Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Coarse Pixel Shading

We present a novel architecture for flexible control of shading rates in a GPU pipeline, and demonstrate substantially reduced shading costs for various applications. We decouple shading and visibility by restricting and quantizing shading rates to a finite set of screen-aligned grids, leading to simpler and fewer changes to the GPU pipeline compared to alternative approaches. Our architecture introduces different mechanisms for programmable control of the shading rate, which enables efficient shading in several scenarios, e.g., rendering for high pixel density displays, foveated rendering, and adaptive shading for motion and defocus blur. We also support shading at multiple rates in a single pass, which allows the user to compute different shading terms at rates better matching their frequency content.
Application of Resampling Techniques to the Statistical Analysis of the Brier Score

Abstract: We investigated the application of resampling techniques to the statistical analysis of the Brier score (B), and extended them to the statistical comparison of two Bs derived from the same set of patients. The re-sampling techniques are helpful in the statistical analysis of B, and there are almost no differences between the jackknife method and the bootstrap method in this analysis. Thus, we believe that B should be used more often as an index to evaluate probabilistic judgments in the case in which the data sets for the assessment are “degenerate” as the “receiver operating characteristic data sets. ”
Paraplegic standing supported by FES-controlled ankle stiffness

The objective of this paper was to investigate whether a paraplegic subject is able to maintain balance during standing by means of voluntary and reflex activity of the upper body while being supported by closed loop controlled ankle stiffness using FES. The knees and hips of the subject were held in extended positions by a mechanical apparatus, which restricted movement to the sagittal plane. The subject underwent several training sessions where the appropriate level of stiffness around the ankles was maintained by the mechanical apparatus. This enabled the subject to learn how to use the upper body for balancing. After the subject gained adequate skills closed-loop FES was employed to regulate ankle stiffness, replacing the stiffness provided by the apparatus. A method to control antagonist muscle moment was implemented. In subsequent standing sessions, the subject had no difficulties in maintaining balance. When the FES support was withheld, the ability to balance was lost.
Tardive dyskinesia: prevalence and risk factors, 1959 to 1979

Fifty-six prevalence surveys of tardive dyskinesia (TD) in neuroleptic-treated patients are reviewed, yielding an average prevalence of 20% as compared with 5% prevalence of "spontaneous" dyskinesia in 19 samples of untreated individuals. Reported prevalence has increased during the past two decades and is not attributable simply to the more widespread use of rating scales. Controlled studies of a variety of risk factors are reviewed and suggest that advancing age and, to a lesser extent, female sex are the two variables most consistently associated with increased prevalence. There are relatively few data supporting the assumption that the risk of TD development continues to increase with increasing neuroleptic exposure, CNS dysfunction, or exposure to antiparkinsonism medication.
Infertility, infertility treatment, and congenital malformations: Danish national birth cohort

Abstract Objectives To examine whether infertile couples (with a time to pregnancy of > 12 months), who conceive naturally or after treatment, give birth to children with an increased prevalence of congenital malformations. Design Longitudinal study. Setting Danish national birth cohort. Participants Three groups of liveborn children and their mothers: 50 897 singletons and 1366 twins born of fertile couples (time to pregnancy ≤ 12 months), 5764 singletons and 100 twins born of infertile couples who conceived naturally (time to pregnancy > 12 months), and 4588 singletons and 1690 twins born after infertility treatment. Main outcome measures Prevalence of congenital malformations determined from hospital discharge diagnoses. Results Compared with singletons born of fertile couples, singletons born of infertile couples who conceived naturally or after treatment had a higher prevalence of congenital malformations—hazard ratios 1.20 (95% confidence interval 1.07 to 1.35) and 1.39 (1.23 to 1.57). The overall prevalence of congenital malformations increased with increasing time to pregnancy. When the analysis was restricted to singletons born of infertile couples, babies born after treatment had an increased prevalence of genital organ malformations (hazard ratio 2.32, 1.24 to 4.35) compared with babies conceived naturally. No significant differences existed in the overall prevalence of congenital malformations among twins. Conclusions Hormonal treatment for infertility may be related to the occurrence of malformations of genital organs, but our results suggest that the reported increased prevalence of congenital malformations seen in singletons born after assisted reproductive technology is partly due to the underlying infertility or its determinants. The association between untreated infertility and congenital malformations warrants further examination.
Texture-based segmentation of the knee bones in MRI using phase information

