Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Differential Geometry Approach for Change Detection in Medical Images

Change detection is of paramount importance in medical imaging, serving as a non-invasive quantifiable powerful tool in diagnosis and in assessment of the outcome of treatment of tumors. We present a new quantitative method for detecting changes in volumetric medical data and in clustering of anatomical structures, based on assessment of volumetric distortions that are required in order to deform a test three-dimensional medical dataset segment onto its previously-acquired reference, or a given prototype in the case clustering. Unlike the voxel-based classical techniques of shape comparison, our algorithm operates on tetrahedral meshes and can, therefore be applied on both closed, simply-connected, surfaces and in volumetric domains with more sophisticated boundaries.
The effect of vitamin D supplementation on insulin resistance, visceral fat and adiponectin in vitamin D deficient women with polycystic ovary syndrome: a randomized placebo-controlled trial

Abstract Introduction: Low plasma 25-hydroxy-vitamin D (25OHD) is associated with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). Vitamin D deficiency may contribute to the development of insulin resistance, visceral fat and low level of adiponectin which are common feature in PCOS women. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of vitamin D supplementation on insulin resistance, visceral fat, and adiponectin in hypovitaminosis D women with polycystic ovary syndrome. Methods: In this randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial, 44 PCOS women aged 20–38 years with plasma 25OHD <20 ng/mL were randomized in the intervention or placebo groups and followed for 8 weeks. Participants received 50,000 IU of oral vitamin D3 once weekly in the intervention group or placebo. The visceral adipose tissue, Insulin resistance (HOMA-IR), HOMA-B, QUICKI, and circulating adiponectin were compared before and after the intervention within groups using paired tests and the mean changes were analyzed between two groups by independent t-test. Results: Of 44 eligible participates, 36 patients (81.8%) completed the study. After 8 week intervention, vitamin D supplementation compared to the placebo group significantly decreased fasting plasma glucose (FPG) (7.67 ± 7.66 versus 1.71 ± 7.50 mg/dL, p = .001) and significantly increased homeostasis model of assessment-estimated B cell function (HOMA-B) (129.76 ± 121.02 versus 48.32 ± 128.35, p = .014), Adiponectin (5.17 ± 8.09 versus −5.29 ± 8.64 mg/dL, p = .001), and serum vitamin D level (28.24 ± 6.47 versus 3.55 ± 4.25 ng/mL, p = .001). Conclusion: Vitamin D supplementation in vitamin D deficient women with PCOS, improved the FPG, HOMA-B, Adiponectin, and serum vitamin D level.
Degradation of Incretins and Modulation of Blood Glucose Levels by Periodontopathic Bacterial Dipeptidyl Peptidase 4

ABSTRACT Severe periodontitis is known to aggravate diabetes mellitus, though molecular events related to that link have not been fully elucidated. Porphyromonas gingivalis, a major pathogen of periodontitis, expresses dipeptidyl peptidase 4 (DPP4), which is involved in regulation of blood glucose levels by cleaving incretins in humans. We examined the enzymatic characteristics of DPP4 from P. gingivalis as well as two other periodontopathic bacteria, Tannerella forsythia and Prevotella intermedia, and determined whether it is capable of regulating blood glucose levels. Cell-associated DPP4 activity was found in those microorganisms, which was effectively suppressed by inhibitors of human DPP4, and molecules sized 73 kDa in P. gingivalis, and 71 kDa in T. forsythia and P. intermedia were immunologically detected. The kcat/Km values of recombinant DPP4s ranged from 721 ± 55 to 1,283 ± 23 μM−1s−1 toward Gly-Pro-4-methylcoumaryl-7-amide (MCA), while those were much lower for His-Ala-MCA. Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization–time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) analysis showed His/Tyr-Ala dipeptide release from the N termini of incretins, glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide, respectively, with the action of microbial DPP4. Moreover, intravenous injection of DPP4 into mice decreased plasma active GLP-1 and insulin levels, accompanied by a substantial elevation in blood glucose over the control after oral glucose administration. These results are the first to show that periodontopathic bacterial DPP4 is capable of modulating blood glucose levels the same as mammalian DPP4; thus, the incidence of periodontopathic bacteremia may exacerbate diabetes mellitus via molecular events of bacterial DPP4 activities.
Evaluation of Jujube Beverage Prescriptions with Fuzzy Mathematics

