Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Assessment of the impact of the removal of cerebrospinal fluid on cerebral tissue volumes by advanced volumetric 3D-MRI in posthaemorrhagic hydrocephalus in a premature infant

Current clinical practice in the premature infant with posthaemorrhagic ventricular dilatation (PHVD) includes drainage of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). This case study used advanced volumetric three dimensional magnetic resonance imaging to document the impact of CSF removal on the volume of regional brain tissues in a premature infant with PHVD. The removal of a large volume of CSF was associated with an identical reduction in CSF volume, but more dramatically with a significant increase in the regional volumes of cortical grey matter and myelinated white matter. The alterations in cerebral cortical grey matter and myelinated white matter volumes may provide insight into the established association of PHVD with deficits in cognitive and motor functions.
CHARACTERIZING NERVE FIBER ACTIVATION BY VARYING FIBER DIAMETER AND DEPTH WITHIN

In some instances neuropathies can be diagnosed through a conduction velocity test. However, not all neuropathies can be classified using this method. Gaining an understanding of how the stimulus level varies for different fiber sizes at different fiber depths within a conductive medium will provide useful information for simulation studies. Following a two-step approach using COMSOL and MATLAB, a simulation was implemented to investigate the stimulus necessary to activate different sized fibers at different depths. In this two-step approach, COMSOL was used to describe the voltage profile that would be present within a conductive medium after a stimulus was applied. This voltage profile could then be analyzed using a program written in MATLAB to determine if the applied stimulus was sufficient to activate a given fiber. The analysis was performed using a stimulus method using a constant DC source. Two finite element models were also used, one using a homogeneous medium and the other inhomogeneous. A three dimensional plot was created to describe the effect of both the depth and diameter of a fiber on the required stimulus for fiber activation. From this plot, an equation was fit to the data to represent the activation function of a nerve fiber at various diameters and depths. The biomedical field has changed tremendously throughout the past 20 years. Complicated electrical and mechanical systems are now being implemented into medical devices, which are advancing the field at an extremely high rate. Some of the most significant changes can be seen in the area of neurology and integrating medical devices with the neurological systems of the body. Companies are creating a division to investigate medical devices that address the subject of neuromodulation and neurostimulation. Understanding the intricacies of the nervous system is very important in developing a device that neuromodulates or neurostimulates correctly. One such example can be seen in devices that target people with chronic back pain. Neurostimulation devices are currently being designed to stimulate specific nerve fiber bundles in an attempt to mask the chronic pain signal. During this stimulation a large group of nerve fibers are usually stimulated because current technology is not capable of controlling the stimulation of individual fibers. Although this lack of ability to control the stimulation of individual fibers has not hindered these devices from treating their patients, more knowledge of how different fibers are stimulated could offer great benefits to the future of these devices. Neuroprosthetics …
An extended power of cluster detection tests

Several tests have been proposed to detect spatial disease clustering without prior information on their locations. In order to compare the performance of these tests, most authors employ the usual power, i.e. the rejection probability of the null hypothesis of no clustering due to various reasons. However, the usual power is not always appropriate for evaluating the cluster detection tests since their purpose is to both reject the null hypothesis and identify the cluster areas accurately. In this paper, we propose an extended power of the cluster detection tests, which includes the usual power as a special case. Further, we define the profile of the extended power, which can be expected to play an important role in the evaluation and comparison of several cluster detection tests. The proposed extended power and its profile are demonstrated by two tests—Kulldorff's circular spatial scan statistic and a flexible spatial scan statistic proposed by Tango and Takahashi. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
A video-aware FEC-based unequal loss protection scheme for RTP video streaming

A video-aware unequal loss protection (ULP) system for protecting RTP video streaming in bursty packet loss networks is proposed. Just considering the relevance of the frame, the state of the channel and the bitrate constraints of the protection bitstream, our algorithm selects in real time the most suitable frames to be protected through forward error correction (FEC) techniques. It benefits from a wise RTP encapsulation that allows working at a frame level without requiring any further process than that of parsing RTP headers, so it is perfectly suitable to be included in commercial transmitters. The simulation results show how our proposed ULP technique outperforms non-smart schemes.
Production of different classes of immunoglobulins by individual cells in the guinea-pig.

