Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Free Glycogen in Vaginal Fluids Is Associated with Lactobacillus Colonization and Low Vaginal pH

Objective Lactobacillus dominates the lower genital tract microbiota of many women, producing a low vaginal pH, and is important for healthy pregnancy outcomes and protection against several sexually transmitted pathogens. Yet, factors that promote Lactobacillus remain poorly understood. We hypothesized that the amount of free glycogen in the lumen of the lower genital tract is an important determinant of Lactobacillus colonization and a low vaginal pH. Methods Free glycogen in lavage samples was quantified. Pyrosequencing of the 16S rRNA gene was used to identify microbiota from 21 African American women collected over 8–11 years. Results Free glycogen levels varied greatly between women and even in the same woman. Samples with the highest free glycogen had a corresponding median genital pH that was significantly lower (pH 4.4) than those with low glycogen (pH 5.8; p<0.001). The fraction of the microbiota consisting of Lactobacillus was highest in samples with high glycogen versus those with low glycogen (median = 0.97 vs. 0.05, p<0.001). In multivariable analysis, having 1 vs. 0 male sexual partner in the past 6 months was negatively associated, while BMI ≥30 was positively associated with glycogen. High concentrations of glycogen corresponded to higher levels of L. crispatus and L. jensenii, but not L. iners. Conclusion These findings show that free glycogen in genital fluid is associated with a genital microbiota dominated by Lactobacillus, suggesting glycogen is important for maintaining genital health. Treatments aimed at increasing genital free glycogen might impact Lactobacillus colonization.
Virtually True: Children's Acquisition of False Memories in Virtual Reality

Previous work on human memory has shown that prompting participants with false events and self-relevant information via different types of media such as narratives, edited 2-dimensional images, and mental imagery creates false memories. This study tested a new form of media for studying false memory formation: Immersive Virtual Environment Technology (IVET). Using this tool, we examined how memory was affected by viewing dynamic simulations of avatars performing novel actions. In the study, 55 preschool and elementary children were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 memory prompt conditions (idle, mental imagery, IVET simulation of another child, or IVET simulation of self). Each child was questioned 3 different times: once before the memory prompt, once immediately after the memory prompt, and once approximately 5 days after the memory prompt. Results showed that preschool children were equally likely to develop false memories regardless of memory prompt condition. But, for elementary children, the mental imagery and IVET self conditions caused significantly more false memories than the idle condition. Implications regarding the use of digital media in courtroom settings, clinical therapy settings, entertainment, and other applications are discussed.
Modified Constraint-Induced Therapy Combined With Mental Practice: Thinking Through Better Motor Outcomes

Background and Purpose— Modified constraint-induced therapy (mCIT) is an outpatient therapy encouraging repetitive, task-specific practice with the affected arm. mCIT has shown efficacy in all stages poststroke. Given its efficacy when combined with other therapy regimens, the current study examined the efficacy of mental practice when combined with mCIT versus mCIT only using randomized, controlled methods. Method— Ten patients with chronic stroke (7 males; mean age, 61.4±3.02 years; age range, 48 to 79 years; mean time since stroke, 28.5 months; range, 13 to 42 months) exhibiting stable, affected arm motor deficits were administered mCIT, consisting of: (1) structured therapy emphasizing affected arm use in functional activities 3 days/week for 10 weeks; and (2) less affected arm restraint 5 days/week for 5 hours. Both of these components were administered during a 10-week period. Subjects randomly assigned to the mCIT+mental practice experimental condition also received 30-minute mental practice sessions provided directly after therapy sessions. These mental practice sessions required daily cognitive rehearsal of the activities of daily living practiced during mCIT clinical sessions. Results— No pre-existing differences were found between groups on any demographic variable or movement scale. All subjects exhibited marked reductions in affected arm impairment and functional limitation. However, subjects in the mCIT+mental practice group exhibited significantly larger changes on both movement measures after intervention: Action Research Arm Test, +15.4-point change versus +8.4-point change for mCIT only subjects (P<0.001); Fugl-Meyer, +7.8-point change versus +4.1-point change for the mCIT only subjects (P=0.01). These changes were sustained 3 months after intervention. Conclusions— mCIT remains a promising motor intervention. However, its efficacy appears to be enhanced by use of mental practice provided directly after mCIT clinical sessions.
An Automatic Lip-reading Method Based on Polynomial Fitting

