Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Large Image Fast Compositing Based on Uniform Sample

We present a novel approach called Uniform Sample Compositing (USC) to improve the efficiency of gradient-domain compositing of large image, which could be implemented in significantly reduced time and memory. Firstly, our algorithm divides an original source image into many quadrilateral patches, and discards inner pixels and reserves the border pixels of patches) to constitute two low resolution images (Uniform-Sample-images) on which the image compositing operator is implemented. Finally according to the solution of Uniform-Sample-images the result image is evaluated by concurrently computing inner pixels of every quadrilateral patch on GPU. The evaluation of these patches is independent to each other so that our algorithm has better parallelism. The reduction of time and memory is achieved by solving Poisson equation on low resolution and inner interpolation on quadrilateral patches. The major merits of our approach are demonstrated by performing large image composite (whose size is about multi-Gigabyte) in significantly reduced time and memory while achieving visually identical results.
Infliximab Induces Increase in Triglyceride Levels in Psoriatic Arthritis Patients

Objectives. To evaluate lipid profile changes after anti-TNF therapy in patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA). Methods. Fifteen PsA patients (eight polyarticular, four oligoarticular, two axial, and one mutilating) under infliximab were included. None had dyslipoproteinemia or previous statin use. Total cholesterol (TC) and its fractions, inflammatory markers, and prednisone use were evaluated. Results. The comparisons of lipid levels between baseline and after three months (3M) of anti-TNF therapy showed that there was a significant increase in mean triglycerides (117.8 ± 49.7 versus 140.1 ± 64.1 mg/dL, P = 0.028) and VLDL-c (23.6 ± 10.5 versus 28.4 ± 13.7 mg/dL, P = 0.019) levels. In contrast, there were no differences in the mean TC (P = 0.28), LDL-c (P = 0.42), and HDL-c (P = 0.26) levels. Analysis of the frequencies of each lipid alteration at baseline and at 3M were alike (P > 0.05). Positive correlations were found between VLDL-c and CRP (r = 0.647, P = 0.009) and between triglycerides and CRP (r = 0.604, P = 0.017) levels at 3M. ESR reduction was observed after 3M (P = 0.04). Mean prednisone dose remained stable at beginning and at 3M (P = 0.37). Conclusion. This study demonstrated that anti-TNF may increase TG and VLDL-c levels in PsA patients after three months.
Situated Plan Attribution1

Plan recognition techniques frequently make rigid assumptions about the student's plans, and invest substantial effort to infer unobservable properties of the student. The pedagogical benefits of plan recognition analysis are not always obvious. We claim that these difficulties can be overcome if greater attention is paid to the situational context of the student's activity and the pedagogical tasks which plan recognition is intended to support. This paper describes an approach to plan recognition called situated plan attribution that takes these factors into account. It devotes varying amounts of effort to the interpretation process, focusing the greatest effort on interpreting impasse points, i.e., points where the student encounters some difficulty completing the task. This approach has been implemented and evaluated in the context of the REACT tutor, a trainer for operators of deep space communications stations.
Functional genomics of neural and behavioral plasticity.

How does the environment, particularly the social environment, influence brain and behavior and what are the underlying physiologic, molecular, and genetic mechanisms? Adaptations of brain and behavior to changes in the social or physical environment are common in the animal world, either as short-term (i.e., modulatory) or as long-term modifications (e.g., via gene expression changes) in behavioral or physiologic properties. The study of the mechanisms and constraints underlying these dynamic changes requires model systems that offer plastic phenotypes as well as a sufficient level of quantifiable behavioral complexity while being accessible at the physiological and molecular level. In this article, I explore how the new field of functional genomics can contribute to an understanding of the complex relationship between genome and environment that results in highly plastic phenotypes. This approach will lead to the discovery of genes under environmental control and provide the basis for the study of the interrelationship between an individual's gene expression profile and its social phenotype in a given environmental context.
Quality of life in parents of preterm infants in a randomized nutritional intervention trial

Background Being a parent of a very-low birth weight (VLBW, birth weight <1,500 g) infant is challenging because of the numerous complications these infants may encounter, many of which are caused by inadequate nutrition. Whether the burden to the parents increases when their VLBW infant participates in a randomized intervention trial (RCT) and is thus exposed to additional risk is unknown. Objective To examine parental qualify of life (QoL) and well-being after participation of their VLBW infants in a nutrition RCT. Design QoL and symptoms associated with well-being of parents of VLBW infants participating in a nutrition RCT (n=31) and of a reference group (parents of nonparticipating VBLW infants, n=31) were examined. Assessments were performed when their infants were in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) (time point T1) and concurrently at 3.5 years of age (time point T2). The parents completed the following questionnaires: Quality of Life Scale, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, Lee Fatigue Scale (LFS), and General Sleeping Disturbance Scale (GSDS). Results At T1, the QoL was better among RCT parents (p=0.02). At T2, the RCT parents reported less sleep disturbance symptoms (GSDS) (p=0.03) and more energy (LFS) (p=0.03). Conclusion The RCT participation of VLBW infants may have improved parental QoL. While in the neonatal unit, symptoms of anxiety and depression were common among all parents. The high incidence of anxiety and depression in parents must be considered in the care of parents in the NICU. Long-term effects of participation seem to be less sleep problems and more energy.
Gender related differences in scaling structure of heart-rate and blood-pressure variability as assessed by detrended fluctuation analysis

