Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Proposed Method to Quantify Vitreous Hemorrhage by Ultrasound

Purpose: To propose a method for quanti ﬁ cation of vitreous hemorrhages (VH) termed minimum image gain (MIG). Therefore, to obtain MIG measurements in patients with VH and to compare them to normal controls; to compare results between graders; and to obtain and compare MIG from two different ultrasound systems. Methods: Retrospective and cross-sectional, observational, and comparative study performed in two parts: Part 1) Retrospective comparison of MIG in VH vs controls by two experienced graders, with intra/inter-observer variability: MIG technique is described. MIG is performed retrospectively in two groups, VH patients and normal controls. Groups are compared with independent samples t -test. Intra- and interobserver variability between graders was obtained. Part 2) Cross-sectional analysis of variability from nonexperienced graders and with different ultrasound systems: MIG is performedincross-sectionalmeasurementsofVHpatients,bytwounexperiencedgraders,andwith two ultrasound systems. Interobserver variability and Bland – Altman plot with levels of agreement (LoA) were obtained. Results: Part 1: 50 patients with VH resulted in mean MIG: 52.8 dB; 34 controls resulted in mean MIG: 77.97 dB. Independent samples t -test resulted in a statistical signi ﬁ cant difference. Intra- and inter-observer variability resulted in an almost perfect agreement between experienced graders. Part 2: 63 patients with VH, mean MIG: 56.19 dB. Inter-observer variability resulted in a very high agreement between unexperienced observers. LoA resulted in a statistical difference between the two ultrasound systems. Conclusion: MIG may provide an objective and reproducible way to quantify vitreous hemorrhage density and potentially any vitreous humor opacity. Agreement is high even with unexperienced graders. However, the two ultrasound systems analyzed may not be interchangeable.
HDR4CV: High Dynamic Range Dataset with Adversarial Illumination for Testing Computer Vision Methods

Abstract Benchmark datasets used for testing computer vision (CV) methods often contain little variation in illumination. The methods that perform well on these datasets have been observed to fail under challenging illumination conditions encountered in the real world, in particular, when the dynamic range of a scene is high. The authors present a new dataset for evaluating CV methods in challenging illumination conditions such as low light, high dynamic range, and glare. The main feature of the dataset is that each scene has been captured in all the adversarial illuminations. Moreover, each scene includes an additional reference condition with uniform illumination, which can be used to automatically generate labels for the tested CV methods. We demonstrate the usefulness of the dataset in a preliminary study by evaluating the performance of popular face detection, optical flow, and object detection methods under adversarial illumination conditions. We further assess whether the performance of these applications can be improved if a different transfer function is used.
Customer Experience Project: A Framework to Create and Deliver Value to Customers

This theoretical paper aims to approach the major customer value drivers and then, describe the main five stages required to support customer experience (CX) professionals in order to conceive, design and implement CX improvement projects. The CX focuses on customer’s perceptions and related feelings caused by the one-off and cumulative effect of interactions with a supplier’s employees, systems, channels, or products. The CX encompasses every interaction the customer has with an organisation throughout the customer lifecycle through multichannel. Generally speaking, providing a good experience can affect and impact customer satisfaction, loyalty, and engagement. Business companies recognised the competitive advantage of CX and the value creation reside not only in what a company delivers for its customers but in how it delivers products and services. Therefore, a positive CX requires coordination across different functions within an organisation, for instance, marketing, product or service development, customer care, operations, or retail branches.
Formation and prevention of hardly removable particle layers in inside-out capillary membranes operating in dead-end mode

Although numerous ultra- and microfiltration dead-end plants with capillary membranes are already operative, some phenomena are still unexplained. Therefore, the fundamental processes taking place inside a capillary membrane were observed. Initially, the flow field depending on axial and radial position inside the capillary was determined. Then, particle transport and deposition were theoretically studied by determination of particle trajectories considering influences of particle concentration and walleffects on hydrodynamics, DLVO-forces, buoyancy, gravitation, diffusion and interparticular forces. Following these calculations, incoming particles with a diameter smaller than the so-called “limiting diameter”, which depends on operational and geometrical boundary conditions, due to depositions are widely and evenly distributed. Larger particles do not deposit until they are at a certain distance from the water inlet. The larger the particle size, the longer the distance. If the particle is larger than the so-called “corkforming diameter” then the particles are transported to the dead-end of the capillary which may cause a clogging of the capillary. This “corkforming diameter” depends on operational as well on geometrical boundary conditions. These theoretical predictions are confirmed by experimental results from investigations with spherical latex and non-spherical walnut particles. To avoid this clogging, the deposition of the particles should be evenly distributed, which means that the “corkforming diameter” should be as large as possible. That goal could be achieved by operating the membrane plant with short and/or wide capillaries. However, a small permeate flux, a small membrane resistance and/or a small membrane surface potential succeed as well. Another possibility could be to operate the capillaries with a very small cross flow.
Resource partitioning between Microlophus occipitalis and Stenocercus puyango (Sauria: Tropiduridae) in Cerros de Amotape National Park, Tumbes, Peru

