Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Segments of Color Lines - A Comparison through a Tracking Procedure

This paper addresses the problem of visual target tracking by use of robust primitives. More precisely, we evaluate the use of color segments features in a matching procedure and compare the dichromatic color lines (Gouiffes and Zavidovique, 2008) with the existing ones, defined in the HSV color space. The motion parameters of the target to track are computed through a voting strategy, where each pair of color segments votes first for one new location, then for two scale changes. Their vote is weighted according to the pairing relevancy and to their location in the bounding box of the tracked object. The comparison is made in terms of robustness to color illumination changes and in terms of quality (robustness of the location of the target during the time). Experiments are carried out on pedestrian and car image sequences. Finally, the dichromatic lines provide a better robustness to appearance changes with fewer primitives. It finally results in a better quality of the
Performance Evaluation of Hierarchy Annotation and Credit Distribution Quiescence Mechanisms

This paper evaluates the execution characteristics of two high-capability software-based approaches for detecting termination in distributed environments. The Tiered Algorithm relies on use of a global invariant that indicates equality between process production and consumption at each level of process nesting. The Credit Algorithm relies on the distribution of a unit value from the initial parent process that can only be reconstituted if the barrier is complete. While both strategies can detect termination correctly regardless of the execution ordering, avoid potential race conditions caused by unpredictable transit times, and support arbitrary run-time binding of logical processes to physical processors, they each exhibit different message count complexity, message bit complexity, controller overhead, and detection delay. These metrics were assessed under 100 randomly generated trials consisting of 101 to 703 tasks under a variety of task creation and termination ordering scenarios. The Tiered Algorithm exchanged an average 12.9% fewer synchronization messages and 24.1% fewer bits in total than the Credit Algorithm. Results indicate that while the Tiered Algorithm required 80% fewer controller operations, the Credit Algorithm contributed an average of 3.9 fewer operations affecting detection latency with less variability.
Automatic mark-up of legislative documents and its application to parallel text generation

In the juridical domain a huge amount of plain legislative acts have been produced since and before the advent of computers and word processors. The conversion of legacy and plain documents in a standard XML format implies great and numerous benefits. In order to accomplish this task, several automatic and semi-automatic tools have been developed in the last ten years. In this paper, xmLegesMarker, developed at Ittig, the Italian state-of-art legislative documents parser, is presented. The tool is NIR standard compliant, it’s embedded in xmLegesEditor and it was recently adopted for evaluation by the Italian Senate in order to automatically spawn the parallel text (testo a fronte), i.e. the document used to highlight the modifications introduced during the debate of a bill.
Variable (intrinsic) material length scale for face-centred cubic metals using nano-indentation

The objective of this work is to formulate a micromechanics-based model with a variable (intrinsic) material length scale for face-centred cubic (f.c.c.) metals. The length scale allows for variations in the temperature and the rate indentation size effects (TRISEs) encountered in nano-indentation experiments. In addition, its dependence on the grain size effect and accumulated plastic strain is also incorporated into this model. Two models are proposed here in order to capture the TRISEs in single-crystal and polycrystalline materials through considering different expressions for the density of the geometrically necessary dislocations. Material length scales used in conjunction with gradient theories are also obtained in this work from experimental observations of f.c. c. metals. The results of indentation experiments performed on nickel, gold, copper, and single-crystal platinum and aluminium are used here in order to check the validity of the proposed model as well as the concept assumed with reference to local hardening in nano-indentation. Numerical analysis is performed using ABAQUS/VUMAT software and a physics-based viscoplastic constitutive model.
Do Older Adults Show Less Confidence in Their Monitoring of Learning?

Although aging has a minimal effect on the accuracy of people's judgments of learning (JOLs) at predicting future memory performance, older adults may be less confident in these memory judgments—similar to the age declines often reported with memory self-efficacy. To evaluate this possibility, the authors had younger and older adults make JOLs for paired associates and rate their confidence in the accuracy of each JOL. Age-related declines in confidence in judgments were evident for immediate JOLs but not for delayed JOLs. Implications of these outcomes for theory of JOLs and explaining age-related differences in self-regulated study are discussed.
American Gastroenterological Association Medical Position Statement on the management of gastroesophageal reflux disease.