Women, which have lower risks of cardiovascular events, are characterized by higher heart rate entropy. Aim of this study is to evaluate whether also the fractal structure of heart rate and blood pressure, as quantified by DFA, differs between men and women. In 33 male and 23 female volunteers, we recorded R-R intervals (RRI) and systolic (S) and diastolic (D) blood pressure (BP) for 10′ in 3 conditions: supine rest, sitting at rest and sitting during exercise. We calculated a spectrum of scale exponent α(t) as function of the time scale t, by DFA. We also calculated traditional spectral indexes for assessing cardiac and vascular autonomic tone. We found gender related differences in α(t) only during supine rest. Women had significantly lower α(t) of RRI at scales &#60;6 s, and higher α(t) of BP at the longer scales, the difference being significant for DBP at t>60s. Results may in part be explained by gender differences in cardiac autonomic tone at rest.
DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM FOR 3D REMOTE MONITORING USING KINECT DEPTH CAMERAS

This article describes the design and development ofa system for remote indoor 3D monitoring using an undetermined number of Microsoft® Kinect sensors. In the proposed client-server system, the Kinect cameras can be connected to different computers, addressing this way the hardware limitation of one sensor per USB controller. The reason behind this limitation is the high bandwidth needed by the sensor, which becomes also an issue for the distributed system TCP/IP communications. Since traffic volume is too high, 3D data has to be compressed before it can be sent over the network. The solution consists in self-coding the Kinect data into RGB images and then using a standard multimedia codec to compress color maps. Information from different sources is collected into a central client computer, where point clouds are transformed to reconstruct the scene in 3D. An algorithm is proposed to conveniently merge the skeletons detected locally by each Kinect, so that monitoring of people is robust to self and inter-user occlusions. Final skeletons are labeled and trajectories of every joint can be saved for event reconstruction or further analysis.
Uranyl Nitrate Induce Histological Changes in The Kidney

Although the kidneys are the main target organs for uranium (U) toxicity, the aim of the present study is to examine the histological changes in kidney ' s rats administrated with uranyl nitrate compared with controls by light microscope. The present study was carried out on 60 albino rats. 20 animals control and 40 animals were administrated with 75mg/Kg body weight of uranyl nitrate (UN) per day orally for one month Half the animals sacrificed on 30 nd day(group1). Small pieces of kidney were procured, fixed in 10% neutral buffered formalin and embedded in paraffin. Sections of 5 µ thickness were cut and stained with Haematoxylin and Eosin for general morphology. The remain animals (group2) were left for another month and used the same treatment of (group1) after two months of the experiment this treatment added as long term study. Significant histological changes were observed. Significant increment changes were observed in kidney's rats treated with uranyl nitrate for two months more than kidney's rats treated with uranyl nitrate for one month, degenerative changes were seen more in cortex as compared to medulla . Hemorrhage and inflammatory cell reaction was also observed in cortex, tubular necrosis were seen. Melanodyldehyd (MDA) as Lipid Peroxidation was significantly higher in homogenized kidney's tissue of rats than in the controls, while (GSH) was significantly lower in homogenized kidney's tissue of rats than in the control subjects.Uranyl nitrate, Uranium toxicity, Histopathological changes in kidney, kidney toxicity.
Computationally Sound Proofs

This paper puts forward a new notion of a proof based on computational complexity and explores its implications for computation at large. Computationally sound proofs provide, in a novel and meaningful framework, answers to old and new questions in complexity theory. In particular, given a random oracle or a new complexity assumption, they enable us to prove that verifying is easier than deciding for all theorems; provide a quite effective way to prove membership in computationally hard languages (such as ${\cal C}o$-$\cal N \cal P$-complete ones); and show that every computation possesses a short certificate vouching its correctness. Finally, if a special type of computationally sound proof exists, we show that Blum's notion of program checking can be meaningfully broadened so as to prove that $\cal N \cal P$-complete languages are checkable.
Open-source Corpora: Using the net to fish for linguistic data