Activity, microhabitat use, and diet are patterns commonly used to define the saurian community structure, because of differential exploitation allowing coexistence at the same time and place. We analyze resource partitioning between two sympatric saurian species, Stenocercus puyango and Microlophus occipitalis, in the transitional area of the Pacific Tropical Forest and the Dry Forest inside Cerros de Amotape National Park (PNCA) in Tumbes, northwestern of Peru. Microlophus occipitalis and S. puyango both showed a unimodal activity pattern with higher activity around 13:00 h, with a mean body temperature of 34.83 °C and 32.17 °C respectively, observing a significant relationship between body and environmental (air and substrate) temperatures. Rocks and tree trunks were the most frequent microhabitats used by M. occipitalis while S. puyango were registered more frequently over leaf litter. The diets of both tropidurids were composed by arthropods, ants, and insect larvae mainly. Similarities in activity times (temporal niche) and diet (trophic niche) should be related to phylogenetic relationship and environmental characteristics of PNCA (seasonality, vegetal composition) meanwhile differences in space use and microhabitat thermal quality will be related to thermal quality in the area.
Carbon sequestration potential of street tree plantings in Helsinki

Abstract. Cities have become increasingly interested in reducing their greenhouse gas emissions, and increasing carbon sequestration and storage in urban vegetation and soil as part of their climate mitigation actions. However, most of our knowledge on biogenic carbon cycle is based on data and models from forested ecosystems even though urban nature and microclimate are very different to those in natural or forested ecosystems. There is a need for modelling tools that can correctly consider temporal variations of urban carbon cycle and take the urban specific conditions into account. The main aims of this study are to examine the carbon sequestration potential of two commonly used street tree species (Tilia x vulgaris and Alnus glutinosa) and their soils by taking into account the complexity of urban conditions, and evaluate urban land surface model SUEWS and soil carbon model Yasso15 in simulating carbon sequestration of these street tree plantings at different temporal scales (diurnal, monthly and annual). SUEWS provides the urban microclimate, and photosynthesis and respiration of street trees whereas the soil carbon storage is estimated with Yasso. Both models were run for 2002–2016 and within this period the model performances were evaluated against transpiration estimated from sap flow, soil carbon content and soil moisture measurements from two street tree sites located in Helsinki, Finland. The models were able to capture the variability in urban carbon cycle due to changes in environmental conditions and tree species. SUEWS simulated the stomatal control and transpiration well (RMSE < 0.31 mm h−1) and was able to produce correct soil moisture in the street soil (nRMSE < 0.23). Yasso was able to simulate the strong decline in initial carbon content but later overestimated respiration and thus underestimated carbon stock slightly (MBE > −5.42 kg C m−2). Over the study period, soil respiration dominated the carbon exchange over carbon sequestration, due to the high initial carbon loss from the soil after the street construction. However, the street tree plantings turned into a modest sink of carbon from the atmosphere on annual scale as the tree and soil respiration approximately balanced photosynthesis. The compensation point when street trees plantings turned from annual source to sink was reached faster by Alnus trees after 12 years, while by Tilia trees after 14 years. Overall, the results indicate the importance of soil in urban carbon sequestration estimations.
Roflumilast: Review of Phosphodiesterase-4 Inhibitor as Asthma Therapy

Asthma is a heterogeneous disease characterized by chronic inflammation of the airways induced reversible obstruction resulting in mortality and morbidity. Roflumilast is a second-generation selective inhibitor of phosphodiesterase-4 targeting PDE type 4 isoenzymes, disturbing the breakdown of cyclic AMP (cAMP) and reducing inflammation. However, it has not been recommended for asthma patients because of insufficient evidence from trial results. The search was carried out using the PUBMED online database from 2011 to May 2021. The keywords used in this study were "Asthma" and "Roflumilast" using the Boolean Operator "AND. " All articles were published until May 7, 2021. The design of the articles involved in this study was randomized. Selection of research articles was obtained to avoid duplication of articles through title and abstract screening. Next, eligible articles were extracted by reviewing the full text according to the inclusion criteria. Finally, Five articles were used in this paper. Roflumilast can be given per-oral as a single dose or combine with ICS or montelukast. Roflumilast can increase FEV1 and reduce eosinophils, a pathological cause of asthma that induces inflammation in the airways. The side effects of roflumilast are well tolerated in asthma patients, the most common of which include headache, diarrhea, nausea, weight loss, and insomnia
Surface modifications of wood materials using atmospheric pressure corona-based weakly ionized plasma

