Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
O R I G I N a L I N V E S T I G a T I O N Open Access

Clinical usefulness of lipid ratios, visceral adiposity indicators, and the triglycerides and glucose index as risk markers of insulin resistance Abstract Background: To directly compare traditional lipid ratios (total cholesterol [TC]/high density lipoprotein cholesterol [HDL-C], non-HDL-C/HDL-C, low density lipoprotein cholesterol [LDL-C]/HDL-C, and triglycerides [TG]/HDL-C), apolipoprotein B (apoB)/apolipoprotein A-I (apoA-I) ratio, visceral adiposity index (VAI), lipid accumulation product (LAP), and the product of TG and fasting glucose (TyG) for strength and independence as risk factors for insulin resistance (IR).
Distributed resource allocation in wireless networks under uncertainty and application of Bayesian game

A wireless network allows multiple nodes to share a set of available resources for data transmission. The nodes can either compete or cooperate with each other to achieve their individual objectives or a group objective. Game theory is a mathematical tool developed to understand the situations of conflict among rational entities. In this article, we consider the applications of game theory to address the problem of distributed radio resource allocation in wireless networks under uncertainty, where an individual wireless node has to make a decision without having complete information about the other nodes in the network. In particular, a noncooperative game model with incomplete information is our focus. First, different approaches to solve the distributed radio resource allocation problem under uncertainty are reviewed. Then different game theoretic approaches to resource allocation in wireless networks and related work in the literature are presented. Application of a Bayesian game is then discussed to solve the distributed resource allocation problem. To this end, we provide an example to illustrate the application of a Bayesian game-theoretic model to solve the distributed bandwidth sharing problem among multiple mobile nodes competing for the shared bandwidth from a wireless access point. In this case, a mobile node is unable to completely observe other mobile nodes' behavior (e.g., speed of movement, bandwidth demand). A distributed algorithm is proposed to obtain the bidding strategy of the mobile nodes for bandwidth auction in this game model. The Bayesian Nash equilibrium is considered as the solution of this game.
Development of dynamically artificial flowers driven by shape memory alloy and pulse width modulation

Artificial flowers are mainly static objects. If we can make them movable with actuating mechanisms, sensors and controllers, this will make them more lively and entertaining. The aim of this paper is to develop artificial flower ornaments with dynamic, modular, programmable and green-energy characteristics. The dynamically artificial flower ornaments show the performances: bending of stems, blooming of petals, spreading of fragrance and flapping of butterflies. Besides, solar power to simulate photosynthesis (it is just an analogy to actual photosynthesis) will be used to energize the dynamically artificial flower ornaments. Instead of using conventional mechanisms and electromagnetic motor to actuate the flower ornaments, we use shape memory alloy (SMA) as actuators and pulse width modulation (PWM) as drive circuit to avoid complication, lager volume and noise generation of the components. Four types of the SMA actuators are made of SMA wire (Ti50%-Ni45%-Cu5%) with one way shape memory effect and 0.6mm in diameter. The performance of each SMA actuator is evaluated. By using PWM, the SMA actuators have high response time and low energy consumption in acting cycle.
Two-Peak Temporal Distribution of Stroke Onset in Greek Patients

A circadian distribution with a single peak of stroke onset in the morning hours has been described in various countries. Analysis of the temporal pattern of symptom onset in a series of 1,253 Greek first-ever stroke patients revealed a circadian distribution with two incidence peaks between 08.00 and 10.00 h, and between 16.00 and 18.00 h. Considering the different etiopathogenic types of stroke, the same two-peak time pattern was evaluated in all stroke subgroups with the only exception of lacunar stroke, which seems to predominantly occur during night and sleep. A secondary stroke onset peak in the late afternoon has not been previously described in such detail. A relation between the second, however lower, frequency peak and the traditional Greek habit of afternoon sleep (siesta) could be assumed and deserves further investigation.
Prognostic Impacts of Angiopoietins in NSCLC Tumor Cells and Stroma: VEGF-A Impact Is Strongly Associated with Ang-2

