Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Logarithmic spiral grid and gaze control for the development of strategies of visual segmentation on a document

The paper presents a page segmentation method which is based on perception phenomena and displays the unequal importance of information in the visual field. The access of information is directly linked to the search of attractive areas. This search is based on the idea of freeing oneself from an unbending physical structure and from a uniform vertical and horizontal scanning of the document, so as to classify the data in order of importance and interest. Using a space variant geometry for block selection, the page image, instead of being represented by a bitmap format, can be abstractly represented by the block format. This space variant geometry lays a sound basis for elaborating the kinetics of the ocular shifting on a document, which provides not only a meaningless document representation in blocks, but shows a unified view corresponding to the integration of time variant representations of the same visual field.
Aqueous humor dynamics in pigment dispersion syndrome.

OBJECTIVE To assess aqueous humor dynamics in pigment dispersion syndrome (PDS). METHODS Four groups of age-matched participants included 2 experimental groups with PDS (PDS with ocular hypertension [PDS-OHT], 17 eyes; PDS without ocular hypertension [PDS-ONT], 18 eyes) and 2 control groups without PDS (OHT, 18 eyes; ONT, 18 eyes). Assessments included intraocular pressure measured by pneumatonometry, episcleral venous pressure by venomanometry, aqueous flow and outflow facility by fluorophotometry, corneal thickness and anterior chamber depth by pachymetry, and uveoscleral outflow by mathematical calculation. Comparisons were made by analysis of variance and 2-tailed unpaired t tests. RESULTS The PDS-OHT group had higher intraocular pressures than the ONT and PDS-ONT groups (P < .001) and higher episcleral venous pressure (P = .04) and lower outflow facility (P = .01) than the ONT group. Anterior chamber volume was larger in the PDS-OHT group than in the other groups (P < .05 for all). No other comparisons between the PDS-OHT group and the other groups yielded statistically significant differences at a significance level of less than . 05. CONCLUSIONS The elevated intraocular pressure in PDS is caused by reduced outflow facility. This differs from OHT without PDS, in which reductions in uveoscleral outflow and outflow facility have been reported.
Decreased Hyaluronan Concentration during Primary Rhegmatogenous Retinal Detachment

Purpose To evaluate the concentration and molecular weight of hyaluronan (HA) polysaccharides as well as hyaluronidase activity in patients with rhegmatogenous retinal detachment (RRD). Methods Twenty vitreous samples from 20 patients with RRD and 19 samples from 19 patients with idiopathic epiretinal membrane, macular hole, or vitreomacular traction syndrome were collected during surgical management with pars plana vitrectomy. The molecular weight of various HA fragments was assessed using agarose gel electrophoresis. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was employed for the measurement of HA (in μg/mL). Hyaluronidase activity was evaluated using substrate (HA) sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Results Agarose gel electrophoresis showed that the vitreous of the control group contained HA of high molecular mass, in contrast with the patient group. Mean HA concentration in the patient group was 50.96 μg/mL and differed significantly from that of the control group, which was 271.81 μg/mL (p<0.0005). Hyaluronidase activity was significantly higher in the vitreous of patients with RRD (p = 0.037). Conclusions The vitreous of patients with RRD is characterized by decreased HA concentration compared to controls of the same age and sex and shows higher hyaluronidase catalytic activity. Hyaluronan degradation could be associated with specific vitreous alterations that potentially contribute to retinal break formation and consequently detachment.
Consistency and Random Constraint Satisfaction Models

In this paper, we study the possibility of designing non-trivial random CSP models by exploiting the intrinsic connection between structures and typical-case hardness. We show that constraint consistency, a notion that has been developed to improve the efficiency of CSP algorithms, is in fact the key to the design of random CSP models that have interesting phase transition behavior and guaranteed exponential resolution complexity without putting much restriction on the parameter of constraint tightness or the domain size of the problem. We propose a very flexible framework for constructing problem instances with interesting behavior and develop a variety of concrete methods to construct specific random CSP models that enforce different levels of constraint consistency. A series of experimental studies with interesting observations are carried out to illustrate the effectiveness of introducing structural elements in random instances, to verify the robustness of our proposal, and to investigate features of some specific models based on our framework that are highly related to the behavior of backtracking search algorithms.
Theoretical Foundations for Abstraction-Based Probabilistic Planning