The American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute Medical Position Panel consisted of the authors of the technical review, a community-based gastroenterologist (Stephen W. Hiltz, MD, MBA, AGAF), an insurance provider representative (Edgar Black, MD, Medical Director, Policy Resources Technology Evaluation Center, BlueCross BlueShield Association), a general surgeon (Irvin M. Modlin, MD), a patient advocate (Gregory Lane), a primary care physician (Steve P. Johnson, MD), a gastroenterologist with expertise in health services research (Philip S. Schoenfeld, MD), the Chair of the AGA Institute Clinical Practice and Quality Management Committee (John Allen, MD, MBA, AGAF), and the Chair of the AGA Institute Practice Management and Economics Committee and the AGA Institute CPT Advisor (Joel V. Brill, MD, AGAF).
A Fast Gradient Method for Nonnegative Sparse Regression With Self-Dictionary

A nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) can be computed efficiently under the separability assumption, which asserts that all the columns of the given input data matrix belong to the cone generated by a (small) subset of them. The provably most robust methods to identify these conic basis columns are based on nonnegative sparse regression and self-dictionaries, and require the solution of large-scale convex optimization problems. In this paper, we study a particular nonnegative sparse regression model with self-dictionary. As opposed to previously proposed models, this model yields a smooth optimization problem, where the sparsity is enforced through linear constraints. We show that the Euclidean projection on the polyhedron defined by these constraints can be computed efficiently, and propose a fast gradient method to solve our model. We compare our algorithm with several state-of-the-art methods on synthetic data sets and real-world hyperspectral images.
Brain functional connectivity and morphology changes in medication-overuse headache: Clue for dependence-related processes?

Background Several imaging studies have identified localized anatomical and functional brain changes in medication-overuse headache (MOH). Objective The objective of this article is to evaluate whole-brain functional connectivity at rest together with voxel-based morphometry in MOH patients, in comparison with episodic migraine (EM) patients and healthy controls (HCs). Methods Anatomical MRI and resting-state functional MRI scans were obtained in MOH patients (n = 17 and 9, respectively), EM patients (n = 18 and 15, respectively) and HCs (n = 17 and 17). SPM8 was used to analyze voxel-based morphometry and seed (left precuneus) to voxel connectivity data in the whole brain. Results Functional connectivity at rest was altered in MOH patients. Connectivity was decreased between precuneus and regions of the default-mode network (frontal and parietal cortices), but increased between precuneus and hippocampal/temporal areas. These functional modifications were not accompanied by significant gross morphological changes. Furthermore, connectivity between precuneus and frontal areas in MOH was negatively correlated with migraine duration and positively correlated with self-evaluation of medication dependence. Gray matter volumes of frontal regions, precuneus and hippocampus were also negatively related to migraine duration. Functional connectivity within the default-mode network appeared to predict anxiety scores of MOH patients while gray matter volumes in this network predicted their depression scores. Conclusions Our data suggest that MOH is associated with functional alterations within intrinsic brain networks rather than with macrostructural changes. They also support the view that dependence-related processes might play a prominent role in its development and maintenance.
Casein Fermentate of Lactobacillus animalis DPC6134 Contains a Range of Novel Propeptide Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme Inhibitors