This paper considers the problem of tissue classification in 3D MRI by the mean of texture analysis. The main contribution is the use of the phase of the complex MR image, to derive texture features. Phase can give information about tissue interfaces and provide a good discrimination between the bone and the surrounding tissues but is usually not used because of the phase unwrapping problem. We present a method to extract textural information from the phase that does not require phase unwrapping. The textural information extracted from the magnitude and the phase can be combined to improve tissue classification. The aim of this classification is to initialise an active shape model, leading to a more precise segmentation
Face Localization from Discriminative Regions

The aim of this thesis proposal is to explore and develop a system that robustly solves the problem of human face localization with minimal amount of constraints on scene conditions (illumination, head pose etc.) and facial expressions. The appearance of the face is modeled locally in terms of discriminative regions and their spatial relationship. Most of the free parameters are learned from training examples and as little as possible information from a human expert is needed.
Comparison of Size and Geography of Airborne Tungsten Particles in Fallon, Nevada, and Sweet Home, Oregon, with Implications for Public Health

To improve understanding of possible connections between airborne tungsten and public health, size and geography of airborne tungsten particles collected in Fallon, Nevada, and Sweet Home, Oregon, were compared. Both towns have industrial tungsten facilities, but only Fallon has experienced a cluster of childhood leukemia. Fallon and Sweet Home are similar to one another by their particles of airborne tungsten being generally small in size. Meteorologically, much, if not most, of residential Fallon is downwind of its hard metal facility for at least some fraction of time at the annual scale, whereas little of residential Sweet Home is downwind of its tungsten facility. Geographically, most Fallon residents potentially spend time daily within an environment containing elevated levels of airborne tungsten. In contrast, few Sweet Home residents potentially spend time daily within an airborne environment with elevated levels of airborne tungsten. Although it cannot be concluded from environmental data alone that elevated airborne tungsten causes childhood leukemia, the lack of excessive cancer in Sweet Home cannot logically be used to dismiss the possibility of airborne tungsten as a factor in the cluster of childhood leukemia in Fallon. Detailed modeling of all variables affecting airborne loadings of heavy metals would be needed to legitimately compare human exposures to airborne tungsten in Fallon and Sweet Home.
Reconfigurable Instruction Decoding for a Wide-Control-Word Processor

Fine-grained control through the use of a wide control word can lead to high instruction-level parallelism, but unless compressed the words require a large memory footprint. A reconfigurable fixed-length decoding scheme can be created by taking advantage of the fact that an application only uses a subset of the data path for its execution. We present the first complete implementation of the Flex Core processor, integrating a wide control-word data path with a run-time reconfigurable instruction decompress or. Our evaluation, using three different EEMBC benchmarks, shows that it is possible to reach up to 35% speedup compared to a five-stage pipelined MIPS processor, assuming the same data path units. In addition, our VLSI implementations show that this Flex Core processor offers up to 24% higher energy efficiency than the MIPS reference processor.
Hansen's body-centered media philosophy challenges, but lacks application

In an ambitious undertaking, Hansen attempts to create a philosophical basis for understanding new media, and although he seems to fall slightly short of the mark, he does succeed in presenting a rich and innovative aesthetic—a sensory-based phenomenology—for rethinking communication technologies in the 21st century. Central to Hansen’s discussion is the work of French philosopher Henri Bergson (1911), who characterized the external world as a universal flux of images. Privileged among these images is the body, which “acts as a filter creatively selecting facets of the images from the universal flux according to its own capacities” (p. xx). Although not citing him directly, Hansen’s arguments call to mind Marshall McLuhan’s contention that media fundamentally change human sensory ratios (McLuhan & Fiore, 1968; McLuhan, 1967). Citing Bergson, Hansen presents the body as
Information Gathering and Reward Exploitation of Subgoals for POMDPs

Planning in large partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) is challenging especially when a long planning horizon is required. A few recent algorithms successfully tackle this case but at the expense of a weaker information-gathering capacity. In this paper, we propose Information Gathering and Reward Exploitation of Subgoals (IGRES), a randomized POMDP planning algorithm that leverages information in the state space to automatically generate "macro-actions" to tackle tasks with long planning horizons, while locally exploring the belief space to allow effective information gathering. Experimental results show that IGRES is an effective multi-purpose POMDP solver, providing state-of-the-art performance for both long horizon planning tasks and information-gathering tasks on benchmark domains. Additional experiments with an ecological adaptive management problem indicate that IGRES is a promising tool for POMDP planning in real-world settings.
Star teachers of children in poverty