Modeling worlds and actions under uncertainty is one of the central problems in the framework of decision-theoretic planning. The representation must be general enough to capture real-world problems but at the same time it must provide a basis upon which theoretical results can be derived. The central notion in the framework we propose here is that of the affine-operator, which serves as a tool for constructing (convex) sets of probability distributions, and which can be considered as a generalization of belief functions and interval mass assignments. Uncertainty in the state of the worlds is modeled with sets of probability distributions, represented by affine-trees, while actions are defined as tree-manipulators. A small set of key properties of the affine-operator is presented, forming the basis for most existing operator-based definitions of probabilistie action projection and action abstraction. We derive and prove correct three projection rules, which vividly illustrate the precision-complexity tradeoff in plan projection. Finally, we show how the three types of action abstraction identified by Haddawy and Doan are manifested in the present framework.
Carbon nanotube surfaces for low force contact application

This thesis focuses on developing a testing method to estimate the mechanical and electrical characteristics of CNT-based contact surfaces. In particular the use of gold thin films deposited on a CNT forest has potential to offer a very effective contact surface. Two different pieces of experimental apparatus were used in this research to determine the mechanical and electrical properties of gold/multi-walled carbon nanotube (Au/MWCNT) composites: 1) a modified nano-indentation; and 2) a PZT actuator test rig. These apparatuses were used to mimic force-displacement and contact behaviour of the MEMS relay? s contact at a maximum load of 1 mN with dry-circuit and hot-switched conditions. The surfaces were compared with reference Au-Au and Au-MWCNT contact pairs studied under the same experimental conditions. In the modified nano-indentation experiment, tests of up to 10 cycles were performed. The results showed that the Au-MWCNT pair electrical contact resistance improved when the Au-Au/MWCNT pair was used. Additionally the Au-Au/MWCNT pair electrical contact resistance (Rc) was comparable with the Au-Au contact pair. When the Au-Au/MWCNT composite surface is in contact with the Au hemispherical probe it provides a compliant surface. It conforms to the shape of the Au hemispherical probe. For a higher number of cycles, a PZT actuator was used to support Au/MWCNT planar coated surfaces. This surface makes electrical contact with a gold coated hemispherical probe to mimic the actuation of a MEMS relay? s contact at higher actuation frequencies. This apparatus allows the performance of the contact materials to be investigated over large numbers of switching cycles. Different current loads were used in this experiment, 1mA, 10mA, 20mA and 50mA at 4V supply. The Rc of these surfaces was investigated as a function of the applied force under repeated cycles. Under current loads of 1mA and 10mA the Au/MWCNT composite surface provides a stable contact resistance of up to more than a million cycles and no degradation was observed on the surface. Compared with Au-Au contact pair, degradation occurred after 220 cycles. The Au-Au contact pair shows delamination of the Au surface on the probe. The possible reason is the softening or melting of the Au surface. Furthermore, under higher current loads of 20mA to 50mA, degradation had occurred after 50 million cycles (at 20mA) and degradation had occurred at around 45 to 150 cycles for 50mA to 30mA respectively. This is because of the softening or melting of the Au and Au fatigue after a large number of cycles. This study is the first step to show the potential of CNT surfaces as an interface in low force electrical contact applications. With this research, current trends in materials used on contacts and fabrication methods can be explored and even modified or adopted. The use of CNT? s and their composites for contacts can be tested using the available apparatus to look at their performance and reliability in terms of mechanical and electrical properties. This is useful for MEMS contacts that form part of MEMS relay devices.
Virtual/Real Transfer of Spatial Knowledge: Benefit from Visual Fidelity Provided in a Virtual Environment and Impact of Active Navigation

