Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Blood flow and coherent vortices in the normal and aneurysmatic aortas: a fluid dynamical approach to intra-luminal thrombus formation

Abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) are frequently characterized by the development of an intra-luminal thrombus (ILT), which is known to have multiple biochemical and biomechanical implications. Development of the ILT is not well understood, and shear–stress-triggered activation of platelets could be the first step in its evolution. Vortical structures (VSs) in the flow affect platelet dynamics, which motivated the present study of a possible correlation between VS and ILT formation in AAAs. VSs educed by the λ2-method using computational fluid dynamics simulations of the backward-facing step problem, normal aorta, fusiform AAA and saccular AAA were investigated. Patient-specific luminal geometries were reconstructed from computed tomography scans, and Newtonian and Carreau–Yasuda models were used to capture salient rheological features of blood flow. Particularly in complex flow domains, results depended on the constitutive model. VSs developed all along the normal aorta, showing that a clear correlation between VSs and high wall shear stress (WSS) existed, and that VSs started to break up during late systole. In contrast, in the fusiform AAA, large VSs developed at sites of tortuous geometry and high WSS, occupying the entire lumen, and lasting over the entire cardiac cycle. Downward motion of VSs in the AAA was in the range of a few centimetres per cardiac cycle, and with a VS burst at that location, the release (from VSs) of shear-stress-activated platelets and their deposition to the wall was within the lower part of the diseased artery, i.e. where the thickest ILT layer is typically observed. In the saccular AAA, only one VS was found near the healthy portion of the aorta, while in the aneurysmatic bulge, no VSs occurred. We present a fluid-dynamics-motivated mechanism for platelet activation, convection and deposition in AAAs that has the potential of improving our current understanding of the pathophysiology of fluid-driven ILT growth.
Führungswechsel im Top-Management : Grundlagen - Wirkungen - Gestaltungsoptionen

Eigenschaften und Notwendigkeiten des Wandels von Unternehmen Einflussstrukturen und -prozesse strategisch bedeutsamer Akteure des Managements Unternehmenserfolg als mittelbare Korrespondenzgrosse von Nachfolgeereignissen Funktion von Fuhrungswechseln im Kontext der langfristigen Unternehmensentwicklung Wachstumsorientierte Korrelationsanalyse von Fuhrungswechseln Anspruch und Wirklichkeit eines strategischen Managements von Fuhrungswechseln
Transport of the lysosomal membrane glycoprotein lgp120 (lgp-A) to lysosomes does not require appearance on the plasma membrane

We have used stably transfected CHO cell lines to characterize the pathway of intracellular transport of the lgp120 (lgp-A) to lysosomes. Using several surface labeling and internalization assays, our results suggest that lgp120 can reach its final destination with or without prior appearance on the plasma membrane. The extent to which lgp120 was transported via the cell surface was determined by two factors: expression level and the presence of a conserved glycine-tyrosine motif in the cytoplasmic tail. In cells expressing low levels of wild-type lgp120, the majority of newly synthesized molecules reached lysosomes without becoming accessible to antibody or biotinylation reagents added extracellularly at 4 degrees C. With increased expression levels, however, an increased fraction of transfected lgp120, as well as some endogenous lgp-B, appeared on the plasma membrane. The fraction of newly synthesized lgp120 reaching the cell surface was also increased by mutations affecting the cytoplasmic domain tyrosine or glycine residues. A substantial fraction of both mutants reached the surface even at low expression levels. However, only the lgp120G----A7 mutant was rapidly internalized and delivered from the plasma membrane to lysosomes. Taken together, our results show that the majority of newly synthesized wild-type lgp120 does not appear to pass through the cell surface en route to lysosomes. Instead, it is likely that lysosomal targeting involves a saturable intracellular sorting site whose affinity for lgp's is dependent on a glycine-tyrosine motif in the lgp120 cytoplasmic tail.
An Adaptive Live Media Streaming Architecture

Multimedia streaming is a well established application in today’s Internet and broadcasts of live events are increasingly popular. It is often the case that network conditions change during a live broadcast and this can potentially lead to Quality of Service issues at the receiving clients. This paper proposes a multimedia streaming architecture that can adapt to changing network conditions. For scalability purposes and to reduce network load, jitter and packet loss, stream relays form an integral part of this architecture as they forward media data to nearby clients. During operation, and in a manner transparent to the user, clients may be dynamically assigned to different stream relays, this results in server load balancing and in maintaining high Quality of Service for the end-users.
Developmental trajectories of nonsocial reinforcement and delinquency in adolescence: An exploratory study of an understudied part of social learning theory