Enhanced atmospheric pressure corona-based weakly ionized plasma was investigated to modify surface properties of wood materials. The plasma was generated using a point-to-point bare electrode geometry without dielectric barriers. The gas-phase admixture used in this work was argon and acetylene. Wood fibers were processed in the post-discharge region outside of the harsh corona environment. Return corona emanating into the high-voltage gap from the grounded screen was utilized to effectively activate acetylene molecules near the substrate. Scanning electron microscopy was used to study the surface morphology of the treated and untreated substrates. The treated wood material was observed to contain on their surface nano- and micro-nodules of plasma-polymerized acetylene. Capillary rise measurements confirmed changes in the surface wettability of the substrates. The water capillary rise rate and diffusion coefficient were reduced by about 37% and 57%, respectively, for a 15-min treatment of ponderosa pine wood flour.
Parallel Cross-section Recognition of Geometrical Features for Selected Machine Parts

Increase of automation and autonomy of production is the latest trend incorporated into Industry 4.0 objectives. Production autonomy is very desirable in the field of damaged parts replacement. To fulfill this goal numerous reverse engineering systems have been developed that support geometry recognition from the 3D scan data. This study is focused on converting non-parametric geometry representation of shaft-type elements into a CAD model with a rebuilt feature tree. Algorithms are based on the analysis of parallel cross-sections. The proposed system is also capable of identification of additional geometric features typical for 2.5 axes milling such as pockets, islands and outer walls. The proposed algorithms are optimized to increase efficiency of the process. Initial identification parameters are selected with respect to defined criteria, e
Evaluation of functional outcome of intertrochanteric femur fractures treated with proximal femoral locking compression plate

<p class="abstract"><strong>Background:</strong> The objective was to find out the clinical and functional outcome of intertrochanteric femur fractures treated with proximal femoral locking compression plate (PFLCP). </p><p class="abstract"><strong>Methods:</strong> The study was conducted on patients who underwent fixation of intertrochanteric femur fractures with PFLCP in department of orthopedics, GMCH, Aurangabad from January 2020 to January 2021. The patients were assessed clinically and functionally using Harris hip score and radiological evaluation at three, six and nine months. <strong></strong></p><p class="abstract"><strong>Results:</strong> At one year follow up, two patients had varus collapse, one had superficial infection and one had screw cut out. The mean Harris hip score at one month was 69.46 (52-76), at three months was 78.6 (58-88) and at nine months was 87.6 (64-96). The average operative time was 86.23 minutes (60-128 minutes), the average blood loss was 207.5 ml (170-250 ml) and the average time required for union was 15.16 weeks (10-24 weeks). </p><p class="abstract"><strong>Conclusions:</strong> Intertrochanteric fractures treated with PFLCP provided a strong angular stable construct and showed satisfactory outcomes. </p>
Tool wear condition monitoring in milling process based on data fusion enhanced long short-term memory network under different cutting
conditions

Tool wear condition monitoring (TCM) is essential for milling process to ensure the machining quality, and the long short-term memory network (LSTM) is a good choice for predicting tool wear value. However, the robustness of LSTM- based method is poor when cutting condition changes. A novel method based on data fusion enhanced LSTM is proposed to estimate tool wear value under different cutting conditions. Firstly, vibration time series signal collected from milling process are transformed to feature space through empirical mode decomposition, variational mode decomposition and fourier synchro squeezed transform. And then few feature series are selected by neighborhood component analysis to reduce dimension of the signal features. Finally, these selected feature series are input to train the bidirectional LSTM network and estimate tool wear value. Applications of the proposed method to milling TCM experiments demonstrate it outperforms significantly SVR- based and RNN- based methods under different cutting conditions.
A low-cost integrated desalination and irrigation technique tested on dual-purpose sorghum in Turkana County, Kenya

Kenya Agriculture and Livestock Research Organization, Kabete (Food Crops Research Centre), P. O. Box 14733 00800, Nairobi, Kenya. The University of Edinburgh, School of Engineering, The King’s Buildings, Sanderson Building, Robert Stevenson Road, Edinburgh EH9 3FB, UK. Kenya Forestry Research Institute, Rift Valley Eco-region Research Program, P. O. Box 382 20203, Londiani, Kenya. Kenya Water Institute, Kenya Water Institute, Ole Shapara Avenue, Nairobi South C, P.O. Box 60013 00200, Nairobi, Kenya. Strathmore University, Strathmore Energy Research Centre, Madaraka Estate, Ole Shapara Avenue, P. O. Box 59857 – 00200, Nairobi, Kenya.
Early successional colonizers both facilitate and inhibit the late successional colonizers in communities of dung-inhabiting insects

