of cases of blunt chest trauma. In a minority of cases, pneumomediastinum is caused by tracheobronchial ruptures or esophageal tears. In more than 95% of cases, it results from alveolar rupture related to primary lung trauma, positive pressure ventilation, or both. Both lung trauma and positive pressure ventilation increase alveolar pressure and thus favor alveolar rupture [1, 2]. Alveolar rupture is followed by centripetal dissection of the released alveolar air through the pulmonary interstitium along the peribronchovascular sheaths into the mediastinum. This pathophysiologic process was shown in experiments conducted by Mackim [3] but has only rarely been described by researchers using films [4] and, surprisingly, has never, to our knowledge, been described by researchers using helical CT. Our purpose is to report a case of blunt traumatic pneumomediastinum in which this pathway of air dissection is shown on helical CT.
Jacquard image segmentation using Mumford-Shah model

Jacquard image segmentation is one of the primary steps in image analysis for jacquard pattern identification. The main aim is to recognize homogeneous regions within a jacquard image as distinct, which belongs to different patterns. Active contour models have become popular for finding the contours of a pattern with a complex shape. However, the performance of active contour models is often inadequate under noisy environment. In this paper, a robust algorithm based on the Mumford-Shah model is proposed for the segmentation of noisy jacquard images. First, the Mumford-Shah model is discretized on piecewise linear finite element spaces to yield greater stability. Then, an iterative relaxation algorithm for numerically solving the discrete version of the model is presented. In this algorithm, an adaptive triangular mesh is refined to generate Delaunay type triangular mesh defined on structured triangulations, and then a quasi-Newton numerical method is applied to find the absolute minimum of the discrete model. Experimental results on noisy jacquard images demonstrated the efficacy of the proposed algorithm.
Nonoperative treatment of PIPJ flexion contractures associated with Dupuytren’s disease

Post-surgical outcomes in patients with Dupuytren’s disease causing flexion contractures of the proximal interphalangeal joint can be inconsistent and are often associated with protracted rehabilitation, reduced flexion, recurrence of the contracture, and patient dissatisfaction. An alternative treatment option, comprised of splinting and soft tissue mobilization techniques, was introduced to stabilize early contractures of the proximal interphalangeal joint in the hopes of delaying or obviating surgery. Over the course of approximately 12.6 months (±7.8), thirteen patients were followed at the hand clinic at Hotel Dieu Hospital in Kingston. One patient was unable to complete the course of therapy. Of the remaining patients, analysis showed significant improvement in active proximal interphalangeal joint extension of approximately 14.6° (SD: ±5.1°; range: 5–25°) over the course of the treatment (p < .05). Nighttime static extension splinting and soft tissue mobilization techniques appear to delay and possibly prevent the need for surgery in individuals with flexion contractures of the proximal interphalangeal joint due to Dupuytren’s disease.
Groups over time: what are we really studying?

Researchers in the area of group support systems have recently begun to conduct studies of groups using technology working over time on common tasks. Few of these studies take place with real groups in organizations, where groups work on a single task over time, and where tasks have consequences. Few of these studies investigate models of group development and process other than Tuckman's unitary sequence model from 1965. The authors summarize what work has been done in the area of group support system groups over time, what has not been done and why and where we should go from here.
Examination of HLA-DR4 as a severity marker for rheumatoid arthritis in Greek patients.

OBJECTIVES--Previous reports have shown that HLA-DR4 may be a severity marker for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in patients of northern European origin. The aim of the present study was to investigate this relation in Greek patients with RA, as RA in Greece differs from the RA described previously on clinical, serological, and immunological grounds. METHODS--Eighty four patients were studied in whom HLA-DR typing was performed by restriction fragment length polymorphism and the subtypes of HLA-DR4 were determined by the polymerase chain reaction. The absence or presence of HLA-DR4 and its subtypes was correlated with the clinical and serological characteristics of the patients and with the side effects due to disease modifying drugs. RESULTS--Twenty one of the 84 (25%) patients with RA were DR4+. There was no difference between the DR4+ and DR4-patients with respect to duration of disease, severity of arthritis, functional grade, and joint erosion score. The DR4+ group were more likely to have side effects due to disease modifying drugs (43%) than DR4- patients (36%), but this difference was not statistically significant. DR4-patients had more extra-articular manifestations, including Sjögren's syndrome (47 v 19%). Analysis of the DR4 subtypes showed that Dw15 was the most common variant (9/21 patients; 43%). There was no statistical difference in the clinical manifestations among patients with different DR4 subtypes. The same was also true when the clinical picture was correlated with the 'shared RA epitope' (QKRAA/QRRAA/RRRAA), which is common to all HLA-DRB1 alleles positively associated with RA. CONCLUSIONS--These results suggest that HLA-DR4 is not a severity marker in Greek patients with RA and further indicate differences in the clinical expression of RA in Greece.
Introducing real World Design Problems into the Undergraduate Electromagnetic Curriculum