ABSTRACT This work evaluated the angiotensin-converting-enzyme (ACE)-inhibitory activities of a bovine sodium caseinate fermentate generated using the proteolytic capabilities of the porcine small intestinal isolate Lactobacillus animalis DPC6134 (NCIMB deposit 41355). The crude 10-kDa L. animalis DPC6134 fermentate exhibited ACE-inhibitory activity of 85.51% (±15%) and had a 50% inhibitory concentration (IC50) of 0.8 mg protein/ml compared to captopril, which had an IC50 value of 0.005 mg/ml. Fractionation of the crude L. animalis DPC6134 fermentate by membrane filtration and reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) generated three bioactive fractions from a total of 72 fractions. Fractions 10, 19, and 43 displayed ACE-inhibitory activity percentages of 67.53 (±15), 83.71 (±19), and 42.36 (±11), respectively, where ACE inhibition was determined with 80 μl of the fractions with protein concentrations of 0.5 mg/ml. HPLC and mass spectrometry analysis identified 25 distinct peptide sequences derived from α-, β-, and κ-caseins. In silico predictions, based on the C-terminal tetrapeptide sequences, suggested that peptide NIPPLTQTPVVVPPFIQ, corresponding to β-casein f(73-89); peptide IGSENSEKTTMP, corresponding to αs1-casein f(201212); peptide SQSKVLPVPQ, corresponding to β-casein f(166-175); peptide MPFPKYPVEP, corresponding to β-casein f(124133); and peptide EPVLGPVRGPFP, corresponding to β-casein f(210-221), contained ACE-inhibitory activities. These peptides were chosen for chemical synthesis to confirm the ACE-inhibitory activity of the fractions. Chemically synthesized peptides displayed IC50 values in the range of 92 μM to 790 μM. Additionally, a simulated gastrointestinal digestion confirmed that the ACE-inhibitory 10-kDa L. animalis DPC6134 fermentation was resistant to a cocktail of digestive enzymes found in the gastrointestinal tract.
A data streaming algorithm for estimating subpopulation flow size distribution

Statistical information about the flow sizes in the traffic passing through a network link helps a network operator to characterize network resource usage, infer traffic demands, detect traffic anomalies, and improve network performance through traffic engineering. Previous work on estimating the flow size distribution for the complete population of flows has produced techniques that either make inferences from sampled network traffic, or use data streaming approaches. In this work, we identify and solve a more challenging problem of estimating the size distribution and other statistical information about arbitrary subpopulations of flows. Inferring subpopulation flow statistics is more challenging than the complete population counterpart, since subpopulations of interest are often specified a posteriori (i.e., after the data collection is done), making it impossible for the data collection module to "plan in advance". Our solution consists of a novel mechanism that combines data streaming with traditional packet sampling to provide highly accurate estimates of subpopulation flow statistics. The algorithm employs two data collection modules operating in parallel --- a NetFlow-like packet sampler and a streaming data structure made up of an array of counters. Combining the data collected by these two modules, our estimation algorithm uses a statistical estimation procedure that correlates and decodes the outputs (observations) from both data collection modules to obtain flow statistics for any arbitrary subpopulation. Evaluations of this algorithm on real-world Internet traffic traces demonstrate its high measurement accuracy.
Photoplethysmography Signal Analysis for Optimal Region-of-Interest Determination in Video Imaging on a Built-In Smartphone under Different Conditions

Smartphones and tablets are widely used in medical fields, which can improve healthcare and reduce healthcare costs. Many medical applications for smartphones and tablets have already been developed and widely used by both health professionals and patients. Specifically, video recordings of fingertips made using a smartphone camera contain a pulsatile component caused by the cardiac pulse equivalent to that present in a photoplethysmographic signal. By performing peak detection on the pulsatile signal, it is possible to estimate a continuous heart rate and a respiratory rate. To estimate the heart rate and respiratory rate accurately, which pixel regions of the color bands give the most optimal signal quality should be investigated. In this paper, we investigate signal quality to determine the best signal quality by the largest amplitude values for three different smartphones under different conditions. We conducted several experiments to obtain reliable PPG signals and compared the PPG signal strength in the three color bands when the flashlight was both on and off. We also evaluated the intensity changes of PPG signals obtained from the smartphones with motion artifacts and fingertip pressure force. Furthermore, we have compared the PSNR of PPG signals of the full-size images with that of the region of interests (ROIs).
Pharmaceutical applications of biocompatible polymer blends containing sodium alginate