Introduction Angiopoietins and their receptor Tie-2 are, in concert with VEGF-A, key mediators in angiogenesis. This study evaluates the prognostic impact of all known human angiopoietins (Ang-1, Ang-2 and Ang-4) and their receptor Tie-2, as well as their relation to the prognostic expression of VEGF-A. Methods 335 unselected stage I-IIIA NSCLC-patients were included and tissue samples of respective tumor cells and stroma were collected in tissue microarrays (TMAs). Immunohistochemistry (IHC) was used to semiquantitatively evaluate the expression of markers in duplicate tumor and stroma cores. Principal Findings In univariate analyses, low tumor cell expression of Ang-4 (P = 0.046) and low stromal expressions of Ang-4 (P = 0.009) and Ang-2 (P = 0.017) were individually associated with a poor survival. In the multivariate analysis, low stromal Ang-2 (HR 1.88; CI 95% 1.15-3.08) and Ang-4 (HR 1.47, CI 95% 1.02–2.11, P = 0.04) expressions were independently associated with a poor prognosis. In patients with high tumor cell expression of Ang-2, a concomitantly high tumor VEGF-A expression mediated a dramatic survival reduction (P<0.001). In the multivariate analysis of patients with high Ang-2 expression, high tumor VEGF-A expression appeared an independent poor prognosticator (HR 6.43; CI 95% 2.46–16.8; P<0.001). Conclusions In tumor cells, only Ang-4 expression has prognostic impact in NSCLC. In tumor stroma, Ang-4 and Ang-2 are independently associated with survival. The prognostic impact of tumor cell VEGF-A in NSCLC appears strongly associated with a concomitantly high tumor cell expression of Ang-2.
Integrating articulatory features using Kullback-Leibler divergence based acoustic model for phoneme recognition

In this paper, we propose a novel framework to integrate articulatory features (AFs) into HMM- based ASR system. This is achieved by using posterior probabilities of different AFs (estimated by multilayer perceptrons) directly as observation features in Kullback-Leibler divergence based HMM (KL-HMM) system. On the TIMIT phoneme recognition task, the proposed framework yields a phoneme recognition accuracy of 72.4% which is comparable to KL-HMM system using posterior probabilities of phonemes as features (72.7%). Furthermore, a best performance of 73.5% phoneme recognition accuracy is achieved by jointly modeling AF probabilities and phoneme probabilities as features. This shows the efficacy and flexibility of the proposed approach.
Robust Control Study for Four-Wheel Active Steering Vehicle

Vehicle is a complex uncertain system with parameter perturbations and external disturbances; these uncertainties will easily result in the loss of vehicle driving stability. Tire cornering stiffness is a key influencing factor on maneuverability of vehicle. In order to maintain driving stability in vehicle cornering, through regarding tire cornering stiffness and outer disturbances as bounded uncertain parameters, a sliding mode controller applied to four-wheel steering vehicle is designed based on robust control theory. The dynamic simulation indicates that the sliding model controller designed not only can overcome the influence of uncertain factor on the maneuverability of 4WS vehicle and effectively prevent the loss of vehicle stability; but also ensure the steering quality of vehicle no significant change. It improves the active safety and handle ability of the 4WS vehicle during emergency obstacle avoidance and critical state accordingly.
Opaque minerals, magnetic properties, and paleomagnetism of the Tissint Martian meteorite

We present a description of opaque minerals, opaque mineral compositions, magnetic properties, and paleomagnetic record of the Tissint heavily shocked olivine‐phyric shergottite that fell to Earth in 2011. The magnetic mineralogy of Tissint consists of about 0.6 wt% of pyrrhotite and 0.1 wt% of low‐Ti titanomagnetite (in the range ulvöspinel 3–15 magnetite 85–97). The titanomagnetite formed on Mars by oxidation‐exsolution of ulvöspinel grains during deuteric alteration. Pyrrhotite is unusual, with respect to other shergottites, for its higher Ni content and lower Fe content. Iron deficiency is attributed by an input of regolith‐derived sulfur. This pyrrhotite has probably preserved a metastable hexagonal monosulfide solution structure blocked at temperature above 300 °C. The paleomagnetic data indicate that Tissint was magnetized following the major impact suffered by this rock while cooling at the surface of Mars from a post‐impact equilibrium temperature of approximately 310 °C in a stable magnetic field of about 2 µT of crustal origin. Tissint is too weakly magnetic to account for the observed magnetic anomalies at the Martian surface.
ISROBOTNET: A testbed for sensor and robot network systems