This paper addresses the problem of speaker-dependent isolate digits recognition using sole visual information. We employ intensity transformation and spatial filter to estimate the minimum enclosing rectangle of mouth in each frame. Thus, for each utterance, we can obtain two vectors composed of width and height of mouth, respectively. Then, we propose an approach to recognize the speech based on polynomial fitting. Firstly, both width and height vectors are normalized into the constant length via interpolation. Secondly, least square method is utilized to produce two 3order polynomials that can represent the main trend of the two vectors, respectively, and reduce the noise caused by the estimate error. Lastly, positions of three crucial points (i.e. maximum, minimum and right boundary point) in each 3-order polynomial curve are recorded as a feature vector. For each utterance, we calculate the average of all vectors of training sample to make a template, and using Euclidean distance between the template and testing data to perform the classification. Experiments show the promising results of the proposed approach.
Building a corpus of natural speech - and tools for the processing of expressive speech

This paper presents details and progress of the JST/CREST ESP Project, part of the “Information Technology for Life in an Advanced Media Society” series of research projects. The purpose of the research is to determine the acoustic variables that indicate different attitudes and emotions in speech and to map these to linguistic objects and frameworks so that a model of the paralinguistic structure and content of an utterance can be obtained. The project has now been running for 6 months, and is expected to last for 5 years.
Radiosensitizing effect of carboplatin and paclitaxel to carbon-ion beam irradiation in the non-small-cell lung cancer cell line H460

Abstract The present study investigated the ability of carboplatin and paclitaxel to sensitize human non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cells to carbon-ion beam irradiation. NSCLC H460 cells treated with carboplatin or paclitaxel were irradiated with X-rays or carbon-ion beams, and radiosensitivity was evaluated by clonogenic survival assay. Cell proliferation was determined by counting the number of viable cells using Trypan blue. Apoptosis and senescence were evaluated by terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nick-end labeling (TUNEL) staining and senescence-associated β-galactosidase (SA-β-gal) staining, respectively. The expression of cleaved caspase-3, Bax, p53 and p21 was analyzed by western blotting. Clonogenic survival assays demonstrated a synergistic radiosensitizing effect of carboplatin and paclitaxel with carbon-ion beams; the sensitizer enhancement ratios (SERs) at the dose giving a 10% survival fraction (D10) were 1.21 and 1.22, respectively. Similarly, carboplatin and paclitaxel showed a radiosensitizing effect with X-rays; the SERs were 1.41 and 1.29, respectively. Cell proliferation assays validated the radiosensitizing effect of carboplatin and paclitaxel with both carbon-ion beam and X-ray irradiation. Carboplatin and paclitaxel treatment combined with carbon-ion beams increased TUNEL-positive cells and the expression of cleaved caspase-3 and Bax, indicating the enhancement of apoptosis. The combined treatment also increased SA-β-gal-positive cells and the expression of p53 and p21, indicating the enhancement of senescence. In summary, carboplatin and paclitaxel radiosensitized H460 cells to carbon-ion beam irradiation by enhancing irradiation-induced apoptosis and senescence.
DID MOST HIGH-REDSHIFT QUASARS ESCAPE DETECTION?

