Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Local Transparency Control of Medical Slice Images and its Application to Slice-Slice and Slice-Volume Fusion

In medical visualization, 2D slice images of human volume data are important as well as 3D volume rendering. The slice images are advantageous in focusing on regions of interest, while the volume rendering enables us to easily observe the whole region. In this paper, we propose a method to (1) create a transparent slice image, where its opacity is controllable by a user-defined transfer function and to (2) fuse a transparent slice image with another slice image or a volume three-dimensionally with correct depth feel. The transparent slice-slice fusion enables a doctor to observe multiple slices simultaneously. The transparent slice-volume fusion enables a doctor to focus on regions of interest on the slice, while observing the whole volume data. Opacities of the constituent slice images and a volume are both flexibly controllable with user-defined transfer functions. Our method is based on the particle-based rendering, which we recently proposed. The rendering is executable with interactive frame rates.
Investing in the Personality Vulnerability Research Program--Current Dividends and Future Growth: Rejoinder to Coyne, Thompson, and Whiffen (2004).

The authors do not see any benefit to J. C. Coyne, R. Thompson, and V. Whiffen’s (2004) proposal todraw sharp boundaries between psychodynamic vulnerability theories, research on the onset of syndro-mal depression, and research with vulnerable, nondepressed populations. These domains have been andremain mutually relevant. Coyne et al. did not bring forward new evidence concerning the 6 issuesaddressed by D. C. Zuroff, M. Mongrain, and D. A. Santor (2004); consequently, the authors stand bytheir conclusions. According to Lakatos (as cited in B. Gholson & P. Barker, 1985), scientists justifiablycontinue to invest in research programs as long as the programs remain progressive. The personalityvulnerability program is theoretically and empirically progressive and merits continued investment.Nevertheless, the field would benefit if Coyne et al. articulated a systematic contextualist researchprogram to compete with the personality research program.
The Influence Of Technique On The Physical Demands Of Performing An Apprehension Task.: 950 Board #266 June 1, 2: 00 PM - 3: 30 PM.

Within law enforcement and military, the apprehension of a suspect is a common but critical physically demanding strength related task. However, a range of apprehension techniques can be used that may significantly modify the physical demands required to detain a suspect and therefore undermine its utility for inclusion as a bona-fide physical employment standard. PURPOSE: To determine the influence of using apprehension techniques on the force required to successfully detain a suspect. METHODS: Nine Royal Australian Air Force personnel (8 males, 1 female, age 25.6 ± 6.9 y) performed an arm retraction simulation on a non-compliant suspect (contained on the ground) to enable handcuffing. Four conditions were used; strength (control) and three apprehension technique conditions (striking, two person and pressure point), to assess the force required to retract the arm of the suspect. Peak isometric force (Newtons) required to retract the arm in each of the four conditions was measured using a 3.5 kN load cell attached to a wrist cuff using high-tensile rope. A one-way repeated measures ANOVA was used to assess differences between each condition. RESULTS: The use of technique to apprehend a suspect significantly reduced the peak isometric force required to retract the arm (Figure 1). However, there was no significant difference between each of the arm retraction techniques. CONCLUSION: The physical demands of performing an apprehension task were modified significantly with the use of technique. Therefore the inclusion of an apprehension task as a physical standard for employment appears to be problematic. Supported by a UOW/DST Group masters scholarship
Local temperatures inferred from plant communities suggest strong spatial buffering of climate warming across Northern Europe

