Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multisource Assessments of the FengYun-3D Microwave Humidity Sounder (MWHS) On-Orbit Performance

The microwave humidity sounder (MWHS) onboard the Fengyun-3D satellite is providing the data for profiling atmospheric temperature and moisture and has become an important data source for improving the weather forecasts. In this article, three data sources are utilized for assessing the MWHS on-orbit performance, including Global Navigation Satellite System Occultation Sounder (GNOS), ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts) Re-Analysis (ERA)-Interim reanalysis, and Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS) data. GNOS-retrieved atmospheric profiles and the reanalysis data are used as inputs to the community radiative transfer model (CRTM) for simulating the MWHS brightness temperatures at the top of the atmosphere in July 2018 for characterizing the instrument performance. Since ATMS is a well-calibrated microwave sounding instrument onboard both Suomi NPP and NOAA-20 satellites, its measurements are also collocated with MWHS data for a consensus analysis using the simultaneous nadir overpasses (SNOs) method. In comparing GNOS simulations, MWHS upper air temperature sounding channels (3–6) have relatively larger biases (less than 2.5 K) than the water vapor sounding channels. However, the standard deviation of the difference between observations and simulations (O-B) is larger for water vapor sounding channels. For ERA simulations, MWHS sounding channels exhibit negative biases similar to GNOS results but the standard deviation of O-B at the water vapor channels is much smaller. When compared with ATMS water vapor channels, MWHS biases are mostly negative and agree with those from ERA simulation. Thus, the large uncertainty in simulating MWHS water vapor sounding channels from GNOS could result from the poor input water vapor profiles and high water vapor variability in the lower troposphere.
A Network Monitoring Game with Heterogeneous Component Criticality Levels

We consider an attacker-operator game for monitoring a large–scale network that is comprised of components that differ in their criticality levels. In this zero-sum game, the operator seeks to position a limited number of sensors to monitor the network against the attacker who strategically targets a network component. The operator (resp. attacker) seeks to minimize (resp. maximize) the network loss. To study the properties of mixed-strategy Nash Equilibria of this game, we first study two simple instances: When component sets monitored from individual sensor locations are mutually disjoint; When only a single sensor is positioned, but with possibly overlapping monitoring component sets. Our analysis reveals new insights on how criticality levels impact the players equilibrium strategies. Next, we extend a previously developed approach to obtain an approximate Nash equilibrium in the general case. This approach uses solutions to minimum set cover and maximum set packing problems to construct an approximate Nash equilibrium. Finally, we implement a column generation procedure to improve this solution and numerically evaluate the performance of our approach.
Application of image stitching method in corrosion morphology analysis

Abstract. An image stitching technique is introduced to automatically composite a panorama of the corroded surface with a series of scanned microscopic corrosion images. In this method, the features in the overlapping area of adjacent corrosion images are extracted to establish the geometric transformation for registration, and the weighted average method is used to minimize the visible seam existing in the stitching result. A sequence images alignment strategy is introduced to complete the whole stitching process. The effect of overlapping area on stitching accuracy was examined and the advantage of applying image stitching method in corrosion morphology analysis is demonstrated by the segmentation of corrosion image with support vector machine (SVM) based on texture feature. The result shows that the high-resolution corrosion image can be segmented more accurately and easily. Therefore, it is believed that image stitching is a powerful method for the analysis of corrosion morphology in microscopic images, which could make the quantitative study of the corrosion process easier and more efficient.
Revisiting image ordinal estimation: how to deal with ordinal relationship in deep learning?