The infl uence of early arriving species on the establishment and activity of later ones (the priority effect) is a key issue in ecological succession. Priority effects have been extensively studied in communities subject to autotrophic succession (plants, sessile animals), but only sporadically studied in communities subject to heterotrophic succession (e.g. dung or carrion inhabiting communities). We studied the infl uence of early successional colonizers on late successional colonizers by manipulating the successional processes in cow dung pats via delaying, and thus lowering, colonization by early successional insects. The decreased activity of early successional insects did not affect the species richness of late successional insects, but it did lead to increased abundance of colonizers. Late successional coprophagous beetles were facilitated by early successional species while larvae of late successional coprophagous fl ies were inhibited, presumably, by the larvae of early successional fl ies. We therefore propose that both facilitation and inhibition have a role to play in the heterotrophic succession of coprophilous insects. In addition, facilitation and inhibition among taxa seems to refl ect their evolutionary relationships, with facilitation being prominent between phylogenetically distant lineages (early successional Diptera and late successional Coleoptera), and inhibition being more common between closely related lineages (early vs. late successional Diptera). These patterns are strikingly reminiscent of the situation in the autotrophic succession of plants.
Palladium-Catalyzed Carbonylative Synthesis of Functionalized Benzimidazopyrimidinones

Abstract A new and convenient approach to functionalized benzimidazopyrimidinones is reported. It is based on a two-step procedure starting from readily available 1-(prop-2-yn-1-yl)-1H-benzo[d]imidazol-2-amines, consisting of a multicomponent palladium-catalyzed oxidative cyclocarbonylation–alkoxycarbonylation process, followed by base-promoted isomerization of the initially formed mixture of isomeric carbonylated products. Fair to good overall yields of the final alkyl 2-(2-oxo-1,2-dihydrobenzo[4,5]imidazo[1,2-a]pyrimidin-3-yl)acetates are obtained, using different alcohols as solvent and nucleophile in the carbonylation step (carried out in the presence of 0.33–1 mol% PdI2 in conjunction with 17–50 mol% KI, at 100 °C and under 20 atm of a 4:1 mixture of CO–air) and the corresponding sodium alkoxide as base in the subsequent isomerization step (carried out in the alcoholic solvent at room temperature). The structures of a representative substrate [N-benzyl-1-(prop-2-yn-1-yl)-1H-benzo[d]imidazol-2-amine] and a representative product [methyl 2-(1-isopentyl-2-oxo-1,2-dihydrobenzo-[4,5]imidazo[1,2-a]pyrimidin-3-yl)acetate] were confirmed by X-ray diffraction analysis.
Between audiovisual translation and localization: The case of Detroit: Become Human

The concept of audiovisual translation (AVT) is changing continuously in the current technological landscape, in which localization has emerged as a key process to adapt different types of modern multimedia products. Whether AVT encompasses localization, or vice versa, or they can be conceived as different fields instead, remains unclear. It is not my intention to find a unique solution to this unanswered question, but rather to shed some light on the convergences of AVT and localization from the specific perspective of dubbing, in a product that, in turn, raises some questions about the genre it belongs to: the graphic adventure Detroit: Become Human (Quantic Dream, 2018). This chapter aims to highlight some of the differences and convergences between AVT and localization analyzing the dubbing synchronies applied in a video game belonging to a genre closer to traditional movies, compared to other adventure games, due to the strong presence of cinematic scenes and the lower level of interaction. The results will indicate that, even though clear differences can be found between the localization of a game and translation of non-interactive products, the convergences in terms of dubbing synchronies, par-ticularly in the cinematographic scenes, are quite evident.
Privileging Electric Vehicles as an Element of Promoting Sustainable Urban Mobility—Effects on the Local Transport System in a Large Metropolis in Poland

The main purpose of this article was to determine the impact on the equilibrium of the local transport system from privileging EVs by permitting them to use bus lanes. The study used two sets of data: information on infrastructure and traffic management; and information on the recorded road network loads and traffic volumes generated by a given shopping centre—the E. Leclerc shopping centre (an important traffic generator within the city of Łódź, Poland). These sets were then used to develop a microsimulation traffic model for the shopping centre and the associated effects on the localised transport system. The model was constructed by means of the PTV Vissim software tool. An initial simulation was conducted that formed a basis for subsequent scenarios (in total, 17 simulations were performed). On the basis of the conducted analyses, it was established that—for the researched part of the transport system—privileging the still rather uncommon battery electric vehicles (BEVs) engendered a marginal deterioration of traffic conditions. At the same time, allowing BEVs to use bus lanes within the chosen research area had no negative impact on bus journey times.