We present follow-up spectroscopy to the Calar Alto Deep Imaging Survey (CADIS), reporting on the quasars in the CADIS 16 h-field, and including preliminary data from two other fields. In this 10 0 10 0 field we found six quasars at red- shift z> 2:2 which are brighter than R =2 2 m , while surface densities determined in previous surveys are reported to be be- low one on average. This is the highest reported surface density of high-redshift quasars within the given limits. We believe this result to be a consequence of the multicolor database and the search technique used in CADIS. Our observations further seem to indicate that the den- sity of high-redshift quasars is also higher than predicted by the luminosity function of Warren et al. (1994) by a factor of three, implying that common search methods have over- looked the majority of high-redshift quasars at this magnitude level. In particular, an application of the V=Vmax test to our preliminary list of AGNs with R< 22 m and z< 4 yields hV=Vmaxi =0 :51 0:06, characterizing our preliminary red- shift distribution as flat.
Functional and Structural Characteristics of Tumor Angiogenesis in Lung Cancers Overexpressing Different VEGF Isoforms Assessed by DCE- and SSCE-MRI

The expressions of different vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) isoforms are associated with the degree of tumor invasiveness and the patient's prognosis in human cancers. We hypothesized that different VEGF isoforms can exert different effects on the functional and structural characteristics of tumor angiogenesis. We used dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI) and steady-state contrast-enhanced MRI (SSCE-MRI) to evaluate in vivo vascular functions (e.g., perfusion and permeability) and structural characteristics (e.g., vascular size and vessel density) of the tumor angiogenesis induced by different VEGF isoforms (VEGF121, VEGF165, and VEGF189) in a murine xenograft model of human lung cancer. Tumors overexpressing VEGF189 were larger than those overexpressing the other two VEGF isoforms. The K trans map obtained from DCE-MRI revealed that the perfusion and permeability functions of tumor microvessels was highest in both the rim and core regions of VEGF189-overexpressing tumors (p<0.001 for both tumor rim and core). The relative vessel density and relative vessel size indexes derived from SSCE-MRI revealed that VEGF189-overexpressing tumors had the smallest (p<0.05) and the most-dense (p<0.01) microvessels, which penetrated deeply from the tumor rim into the core, followed by the VEGF165-overepxressing tumor, whose microvessels were located mainly in the tumor rim. The lowest-density microvessels were found in the VEGF121-overexpressing tumor; these microvessels had a relatively large lumen and were found mainly in the tumor rim. We conclude that among the three VEGF isoforms evaluated, VEGF189 induces the most densely sprouting and smallest tumor microvessels with the highest in vivo perfusion and permeability functions. These characteristics of tumor microvessels may contribute to the reported adverse effects of VEGF189 overexpression on tumor progression, metastasis, and patient survival in several human cancers, including non-small cell lung cancer, and suggest that applying aggressive therapy may be necessary in human cancers in which VEGF189 is overexpressed.
A constraint to improve the reliability of stereo matching using the rank transform

The rank transform is a non-parametric technique which has been previously proposed for the stereo matching problem. The motivation behind its application to the matching problem is its invariance to certain types of image distortion and noise, as well as its amenability to real-time implementation. This paper derives an analytic expression for the process of matching using the rank transform, and then goes on to derive one constraint which must be satisfied for a correct match. This has been dubbed the rank order constraint or simply the rank constraint. Experimental work has shown that this constraint is capable of resolving ambiguous matches, thereby improving matching reliability. This constraint was incorporated into a new algorithm for matching using the rank transform. This modified algorithm resulted in an increased proportion of correct matches, for all test imagery used.
Energy-efficiency analysis of cluster-based routing protocols in wireless sensor networks

This paper extends the conditions of the cluster-based routing protocols in terms of general algorithm complexity of data fusion, general compressing ratio of data fusion, and network area with long distance. Corresponding three general evaluation methods to evaluate the energy efficiency of the cluster-based routing protocols such as LEACH, PEGASIS, and BCDCP are provided. Moreover, three facts are found in them: (1) High-level software energy macro model is used to compute the energy dissipation of general data fusion software and make the constant value of energy dissipation of 1-bit data fusion an especial instance. (2) Multi-hop energy efficiency is related to the radio hardware parameters and the dynamic topology of network and the above protocols do not exploit the best use of the energy efficiency of multi-hop scheme. (3) High-energy dissipation non-cluster-head nodes, whose number changes with the density of the sensor nodes in clusters, worsen the death of nodes. The numerical results of experiments reprove these discoveries. Furthermore, they provide helpful guide for improving the above routing protocols to extent their application ranges
Catadioptric Multiview Pose Estimation for Robotic Pick and Place