Abstract. Image ordinal estimation usually defined as a regression or classification problem is challenging in computer vision. Many recent works simply implement deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to get ideal results, while they have not analyzed why it works well as conventional computer vision methods. We revisit the problem of image ordinal estimation and propose two methods on ordinal estimation. First, a double-task convolutional neural network model (DTCNN) is proposed by combining classification and regression objectives. Then we have analyzed why DTCNN works well from three perspectives: (1) the ordinal relationship between two tasks, (2) the coarse/fine category level for two tasks, and (3) neurons’ activation on two tasks. To avoid choosing heuristic combination parameter, we further propose risk-based CNN (R-CNN) model to embed the ordinal constraint into classification task. Based on Bayesian risk rule, the category information and ordinal information are fused by a dynamic weighting loss function. Experimental results on two ordinal datasets show that both DTCNN and R-CNN obtain competitive performance.
Statement on imaging and pulmonary hypertension from the Pulmonary Vascular Research Institute (PVRI)

Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is highly heterogeneous and despite treatment advances it remains a life-shortening condition. There have been significant advances in imaging technologies, but despite evidence of their potential clinical utility, practice remains variable, dependent in part on imaging availability and expertise. This statement summarizes current and emerging imaging modalities and their potential role in the diagnosis and assessment of suspected PH. It also includes a review of commonly encountered clinical and radiological scenarios, and imaging and modeling-based biomarkers. An expert panel was formed including clinicians, radiologists, imaging scientists, and computational modelers. Section editors generated a series of summary statements based on a review of the literature and professional experience and, following consensus review, a diagnostic algorithm and 55 statements were agreed. The diagnostic algorithm and summary statements emphasize the key role and added value of imaging in the diagnosis and assessment of PH and highlight areas requiring further research.
Fabrication of solid lipid nanoparticles of lurasidone HCl for oral delivery: optimization, in vitro characterization, cell line studies and in vivo efficacy in schizophrenia

Abstract Objective: The aim of the present investigation was to investigate the efficacy of solid lipid nanoparticles (SLNs) to enhance the absorption and bioavailability of lurasidone hydrochloride (LH) following oral administration. Methods: The LH loaded SLNs (LH-SLNs) were prepared by high pressure homogenization (HPH) method, optimized using box Behnken design and evaluated for particle size (PS), entrapment efficiency (EE), morphology, FTIR, DSC, XRD, in vitro release, ex vivo permeation, transport studies across Caco-2 cell line and in vivo pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic studies. Results: The LH-SLNs had PS of 139.8 ± 5.5 nm, EE of 79.10 ± 2.50% and zeta potential of −30.8 ± 3.5 mV. TEM images showed that LH-SLNs had a uniform size distribution and spherical shape. The in vitro release from LH-SLNs followed the Higuchi model. The ex vivo permeability study demonstrated enhanced drug permeation from LH-SLNs (>90%) through rat intestine as compared to LH-suspension. The SLNs were found to be taken up by energy dependent, endocytic mechanism which was mediated by clathrin/caveolae-mediated endocytosis across Caco-2 cell line. The pharmacokinetic results showed that oral bioavailability of LH was improved over 5.16-fold after incorporation into SLNs as compared to LH-suspension. The pharmacodynamic study proved the antipsychotic potential of LH-SLNs in the treatment of schizophrenia. Conclusion: It was concluded that oral administration of LH-SLNs in rats improved the bioavailability of LH via lymphatic uptake along with improved therapeutic effect in MK-801 induced schizophrenia model in rats.
Liver transplantation: would it be the best and last chance of cure for hepatocellular carcinoma with major venous invasion?

Background Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) with portal vein tumour thrombus (PVTT) signifies advanced disease, whether LT confers any survival superiority over resection remains uncertain. Methods A propensity score matched (PSM) analysis of liver transplantation (LT) and liver resection (LR) for HCC with PVTT was performed. Results A consecutive series of 88 patients who received either LT (10 DDLTs and 3 LDLTs) or LR (n=75) respectively were recruited. Before PSM, the LT group has a higher MELD score (17.3 vs. 7.8, P<0.001), lower serum AFP levels (96 vs. 2,164 ng/mL, P=0.017) and smaller tumour size (4 vs. 10 cm, P<0.001). The 5-year overall survival for LT and LR were 55.4% and 15.9% respectively (P=0.007). After matching for serum AFP levels and tumour size, 1-, 3- and 5-year overall survival for LT were 81 ng/mL, 3.9 cm, 80%, 70% and 70% and the corresponding rates for LR were 1,417 ng/mL, 5.3 cm, 51.8%, 19,6% and 9.8% (P value =0.12, 0.27 and 0.009 respectively). Conclusions LT is associated with significantly better oncological outcomes in HCC patients with PVTT involving the lobar or segmental level. A modest expansion of selection criteria to include small HCC with segmental PVTT should be considered.
Study on the interaction of kojic acid with tyrosinase by spectroscopic methods

