Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Biological control of bio fi lms on membranes by metazoans

Traditionally, chemical and physical methods have been used to control biofouling on membranes by inactivating and removing the biofouling layer. Alternatively, the permeability can be increased using biological methods while accepting the presence of the biofouling layer. We have investigated two different types of metazoans for this purpose, the oligochaete Aelosoma hemprichi and the nematode Plectus aquatilis. The addition of these grazing metazoans in biofilm-controlled membrane systems resulted in a flux increase of 50% in presence of the oligochaetes (Aelosoma hemprichi), and a flux increase of 119e164% in presence of the nematodes (Plectus aquatilis) in comparison to the control system operated without metazoans. The change in flux resulted from (1) a change in the biofilm structure, from a homogeneous, cake-like biofilm to a more heterogeneous, porous structure and (2) a significant reduction in the thickness of the basal layer. Pyrosequencing data showed that due to the addition of the predators, also the community composition of the biofilm in terms of protists and bacteria was strongly affected. The results have implications for a range of membrane processes, including ultrafiltration for potable water production, membrane bioreactors and reverse osmosis. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Development of LGI 1 Antibody Encephalitis after Treatment of Lung Cancer

Autoimmune synaptic encephalitis is a disorder associated with antibodies targeting the cell surface of neurons or synaptic proteins. Neurological symptoms of autoimmune encephalitis include seizure, memory dysfunction, abnormal behavior, and cognitive impairment. Recently, most patients with idiopathic encephalitis have been identified with autoimmune encephalitis associated with antibodies directed against the extracellular domains of cell surface proteins, which are critical in regulating neuronal excitability. Such proteins include N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA), α-amino-3-hydroxy-5methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid (AMPA), and γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA)-B receptors, as well as the voltage-gated K channel complex, consisting of leucine-rich, glioma-inactivated 1 (LGI1) and contactin-associated protein-like 2 (CASPR2). LGI1 protein has significant roles in synaptic transmission and myelination; therefore, autoantibodies against LGI1 protein would be a pathogenic cause of autoimmune encephalitis. However, the mechanism underlying LGI1 antibody encephalitis is not fully understood. Also, LGI1-antibody encephalitis has been weakly associated with cancer, in relation to paraneoplastic limbic encephalitis. Despite this weak association with cancer, the presence of LGI1 antibodies and related clinical features are significant. These conditions presenting LGI1 antibody respond well to immunotherapy and sometimes are associated with hidden malignancy. Here we describe an unusual paraneoplastic case of LGI1 antibody encephalitis in a 72-year-old man presenting with symptoms of status epilepticus. Unlike previous cases of LGI1 antibody encephalitis with tumor, our patient’s encephalitis developed after surgical removal of and chemotherapy for lung cancer.
The ER stress factor XBP 1 s prevents amyloid-b neurotoxicity

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is an incurable neurodegenerative disorder clinically characterized by progressive cognitive impairment. A prominent pathologic hallmark in the AD brain is the abnormal accumulation of the amyloid-b 1–42 peptide (Ab), but the exact pathways mediating Ab neurotoxicity remain enigmatic. Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress is induced during AD, and has been indirectly implicated as a mediator of Ab neurotoxicity. We report here that Ab activates the ER stress response factor X-box binding protein 1 (XBP1) in transgenic flies and in mammalian cultured neurons, yielding its active form, the transcription factor XBP1s. XBP1s shows neuroprotective activity in two different AD models, flies expressing Ab and mammalian cultured neurons treated with Ab oligomers. Trying to identify the mechanisms mediating XBP1s neuroprotection, we found that in PC12 cells treated with Ab oligomers, XBP1s prevents the accumulation of free calcium (Ca) in the cytosol. This protective activity can be mediated by the downregulation of a specific isoform of the ryanodine Ca channel, RyR3. In support of this observation, a mutation in the only ryanodine receptor (RyR) in flies also suppresses Ab neurotoxicity, indicating the conserved mechanisms between the two AD models. These results underscore the functional relevance of XBP1s in Ab toxicity, and uncover the potential of XBP1 and RyR as targets for AD therapeutics.
Quantization of the rolling-body problem with applications to motion planning

The problem of manipulation by low-complexity robot hands is a key issue since many years. The performance of simplified hardware manipulators relies on the exploitation of nonholonomic effects that occur in rolling. Beside this issue, more recently, the attention of the scientific community has been devoted to the problems of finite capacity communication channels and of constraints on the complexity of computation. Quantization of controls proved to be efficient for dealing with such kinds of limitations. With this in mind, we consider the rolling of a pair of smooth convex objects, one on top of the other, under quantized control. The analysis of the reachable set is performed by exploiting the geometric nature of the system which helps in reducing to the case of a group acting on a manifold. The cases of a plane, a sphere and a body of revolution rolling on an arbitrary surface are treated in detail. © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Evaluating structural robustness of a diesel-degrading bacterial consortium isolated from 6 contaminated soil 7 8