Robotic handling of objects requires exact knowledge of the object pose. In this work, we propose a novel vision system, allowing robust and accurate pose estimation of objects, which are grasped and held in unknown pose by an industrial manipulator. For superior robustness, we solely rely on object contour as a visual cue. We address the apparent problems of object symmetry and ambiguous perspective by acquiring multiple views of the object cheaply and accurately, through a mirror system. Self-calibration of the mirror setup allows us to model the mirror geometry and perform metric multiview contour matching with a known 3D model.
Giving Ragas the Ti Linking structure , emotion and North Indian Classical Music using

This paper demonstrates that the Harmonic Network can be an appropriate representation of pitch relations in ragas and their parent classes in North Indian Classical Music (NICM), and that the relation between each raga and its associated emotion is elucidated by its spatial configuration on the Harmonic Network. Ten main parent classes, collections of pitches called thaats, form the structural basis for melodic improvisation in NICM. Each raga, belonging to a thaat, conveys a particular emotion. The Harmonic Network, also known as the tonnetz, is a well-known representation of pitch relations in Western Classical Music. We map the ten thaats to their corresponding structures on the Harmonic Network. These structures – differing in symmetry and the weight distribution of pitches relative to a prime axis – reveal connections between the symmetries and functions of the raga. The symmetries provide explanation for the choice of the ten thaats. Further analyses show strong correspondence between the pitch patterns of each raga and its emotion and traditional performance time.
Review of Antimicrobial Resistance in the Environment and Its Relevance to Environmental Regulators

The environment is increasingly being recognized for the role it might play in the global spread of clinically relevant antibiotic resistance. Environmental regulators monitor and control many of the pathways responsible for the release of resistance-driving chemicals into the environment (e.g., antimicrobials, metals, and biocides). Hence, environmental regulators should be contributing significantly to the development of global and national antimicrobial resistance (AMR) action plans. It is argued that the lack of environment-facing mitigation actions included in existing AMR action plans is likely a function of our poor fundamental understanding of many of the key issues. Here, we aim to present the problem with AMR in the environment through the lens of an environmental regulator, using the Environment Agency (England’s regulator) as an example from which parallels can be drawn globally. The issues that are pertinent to environmental regulators are drawn out to answer: What are the drivers and pathways of AMR? How do these relate to the normal work, powers and duties of environmental regulators? What are the knowledge gaps that hinder the delivery of environmental protection from AMR? We offer several thought experiments for how different mitigation strategies might proceed. We conclude that: (1) AMR Action Plans do not tackle all the potentially relevant pathways and drivers of AMR in the environment; and (2) AMR Action Plans are deficient partly because the science to inform policy is lacking and this needs to be addressed.
From primitive behaviors to goal-directed behavior using affordances

In this paper, we studied how a mobile robot equipped with a 3D laser scanner can start from primitive behaviors and learn to use them to achieve goal-directed behaviors. For this purpose, we propose a learning scheme that is based on the concept of "affordances", where the robot first learns about the different kind of effects it can create in the environment and then links these effects with the perception of the initial environment and the executed primitive behavior. It uses these learned relations to create certain effects in the environment and achieve more complex behaviors.
Active Iron Sites of Disordered Mesoporous Silica Catalyst FeKIL-2 in the Oxidation of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC)

