Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Genetic programming for articulated figure motion

SUMMARY We present an approach to articulated figure motion in which motion tasks are defined in terms of goals and ratings. The agents are dynamically-controlled robots whose behavior is determined by robotic controller programs. The controller programs for the robots are evaluated at each time step to yield torque values which drive the dynamic simulation of the motion. We use the AI technique of Genetic Programming (GP) to automatically derive control programs for the agents which achieve the goals. This type of motion specification is an alternative to key framing which allows a highly automated, learning-based approach to generation of motion. This method of motion control is very general (it can be applied to any type of motion), yet it allows for specifications of the types of specific motion which are desired for a high quality animation. We show that complex, specific, physically plausible, and aesthetically appealing motion can be generated using these methods.
Design of Digital Predistortion Technique for RF Power Amplifier using Memory Polynomial

Linearization of power amplifier has been an area of intense research from the last many years. The various types of linearization techniques are available for linearising PA but Digital Predistortion technique has been observed as one of the most common and effective method. But due to the issues like memory effects and exact characterization of non-linear behaviour of power amplifier, the implementation of existing predistortion technique suffers. So in this paper, a digital predistorter based on memory polynomial has been proposed that takes care of above mentioned issues. The presented technique is easy to implement and simple.
FV-battery community energy systems: Economic, energy independence and network deferral analysis

This paper presents a mixed integer linear program based model to optimize smart community energy systems, based upon physical models of buildings, energy storage, and energy conversion devices. Using a level-of-aggregation approach, the model can accommodate different price components at the relevant aggregation level. Community energy systems with various characteristics have been assessed considering different objectives (i.e., energy minimization, cost minimization and electricity self-sufficiency). Community behavior and economic performance are assessed to demonstrate the impact of different operation objectives and energy storage options on network constraints and economics.
Engineering self-coordinating software intensive systems

Wilhelm Schafer, Mauro Birattari, Johannes Blomer, Marco Dorigo, Gregor Engels, Rehan O’Grady, Marco Platzner, Franz Rammig, Wolfgang Reif, and Ansgar Trachtler wilhelm@upb.de 1 Heinz Nixdorf Institute University of Paderborn Furstenallee 11, Pohlweg 98, and Warburger Str. 100 Paderborn, Germany 2 Department of Computer Science University of Paderborn Warburger Str. 100 Paderborn, Germany 3 Department of Control Engineering and Mechatronics University of Paderborn Pohlweg 98 Paderborn, Germany
A Framework for Model Driven Transformation Engineering towards Software Architecture and Performance

This paper presents a different experience and application of defining and implementing an Agile Development Process (ADP) using Model Driven Architecture (MDA) series. This process and its implementation inherit the merits of both methodologies. The research demonstrates that combining MDA practices with ADP can significantly moderate software development cycle time and increase productivity and quality. This approach offers several other advantages including Platform-independent models which are used to promote the system endurance and flexibility in deployment. Executable models are assembled to increase the level of consideration, quality and efficiency. Change of models that are utilized to implement and allow the advanced run-time execution through programmed improvements that is not practical with transcribed code. The principles of modeling describe that the transformation should also explicitly modeled because it is at the very core of Model Driven Engineering. Transformations allow synchronization, analyses of execution, optimization, code synthesizing, composition and developing models.
Workplace Inhalant Abuse in Adult Female: Brief Report

Inhalant abuse is the purposeful inhalation of intoxicating gases and vapors for the purpose of achieving an altered mental state. With its propensity for being yet an under-recognized form of substance use, being gateway to hard substances, cross-cultural penetration crossing socioeconomic boundaries, and causing significant morbidity and mortality in early ages, the prevention of inhalant misuse is a highly pertinent issue. This clinical report identifies a newer perspective in the emergence of inhalant abuse initiation. We report a case of an adult female with late onset of inhalant dependence developing at workplace and recommend for greater awareness, prevention, and management of this expanding substance abuse problem.
Intrinsic Activated Microglia Map to the Peri-infarct Zone in the Subacute Phase of Ischemic Stroke

