Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Seguimiento autónomo de personas con un robot aéreo no tripulado

This work proposes to combine two main areas of the Artificial Intelligence which are: Computer vision and Motion Planning, to be incorporated in the area of aerial robotics through unmanned aerial robots. Our main objective is the tracking of people using the detection and tracking algorithms: HOG (Histogram of Oriented Gradients) and Particle Filter besides integrate it with motion planning for the autonomous flight of the quadricopter through the algorithm Rapidly-exploring Random Tree (RRT) trees and variants of it. We present the results of the algorithms as well as their effectiveness and finally the performance of the AR.Drone 2 with the proposed techniques.
Racial/Ethnic Differences in Trajectories of Cognitive Function in Older Adults

Objective: The objective of this study is to (a) examine racial/ethnic differences in trajectories of cognitive function and (b) evaluate the role of education and health behaviors (physical activity [PA] and smoking) as mediators of racial/ethnic differences in the rate of decline in cognitive function in older adults. Method: Data for this study came from the Health and Retirement Study (n = 3,424). Hierarchical linear models were used to define the trajectory of cognitive function between 2002 and 2008. Participants were classified based on PA as non–vigorously active, intermittent vigorously active, and consistently vigorously active. Results: After adding education, the Hispanic’s and Black’s disparities in cognitive performance were slightly attenuated (Hispanics, β = −1.049, p < .001; Blacks, β = −3.397, p < .001) but were still different from Whites. Smoking was not associated with the cognition intercept or rate of decline. Discussion: We found education had a partial mediating effect on racial differences in levels of cognition but not on the rate of change over time.
Delamination resistance of fibre-reinforced polymers (FRP) under transverse loading: criteria for on-set of delamination

Using a recently developed Beam Test method, a study has been conducted to identify experimental conditions that are required to initiate delamination propagation in fibre-reinforced polymers when subjected to transverse loading. This paper reports experimental results of the loading levels that are required for the onset of delamination in different interlaminar regions. The results suggest that the loading level required for delamination varies with size of the loading pin and location of the interlaminar region, but the energy-based delamination resistance, that is, energy absorption per unit area of delamination growth, remains nearly constant. Information obtained from the study will be implemented in finite element models (FEM) to identify local fracture criteria for the on-set of delamination in FRP under transverse loading.
Perceptual organization in schizophrenia: Plasticity and state-related change

Abstract Perceptual organization (PO) impairments have been repeatedly demonstrated in schizophrenia. The extent to which these impairments can be reduced or eliminated, however, has received less attention, and evidence on this issue has not been previously reviewed. The literature suggests that whether normal experience-dependent change in perceptual organization occurs in schizophrenia depends on factors such as: stimulus grouping strength, extent of practice, type of cues upon which top-down feedback can be generated, and patient characteristics (trait and state). Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to review and synthesize the available evidence on plasticity and other forms of change in PO in schizophrenia, and to relate it to current data and theories on plasticity, including perceptual learning (PL) in healthy people. This can clarify the computational and neural mechanisms involved in experience-dependent and state-related aspects of PO in schizophrenia, and also contribute to a greater under.
Midbody remnant licenses primary cilia formation in epithelial cells

Tethered midbody remnants dancing across apical microvilli, encountering the centrosome, and beckoning forth a cilium—who would have guessed this is how polarized epithelial cells coordinate the end of mitosis and the beginning of ciliogenesis? New evidence from Bernabé-Rubio et al. (2016. J. Cell Biol. http://dx.doi.org/10.1083/jcb.201601020) supports this emerging model.
Atypical Membrane Topology and Heteromeric Function of Drosophila Odorant Receptors In Vivo

