Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The morphology of intrafusal muscle fibres in the cat

It has long been recognized that the muscle spindle is composed of muscle fibres of large and small diameter (see e.g. Sherrington, 1894; Cuajunco, 1927, 1940), but the claim that the fibres branch in their course through the spindle has been a matter of controversy. Branching was held to occur by the majority of workers from Weismann (1861) to Denny-Brown (1928), though it is probable that many of the earlier claims were prejudiced by a belief that spindles served as centres of muscle growth. According to Sherrington (1894) and Ruffini (1898), large 'parent' fibres in the proximal pole of the spindle split longitudinally to form smaller 'daughter' fibres, which course through the equatorial region to taper off as long tendinous filaments in the distal pole. However, Batten (1897) and recently Haggqvist (1960) maintain that branching in one pole is followed by reuniting of the fibres in the other. Forster (1894) holds that the branching and reuniting of fibres occurs throughout the length of the spindle, and Cilimbaris (1910) adds that they also anastomose so as to form a syncitial network in the equatorial region reminiscent of cardiac muscle. Against this it has been urged (Baum, 1900; Cuajunco, 1927, 1940; Barker, 1948; Gray, 1957; Boyd, 1958; Cooper, 1960) that intrafusal fibres remain single, and that the tapering of short fibres alongside longer ones may have been mistaken for instances of branching. At a preliminary stage of the present study we became convinced that branching does occur, and it appeared to us that Forster's observations were correct (Barker, 1959). Further investigation, however, led us to the conclusion that branching is mainly exhibited by the small intrafusal fibres (Barker & Gidumal, 1960), and Boyd (1960), reversing his earlier opinion (1958), arrived at a similar conclusion. The present paper deals with this matter in detail.
In Cloud, Can Scientific Communities Benefit from the Economies of Scale?

The basic idea behind cloud computing is that resource providers offer elastic resources to end users. In this paper, we intend to answer one key question to the success of cloud computing: in cloud, can small-to-medium scale scientific communities benefit from the economies of scale? Our research contributions are threefold: first, we propose an innovative public cloud usage model for small-to-medium scale scientific communities to utilize elastic resources on a public cloud site while maintaining their flexible system controls, i.e., create, activate, suspend, resume, deactivate, and destroy their high-level management entities-service management layers without knowing the details of management. Second, we design and implement an innovative system-DawningCloud, at the core of which are lightweight service management layers running on top of a common management service framework. The common management service framework of DawningCloud not only facilitates building lightweight service management layers for heterogeneous workloads, but also makes their management tasks simple. Third, we evaluate the systems comprehensively using both emulation and real experiments. We found that for four traces of two typical scientific workloads: High-Throughput Computing (HTC) and Many-Task Computing (MTC), DawningCloud saves the resource consumption maximally by 59.5 and 72.6 percent for HTC and MTC service providers, respectively, and saves the total resource consumption maximally by 54 percent for the resource provider with respect to the previous two public cloud solutions. To this end, we conclude that small-to-medium scale scientific communities indeed can benefit from the economies of scale of public clouds with the support of the enabling system.
Laser-induced selective wax reflow for paper-based microfluidics

This study proposes a novel method for the fabrication of paper-based microfluidic devices using laser-induced selective thermal reflow for wax penetration. A layer of wax was evenly deposited on the front side of a filter paper; then a low-cost diode laser was used to scan the designed area from the back side of the filter paper. At the laser irradiated spot, the wax was heated, melted down and penetrated through the whole thickness of the filter paper, and formed hydrophobic barriers on the hydrophilic cellulose fibers. The patterned hydrophobic wax barriers on the filter paper defined the flow path of the fluid for the paper-based microfluidic device. Compared with conventional two-step (deposit and reflow) approaches for paper-based microfluidics using wax barriers, e.g. wax printing, stamping or photolithography, the proposed fabrication protocol achieved wax patterning and reflow simultaneously, conducted during the laser scan process, and without the requirement for any sophisticated instruments or a cleanroom environment. A series of tests were also conducted for the characterization of the proposed paper-based microfluidic device fabrication technique. The fabrication technique used in this approach could have broad application potential in point-of-care diagnosis and testing, especially for applications in the developing world.
Stable Template-Based Isometric 3D Reconstruction in All Imaging Conditions by Linear Least-Squares

