Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Mathematics of the Imaging Techniques of MEG, CT, PET and SPECT

The imaging techniques of magnetoencephalography (MEG), computed tomography (CT), positron emission tomography (PET) and single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) are reviewed, and the analytical solutions of the relevant inverse problems are presented. The numerical implementation of the exact formulas yield accurate reconstructions for both realistic phantoms as well as real data.
Party system stability and conflict initiation

Abstract The study of interstate conflict has yielded a voluminous literature to date, yet much of the recent work has only just begun to underscore the importance of domestic factors in predicting conflict initiation in democracies. In short, some of these studies find that when electoral accountability is greater—measured in a variety of ways—interstate conflict becomes less likely. Despite this burgeoning literature, scholars have spent far less time analysing the role linkage institutions, such as stable party systems, have played in foreign policy discussions. To address this gap, we argue that in more stable party systems conflict initiation becomes less likely due to the greater accountability present in these systems. This conjecture is supported by the results of a time-series cross-sectional analysis of 48 democracies from 1978 to 2000 that uses multiple measures of conflict initiation and party system stability.
Effective gene dispersal and female reproductive success in Mediterranean maritime pine (Pinus pinaster Aiton)

Understanding population‐scale processes that affect allele frequency changes across generations is a long‐standing interest in genetic, ecological and evolutionary research. In particular, individual differences in female reproductive success and the spatial scale of gene flow considerably affect evolutionary change and patterns of local selection. In this study, a recently developed maximum‐likelihood (ML) method based on established offspring, the Seedling Neighbourhood Model, was applied and exponentially shaped dispersal kernels were fitted to both genetic and ecological data in a widespread Mediterranean pine, Pinus pinaster Aiton. The distribution of female reproductive success in P. pinaster was very skewed (about 10% of trees mothered 50% of offspring) and significant positive female selection gradients for diameter (γ = 0.7293) and cone crop (γ = 0.4524) were found. The selective advantage of offspring mothered by bigger trees could be due to better‐quality seeds. These seeds may show more resilience to severe summer droughts and microsite variation related to water and nutrient availability. Both approaches, ecological and of parentage, consistently showed a long‐distance dispersal component in saplings that was not found in dispersal kernels based on seed shadows, highlighting the importance of Janzen‐Connell effects and microenvironmental variation for survival at early stages of establishment in this Mediterranean key forest tree.
Patterns of upper aero-digestive tract cancers in Kamrup Urban District of Assam: a retrospective study.

BACKGROUND The incidence of upper aero-digestive tract (UADT) cancers, including C00-C14, C30-C32, C15 and C16, is increasing rapidly in Kamrup Urban District (KUD) of Assam, North East (NE) India. According to the NCRP (2013) report 37.6% of all cancers in both sexes are UADT cancers in the NE region, accounting for 53.3% in males and about 27.5% in females of the total cases MATERIALS AND METHODS A retrospective study was conducted for patient information from the period of 2008-2011. Age-standardized or age-adjusted rates (ASR or AAR) (per 100,000 person-years) were calculated using the World Standard Population as proposed by Segi and modified by Doll et al. The registry population area at risk was estimated using the 1991 and 2001 census population by sex, as well as the growth rate during that interval using the difference distribution method. RESULTS There were 5,638 cases registered during the last four years of the study (2008-2011) accounting for 56.7% (3,198/5,638) of the total in males and 43.3% (2,440/5,638) in females. The male: female ratio was 1.31: 1.00. The overall age adjusted rates (AAR) were 179.4 and 153.8 per 100 000 males and females respectively. Cancer of the oesophagus was most common in both sexes, with most appreciable gender variation for tongue and hypopharynx, presumably reflecting differential exposure to risk factors.
Circulating Biomarkers for Predicting Cardiovascular Disease Risk; a Systematic Review and Comprehensive Overview of Meta-Analyses

Background Cardiovascular disease is one of the major causes of death worldwide. Assessing the risk for cardiovascular disease is an important aspect in clinical decision making and setting a therapeutic strategy, and the use of serological biomarkers may improve this. Despite an overwhelming number of studies and meta-analyses on biomarkers and cardiovascular disease, there are no comprehensive studies comparing the relevance of each biomarker. We performed a systematic review of meta-analyses on levels of serological biomarkers for atherothrombosis to compare the relevance of the most commonly studied biomarkers. Methods and Findings Medline and Embase were screened on search terms that were related to “arterial ischemic events” and “meta-analyses”. The meta-analyses were sorted by patient groups without pre-existing cardiovascular disease, with cardiovascular disease and heterogeneous groups concerning general populations, groups with and without cardiovascular disease, or miscellaneous. These were subsequently sorted by end-point for cardiovascular disease or stroke and summarized in tables. We have identified 85 relevant full text articles, with 214 meta-analyses. Markers for primary cardiovascular events include, from high to low result: C-reactive protein, fibrinogen, cholesterol, apolipoprotein B, the apolipoprotein A/apolipoprotein B ratio, high density lipoprotein, and vitamin D. Markers for secondary cardiovascular events include, from high to low result: cardiac troponins I and T, C-reactive protein, serum creatinine, and cystatin C. For primary stroke, fibrinogen and serum uric acid are strong risk markers. Limitations reside in that there is no acknowledged search strategy for prognostic studies or meta-analyses. Conclusions For primary cardiovascular events, markers with strong predictive potential are mainly associated with lipids. For secondary cardiovascular events, markers are more associated with ischemia. Fibrinogen is a strong predictor for primary stroke.
PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF REAL TIME DATABASE SYSTEMS IN DISTRIBUTED ENVIRONMENT

