Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Closed-loop Control of Anesthesia Using Bispectral Index: Performance Assessment in Patients Undergoing Major Orthopedic Surgery under Combined General and Regional Anesthesia

Background The Bispectral Index (BIS) is an electroencephalogram-derived measure of anesthetic depth. A closed-loop anesthesia system was built using BIS as the control variable, a proportional–integral–differential control algorithm, and a propofol target-controlled infusion system as the control actuator. Closed-loop performance was assessed in 10 adult patients. Methods Ten adult patients scheduled to undergo elective hip or knee surgery were enrolled. An epidural cannula was inserted, and 0.5% bupivacaine was used to provide anesthesia to T8 before general anesthesia was induced using the propofol target-controlled infusion system under manual control. After the start of surgery, when anesthesia was clinically adequate, automatic control of anesthesia was commenced using the BIS as the control variable. Adequacy of anesthesia during closed-loop control was assessed clinically and by calculating the median performance error, the median absolute performance error, and the mean offset of the control variable. Results The median performance error and the median absolute performance error were 2.2 and 8.0%, respectively. Mean offset of the BIS from the set point was 0.9. Cardiovascular parameters were stable during closed-loop control. Operating conditions were adequate in all patients but one, who began moving after 45 min of stable anesthesia. No patients reported awareness or recall of intraoperative events. In three patients, there was oscillation of the measured BIS around the set point. Conclusions The system was able to provide clinically adequate anesthesia in 9 of 10 patients. Further studies are required to determine whether control performance can be improved by alterations to the gain factors or by using an effect site–targeted, target-controlled infusion propofol system.
Social and Genetic Pathways in Multigenerational Transmission of Educational Attainment

This study investigates the complex roles of the social environment and genes in the multigenerational transmission of educational attainment. Drawing on genome-wide data and educational attainment measures from the Framingham Heart Study (FHS) and the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), I conduct polygenic score analyses to examine genetic confounding in the estimation of parents’ and grandparents’ influences on their children’s and grandchildren’s educational attainment. I also examine social genetic effects (i.e., genetic effects that operate through the social environment) in the transmission of educational attainment across three generations. Two-generation analyses produce three important findings. First, about one-fifth of the parent-child association in education reflects genetic inheritance. Second, up to half of the association between parents’ polygenic scores and children’s education is mediated by parents’ education. Third, about one-third of the association between children’s polygenic scores and their educational attainment is attributable to parents’ genotypes and education. Three-generation analyses suggest that genetic confounding on the estimate of the direct effect of grandparents’ education on grandchildren’s education (net of parents’ education) may be inconsequential, and I find no evidence that grandparents’ genotypes significantly influence grandchildren’s education through non-biological pathways. The three-generation results are suggestive, and the results may change when different samples are used.
New Orf Virus (Parapoxvirus) Recombinant Expressing H5 Hemagglutinin Protects Mice against H5N1 and H1N1 Influenza A Virus

Previously we demonstrated the versatile utility of the Parapoxvirus Orf virus (ORFV) as a vector platform for the development of potent recombinant vaccines. In this study we present the generation of new ORFV recombinants expressing the hemagglutinin (HA) or nucleoprotein (NP) of the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (HPAIV) H5N1. Correct foreign gene expression was examined in vitro by immunofluorescence, Western blotting and flow cytometry. The protective potential of both recombinants was evaluated in the mouse challenge model. Despite adequate expression of NP, the recombinant D1701-V-NPh5 completely failed to protect mice from lethal challenge. However, the H5 HA-expressing recombinant D1701-V-HAh5n mediated solid protection in a dose-dependent manner. Two intramuscular (i.m.) injections of the HA-expressing recombinant protected all animals from lethal HPAIV infection without loss of body weight. Notably, the immunized mice resisted cross-clade H5N1 and heterologous H1N1 (strain PR8) influenza virus challenge. In vivo antibody-mediated depletion of CD4-positive and/or CD8-posititve T-cell subpopulations during immunization and/or challenge infection implicated the relevance of CD4-positive T-cells for induction of protective immunity by D1701-V-HAh5n, whereas the absence of CD8-positive T-cells did not significantly influence protection. In summary, this study validates the potential of the ORFV vectored vaccines also to combat HPAIV.
Immuno-Histochemical Analysis of Rod and Cone Reaction to RPE65 Deficiency in the Inferior and Superior Canine Retina