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect the visual fidelity of a virtual environment (VE) (undetailed vs. detailed) has on the transfer of spatial knowledge based on the navigation mode (passive vs. active) for three different spatial recall tasks (wayfinding, sketch mapping, and picture sorting). Sixty-four subjects (32 men and 32 women) participated in the experiment. Spatial learning was evaluated by these three tasks in the context of the Bordeaux district. In the wayfinding task, the results indicated that the detailed VE helped subjects to transfer their spatial knowledge from the VE to the real world, irrespective of the navigation mode. In the sketch-mapping task, the detailed VE increased performances compared to the undetailed VE condition, and allowed subjects to benefit from the active navigation. In the sorting task, performances were better in the detailed VE; however, in the undetailed version of the VE, active learning either did not help the subjects or it even deteriorated their performances. These results are discussed in terms of appropriate perceptive-motor and/or spatial representations for each spatial recall task.
Lignans from the wood of Abies pinsapo.

Several lignans have been isolated from the CHCl3 extract of the wood of Abies pinsapo. These include the new compounds 4,4',9-trihydroxy-3,3'-dimethoxy-9,9'-epoxylignan [2], (9'R)-9'-hydroxylariciresinol [5], and (7'R)-7'-hydroxylariciresinol [7], as well as a novel sesquilignan with the structure (8R,8'R,8"R,9R)-4',4",9,9"-tetrahydroxy-3,3',3"-trimethoxy-4,8":. 9, 9'-bis-epoxy-8,8'-sesquineolignan [8], to which we have assigned the trivial name sesquipinsapol C. Compound 2 has been identified as a mixture of epimers, while compounds 5, 7, and 8 were obtained their acetoxyl derivatives. The new structures were established by spectroscopic methods and chemical transformations. Certain antimicrobial and cytotoxic activity assays have been carried out and applied to the isolates from A. pinsapo.
An Off-the-shelf Approach to Authorship Attribution

Authorship detection is a challenging task due to many design choices the user has to decide on. The performance highly depends on the right set of features, the amount of data, in-sample vs. out-of-sample settings, and profile- vs. instance-based approaches. So far, the variety of combinations renders off-the-shelf methods for authorship detection inappropriate. We propose a novel and generally deployable method that does not share these limitations. We treat authorship attribution as an anomaly detection problem where author regions are learned in feature space. The choice of the right feature space for a given task is identified automatically by representing the optimal solution as a linear mixture of multiple kernel functions (MKL). Our approach allows to include labelled as well as unlabelled examples to remedy the in-sample and out-of-sample problems. Empirically, we observe our proposed novel technique either to be better or on par with baseline competitors. However, our method relieves the user from critical design choices (e.g., feature set) and can therefore be used as an off-the-shelf method for authorship attribution.
A common mutant epidermal growth factor receptor confers enhanced tumorigenicity on human glioblastoma cells by increasing proliferation and reducing apoptosis.

Alterations of the EGFR gene occur frequently in human gliomas where the most common is an in-frame deletion of exons 2-7 from the extracellular domain, resulting in a truncated mutant receptor (deltaEGFR or de 2-7 EGFR). We previously demonstrated that introduction of deltaEGFR into human U87MG glioblastoma cells (U87MG.deltaEGFR) conferred remarkably enhanced tumorigenicity in vivo. Here, we show by cell-mixing experiments that the enhanced tumorigenicity conferred by deltaEGFR is attributable to a growth advantage intrinsic to cells expressing the mutant receptor. We analyzed the labeling index of the proliferation markers Ki-67 and bromodeoxyuridine and found that tumors derived from U87MG.deltaEGFR cells had significantly higher labeling indexes than those of tumors derived from U87MG cells that were either naive, expressed kinase-deficient mutants of deltaEGFR, or overexpressed exogenous wild-type EGFR. We also utilized terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated nick end-labeling assays and showed that the apoptotic index of U87MG.deltaEGFR tumors was more than 4-fold lower than that of parental U87MG tumors. This decrease in cell death was inversely correlated with the expression level of Bcl-X(L), a negative regulator of apoptosis, which was more than 3-fold higher in U87MG.deltaEGFR-derived tumors than in those derived from parental cells. Similar observations were obtained in vitro in serum-free conditions. These results suggest that deltaEGFR exerts its pronounced enhancement of glioblastoma tumorigenicity by stimulating proliferation and inhibiting apoptosis and that the effects are directly attributable to its constitutively active signal.
Shield effectiveness of a metallic box with apertures: electromagnetic field configuration