Star Teachers of Children in Poverty, by Martin Haberman. West Lafayette, IN: Kappa Delta Pi,1995. 100 pp. $15.00, paper. Reviewed by Frances Y. Lowden, Indiana State University. Throughout this book, Martin Haberman, himself a renowned scholar, teacher, and policymaker, unabashedly supports a concept he calls "star teachers. " Haberman states that 5% to So/a of teachers in the U.S. meet the following "star" criteria: (a) their students score higher on standardized tests; (b) parents, children, and school principals rate them highly; (c) other teachers regard them as outstanding; (d) school district administrators consider them successful; (e) cooperating universities regard them as superior; and (f) they evaluate themselves as outstanding teachers. Star teachers are not deterred by the professional and emotional demands placed upon them by students, parents, and administrators; rather, they share Haberman's philosophy that "life's greatest gift is the opportunity to throw oneself into a job that puts meaning into the lives of other people" (p. xii). Having such teachers in the lives of poor urban children, he maintains, is "a matter of life and death" (p. 1). Haberman's star teachers personify warmth, fairness, and discipline. They understand that their role is to teach; love and compassion are not enough. Teachers Haberman designates as failures blame academic underachievement on students' backgrounds, home context, and perceived personal shortcomings rather than recognizing their responsibility to provide a safe, risk-free environment for students to learn. Haberman also contends that pejorative terms such as "culturally deprived," "academically disadvantaged," "difficult to serve," "hard to reach," "alienated," and a host of others-including the currently popular "at risk"-have hampered teachers' attempts to reach and teach all children. According to Haberman, these terms are labels used for the same purpose: to attribute the causes of low achievement and school failure to the child and family, but in a manner that implies the labeler is not prejudiced and is sincerely trying to help. As he steadfastly maintains, there is no way to provide an equitable education to a child one perceives and labels as basically inadequate. The book is divided into four chapters, the first of which, "What Star Teachers Don't Do," discusses issues of parent bashing, discipline, homework, assessment, reinforcements, and time-on-task. Time-on-task, in Haberman s view, is not a separate and discrete function but is best measured through engagement in collaborative projects where time spent is based on students' involvement and interest. …
Degradation kinetics and safety evaluation of tetraconazole and difenoconazole residues in grape.

BACKGROUND Tetraconazole and difenoconazole are triazole fungicides with proven bioefficacy against grapevine powdery mildew disease. In the present work, the authors explored the residue dynamics of these two compounds in grapes and determined their preharvest intervals (PHIs) corresponding to multiple field applications at recommended and double rates considering the most critical use pattern in Indian viticulture. A confirmatory residue analysis method was validated for trace-level determination of both the compounds. RESULTS Dissipation of both the fungicides followed non-linear two-compartment first + first-order rate kinetics. Tetraconazole and difenoconazole dissipated with PHIs of 12.5 and 25.5 days at recommended rates and of 28.5 and 38.5 days at double application rates respectively. On all the sampling days, the residues were below the maximum permissible intake, indicating consumer safety. The residues in the grape samples drawn from the farms where these two fungicides were applied, maintaining the above PHIs, were below their respective MRLs. CONCLUSION The rate of degradation of tetraconazole was faster than that of difenoconazole. Thus, the growers will have the choice of using these new chemicals for the management of powdery mildews in succession, difenoconazole at early growth stages, followed by tetraconazole during the last month before harvest. The recommendations of PHIs proved to be effective in minimizing residues in farm grape samples. Thus, this work is of high significance to the grape industry of India, and will support the registration of these new fungicides for effective management of powdery mildews with minimum residue problems.
DNA Barcode Examination of North American Mayflies Across Their Natural Distribution Reveals Cryptic Species Complexes