It has been recently shown that reconstructing an isometric surface from a single 2D input image matched to a 3D template was a well-posed problem. This however does not tell us how reconstruction algorithms will behave in practical conditions, where the amount of perspective is generally small and the projection thus behaves like weak-perspective or orthography. We here bring answers to what is theoretically recoverable in such imaging conditions, and explain why existing convex numerical solutions and analytical solutions to 3D reconstruction may be unstable. We then propose a new algorithm which works under all imaging conditions, from strong to loose perspective. We empirically show that the gain in stability is tremendous, bringing our results close to the iterative minimization of a statistically-optimal cost. Our algorithm has a low complexity, is simple and uses only one round of linear least-squares.
Analysis and Comparison of Multiple Approaches for Software Development Management as Applied to a Design Studio Project

This research analyzes multiple approaches to software development management through the lens of my experience in the Raikes Design Studio capstone program. The Design Studio project I participated in was a project for the company Hudl, and throughout its course we used techniques from the Agile framework of Scrum. I compared the Scrum principles to my team’s own application over the course of the project, and I researched other software development methodologies such as Extreme Programming and Lean in order to determine whether they could improve the effectiveness of the current Design Studio experience. The proposed solution to this question is to continue using Scrum methods, but to also take inspiration from Extreme Programming and to encourage pair programming in all Design Studio teams, as well as to make an effort to improve Design Studio sponsor communication.
Humanoid Theory Grounding

In this paper we consider the importance of using a humanoid physical form for a certain proposed kind of robotics, that of theory grounding. Theory grounding involves grounding the theory skills and knowledge of an embodied artificially intelligent (AI) system by developing theory skills and knowledge from the bottom up. Theory grounding can potentially occur in a variety of domains, and the particular domain considered here is that of language. Language is taken to be another “problem space” in which a system can explore and discover solutions. We argue that because theory grounding necessitates robots experiencing domain information, certain behavioral-form aspects, such as abilities to socially smile, point, follow gaze, and generate manual gestures, are necessary for robots grounding a humanoid theory of language.
The Absence of Fucose but Not the Presence of Galactose or Bisecting N-Acetylglucosamine of Human IgG1 Complex-type Oligosaccharides Shows the Critical Role of Enhancing Antibody-dependent Cellular Cytotoxicity*

An anti-human interleukin 5 receptor (hIL-5R) humanized immunoglobulin G1 (IgG1) and an anti-CD20 chimeric IgG1 produced by rat hybridoma YB2/0 cell lines showed more than 50-fold higher antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC) using purified human peripheral blood mononuclear cells as effector than those produced by Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell lines. Monosaccharide composition and oligosaccharide profiling analysis showed that low fucose (Fuc) content of complex-type oligosaccharides was characteristic in YB2/0-produced IgG1s compared with high Fuc content of CHO-produced IgG1s. YB2/0-produced anti-hIL-5R IgG1 was subjected to Lens culinaris aggulutin affinity column and fractionated based on the contents of Fuc. The lower Fuc IgG1 had higher ADCC than the IgG1 before separation. In contrast, the content of bisecting GlcNAc of the IgG1 affected ADCC much less than that of Fuc. In addition, the correlation between Gal and ADCC was not observed. When the combined effect of Fuc and bisecting GlcNAc was examined in anti-CD20 IgG1, only a severalfold increase of ADCC was observed by the addition of GlcNAc to highly fucosylated IgG1. Quantitative PCR analysis indicated that YB2/0 cells had lower expression level of FUT8 mRNA, which codes α1,6-fucosyltransferase, than CHO cells. Overexpression of FUT8 mRNA in YB2/0 cells led to an increase of fucosylated oligosaccharides and decrease of ADCC of the IgG1. These results indicate that the lack of fucosylation of IgG1 has the most critical role in enhancement of ADCC, although several reports have suggested the importance of Gal or bisecting GlcNAc and provide important information to produce the effective therapeutic antibody.
Pilot Study of an Oral Care Protocol on PostStroke Survivors