The effects of different prescriptions on the sensory evaluation of jujube beverages were investigated with the method of fuzzy comprehensive evaluation, in which taste, color, flavor, and body were taken as the evaluation factors with proper weights. The results showed that the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method could differentiate the grades of different products objectively and accurately. The optimum prescription was found as follows: fermented jujube puree of 90%, sugar of 8%, honey of 0.5%, citric acid of 0.15% as well as proper compound stabilizer.
Simultaneous Bilateral Basal Ganglia Hemorrhage.

BACKGROUND The basal ganglia, an important functional integrity of the brain, comprises multiple subcortical nuclei. The area is mainly supplied by the perforating branches of ipsilateral middle cerebral artery (MCA). The unilateral non-traumatic basal ganglia hemorrhage, commonly located in the putamen, most often results from hypertension. METHOD Simultaneous bilateral basal ganglia hemorrhage (SBBGH) is extremely rare. There have been less than 30 case reports worldwide so far. Our article is the first comprehensive review on SBBGH. CONCLUSION The clinical features, causes and prognosis were summarized and discussed, in perspective of providing guidance for future diagnosis and treatment.
Supporting dynamic, third-party code customizations in JavaScript using aspects

Web sites and web browsers have recently evolved into platforms on top of which entire applications are delivered dynamically, mostly as JavaScript source code. This delivery format has sparked extremely enthusiastic efforts to customize both individual web sites and entire browsers in ways the original authors never expected or accommodated. Such customizations take the form of yet more script dynamically injected into the application, and the current idioms to do so exploit arcane JavaScript features and are extremely brittle. In this work, we accept the popularity of extensions and seek better linguistic mechanisms to support them. We suggest adding to JavaScript aspect-oriented features that allow straightforward and declarative ways for customization code to modify the targeted application. Compared to most prior aspect-related research, our work has a different motivation and a different target programming environment, both of which lead to novel design and implementation techniques. Our aspect weaving is entirely integrated into a new dynamic JIT compiler, which lets us properly handle advice to first-class functions in the presence of arbitrary aliasing, without resorting to whole-program code transformations. Our prototype demonstrates that an aspect-oriented approach to web-application customization is often more efficient than current idioms while simplifying the entire process.
A Hybrid Movie Recommender Based on Ontology and Neural Networks

In order to make recommendations to a user, a recommender mainly uses two approaches: content-basedfiltering approach and collaborative filtering approach. However, they both still have some shortcomings technically. The content-based approach is difficult to handle feature extraction as well as user intension prediction. The collaborative approach faces the hard issue of cold start problem and the matrix sparsity problem. In this paper, we present an novel hybrid recommendation approach based on Ontology and Neural Network in the movie domain. The approach combines content-based filtering and collaborativefiltering and a recommender can use them individually or use them both. The hybrid recommendation approach can tackle the traditional recommenders -- problems, such as feature extraction, intension prediction, matrix sparsity and cold start problems. Our experiments show that, our approach provides a good method to make recommendations to users.
High resolution CSI feedback with beam space MIMO

In Frequency Division Duplexing (FDD) system with multiple antenna, user equipment (UE) usually reports channel state information (CSI) to assist base station (BS) to determine downlink data associated precoder. Conventional precoder for one data layer is represented by a DFT vector. However, with the increasing number of antenna ports, beam width becomes narrower. Beam formed by one DFT vector hardly captures energy of multi-paths spreading in a relative large angle range. In this paper, a new precoder is proposed, which is represented by linear combining a set of selected steering vectors. The numerical simulation shows the significant performance gain of the proposal over conventional precoder.
CCR6 promotes steady‐state mononuclear phagocyte association with the intestinal epithelium, imprinting and immune surveillance

