Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Smart Scribbles for Sketch Segmentation

We present ‘Smart Scribbles’—a new scribble‐based interface for user‐guided segmentation of digital sketchy drawings. In contrast to previous approaches based on simple selection strategies, Smart Scribbles exploits richer geometric and temporal information, resulting in a more intuitive segmentation interface. We introduce a novel energy minimization formulation in which both geometric and temporal information from digital input devices is used to define stroke‐to‐stroke and scribble‐to‐stroke relationships. Although the minimization of this energy is, in general, an NP‐hard problem, we use a simple heuristic that leads to a good approximation and permits an interactive system able to produce accurate labellings even for cluttered sketchy drawings. We demonstrate the power of our technique in several practical scenarios such as sketch editing, as‐rigid‐as‐possible deformation and registration, and on‐the‐fly labelling based on pre‐classified guidelines.
Reliability of knee extension and flexion measurements using the Con‐Trex isokinetic dynamometer

The aim of this study was to evaluate the reliability of isokinetic and isometric assessments of the knee extensor and the flexor muscle function using the Con‐Trex isokinetic dynamometer. Thirty healthy subjects (15 males, 15 females) were tested and retested 7 days later for maximal strength (isokinetic peak torque, work, power and angle of peak torque as well as isometric maximal voluntary contraction torque and rate of torque development) and fatigue (per cent loss and linear slope of torque and work across a series of 20 contractions). For both the knee extensor and the flexor muscle groups, all strength data – except angle of peak torque – demonstrated moderate‐to‐high reliability, with intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) higher than 0·86. The highest reliability was observed for concentric peak torque of the knee extensor muscles (ICC = 0·99). Test–retest reliability of fatigue variables was moderate for the knee extensor (ICC range 0·84–0·89) and insufficient‐to‐moderate for the knee flexor muscles (ICC range 0·78–0·81). The more reliable index of muscle fatigue was the linear slope of the decline in work output. These findings establish the reliability of isokinetic and isometric measurements using the Con‐Trex machine.
Contamination of wild-grown edible mushrooms by heavy metals in a former mercury-mining area

The aim of this study was to evaluate the contamination of six edible wild species of mushrooms (Boletus pulverulentus, Cantharellus cibarius, Lactarius quietus, Macrolepiota procera, Russula xerampelina and Suillus grevillei) by heavy metals (Hg, Cd, Pb, Zn, Cu, Ni, Cr, Co, Mn and Fe). Mushroom samples were collected from sites contaminated by emissions from mining and processing of polymetallic ores in operation during the period 1969–1993 in Rudňany, southeast Slovakia. The four study sites spanned up to a 5-km distance from the emission source. The collected mushroom samples were analyzed using Flame Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometry and/or Flame Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometry with graphite furnace. Mercury, Cd and, in some samples, also Pb present the highest risks in terms of contamination of the food chain following subsequent consumption. The content of two metals in the dry matter (dm) of the mushrooms exceeded the limits set by the European Union (EU; Cd: 0.5 mg/kg dm, Pb: 1.0 mg/kg dm). The highest mean contents of the eight metals recorded for S. grevillei were 52.2, 2.15, 107, 104, 2.27, 2.49, 81.6 and 434 mg/kg dm for Hg, Pb, Zn, Cu, Ni, Cr, Mn and Fe, respectively. The highest content of Cd was recorded in M. procera (3.05 mg/kg dm) and that of Co in L. quietus (0.90 mg/kg dm). The calculated weekly intake for Hg, Pb and Cd shows that regular consumption of mushrooms from the studied area poses risks to human health.
Cowpea bruchid Callosobruchus maculatus counteracts dietary protease inhibitors by modulating propeptides of major digestive enzymes