Background and Purpose— Microglial activation is an important component of the neuroinflammatory response to ischemic stroke. Experimental studies have outlined such patterns temporally and spatially. In vivo studies in stroke patients have relied on positron emission tomography and (R)-PK11195, a ligand that binds peripheral benzodiazepine binding sites. In this study we sought to establish temporal and spatial patterns of microglial activation in ischemic stroke with particular emphasis on a defined peri-infarct zone. Methods— Using this technique, we studied carotid territory ischemic stroke patients in 3 time windows up to 30 days after ictus. Controls were studied in a single session. [11C](R)-PK11195 injection was followed by 3-dimensional acquisition over 60 minutes. Cerebral blood volume (CBV) was measured afterward with the use of standard C15O paradigms. Analysis employed the reference tissue model in which ipsilateral cerebellum was used to generate parametric binding potential maps corrected for CBV. Data were coregistered to T1-based MRI. Using control data to identify 99% confidence limits, a region of interest analysis was applied to identify significant binding in core infarction, contralateral hemisphere, and within a defined peri-infarct zone. Results— Four patients (mean age, 66 years) were imaged across 9 sessions. Four age-matched controls were studied. Within this model, ipsilateral cerebellum was validated as a reference tissue. With the use of control-derived confidence limits and correction for CBV, significant binding potential rises were identified beyond 72 hours and extending to 30 days in core infarction, contralateral hemisphere, and peri-infarct zone. Conclusions— In ischemic stroke patients, minimal activation of microglia is seen before 72 hours. Beyond this, binding potential rises in core infarction, peri-infarct zone, and contralateral hemisphere to 30 days. This may represent a therapeutic opportunity that extends beyond time windows traditionally reserved for neuroprotection.
Design and evaluation of incremental data structures and algorithms for dynamic query interfaces

A dynamic query interface (DQI) is a database access mechanism that provides continuous real-time feedback to the user during query formulation. Previous work shows that DQIs are elegant and powerful interfaces to small databases. Unfortunately, when applied to large databases, previous DQI algorithms slow to a crawl. We present a new incremental approach to DQI algorithms and display updates that work well with large databases, both in theory and in practice.
Survey on Unsupervised Mining Weakly Labeled Web Facial Images for Search-Based Face Annotation

Auto face annotation is playing an important role in many real-world knowledge management systems and multimedia information. Auto face annotation is important and beneficial to many real world application. Face annotation related face detection and recognition recently research interests in mining weakly-labeled images on the interest to resolve research challenge in computer vision and image processing. This paper provides various techniques or methods that are used to annotating facial images. Keywords-face annotation, web facial images, search base face annotation, weak label search based facial annotation.
Phosphorylation of Enoyl-Acyl Carrier Protein Reductase InhA Impacts Mycobacterial Growth and Survival*

InhA, the primary target for the first line anti-tuberculosis drug isoniazid, is a key enzyme of the fatty-acid synthase II system involved in mycolic acid biosynthesis in Mycobacterium tuberculosis. In this study, we show that InhA is a substrate for mycobacterial serine/threonine protein kinases. Using a novel approach to validate phosphorylation of a substrate by multiple kinases in a surrogate host (Escherichia coli), we have demonstrated efficient phosphorylation of InhA by PknA, PknB, and PknH, and to a lower extent by PknF. Additionally, the sites targeted by PknA/PknB have been identified and shown to be predominantly located at the C terminus of InhA. Results demonstrate in vivo phosphorylation of InhA in mycobacteria and validate Thr-266 as one of the key sites of phosphorylation. Significantly, our studies reveal that the phosphorylation of InhA by kinases modulates its biochemical activity, with phosphorylation resulting in decreased enzymatic activity. Co-expression of kinase and InhA alters the growth dynamics of Mycobacterium smegmatis, suggesting that InhA phosphorylation in vivo is an important event in regulating its activity. An InhA-T266E mutant, which mimics constitutive phosphorylation, is unable to rescue an M. smegmatis conditional inhA gene replacement mutant, emphasizing the critical role of Thr-266 in mediating post-translational regulation of InhA activity. The involvement of various serine/threonine kinases in modulating the activity of a number of enzymes of the mycolic acid synthesis pathway, including InhA, accentuates the intricacies of mycobacterial signaling networks in parallel with the changing environment.
Integrated biostratigraphical, sedimentological and provenance analyses with implications for lithostratigraphic ranking: the Miocene Komjatice depression of the Danube Basin

Abstract The Komjatice depression, situated on the Danube Basin’s northern margin, represents a sub-basin of the Neogene epicontinental Central Paratethys Sea and Lake Pannon. The paper provides an insight into the character of sediment provenance evolution by study of well cores (ZM-1, IV-1, MOJ-1, VR-1 wells). A modern combination of provenance, sedimentology and biostratigraphy together with the reported redefinition of Pannonian formations resulted in a new lithostratigraphy of the study area. Moreover, newly published volcanic rock age data were used for calibration of biostratigraphy. The overall age span of the sedimentary fill is occupied only by late Badenian–Sarmatian (Serravallian) to Pannonian (Tortonian–Messinian) strata: 1) the basal alluvial sediments of the newly defined Zlaté Moravce Formation; 2) late Badenian–Sarmatian (Serravalian) marine sediments of the Vráble-Pozba Fm. , connected with tectonic opening of the depression; 3) Pannonian (Tortonian) coarse grained sediments of the Nemčiňany Fm. with an erosional base; 4) Pannonian (Tortonian–Messinian) predominantly fine-grained, basin floor to slope Ivanka Fm. , sandy deltaic Beladice Fm. and predominantly muddy, alluvial Volkovce Fm. In the middle Miocene provenance is situated in Paleozoic sequences and Neogene volcanic rocks occurring currently in the NE. During the late Miocene, provenance is changed to the NNW (Tribeč Mts.), although the transport from the NE also remained.
Intrinsic Optical Properties and Enhanced Plasmonic Response of Epitaxial Silver