the interaction ABSTRACT Tyrosinase is the key enzyme in melanin synthesis, and kojic acid is a widely available inhibitor against tyrosinase with extensive application values. The inhibitory mechanism of kojic acid was elaborated by studying the mutual interaction and the effects on tyrosinase conformation using spectroscopy. Ultraviolet - visible absorption spectra showed kojic acid caused both the secondary and tertiary structure changed. Fluorescence lifetime measurements implied that kojic acid quenched the intrinsic fluorescence of tyrosinase via static process. A complex formed through one single binding site with a binding constant of 1.35×10 5 M - 1 . Thermodynamic parameters suggested that the binding was a spontaneous process with hydrogen bonds and van der Waals forces playing main role. Synchronous fluorescence spectra and three - dimensional fluorescence spectra showed that kojic acid induced obvious conformational changes in tyrosinase and increased the polarity of microenvironment. Circular dichroism revealed an increase of the content of α - helix and β - strand. This study will provide reliable basis concerning the inhibitory mechanism of kojic acid against tyrosinase, and therefore contribute to development of tyrosinase inhibitor.
Eddy flux measurements using an instrumented powered glider

An instrumented powered glider was used to measure eddy fluxes of heat and water vapour within the planetary boundary layer in summer over southern England. The errors involved in the method are analysed; it appears that individual 25km runs can give heat fluxes to±15W m−2 and latent heat fluxes to ±25W m−2. The significance of individual runs was tested for internal consistency, against budget methods and, for heat fluxes, against tethered balloon measurements. With a well-marked inversion and winds more than 5m s−1, heating rates agreed within 0.2K h−1. With light winds the discrepancies were larger; these are attributed to sampling problems. Latent heat fluxes could not be compared with budgets usefully, mainly because of the great variability encountered early in the day. The humidity measurements show the gradual establishment of the mixed layer. They show that sampling of the mean state of the boundary layer by single ascents, or of fluxes by 25km runs, may give misleading results. In light winds and deep boundary layers the heat flux carried by scales less than 3.5km was reduced, whereas the larger-scale latent heat flux was increased, in each case by a factor of 2.
Using Reverse Engineering for Building Ontologies with Deeper Taxonomies from Relational Databases

Deeper Taxonomies from Relational Databases Sara Sbai1*, Mohammed Reda Chbihi Louhdi2, Hicham Behja1, El Moukhtar Zemmouri3, Chakhmoune Rabab1 1 High National School of Electricity and Mechanics (ENSEM), Hassan II University, Casablanca, Morocco 2 Faculty of Sciences Ain Chock, Hassan II University, Casablanca, Morocco 3 High National School of Arts and Crafts (ENSAM), Meknes, Morocco * Corresponding author: email: sara.sbai4@gmail.com Manuscript submitted October 30, 2018; accepted December 20, 2018. doi: 10.17706/jsw.14. 3.138-145 Abstract: The relational model is characterized by its high quality and has been widely used by information systems. However, unlike the conceptual model, the relational model is semantically poor since it doesn’t enable the representation of inheritance. In this paper, we present an algorithmic approach to extract generalization/ specialization inheritance hierarchies. We perform a reverse engineering by analyzing stored data. Finally, we evaluated our approach by conducting several experiments on relational databases. The results were satisfying in terms of recovering the tables lost during the transformation from the entity relationship model to the relational model.
Analog Memristive CAMs for Area- and Energy-Efficient Reconfigurable Computing