Cowpea bruchids, when challenged by consumption of the soybean cysteine protease inhibitor scN, reconfigure expression of their major CmCP digestive proteases and resume normal feeding and development. Previous evidence indicated that insects selectively induced CmCPs from subfamily B, that were more efficient in autoprocessing and possessed not only higher proteolytic, but also scN‐degrading activities. In contrast, dietary scN only marginally up‐regulated genes from the more predominant CmCP subfamily A that were inferior to subfamily B. To gain further molecular insight into this adaptive adjustment, we performed domain swapping between the two respective subfamily members B1 and A16, the latter unable to autoprocess or degrade scN even after intermolecular processing. Swapping the propeptides did not qualitatively alter autoprocessing in either protease isoform. Incorporation of either the N‐ (pAmBA) or C‐terminal (pAmAB) mature B1 segment into A16, however, was sufficient to prime autoprocessing of A16 to its mature form. Further, the swap at the N‐terminal mature A16 protein region (pAmBA) resulted in four amino acid changes. Replacement of these amino acid residues by the corresponding B1 residues, singly and pair‐wise, revealed that autoprocessing activation in pAmBA resulted from cumulative and/or coordinated individual effects. Bacterially expressed isolated propeptides (pA16 and pB1) differed in their ability to inhibit mature B1 enzyme. Lower inhibitory activity in pB1 is likely attributable to its lack of protein stability. This instability in the cleaved propeptide is necessary, although insufficient by itself, for scN‐degradation by the mature B1 enzyme. Taken together, cowpea bruchids modulate proteolysis of their digestive enzymes by controlling proCmCP cleavage and propeptide stability, which explains at least in part the plasticity cowpea bruchids demonstrate in response to protease inhibitors.
An examination of institutional characteristics, selection committees, and induction criteria for college athletic halls of fame

ABSTRACT An intercollegiate athletic hall of fame stands as a nostalgic monument to the achievements of athletes, coaches, and other icons. These halls of fame, in addition to more traditional sport museums, draw a variety alumni, students, and tourists. While steeped in tradition, there is a dearth of research in academic literature on college halls of fame, especially within the framework of sport heritage. An exploratory research design utilizing procedural and archival data was implemented to examine institutional characteristics, selection committees, and induction criteria of 93 Football Bowl Subdivision institutions. Descriptive data of four selection committee variables and eight induction criteria variables revealed trends on how American colleges and universities decide who or what to enshrine in their halls of fame. A Multivariate Analyses of Variance illustrated no significant differences for selection committee variables based on conference; nonetheless, significant conference differences existed among induction criteria variables. These findings, combined with previous research on sport museums and other sport venues, reaffirm the need for a representative and diverse selection committee, inclusion of at-large members in the creation of induction criteria, and an accurate historical account of its hall of fame inductees. Future research endeavors regarding college athletic halls of fame are also discussed.
Mixed-initiative control for remote characterization of hazardous environments

Remote characterization of high radiation environments is a pressing application area where robots can provide benefits in terms of time, cost, safety and quality of data. However, the DOE roadmap for robotics and intelligent machines states that 'usability' may well prove to be the most challenging and yet crucial component of robotic systems for remote characterization and handling of radioactive and hazardous materials. In 2001, the INEEL successfully deployed a teleoperated robotic system coupled with a gamma locating and isotopic identification device (RGL&IID) to characterize an area that had been closed to human entry for many years. This paper examines the human-robot dynamic of this teleoperated task and the limitations inherent to the master-slave strategy employed. Next, the paper outlines an innovative, mixed-initiative command and control architecture developed to address these limitations. The resulting, mixed-initiative control architecture retains the human in the loop, but interleaves multiple levels of human intervention into the functioning of a robotic system that can, in turn, scale its own level of initiative to meet whatever level of input is handed down.
Co-Development of Diagnostic Vectors to Support Targeted Therapies and Theranostics: Essential Tools in Personalized Cancer Therapy