Mutations in the RPE65 gene are associated with autosomal recessive early onset severe retinal dystrophy. Morphological and functional studies indicate early and dramatic loss of rod photoreceptors and early loss of S-cone function, while L and M cones remain initially functional. The Swedish Briard dog is a naturally occurring animal model for this disease. Detailed information about rod and cone reaction to RPE65 deficiency in this model with regard to their location within the retina remains limited. The aim of this study was to analyze morphological parameters of cone and rod viability in young adult RPE65 deficient dogs in different parts of the retina in order to shed light on local disparities in this disease. In retinae of affected dogs, sprouting of rod bipolar cell dendrites and horizontal cell processes was dramatically increased in the inferior peripheral part of affected retinae, while central inferior and both superior parts did not display significantly increased sprouting. This observation was correlated with photoreceptor cell layer thickness. Interestingly, while L/M cone opsin expression was uniformly reduced both in the superior and inferior part of the retina, S-cone opsin expression loss was less severe in the inferior part of the retina. In summary, in retinae of young adult RPE65 deficient dogs, the degree of rod bipolar and horizontal cell sprouting as well as of S-cone opsin expression depends on the location. As the human retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) is pigmented similar to the RPE in the inferior part of the canine retina, and the kinetics of photoreceptor degeneration in humans seems to be similar to what has been observed in the inferior peripheral retina in dogs, this area should be studied in future gene therapy experiments in this model.
Free view-point video synthesis using Gaussian Mixture Modelling

In recent years, free viewpoint video (FVV) technology is increasing popularity for rendering intermediate views from existing adjacent views to avoid the large volume of video data transmission. For generating an intermediate view on a remote display, Depth Image Based Rendering (DIBR) techniques are normally used, however, sometimes it has some missing pixels due to inaccurate depth, low precision rounding error and occlusion problem. Inpainting and inverse mapping techniques are the two most effective techniques to recover missing pixels by exploiting spatial correlation. However, they are not effective for missing pixel, i.e. hole areas with foreground/background boundaries as they have a low spatial correlation. To address the issue, we propose a new hole filling technique using temporal correlation for better rendering image quality. In this paper Gaussian mixture based Dynamic Background Modelling (DBM) is used to exploit temporal correlation. The background and foreground pixels are identified through DBM and then modified depending on the Gaussian distribution. The experimental results show that the proposed rendering approach provides better image quality compared to the state-of-the-art methods using standard multi-view video sequences.
Interaction prediction in dynamic networks exploiting community discovery

Due to the growing availability of online social services, interactions between people became more and more easy to establish and track. Online social human activities generate digital footprints, that describe complex, rapidly evolving, dynamic networks. In such scenario one of the most challenging task to address involves the prediction of future interactions between couples of actors. In this study, we want to leverage networks dynamics and community structure to predict which are the future interactions more likely to appear. To this extent, we propose a supervised learning approach which exploit features computed by time-aware forecasts of topological measures calculated between pair of nodes belonging to the same community. Our experiments on real dynamic networks show that the designed analytical process is able to achieve interesting results.
A Systolic Architecture for Object Recognition Based On Hmax Model

The Recognition of objects is considered as difficult one in Image Processing. It includes recognition of face, iris, cars, airplanes, etc. For object recognition, many neural networks have been proposed. But these neural network methods have high computational complexity which require more computation time. Hierarchical Model and X model (HMAX model) is a biologically based model which is used to improve all complexities in the object recognition. This HMAX model need less number of training examples and it is the state-of-the-art system in object recognition task. The basic HMAX model involves the operation of Gabor filter for object recognition. The recognition based on Gabor filter is done in MATLAB. The Gabor filter is used to provide the features of an image of different orientations. It provides independent variables. In the proposed system, the object recognition is done by means of Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA). It is then implemented in Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) which has the advantage of less area, less required power and also provide less computational time.
Column Stores versus Search Engines and Applications to Search in Social Networks

Search engines and database systems both play important roles as we store and organize ever increasing amounts of information and still require the information to be easily accessible. Research on these two types of systems has traditionally been partitioned into two fields, information retrieval and databases, and the integration of these two fields has been a popular research topic. Rather than attempting to integrate the two fields, this thesis begins with a comparison of the technical similarities between search engines and a specific type of database system often used in decision support systems: column stores. Based on an initial assessment of the technical similarities, which includes an evaluation of the feasibility of creating a hybrid system that supports both workloads, the papers in this thesis investigate how the identi_ed similarities can be used as a basis for improving the effciency of the different systems. To improve the efficiency of processing decision support workloads, the use of inverted indexes as an alternative to bitmap indexes is evaluated. We develop a query processing framework for compressed inverted indexes in decision support workloads and find that it outperforms state-of-the-art compressed bitmap indexes by being significantly more compact, and also improves the query processing e_ciency for most queries. Keyword search in social networks with access control is also addressed in this thesis, and a space of solutions is developed along two axes. One of the axes defines the set of inverted indexes that are used in the solution, and the other defines the meta-data used to filter out inaccessible results. With a exible and efficient search system based on a column-oriented storage system, we conduct a thorough set of experiments that illuminate the trade-offs between different extremes in the solution space. We also develop a hybrid scheme in between two of the best extremes. The hybrid approach uses cost models to find the most efficient solution for a particular workload. Together with an effcient query processing framework based on our novel HeapUnion operator, this results in a system that is e_cient for a wide range of workloads that consist of updates and searches with access control in a social network.
Looking at the Bright Side: The Motivation Value of Overconfidence