Metallic boxes are used to protect electronic equipment from spurious electromagnetic interference. In many situations, these boxes present apertures that reduce their shield effectiveness, allowing undesirable electromagnetic field coupling to the interior of the box. The knowledge of the electromagnetic field coupling inside a metallic enclosure is relevant information for hardware designers. A TLM-based procedure was developed to obtain the electromagnetic field maps for shield effectiveness evaluation at every point of interest.
Success of a steroid‐minimization immunosuppression protocol for renal transplantation in the presence of donor‐specific antibodies

Abstract: Steroid‐minimization regimens have gained tremendous popularity for renal Tx in the recent past since they are associated with lower metabolic complications and other adverse effects related to long‐term steroid exposure. Most such protocols have been restricted to low‐risk recipients due to the concern for acute rejection with steroid‐minimization. Herein, we report our experience in managing a child who received a positive flow cytometry cross‐match living donor kidney transplant with low titer DSA and was successfully managed using a steroid‐minimization drug regimen. The purpose of our report is to make pediatric transplant care providers aware of the feasibility of using a steroid‐minimization immunosuppression regimen even in children who have traditionally been perceived to be at higher risk for immunologic complications, allowing successful avoidance of steroid toxicity.
A Data-Dependent Weighted LASSO Under Poisson Noise

Sparse linear inverse problems appear in a variety of settings, but often the noise contaminating observations cannot accurately be described as bounded by or arising from a Gaussian distribution. Poisson observations in particular are a characteristic feature of several real-world applications. Previous work on sparse Poisson inverse problems encountered several limiting technical hurdles. This paper describes a novel alternative analysis approach for sparse Poisson inverse problems that 1) sidesteps the technical challenges present in previous work, 2) admits estimators that can readily be computed using off-the-shelf LASSO algorithms, and 3) hints at a general framework for broad classes of noise in sparse linear inverse problems. At the heart of this new approach lies a weighted LASSO estimator for which data-dependent weights are based on Poisson concentration inequalities. Unlike previous analyses of the weighted LASSO, the proposed analysis depends on conditions which can be checked or shown to hold in general settings with high probability. 2000 Math Subject Classification: 60E15, 62G05, 62G08, and 94A12.
High performance on-chip differential signaling using passive compensation for global communication

To address the performance limitation brought by the scaling issues of on-chip global wires, a new configuration for global wiring using on-chip lossy transmission lines is proposed and optimized. We propose a signaling structure to compensate the distortion and attenuation of on-chip transmission lines, which uses passive compensation and inserts repeated transceivers composing sense amplifiers and inverter chains. An optimization flow for designing this scheme based on eye-diagram prediction and sequential quadratic programming (SQP) is devised. This flow is used to study the latency, power dissipation and throughput performance of the new global wiring scheme as the technology scales from 90 nm to 22 nm. Comparing to repeated RC wire, experimental results demonstrate that at 22 nm technology node, the new scheme can reduce the normalized delay by 80%–95%, the normalized energy consumption by 50%–94%. The normalized latency is 10 ps/mm, the energy per bit is 20 pJ/m, and the throughput is 15 Gbps/μm. All performance metrics are scalable with technology, which makes this approach a potential candidate to break the “interconnect wall” of digital system performance.
Predictors of axillary lymph node metastases (ALNM) in a Korean population with T1-2 breast carcinoma: triple negative breast cancer has a high incidence of ALNM irrespective of the tumor size.