Novel technologies are being developed to improve patient therapy through the identification of targets and surrogate molecular signatures that can help direct appropriate treatment regimens for efficacy and drug safety. This is particularly the case in oncology whereby patient tumor and biofluids are routinely isolated and analyzed for genetic, immunohistochemical, and/or soluble markers to determine if a predictive biomarker signature (i.e., mutated gene product, differentially expressed protein, altered cell surface antigen, etc.) exists as a means for selecting optimal treatment. These biomarkers may be drug-specific targets and/or differentially expressed nucleic acids, proteins, or cell lineage profiles that can directly affect the patient’s disease tissue or immune response to a therapeutic regimen. Improvements in diagnostics that can prescreen predictive response biomarker profiles will continue to optimize the ability to enhance patient therapy via molecularly defined disease-specific treatment. Conversely, patients lacking predictive response biomarkers will no longer needlessly be exposed to drugs that are unlikely to provide clinical benefit, thereby enabling patients to pursue other therapeutic options and lowering overall healthcare costs by avoiding futile treatment. While patient molecular profiling offers a powerful tool to direct treatment options, the difficulty in identifying disease-specific targets or predictive biomarker signatures that stratify a significant fraction within a disease indication remains challenging. A goal for drug developers is to identify and implement new strategies that can rapidly enable the development of beneficial disease-specific therapies for broad patient-specific targeting without the need of tedious predictive biomarker discovery and validation efforts, currently a bottleneck for development timelines. Successful strategies may gain an advantage by employing repurposed, less-expensive existing agents while potentially improving the therapeutic activity of novel, target-specific therapies that may otherwise have off-target toxicities or less efficacy in cells exhibiting certain pathways. Here, we discuss the use of co-developing diagnostic-targeting vectors to identify patients whose malignant tissue can specifically uptake a targeted anti-cancer drug vector prior to treatment. Using this system, a patient can be predetermined in real-time as to whether or not their tumor(s) can specifically uptake a drug-linked diagnostic vector, thus inferring the uptake of a similar vector linked to an anti-cancer agent. If tumor-specific uptake is observed, then the patient may be suitable for drug-linked vector therapy and have a higher likelihood of clinical benefit while patients with no tumor uptake should consider other therapeutic options. This approach offers complementary opportunities to rapidly develop broad tumor-specific agents for use in personalized medicine.
Spatio-Temporal extraction, visualization and investigation of worldwide disease alerts

This paper presents the architecture of a system for Spatio-temporal extraction, visualization and investigation (S.T.E.V.I.) of worldwide disease alerts based on geographical locations present in a text. Further, the framework and algorithms used for developing the system are described. Finally, the statistics of the application as well as the user-interface is discussed concluding with future scope at the end.
On acoustic and electric Faraday cages

Two-dimensional problems involving many identical small circles are considered; the circles are the cross sections of parallel wires, modelling a cage or a grating. Both electrostatic and acoustic fields are considered. The main emphasis is on periodic configurations of N circles distributed evenly around a large circle (a ring). Foldy's theory is used for acoustic problems and then adapted for electrostatic problems. In both cases, circulant matrices are encountered: the fields can be calculated explicitly. Then, the limit N→∞ is studied. A connection between the N-circle problem and the limiting problem (fields exterior to the ring) is established, using known results on the convergence of a defective form of the trapezoidal rule, defective in that endpoint contributions are ignored, because the integrand has logarithmic singularities at those points. This shows that the solution of the limiting problem is approached very slowly, as N−1logN as N→∞.
Higher signal harmonics, LISA's angular resolution, and dark energy

It is generally believed that the angular resolution of the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) for binary supermassive black holes (SMBH) will not be good enough to identify the host galaxy or galaxy cluster. This conclusion, based on using only the dominant harmonic of the binary SMBH signal, changes substantially when higher signal harmonics are included in assessing the parameter estimation problem. We show that in a subset of the source parameter space the angular resolution increases by more than a factor of 10, thereby making it possible for LISA to identify the host galaxy/galaxy cluster. Thus, LISA’s observation of certain binary SMBH coalescence events could constrain the dark energy equation of state to within a few percent, comparable to the level expected from other dark energy missions.
Antihistamine induced blood oxygenation level dependent response changes related to visual processes during sensori‐motor performance