Transaction scheduling plays an important role in deciding the performance of a real time database system (RTDBS) in distributed environment. It has been demonstrated that the priority based scheduling enhances the performance of a RTDBS in distributed environment. The performance is primarily measured by the number of transactions completed within a unit time. In real-time applications, timing and criticality characteristics of transactions must be taken into account. In this paper, we examine the performance of real time database systems in distributed environment. The deadline guarantee ratio and average response times are the primary performance measures. There have been performance studies on real-time database systems, but most of them were performed using simulation. This work demonstrates the feasibility of developing real time database systems in distributed with an acceptable performance.
Chapter 4 Cluster Analysis for Anomaly Detection 4.1 Introduction

Cluster Analysis is a very popular technique used in marketing for the purpose of al, 2003). It could be used to group the data such as customers and/or products into groups or segments in order to develop marketing strategies specifically to each segment, for example. In addition to grouping, cluster analysis is used for outlier identification. Outliers can be a by-product of cluster analysis (Agrawal et al, 1998, Aggarwal et al, 1999). Even though clustering and anomaly detection appear to be fundamentally different, several clustering based anomaly detection techniques have been developed in the literature (Chandola et al, 2009). This study uses data of a major insurance company. It aims at developing a continuous audit or automatic fraud detection process for its electronic wire transfer system. The company would like to develop the monitoring process for the wire payments transferred within and out of the company's system. Funds have been transferred continuously to and from many divisions or business unit. The frequency and volume of the transferred funds are significant in business operations. Several controls are implemented in the systems; for example, requiring several approvers for transactions, setting fund limits for approvers and initiators of the transactions, setting specific bank account for specific type of transactions, etc. The process of the wire transfers is not extremely complicated; however, its high volume has significant impact on business operations. Therefore, depending on only good controls may not be sufficient. With the business world growing more complicated with time, having good
Plasmodium vivax malaria vaccines

Malaria is one of the few diseases in which morbidity is still measured in hundreds of millions of cases every year. Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium falciparum are responsible for nearly all the malaria cases in the world and despite difficulties in obtaining an exact number, estimates indicate an astonishing 349–552 million clinical cases of malaria due to P. falciparum in 2007 and between 132–391 million clinical episodes due to P. vivax in 2009. It is becoming evident that eradication of malaria will be an arduous task and P. vivax will be one of the most difficult species to eliminate and perhaps become the last standing malaria parasite. Indeed, in countries that succeed in decreasing the disease burden, nearly all the remaining malaria cases are caused by P. vivax. Such resilience is mainly due to the sophisticated mechanism that the parasite has evolved to remain dormant for months or years forming hypnozoites, a small structure in the liver that will be a major hurdle in the efforts toward malaria eradication. Furthermore, while clinical trials of vaccines against P. falciparum are making fast progress, a very different picture is seen with P. vivax, where only few candidates are currently active in clinical trials.
Analysis of nontypeable haemophilus influenzae phase-variable genes during experimental human nasopharyngeal colonization.

BACKGROUND Studies of nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae (NTHi) have demonstrated that a number of genes associated with infectivity have long repeat regions associated with phase variation in expression of the respective gene. The purpose of this study was to determine the genes that underwent phase variation during a 6-day period of experimental human nasopharyngeal colonization. METHODS Strain NTHi 2019Str(R)1 was used to colonize the nasopharynx of human subjects in a study of experimental colonization. Thirteen phase-variable genes were analyzed in NTHi 2019Str(R)1. Samples of NTHi 2019Str(R)1 were cultured from subjects during the 6-day colonization period. We used capillary electrophoresis and Roche 454 pyrosequencing to determine the number of repeats in each gene from each sample. RESULTS A significant number of samples switched licA and igaB from phase off in the inoculated strain to phase on during the 4-day period of observation. lex2A also showed variability as compared to baseline, but the differences were not significant. The remaining genes showed no evidence of phase variation. CONCLUSIONS Our studies suggest that the phase-on genotypes of licA and igaB are important for early human nasopharynx colonization. lex2A showed a trend from phase off to phase on, suggesting a potentially important role in the colonization process.
Genetic Programming based DNA Microarray Analysis for Classification of Cancer