Recent studies from mountainous areas of small spatial extent (<2500 km2) suggest that fine‐grained thermal variability over tens or hundreds of metres exceeds much of the climate warming expected for the coming decades. Such variability in temperature provides buffering to mitigate climate‐change impacts. Is this local spatial buffering restricted to topographically complex terrains? To answer this, we here study fine‐grained thermal variability across a 2500‐km wide latitudinal gradient in Northern Europe encompassing a large array of topographic complexities. We first combined plant community data, Ellenberg temperature indicator values, locally measured temperatures (LmT) and globally interpolated temperatures (GiT) in a modelling framework to infer biologically relevant temperature conditions from plant assemblages within <1000‐m2 units (community‐inferred temperatures: CiT). We then assessed: (1) CiT range (thermal variability) within 1‐km2 units; (2) the relationship between CiT range and topographically and geographically derived predictors at 1‐km resolution; and (3) whether spatial turnover in CiT is greater than spatial turnover in GiT within 100‐km2 units. Ellenberg temperature indicator values in combination with plant assemblages explained 46–72% of variation in LmT and 92–96% of variation in GiT during the growing season (June, July, August). Growing‐season CiT range within 1‐km2 units peaked at 60–65°N and increased with terrain roughness, averaging 1.97 °C (SD = 0.84 °C) and 2.68 °C (SD = 1.26 °C) within the flattest and roughest units respectively. Complex interactions between topography‐related variables and latitude explained 35% of variation in growing‐season CiT range when accounting for sampling effort and residual spatial autocorrelation. Spatial turnover in growing‐season CiT within 100‐km2 units was, on average, 1.8 times greater (0.32 °C km−1) than spatial turnover in growing‐season GiT (0.18 °C km−1). We conclude that thermal variability within 1‐km2 units strongly increases local spatial buffering of future climate warming across Northern Europe, even in the flattest terrains.
Long-term course of cognitive impairment in schizophrenia

Summary The aim of this study was to examine the long-term course of cognitive impairment in people with schizophrenia. Forty-three people with schizophrenia were followed up over an average of 33 years along with a control group of 12 matched individuals free from psychosis. Cognitive function was assessed at baseline and follow-up. The participants with schizophrenia were found to show impairment in verbal and non-verbal intelligence at baseline compared with estimated premorbid scores, this was not found in the control group. At follow-up there was a significant decline in non-verbal intelligence over time in participants with schizophrenia compared with controls (P=0.007). This differential change over time was not seen in verbal intelligence (P= 0.318).
Relationship between Social Support, Psychosocial Factors, and Health Behaviors in the Elderly

Background: The purpose of this study was to analyze the association between social support, psychosocial factors, and health behaviors of old adults in korean society. Methods: The data which was used in this study was extracted from the second wave of the Korean longitudinal study of aging in 2008. A total of 3,978 elderly aged 65 years or older were included in this study. We conducted X 2 -test, t-test for the elderly health behavior in accordance with their social support and psychosocial factors. Also, multivariate logistic regressive analysis was performed in order to find how degree social support and psychosocial factors are associated with health behavior after adjusting sex, age, smoking (alcohol drinking), and other significant variables. The data was processed by SAS ver. 9.1 and Stata SE ver. 11. Results: Social support in older adults was significantly associated with lower smoking, alcohol drinking, exercise, and eating habit. Also, psychosocial factors were positively associated with smoking, alcohol drinking, regular exercise, and eating habit. Conclusion: health behaviors of old adults are likely to be vulnerable to social support and psychosocial factors. To increase effec tiveness of the health policy for the elderly in Korea, it is important to adapt new strategy to include the empowerment of elderly’s social networks, policy support to enhance subjective expectation, and life satisfaction.
Evaluation of a two dimensional analysis method as a screening and evaluation tool for anterior cruciate ligament injury

Background: Increased knee valgus predicts the risk of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury, particularly in women. Reducing injury rates thus relies on detecting and continually evaluating people with relatively large valgus motions. Objectives: To examine the potential of a two dimensional (2D) video analysis method for screening for excessive valgus. Methods: Ten female and 10 male National Collegiate Athletic Association basketball players had three dimensional (3D) knee valgus and two dimensional (2D) frontal plane knee angle quantified during side step, side jump, and shuttle run tasks. 3D valgus was quantified from external marker coordinates using standard techniques, and 2D data were obtained from both the frontal plane projections of these coordinates (2D-Mot) and manual digitisation of digital video footage (2D-Cam). A root mean square (RMS) error was calculated between 2D-Mot and 2D-Cam data to evaluate the reliability of the latter. Correlations between 2D-Cam and 3D data (intersubject and intrasubject) were also conducted, and regression slope and r2 values obtained. Results: 2D-Cam and 2D-Mot data were consistent for side step (RMS = 1.7°) and side jump (RMS = 1.5°) movements. Between subjects, 2D-Cam and 3D data correlated well for the side step (r2 = 0.58) and side jump (r2 = 0.64). Within subjects, 2D-Cam and 3D data correlated moderately for the side step (r2 = 0.25 (0.19)) and side jump (r2 = 0.36 (0.27)). Conclusions: The 2D-Cam method can be used to screen for excessive valgus in elite basketball players, particularly for movements occurring primarily in the frontal plane. This method may also be a useful training evaluation tool when large reductions in dynamic valgus motions are required.
Adaptive Clustering of Search Results in Interactive Information Retrieval

