Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Spatial component analysis of MRI data for Alzheimer's disease diagnosis: a Bayesian network approach

This work presents a spatial-component (SC) based approach to aid the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) using magnetic resonance images. In this approach, the whole brain image is subdivided in regions or spatial components, and a Bayesian network is used to model the dependencies between affected regions of AD. The structure of relations between affected regions allows to detect neurodegeneration with an estimated performance of 88% on more than 400 subjects and predict neurodegeneration with 80% accuracy, supporting the conclusion that modeling the dependencies between components increases the recognition of different patterns of brain degeneration in AD.
Intrinsic time dependence in the diversity-invasibility relationship.

Contrasting patterns in the diversity-invasibility relationship have intrigued ecologists for many years, and are now known as the "invasion paradox. " Experiments usually detect negative relationships, while field surveys find them to be positive. It is widely believed that the paradox is driven by differences in spatial scale, but this is challenged by field surveys that find positive relationships at all spatial scales. If factors that determine invasion dynamics change during the invasion process, the paradox may be partially driven by differences in temporal scale. Here we used simulation (cellular automata) models to explore the generality of temporal change in the diversity-invasibility relationship. The probability of invaders colonizing an area was inversely related to the density of natives, creating a negative native-exotic correlation when invaders first arrived. Over time, native and exotic populations were both shaped by the same post-introduction processes (disturbance, dispersal, and recolonization), shifting their correlation to positive. The rate of temporal change in the diversity-invasibility relationship was mainly dependent upon the fecundity of invaders. Greater fecundity meant that invaders spread through the landscape faster and were subject to post-introduction processes sooner. We propose a unified conceptual model where the diversity-invasiblity relationship is a function of both spatial and temporal scales.
Reconceptualization of SNS Use in Organizations

Enterprise social media play increasingly important roles for communication, collaboration and knowledge management in organizations. Prior studies have examined the impact of enterprise SNS use on performance. However, the conventional measures -- of usage frequency and duration -- do not capture the variety of enterprise SNS features implemented across different organizations, nor do they distinguish between subtle differences in usage patterns. We examine the definition and features of enterprise SNS in detail and propose an integrative framework for measuring their use. We adopt a network perspective to propose measures of enterprise SNS use, based on both a search of relevant literature and interviews with enterprise SNS users.
Approaching the Gaussian Channel Capacity With APSK Constellations

We consider the Gaussian channel with power constraint P. A gap exists between the channel capacity and the highest achievable rate of equiprobable uniformly spaced signal. Several approaches enable to overcome this limitation such as constellations with non-uniform probability or constellation shaping. In this letter, we focus on constellation shaping. We give a construction of amplitude and phase-shift keying (APSK) constellations with equiprobable signaling that achieve the Gaussian capacity as the number of constellation points goes to infinity.
Computer-assisted segmentation of brain tumor lesions from multi-sequence Magnetic Resonance Imaging using the Mumford-Shah model

Segmentation of brain lesions in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is a difficult task to be mastered by the specialist. This is due to the presence of noise, partial volume effects and susceptibility artifacts in the images and on the borders of the regions of interest. These problems can interfere with the results when manual segmentation is used. Manual segmentation uses local anatomic information based on the user's background; that implies the necessity of constant human intervention. Deformable model approaches attempt to minimize these drawbacks by outlining the region of interest semi-automatically. These methods have been shown to be effective in the extraction of the lesion boundaries in brain MR images. The proposed method employs the multi-channel version of the Mumford-Shah model via level set methods in order to segment multi-sequence brain magnetic resonance (MR) images: FLAIR (Fluid attenuated inversion recovery), T1 and T2- weighted images. Results showed that segmentation of multi-sequence images using this methodology yielded superior results than using each sequence alone. As a consequence, medical doctors can exploit the segmentation results to follow up their patients' status by controlling the evolution or involution of brain lesions.
Women Empowerment Through Entrepreneurship

Empowerment can be viewed as means of creating a social environment in which one can make decisions and make choices either individually or collectively for social transformation. It strengthens the innate ability by way of acquiring knowledge, power and experience (Hashemi Schuler and Riley, 1996). Empowerment is the process of enabling or authorizing individual to think, take action and control work in an autonomous way. It is the process by which one can gain control over one’s destiny and the circumstances of ones lives. Empowerment includes control over resources (physical, human, intellectual and financial) and over ideology (beliefs, values and attitudes). (Baltiwala, 1994). It is not merely a feel of greater extrinsic control, but also grows intrinsic capacity, greater self-confidence and an internal transformation of one’s consciousness that enables one to overcome external barriers to accessing resources or changing traditional ideology (Pinto, 2001).
Biocatalytically Oligomerized Epicatechin with Potent and Specific Anti-proliferative Activity for Human Breast Cancer Cells