Drosophila olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs) each express two odorant receptors (ORs): a divergent member of the OR family and the highly conserved, broadly expressed receptor OR83b. OR83b is essential for olfaction in vivo and enhances OR function in vitro, but the molecular mechanism by which it acts is unknown. Here we demonstrate that OR83b heterodimerizes with conventional ORs early in the endomembrane system in OSNs, couples these complexes to the conserved ciliary trafficking pathway, and is essential to maintain the OR/OR83b complex within the sensory cilia, where odor signal transduction occurs. The OR/OR83b complex is necessary and sufficient to promote functional reconstitution of odor-evoked signaling in sensory neurons that normally respond only to carbon dioxide. Unexpectedly, unlike all known vertebrate and nematode chemosensory receptors, we find that Drosophila ORs and OR83b adopt a novel membrane topology with their N-termini and the most conserved loops in the cytoplasm. These loops mediate direct association of ORs with OR83b. Our results reveal that OR83b is a universal and integral part of the functional OR in Drosophila. This atypical heteromeric and topological design appears to be an insect-specific solution for odor recognition, making the OR/OR83b complex an attractive target for the development of highly selective insect repellents to disrupt olfactory-mediated host-seeking behaviors of insect disease vectors.
Role of nao-ceria in the amelioration of oxidative stress: current and future applications in medicine

Cerium nanomaterial is utilized in many fields including consumer’s products, biomedical treatment and pharmacy. Broad range of applications attracted the industrial interest many folds for greater exposure to the human and surroundings. It received much attention in the last few years due to its glorious antioxidant activities because of fast and expedient mutation of oxidation state between Ce +4 and Ce +3 by simply or drastically modifying its electronic configuration according to surroundings. This ability emerged the cerium nanoparticles (Ce-NPs) as desirable and remunerative material in the fields of biomedicine, drug delivery, bioanalysis and bio scaffolding. In biomedicines, nano-ceria is being employed for natural body enzymatic mimicking against noxious reactive oxygen species (ROS). This review provides a comprehensive introduction to Ce-NP’s antioxidative ability, its mechanisms and potential applications in future therapeutic medication.
Development and Implementation of an Electronic Crosstalk Correction for Bands 27-30 in Terra MODIS Collection 6

The photovoltaic bands on the long-wave infrared focal plane assembly of Terra MODIS, bands 27–30, have suffered from steadily increasing contamination from electronic crosstalk as the mission has progressed. This contamination has a great impact on MODIS data products, including image striping and radiometric bias in the Level-1B calibrated radiance product, and incorrect retrieval in atmospheric products that rely on data from bands 27–30, such as the cloud mask and cloud particle phase products. In this work, we describe the development of an electronic crosstalk correction for bands 27–30 of Terra MODIS using observations of the Moon. In this approach, the derived correction coefficients account for both the “in-band” and “out-of-band” contribution to the signal contamination, which is not considered in previous implementations of the lunar-based correction. The correction coefficients are applied to both the on-board calibrator data and the Earth-view data, resulting in a significant reduction in the image striping and radiometric bias in the Level-1B data, as well as a better performance in the Level-2 cloud mask and cloud particle phase products. This approach will be implemented for Terra MODIS Collection 6 in 2017.
RAS1, a quantitative trait locus for salt tolerance and ABA sensitivity in Arabidopsis

Soil salinity limits agricultural production and is a major obstacle for feeding the growing world population. We used natural genetic variation in salt tolerance among different Arabidopsis accessions to map a major quantitative trait locus (QTL) for salt tolerance and abscisic acid (ABA) sensitivity during seed germination and early seedling growth. A recombinant inbred population derived from Landsberg erecta (Ler; salt and ABA sensitive) × Shakdara (Sha; salt and ABA resistant) was used for QTL mapping. High-resolution mapping and cloning of this QTL, Response to ABA and Salt 1 (RAS1), revealed that it is an ABA- and salt stress-inducible gene and encodes a previously undescribed plant-specific protein. A premature stop codon results in a truncated RAS1 protein in Sha. Reducing the expression of RAS1 by transfer-DNA insertion in Col or RNA interference in Ler leads to decreased salt and ABA sensitivity, whereas overexpression of the Ler allele but not the Sha allele causes increased salt and ABA sensitivity. Our results suggest that RAS1 functions as a negative regulator of salt tolerance during seed germination and early seedling growth by enhancing ABA sensitivity and that its loss of function contributes to the increased salt tolerance of Sha.
Building Cox-type structured hazard regression models with time-varying effects