The motivation value of confidence postulates that individual effort provision is increasing in beliefs on one's own productivity. This relationship also holds for overconfident individuals who have exaggerated productivity beliefs (motivation value of overconfidence). We present first empirical evidence on the existence of a motivation value of absolute overconfidence that many microeconomic models build on. Moreover, we document that debiasing information increases the accuracy of productivity beliefs of overconfident individuals but comes at the cost of diminished effort provision – a result that is of obvious relevance for many contexts such as labor relations or learning at school. As a further conceptual contribution, we offer a novel strategy for identifying significant overconfidence at the individual level.
Secrecy Capacity of Wireless Channels

We consider the transmission of confidential data over wireless channels with multiple communicating parties. Based on an information-theoretic problem formulation in which two legitimate partners communicate over a quasi-static fading channel and an eavesdropper observes their transmission through another independent quasi-static fading channel, we define the secrecy capacity in terms of outage probability and provide a complete characterization of the maximum transmission rate at which the eavesdropper is unable to decode any information. In sharp contrast with known results for Gaussian wiretap channels (without feedback), our contribution shows that in the presence of fading information-theoretic security is achievable even when the eavesdropper has a better average signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) than the legitimate receiver - fading thus turns out to be a friend and not a foe
The use of poly(N-[2-hydroxypropyl]-methacrylamide) hydrogel to repair a T10 spinal cord hemisection in rat: a behavioural, electrophysiological and anatomical examination

There have been considerable interests in attempting to reverse the deficit because of an SCI (spinal cord injury) by restoring neural pathways through the lesion and by rebuilding the tissue network. In order to provide an appropriate micro-environment for regrowing axotomized neurons and proliferating and migrating cells, we have implanted a small block of pHPMA [poly N-(2-hydroxypropyl)-methacrylamide] hydrogel into the hemisected T10 rat spinal cord. Locomotor activity was evaluated once a week during 14 weeks with the BBB rating scale in an open field. At the 14th week after SCI, the reflexivity of the sub-lesional region was measured. We also monitored the ventilatory frequency during an electrically induced muscle fatigue known to elicit the muscle metaboreflex and increase the respiratory rate. Spinal cords were then collected, fixed and stained with anti-ED-1 and anti-NF-H antibodies and FluoroMyelin. We show in this study that hydrogel-implanted animals exhibit: (i) an improved locomotor BBB score, (ii) an improved breathing adjustment to electrically evoked isometric contractions and (iii) an H-reflex recovery close to control animals. Qualitative histological results put in evidence higher accumulation of ED-1 positive cells (macrophages/monocytes) at the lesion border, a large number of NF-H positive axons penetrating the applied matrix, and myelin preservation both rostrally and caudally to the lesion. Our data confirm that pHPMA hydrogel is a potent biomaterial that can be used for improving neuromuscular adaptive mechanisms and H-reflex responses after SCI.
An Algebraic Family of Distributed Space-Time Codes for Wireless Relay Networks

This paper studies the design of distributed space-time codes for use in wireless relay networks. Earlier work suggested that a suitable family of codes can be obtained by using linear dispersion codes, provided the basis matrices were unitary. In this paper we construct an explicit algebraic family of such codes where full diversity is proved. The construction uses cyclotomic field theory and yields basis matrices that are indeed unitary. Simulation results show that the codes have better performance than codes designed earlier by ad hoc and random methods, and thus with less encoding complexity
Design and Application of Mobile Embedded Systems for Home Care Applications

Applied biotelemetry is of growing importance in today's world. Specificity of biotelemetric data put special requirements on real biotelemetric system. This article describes some of conclusions acquired in development of real biotelemetric system using off the shelf embedded hardware technology, namely ARM microcontrollers, FRAM memory and dedicated ZigBee chipsets. Described biotelemetric system is partitioned into logical parts that communicate using custom data protocols. Devices participating in biotelemetric system use ZigBee and Ethernet networks as underlying structure for data communication.
Gammachirp filterbank based speech analysis for speaker identification