The antibody forming cells from lymph nodes of guinea-pigs immunized with sheep red cells or dinitrophenyl bovine γ-globulin were studied by the `rosette' technique (immunocyto-adherence test). Pretreatment of the cells with antisera against guinea-pig total γ-globulin abolished their capacity to form `rosettes'. Pretreatment with antisera specific for γ1, γ2 or γM, produced an important inhibition of `rosette' formation, attaining in many cases more than 90 per cent. The sum of the percentage of inhibition obtained with anti-γ1 and anti-γ2 separately, added to more than 100 per cent in every case. These results are interpreted as indicating that the same cell is simultaneously synthesizing γ1- and γ2-globulins. The morphological study of the antibody-forming cells revealed the presence of small and large lymphocytes, blasts and plasmocytes, and a very small proportion of macrophages.
Molecular Simulation Study of Piezoelectric Potential Distribution in a ZnO Nanowire under Mechanical Bending

Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are carried out to investigate the interfacial sliding dynamics of a ZnO piezoelectric nanogenerator in an atomic force microscope (AFM) setting. The molecular system includes a vertically aligned ZnO nanowire along the [0001] direction and a Pt (111) metal tip sliding over it. We calculate the piezoelectric potential distributions based on the equilibrium molecular configurations using classical ionic charges. Simulation results reveal the very detailed evolution changes of the piezopotential within the nanowire, which are largely contributed from the different internal tensile or compressive strains induced by mechanical bending of the ZnO nanowire. Variations of the normal contact and lateral frictional forces versus the sliding distance of the Pt metal tip are also presented.
Characterization of five microRNA families in maize.

In recent years, microRNAs (miRNAs) have polarized the interest of the scientific community as a new category of gene expression regulators, present in both plants and animals. Plant miRNAs are involved in processes such as plant development, organ identity, and stress response. Nonetheless, knowledge of their functions is still incomplete, and it is conceivable that further new processes in which they are involved will be discovered. For these reasons, structural and functional characterization of MIR genes, that are also in crop species such as Zea mays L. , becomes instrumental in addressing genetic and molecular mechanisms controlling phenotype determination and phenotypic adaptation to growing conditions. The present study contributes to the characterization of five miRNA families in maize, from the determination of their expression pattern in different maize tissues and genotypes, to the identification of putative targets by bioinformatic means and subsequent experimental validation of three targets by modified 5' RACE experiments. Furthermore, 30 different MIR genes belonging to these five miRNA families were analysed by their attribution to maize chromosomes using oat-maize addition lines and by investigating their phylogenetic relationship with genes from other cereals. In particular, sequence homology was determined by the reciprocal best BLAST hit approach, to define groups of homologous genes between maize, rice, and sorghum.
Increased urinary kallikrein excretion during prostaglandin E1 infusion in anaesthetized dogs and its relation to natriuresis and diuresis.

The effect of intra‐arterial prostaglandin E1 (PGE1) infusion on urinary kallikrein, sodium, potassium and water excretion was studied in normal anaesthetized dogs. 2. Infusion of PGE1 caused a dose‐related increase in urinary excretion of kallikrein, sodium, potassium and water as well as an increase in renal blood flow (R.B.F.) and a fall in urinary osmolality and renal vascular resistance. 3. The changes occurred in the absence of appreciable changes in inulin clearance (Cin), arterial blood pressure, haematocrit, and plasma sodium and potassium concentrations. 4. The increased urinary kallikrein excretion correlated positively with the natriuresis, diuresis and kaliuresis and the increase in renal blood flow, but negatively with the urinary osmolality and renal vascular resistance. 5. It is concluded that renal kallikrein is involved in the renal response to arterial infusion of PGE1.
The Cell Cycle: Accelerators, Brakes, and Checkpoints