In this study the advantages of statistical gene selection are combined with the power of Genetic Programming (GP) to build classifiers for assigning gene expression microarray data samples to categories characteristic of certain cell states. To that end we implemented different statistical measures in a program called GENEACTIVATOR and tested their applicability to gene selection. Subsequently we used the general purpose GP-system DISCIPULUS to train classifiers. We applied our approach to four different human cancer gene expression datasets publicly available, including multi-class sets. The results indicate that using gene selection and GP as implemented in DISCIPULUS is an appropriate method for gene expression data analysis.
Peripheral Nerve Reconstruction after Injury: A Review of Clinical and Experimental Therapies

Unlike other tissues in the body, peripheral nerve regeneration is slow and usually incomplete. Less than half of patients who undergo nerve repair after injury regain good to excellent motor or sensory function and current surgical techniques are similar to those described by Sunderland more than 60 years ago. Our increasing knowledge about nerve physiology and regeneration far outweighs our surgical abilities to reconstruct damaged nerves and successfully regenerate motor and sensory function. It is technically possible to reconstruct nerves at the fascicular level but not at the level of individual axons. Recent surgical options including nerve transfers demonstrate promise in improving outcomes for proximal nerve injuries and experimental molecular and bioengineering strategies are being developed to overcome biological roadblocks limiting patient recovery.
Inter Cluster Migration Estimation (ICME) model based on cluster parameters

Clustering is one of the methods that can be used on large datasets for knowledge discovery. Several attempts have been made in the past to study the effects of the incoming new objects into the existing clusters. In these lines, this work attempts to build an Inter Cluster Migration Estimation (ICME) model to estimate a value for the new entrant that will effect a migration of points between clusters. A better prediction will result in the reduction of number of times re-clustering is done on the dataset. Synthetic data sets of higher dimensions are generated and the estimated model is found to be in concurrence with the experimental setup with a lower error rate.
The Third Solitude: A.M. Klein’s Jewish Montreal, 1910–1950

Abstract: From the beginning, the world of Montreal Jewry of A.M. Klein’s era, from about 1910 to 1950, formed a kind of “third solitude” between the dominant French and English solitudes. Although united by certain common concerns — for example, the rise of fascism in the 1930s and the plight of Jewish refugees — and by a common language, Yiddish, the community was an extremely varied one politically, economically, and culturally. Much of its vitality arose from the tensions between different interests: capitalist factory owners and socialist workers; Zionists and anti-Zionists; orthodoxy and secularism. By the end of this period the community came to assume a certain order and structure, adapting to, as well as contributing to, the social development of Montreal. Abstract: Dès sa naissance la communauté juive de Montréal du temps de A.M. Klein, entre 1910 et 1950, constituait une sorte de “tierce solitude” qui s’ajoutait aux deux solitudes principales, soit française et anglaise. Si cette communauté se trouvait unifiée grâce à certains soucis communs — dont par exemple l’essor du fascisme dans les années trente et la condition des réfugiés juifs — et grâce à une langue commune, le yiddish, elle était toutefois fort variée politiquement, économiquement et culturellement. Une grande partie de sa vitalité émanait des décaccords dans les rapports entre intérêts tout â faits opposés: patrons capitalistes et ouvriers socialistes; sionistes et antisionistes; orthodoxie et sécularisme. A la fin de cette période la communauté en était venue à revêtir un ordre et une structure particuliers, s’accommodant et aidant â la fois au développement social de Montréal.
Field Theory, Critical Phenomena and Interfaces

These lecture notes want to illustrate the close connection between statistical mechanics and field theory not only on the formal level, i.e. that many concepts of one area can easily be taken over to the other one, but also on the level of actual calculations. To this purpose, the last section will demonstrate that a special statistical system, the binary fluid system, can be described by field theory in its critical behaviour.
Status Epilepticus Induces Vasogenic Edema via Tumor Necrosis Factor-α/ Endothelin-1-Mediated Two Different Pathways