The histaminergic involvement in selective processes underlying its role in human sensori‐motor performance is largely unknown. Recently, selective effects of central H1‐inverse agonism on sensory visual processes were observed in electrophysiological—but not behavioral data; a discrepancy suggested to result from speeded response‐choice related processes. This study attempts to establish the effects on visual processes and identify putative compensatory mechanisms related to increased visual and response‐choice task demands by assessing H1‐inverse agonism induced changes in blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) response. Twelve participants received oral doses of dexchlorpheniramine 4 mg, lorazepam 1 mg, and placebo in a three‐way crossover designed study. Brain activity was assessed for choice reaction time task performance in a 3 T magnetic resonance scanner 2 h after drug administration. Participants responded with their left or right hand and index or middle finger as indicated by the laterality of stimulus presentation and identity of the stimulus, respectively. Stimuli were intact or visually degraded and responses were compatible or incompatible with the laterality of stimulus presentation. Both dexchlorpheniramine and lorazepam affected the BOLD response in the occipital cortex indicating affected visual information processing. Dexchlorpheniramine decreased BOLD response in the dorsal precuneus and left precentral gyrus as part of a motor network, which however might not be interpreted as a compensatory mechanism, but may be the upstream consequence of impaired visual processing. Hum Brain Mapp 35:3095–3106, 2014. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Exploring How Product Development Practices Differ for Radical, More Innovative and Incremental Innovations

Researchers have argued that what may be sound management practice for the development of incremental innovations may well be detrimental to the development of radical innovations. Accordingly, researchers have sought to document differences in development practices for these two classes of innovations. Much of the research that has looked at development practices for radical innovations consists of qualitative, case studies. Because these studies involve so many different types of innovations, developed at different times and under very different circumstances, they provide only a preliminary understanding of how development best practice may indeed differ for different innovation types. This research explores differences in new product development practices among three project types - incremental, more innovative, and radical. To our knowledge, no cross-organizational, quantitative studies have been conducted that document how development practices differ with respect to all three classes of innovations. Using a sample of 82 business units considered "exemplary" product developers, we investigate how development practices differ across these three classes of innovation with respect to process, organization, strategy, culture, and senior management commitment. While it is commonly accepted that incremental and radical innovation should be managed differently, the results of this study suggest otherwise. The management of new product development activities across project types may be more similar than previously thought
Variation in Urinary Flow Rates According to Demographic Characteristics and Body Mass Index in NHANES: Potential Confounding of Associations between Health Outcomes and Urinary Biomarker Concentrations

Background: Urinary analyte concentrations are affected both by exposure level and by urinary flow rate (UFR). Systematic variations in UFR with demographic characteristics or body mass index (BMI) could confound assessment of associations between health outcomes and biomarker concentrations. Objectives: We assessed patterns of UFR (milliliters per hour) and body weight–adjusted UFR (UFRBW; milliliters per kilogram per hour) across age, sex, race/ethnicity, and BMI category in the NHANES (National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey) 2009–2012 data sets. Methods: Geometric mean (GM) UFR and UFRBW were compared across age-stratified (6–11, 12–19, 20–39, 40–59, and ≥ 60 years) subgroups (sex, race/ethnicity, and BMI category). Patterns of analyte urinary concentration or mass excretion rates (nanograms per hour and nanograms per kilogram per hour BW) were assessed in sample age groups for case study chemicals bisphenol A and 2,5-dichlorophenol. Results: UFR increased from ages 6 to 60 years and then declined with increasing age. UFRBW varied inversely with age. UFR, but not UFRBW, differed significantly by sex (males > females after age 12 years). Differences in both metrics were observed among categories of race/ethnicity. UFRBW, but not UFR, varied inversely with BMI category and waist circumference in all age groups. Urinary osmolality increased with increasing BMI. Case studies demonstrated different exposure–outcome relationships depending on exposure metric. Conventional hydration status adjustments did not fully address the effect of flow rate variations. Conclusions: UFR and UFRBW exhibit systematic variations with age, sex, race/ethnicity, and BMI category. These variations can confound assessments of potential exposure–health outcome associations based on urinary concentration. Analyte excretion rates are valuable exposure metrics in such assessments. Citation: Hays SM, Aylward LL, Blount BC. 2015. Variation in urinary flow rates according to demographic characteristics and body mass index in NHANES: potential confounding of associations between health outcomes and urinary biomarker concentrations. Environ Health Perspect 123:293–300; http://dx.doi. org/10.1289/ehp.1408944
Living with Marfan syndrome III. Quality of life and reproductive planning