Memory-based reconfigurable computing rose to outperform conventional FPGAs in logic function density, as well as being less impacted by the programmable interconnection. However, the major drawback is that the area and power overheads are significant, and this gets worse in high-density, high-performance Memory-based Computing (MBC) devices. In this brief, we investigate the usage of analog memristive CAMs to improve the area density of MBCs, thus enabling denser memories and smaller power consumption. Simulation results indicate significant area and energy savings, up to <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$2.2\times $ </tex-math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$2.6\times $ </tex-math></inline-formula>, respectively, compared to the non-volatile counterparts, at the cost of increasing latency by up to 20%.
Generalized spatial stick-breaking processes

Abstract This paper develops a Bayesian nonparametric model for skewed spatial data with nonstationary dependence structure. A transformed Gaussian model is proposed for the atoms of the kernel stick-breaking process by transforming the margins of a Gaussian process to flexible marginal distributions. This study proves that the correlation structure of the underlying spatial process is nonstationary. Results from both simulated and real datasets demonstrate that the proposed model possesses better spatial prediction performance and offers computational advantages compared to the Bayesian nonparametric model with the Gaussian base measure.
The effects of psyllium supplementation on body weight, body mass index and waist circumference in adults: A systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

Abstract Background: Previous studies reported inconsistent findings regarding the effects of psyllium supplementation on obesity measures. This systematic review and meta-analysis was performed to summarize data from available randomized clinical trials (RCTs) on the effect of psyllium supplementation on body weight, body mass index (BMI), and waist circumference (WC) in adults. Methods: PubMed, SCOPUS, Cochrane Library, and Google Scholar were searched to identify relevant articles up to August 2018. The effect sizes were presented as weighted mean difference (WMD) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) by using random effects model. To detect dose-response relationships, we used fractional polynomial modeling. Results: A total of 22 RCTs were included. Meta-analysis did not find any significant effect of psyllium supplementation on body weight (MD: −0.28 kg, 95% CI: −0.78, 0.21, p = 0.268), BMI (MD: −0.19 kg/m2, 95% CI: −0.55, 0.15, p = 0.27) and WC (MD: −1.2 cm, 95% CI: −2.6, 0.2, p = 0.09). Subgroup analysis showed that psyllium dosage, kind of psyllium administration, duration of trial, study design, sample size, and gender were potential sources of heterogeneity. Moreover, there was nonlinear association between duration of psyllium consumption, BMI and WC. Conclusion: Psyllium supplementation does not reduce body weight, BMI, and WC significantly.
Evaluation of implementation and operation mode of conservation planning of historic villages in the Pearl River Delta

ABSTRACT The renovation of ancient buildings and roadways as well as the improvement of green landscape and sanitation facilities of historic villages are mainly based on the conservation planning in the Pearl River Delta. The implementation mode of conservation planning is divided into the government leading type, the village committee leading type, the government and the tourism developers combined type, the village committee and the tourism developers combined type as well as the villagers’ self-government type. It finds that the historic villages of government and tourism developers combined type and the village committee and the tourism developers combined type achieve better results including the ancient buildings better repaired and reused and the public infrastructures perfect and the residents have higher satisfaction through field reconnaissance and survey statistics. By comparing the actual effect of the conservation and renewal of the historic villages and the evaluation of the residents’ satisfaction under different conservation plannings implementation it hopes to provide a reference for choosing a suitable conservation mode for historic villages in China and even in the world.
Hydroxyurea (hydroxycarbamide) for transfusion-dependent β-thalassaemia.