PROLIFERATIVE CUES TRIGGER a complex series of molecular signaling events in cells. Early in the cell cycle, cells are faced with an important decision that affects their fate. They either initiate a round of replication or they withdraw from cell division. Passage through the restriction point, or “point of no return,” marks cellular commitment to a new round of division. Genetic mutations that predispose individuals to tumorigenesis often affect pathways that influence cellular proliferation. Many of the mutated genes give rise to molecules that are no longer able to appropriately regulate the mammalian cell cycle; the end result is neoplasia. In this review, the critical elements that permit cell cycle progression and the positive and negative regulators that affect the process are reviewed.
Augmented and interactive video playback based on global camera pose

This paper proposes a video playback system that allows user to expend the field of view to surrounding environments that are not visible in the original video frame, arbitrarily change the viewing angles, and see the superimposed point-of-interest (POIs) data in an augmented reality manner during the video playback. The processing consists of two main steps: in the first step, client uploads a video to the GeoVideo Engine, and then the GeoVideo Engine extracts the geo-metadata and returns them back to the client; in the second step, client requests POIs from server, and then the client renders the video with POIs.
Comparative sequence analysis of equine and human MHC class II DQB genes

The MHC class II DQB gene of horse was isolated and characterized. No obvious mutations causing frame shifts, or destruction of putative protein structure and splicing machinery were detected. Nucleotide sequence of exon 2 was consistent with an allelic sequence of the W23 haplotype. The cytoplasmic region of the equine DQB gene comprised two exons and an intron. A novel fragment of the gene was identified at the 3′ intergenic region proximal to the ELA-DQB gene by sequence comparison between the human and horse DQB genes. This sequence showed the highest identity to exon 3 region of the DQB gene, however the 5′ half of this exon was truncated as compared with the intact exon. This gene fragment was also identified in the same site of the HLA-DQB gene.
Review of power system stability with high wind power penetration

This paper presents an overview of researches on power system stability with high wind power penetration including analyzing methods and improvement approaches. Power system stability issues can be classified diversely according to different considerations. Each classified issue has special analyzing methods and stability improvement approaches. With increasing wind power penetration, system balancing and the reduced inertia may cause a big threaten for stable operation of power systems. To mitigate or eliminate the wind impacts for high wind penetration systems, although the practical and reliable choices currently are the strong outside connections or sufficient reserve capacity constructions, many novel theories and approaches are invented to investigate the stability issues, looking forward to an extra-high penetration or totally renewable resource based power systems. These analyzing methods and stabilization techniques are presented and discussed in this paper.
Butcher, baker, or candlestick maker? Predicting occupations using predicate-argument relations

In a previous question answering study, we identified nine semantic-relationship types, including synonyms, hypernyms, word chains, and holonyms, that exist between terms in Text Retrieval Conference queries and those in their supporting sentences in the Advanced Question Answering for Intelligence (Graff, 2002) corpus. The most frequently occurring relationship type was the hypernym (e.g., Katherine Hepburn is an actress). The aim of the present work, therefore, was to develop a method for determining a person's occupation from syntactic data in a text corpus. First, in the P-System, we compared predicate–argument data involving a proper name for different occupations using Okapi's BM25 weighting algorithm. When classifying actors and using sufficiently frequent names, an accuracy of 0.955 was attained. For evaluation purposes, we also implemented a standard apposition-based classifier (A-System). This performs well, but only if a particular name happens to appear in apposition with the corresponding occupation. Last, we created a hybrid (H-System) which combines the strengths of P with those of A. Using data with a minimum of 100 predicate–argument pairs, H performed best with an overall lenient accuracy of 0.750 while A and P scored 0.615 and 0.656, respectively. We therefore conclude that a hybrid approach combining information from different sources is the best way to predict occupations. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Bayesian Stackelberg Game for Antijamming Transmission With Incomplete Information