As individuals with Marfan syndrome are increasingly diagnosed earlier in life and prior to life‐threatening cardiovascular events, there is opportunity to study factors that influence their reproductive planning and quality of life. In this study of 174 affected adults, the overall quality of life was reported to be adequate, although it was significantly decreased within the spiritual/psychological domain. Approximately 62% agreed that having Marfan syndrome significantly affected their reproductive decision‐making. This view was correlated with age of diagnosis, mitral valve prolapse, and the view that Marfan syndrome has adverse consequences on life. Sixty‐nine percent reported personal interest in prenatal testing for Marfan syndrome. Respondents most commonly cited increased worries about personal health and the recurrence risk as ways that Marfan syndrome affects their reproductive decisions. Age, striae, back pain, and low quality of life were each independently correlated with lack of sex drive. These results affirm the importance of both clinical and psychosocial issues on affected adults' reproductive decision‐making and sexual well‐being. Genetic professionals are ideally positioned to discuss concerns about quality of life and reproduction with patients with Marfan syndrome and refer those with significant concerns for further evaluation and management.
The cellular internet: On‐line with connexins

Most cells communicate with their immediate neighbors through the exchange of cytosolic molecules such as ions, second messengers and small metabolites. This activity is made possible by clusters of intercellular channels called gap junctions, which connect adjacent cells. In terms of molecular architecture, intercellular channels consist of two channels, called connexons, which interact to span the plasma membranes of two adjacent cells and directly join the cytoplasm of one cell to another. Connexons are made of structural proteins named connexins, which compose a multigene family. Connexin channels participate in the regulation of signaling between developing and differentiated cell types, and recently there have been some unexpected findings. First, unique ionic‐ and size‐selectivities are determined by each connexin; second, the establishment of intercellular communication is defined by the expression of compatible connexins; third, the discovery of connexin mutations associated with human diseases and the study of knockout mice have illustrated the vital role of cell‐cell communication in a diverse array of tissue functions.
Multilayered specification of the T‐cell lineage fate

Summary: T‐cell development from stem cells has provided a highly accessible and detailed view of the regulatory processes that can go into the choice of a cell fate in a postembryonic, stem cell‐based system. But it has been a view from the outside. The problems in understanding the regulatory basis for this lineage choice begin with the fact that too many transcription factors are needed to provide crucial input: without any one of them, T‐cell development fails. Furthermore, almost all the factors known to provide crucial functions during the climax of T‐lineage commitment itself are also vital for earlier functions that establish the pool of multilineage precursors that would normally feed into the T‐cell specification process. When the regulatory genes that encode them are mutated, the confounding effects on earlier stages make it difficult to dissect T‐cell specification genetically. Yet both the positive and the negative regulatory events involved in the choice of a T‐cell fate are actually a mosaic of distinct functions. New evidence has emerged recently that finally provides a way to separate the major components that fit together to drive this process. Here, we review insights into T‐cell specification and commitment that emerge from a combination of molecular, cellular, and systems biology approaches. The results reveal the regulatory structure underlying this lineage decision.