In recent years, flexible hazard regression models based on penalized splines have been developed that allow us to extend the classical Cox model via the inclusion of time-varying and nonparametric effects. Despite their immediate appeal in terms of flexibility, these models introduce additional difficulties when a subset of covariates and the corresponding modelling alternatives have to be chosen. We present an analysis of data from a specific patient population with 90-day survival as the response variable. The aim is to determine a sensible prognostic model where some variables have to be included due to subject-matter knowledge while other variables are subject to model selection. Motivated by this application, we propose a two-stage stepwise model building strategy to choose both the relevant covariates and the corresponding modelling alternatives within the choice set of possible covariates simultaneously. For categorical covariates, competing modelling approaches are linear effects and time-varying effects, whereas nonparametric modelling provides a further alternative in case of continuous covariates. In our data analysis, we identified a prognostic model containing both smooth and time-varying effects.
Molecular Epidemiology of Ceftiofur-Resistant Escherichia coli Isolates from Dairy Calves

ABSTRACT Healthy calves (n = 96, 1 to 9 weeks old) from a dairy herd in central Pennsylvania were examined each month over a five-month period for fecal shedding of ceftiofur-resistant gram-negative bacteria. Ceftiofur-resistant Escherichia coli isolates (n = 122) were characterized by antimicrobial resistance (disk diffusion and MIC), serotype, pulsed-field gel electrophoresis subtypes, beta-lactamase genes, and virulence genes. Antibiotic disk diffusion assays showed that the isolates were resistant to ampicillin (100%), ceftiofur (100%), chloramphenicol (94%), florfenicol (93%), gentamicin (89%), spectinomycin (72%), tetracycline (98%), ticarcillin (99%), and ticarcillin-clavulanic acid (99%). All isolates were multidrug resistant and displayed elevated MICs. The E. coli isolates belonged to 42 serotypes, of which O8:H25 was the predominant serotype (49.2%). Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis classified the E. coli isolates into 27 profiles. Cluster analysis showed that 77 isolates (63.1%) belonged to one unique group. The prevalence of pathogenic E. coli was low (8%). A total of 117 ceftiofur-resistant E. coli isolates (96%) possessed the blaCMY2 gene. Based on phenotypic and genotypic characterization, the ceftiofur-resistant E. coli isolates belonged to 59 clonal types. There was no significant relationship between calf age and clonal type. The findings of this study revealed that healthy dairy calves were rapidly colonized by antibiotic-resistant strains of E. coli shortly after birth. The high prevalence of multidrug-resistant nonpathogenic E. coli in calves could be a significant source of resistance genes to other bacteria that share the same environment.
Efficient magnetic localization and orientation technique for capsule endoscopy

To build a new wireless robotic capsule endoscope with external guidance for controllable and interactive GI tract examination, a sensing system is needed for tracking 3D location and 2D orientation of the capsule movement. An appropriate sensing approach is to enclose a small permanent magnet in the capsule. The magnet establishes a magnetic field around the patient's body. With the sensing data of magnetic sensor array outside the patient's body, the 3D location and 2D orientation of the capsule can be calculated. Higher localization and orientation accuracy can be obtained if more sensors and proper optimization algorithm are applied. In this paper, different nonlinear optimization algorithms are evaluated, and we have found that Levenberg-Marquardt method provides higher accuracy and faster speed. Simulations were done for investigating the de-noise ability of this algorithm based on different sensor arrays. Furthermore, the real experiment shows that the results are satisfactory with high accuracy.
Power efficient Simulation of Diminished-One Modulo 2 n + 1 Adder Using Circular Carry Selection