General purpose CAD programs have been used to teach electromagnetics to undergraduates at Carnegie Mellon University. The faces of the Instruction Is the not of real world design problems to teach basic electromagnetics concepts. Students use computers to set up and solve a variety of electrostatic, magnetostatic, eddy current and microwave problems. Ibis gives students the opportunity to visualize fields and to Interact with real world devices and Issues. Experience shows that solving real world problems by means of electromagnetic CAD tools boosts students' motivation and provide students with a better grasp of key technical concepts.
PVANet optimization for person detection

The recent emergence of deep learning algorithms has radically influenced the object detection performances by providing very precise and robust approaches. However, the disadvantage of the recently proposed object detectors is that they are computationaly extremely intensive, making them unsuitable for being used in portable devices. In this paper we propose six models which optimize an existent deep learning-based object detector - presenting also the results obtained on current benchmarks - for the particular task of person detection. We demonstrate that we may reduce the computational requirements of the existing algorithm by using several strategies for neural network architecture optimization, while still obtaining comparable results with the state-of-the-art approaches. Moreover, on the particular pedestrian detection task, we show that we matched state-of-the-art results.
Augmented Renal Vascular nNOS and Renin Protein Expression in Angiotensin Type 1 Receptor Null Mice

The present study was performed to determine the influence of absence of angiotensin type 1A (AT1A) and/or AT1B receptor feedback regulation of kidney neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS) and renin protein expression. Kidneys were harvested from wildtype (WT), AT1A −/-, AT1B −/-, and AT1A −/-AT1B −/- mice and immunostained for nNOS and renin protein localization. AT1A −/- and AT1A −/-AT1B −/- kidneys demonstrated an increase in the percentage of glomeruli with nNOS-positive afferent and interlobular arterioles compared with WT mice. Density of vascular nNOS immunostaining was 20-fold higher in kidneys of AT1A −/- and AT1A −/-AT1B −/- compared with WT mice. Density of macula densa nNOS immunostaining was 7-fold higher in AT1A −/-AT1B −/- than in WT mice. Percent of glomeruli positive for juxtaglomerular (JG) cell renin was 3-fold higher, whereas the density of JG cell renin immunostaining was 15-fold higher in kidneys of AT1A −/- and AT1A −/-AT1B −/- compared with WT mice. Kidneys of AT1A −/- and AT1A −/-AT1B −/- mice displayed recruitment of renin protein expression along afferent and interlobular arterioles. Absence of AT1 receptor signaling resulted in enhanced nNOS protein expression in both microvascular and tubular structures. Enhanced NO generation may contribute to the reduced renal vascular tone and blood pressure observed with blockade of the renin–angiotensin system.
A highly sensitive and nonradioactive mutation detection method based on vertical gradient temperature single‐strand conformation polymorphism

The single‐strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) method is widely used for mutation detection. The sensitivity of the method depends on several factors, most importantly on the temperature at which electrophoresis of single‐stranded DNA (ssDNA) takes place. The temperature has a profound effect on the folded conformation of ssDNA. The temperature factor is predominantly determined empirically in conventional SSCP, which can be very tedious especially when a large number of different DNA samples need to be screened. We have devised a novel SSCP method based on a vertical gradient temperature (VGT), which automatically subjects ssDNA to various temperatures in the same electrophoresis. The theory behind VGT‐SSCP protocol is that when ssDNA is subjected to run in a wide range of gradient temperature, it will automatically acquire optimal resolution at an optimal temperature to distinguish between the wild type and the mutant type ssDNA. The sensitivity level of mutation detection of VGT‐SSCP depends on whether the corresponding optimal secondary structure of a mutant DNA strand is within the preset gradient temperature range. In summary, the VGT‐SSCP is a simple and robust nonradioactive method that is more sensitive than constant‐temperature SSCP in detecting unknown mutations.
Beclin 1 deficiency is associated with increased hypoxia-induced angiogenesis