Purpose: The pilot study purpose was to determine the effects of a new standardized oral care protocol (intervention) to usual care practices (control) in poststroke patients. Design: This study is a randomized controlled clinical trial. Method: Fifty‐one subjects were enrolled. Subjects in the intervention group received oral care twice a day including tooth brushing, tongue brushing, flossing, mouth rinse, and lip care while control patients received usual oral care. Findings: Subjects in the control and intervention groups showed improvement in their oral health assessments, swallowing abilities and oral intake. There were no significant differences between the two groups. Although not statistically significant, overall prevalence of methicillin‐resistant Staphylococcus aureus and methicillin‐sensitiveStaphylococcus aureus colonization in the control group almost doubled (from 4.8% to 9.5%), while colonization in the intervention group decreased (from 20.8% to 16.7%). Conclusions/Clinical Relevance: These findings demonstrate the importance of oral care in the poststroke patient with dysphagia.
Rediscovering the Art of Memory in Computer Based Learning—An Example Application

This paper describes how we applied ancient mnemotechnics, the Art Of Memory (AOM), to build a computerized philosophy exhibition. The AOM is described as having influenced the evolution of museums and it is argued that it could be of importance to consider it with respect to the design of computer based 3D exhibitions. The paper also reports from a user study of the 3D exhibition. It was found that the exhibition worked as means of exploring philosophy, but that improvements should be made along the lines of environmental richness, perspicuity and navigation.
Salient Region Extraction based on Global Contrast Enhancement and Saliency Cut for Image Information Recognition of the Visually Impaired

Extracting key visual information from images containing natural scene is a challenging task and an important step for the visually impaired to recognize information based on tactile graphics. In this study, a novel method is proposed for extracting salient regions based on global contrast enhancement and saliency cuts in order to improve the process of recognizing images for the visually impaired. To accomplish this, an image enhancement technique is applied to natural scene images, and a saliency map is acquired to measure the color contrast of homogeneous regions against other areas of the image. The saliency maps also help automatic salient region extraction, referred to as saliency cuts, and assist in obtaining a binary mask of high quality. Finally, outer boundaries and inner edges are detected in images with natural scene to identify edges that are visually significant. Experimental results indicate that the method we propose in this paper extracts salient objects effectively and achieves remarkable performance compared to conventional methods. Our method offers benefits in extracting salient objects and generating simple but
Effects of Play Equipment and Loose Parts on Preschool Children's Outdoor Play Behavior: An Observational Study and Design Intervention

Abstract:This research project investigated, in two stages, the ways in which playground equipment and the addition of loose parts to a playground contribute to preschool children's dramatic and constructive play behaviors. In the first study, for ten months we observed children attending a lab preschool as they played on large, multi-station outdoor play structures in order to identify design features of outdoor play equipment that encourage particular play behaviors and social interaction. The design features that encouraged fantasy play were enclosed spaces with visibility to other areas of the playground, nodes and connector spaces, and stage-type spaces. Boys engaged in more functional play while girls engaged in more fantasy play. The second study, conducted with the same lab preschool but different children, tested the effects of a design intervention on the playground. We added loose parts suitable for constructing spaces to the playground and we observed children's play behavior before, during and after the intervention. Constructive play behavior increased in the areas of the playground to which we had added the loose parts. Children used the places they constructed for dramatic play activities. The second study confirmed findings from the first study that young children like to act out dramatic play themes in small, enclosed spaces. In the second study, children were able to construct their own spaces, which not only encouraged dramatic play but also communication and negotiation skills.
Online Forest Density Estimation

Online density estimation is the problem of predicting a sequence of outcomes, revealed one at a time, almost as well as the best expert chosen from a reference class of probabilistic models. The performance of each expert is measured with the log-likelihood loss. The class of experts examined in this paper is the family of discrete, acyclic graphical models, also known as Markov forests. By coupling Bayesian mixtures with symmetric Dirichlet priors for parameter learning, and a variant of "Follow the Perturbed Leader" strategy for structure learning, we derive an online forest density estimation algorithm that achieves a regret of O(√T), with a per-round time complexity that is quasi-quadratic in the input dimension. Using simple and flexible update rules, this algorithm can be easily adapted to predict with Markov trees or mixtures of Markov forests. Empirical results indicate that our online algorithm is a practical alternative to the state-of-the-art batch algorithms for learning tree-structured graphical models.
Adiponectin Effect on The Viability of Human Endometrial Stromal Cells and mRNA Expression of Adiponectin Receptors