The intestinal lamina propria (LP) contains antigen‐presenting cells with features of dendritic cells and macrophages, collectively referred to as mononuclear phagocytes (MNPs). Association of MNPs with the epithelium is thought to play an important role in multiple facets of intestinal immunity including imprinting MNPs with the ability to induce IgA production, inducing the expression of gut homing molecules on T cells, facilitating the capture of luminal antigens and microbes, and subsequent immune responses in the mesenteric lymph node (MLN). However, the factors promoting this process in the steady state are largely unknown, and in vivo models to test and confirm the importance of LP‐MNP association with the epithelium for these outcomes are unexplored. Evaluation of epithelial expression of chemoattractants in mice where MNP–epithelial associations were impaired suggested CCL20 as a candidate promoting epithelial association. Expression of CCR6, the only known receptor for CCL20, was required for MNPs to associate with the epithelium. LP‐MNPs from CCR6−/− mice did not display defects in acquiring antigen and stimulating T‐cell responses in ex vivo assays or in responses to antigen administered systemically. However, LP‐MNPs from CCR6‐deficient mice were impaired at acquiring luminal and epithelial antigens, inducing IgA production in B cells, inducing immune responses in the MLN, and capturing and trafficking luminal commensal bacteria to the MLN. These findings identify a crucial role for CCR6 in promoting LP‐MNPs to associate with the intestinal epithelium in the steady state to perform multiple functions promoting gut immune homeostasis.
Streaming Pattern Discovery in Multiple Time-Series

In this paper, we introduce SPIRIT (Streaming Pattern dIscoveRy in multIple Time-series). Given n numerical data streams, all of whose values we observe at each time tick t, SPIRIT can incrementally find correlations and hidden variables, which summarise the key trends in the entire stream collection. It can do this quickly, with no buffering of stream values and without comparing pairs of streams. Moreover, it is any-time, single pass, and it dynamically detects changes. The discovered trends can also be used to immediately spot potential anomalies, to do efficient forecasting and, more generally, to dramatically simplify further data processing. Our experimental evaluation and case studies show that SPIRIT can incrementally capture correlations and discover trends, efficiently and effectively.
The Process and Regulatory Components of Inflammation in Brain Oncogenesis

Central nervous system tumors comprising the primary cancers and brain metastases remain the most lethal neoplasms and challenging to treat. Substantial evidence points to a paramount role for inflammation in the pathology leading to gliomagenesis, malignant progression and tumor aggressiveness in the central nervous system (CNS) microenvironment. This review summarizes the salient contributions of oxidative stress, interleukins, tumor necrosis factor-α(TNF-α), cyclooxygenases, and transcription factors such as signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) and nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B-cells (NF-κB) and the associated cross-talks to the inflammatory signaling in CNS cancers. The roles of reactive astrocytes, tumor associated microglia and macrophages, metabolic alterations, microsatellite instability, O6-methylguanine DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) DNA repair and epigenetic alterations mediated by the isocitrate dehydrogenase 1 (IDH1) mutations have been discussed. The inflammatory pathways with relevance to the brain cancer treatments have been highlighted.
Simplification as design principle for 5G: A native IP data plane for a lean packet system

The ambitious objectives of the 5th Generation (5G) mobile communications subtend a profound change in the way mobile networks are designed, both in the infrastructural aspects and in the operational protocols. Network slicing is considered as a promising deployment option to enable tailored and logically separated resources and value-enabled platforms to the vertical industries. This paper introduces the concept of a lean packet system in support of a tailored and flexible data plane to better align the provisioned network (slice) with the requirements of the vertical industry. The described solution provides a great match between deployment flexibility, resources utilization and routing efficiency. The design of an experimental testbed is described and results from an experimental evaluation of routing efficiency against alternative solutions confirm the value of our concepts.
Mutation in mitochondrial complex IV subunit COX5A causes pulmonary arterial hypertension, lactic acidemia, and failure to thrive