Clustering of search results has been shown to be advantageous over the simple list presentation of search results. However, in most clustering interfaces, the clusters are not adaptive to a user’s interaction with the clustering results, and the important question “how to optimize the benefit of a clustering interface for a user” has not been well addressed in the previous work. In this paper, we study how to exploit a user’s clickthrough information, which is naturally available when a user is interacting with a clustering interface, to adaptively reorganize the clustering results and help a user find the relevant information more quickly. We propose four strategies for adapting clustering results based on user actions, including reranking documents based on a selected cluster, reranking documents based on a viewed document, merging unselected clusters, and promoting “near-miss” documents. Evaluation of the utility of a cluster presentation of results is a challenging task. We propose a general method to simulate different kinds of users and linearize the cluster results so that we can compute regular retrieval measures. The simulation experiments show that the adaptation strategies have different performance for different types of users; in particular, they are effective for “smart users” who can correctly recognize the best clusters, but not effective for “dummy users” who follow system’s ranking of results. We further conduct a user study on one of the four adaptive clustering strategies to see if an adaptive clustering system using such a strategy can bring users better search utility and/or experience than a static clustering system. The results show that there is generally no significant difference between the two systems from a user’s perspective.
The effects of speaking rate on listener evaluations of native and foreign-accented speech

This study tested the hypothesis that accented speech heard at a reduced rate would sound less accented and more comprehensible than speech produced at a normal rate. In 2 experiments, English native-speaker listeners rated a passage read by 10 high-proficiency Mandarin learners of English. In the first experiment, 20 listeners evaluated passages read slowly as more accented and less comprehensible than normal-rate passages. In the second experiment, in which a computer modified speaking rates, 20 new listeners preferred some speeded passages, but none of the slowed ones. Overall, the findings suggest that although native listeners may prefer to hear accented speech at slower rates, a general speaking strategy of slowing down may not help second language learners.
Widespread Lateral Gene Transfer from Intracellular Bacteria to Multicellular Eukaryotes

Although common among bacteria, lateral gene transfer—the movement of genes between distantly related organisms—is thought to occur only rarely between bacteria and multicellular eukaryotes. However, the presence of endosymbionts, such as Wolbachia pipientis, within some eukaryotic germlines may facilitate bacterial gene transfers to eukaryotic host genomes. We therefore examined host genomes for evidence of gene transfer events from Wolbachia bacteria to their hosts. We found and confirmed transfers into the genomes of four insect and four nematode species that range from nearly the entire Wolbachia genome (>1 megabase) to short (<500 base pairs) insertions. Potential Wolbachia-to-host transfers were also detected computationally in three additional sequenced insect genomes. We also show that some of these inserted Wolbachia genes are transcribed within eukaryotic cells lacking endosymbionts. Therefore, heritable lateral gene transfer occurs into eukaryotic hosts from their prokaryote symbionts, potentially providing a mechanism for acquisition of new genes and functions.
Low-power, wide supply voltage bandgap reference circuit in 28nm CMOS