The application of DNA barcoding to distinguish between two or more closely related taxa has been used more frequently in recent years. The typical approach has been to isolate, amplify and sequence cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (COI), a mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) encoded subunit of respiratory Complex IV. COI has proven useful as a marker for identification purposes because the frequency of mutations for this gene is relatively high. Thus, conserved mutations and variability in the COI sequence can be used to determine relatedness of individuals. Many valid criticisms about the practice have arisen, not the least of which is that intraspecific COI variability has not been examined and compared across the entire range of a given species. Rather, most studies employing DNA barcoding focus on relatively few individuals and even fewer sites. Together, this may underestimate intraspecific variance, confounding efforts to distinguish between intraspecific and interspecific differences. Therefore, criteria for delimiting species may need revision. To test whether intraspecific differences at COI are influenced by geographical scale, a COI-barcode library was constructed for three species of North American mayflies (Ephemeroptera) across their natural distribution. This order is important for water quality monitoring of streams and rivers and hence species level identifications have the potential for great application. These three species were chosen because they had relatively wide distributions (i.e., throughout eastern North America) yet were presently considered single species based on morphological characters. Sampling sites included in the study were widespread and represented a range of geographical diversity. Two of three species examined (i.e., Eurylophella funeralis and Leptophlebia cupida) exhibited genetic differences between individuals that frequently exceeded 2% base pair deviation at the COI locus. There were three or more distinct barcode clusters within each of these two species. Our data suggests that these two species may represent species complexes that are morphologically cryptic. In contrast, genetic differences between individuals for species (Siphloplecton basale) did not greatly exceed the 2% base pair deviation at the COI locus. The presence of morphologically cryptic species within Eurylophella funeralis and Leptophlebia cupida illustrates the need for a robust library of barcodes with morphological vouchers for North American mayflies to resolve the phylogenetics of this group so their contributions in water quality assessments can be maximized. Disciplines Environmental Sciences | Physical Sciences and Mathematics This thesis or dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn. edu/mes_capstones/59 DNA BARCODE EXAMINATION OF NORTH AMERICAN MAYFLIES ACROSS THEIR NATURAL DISTRIBUTION REVEALS CRYPTIC SPECIES COMPLEXES Robert J. George Fall 2013 University of Pennsylvania John K. Jackson, PhD, Stroud Water Research Center Sarah A. Willig, PhD, University of Pennsylvania
High voltage cell power supply for modular multilevel converters

Modular multilevel converters (MMCs) require isolated power supplies at their cells (modules). For high voltage MMC cells with considerable power consumption, simple flyback converters are no more applicable as power supplies; however, input-series output-parallel (ISOP) flyback converters are suitable provided that simplicity and cost-effectiveness are preserved. In this paper, a simple 100W 2.8kV-to-36V 3-stage ISOP flyback converter is proposed as high voltage cell power supply (HV-CPS). In this paper, the HV-CPS's implementation challenges are addressed and their solutions are provided. Via the full-scale prototype of the proposed HV-CPS, its successful operation is experimentally demonstrated.
Dual Stimulation of Ras/Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinase and Rhoa by Cell Adhesion to Fibronectin Supports Growth Factor–Stimulated Cell Cycle Progression

In cellular transformation, activated forms of the small GTPases Ras and RhoA can cooperate to drive cells through the G1 phase of the cell cycle. Here, we show that a similar but substrate-regulated mechanism is involved in the anchorage-dependent proliferation of untransformed NIH-3T3 cells. Among several extracellular matrix components tested, only fibronectin supported growth factor–induced, E2F-dependent S phase entry. Although all substrates supported the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) response to growth factors, RhoA activity was specifically enhanced on fibronectin. Moreover, induction of cyclin D1 and suppression of p21Cip/Waf occurred specifically, in a Rho-dependent fashion, in cells attached to fibronectin. This ability of fibronectin to stimulate both Ras/MAPK- and RhoA-dependent signaling can explain its potent cooperation with growth factors in the stimulation of cell cycle progression.
Insight Into the Dynamics of the Coronary Sinus/Great Cardiac Vein and the Mitral Annulus: Implications for Percutaneous Mitral Annuloplasty Techniques

Background—Implantation of devices into the coronary sinus (CS)/great cardiac vein (GCV) to reshape the mitral annulus (MA) is being investigated, despite these structures not being within the same plane and coronary arteries frequently traversing between them. Furthermore, dynamic changes in their relationship have never been studied. We analyzed the CS/GCV dimensions and its relationship with the MA and the coronary arteries. Methods and Results—Of 390 consecutive computed tomography angiographies reviewed, 56 met the inclusion criteria. Mean age of the patients was 68.9±13.1 years (26.8% men). The dimensions of the CS/GCV and the distance between this structure and the MA were measured at 10 different spatial points along the CS/GCV trajectory and at 3 different time points along the cardiac cycle (phases 0%, 40%, and 75% of the RR interval) by using curved multiplanar reconstruction technique. The CS/GCV was larger in phase 40% than in phase 75% and was smallest in phase 0% (P<0.001). The distance between the CS/GCV and the MA was longest in phase 40% and shortest in phase 0% (P=0.013). The diameter of the MA was measured in oblique 2- and 4-chamber reconstructions, being largest in phase 0% and smallest in phase 40% (P=0.019). A coronary artery traversed between the CS/GCV and the MA in 85.7% of the patients. Conclusions—This study demonstrated dynamic changes in the relationship between the CS/GCV and the MA and also that coronary arteries frequently traverse between both structures. Whether these findings are of clinical relevance for patients undergoing percutaneous mitral annuloplasty needs to be prospectively evaluated.