This paper introduces a testbed for sensor and robot network systems, currently composed of 10 cameras and 5 mobile wheeled robots equipped with several sensors for self-localization, obstacle avoidance and vision cameras, and wireless communications. The testbed includes a service-oriented middleware to enable fast prototyping and implementation of algorithms previously tested in simulation, as well as to simplify integration of subsystems developed by different partners. We survey an integrated approach to human-robot interaction that has been developed supported by the testbed under an European research project. The application integrates innovative methods and algorithms for people tracking and waving detection, cooperative perception among static and mobile cameras to improve people tracking accuracy, as well as decision-theoretical approaches to sensor selection and task allocation within the sensor network.
Multiplier-Less Stream Processor for 2D Filtering in Visual Search Applications

A new 2D convolution-based filter is presented, which is specifically designed to improve visual search applications. It exploits a new radix-3 partitioning method of integer numbers, derived from the weight partition theory, which allows substituting multipliers with simplified floating point (FP) adders, working on 32-b FP filter coefficients. The memory organization allows elaborating the incoming data in raster scan order, as those directly provided by an acquisition source, without frame buffers and additional aligning circuitry. Compared with the existent literature, built around conventional arithmetic circuitry, the proposed design achieves state-of-the-art performances in the reduction of the mapped physical resources and elaboration velocity, achieving a critical path delay of about 4.5 ns both with a Xilinx Virtex-7 field-programmable gate array and CMOS 90-nm std_cells.
Kusuoka Representations of Coherent Risk Measures in Finite Probability Spaces

Kusuoka representations provide an important and useful characterization of law invariant coherent risk measures in atomless probability spaces. However, the applicability of these results is limited by the fact that such representations do not always exist in probability spaces with atoms, such as finite probability spaces. We introduce the class of functionally coherent risk measures, which allow us to use Kusuoka representations in any probability space. We show that this class contains every law invariant risk measure that can be coherently extended to a family containing all finite discrete distributions. Thus, it is possible to preserve the desirable properties of law invariant coherent risk measures on atomless spaces without sacrificing generality. We also specialize our results to risk measures on finite probability spaces, and prove that in such spaces the family of risk measures with finite Kusuoka representations is dense among all law invariant coherent risk measures over a bounded class of random variables. Acknowledgements: The first author has been supported by The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) Career Award # 111M543 and the second author has been funded by TUBITAK-2216 Research Fellowship Programme.
Not Lost in Space: Trafficking in the Hedgehog Signaling Pathway

Protein kinase A orchestrates Hedgehog signaling from the base of the primary cilium. Compartmentalization within cells provides spatial organization of signaling pathways and ensures the specificity of signaling. In vertebrates, the primary cilium, a tiny microtubule-based protrusion present on most cells, is essential for organizing events during Hedgehog signal transduction. When cells are stimulated with Hedgehog ligands, proteins in the pathway move in and out of the cilia. Protein kinase A (PKA), which is implicated in diverse cellular processes including protein trafficking, is a component of the Hedgehog signaling pathway. PKA has been localized near primary cilia, at a location suitable for regulating the localization of other proteins in the pathway.
Teleporting an unknown quantum state via dual classical and EPR channels

An unknown quantum state ji can be disassembled into, then later reconstructed from, purely classical information and purely nonclassical EPR correlations. To do so the sender, \Alice," and the receiver, \Bob," must prearrange the sharing of an EPR-correlated pair of particles. Alice makes a joint measurement on her EPR particle and the unknown quantum system, and sends Bob the classical result of this measurement. Knowing this, Bob can convert the state of his EPR particle into an exact replica of the unknown state ji which Alice destroyed.
Improving Wireless Network Performance Using Sensor Hints