Background: Adiponectin is one of the most important adipokines secreted from fatty tissue that has a direct inhibitory effect on the development of cancer cells. Adiponectin plays an important role in human reproduction system and fertility of women. Adiponectin concentration decreases in women with endometriosis and endometrial cancer. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of adiponectin on human endometrial stromal cell (HESC) viability as well as mRNA expression of Adipo R1 and Adipo R2 receptors. Materials and Methods: In this experimental study, eight endometrial biopsies were taken and stromal cells were separated by enzymatic digestion and cell filtrations. Stromal cells of each biopsy were divided into four groups: control, 10, 100, and 200 ng/ml adiponectin concentrations. The effect of adiponectin on viability of the normal HESCs was studied by trypan blue staining and the relative expression levels of Adipo R1 and R2 were analyzed by semi-quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Data were analyzed by one way ANOVA and unpaired student’s t test and p<0.05 was considered significant. Results: Adiponectin decreased viability of normal human endometrial stromal cells in a dose and time dependent manner. Expression of Adipo R1 and Adipo R2 receptors did not change in the presence of adiponectin. Conclusion: Adiponectin can directly influence the viability of HESCs and decrease their viability, but it didn’t change expression of adiponectin receptors.
Domain-Oriented architecture design for production control software

In this paper, we present domain-oriented architectural design heuristics for production control software. Our approach is based upon the following premisses. First, software design, like all other forms of design, consists of the reduction of uncertainty about a final product by making design decisions. These decisions should as much as possible be based upon information that is certain, either because they represent laws of nature or because they represent previously made design decisions. An import class of information concerns the domain of the software. The domain of control software is the part of the world monitored and controlled by the software; it is the larger system into which the software is embedded. The software engineer should exploit system-level domain knowledge in order to make software design decisions. Second, in the case of production control software, using system-level knowledge is not only justified, it is also imposed on the software engineer by the necessity to cooperate with hardware engineers. These represent their designs by means of Process and Instrumentation Diagrams (PIDs) and Input-Output (IO) lists. They do not want to spend time, nor do they see the need, to duplicate the information represented by these diagrams by means of diagrams from software engineering methods. Such a duplication would be an occasion to introduce errors of omission (information lost during the translation process) or commission (misinterpretation, misguided but invisible design decisions made during the translation) anyway. We think it is up to the software engineer to adapt his or her notations to those of the system engineers he or she must work with. Third, work in patterns and software architectures started from the programminglanguage level and is now moving towards the higher architectural and subsystem level. At the programming-language level, one is able to define domain-independent patterns such as adapter, facade and observer [3]. At higher levels, however, architectures get more domain-specific and we need to relate software architectures to domain architectures. In the case of production control, we should reflect the structure of the production process in the architecture of the software. In this working paper, we apply these principles to the definition of a coordination architecture for production control software. In section 2, we look at the information contained in PIDs and IO lists for production systems and at the structure of a production process.
Hierarchical synthesis of complex DSP functions using IRIS

A "white box" design methodology, which deals with hierarchical synthesis issues by providing a bridge between a high-level algorithm representation and lower level design tools, is presented. It illustrates tradeoffs when dealing with designs in a hierarchical and flattened manner. An enhanced Minnesota architectural synthesis scheduling algorithm is given, which gives highly efficient field programmable gate array solutions by providing access to parameterized expressions for datapath latencies and is applied to normalized lattice and delayed least mean square filter examples.
Sieve 1 : String Match Sieve 3 : Mutant Match Mention Detection Sieve 2 : Grounding Match Sieve 4 : Strict Head Match Sieve 5 : Noun Phrase Match Sieve 6 : Pronominal Match Sieve

We describe challenges and advantages unique to coreference resolution in the biomedical domain, and a sieve-based architecture that leverages domain knowledge for both entity and event coreference resolution. Domain-general coreference resolution algorithms perform poorly on biomedical documents, because the cues they rely on such as gender are largely absent in this domain, and because they do not encode domain-specific knowledge such as the number and type of participants required in chemical reactions. Moreover, it is difficult to directly encode this knowledge into most coreference resolution algorithms because they are not rule-based. Our rule-based architecture uses sequentially applied hand-designed “sieves”, with the output of each sieve informing and constraining subsequent sieves. This architecture provides a 3.2% increase in throughput to our Reach event extraction system with precision parallel to that of the stricter system that relies solely on syntactic patterns for extraction.