Biocompatible polymer blends, such as alginate blends, have a widespread use in pharmaceutical and medical applications due to their specific features, such as biodegradation, adhesiveness, and thermo- and pH sensitivity and that can be obtained from the mixture composition. In this work, the use of alginate blends was tested in a novel production methodology of therapeutic dosage forms based on polymeric chain reticulation phenomena induced by exposure to bivalent ions. Two kinds of sodium alginate were used to obtain gel films (structured films) in blends with Pluronic F127®. The blends were considered for applications in gel paving of drug-eluting stents. Sodium alginate was also used in shell–core particle production (structured particles) to obtain shell-barrier reducing drug release in the preparative steps (see wash operations). Both structures, films and particles, were obtained using Cu2+ and Ca2+ ions, respectively. Film/shell barrier properties were tested in dissolution experiments using vitamin B12 as an active molecule model. Experimental work demonstrated that the alginate composition is a crucial point in defining reticulated structures. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Adv Polym Techn 31: 219–230, 2012; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com. DOI 10.1002/adv.21276
Chain based Routing Protocol for Wireless Sensor Network

Wsn Formed by hundreds or thousands of heterogeneous sensor node (motes) devices spread over large field that share or exchange information with each other and move data along from one to another nodes. But in reality, these wireless networks are composed of resource constrained tiny sensor nodes. The resource constrained nature of WSN creates different kinds of challenges in its operations and design that degrading its performance. In wireless sensor network, one of the important issues is inherent limited battery power of the sensor node within network. There are different routing protocols that have been proposed for this issue. Energy consumption and network lifetime are the major issues in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN). There are two competing objectives in the design of WSN. First objective is reduced energy consumption and second objective is increase the lifetime of network. Because of this reason PEGASIS protocol and multi-chain PEGASIS Protocol can be selected for better performance in terms of energy efficiency and network life time.
Geometric camera calibration using systems of linear equations

Geometric camera calibration is the process of determining a mapping between points in world coordinates and the corresponding image locations of the points. In previous methods, calibration typically involved the iterative solution to a system of nonlinear equations. A method is presented for performing camera calibration that provides a complete, accurate solution, using only linear systems of equations. By using two calibration planes, a line-of-sight vector is defined for each pixel in the image. The effective focal point of a camera can be obtained by solving the system that defines the intersection point of the line-of-sight vectors. Once the focal point has been determined, a complete camera model can be obtained with a straightforward least-squares procedure. This method of geometric camera calibration has the advantages of being accurate, efficient, and practical for a wide variety of applications. <<ETX>>
Expression of p53 protein in infiltrating and in‐situ breast carcinomas

Five antibodies directed against the whole or part of p53 protein have been used to detect the protein immunohistochemically in 70 infiltrating breast carcinomas and 10 ductal carcinomas in situ. Mutations are known to occur in different conserved domains, and the antibodies employed spanned the expected sites.
Deep brain stimulation and medication for parkinsonian tremor during secondary tasks

This study examined the efficacy of subthalamic nucleus (STN), deep brain stimulation (DBS), and medication for resting tremor during performance of secondary tasks. Hand tremor was recorded using accelerometry and electromyography (EMG) from 10 patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) and ten matched control subjects. The PD subjects were examined off treatment, on STN DBS, on medication, and on STN DBS plus medication. In the first experiment, tremor was recorded in a quiet condition and during a cognitive task designed to enhance tremor. In the second experiment, tremor was recorded in a quiet condition and during isometric finger flexion (motor task) with the contralateral limb at 5% of the maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) that was designed to suppress tremor. Results showed that: (1) STN DBS and medication reduced tremor during a cognitive task that exacerbated tremor, (2) STN DBS normalized tremor frequency in both the quiet and cognitive task conditions, whereas tremor amplitude was only normalized in the quiet condition, (3) a secondary motor task reduced tremor in a similar manner to STN DBS. These findings demonstrate that STN DBS still suppresses tremor in the presence of a cognitive task. Furthermore, a secondary motor task of the opposite limb suppresses tremor to levels comparable to STN DBS. © 2007 Movement Disorder Society
Interactions of endothelin-1 with dexamethasone in primary cultured human trabecular meshwork cells.