Catechins, naturally occurring flavonoids derived from wine and green tea, are known to exhibit multiple health benefits. Epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) is one of the most widely investigated catechins, but its efficacy in cancer therapy is still inconsistent and limited. The poor stability of EGCG has contributed to the disparity in the reported anti-cancer activity and other beneficial properties. Here we report an innovative enzymatic strategy for the oligomerization of catechins (specifically epicatechin) that yields stable, water-soluble oligomerized epicatechins with enhanced and highly specific anti-proliferative activity for human breast cancer cells. This one-pot oxidative oligomerization is carried out in ambient conditions using Horseradish Peroxidase (HRP) as a catalyst yielding water-soluble oligo(epicatechins). The oligomerized epicatechins obtained exhibit excellent growth inhibitory effects against human breast cancer cells with greater specificity towards growth-inhibiting cancer cells as opposed to normal cells, achieving a high therapeutic differential. Our studies indicate that water-soluble oligomeric epicatechins surpass EGCG in stability, selectivity and efficacy at lower doses.
GiLA: GitHub label analyzer

Reporting bugs, asking for new features and in general giving any kind of feedback is a common way to contribute to an Open-Source Software (OSS) project. In GitHub, the largest code hosting service for OSS, this feedback is typically expressed as new issues for the project managed by an issue-tracking system available in each new project repository. Among other features, the issue tracker allows creating and assigning labels to issues with the goal of helping the project community to better classify and manage those issues (e.g., facilitating the identification of issues for top priority components or candidate developers that could solve them). Nevertheless, as the project grows a manual browsing of the project issues is no longer feasible. In this paper we present GiLA, a tool which generates a set of visualizations to facilitate the analysis of issues in a project depending on their label-based categorization. We believe our visualizations are useful to see the most popular labels (and their relationships) in a project, identify the most active community members for those labels and compare the typical issue evolution for each label category.
MULTILOCUS ANALYSES OF ADMIXTURE AND INTROGRESSION AMONG HYBRIDIZING HELICONIUS BUTTERFLIES

Abstract Introgressive hybridization is an important evolutionary process and new analytical methods provide substantial power to detect and quantify it. In this study we use variation in the frequency of 657 AFLP fragments and DNA sequence variation from 15 genes to measure the extent of admixture and the direction of interspecific gene flow among three Heliconius butterfly species that diverged recently as a result of natural selection for Müllerian mimicry, and which continue to hybridize. Bayesian clustering based on AFLP genotypes correctly delineated the three species and identified four H. cydno, three H. pachinus, and three H. melpomene individuals that were of mixed ancestry. Gene genealogies revealed substantial shared DNA sequence variation among all three species and coalescent simulations based on the Isolation with Migration (IM) model pointed to interspecific gene flow as its cause. The IM simulations further indicated that interspecific gene flow was significantly asymmetrical, with greater gene flow from H. pachinus into H. cydno (2Nm = 4.326) than the reverse (2Nm = 0.502), and unidirectional gene flow from H. cydno and H. pachinus into H. melpomene (2Nm = 0.294 and 0.252, respectively). These asymmetries are in the directions expected based on the genetics of wing patterning and the probability that hybrids of various phenotypes will survive and reproduce in different mimetic environments. This empirical demonstration of extensive interspecific gene flow is in contrast to a previous study which found little evidence of gene flow between another pair of hybridizing Heliconius species, H. himera and H. erato, and it highlights the critical role of natural selection in maintaining species diversity. Furthermore, these results lend support to the hypotheses that phenotypic diversification in the genus Heliconius has been fueled by introgressive hybridization and that reinforcement has driven the evolution of assortative mate preferences.
High-Resolution Melting Genotyping of Enterococcus faecium Based on Multilocus Sequence Typing Derived Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms

We have developed a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) nucleated high-resolution melting (HRM) technique to genotype Enterococcus faecium. Eight SNPs were derived from the E. faecium multilocus sequence typing (MLST) database and amplified fragments containing these SNPs were interrogated by HRM. We tested the HRM genotyping scheme on 85 E. faecium bloodstream isolates and compared the results with MLST, pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and an allele specific real-time PCR (AS kinetic PCR) SNP typing method. In silico analysis based on predicted HRM curves according to the G+C content of each fragment for all 567 sequence types (STs) in the MLST database together with empiric data from the 85 isolates demonstrated that HRM analysis resolves E. faecium into 231 “melting types” (MelTs) and provides a Simpson's Index of Diversity (D) of 0.991 with respect to MLST. This is a significant improvement on the AS kinetic PCR SNP typing scheme that resolves 61 SNP types with D of 0.95. The MelTs were concordant with the known ST of the isolates. For the 85 isolates, there were 13 PFGE patterns, 17 STs, 14 MelTs and eight SNP types. There was excellent concordance between PFGE, MLST and MelTs with Adjusted Rand Indices of PFGE to MelT 0.936 and ST to MelT 0.973. In conclusion, this HRM based method appears rapid and reproducible. The results are concordant with MLST and the MLST based population structure.
An Efficient Load Balancing Technology in CDN

The existing load balancing technology in the content distribution network (CDN) only emphasizes even load distribution among servers, and it does not make the best of network topological information and the historical information of file accessed, so user request can not get timely response. To solve the above problem, this paper presents a load balancinga algorithm based on the Distributed binning strategy. This algorithm can make full use of network topological information and file access history as well as server load information, analyzing the popularity of files with the access history of the clusters of clients from the servers, efficiently finishing distribution and routing of the high popularity files among servers so that users can closely get their requested content, relieve the congestion situation in the internet and then enhance the speed of response when they accessing websites.
A comparative study of carrier-frequency modulation techniques for conducted EMI suppression in PWM converters

A rigorous mathematical analysis and a comparative study of carrier-frequency modulation (CFM) techniques for the conducted electromagnetic interference (EMI) suppression in pulsewidth-modulated converters is presented. CFM techniques dither the switching period with a small amplitude variation around the nominal value, so that the harmonic power is redistributed over the spectrum of concern. Two types of dithering signals, including the periodic and random signals, are investigated in this paper. The operational characteristics as well as the input and output power spectra of the converters with the two modulating signals are compared. In particular, their characteristics in the low- and high-frequency harmonic power redistribution will be depicted. It is shown that random CFM (RCFM) gives a more effective way to disperse the harmonics around the switching frequency than the periodic CFM (PCFM) with the same frequency deviation. However, RCFM introduces higher low-frequency harmonics than the PCFM at the converter output. Furthermore, effects of the resolution filter bandwidth in the electromagnetic compatibility analyzer on conducted EMI measurement is discussed. The validity of the analyses is confirmed experimentally by using a dc/dc buck converter operating in continuous conduction mode.
The Effects of Salinity and pH on Fertilization, Early Development, and Hatching in the Crown-of-Thorns Seastar

Understanding the influence of environmental factors on the development and dispersal of crown-of-thorns seastars is critical to predicting when and where outbreaks of these coral-eating seastars will occur. Outbreaks of crown-of-thorns seastars are hypothesized to be driven by terrestrial runoff events that increase nutrients and the phytoplankton food for the larvae. In addition to increasing larval food supply, terrestrial runoff may also reduce salinity in the waters where seastars develop. We investigated the effects of reduced salinity on the fertilization and early development of seastars. We also tested the interactive effects of reduced salinity and reduced pH on the hatching of crown-of-thorns seastars. Overall, we found that reduced salinity has strong negative effects on fertilization and early development, as shown in other echinoderm species. We also found that reduced salinity delays hatching, but that reduced pH, in isolation or in combination with lower salinity, had no detectable effects on this developmental milestone. Models that assess the positive effects of terrestrial runoff on the development of crown-of-thorns seastars should also consider the strong negative effects of lower salinity on early development including lower levels of fertilization, increased frequency of abnormal development, and delayed time to hatching.
Coordination of the Arc Regulatory System and Pheromone-Mediated Positive Feedback in Controlling the Vibrio fischeri lux Operon