Within social learning theory, nonsocial reinforcement has been hypothesized to have a link with offending. The purpose of the present study was to address two questions: (1) Does nonsocial reinforcement change or remain stable over time? And (2) does nonsocial reinforcement have a reciprocal link with offending, as Wood et al. (1997) would expect? Methods: We used a subsample (N = 413) of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) data and semi-parametric group-based modeling (SPGM). Results and Conclusions: The SPGM suggested three distinct groups of nonsocial reinforcement (one trajectory group appeared to have a low but stable rate of nonsocial reinforcement, one trajectory appeared to be higher but stable, another trajectory higher but also stable). A cross-tabulation of the nonsocial reinforcement trajectories and offending trajectories indicated that offending increased as nonsocial reinforcement became greater. Study limitations and implications are also discussed.
Images: A Question of Readership

Photojournalism textbooks, research, and general opinion support the notion that photographs have an overwhelming appeal. People like pictures,' especially color pictures.2 And people like pictures better than newspaper articles. ^ To determine how much readership photographs receive, Bert Woodburn analyzed The Continuing Study of Newspaper Reading, which was prepared by the Advertising Research Foundation. '* These surveys show that newspaper photographs stop readers and that readership of pictures is high in comparison to other elements of the newspaper. A study by William S. Baxter, Rebecca Quarles and Herman Kosak suggests that not only do people read photographs, but that a story accompanied by a photo has a greater readership than other stories.5 Use of photographs helps set the reading agenda by making the reader more aware of the news story. And, the use of a large photograph "seems to be associated with a greater recall of facts in the story, picture caption and headline. This suggests that news photographs, particularly large ones, complement rather than compete with the stories they accompany," writes Baxter. ^ That the large photographs were more likely to induce recall of "information prominently displayed in banner headlines indicates that the large photographs arrest attention — causing readers to stop, think and thus, imprint the information on their memories," Baxter adds. ^ Baxter's study examined the relationship of a relatively sensational news story and photograph with a banner headline. He speculated that the findings might "hold only when such headlines are used. '*^ He also predicted a variation in the pattern of results for photographs high in human interest or aesthetic appeal. ^ But, researchers have found it difficult to measure aspects of photographs such as human interest
The Biocompatibility of Bone Cements: Progress in Methodological Approach

The ideal bone graft substitute should have certain properties and there are many studies dealing with mixture of polymethylmetacrilate (PMMA) and ß-tricalciumphospate (ß-TCP) presenting the best characteristics of both. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), for ultra-structural data, resulted a very reliable in vivo model to better understand the bioactivity of a cement and to properly evaluate its suitability for a particular purpose. The present study aims to further improve the knowledge on osteointegration development, using both parameters obtained with the Environmental Scanning Electron Microscopy (ESEM) and focused histological examination. Two hybrid bone graft substitute were designed among ceramic and polymer-based bone graft substitutes. Based on ß-TCP granules sizes, they were created with theoretical different osteoconductive properties. An acrylic standard cement was chosen as control. Cements were implanted in twelve New Zealand White (NZW) rabbits, which were sacrificed at 1, 2, 3, 6, 9 and 12 months after cement implantation. Histological samples were prepared with an infiltration process of LR white resin and then specimens were studied by X-rays, histology and Environmental Scanning Electron Microscopy (ESEM). Comparing the resulting data, it was possible to follow osteointegration’s various developments resulting from different sizes of ß-TCP granules. In this paper, we show that this evaluation process, together with ESEM, provides further important information that allows to follow any osteointegration at every stage of develop.
Motionbeam: a metaphor for character interaction with handheld projectors

We present the MotionBeam metaphor for character interaction with handheld projectors. Our work draws from the tradition of pre-cinema handheld projectors that use direct physical manipulation to control projected imagery. With our prototype system, users interact and control projected characters by moving and gesturing with the handheld projector itself. This creates a unified interaction style where input and output are tied together within a single device. We introduce a set of interaction principles and present prototype applications that provide clear examples of the MotionBeam metaphor in use. Finally we describe observations and insights from a preliminary user study with our system.
Relationship Between Leukocyte Kinetics and Behavioral Tests Changes in the Inflammatory Process of Hemorrhagic Stroke Recovery