Iron-functionalized disordered mesoporous silica (FeKIL-2) is a promising, environmentally friendly, cost-effective and highly efficient catalyst for the elimination of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from polluted air via catalytic oxidation. In this study, we investigated the type of catalytically active iron sites for different iron concentrations in FeKIL-2 catalysts using advanced characterization of the local environment of iron atoms by a combination of X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy Techniques (XANES, EXAFS) and Atomic-Resolution Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy (AR STEM). We found that the molar ratio Fe/Si ≤ 0.01 leads to the formation of stable, mostly isolated Fe3+ sites in the silica matrix, while higher iron content Fe/Si > 0.01 leads to the formation of oligonuclear iron clusters. STEM imaging and EELS techniques confirmed the existence of these clusters. Their size ranges from one to a few nanometers, and they are unevenly distributed throughout the material. The size of the clusters was also found to be similar, regardless of the nominal concentration of iron (Fe/Si = 0.02 and Fe/Si = 0.05). From the results obtained from sample characterization and model catalytic tests, we established that the enhanced activity of FeKIL-2 with the optimal Fe/Si = 0.01 ratio can be attributed to: (1) the optimal concentration of stable isolated Fe3+ in the silica support; and (2) accelerated diffusion of the reactants in disordered mesoporous silica (FeKIL-2) when compared to ordered mesoporous silica materials (FeSBA-15, FeMCM-41).
Bandstop filter based on composite right/left handed transmission line at dual WLAN bands

A compact dual-band bandstop filter (BSF) based on composite right/left handed transmission line (CRLH TL)is proposed and designed without any external impedance matching block. The filter is to suppress the interference of the signal at 5.2 and 5.8 GHz, which is the Unlicensed National Information Infrastructure, radio following the IEEE 802.11a standard and system. The filter is realized by using interdigital capacitor coupled with shorted stub periodic structure based on the characteristic of CRLH TLs. Single and dual-band BSFs are designed, fabricated and measured to validate the design principle. The filter is designed in single layer and the length of the resonators is 3.48 and 4.08 mm, corresponding to the filters operating at 5.8 and 5.2 GHz, respectively. The total length of the filter is 28.89 mm. Designed topologies of dual-band BSFs with centre frequencies of 5.2 GHz and 5.8 GHz exhibit an rejection better than 15 dB with a 10 dB bandwidth of 2.5% (5.125–5.255 GHz) and 3.2% (5.726–5.907 GHz), respectively. The measured largest signal rejections are 15.98 dB at 5.23 GHz and 15.98 dB at 5.6 GHz. The 10-dB fractional band-width (FBW) is 3% from 5.14 GHz to 5.30 GHz and 1.25% from 5.57 GHz to 5.64 GHz, and the measured insertion loss is 2.74 dB at 5.4 GHz.
Power Management System for Embedded RTOS: An Object Oriented Approach

Power management systems for embedded devices can be developed in operating system (OS) or in applications. If power management policy is applied in OS, then developers can concentrate only on application development. OS contains specific and accurate information about the various tasks being executed. Therefore, it is logical to place algorithms that place components not being used into lower power states. This can significantly reduce the energy consumption by the system. Real-time-operating-system (RTOS) has a comprehensive set of power management application programming interfaces (APIs) for both device drivers and applications within a power management component. In this paper, we provide abstracted concepts of a system power manager (PM), device power managers, and application power managers. We present relationship and interactions of these managers with each using Unified Modeling Language (UML) class diagrams, sequence diagrams and state charts. We recommend that PM must be implemented at operating system level in any embedded device. We also recommend the interfaces for interactions between PM and the devices power manager, as well as PM and application power manager. Device driver and application developers can easily use this object oriented approach to make the embedded system more power efficient, easy to maintain, and faster to develop
3-D WiRED: A Novel WIDE I/O DRAM With Energy-Efficient 3-D Bank Organization

WIDE I/O DRAM is a promising 3-D memory architecture for low-power/highperformance computing. This paper proposes a new WIDE I/O DRAM architecture to reduce access latency and energy consumption at the same time, which shows the possibility of further optimization of the WIDE I/O DRAM architecture and the impact of TSV usage in the memory architecture on the performance and energy consumption.