38 It is unknown whether diesel-degrading bacterial communities are structurally and functionally 39 robust when exposed to different hydrocarbon types. Here, we exposed a diesel-degrading 40 consortium to model either alkanes, cycloalkanes, or aromatic hydrocarbons as carbon sources to 41 study its structural resistance. The structural resistance of the consortium was low, with changes in 42 relative abundances of up to four orders of magnitude, depending on hydrocarbon type and bacterial 43 taxon. The low resistance is explained by the presence of hydrocarbon-degrading specialists in the 44 consortium and differences in the growth kinetics on individual hydrocarbons. However, despite 45 this low resistance, the structural and functional resilience were high, as verified by re-exposing the 46 hydrocarbon-perturbed consortium to diesel fuel. The high resilience is either due to the short 47 exposure time, insufficient for permanent changes in consortium structure and function, or the 48 ability of some consortium members to be maintained during exposure on degradation intermediates 49 produced by other members. In summary, the consortium is expected to cope with short term 50 exposures to narrow carbon feeds while maintaining its structural and functional integrity, which 51 remains an advantage over biodegradation approaches using single species cultures. 52 53
Dietary fats and exercise

Despite the great importance of lipids in many biological functions, little is known about the effects of different types of fats on muscle composition and physical performance. In this study, the levels of essential polyunsaturated fatty acids in the diets of male rats were manipulated in order to determine whether the composition of skeletal muscle membranes would be altered and if so, the function of isolated skeletal muscles and whole animal performance. Three isocaloric diets (providing 10% fat), were developed. An essential fatty acid deficient (EFAD) diet contained 1 % n 6 and 0.2% n 3 fatty acids; a polyunsaturated fatty acid diet (PUFA) enriched diet contained 3 5 % n 6 and 21 % n 3 fatty acids and a Control diet contained 5 1 % n 6 and 9 % n 3 fatty acids. Weanling litter-mates were assigned at random to dietary groups and maintained on their test diets for nine weeks, followed by zero, two or six weeks recovery on normal rat pellets. Groups of rats were tested at each of these stages and results were analysed by 2-way A N O V A , with diet and litter as factors. Membrane fatty acid analysis revealed that the total proportions of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids remained constant between the three dietary groups. However, the proportions of unsaturated fats in the membranes reflected the proportions of unsaturated fats in the diets. In the E F A D group, essential fatty acid deficiency was verified using the triene-tetraene ratio (> 0.5 in both soleus and E D L ) . Effects on membrane composition in soleus muscles ("slow-twitch") and
Physically based synthetic image generation for machine learning: a review of pertinent literature

The term deep learning is almost on everyone's lips these days, in the area of computer vision manly because of the great advances deep learning approaches have made amongst others in object detection and classification. For general object location or classification tasks there do exist several giant databases containing several millions of labeled images and several thousands of different labels like COCO and ImageNet. In contrast in industrial applications like quality inspection there do hardly ever exist such training data not only for reasons of confidentiality of trade secrets. An obvious way to remedy this deficiency is the synthetic creation of image data. Physically based rendering attempts to achieve photorealistic images by accurately simulating the ow of light of the real world according to various physical laws. Therefor multiple techniques like Ray Tracing and Path Tracing have been implemented and are becoming increasingly widespread as hardware performance increases. The intent of this article is to give a wide but nevertheless preferably comprehensive overview which approaches have been pursued in recent literature to generate realistic synthetic training images. The development of various rendering methods from rasterization to bidirectional Monte Carlo path tracing is outlined, as well as their differences and use. Along with the terminology a few mathematical foundations like the Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) are briefly described. Altogether specially concern is given to industrial data and quality control, comparing literature and the practical application of its results.
Principle and structure of a printed circuit board process–based piezoelectric microfluidic pump integrated into printed circuit board