In this study, we investigated the inflammatory response to hemorrhagic stroke (HS) as the main mechanism of brain functional recovery. Sprague-Dawley rats (n = 24) underwent surgery with sterile saline (control group, n = 12) and collagenase IV-S (stroke group, n = 12) being injected into the right striatum. White blood cell analysis, histological and immunohistological examination of the brain slices, as well as densitometric analysis of polymorphonuclear and microglial cells/macrophages were correlated with behavioral tests, and the data were subjected to appropriate statistical processing. The results indicate a strong correlation between polymorphonuclear and mononuclear changes in the blood and the zone of hemorrhagic stroke with behavioral tests of functional brain recovery. We propose that the inflammatory response is determined by kinetics of polymorphonuclear and mononuclear cells in both the blood and the hemorrhagic stroke zone. Kinetics of these cells is followed by the restoration of functions, and the maximum functional recovery is observed by the time polymorphonuclear and mononuclear stages have completed. With the development of inflammation and leukocyte kinetics, it is possible to predict functional recovery of hemorrhagic stroke. Improvement of the degree and rate of hemorrhagic stroke functional recovery may be achieved by therapeutic interventions into the inflammatory mechanisms influencing polymorphonuclear and mononuclear cell kinetics.
Newton-based optimization for Kullback–Leibler nonnegative tensor factorizations

Tensor factorizations with nonnegativity constraints have found application in analysing data from cyber traffic, social networks, and other areas. We consider application data best described as being generated by a Poisson process (e.g. count data), which leads to sparse tensors that can be modelled by sparse factor matrices. In this paper, we investigate efficient techniques for computing an appropriate canonical polyadic tensor factorization based on the Kullback–Leibler divergence function. We propose novel subproblem solvers within the standard alternating block variable approach. Our new methods exploit structure and reformulate the optimization problem as small independent subproblems. We employ bound-constrained Newton and quasi-Newton methods. We compare our algorithms against other codes, demonstrating superior speed for high accuracy results and the ability to quickly find sparse solutions.
Fast Computation of Dense Temporal Subgraphs

Dense subgraph discovery has proven useful in various applications of temporal networks. We focus on a special class of temporal networks whose nodes and edges are kept fixed, but edge weights constantly and regularly vary with timestamps. However, finding dense subgraphs in temporal networks is nontrivial, and its state of the art solution uses a filter-and-verification framework, which is not scalable on large temporal networks. In this study, we propose a data-driven approach to finding dense subgraphs in large temporal networks with T timestamps. (1) We first develop a data-driven approach employing hidden statistics to identifying k time intervals, instead of T (T + 1)/2 ones (k is typically much smaller than T), which strikes a balance between quality and efficiency. (2) After proving that the problem has no constant factor approximation algorithms, we design better heuristic algorithms to attack the problem, by building the connection of finding dense subgraphs with a variant of the Prize Collecting Steiner Tree problem. (3) Finally, we have conducted an extensive experimental study to demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of our approach, using real-life and synthetic data.
Learning to play Tic-tac-toe

This paper reports our experiment on applying Q Learning algorithm for learning to play Tic-tac-toe. The original algorithm is modified by updating the Q value only when the game terminates, propagating the update process from the final move backward to the first move, and incorporating a new update rule. We evaluate the agent performance using full-board and partial-board representations. In this evaluation, the agent plays the tic-tac-toe game against human players. The evaluation results show that the performance of modified Q Learning algorithm with partial-board representation is comparable to that of human players.
How do Light and Water Acquisition Strategies Affect Species Selection during Secondary Succession in Moist Tropical Forests

Pioneer tree species have acquisitive leaf characteristics associated with high demand of light and water, and are expected to be shade and drought intolerant. Using leaf functional traits (specific leaf area, photosynthetic rate, relative water content and stomatal conductance) and tree performance (mortality rate) in the field, we assessed how shade and drought tolerance of leaves are related to the species’ positions along a successional gradient in moist tropical forest in Chiapas, Mexico. We quantified morphological and physiological leaf shade and drought tolerance indicators for 25 dominant species that characterize different successional stages. We found that light demand decreases with succession, confirming the importance of light availability for species filtering during early stages of succession. In addition, water transport levels in the leaves decreased with succession, but high water transport did not increase the leaf’s vulnerability to drought. In fact, late successional species showed higher mortality in dry years than early successional ones, against suggestions from leaf drought tolerance traits. It is likely that pioneer species have other drought-avoiding strategies, like deep rooting systems and water storage in roots and stems. More research on belowground plant physiology is needed to understand how plants adapt to changing environments, which is crucial to anticipate the effects of climate change on secondary forests.
Medullary thyroid cancer: management guidelines of the American Thyroid Association.