BACKGROUND Hydroxyurea (hydroxycarbamide) promotes the production of foetal haemoglobin (HbF) by reactivating gamma-genes. Evidence has shown clinical benefits of hydroxyurea in people with sickle cell anemia; however, only a few studies have assessed this treatment in people with beta (β)-thalassaemia. OBJECTIVES The primary objective is to review the efficacy of hydroxyurea in reducing or ameliorating the requirement of blood transfusions in people with transfusion-dependent β-thalassaemia. The second objective is to review the safety of hydroxyurea with regards to severe adverse effects in this population. SEARCH METHODS We searched the Cochrane Cystic Fibrosis and Genetic Disorders Group's Haemoglobinopathies Trials Register, compiled from electronic database searches and hand searching of journals and conference abstract books. We also searched electronic databases and trial registries, including ClinicalTrials.gov, the WHO ICTRP and PubMed (09 October 2018). Date of last search of the Group's haemoglobinopathies trials register: 04 March 2019. SELECTION CRITERIA Randomised controlled trials of hydroxyurea in people with transfusion-dependent β-thalassaemia, compared with placebo or standard treatment or comparing different doses of hydroxyurea. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS Two authors independently assessed trials for inclusion in the review, which was verified by a third author. MAIN RESULTS No trials were eligible for inclusion in this review. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS Currently, there is no high-quality evidence to support or challenge the continued use of hydroxyurea for managing people with transfusion-dependent β-thalassaemia. Multicentre, randomised controlled trials (compared to placebo or other available treatment, i.e. blood transfusion and iron chelation) are needed in order to assess the efficacy and safety of hydroxyurea for reducing the need for blood transfusion, for maintaining or improving mean haemoglobin levels, as well as for determining its cost-effectiveness.
Food Intake Actions Detection: An Improved Algorithm Toward Real-Time Analysis

With the increase in life expectancy, one of the most important topic for scientific research, especially for the elderly, is good nutrition. In particular, with an advanced age and health issues because disorders such as Alzheimer and dementia, monitoring the subjects’ dietary habits to avoid excessive or poor nutrition is a critical role. Starting from an application aiming to monitor the food intake actions of people during a meal, already shown in a previously published paper, the present work describes some improvements that are able to make the application work in real time. The considered solution exploits the Kinect v1 device that can be installed on the ceiling, in a top-down view in an effort to preserve privacy of the subjects. The food intake actions are estimated from the analysis of depth frames. The innovations introduced in this document are related to the automatic identification of the initial and final frame for the detection of food intake actions, and to the strong revision of the procedure to identify food intake actions with respect to the original work, in order to optimize the performance of the algorithm. Evaluation of the computational effort and system performance compared to the previous version of the application has demonstrated a possible real-time applicability of the solution presented in this document.
Prevalence and morphological studies on Sarcocystis species infecting cattle in Bangalore

Of the 100 cattle carcasses examined at Bangalore, Karnataka state, 84 (84%) were positive for Sarcocystis infection. Different techniques like muscle squash preparation, modification of muscle squash method, rapid isolation technique, acid-pepsin digestion and histopathology were undertaken for isolation and identification of Sarcocystis species. Three species of Sarcocystis viz. S. bovicanis (78.55%), S. bovifelis (34.50%) and S. bovihominis (21.42%) were detected after morphological studies. Different morphological characters like size, shape and structures on the cyst wall were considered for identification of Sacrocystis species. Screening in different muscle samples revealed that oesophagus (84.52%) and heart (79.76%) were most infected organs followed by diaphragm and tongue. Histopathological studies revealed microscopic lesions with infiltration of large number of lymphocytes around the affected muscle fibres.
Web Application to Support the Learning of Programming Through the Graphic Visualization of Programs

This paper presents a web application to support the learning of programming at the undergraduate level, which allows students to graphically visualize through animations the execution of programs written in the Java programming language. The web application supports the understanding of programs and the basic con-cepts of programming, such as declaration of variables, assignment of values to variables, use of control structures, and calls to functions with parameters. The development of the web application, its architecture and the three systems that compose it are presented: data collection, processing and representation. The op-eration of the web application is shown through three programs, for which their execution is visualized graphically.Educational technology, education computing, software understanding, software visualization