Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Surface matching with salient keypoints in geodesic scale space

This paper develops a new salient keypoints‐based shape description which extracts the salient surface keypoints with detected scales. Salient geometric features can then be defined collectively on all the detected scale normalized local patches to form a shape descriptor for surface matching purpose. The saliency‐driven keypoints are computed as local extrema of the difference of Gaussian function defined over a curved surface in geodesic scale space. This method can properly function on either manifold or non‐manifold surface without resorting to any surface mapping or parameterization procedures. Therefore, it has a wide utility in many applications such as shape matching, classification, and recognition. Our experiments on 3D shapes demonstrate that the salient keypoints and local feature descriptors are robust and stable to noisy input and insensitive to resolution change. We have applied our technique to the tasks of 3D shape matching, and the experimental results showed good performance and the effectiveness of this new method. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Compulsory voting, political shyness and welfare outcomes

This paper attempts to go beyond the usual liberal/democratic debates about the justifiability of compulsion or arguments about partisan benefit, towards a discussion of the social and economic functions of compulsory voting. The main theme is that given a number of trends both here and in comparable contexts, it would not be a good idea for Australians to consider abandoning the present system. These trends include: policy driven socio-economic insecurity; greater time pressures upon those in work; increasing alienation and apathy among the young and a global trend towards political demobilisation. Abstention is understood as both a political and emotional response to economic marginalisation and social isolation. Subjective feelings of alienation, neglect, cynicism and low political efficacy are treated as socio-psychic norms which govern the behaviour of non-voters, culminating in what is termed here 'political shyness'. The politically shy are shown to be among the most vulnerable members of our community and it is suggested that under a system of voluntary voting, political shyness would negatively affect the welfare of these groups. The importance of compulsion is also linked to notions of reciprocal obligation and the centrality of inclusive citizenship to Australia's anticipated republic.
Application of microalga Chlamydomonas sp. for biosorptive removal of a textile dye from contaminated water: Modelling by a neural network

In this paper biosorption of triphenylmethane dye, C.I. Basic Green 4 (BG4), by Chlamydomonas species was investigated. The results obtained from batch experiments revealed the ability of Chlamydomonas sp. to remove BG4. The effects of operational parameters such as initial dye concentration, temperature, pH, reaction time and algal concentration on biosorptive decolorization efficiency were examined. An artificial neural network model was developed to predict the biosorptive decolorization of BG4 solution. The findings indicated that ANN provided reasonable predictive performance (R 2 = 0.979). The influence of each parameter on the response was assessed, initial concentration of the dye being the most significant factor, followed by temperature.
The Outcome of Conservative Treatment of Closed Fracture Shaft Humerus in Adult Patients

Problem statement: Fractures of the humeral shaft are commonly encountered by the orthopaedic surgeons; accounting for approximately 3% of all fractures. There is a wide array of good options for their treatment and controversy over the best methods for many situations. Appropriate nonoperative and operative treatment of patients with humeral shaft fractures, however, requires an understanding of humeral anatomy, the fracture pattern and the patient’s activity level and expectations. Although good techniques of osteosynthesis are available, the aim of this article is to emphasize on the benefit and good outcome of conservative treatment for properly selected cases to decrease the cost and avoid the complications of surgery. Approach: During the period from Jan 2008 to Jun. 2009 seventy-eight fractures of humeral shaft were treated at Orthopaedic Department in the Tikrit Teaching hospital. 20 fractures considered suitable for the study. The patients treated conservatively by using the‘U’ shaped coaptation slab and the patients evaluated both clinically and radiologically every two weeks. If there is much pain or any degree of malalignment, we shift to POP cast. Then we follow the patient clinically and radiologically every 2-4 weeks and until the fracture had united and the limb functions were restored. The outcome of treatment was assessed by specific parameters which include alignment, rate of union and limb functions. Results: This study showed that the initial deformities of angulation were considerably reduced by the use of U slab and the POP cast which act as a dynamic rather than a static splint, correcting angulation to less than 30° in coronal plane and less than 20° in sagital plane. Manipulation of the fracture was not required and did affect neither the rate of union nor the final position, as the cast appeared to be capable of correcting angulation deformities. Perfect anatomical reduction was found not to be essential for satisfactory limb function, which was present with virus angulation and posterior bowing. The incidence of delayed union compares favorably with other reported series, although the definition of delayed union is variable. Conclusion: In fracture shaft of humerus, neither rigid immobilization nor perfect alignment are of great importance for final outcome, so conservative treatment is one of the most effective methods of treatment and the operative treatment can lead to adverse effect on the outcome in case of bad judgment and should be limited as much as possible to specific indications.
Long-Term Follow-up of Ideomotor Apraxia