PURPOSE Concentrations of aqueous humor endothelin (ET)-1 are increased in patients with primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) as well as in animal models of glaucoma. Glucocorticoids have also been associated with glaucoma, in that topical administration of glucocorticoids can increase intraocular pressure by increasing outflow resistance in the trabecular meshwork (TM) in some individuals. Recent research has shown that dexamethasone (Dex), a synthetic glucocorticoid, can increase the release of ET-1 from human nonpigmented ciliary epithelial (HNPE) cells, a source of aqueous ET-1. In the present study, the downstream interaction of ET-1 with Dex in target TM cells, an action that may alter outflow resistance, was investigated. METHODS A normal primary human TM (NTM) cell line and a TM cell line derived from a glaucomatous eye (GTM) were used. The cells were treated with vehicle or Dex. The mRNA levels of prepro-ET-1, endothelin receptor A (ET(A)), and endothelin receptor B (ET(B)) were measured by quantitative RT-PCR (QPCR). The protein expression of ET(A) and ET(B) receptors were investigated by Western blot analysis using polyclonal anti-ET(A) and anti-ET(B) antibodies, respectively, on plasma membrane fractions. Intracellular Ca(2+) ([Ca(2+)](i)) mobilization mediated by ET-1 was measured using the Fura-2 AM fluorescent probe technique as an index of ET receptor function. ET-1-stimulated nitric oxide (NO) release was measured using a Griess colorimetric NO synthase assay kit. RESULTS Both NTM and GTM cultured cells expressed prepro-ET-1 mRNA less abundantly than did HNPE cells, and Dex treatment had no effect on the mRNA expression of the ET-1 gene. TM cells expressed mRNA of ET(A) receptors as detected by QPCR, whereas the ET(B) message was not clearly delineated. Western blot analysis showed that both ET(A) and ET(B) receptor proteins were present. The ET(A) receptor was linked to calcium mobilization as ET-1 produced an increase in intracellular calcium release, and this increase was blocked with a selective ET(A) receptor antagonist. Dex failed to induce any change in the expression of the ET(A) receptor in both NTM and GTM cells, and this was supported by the absence of a Dex effect on the ET-1-induced calcium response. However, Dex treatment diminished ET(B) receptor protein expression and produced a decrease in ET-1-stimulated release of NO, a response mediated by ET(B) receptors in TM cells. CONCLUSIONS The Dex-induced increase in ET-1 released by HNPE cells coupled to the downstream Dex-induced specific suppression of ET(B) receptor protein expression and declines in ET-1-mediated increase in NO released by TM cells could increase contraction and decrease relaxation of the TM and contribute to the declines in conventional aqueous humor outflow and increases in intraocular pressure that occur with glucocorticoids.
Hyperdocuments as automata: verification of trace-based browsing properties by model checking

We present a view of hyperdocuments in which each document encodes its own browsing semantics in its links. This requires a mental shift in how a hyperdocument is thought of abstractly. Instead of treating the links of a document as defining a static directed graph, they are thought of as defining an abstract program, termed the links-automaton of the document. A branching temporal logic notation, termed HTL*, is introduced for specifying properties a document should exhibit during browsing. An automated program verification technique called model checking is used to verify that browsing specifications in a subset of HTL* are met by the behavior defined in the links-automation. We illustrate the generality of these techniques by applying them first to several Trellis documents and then to a Hyperties document.
Maltsev + Datalog --≫ Symmetric Datalog

Let B be a finite, core relational structure and let A be the algebra associated to B, i.e. whose terms are the operations on the universe of B that preserve the relations of B. We show that if A generates a so-called arithmetical variety then CSP(B), the constraint satisfaction problem associated to B, is solvable in Logspace; in fact notCSP(B) is expressible in symmetric Datalog. In particular, we obtain that notCSP(B) is expressible in Datalog and the relations of B are invariant under a Maltsev operation then notCSP(B) is in symmetric Datalog.