Status epilepticus (SE) induces vasogenic edema in the piriform cortex with disruptions of the blood-brain barrier (BBB). However, the mechanisms of vasogenic edema formation following SE are still unknown. Here we investigated the endothelin B (ETB) receptor-mediated pathway of SE-induced vasogenic edema. Following SE, the release of tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) stimulated endothelin-1 (ET-1) release and expression in neurons and endothelial cells. In addition, TNF-α-induced ET-1 increased BBB permeability via ETB receptor-mediated endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) activation in endothelial cells. ETB receptor activation also increased intracellular reactive oxygen species by NADPH oxidase production in astrocytes. These findings suggest that SE results in BBB dysfunctions via endothelial-astroglial interactions through the TNF-α-ET-1-eNOS/NADPH oxidase pathway, and that these ETB receptor-mediated interactions may be an effective therapeutic strategy for vasogenic edema in various neurological diseases.
IDENTIFICATION OF PARALLEL MIMO CHANNELS IN WIRELESS COMMUNICATION USING POWER ITERATIONS

Identification of the channel matrix is of main concern in wireless MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) systems. To maximize the SNR, the best way to utilize a MIMO system is to communicate on the top singular vectors of the channel matrix. Here, we present a new approach for direct blind identification of the main independent singular modes, without first estimating the channel matrix itself. The top right and left singular vectors are determined using payload data, and are continuously updated while at the same time being used for communication. The feasibility of the approach is demonstrated by simulating the performance over a noisy, fading time-varying channel. Mathematically, the technique is related to the iterative numerical Power method for finding eigenvalues of a matrix as well as the “time reversal mirror” technique developed within acoustics.
An Open Source ECG Clock Generator for Visualization of Long-Term Cardiac Monitoring Data

The collection of long-term health data is accelerating with the advent of portable/wearable medical devices including electrocardiograms (ECGs). This large corpus of data presents great opportunities to improve the quality of cardiac care. However, analyzing the data from these sensors is a challenge; the relevant information from ~120 000 heart beats per patient per day must be condensed into a human-readable form. Our goal is to facilitate the analysis of these unwieldy data sets. We have developed an open source tool for creating easy-to-interpret plots of cardiac information over long periods. We call these plots ECG clocks. The utility of our ECG clock library is demonstrated through multiple examples drawn from a database of 24-h Holter recordings. In these case studies, we focus on the visualization of heart rate and QT dynamics. The ECG clock concept is shown to be relevant for both physicians and researchers, for identifying healthy and abnormal values and patterns in ECG recordings. In this paper, we describe how to use the ECG clock library to analyze 24-h ECG recordings, and how to extend the source code for your own purposes. The tool is applicable to a wide range of cardiac monitoring tasks, such as heart rate variability or ST elevation. This library, which we have made freely available, can help provide new insights into circadian patterns of cardiac function in individuals and groups.
Finite-horizon estimation of randomly occurring faults for discrete time-varying systems

This paper deals with the finite-horizon estimation of randomly occurring faults for a class of linear discrete time-varying systems. All the system parameters are time-varying and the failures are assumed to occur in a random way, and two sets of Bernoulli distributed white sequences are introduced to govern the failures probability. By using the completing squares method and stochastic analysis techniques, necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of the finite-horizon Hoo fault estimator are derived, and then the time-varying fault estimator parameters are obtained by solving coupled backward recursive Riccati difference equations (RDEs). A simulation example is utilized to illustrate the usefulness of the proposed fault estimation method.
Evaluation of Successive CPUs/APUs/GPUs Based on an OpenCL Finite Difference Stencil

The AMD APU (Accelerated Processing Unit) architecture, which combines CPU and GPU cores on the same die, is promising for GPU applications which performance is bottlenecked by the low PCI Express communication rate. However the first APU generations still have different CPU and GPU memory partitions. Currently, the APU integrated GPUs are also less powerful than discrete GPUs. In this paper we therefore investigate the interest of APUs for scientific computing by evaluating and comparing the performance of two successive AMD APUs (family codename Llano and Trinity), two successive discrete GPUs (chip codename Cayman and Tahiti) and one hexa-core AMD CPU. For this purpose, we rely on a 3D finite difference stencil, that is optimized and tuned in OpenCL. We detail the most interesting optimizations for each architecture and show very good performance in OpenCL: up to 500 Gflops on Tahiti. Finally, our results show that APU integrated GPUs outperform CPUs, and that integrated GPUs of upcoming APUs may match discrete GPUs for problems with high communication requirements.
Face detection based on a model of the skin color with constraints and template matching

Face detection is now a classical problem in detection, and it was addressed through several methods, including global comprehensive image scanning and structural approaches that focus on the facial structures. Face detection is considered in this paper based on combining both a statistical model of skin color and geometrical face characteristics. The system presented is organized in two parts. The first one consists in skin color detection by a statistical method, based on a Gaussian mixture model in the chromatic CbCr color space. The second part is devoted to processing detected skin regions to select those corresponding to faces. A skin region is considered as a face candidate if it verifies a set of geometrical constraints. And then, a template matching is applied to reach the final decision depending on the degree of similarity between the template used and the region under analysis. Both skin detection part and whole face detection system were tested on face databases.