COX5A is a nuclear‐encoded subunit of mitochondrial respiratory chain complex IV (cytochrome c oxidase). We present patients with a homozygous pathogenic variant in the COX5A gene. Clinical details of two affected siblings suffering from early‐onset pulmonary arterial hypertension, lactic acidemia, failure to thrive, and isolated complex IV deficiency are presented. We show that the variant lies within the evolutionarily conserved COX5A/COX4 interface domain, suggesting that it alters the interaction between these two subunits during complex IV biogenesis. In patient skin fibroblasts, the enzymatic activity and protein levels of complex IV and several of its subunits are reduced. Lentiviral complementation rescues complex IV deficiency. The monomeric COX1 assembly intermediate accumulates demonstrating a function of COX5A in complex IV biogenesis. A potential therapeutic lead is demonstrated by showing that copper supplementation leads to partial rescue of complex IV deficiency in patient fibroblasts.
Subset selection for tuning of hyper-parameters in artificial neural networks

Hyper-parameters of a machine learning architecture define its design. Tuning of hyper-parameters is costly and for large data sets outright impractical, whether it is performed manually or algorithmically. In this study we propose a Neocognitron based method for reducing the training set to a fraction, while keeping the dynamics and complexity of the domain. Our approach does not require processing of the entire training set, making it feasible for larger data sets. In our experiments we could successfully reduce the MNIST training data set to less than 2.5% (1,489 images) by processing less than 10% of the 60K images. We showed that the reduced data set can be used for tuning of number of hidden neurons in a multi-layer perceptron.
Changes in skin structure of the Zip13-KO mouse by Makomo (Zizania latifolia) feeding

Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS) is a group of disorders caused by abnormalities in the extracellular matrix (ECM). Transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) plays a crucial role in formation of the ECM by the SMAD (Sma-and Mad-related protein, mothers against decapentaplegic homolog) pathway. It has been reported that loss of function of zinc transporter ZRT/IRT-like protein 13 (ZIP13) is the cause of the spondylocheiro dysplastic form of EDS (SCD-EDS: OMIM 612350). Our previous study suggested that TGF-β1 has a relationship with the skin pathological condition in the Zip13-Knockout (KO) mouse, which is a model of SCD-EDS. Thus far, effective treatment based on modern medicine for this syndrome has not yet been established. According to an approach of traditional Chinese medicine, the present study investigates the medicinal effects of Makomo (Zizania latifolia) on certain aspects of SCD-EDS, such as skin morphology and plasma TGF-β1, in Zip13-KO mice. Increases in densities of collagen fibers and fibrils without a significant change in thickness of the dermal layer were observed in the group of mice fed a Makomo-containing diet. No change in the amount of collagen suggests that Makomo feed does not elevate collagen synthesis, but changes the length of glycosaminoglycan chains and decreases the distance between collagen fibrils. In conclusion, the changes of the skin structure suggest that Makomo can increase the mechanical strength of skin.
FMLLR Speaker Normalization With i-Vector: In Pseudo-FMLLR and Distillation Framework

When an automatic speech recognition (ASR) system is deployed for real-world applications, it often receives only one utterance at a time for decoding. This single utterance could be of short duration depending on the ASR task. In these cases, robust estimation of speaker normalizing methods like feature-space maximum likelihood linear regression (FMLLR) and i-vectors may not be feasible. In this paper, we propose two unsupervised speaker normalization techniques—one at feature level and other at model level of acoustic modeling—to overcome the drawbacks of FMLLR and i-vectors in real-time scenarios. At feature level, we propose the use of deep neural networks (DNN) to generate pseudo-FMLLR features from time-synchronous pair of filterbank and FMLLR features. These pseudo-FMLLR features can then be used for DNN acoustic model training and decoding. At model level, we propose a generalized distillation framework, where a teacher DNN trained on FMLLR features guides the training and optimization of a student DNN trained on filterbank features. In both the proposed methods, the ambiguity in choosing the speaker-specific FMLLR transform can be reduced by augmenting i-vectors to the input filterbank features. Experiments conducted on 33-h and 110-h subsets of Switchboard corpus show that the proposed methods provide significant gains over DNNs trained on FMLLR, i-vector appended FMLLR, filterbank and i -vector appended filterbank features, in real-time scenario.
Influence of Scapular Position on the Core Musculature Activation in the Prone Plank Exercise