PURPOSE We estimated the likelihood of breast cancer patients having axillary lymph node metastases (ALNM) based on a variety of clinical and pathologic factors. MATERIALS AND METHODS Three hundred sixty-one breast cancer patients without distant metastases and who underwent breast conserving surgery and axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) (level I and II) or modified radical mastectomy (MRM) were identified, and we retrospectively reviewed their pathology records and treatment charts. RESULTS Positive axillary lymph nodes were detected in 104 patients for an overall incidence of 28.8%: 2 patients (5%) with T1a tumor, 5 (9.2%) with T1b tumor, 24 (21.8%) with T1c tumor and 73 (44.2%) with T2 tumor. On the multivariate analysis, an increased tumor size (adjusted OR=11.87, p=0.02), the presence of lymphovascular invasion (adjusted OR=7.41, p<0.01), a triple negative profile (ER/PR-, Her2-) (adjusted OR=2.09, p=0.04) and a palpable mass at the time of diagnosis (adjusted OR=2.31, p=0.03) were all significant independent factors for positive ALNM. CONCLUSION In our study, the tumor size, the presence of lymphovascular invasion, a triple negative profile and a palpable mass were the independent predictive factors for ALNM. The tumor size was the strongest predictor of ALNM. Thus, the exact estimation of the extent of tumor is necessary for clinicians to optimize the patients' care. Patients with a triple negative profile have a high incidence of ALNM irrespective of the tumor size.
ITRS 2.0: Toward a re-framing of the Semiconductor Technology Roadmap

The International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) has roadmapped technology requirements of the semiconductor industry over the past two decades. The roadmap identifies major challenges in advanced technology and leads the investment of research in a cost-effective way. Traditionally, the ITRS identifies major semiconductor IC products as drivers; these set requirements for the state-of-the-art semiconductor technologies. High-performance microprocessor unit (MPU-HP) for servers and consumer portable system-on-chip (SOC-CP) for smartphones are two examples. Throughout the history of the ITRS, Moore's Law has been the main impetus for these drivers, continuously pushing the transistor density to scale at a rate of 2× per technology generation (aka “node”). However, as new requirements from applications such as data center, mobility, and context-aware computing emerge, the existing roadmapping methodology is unable to capture the entire evolution of the current semiconductor industry. Today, comprehending how key markets and applications drive the process, design and integration technology roadmap requires new system-level studies along with chip-level studies. In this paper, we extend the current ITRS roadmapping process with studies of key requirements from a system-level perspective, based on multiple generations of smartphones and microservers. We describe potential new system drivers and new metrics, and we refer to the new system-level framing of the roadmap as ITRS 2.0.
Efficacy of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy versus Anxiety Management for Body Dysmorphic Disorder: A Randomised Controlled Trial

Background: The evidence base for the efficacy of cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) for treating body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is weak. Aims: To determine whether CBT is more effective than anxiety management (AM) in an outpatient setting. Method: This was a single-blind stratified parallel-group randomised controlled trial. The primary endpoint was at 12 weeks, and the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale for BDD (BDD-YBOCS) was the primary outcome measure. Secondary measures for BDD included the Brown Assessment of Beliefs Scale (BABS), the Appearance Anxiety Inventory (AAI) and the Body Image Quality of Life Inventory (BIQLI). The outcome measures were collected at baseline and week 12. The CBT group, unlike the AM group, had 4 further weekly sessions that were analysed for their added value. Both groups then completed measures at their 1-month follow-up. Forty-six participants with a DSM-IV diagnosis of BDD, including those with delusional BDD, were randomly allocated to either CBT or AM. Results: At 12 weeks, CBT was found to be significantly superior to AM on the BDD-YBOCS [β = -7.19; SE (β) = 2.61; p < 0.01; 95% CI = -12.31 to -2.07; d = 0.99] as well as the secondary outcome measures of the BABS, AAI and BIQLI. Further benefits occurred by week 16 within the CBT group. There were no differences in outcome for those with delusional BDD or depression. Conclusions: CBT is an effective intervention for people with BDD even with delusional beliefs or depression and is more effective than AM over 12 weeks.