Considering mature printed circuit board processes, researches on microfluidic pumps that can be integrated into printed circuit board will provide a solution for further miniaturization and integration of microfluidic systems with low costs. The principle and structure of a printed circuit board process–based piezoelectric microfluidic pump integrated into printed circuit board are proposed and realized in this article. The printed circuit board process–based design and manufacturing technology of a piezoelectric microfluidic pump integrated into printed circuit board is researched utilizing printed circuit board as a platform. The flow characteristics of the fabricated microfluidic pump are experimentally tested. The research results show that the proposed principle and structure of the piezoelectric microfluidic pump can be fabricated utilizing mature printed circuit board process with advantages of simple structure and convenient processing. The fabricated printed circuit board process–based microfluidic pump can linearly pump in and pump out fluid with self-injection. Moreover, the flow rate and back pressure can be controlled by changing the peak-to-peak value, frequency, and phase difference of the driving voltages. The instantaneous flow rate has the pulsation property consistent with the drive voltage frequency. The proposed principle and structure are beneficial to integrate the fabricated printed circuit board process–based microfluidic pump with other microfluidic components to realize complicated microfluidic systems on printed circuit board.
Portability of the fragmented l1-norm transform for massively parallel processing

White light interferometry is a major optical non-contact and therefore nondestructive testing method for nanostructures and surface reconstruction. By the reason of scanning, the data throughput is high and the resulting data stack can exceed gigabytes of raw data. Effective data compression was realized in an FPGA early in the signaling cascade. On the one hand this can significantly boost the achievable data throughput from the sensor, on the other hand the compression results in fragmented raw data with non-equidistant sampling steps and is therefore incompatible with FFT based reconstruction algorithms. In order to face this issue the fragmented l1- norm transform (flot) was developed. The flot reconstruction algorithm is a symbiosis of the l1-norm known from compressive sensing and additionally the wavelet-transform. In contrast to the traditional wavelet-transform the flot algorithm has no dependence on FFT and can quickly handle non-equidistant sampled data. Raw data is heavily independent between pixels in white light interferometry by design. Therefore, implementing the re- construction algorithm on massively parallel hardware is promising. In the last decade this usually meant data processing on GPUs. Nowadays alternatives in the form of affordable CPU clusters or easy to program FPGAs gain importance. OpenCL is a framework to accelerate highly parallel problems on all of the three platforms. In this paper the implementation of the flot algorithm in OpenCL will be explained, compared by speed and power consumption and categorized for suitable use-cases.
FPGA-based lens undistortion and image rectification for stereo vision applications

Lens undistortion and image rectification is a commonly used pre-processing, e.g. for active or passive stereo vision to reduce the complexity of the search for matching points. The undistortion and rectification is implemented in a field programmable gate array (FPGA). The algorithm is performed pixel by pixel. The challenges of the implementation are the synchronisation of the data streams and the limited memory bandwidth. Due to the memory constraints, the algorithm utilises a pre-computed lossy compression of the rectification maps by a ratio of eight. The compressed maps occupy less space by ignoring the pixel indexes, sub-sampling both maps, and reducing repeated information in a row by forming differences to adjacent pixels. Undistorted and rectified images are calculated once without and once with the compressed transformation map. The deviation between the different computed images is minimal and negligible. The functionality of the hardware module, the decompression algorithm and the processing pipeline are described. The algorithm is validated on a Xilinx Zynq-7020 SoC. The stereo setup has a baseline with 46 mm and non-converged optical axis between the cameras. The cameras are configured at 1.3 Mpix @ 60 fps and distortion correction and rectification is performed in real time during image capture. With a camera resolution of 1280 pixels × 960 pixels and a maximum vertical shift of ± 20 pixels, the efficient hardware implementation utilizes 12 % of available block RAM resources.
Automatic crack detection on concrete floor images

This paper presents an algorithm detecting automatically a wide variety of cracks on monochrome images of concrete floors. It is part of a vision system, generating a crack map to support the condition monitoring for buildings. The suggested method uses successively radiometric, geometric and contextual information. An automatic supervised adaptive intensity-threshold method handles radiometry information. A threshold-based method was chosen because it can separate even thin cracks from the background. In order to cope with different image cluster intensities, first a clustering algorithm separates regions of different intensities, and second the threshold is adaptive at the cluster level; being a continuous function of the cluster intensity. At some points, function values were learned via supervised classification. Then, we performed an interpolation between these points in order to get a threshold whatever the cluster intensity (continuity). At this step, we have a thresholded image. However, due to texture, non-crack dark defects and dirtiness we have false positives. In order to overcome this problem, connected pixels are grouped into regions, and after discarding small regions, a size-dependent geometrical shape filter is suggested. The shape of a crack region depends on its area, and this relation was empirically learned. A region is retained if its shape features are above some area depending thresholds. However, mainly due to texture, we have still false positives because some non-crack entities have radiometry and geometry of cracks. Fortunately, they are often small isolated regions and are discarded via an isolation filter. Tests performed on many images show very encouraging results.
Spectral near field data of LED systems for optical simulations