This paper presents an integrated bandgap reference circuit which is addressing low current consumption and a wide supply voltage range, using a current mode structure. Embedded in a sophisticated Power Management Unit (PMU) for a GNSS receiver, this bandgap reference has an output of 0.60 V and it can reach a temperature coefficient of 33 ppm/°C in the range from -40 °C to 125 °C. With a 1.4 V supply voltage, the power is only 3.5 μW and the PSRR is 57 dB at DC frequency. Occupying 0.125 mm2 chip area, this bandgap reference has been implemented in the CMOS 28 nm technology from Globalfoundries and successfully validated in the lab.
Super-spherical core-shell nanoparticles: Nanostructured materials enabling applications in the visible regime

In this contribution, we present a non-conventional core-shell nanoparticle, named supersphere, for implementing optical devices whose performances cannot be easily achieved with conventional nanoparticles. Superspheres are solids with intermediate shape between a sphere and a cube, whose external boundaries are described by Lamè surface equation. Thanks to its particular shape, a core-shell supersphere resonates at a lower resonant frequency with respect to a conventional core-shell spherical nanoparticle with same electrical dimensions. Such a characteristic allows relaxing the fabrication constrains, i.e. extremely thin shells, typically required for making the conventional spherical core-shell nanoparticles to operate in the lowest region of the visible spectrum. Here, after having discussed the geometry and electrical response of a core-shell supersphere, we report some preliminary results on their successful employment in the implementation of three optical devices: a trasparent screen, a biosensor and a mantle cloak.
Internal and External Competition for Advertising Revenues in the Greek Radio Market

This study investigates both the internal competition for advertising revenues among radio stations and the external competition with other media. The study of the advertising revenues of the Greek radio market from 1988 to 2007 shows that there is a low concentration in the sector, allowing low barriers to entry. However, the radio market is inferior to other media regarding advertising revenues. A key reason is the constant decrease of the advertising cost, something that in the future may affect the intensity of competition and the quality of radio station content.
Both nonstructural proteins NS2B and NS3 are required for the proteolytic processing of dengue virus nonstructural proteins

The cleavages at the junctions of the flavivirus nonstructural (NS) proteins NS2A/NS2B, NS2B/NS3, NS3/NS4A, and NS4B/NS5 share an amino acid sequence motif and are presumably catalyzed by a virus-encoded protease. We constructed recombinant vaccinia viruses expressing various portions of the NS region of the dengue virus type 4 polyprotein. By analyzing immune precipitates of 35S-labeled lysates of recombinant virus-infected cells, we could monitor the NS2A/NS2B, NS2B/NS3, and NS3/NS4A cleavages. A polyprotein composed of NS2A, NS2B, and the N-terminal 184 amino acids of NS3 was cleaved at the NS2A/NS2B and NS2B/NS3 junctions, whereas a similar polyprotein containing only the first 77 amino acids of NS3 was not cleaved. This finding is consistent with the proposal that the N-terminal 180 amino acids of NS3 constitute a protease domain. Polyproteins containing NS2A and NS3 with large in-frame deletions of NS2B were not cleaved at the NS2A/NS2B or NS2B/NS3 junctions. Coinfection with a recombinant expressing NS2B complemented these NS2B deletions for NS2B/NS3 cleavage and probably also for NS2A/NS2B cleavage. Thus, NS2B is also required for the NS2A/NS2B and NS2B/NS3 cleavages and can act in trans. Other experiments showed that NS2B was needed, apparently in cis, for NS3/NS4A cleavage and for a series of internal cleavages in NS3. Indirect evidence that NS3 can also act in trans was obtained. Models are discussed for a two-component protease activity requiring both NS2B and NS3.
An evaluation of scheduling mechanisms for providing best-effort real-time communications in wide-area networks

The authors distinguish between four types of service that may be provided to real-time traffic by packet-switched networks, ranging from "need-blind" and "need-based best-effort" to "guaranteed throughput" and "bounded delay jitter" services. They evaluate a number of scheduling policies that offer need-based, best-effort service. They introduce hop-laxity (HL) scheduling which is based on the time remaining until the packet must reach its destination as well as the number of hops separating it from the destination. HL scheduling is evaluated through simulation and has been implemented within a BSD-based kernel and tested on the DARTnet network. The results indicate that HL scheduling tends to equalize delays between calls with large and small number of hops as compared to a FIFO discipline, reducing the 99.9% percentile of delay and the fraction of late packets. They compare HL scheduling to the FIFO+ discipline suggested by Clark et al., (see SIGCOMM Symposium on Communications Architectures and Protocols, p.14-26, 1992, and Computer Communication Review, vol.22, no.4) and find that their delay properties are similar. Other disciplines, such as minimum laxity or transit priority, may actually do more harm than good. <<ETX>>
Whole Genome Sequencing of Field Isolates Reveals Extensive Genetic Diversity in Plasmodium vivax from Colombia