The paper proposes a methodology for collecting "open-source" corpora, i.e. corpora that are automatically collected from the Internet and distributed in the form of a list of links with open-source software for recreating their full text. The result is a random snapshot of Internet pages which contain stretches of connected text in a given language. The paper discusses a methodology for acquiring such corpora, two ways of documenting them (using a set of metatextual categories and by comparison to frequency lists from existing corpora) and their function as benchmarks for comparing results of linguistic inquiry. Experiments with a variety of languages show that Internet-derived corpora can be successfully used in the absence of large representative corpora that are rare and expensive to build.
Cerebral cavernous malformation proteins at a glance

ABSTRACT Loss-of-function mutations in genes encoding KRIT1 (also known as CCM1), CCM2 (also known as OSM and malcavernin) or PDCD10 (also known as CCM3) cause cerebral cavernous malformations (CCMs). These abnormalities are characterized by dilated leaky blood vessels, especially in the neurovasculature, that result in increased risk of stroke, focal neurological defects and seizures. The three CCM proteins can exist in a trimeric complex, and each of these essential multi-domain adaptor proteins also interacts with a range of signaling, cytoskeletal and adaptor proteins, presumably accounting for their roles in a range of basic cellular processes including cell adhesion, migration, polarity and apoptosis. In this Cell Science at a Glance article and the accompanying poster, we provide an overview of current models of CCM protein function focusing on how known protein–protein interactions might contribute to cellular phenotypes and highlighting gaps in our current understanding.
Intact Retinal Pigment Epithelium Maintained by Nok Is Essential for Retinal Epithelial Polarity and Cellular Patterning in Zebrafish

Within the vertebrate eye, the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) juxtaposes with the retina, but how the RPE plays a role in retinal morphogenesis remains elusive. It has been shown that the loss of function of the polarity proteins, such as Nagie oko (Nok), disrupts RPE integrity and retinal lamination. However, it is unclear whether or not such defects are caused in a tissue-autonomous manner. Here, by taking advantage of the nok mutation, we have generated a transgenic model to restore the Nok function in the RPE, but not in the retina. With this model, we show that Nok is required for RPE integrity in a tissue-autonomous manner. However, proper retinal epithelial polarity does not require retinal expression of Nok before embryonic photoreceptor genesis; rather, it requires a Nok-mediated intact RPE. Interestingly, sporadic wild-type RPE donor cells are not sufficient to maintain proper retinal polarity. We further show that RPE-mediated retinal epithelial polarity underlies proper patterning of retinal ganglion cells and the cells of the inner nuclear layer. Nevertheless, during embryonic photoreceptor genesis, an intact RPE is not sufficient to maintain retinal epithelial polarity and retinal cellular pattern formation. Our results show that the subcellular architecture and cellular pattern formation of a tissue may be regulated by neighboring tissues through tissue–tissue interactions.
Starch Biosynthesis during Pollen Maturation Is Associated with Altered Patterns of Gene Expression in Maize1

Starch biosynthesis during pollen maturation is not well understood in terms of genes/proteins and intracellular controls that regulate it in developing pollen. We have studied two specific developmental stages: “early,” characterized by the lack of starch, before or during pollen mitosis I; and “late,” an actively starch-filling post-pollen mitosis I phase in S-type cytoplasmic male-sterile (S-CMS) and two related male-fertile genotypes. The male-fertile starch-positive, but not the CMS starch-deficient, genotypes showed changes in the expression patterns of a large number of genes during this metabolic transition. In addition to a battery of housekeeping genes of carbohydrate metabolism, we observed changes in hexose transporter, plasma membrane H+-ATPase, ZmMADS1, and 14-3-3 proteins. Reduction or deficiency in 14-3-3 protein levels in all three major cellular sites (amyloplasts [starch], mitochondria, and cytosol) in male-sterile relative to male-fertile genotypes are of potential interest because of interorganellar communication in this CMS system. Further, the levels of hexose sugars were significantly reduced in male-sterile as compared with male-fertile tissues, not only at “early” and “late” stages but also at an earlier point during meiosis. Collectively, these data suggest that combined effects of both reduced sugars and their reduced flux in starch biosynthesis along with a strong possibility for altered redox passage may lead to the observed temporal changes in gene expressions, and ultimately pollen sterility.
Plasmid-Encoded Phthalate Catabolic Pathway in Arthrobacter keyseri 12B