In this paper we have find great applicability in RNS implementation for the Diminished-one modulo 2n+1 Adder using Circular Carry Selection (CCS) circuit. This adder presents a modulo addition of different bit values for n = 8, 12, 16, 24, 32, 48, 64. We are using the Diminished-one criteria using Circular Carry Selection (CCS) technique for the proposed modulo adder. The circuit design of proposed adder consists of a Dual Sum-Carry Look Ahead Adder (DS-CLA), a Circular Carry Generator (CCG) and a Multiplexer (MUX). Results are verified by verilog HDL programs and performance parameters are observed on Synopsys Design Complier using the TSMC (180nm and 90nm) implementation technology. We have calculated the area, power dissipation and Time delay and results are compared with Select-Prefix method for n = 8, 16, 32 and 64 and found that the proposed adder has more area efficient than Select-Prefix Method. Keyword VLSI Design, Residue Number System (RNS), Modulo 2n+1 Adder, Diminished-one, Circular Carry Selection (CCS), Carry Look Ahead.
Effect of the Mycelial Culture of Ganoderma lucidum on Human Pathogenic Bacteria

The mycelial culture of Ganoderma lucidum found in Nigeria was tested on some human pathogenic bacteria using dual and Weller techniques. The mycelial culture was active against all the test organisms: Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The bacterium, Escherichia coli showed the highest susceptibility to the mushroom mycelia at 10.6 mm on the first day of incubation which increased to 15.2 mm on the fourth day using the dual method while Pseudomonas aeruginosa showed the least susceptibility of 5.7 mm on the fourth day. In the Weller method the growth of the test organisms were completely antagonized by the mycelia of Ganoderma lucidum as total inhibition was recorded from all the plates. These could be an indication that Ganoderma lucidum can be used in the treatment of diseases caused by these organisms as well as preventive measure against them.
Extracellular NGFR Spacers Allow Efficient Tracking and Enrichment of Fully Functional CAR-T Cells Co-Expressing a Suicide Gene

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cell immunotherapy is at the forefront of innovative cancer therapeutics. However, lack of standardization of cellular products within the same clinical trial and lack of harmonization between different trials have hindered the clear identification of efficacy and safety determinants that should be unveiled in order to advance the field. With the aim of facilitating the isolation and in vivo tracking of CAR-T cells, we here propose the inclusion within the CAR molecule of a novel extracellular spacer based on the low-affinity nerve-growth-factor receptor (NGFR). We screened four different spacer designs using as target antigen the CD44 isoform variant 6 (CD44v6). We successfully generated NGFR-spaced CD44v6 CAR-T cells that could be efficiently enriched with clinical-grade immuno-magnetic beads without negative consequences on subsequent expansion, immuno-phenotype, in vitro antitumor reactivity, and conditional ablation when co-expressing a suicide gene. Most importantly, these cells could be tracked with anti-NGFR monoclonal antibodies in NSG mice, where they expanded, persisted, and exerted potent antitumor effects against both high leukemia and myeloma burdens. Similar results were obtained with NGFR-enriched CAR-T cells specific for CD19 or CEA, suggesting the universality of this strategy. In conclusion, we have demonstrated that the incorporation of the NGFR marker gene within the CAR sequence allows for a single molecule to simultaneously work as a therapeutic and selection/tracking gene. Looking ahead, NGFR spacer enrichment might allow good manufacturing procedures-manufacturing of standardized CAR-T cell products with high therapeutic potential, which could be harmonized in different clinical trials and used in combination with a suicide gene for future application in the allogeneic setting.
Simulation in clinical teaching and learning

Simulation‐based education (SBE) is a rapidly developing method of supplementing and enhancing the clinical education of medical students. Clinical situations are simulated for teaching and learning purposes, creating opportunities for deliberate practice of new skills without involving real patients. Simulation takes many forms, from simple skills training models to computerised full‐body mannequins, so that the needs of learners at each stage of their education can be targeted. Emerging evidence supports the value of simulation as an educational technique; to be effective it needs to be integrated into the curriculum in a way that promotes transfer of the skills learnt to clinical practice. Currently, SBE initiatives in Australia are fragmented and depend on local enthusiasts; Health Workforce Australia is driving initiatives to develop a more coordinated national approach to optimise the benefits of simulation.
Interventions for Preschool Children at High Risk for ADHD: A Comparative Effectiveness Review