There has been little research on recovery from ideomotor apraxia (IMA). We undertook a long-term follow-up study in a group of ideomotor apraxic patients (n = 44). The duration of follow-up ranged from 1.5 years to 7.2 years. The patients' ability to imitate gestures was evaluated three times (1.6 months, 9.4 months, and 27.9 months mean time post-onset). All but one patient made an important recovery from IMA in the period between the first and second examinations. Subsequently, very few of the patients showed further recovery and six patients worsened. In three cases deterioration was global, while in three it was confined to IMA. The performance of patients with anterior (n = 6) and posterior (n = 8) lesions was also compared. At all three examinations, patients with anterior lesions had more severe apraxia however, the degree of recovery was not significantly different in the two groups.
Breathlessness in cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: Using a qualitative approach to describe the experience of patients and carers

Objective: To investigate and document the effects of breathlessness on the everyday lives of patients with cancer and COPD and their carers. This subject has been little researched, although dyspnoea is recognized as a disabling, distressing symptom. The number of breathless people is increasing as patients with all types of cardio-respiratory disease live longer. Methods: Patients with severe COPD and cancer and their carers were interviewed at home using a semistructured format to record their perceptions of the impact of breathlessness, the help they had received from medical and caring services, and their ideas on how these could be improved. Results: 10 patients with COPD (6 male) and 10 with cancer (6 male) and their spouses were interviewed. All patients found breathlessness frightening, disabling, and restricting. Patients developed a stoical, philosophical approach in order to live with dyspnoea and the difficulties it imposed: this was also an important way of reducing the emotional impact of breathlessness. Patients' spouses suffered significantly, experiencing severe anxiety and helplessness as they witnessed their partners' suffering and felt powerless to reduce it. The restrictions imposed by breathlessness affected their lives profoundly. Support of all kinds, practical, medical, and psychosocial was highly valued but was provided inconsistently and sporadically. Where help was given it came most frequently from general practitioners (GPs, family physicians) and specialist respiratory nurses. Significance of results: This study is the first to document the psychosocial needs of carers, which are not adequately recognized or addressed at present. Patients and carers may feel most isolated and need support outside the working hours of most services and future provision needs to reflect this. Patients with cancer experience a more rapid onset of breathlessness. More clinicians need to be educated in the management of chronic breathlessness so known helpful strategies are more widely employed.
Combined therapy with low‐dose omalizumab and intravenous immunoglobulin for severe atopic dermatitis. Report of four cases

229 patients. Laryngoscope 1994; 104: 1487–1494. 4 Debets JM, Munting JD. Parotidectomy for parotid tumours: 19-year experience from The Netherlands. Br J Surg 1992; 79: 1159–1161. 5 Bron LP, O’Brien CJ. Facial nerve function after parotidectomy. Arch Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg 1997; 123: 1091–1096. 6 Terrell JE, Kileny PR, Yian C et al. Clinical outcome of continuous facial nerve monitoring during primary parotidectomy. Arch Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg 1997; 123: 1081–1087. 7 Mra Z, Komisar A, Blaugrund SM. Functional facial nerve weakness after surgery for benign parotid tumors: a multivariate statistical analysis. Head Neck 1993; 15: 147–152. 8 Witt RL. Facial nerve monitoring in parotid surgery: the standard of care? Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg 1998; 119: 468–470. 9 Dulguerov P, Marchal F, Lehmann W. Postparotidectomy facial nerve paralysis: possible etiologic factors and results with routine facial nerve monitoring. Laryngoscope 1999; 109: 754–762. 10 Reilly J, Myssiorek D. Facial nerve stimulation and postparotidectomy facial paresis. Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg 2003; 128: 530–533.
Cultural Theory and its Futures

This introduction surveys a number of problems for contemporary cultural theory, which arise from the transformations in culture that have been produced by developments ranging from the globalization of third wave capitalism to the emergence of tele-technologies. It summarizes arguments presented by Lash, Thoburn, Johnson, Terranova and Venn, as well as a number of reflections on the state of cultural studies outside Euro-America, to present alternative genealogies of cultural studies and open up new sites for theoretical elaboration.
Reverse engineering of gene regulatory network using restricted gene expression programming

Inference of gene regulatory networks has been becoming a major area of interest in the field of systems biology over the past decade. In this paper, we present a novel representation of S-system model, named restricted gene expression programming (RGEP), to infer gene regulatory network. A new hybrid evolutionary algorithm based on structure-based evolutionary algorithm and cuckoo search (CS) is proposed to optimize the architecture and corresponding parameters of model, respectively. Two synthetic benchmark datasets and one real biological dataset from SOS DNA repair network in E. coli are used to test the validity of our method. Experimental results demonstrate that our proposed method performs better than previously proposed popular methods.
Relating domain size distribution to line tension and molecular dipole density in model cytoplasmic myelin lipid monolayers