The smart jammers pose a severe threat to wireless communications due to their abilities of learning the users' transmission strategies. A Stackelberg game can be formulated to model and analyze the hierarchical interactions between the user and the smart jammer. In this letter, an antijamming Bayesian Stackelberg game with incomplete information is proposed. In the proposed game, the user who acts as the leader has the privilege over the smart jammer and takes actions first, whereas the smart jammer acting as the follower moves subsequently. Moreover, the Stackelberg equilibrium (SE) is derived, and the existence and the uniqueness of SE are demonstrated. Simulation results are presented to validate the effectiveness of the proposed antijamming Bayesian Stackelberg game.
Discovering People's Life Patterns from Anonymized WiFi Scanlists

The prevalence of smart phones equipped with various sensors enables pervasive capturing users' mobility data (GPS, GSM network, WiFi, etc.), which contains approximate whereabouts of users. In order to protect users' privacy some mobility data is anonymized, which is challenging for discovering individual information implicated in the data. In this study, we are attempting to discover people's life patterns, which capture individual's life regularity and living style, from the anonymized WiFi scan lists. We transform the life pattern discovery problem into an unsupervised problem by extracting stay place, discovering trajectory patterns, etc. Particularly, we design a user feature space in which we use frequent trajectory patterns to represent each user as a feature vector. Thus, the life pattern discovery problem can be solved by finding clusters of users in the user feature space. The proposed approach is verified using the Device Analyzer data, which contains records of smart phone usage of more than 17,000 volunteering participants. Our work is a promising step towards automatically mining people's life patterns from anonymized mobility data of smart phones.
Computational Intelligence for Functional Testing

Software testing is primarily a technique for achieving some degree of software quality and to gain consumer confidence. It accounts for 50% -75% of development cost. Test case design supports effective testing but is still a human centered and labour-intensive task. The Unified Modelling language (UML) is the de-facto industrial standard for specifying software system and techniques for automatic test case generation from UML models are very much needed. While extensive research has explored the use of meta-heuristics in structural testing, few have involved its use in functional testing, particularly with respect to UML. This chapter details an approach that incorporates an anti-Ant Colony Optimisation algorithm for the automatic generation of test scenarios directly from UML Activity Diagrams, thus providing a seamless progression from design to generation of test scenarios. Owing to its anti-ant behaviour, the approach generates non-redundant test scenarios.
Bayesian Inference of Infectious Disease Transmission from Whole-Genome Sequence Data

Genomics is increasingly being used to investigate disease outbreaks, but an important question remains unanswered—how well do genomic data capture known transmission events, particularly for pathogens with long carriage periods or large within-host population sizes? Here we present a novel Bayesian approach to reconstruct densely sampled outbreaks from genomic data while considering within-host diversity. We infer a time-labeled phylogeny using Bayesian evolutionary analysis by sampling trees (BEAST), and then infer a transmission network via a Monte Carlo Markov chain. We find that under a realistic model of within-host evolution, reconstructions of simulated outbreaks contain substantial uncertainty even when genomic data reflect a high substitution rate. Reconstruction of a real-world tuberculosis outbreak displayed similar uncertainty, although the correct source case and several clusters of epidemiologically linked cases were identified. We conclude that genomics cannot wholly replace traditional epidemiology but that Bayesian reconstructions derived from sequence data may form a useful starting point for a genomic epidemiology investigation.
Cost-effective sustain driver employing a new four-quadrant switch cell for AC plasma display