OBJECTIVES: The US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality sponsored a comparative effectiveness review of interventions for preschoolers at risk for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). METHODS: Medline, Cochrane CENTRAL, Embase, PsycInfo, and Education Resources Information Center were searched from 1980 to November 24, 2011. Selected studies were comparative, and enrolled children <6 years with clinically significant disruptive behavior, including ADHD. The interventions evaluated were parent behavior training (PBT), combined home and school/day care interventions, and methylphenidate use. Data were extracted by using customized software. Two independent raters evaluated studies as good, fair, or poor by using the Effective Public Health Practice Project Quality Assessment Tool for Quantitative Studies Risk of Bias. Overall strength of evidence (SOE) was rated for each intervention’s effectiveness, accounting for study design, systematic error, consistency of results, directness of evidence, and certainty regarding outcome. RESULTS: Fifty-five studies were examined. Only studies examining PBT interventions could be pooled statistically using meta-analysis. Eight “good” studies examined PBT, total n = 424; SOE was high for improved child behavior, standardized mean difference = –0.68 (95% confidence interval: –0.88 to –0.47), with minimal heterogeneity among studies. Only 1 good study evaluated methylphenidate, total n = 114; therefore, SOE for methylphenidate was low. Combined home and school/day care interventions showed inconsistent results. The literature reported adverse effects for methylphenidate but not for PBT. CONCLUSIONS: With more studies consistently documenting effectiveness, PBT interventions have greater evidence of effectiveness than methylphenidate for treatment of preschoolers at risk for ADHD.
A robust algorithm for gait cycle segmentation

In this paper, a robust algorithm for gait cycle segmentation is proposed based on a peak detection approach. The proposed algorithm is less influenced by noise and outliers and is capable of segmenting gait cycles from different types of gait signals recorded using different sensor systems. The presented algorithm has enhanced ability to segment gait cycles by eliminating the false peaks and interpolating the missing peaks. The variance of segmented cycles' lengths is computed as a criterion for evaluating the performance of segmentation. The proposed algorithm is tested on gait signals of patients diagnosed with Parkinson's disease collected from three databases. The segmentation results on three types of gait signals demonstrate the capability of the proposed algorithm to segment gait cycles accurately, and have achieved better performance than the original peak detection methods.
Alport syndrome: impact of digenic inheritance in patients management

Alport syndrome (ATS) is a genetically heterogeneous nephropathy with considerable phenotypic variability and different transmission patterns, including monogenic (X‐linked/autosomal) and digenic inheritance (DI). Here we present a new series of families with DI and we discuss the consequences for genetic counseling and risk assessment. Out of five families harboring variants in more than one COL4 gene detected by next generation sequencing (NGS), minigene‐splicing assay allowed us to identify four as true digenic. Two families showed COL4A3/A4 mutations in cis, mimicking an autosomal dominant inheritance with a more severe phenotype and one showed COL4A3/A4 mutations in trans, mimicking an autosomal recessive inheritance with a less severe phenotype. In a fourth family, a de novo mutation (COL4A5) combined with an inherited mutation (COL4A3) triggered a more severe phenotype. A fifth family, predicted digenic on the basis of silico tools, rather showed monogenic X‐linked inheritance due to a hypomorphic mutation, in accordance with a milder phenotype. In conclusion, this study highlights the impact of DI in ATS and explains the associated atypical presentations. More complex inheritance should be therefore considered when reviewing prognosis and recurrence risks. On the other side, these findings emphasize the importance to accompany NGS with splicing assays in order to avoid erroneous identification of at risk members.