Using atomically smooth epitaxial silver films, new optical permittivity highlighting significant loss reduction in the visible frequency range is extracted. Largely enhanced propagation distances of surface plasmon polaritons are measured, confirming the low intrinsic loss in silver. The new permittivity is free of extrinsic spectral features associated with grain boundaries and localized plasmons inevitably present in thermally deposited films.
Experimental dry eye stimulates production of inflammatory cytokines and MMP-9 and activates MAPK signaling pathways on the ocular surface.

PURPOSE To evaluate whether experimentally induced dry eye in mice activates mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathways, c-Jun N-terminal kinases (JNK), extracellular-regulated kinases (ERK), and p38 and stimulates ocular surface inflammation. METHODS 129SvEv/CD-1 mixed mice aged 6 to 8 weeks were treated with systemic scopolamine and exposure to an air draft for different lengths of time, from 4 hours to 10 days. Untreated mice were used as the control. The concentrations of IL-1beta and TNF-alpha in tear fluid washings and in corneal and conjunctival epithelia were measured by ELISA. MMP-9 in tear washings was evaluated by zymography, and gelatinase activity in the cornea and conjunctiva was determined by in situ zymography. Corneal and conjunctival epithelia were lysed in RIPA buffer for Western blot with MAPK antibodies, or they were lysed in 4 M guanidium thiocyanate solution for extraction of total RNA, which was used to determine gene expression by semiquantitative RT-PCR, real-time PCR, and gene array. RESULTS Compared with those in age-matched control subjects, the concentrations of IL-1beta and MMP-9 in tear fluid washings and the concentrations of IL-1beta and TNF-alpha and gelatinolytic activity in the corneal and conjunctival epithelia were significantly increased in mice receiving treatments to induce dry eye after 5 or 10 days. The expression of IL-1beta, TNF-alpha, and MMP-9 mRNA by the corneal and conjunctival epithelia was also stimulated in mice treated for 5 or 10 days. The levels of phosphorylated JNK1/2, ERK1/2, and p38 MAPKs in the corneal and conjunctival epithelia were markedly increased as early as 4 hours after treatment, and they remained elevated up to 5 days. CONCLUSIONS Experimental dry eye stimulates expression and production of IL-1beta, TNF-alpha, and MMP-9 and activates MAPK signaling pathways on the ocular surface. MAPKs are known to stimulate the production of inflammatory cytokines and MMPs, and they could play an important role in the induction of these factors that have been implicated in the pathogenesis of dry eye disease.
CBinfer: Change-Based Inference for Convolutional Neural Networks on Video Data

Extracting per-frame features using convolutional neural networks for real-time processing of video data is currently mainly performed on powerful GPU-accelerated workstations and compute clusters. However, there are many applications such as smart surveillance cameras that require or would benefit from on-site processing. To this end, we propose and evaluate a novel algorithm for change-based evaluation of CNNs for video data recorded with a static camera setting, exploiting the spatio-temporal sparsity of pixel changes. We achieve an average speed-up of 8.6x over a cuDNN baseline on a realistic benchmark with a negligible accuracy loss of less than 0.1% and no retraining of the network. The resulting energy efficiency is 10x higher than that of per-frame evaluation and reaches an equivalent of 328 GOp/s/W on the Tegra X1 platform.
Design sequence for a LC-tank voltage controlled oscillator in CMOS for RF

A design sequence for a LC-tank voltage controlled oscillator - VCO - in CMOS for radio frequency is presented in this paper. Details about the design of the components are shown. Among these details, it is a method to reach the active components (transistors) based on simulations using models given by the foundry. A VCO with a frequency range from 2.4 GHz to 2.5 GHz has been designed to validate the method. Due to access facilities it had been chosen the AMS 0.35 /spl mu/m CMOS as fabrication technology. The VCO had been fabricated and the measurements done are compatible with the simulations. The good agreement between the measurements and the simulations show that the design sequence is correct.
Efﬁcient BDD Algorithms for FSM Synthesis and Veriﬁcation

We describe a set of BDD based algorithms for efﬁcient FSM synthesis and veriﬁcation. We establish that the core computation in both synthesis and veriﬁcation is forming the image and pre-image of sets of states under the transition relation characterizing the design. To make these steps as efﬁcient as possible, we address BDD variable ordering, use of partitioned transition relations, and use of clustering. We provide an integrated set of algorithms and give references and comparisons with previous work. We report experimental results on a series of seven industrial examples containing from 28 to 172 binary valued latches.
A web-enabled extension of a spatio-temporal DBMS