A new energy-recovery circuit (ERC) for the plasma display panel (PDP) using a switched transformer is proposed. The proposed ERC is very cost effective due to the reduction of device count and circuit complexity such as highside gate drivers and diodes in the resonant path. Also, the leakage inductances of the transformers are used as resonant inductors for soft-switching operation of the main switches. The operation and performance of the proposed energy recovery circuit were validated through waveform and power efficiency measurement tests with prototype hardware in 200 kHz switching frequency.
Origin of the sharp boundary that discriminates positive and negative selection of thymocytes

T lymphocytes play a key role in adaptive immunity and are activated by interactions of their T cell receptors (TCR) with peptides (p) derived from antigenic proteins bound to MHC gene products. The repertoire of T lymphocytes available in peripheral organs is tuned in the thymus. Immature T lymphocytes (thymocytes) interact with diverse endogenous peptides bound to MHC in the thymus. TCR expressed on thymocytes must bind weakly to endogenous pMHC (positive selection) but must not bind too strongly to them (negative selection) to emerge from the thymus. Negatively selecting pMHC ligands bind TCR with a binding affinity that exceeds a sharply defined (digital) threshold. In contrast, there is no sharp threshold separating positively selecting ligands from those that bind too weakly to elicit a response. We describe results of computer simulations and experiments, which suggest that the contrast between the characters of the positive and negative selection thresholds originates in differences in the way in which Ras proteins are activated by ligands of varying potency. The molecular mechanism suggested by our studies generates hypotheses for how genetic aberrations may dampen the digital negative selection response, with concomitant escape of autoimmune T lymphocytes from the thymus.
Virulence factors of biotypes of Staphylococcus epidermidis from clinical sources

The biotyping scheme of Baird-Parker was applied to cultures of Staphylococcus epidermidis from patients. In all, 63.6% of 228 cultures belonged to biotype 1, followed by biotypes 4, 3, and 2 in decreasing order of incidence. When classified according to clinical source of isolation, cultures of S. epidermidis were most frequently isolated from urine, with 39.5% of 228 cultures from this source. Each of the four biotypes was distributed throughout all nine catagories of clinical sources. The production of virulence factors was based on the results of three groups of tests: (i) deoxyribonuclease, urease, gelatinase, caseinase, and lysozyme production; (ii) lipolytic activity on the tweens; and (iii) hemolysin production. Enzymatic activity was highest for organisms in biotypes 1, followed by biotypes 3, 4, and 2 in decreasing order. Of the 228 cultures, 76.3% were lysed by lysostaphin. Resistance to antibiotics was highest for tetracycline, ampicillin, and penicillin, with rates of 54.8, 69.3, and 81.6%, respectively. The role of S. epidermidis as an etiological agent was studied by analyzing the laboratory and clinical data of 80 patients selected at random with bacteriuric S. epidermidis. Organisms in biotype 1 were most commonly associated with urinary tract infection. The significance of certain biotypes of S. epidermidis as opportunistic pathogens among compromised hosts in a hospital environment is discussed.
A Multidimensional Investigation of the Effects of Publication Retraction on Scholarly Impact

During the past few decades, the rate of publication retractions has increased dramatically in academia. In this study, we investigate retractions from a quantitative perspective, aiming to answer two fundamental questions. One, how do retractions influence the scholarly impact of retracted papers, authors, and institutions? Two, does this influence propagate to the wider academic community through scholarly associations? Specifically, we analyzed a set of retracted articles indexed in Thomson Reuters Web of Science (WoS), and ran multiple experiments to compare changes in scholarly impact against a control set of nonretracted articles, authors, and institutions. We further applied the Granger Causality test to investigate whether different scientific topics are dynamically affected by retracted papers occurring within those topics. Our results show two key findings: first, the scholarly impact of retracted papers and authors significantly decreases after retraction, and the most severe impact decrease correlates with retractions based on proven, purposeful scientific misconduct; second, this retraction penalty does not seem to spread through the broader scholarly social graph, but instead has a limited and localized effect. Our findings may provide useful insights for scholars or science committees to evaluate the scholarly value of papers, authors, or institutions related to retractions.