Abstract Cortell-Tormo, JM, García-Jaén, M, Chulvi-Medrano, I, Hernández-Sánchez, S, Lucas-Cuevas, ÁG, and Tortosa-Martínez, J. Influence of scapular position on the core musculature activation in the prone plank exercise. J Strength Cond Res 31(8): 2255–2262, 2017—Prone plank is a widely used exercise in core stability training. Research has shown that pelvic tilt plays an important role on the electromyographic (EMG) activation of core musculature. However, the influence of scapular position on EMG activation is currently unknown. Therefore, this study evaluated the influence of scapular position on the core muscles during a prone plank. Surface EMG of the rectus abdominis (RA), external oblique (EO), internal oblique (IO), and erector spinae (ES) was collected in 15 participants (10 men and 5 women). Four variations of the prone plank were evaluated: scapular abduction with anterior (ABANT) and posterior (ABRET) pelvic tilt; and scapular adduction with anterior (ADANT), and posterior (ADRET) pelvic tilt. Individual muscle EMG and overall EMG for each plank exercise was analyzed. Joint positions were controlled with a 2D kinematic analysis. Ratings of perceived exertion (RPE) were also registered. The ADRET resulted in higher overall EMG activity compared with ABANT (p = 0.04) and ADANT (p = 0.04). Moreover, ADRET resulted in greater EMG activity compared with ADANT, ABANT, and ABRET for EO (p = 0.000; p = 0.000; p = 0.035), IO (p = 0.000; p = 0.000; p = 0.005), and ES (p = 0.019; p = 0.001; p = 0.014). Regarding RA, ADRET was significantly higher compared with ADANT (p = 0.002) and ABANT (p = 0.005). Finally, ADRET provoked a higher RPE compared with ABANT (p = 0.000), ABRET (p = 0.001), and ADANT (p = 0.015). These findings demonstrate the influence of the scapular and pelvic position on the EMG response of the core muscle groups analyzed in this study, and highlight the greater contribution of these muscles to the postural stabilizing demands during posterior pelvic tilt positions, particularly when the scapulae are in adduction.
Acceleration of Monte Carlo path tracing in general environments

The paper describes a two pass algorithm capable of computing solutions to the global illumination in general environments (diffuse or glossy surfaces, anisotropically scattering participating media) faster than previous methods, by combining the strengths of finite element and Monte Carlo methods. A quick coarse solution is first computed with a clustered directional hierarchical method. This intermediate solution is used by a Monte Carlo method to accelerate computation of a final accurate solution by importance sampling, by means of link probabilities and adaptive probability density functions. Results from a first implementation of the algorithm for diffuse surfaces are presented.
Strain as Damage Indicator for Truss and Frame Structures

Damage detection techniques are becoming more and more important issues for prolonging the lifetime of the old structures. In the paper the strain measurements on offshore oil platform leg model as well as the preliminary measurement system installed on jack-up rig is presented. During experiments performed on frame model of the platform leg different types of damage scenarios were tested. The Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) strain sensors were capable to detect damage. After laboratory experiments, preliminary FBG system was installed on the real construction (jack-up rig) excited by environmental and operation-induced forces. It is evident that strain measurement based on FBG technology is very promising technique for use in truss/frame structures.
Analysis on electrooculography based on the effect of eye massaging device

This study presents a method to examine the electrical activity of the muscles surrounding the eyes due to the effect of eye massaging device using Electrooculography (EOG) signal. EOG is a process to measure the biopotential produced by the changes in eye position or when the eye movement occurred. This potential difference can be measured by placing several electrodes on the forehead. In this study, there are five electrodes used, one electrode is place in the middle of forehead to act as a reference meanwhile another four is place on left, right, upper, and bottom part of the eye to collect the reading for vertical and horizontal movement. The process of collecting data is done by using the Neurofax EEG 9200 machine. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) is used to identify the difference of data between before and after using eye massaging device. From the result, it is proved that the eye massaging device exhibit difference for each of movement tested.