Many database applications deal with spatio-temporal phenomena, and during the last decade a lot of research targeted location-based services, moving objects, traffic jam preventions, meteorology, etc. In strong contrast, there exist only very few proposals for an implementation of a spatio-temporal database system let alone a web-based spatio-temporal information system. This paper describes the design and implementation of a web-based spatio-temporal information system. The system uses Secondo as spatio-temporal DBMS for handling moving objects and MapServer as an OGC-compliant rendering engine for static spatial data. We describe the architecture of the system and compare our system with a standalone application. The paper investigates in detail issues that arise in the context of the web. First, we describe an implementation of a lightweight client that takes advantage of the functionality offered by Secondo and MapServer. Second, we describe how moving objects can be represented in GML. We discuss possible GML representations, propose an extension of GML that uses 3D segments (2D location + time) to represent moving objects, and present experiments that compare the solutions.
Detection of adverse events in surgical patients using the Trigger Tool approach

Background: Most studies of healthcare complications identify surgery as a major contributor to the overall burden of complicated care that leads to injury or death. Indeed, surgical adverse events account for one-half to three-quarters of all adverse events in these studies. Despite the intensive current focus on improving medical quality and safety, only a minority of quality improvement efforts are focused on surgery. This study reports on the development and testing of a Trigger Tool to detect adverse events among patients undergoing inpatient surgery. Methods: Rather than relying on traditional voluntary reporting for safety outcome measures such as incident reports, surgical peer review, or morbidity and mortality conferences, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) has employed a new method for the detection of surgical adverse events (SAEs). This approach, commonly referred to as the “Trigger Tool”, identifies adverse events using a form of retrospective record review that has been developed and implemented in many areas of care. Results: During a 12-month IHI Perioperative Safety Collaborative, 11 hospitals voluntarily submitted data from surgical inpatient record reviews. In 854 patients, 138 SAEs were detected in 125 records for a rate of 16 SAEs per 100 patients or 14.6% of patients; 61 (44%) of these events contributed to increased length of stay or readmission and 12 (8.7%) events required life-saving intervention or resulted in permanent harm or death. Hospital review teams reported verbally that most of the events identified during the Trigger Tool review process had not been detected or reported via any other existing mechanism. Conclusions: The IHI Surgical Trigger Tool may offer a practical, easy-to-use approach to detecting safety problems in patients undergoing surgery; it can be the basis not only for estimating the frequency of adverse events in an organisation, but also determining the impact of interventions that focus on reducing adverse events in surgical patients.
Pharmacokinetics of Mycophenolic Acid and its Phenolic-Glucuronide and Acyl Glucuronide Metabolites in Stable Thoracic Transplant Recipients

Mycophenolate mofetil is an immunosuppressant commonly used in solid organ transplantation. Its active metabolite, mycophenolic acid (MPA), is metabolized to the inactive 7-O-mycophenolic acid glucuronide (MPAG) and the active acyl glucuronide (AcMPAG). Most pharmacokinetic (PK) studies have been focused on MPA, but not its metabolites, in kidney transplant recipients. Pharmacokinetic studies of MPA and its metabolites in thoracic transplant recipients are scarce. Because neither the heart nor lung is involved in MPA metabolism or excretion, the thoracic transplant population may exhibit unique PKs. This open-label study aimed to characterize and compare PKs of MPA and its metabolites in stable lung or heart transplant recipients. Fifty thoracic (27 lung, 23 heart) transplant recipients were recruited. Subjects were also taking cyclosporine (11 lung, 14 heart) or tacrolimus (16 lung, nine heart), and prednisone (27 lung, one heart). Blood samples were obtained at 0, 20, 40, 60, and 90 minutes and 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12 hours postdose. Plasma was used for drug level analysis (MPA, MPAG, and AcMPAG) by a high-performance liquid chromatography-ultraviolet detection method; in a subset of subjects, free MPA concentrations were also determined. Conventional PK parameters (dose-normalized) were determined by noncompartmental methods. There was wide interpatient variability of MPA, MPAG, and AcMPAG PKs with coefficients of variation exceeding 70% for most PK parameters measured. Other findings (P < 0.05) included: lower MPA area under the curve, maximum concentration, and minimum concentration; higher apparent clearance and MPAG/MPA metabolic ratio in the lung versus heart transplant group; lower MPA area under the curve and minimum concentration, and higher apparent clearance and MPAG/MPA metabolic ratio in lung transplant recipients concurrently taking cyclosporine versus tacrolimus; and lower minimum concentration in heart transplant recipients taking cyclosporine versus tacrolimus. Despite large interpatient variability in the PKs of MPA, MPAG, and AcMPAG among thoracic transplant recipients, there appear to be significant differences between lung and heart patients, which warrant further study.