We fit the size distribution of liquid-ordered (Lo) domains measured from fluorescence images of model cytoplasmic myelin monolayers with an equilibrium thermodynamic expression that includes the competing effects of line tension, λ, dipole density difference, Δm, and the mixing entropy. From these fits, we extract the line tension, λ, and dipole density difference, Δm, between the Lo and liquid-disordered (Ld) phases. Both λ and Δm decrease with increasing surface pressure, , although λ/Δm2 remains roughly constant as the monolayer approaches the miscibility surface pressure. As a result, the mean domain size changed little with surface pressure, although the polydispersity increased significantly. The most probable domain radius was significantly smaller than that predicted by the energy alone, showing that the mixing entropy promotes a greater number of smaller domains. Our results also explain why domain shapes are stable; at equilibrium, only a small fraction of the domains are large enough to undergo theoretically predicted shape fluctuations. Monolayers based on the composition of myelin from animals with experimental allergic encephalomyelitis had slightly lower values of λ and Δm, and a higher area fraction of domains, than control monolayers at all . While it is premature to generalize these results to myelin bilayers, our results show that the domain distribution in myelin may be an equilibrium effect and that subtle changes in surface pressure and composition can alter the distribution of material in the monolayer, which will likely also alter the interactions between monolayers important to the adhesion of the myelin sheath.
Effective bandwidth vector for two-priority ATM traffic

Traffic consisting of two classes (0 and 1) arrives at a buffer in a bursty fashion. The type-0 traffic is always admitted into the buffer (of size B/sub 0/) as long as there is space for it. Type-1 traffic is admitted to the buffer only if the buffer content does not exceed a threshold B/sub 1spl les/B/sub 0/. The authors develop an analytical model to determine the bandwidth allocation in order to ensure that the packet loss probability of type-i traffic does not exceed /spl epsisub i/, where 0</spl epsisub 0spl lesspl epsisub 1/<1 are given numbers. These results extend the notion of effective bandwidth of a single class traffic. They also studied the variation of this effective bandwidth with the buffer threshold and with the amount of high priority traffic. This study provides valuable insights into the buffer dimensioning problem as well as the amount of bandwidth that can be saved by using priority discard mechanisms. <<ETX>>
The Public Identities of the Black Middle Classes: Managing Race in Public Spaces

Drawing on data from a two-year ESRC-funded project into The Educational Strategies of the Black Middle Classes, 1 this article examines how middle class blacks negotiate survival in a society marked by race and class discrimination. It considers respondents’ school experiences, marked as they are by incidents of Othering and racism and explores both the processes by which they came to an awareness of their status as racially minoritized and how they made sense of and managed such incidents. The majority of our respondents have made the transition from working class to middle class during their lifetimes. It is argued that these early formative experiences of racism and this class transition have facilitated the development of a complex set of capitals upon which middle class blacks are able to draw in order to signal their class identity to white others therefore minimizing the probability of racial discrimination.
Mobile Network Evolution toward 3G: A Techno-Economic Analysis

This paper addresses technical and economical aspects to configure a Third Generation (3G) mobile cellular network. Major components of costs and revenues and the major stakeholders are identified and a methodology is developed to compare the main factors affecting the business case of 3G operators and builds a model that estimates the profitability of different scenarios. An open issue, both from the technical and economic points of view, is to identify the requirements and the necessary steps to migrate from 2G to 3G mobile cellular networks. A number of mobile network evolution strategies toward 3G were generated and evaluated using the TERA model. Initial economic conclusions have been derived, presented and discussed using key profitability factors such as Net Present Value (NPV), and Payback Period.
Banishing Colonial Specters: Language Ideology and Education Policy in Pakistan

This paper examines the presence of British colonial language ideologies in Pakistan’s language-in-education policy and discourses. Through a review of scholarly work on official language policies, and a sampling of current policies and media commentary, I analyze how the language ideologies that undergird the language-in-education discourses are embedded with political, cultural, and moral projects about speakers and their languages. The colonial language ideologies had assumed a direct relationship between a language and the stereotypic characteristics of its speakers and failed to account for the multiple possibilities that the English medium education provided for the indigenous population, eventually leading to decolonization. In Pakistan’s post-independence education system, the positioning of English as a prestige language variety in contrast to the vernacular languages continues to have important consequences within Pakistan’s current domestic and global political context. By recognizing how top-down colonial policies failed to account for the resistance efforts of English-speaking Indians, I argue that current language-in-education policies for political and governmental purposes may continue to be counterproductive unless they take local knowledges and realities into account.
Regulation of mitochondrial bioenergetic function by hydrogen sulfide. Part II. Pathophysiological and therapeutic aspects