Plasmodium vivax is the most prevalent malarial species in South America and exerts a substantial burden on the populations it affects. The control and eventual elimination of P. vivax are global health priorities. Genomic research contributes to this objective by improving our understanding of the biology of P. vivax and through the development of new genetic markers that can be used to monitor efforts to reduce malaria transmission. Here we analyze whole-genome data from eight field samples from a region in Cordóba, Colombia where malaria is endemic. We find considerable genetic diversity within this population, a result that contrasts with earlier studies suggesting that P. vivax had limited diversity in the Americas. We also identify a selective sweep around a substitution known to confer resistance to sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP). This is the first observation of a selective sweep for SP resistance in this species. These results indicate that P. vivax has been exposed to SP pressure even when the drug is not in use as a first line treatment for patients afflicted by this parasite. We identify multiple non-synonymous substitutions in three other genes known to be involved with drug resistance in Plasmodium species. Finally, we found extensive microsatellite polymorphisms. Using this information we developed 18 polymorphic and easy to score microsatellite loci that can be used in epidemiological investigations in South America. Author Summary Although P. vivax is not as deadly as the more widely studied P. falciparum, it remains a pressing global health problem. Here we report the results of a whole-genome study of P. vivax from Cordóba, Colombia, in South America. This parasite is the most prevalent in this region. We show that the parasite population is genetically diverse, which is contrary to expectations from earlier studies from the Americas. We also find molecular evidence that resistance to an anti-malarial drug has arisen recently in this region. This selective sweep indicates that the parasite has been exposed to a drug that is not used as first-line treatment for this malaria parasite. In addition to extensive single nucleotide and microsatellite polymorphism, we report 18 new genetic loci that might be helpful for fine-scale studies of this species in the Americas.
Treatment of Retinitis Pigmentosa-Associated Cystoid Macular Oedema Using Intravitreal Aflibercept (Eylea) despite Minimal Response to Ranibizumab (Lucentis): A Case Report

Background: We present an interesting case of bilateral retinitis pigmentosa (RP)-associated cystoid macular oedema that responded on two separate occasions to intravitreal injections of aflibercept, despite previously demonstrating only minimal response to intravitreal ranibizumab. This unique case would support a trial of intravitreal aflibercept for the treatment of RP-associated cystoid macular oedema. Case Presentation: A 38-year-old man from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, presented to the UK with a 3-year history of bilateral RP-associated cystoid macular oedema. Previous treatment with topical dorzolamide, oral acetazolamide, and intravitreal ranibizumab had demonstrated only minimal reduction of cystoid macular oedema. Following re-confirmation of the diagnosis by clinical examination and optical coherence tomography imaging, bilateral loading doses of intravitreal aflibercept were given. Central macular thickness reduced and the patient returned to Dubai. After 6 months, the patient was treated with intravitreal ranibizumab due to re-accumulation of fluid and the unavailability of aflibercept in Dubai. Only minimal reduction of central macular thickness was observed. Once available in Dubai, intravitreal aflibercept was administered bilaterally with further reduction of central macular thickness observed. Visual acuity remained stable throughout. Conclusions: This is the first case report to demonstrate a reduction of RP-associated CMO following intravitreal aflibercept, despite inadequate response to ranibizumab on two separate occasions. Aflibercept may provide superior action to other anti-VEGF medications due to its intermediate size (115 kDa) and higher binding affinity. This is worthy of further investigation in a large prospective cohort over an extended time to determine the safety and efficacy of intravitreal aflibercept for use in this condition.