ABSTRACT Several 2-substituted benzoates (including 2-trifluoromethyl-, 2-chloro-, 2-bromo-, 2-iodo-, 2-nitro-, 2-methoxy-, and 2-acetyl-benzoates) were converted by phthalate-grown Arthrobacter keyseri (formerlyMicrococcus sp.) 12B to the corresponding 2-substituted 3,4-dihydroxybenzoates (protocatechuates). Because these products lack a carboxyl group at the 2 position, they were not substrates for the next enzyme of the phthalate catabolic pathway, 3,4-dihydroxyphthalate 2-decarboxylase, and accumulated. When these incubations were carried out in iron-containing minimal medium, the products formed colored chelates. This chromogenic response was subsequently used to identify recombinant Escherichia colistrains carrying genes encoding the responsible enzymes, phthalate 3,4-dioxygenase and 3,4-dihydroxy-3,4-dihydrophthalate dehydrogenase, from the 130-kbp plasmid pRE1 of strain 12B. Beginning with the initially cloned 8.14-kbp PstI fragment of pRE824 as a probe to identify recombinant plasmids carrying overlapping fragments, a DNA segment of 33.5 kbp was cloned from pRE1 on several plasmids and mapped using restriction endonucleases. From these plasmids, the sequence of 26,274 contiguous bp was determined. Sequenced DNA included several genetic units: tnpR, pcmoperon, ptr genes, pehA, norA fragment, and pht operon, encoding a transposon resolvase, catabolism of protocatechuate (3,4-dihydroxybenzoate), a putative ATP-binding cassette transporter, a possible phthalate ester hydrolase, a fragment of a norfloxacin resistance-like transporter, and the conversion of phthalate to protocatechuate, respectively. Activities of the eight enzymes involved in the catabolism of phthalate through protocatechuate to pyruvate and oxaloacetate were demonstrated in cells or cell extracts of recombinant E. coli strains.
“ Intertemporal Price Discrimination with Time Inconsistent Consumers ”

How should a rational monopolist respond to boundedly rational consumers? This paper looks at the inter-temporal price discrimination game that arises when a monopolist faces naive-time-inconsistent consumers. En route to solving this game, we introduce two new solution concepts for dynamic games where some players are time inconsistent. The first solution concept is similar in spirit to the subgame perfect Nash equilibrium, whereas the second one relies on backwards induction. Unlike in standard finite games, these solution concepts are not equivalent, even with perfect information. We then use these solution concepts to solve the inter-temporal pricing game with time inconsistent consumers. We derive implications for monopoly profits, consumer welfare and the path of prices (Coase conjecture). We conclude that the existence of time inconsistency will reduce monopoly profits and the welfare of all consumers, except of the highest valuation ones. Moreover, with time inconsistent consumers the path of prices will approach marginal cost, but at a lower rate.
Sensitivity of PZT Impedance Sensors for Damage Detection of Concrete Structures

Piezoelectric ceramic Lead Zirconate Titanate (PZT) based electro-mechanical impedance (EMI) technique for structural health monitoring (SHM) has been successfully applied to various engineering systems. However, fundamental research work on the sensitivity of the PZT impedance sensors for damage detection is still in need. In the traditional EMI method, the PZT electro-mechanical (EM) admittance (inverse of the impedance) is used as damage indicator, which is difficult to specify the effect of damage on structural properties. This paper uses the structural mechanical impedance (SMI) extracted from the PZT EM admittance signature as the damage indicator. A comparison study on the sensitivity of the EM admittance and the structural mechanical impedance to the damages in a concrete structure is conducted. Results show that the SMI is more sensitive to the damage than the EM admittance thus a better indicator for damage detection. Furthermore, this paper proposes a dynamic system consisting of a number of single-degree-of-freedom elements with mass, spring and damper components to model the SMI. A genetic algorithm is employed to search for the optimal value of the unknown parameters in the dynamic system. An experiment is carried out on a two-storey concrete frame subjected to base vibrations that simulate earthquake. A number of PZT sensors are regularly arrayed and bonded to the frame structure to acquire PZT EM admittance signatures. The relationship between the damage index and the distance of the PZT sensor from the damage is studied. Consequently, the sensitivity of the PZT sensors is discussed and their sensing region in concrete is derived.
Semi-parametric models for visual odometry

This paper introduces a novel framework for estimating the motion of a robotic car from image information, a scenario widely known as visual odometry. Most current monocular visual odometry algorithms rely on a calibrated camera model and recover relative rotation and translation by tracking image features and applying geometrical constraints. This approach has some drawbacks: translation is recovered up to a scale, it requires camera calibration which can be tricky under certain conditions, and uncertainty estimates are not directly obtained. We propose an alternative approach that involves the use of semi-parametric statistical models as means to recover scale, infer camera parameters and provide uncertainty estimates given a training dataset. As opposed to conventional non-parametric machine learning procedures, where standard models for egomotion would be neglected, we present a novel framework in which the existing parametric models and powerful non-parametric Bayesian learning procedures are combined. We devise a multiple output Gaussian Process (GP) procedure, named Coupled GP, that uses a parametric model as the mean function and a non-stationary covariance function to map image features directly into vehicle motion. Additionally, this procedure is also able to infer joint uncertainty estimates (full covariance matrices) for rotation and translation. Experiments performed using data collected from a single camera under challenging conditions show that this technique outperforms traditional methods in trajectories of several kilometers.