BACKGROUND Inherited and sporadic medullary thyroid cancer (MTC) is an uncommon and challenging malignancy. The American Thyroid association (ATA) chose to create specific MTC Clinical Guidelines that would bring together and update the diverse MTC literature and combine it with evidence-based medicine and the knowledge and experience of a panel of expert clinicians. METHODS Relevant articles were identified using a systematic PubMed search and supplemented with additional published materials. Evidence-based recommendations were created and then categorized using criteria adapted from the United States Preventive Services Task Force, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. RESULTS Clinical topics addressed in this scholarly dialog included: initial diagnosis and therapy of preclinical disease (including RET oncogene testing and the timing of prophylactic thyroidectomy), initial diagnosis and therapy of clinically apparent disease (including preoperative testing and imaging, extent of surgery, and handling of devascularized parathyroid glands), initial evaluation and treatment of postoperative patients (including the role of completion thyroidectomy), management of persistent or recurrent MTC (including the role of tumor marker doubling times, and treatment of patients with distant metastases and hormonally active metastases), long-term follow-up and management (including the frequency of follow-up and imaging), and directions for future research. CONCLUSIONS One hundred twenty-two evidence-based recommendations were created to assist in the clinical care of MTC patients and to share what we believe is current, rational, and optimal medical practice.
Misunderstanding of Asthma Controller Medications: Association with Nonadherence

Objective. Nonadherence to regular inhaled anti-inflammatory medication use is a frequent contributor to poor control of persistent asthma and may result from misunderstanding of the preventive role of such medications. This study's aims are to 1) test the hypothesis that misunderstanding is associated with decreased adherence to its daily use and 2) identify factors associated with increased risk of misunderstanding. Study Design. A sample of parents of children with asthma insured by Medicaid and enrolled in managed care programs in Northern California, Washington, and Massachusetts were interviewed by telephone. This analysis focused on the subset that reported having an inhaled anti-inflammatory medication and whose medication use and symptom frequency in the 2 weeks before the interview suggested persistent asthma. Misunderstanding of the role of inhaled anti-inflammatory medication was defined as identifying it as being for treatment of symptoms after they begin and not for prevention of symptoms before they start. Results. A total of 1663 parents of children with asthma (63% response rate) were interviewed. Of those, 571 subjects (34%) reported use of an inhaled anti-inflammatory medication and met our criteria for persistent asthma. Among those with persistent asthma, 23% (131 parents) misunderstood the role of their child's inhaled anti-inflammatory. Misunderstanding of inhaled anti-inflammatory medication was associated with decreased adherence to its daily use (odds ratio [OR] 0.18, 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.11–0.29). The risk for misunderstanding was lower if the patient had seen a specialist (OR 0.42, 95% CI, 0.24–0.75) or had graduated high school (OR = 0.54, 95% CI, 0.34–0.84). Conclusion. Misunderstanding of the role of inhaled anti-inflammatory medication is associated with reduced adherence to its daily use.
CLASSIFICATION OF COMPRESSED MAMMOGRAM IMAGE USING IMPROVED WATERSHED TRANSFORM

A mammogram image segmentation and compression technique is proposed for classifying and storing information about breast cancer tissue. Initially a preprocessing is done in the mammogram images with Contrast limited adaptive histogram equalization (CLAHE). The features are extracted from the images. Then improved watershed transform is applied to the images for segmentation. Genetic training is applied to the images. Neural network classifier (genetic algorithm) is used for classification of breast cancer tissue in normal, benign, and malignant. Derivative based feature saliency technique is applied to the images for feature extraction. vector quantization (VQ) with Artificial neural network is used in the three regions with different compression rate based on the importance of the region and by this we also retain important tumor characteristics and minimize the size of mammogram images and thus reducing the storage space and increase its efficiency. At least the images undergo morphological process and micro classification area detection. This is specially done for benign and malignant regions. Two types of compression namely lossy and lossless compression are done in the segments based on the importance of those regions. Results show that this method gives accurate results in diagnosis of breast cancer and gives efficient result in the compression applications. The proposed method gives accurate results in differentiating malignant and benign tumor. It reduces the storage space when compared with other existing compression mechanisms. Thus the proposed system is more accurate in detecting tumor tissue and efficient in storing the images.
Ontology to Recover Delphi's Decisions

People make decisions every day. If the wrong decisions are made in governments and companies, this may cause huge financial losses or other negative consequences. There are several methods to help decision-makers with these hard decisions. Delphi is one of those methodologies. It relies on the wisdom of crowds to extract the best solution from a multidisciplinary group of experts. Long-term decisions may take more than a decade to be proven right or wrong, and as the time passes, the reasons for the decision may be forgotten. There is a lack of methods which enable storage of the reasons for a decision made using the Delphi methodology. We propose an ontology which stores the whole process, thereby allowing the decision-maker to validate the reasons for the decision. If the experts' opinions are still valid, it is likely that the decision is still valid. We also prove that our ontology is minimal and sufficient to satisfy our objective.