Many modern speaker recognition systems use a bank of linear filters as the first step in performing frequency analysis of speech and extracting the acoustics parameters that allow characterizing the speaker identity. In this paper we illustrate the use of novel feature set extracted from speech signal. The new technique for extracting these parameters is based on the human auditory system characteristics and relies on the gammachirp filterbank to emulate asymmetric frequency response and level dependent frequency response. For evaluation a comparative study was operated with standard MFCC.
Irritable Bowel Syndrome May Be Associated with Elevated Alanine Aminotransferase and Metabolic Syndrome

Purpose Recent studies have revealed close relationships between hepatic injury, metabolic pathways, and gut microbiota. The microorganisms in the intestine also cause irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). The aim of this study was to examine whether IBS was associated with elevated hepatic enzyme [alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST)], gamma-glutamyl transferase (γ-GT) levels, and metabolic syndrome (MS). Materials and Methods This was a retrospective, cross-sectional, case-control study. The case and control groups comprised subjects who visited our health promotion center for general check-ups from June 2010 to December 2010. Of the 1127 initially screened subjects, 83 had IBS according to the Rome III criteria. The control group consisted of 260 age- and sex-matched subjects without IBS who visited our health promotion center during the same period. Results Compared to control subjects, patients with IBS showed significantly higher values of anthropometric parameters (body mass index, waist circumference), liver enzymes, γ-GT, and lipid levels. The prevalences of elevated ALT (16.9% vs. 7.7%; p=0.015) and γ-GT (24.1% vs. 11.5%; p=0.037) levels were significantly higher in patients with IBS than in control subjects. A statistically significant difference was observed in the prevalence of MS between controls and IBS patients (12.7% vs. 32.5%; p<0.001). The relationships between elevated ALT levels, MS, and IBS remained statistically significant after controlling for potential confounding factors. Conclusion On the basis of our study results, IBS may be an important condition in certain patients with elevated ALT levels and MS.
The mineralogy of late stage lunar volcanism as observed by the Moon Mineralogy Mapper on Chandrayaan‐1

[1] The last major phases of lunar volcanism produced spectrally unique high-titanium basalts on the western nearside of the Moon. The Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) on Chandrayaan-1 has provided detailed measurements of these basalts at spatial and spectral resolutions necessary for mineralogical interpretation and mapping of distinct compositional units. The M3 imaging spectrometer acquired data in 85 spectral bands from ∼430 to 3000 nm at 140 to 280 m/pixel in its global mapping mode during the first half of 2009. Reflectance data of several key sites in the western maria were also acquired at higher spatial and spectral resolutions using M3's target mode, prior to the end of the Chandrayaan-1 mission. These new observations confirm that both fresh craters and mare soils within the western high-Ti basalts display strong 1 μm and weak 2 μm absorptions consistent with olivine-rich basaltic compositions. The inferred abundance of olivine is observed to correlate with stratigraphic sequence across different mare regions and absolute ages. The apparent stratigraphic evolution and Fe-rich compositions of these basalts as a whole suggest an origin from evolved residual melts rather than through the assimilation of more primitive olivine-rich sources. Mare deposits with spectral properties similar to these late stage high-Ti basalts appear to be very limited outside the Procellarum-Imbrium region of the Moon and, where present, appear to occur as small areas of late stage regional volcanism. Detailed analyses of these new data and supporting measurements are in progress to provide further constraints on the mineralogy, olivine abundance, and compositions of these final products of lunar volcanism and the nature and evolution of their source regions.
HIERARCHICAL HYBRID CONTROL OF A MULTIPRODUCT BATCH PLANT

Abstract This contribution demonstrates the potential of a hierarchical hybrid control framework developed in a previous paper (Moor et al. , 2003) by applying it to a specific process control example. The example is the control of a multiproduct batch plant with both continuous and discrete inputs. The control problem is to produce a desired amount of each product with minimal operating costs while observing safety and quality requirements.
Research of the Enhanced Anti-Xprobe2

Anti-Xprobe2 defenses OS fingerprinting detection of Xprobe2 by camouflaging response packets. In this paper, aiming at that the separation of the detection data is achieved using a static data set in the original event separation module, which results in higher false alarm rate, the enhanced An-ti-Xprobe2 is proposed. Event separation module is improved, which is described by a finite state machine. The effectiveness of the proposed method is proved with experimental results.