This work presents, summarizes and validates a fast, accurate and general measurement and modeling technique to obtain spectral near field data of LED systems in order to improve the optical design process of modern high quality LED systems. It requires only a minimum of goniophotometric near field measurements as well as no time-consuming angularly resolved spectral measurements. The procedure is named physically motivated basis spectra (PMBS) as its main assumption is that each piece of angularly and spatially varying spectral information can be described as the weighted sum of its physical basis spectra such as the individual semiconductors or a phosphor. Based on detailed spectral information regarding the goniophotometric measurement setup, the spectral model is obtained by solving a simple system of linear equations using the obtained near field measurements. The complete process is validated and applied to different state-of-the-art LED systems. The obtained results can be used directly in state-of-the-art ray tracers.
HMI-testing for (non-) automated vehicles in urban connected mixed traffic: cooperative lane change

Lane changing actions in urban traffic can be highly risky. Drivers need to choose gaps in traffic flow adequately and synchronize their driving behavior with directly surrounding vehicles. Especially in urgent cases such as an approaching emergency vehicle, successful and safe lane changes are of high value. Automating vehicles as well as the use of innovative communication technologies could reduce this potential hazard, as advanced vehicles will be able to cooperate and negotiate maneuvers efficiently. Making these processes transparent and comprehensible to the driver is not only inevitable for the acceptance of these innovations, but in consequence also for establishing a safer and more efficient traffic. For this purpose, two different human machine interface (HMI) concepts for users of highly automated connected vehicles as well as for non-automated connected vehicles have been developed and evaluated w.r. t. usability aspects, acceptability and subjective workload.
Where we come from and where we are going: a review of automated driving studies

During the last decade, research has conducted a large amount of studies that investigated driving automation from the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) perspective. Due to the many possibilities for study design concerning investigated constructs, data collection and parameters, at present, the pool of findings is heterogeneous and nontransparent. This literature review applies a structured approach in reviewing scientific papers that investigated driving automation and allows a statement on the status quo of existing methodological approaches. Most studies focused on safety followed by trust and acceptance. Driving/Take-Over Request (TOR) performance also marked a significant portion, however many different parameters are investigated. First results identify gaps to be addressed in future studies and allow researchers to investigate known constructs with established methods.
Primary Mediastinal Large B-Cell Lymphoma: Saudi Lymphoma Group's Clinical Practice Guidelines for Diagnosis, Management and Follow-up

Department of Oncology, King Abdulaziz Medical City, Ministry of National Guard Health Affairs‐Central Region, 1Department of Adult Hematology and BMT, Comprehensive Cancer Center, King Fahad Medical City, 3Department of Medicine, College of Medicine, King Saud University, 5College of Medicine, Alfaisal University, 9Medical Oncology Department, Prince Sultan Military Medical City, Riyadh, 2Oncology Institute, John Hopkins Aramco Healthcare, Dhahran, 4Department of Oncology, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre, 6College of Medicine, King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, 7Adult Medical Oncology, Princess Noorah Oncology Center, King Abdulaziz Medical City, Ministry of National Guard Health Affairs‐Western Region, Jeddah, 8Adult Hematology and Stem Cell Transplantation Department, King Fahad Specialist Hospital, Dammam, Saudi Arabia, 10Clinical Oncology Department, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt Clinical Guidelines
A causal model of critical thinking in a sample of Iranian medical students: associations with self-esteem, hardiness, and positive affect

Background: Medical students’ ability to think critically influences professional decision-making processes and may have direct and indirect implications for the quality of medical care. Few studies have previously investigated the role of psychological factors in the prediction of critical thinking among university students. The current study addresses the testing a model that examines the effect of self-esteem, psychological hardiness (the positive capacity to cope with stress) and positive affect (how much emotions are experienced as positive affects) on critical thinking. Methods: In a cross-sectional study, 200 medical sciences students enrolled at the Babol University of Medical Sciences (Babol City, Iran) were randomly invited to enter the study during the 2014/15 academic year. The participants completed four reliable and valid questionnaires: California Critical Thinking Skills Test Form B (CCTST-B); Positive Affect Schedule (PAS); Ahvaz Psychological Hardiness Inventory (AHI); and Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES). A causal model of the relationship between variables was tested using path analysis. We used the software Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) v.23 for the regression model to test the suitable models and fitness of the components. P<0.05 was considered significant. Results: Self-esteem had a significant positive direct effect on critical thinking (β=0.458). The number of semesters the students had passed had a significant direct effect on critical thinking (β=0.249). Neither psychological hardiness nor positive affect had direct effects on the students’ critical thinking. An indirect positive mediating effect was revealed between psychological hardiness and critical thinking through self-esteem (β=0.177). Also, positive affect had an indirect significant effect on critical thinking through self-esteem (β=0.189). Conclusion: Self-esteem mediates the effect of psychological hardiness and positive affect on critical thinking in medical students.