Bacterial pheromone signaling is often governed both by environmentally responsive regulators and by positive feedback. This regulatory combination has the potential to coordinate a group response among distinct subpopulations that perceive key environmental stimuli differently. We have explored the interplay between an environmentally responsive regulator and pheromone-mediated positive feedback in intercellular signaling by Vibrio fischeri ES114, a bioluminescent bacterium that colonizes the squid Euprymna scolopes. Bioluminescence in ES114 is controlled in part by N-(3-oxohexanoyl)-L-homoserine lactone (3OC6), a pheromone produced by LuxI that together with LuxR activates transcription of the luxICDABEG operon, initiating a positive feedback loop and inducing luminescence. The lux operon is also regulated by environmentally responsive regulators, including the redox-responsive ArcA/ArcB system, which directly represses lux in culture. Here we show that inactivating arcA leads to increased 3OC6 accumulation to initiate positive feedback. In the absence of positive feedback, arcA-mediated control of luminescence was only ∼2-fold, but luxI-dependent positive feedback contributed more than 100 fold to the net induction of luminescence in the arcA mutant. Consistent with this overriding importance of positive feedback, 3OC6 produced by the arcA mutant induced luminescence in nearby wild-type cells, overcoming their ArcA repression of lux. Similarly, we found that artificially inducing ArcA could effectively repress luminescence before, but not after, positive feedback was initiated. Finally, we show that 3OC6 produced by a subpopulation of symbiotic cells can induce luminescence in other cells co-colonizing the host. Our results suggest that even transient loss of ArcA-mediated regulation in a sub-population of cells can induce luminescence in a wider community. Moreover, they indicate that 3OC6 can communicate information about both cell density and the state of ArcA/ArcB.
QRC-ESPRIT Method for Wideband Signals

In this paper, a new algorithm for a high resolution Direction Of Arrival (DOA) estimation method for multiple wideband signals is proposed. The proposed method proceeds in two steps. In the first step, the received signals data is decomposed in a Toeplitz form using the first-order statistics. In the second step, The QR decomposition is applied on the constructed Toeplitz matrix. Compared with existing schemes, the proposed scheme provides several advantages. First, it requires computing the triangular matrix R or the orthogonal matrix Q to find the DOA; these matrices can be computed with O(n2) operation. However, most of the existing schemes required eignvalue decomposition (EVD) for the covariance matrix or singular value decomposition (SVD) for the data matrix; using EVD or SVD requires much more complex computational O(n3) operation. Second, the proposed scheme is more suitable for high-speed communication since it requires first-order statistics and a single snapshot. Third, the proposed scheme can estimate the correlated wideband signals without using spatial smoothing techniques; whereas, already-existing schemes do not. Accuracy of the proposed wideband DOA estimation method is evaluated through computer simulation in comparison with a conventional method. Index terms – array signal processing, uniform linear array, Wideband signal, Toeplitz matrix.
Joint spectrum pricing and admission control for heterogeneous secondary users

This paper solves the problem of long-term revenue maximization of a spectrum database operator, through joint pricing of spectrum resources and admission control of secondary users. A unique feature that we consider is the stochastic and heterogeneous nature of secondary users' demands. We formulate the problem as a stochastic dynamic programming problem, and consider the optimal solutions under both static and dynamic prices. In the case of static pricing, we constrain the prices to be time-independent while allowing the admission control policies to be time dependent. We show that in most cases a stationary (time independent) admission policy is in fact optimal in this case. We further look at the general case of dynamic pricing, where both the prices and admission control policies can be time dependent. We show that the flexibility of dynamic pricing can significantly improve the operator's revenue (by more than 30%) when secondary users have high demand elasticities.
Infrared problems with dimensional regularisation at finite temperature

We address the question whether we have to perform the analytic continuation to 4 space-time dimensions before or after the perturbative expansion has been made. Using the simple model of large-N scalar field theory, we show how this affects quantities like the thermal mass and the pressure, why the two procedures give different results, and how this relates to the infrared behaviour of the theory. We conclude that the correct procedure is to take the limit d -> 4 before performing the perturbative expansion. Infrared divergences arise if one makes the perturbative expansion before going to the physical space-time dimension and they correspond to logarithms of the coupling in the exact (nonperturbative or resummed) expression. Finally, we outline how this may be relevant to the infrared problems encountered in thermal QCD.
Evaluating IT Investments : Selection of ERP Software in Finnish SME ’ s Petri Hallikainen

ERP software investments have various tangible and intangible costs and benefits that have to be made explicit in the investment process. Also several kinds of risks are present and they have to be assessed. In this study we investigate the criteria that are emphasized when making decisions on acquiring ERP software packages by Finnish SME’s. Furthermore, we describe the initial findings about the client and vendor perspectives on the ERP-selection process. The scope of the study will be later extended by a survey on the selection and use of ERP software.