Beclin 1, a tumor suppressor protein, acts as an initiator of autophagy in mammals. Heterozygous disruption of Beclin 1 accelerates tumor growth, but the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. We examined the role of Beclin 1 in tumor proliferation and angiogenesis, using a primary mouse melanoma tumor model. Beclin 1 (Becn1+/-) hemizygous mice displayed an aggressive tumor growth phenotype with increased angiogenesis under hypoxia, associated with enhanced levels of circulating erythropoietin but not vascular endothelial growth factor, relative to wild-type mice. Using in vivo and ex vivo assays, we demonstrated increased angiogenic activity in Becn1+/- mice relative to wild-type mice. Endothelial cells from Becn1+/- mice displayed increased proliferation, migration and tube formation in response to hypoxia relative to wild-type cells. Moreover, Becn1+/- cells subjected to hypoxia displayed increased hypoxia-inducible factor-2α (HIF-2α) expression relative to HIF-1α. Genetic interference of HIF-2α but not HIF-1α, dramatically reduced hypoxia-inducible proliferation, migration and tube formation in Becn1+/- endothelial cells. We demonstrated that mice deficient in the autophagic protein Beclin 1 display a pro-angiogenic phenotype associated with the upregulation of HIF-2α and increased erythropoietin production. These results suggest a relationship between Beclin 1 and the regulation of angiogenesis, with implications in tumor growth and development.
Effect of Gamma Radiation of Full Fat Soybeans in Broiler Chickens

CHOTINSKY, D. , M. KRUSTEVA, Ch. STANCHEV and A. KRIL, 2006. Effect of gamma radiation of full fat soybeans in broiler chickens. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci.,12: 811-821 The effect of the replacement of soybean meal in the diet of broiler chickens with untreated and treated by 0.35, 0.7 and 1.0 Mrad full fat soybeans upon the intensity of growth and nutrient utilization in the diet has been studied. The replacement of soybean meal in compound feed with untreated and treated by different gamma ray’s doses full fat soybeans decreased body weight of chickens and increased feed conversion ratio during the starter and finisher periods of their rearing. The substitution of soybean meal in diets with untreated full fat soybeans did not change the dry matter in the organism of the chickens. However, the irradiation of full fat soybeans increased the dry matter in the carcasses. Protein content did not change, but a tendency was observed for an increase in fats in the carcasses because of the radiation of soybeans when compared to chickens of the group fed with untreated soybeans. The inclusion of untreated full fat soybeans in diet decrease the retention of protein and energy in the carcasses of the chickens. Irradiation of full fat soybeans with 0.7 and 1.0 Mrad increase retention of protein and energy, as compared to the group of chickens fed on untreated soybean. Trypsin inhibitor levels in full fat soybeans treated by different gamma ray’s doses were not decreased. The results from the slaughter analysis show that the replacement of soybean meal in the diets with untreated and treated by gamma rays soybeans lead to a reduction in the percentage of the Bratfertig and Grill. The investigated physical-chemical indices of meat from breasts and thighs of chickens have not been influenced by this replacement. A slight tendency of an increase of the fats has been observed
Does cannabis onset trigger cocaine onset? A case‐crossover approach

Psychiatric researchers tend to select the discordant co‐twin design when they seek to hold constant genetic influence while estimating exposure‐associated disease risk. The epidemiologic case‐crossover research design developed for the past two decades represents a viable alternative, not often seen in psychiatric studies. Here, we turn to the epidemiologic case‐crossover approach to examine the idea that cannabis onset is a proximal trigger for cocaine use, with the power of “subject‐as‐own‐control” research used to hold constant antecedent characteristics of the individual drug user, including genetic influence and other traits experienced up to the time of the observed hazard and control intervals. Data are from newly incident cocaine users identified in the 2002–2006 US National Surveys on Drug Use and Health. Among these cocaine users, 48 had both cannabis onset and cocaine onset in the same month‐long hazard interval; the expected value is 30 users, based on the control interval we had pre‐specified for case‐crossover estimation (estimated relative risk, RR = 1.6; exact mid‐p = 0.042). Within the framework of a subject‐as‐own‐control design, the evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that cannabis onset is a proximal trigger for cocaine use, with genetic influences (and many environmental conditions and processes) held constant. Limitations are noted and implications are discussed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
System Frequency Control by LFC signal equipartition method based on slow smart charging of Electric Vehicle

Increase of the installation amount of renewable energy based generations may cause several problems in power systems due to their intermittent electric power output. This paper proposes a new control method of Electric Vehicle (EV) for contribution to Load Frequency Control (LFC) considering only the charging process of the EVs (Smart Charging). In the proposed method, the EVs are charged slowly up to the SOC required by the EV users so that the EVs can be controlled for a longer time and frequency control by the EVs becomes more effective. Moreover, it has been made clear that in the proposed method, the amounts of communication traffic and computational load become smaller compared with these in the conventional charging method.
Linear Least-Squares Fusion of Multilayer Perceptrons for Protein Localization Sites Prediction

This paper presents a new type of linear model of fusing multilayer perceptrons for predicting protein localization sites. The Linear Least-Squares Fusion (LLSF) model makes a set of component networks work collectively and integrates their knowledge in order to ameliorate the generalization capability of a classification system. The empirical results show that the LLSF system reached an overall accuracy of 85.4% in predicting 336 E.coli proteins, better than the performance of its component networks or the previous method in literature.