Emerging work demonstrates the dual regulation of mitochondrial function by hydrogen sulfide (H2S), including, at lower concentrations, a stimulatory effect as an electron donor, and, at higher concentrations, an inhibitory effect on cytochrome C oxidase. In the current article, we overview the pathophysiological and therapeutic aspects of these processes. During cellular hypoxia/acidosis, the inhibitory effect of H2S on complex IV is enhanced, which may shift the balance of H2S from protective to deleterious. Several pathophysiological conditions are associated with an overproduction of H2S (e.g. sepsis), while in other disease states H2S levels and H2S bioavailability are reduced and its therapeutic replacement is warranted (e.g. diabetic vascular complications). Moreover, recent studies demonstrate that colorectal cancer cells up‐regulate the H2S‐producing enzyme cystathionine β‐synthase (CBS), and utilize its product, H2S, as a metabolic fuel and tumour‐cell survival factor; pharmacological CBS inhibition or genetic CBS silencing suppresses cancer cell bioenergetics and suppresses cell proliferation and cell chemotaxis. In the last chapter of the current article, we overview the field of H2S‐induced therapeutic ‘suspended animation’, a concept in which a temporary pharmacological reduction in cell metabolism is achieved, producing a decreased oxygen demand for the experimental therapy of critical illness and/or organ transplantation.
Paracrine Signaling Through MYCN Enhances Tumor-Vascular Interactions in Neuroblastoma

PI3K/mTOR inhibitors inhibit angiogenesis by blocking MYCN-dependent paracrine signaling between tumor and endothelial cells. Childhood Cancers—and MYCN Therapy—Strike a Nerve It’s easy to become jaded by the current celebrity-advocate overload. But appeals for children suffering from lethal cancers never fail to tug at the heartstrings. Consider the disease neuroblastoma, one of the most common childhood cancers: Nearly half of the cases occur in children under 2 years of age, and treatments for the so-called high-risk version of the disease often fail. But mouse models of neuroblastoma provide a clue: Overexpression of the MYCN proto-oncogene foreshadows treatment failure. Now, Chanthery et al. demonstrate that a drug currently being tested in clinical trials for solid tumors improves survival by targeting the MYCN protein. This promising drug, NVP-BEZ235, inhibits the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)/mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) signaling pathway, which is frequently activated in cancers. NVP-BEZ235 blocked new blood vessel formation (angiogenesis) by tumors and improved survival in two mouse models of neuroblastoma, a xenograft variety developed with primary tumor from patients and a genetic model in which the MYCN gene drives spontaneous tumor formation in mice. The antiangiogenic effect depended in part on function of the MYCN protein, a transcriptional regulator: NVP-BEZ235 therapy spurred degradation of MYCN in tumor cells, which, in turn, produced local (paracrine) effects that inhibited angiogenesis, a process required for tumor growth and metastasis. Future clinical trials will reveal whether NVP-BEZ235 represents a new therapeutic option for MYCN-amplified neuroblastoma—and a chance for sick toddlers to thrive. Neuroblastoma, a tumor of peripheral neural crest origin, numbers among the most common childhood cancers. Both amplification of the proto-oncogene MYCN and increased neoangiogenesis mark high-risk disease. Because angiogenesis is regulated by phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K), we tested a clinical PI3K inhibitor, NVP-BEZ235, in MYCN-dependent neuroblastoma. NVP-BEZ235 decreased angiogenesis and improved survival in both primary human (highly pretreated recurrent MYCN-amplified orthotopic xenograft) and transgenic mouse models for MYCN-driven neuroblastoma. Using both gain- and loss-of-function approaches, we demonstrated that the antiangiogenic efficacy of NVP-BEZ235 depended critically on MYCN in vitro and in vivo. Thus, clinical PI3K/mammalian target of rapamycin inhibitors drove degradation of MYCN in tumor cells, with secondary paracrine blockade of angiogenesis. Our data demonstrated significantly improved survival in treated animals and suggest that NVP-BEZ235 should be tested in children with high-risk, MYCN-amplified neuroblastoma.
Integers In C: An Open Invitation To Security Attacks?

We performed an empirical study to explore how closely well-known, open source C programs follow the safe C standards for integer behavior, with the goal of understanding how difficult it is to migrate legacy code to these stricter standards. We performed an automated analysis on fifty-two releases of seven C programs (6 million lines of preprocessed C code), as well as releases of Busybox and Linux (nearly one billion lines of partially-preprocessed C code). We found that integer issues, that are allowed by the C standard but not by the safer C standards, are ubiquitous—one out of four integers were inconsistently declared, and one out of eight integers were inconsistently used. Integer issues did not improve over time as the programs evolved. Also, detecting the issues is complicated by a large number of integers whose types vary under different preprocessor configurations. Most of these issues are benign, but the chance of finding fatal errors and exploitable vulnerabilities among these many issues remains significant. A preprocessor-aware, tool-assisted approach may be the most viable way to migrate legacy C code to comply with the standards for secure programming.