With the proliferation of mobile wireless devices such as smartphones and tablets that are used in a wide range of locations and movement conditions, it has become important for wireless protocols to adapt to different settings over short periods of time. Network protocols that perform well in static settings where channel conditions are relatively stable tend to perform poorly in mobile settings where channel conditions change rapidly, and vice versa. To adapt to the conditions under which communication is occurring, we propose the use of external sensor hints to augment network protocols. Commodity smartphones and tablet devices come equipped with a variety of sensors, including GPS, accelerometers, magnetic compasses, and gyroscopes, which can provide hints about the device's mobility state and its operating environment. We present a wireless protocol architecture that integrates sensor hints in adaptation algorithms. We validate the idea and architecture by implementing and evaluating sensor-augmented wireless protocols for bit rate adaptation, access point association, neighbor maintenance in mobile mesh networks, and path selection in vehicular networks.
Proteome Analyses of Staphylococcus aureus Biofilm at Elevated Levels of NaCl

Our studies demonstrate that sodium chloride (NaCl) induces changes in biofilm, mediated by increased production of polysaccharides intercellular adhesion (PIA). We identified 12 proteins that showed higher abundance in increased level of NaCl. This includes one important protein (IsaA) known to be associated with biofilm stability. In addition, we also found higher abundance of a cold shock protein, CspA, at higher NaCl. We have also identified several other proteins that are differentially expressed to the elevated levels of NaCl and mapped them in the regulatory pathways of PIA. The majority of proteins are involved with various aspects bacterial metabolic function. Our results demonstrated that NaCl influences gene regulatory networks controlling exopolysaccharide expression.
Platelets in Patients with Premature Coronary Artery Disease Exhibit Upregulation of miRNA340* and miRNA624*

Background Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the leading cause of human morbidity and mortality worldwide, underscoring the need to improve diagnostic strategies. Platelets play a major role, not only in the process of acute thrombosis during plaque rupture, but also in the formation of atherosclerosis itself. MicroRNAs are endogenous small non-coding RNAs that control gene expression and are expressed in a tissue and disease-specific manner. Therefore they have been proposed to be useful biomarkers. It remains unknown whether differences in miRNA expression levels in platelets can be found between patients with premature CAD and healthy controls. Methodology/Principal Findings In this case-control study we measured relative expression levels of platelet miRNAs using microarrays from 12 patients with premature CAD and 12 age- and sex-matched healthy controls. Six platelet microRNAs were significantly upregulated (miR340*, miR451, miR454*, miR545:9.1. miR615-5p and miR624*) and one miRNA (miR1280) was significantly downregulated in patients with CAD as compared to healthy controls. To validate these results, we measured the expression levels of these candidate miRNAs by qRT-PCR in platelets of individuals from two independent cohorts; validation cohort I consisted of 40 patients with premature CAD and 40 healthy controls and validation cohort II consisted of 27 patients with artery disease and 40 healthy relatives. MiR340* and miR624* were confirmed to be upregulated in patients with CAD as compared to healthy controls in both validation cohorts. Conclusion/Significance Two miRNAs in platelets are significantly upregulated in patients with CAD as compared to healthy controls. Whether the two identified miRNAs can be used as biomarkers and whether they are cause or consequence of the disease remains to be elucidated in a larger prospective study.
Reflecting upon a Semester in the Shoes of a Student (Shoes Returned

After teaching sixty sections of classes in Canada at a few universities and colleges, including thirty-five at Kwantlen University College, I found myself reflecting more fully on my evolving style, methods, different educator-learner roles, evaluation approaches, and expectations of student quality. Without some level of external benchmarking or input of new knowledge, such exercises could just revolve around 'navel-gazing' and perhaps lead to reinforcement of current (good or bad) practice without the opportunity for a step-change or 'out-of-box-thinking' (Fink et al, 2005; Pfeffer & Sutton, 2000; Wright, Rudolph, Hanna, Gillingwater, & Burns,1997).
Variation Aware Sleep Vector Selection in Dual ${\rm V}_{{{\rm t}}}$ Dynamic OR Circuits for Low Leakage Register File Design

Dual threshold voltage (Vt) technique is applied widely in dynamic OR circuits to achieve low leakage in register files (RF) design, but its effectiveness is significantly influenced by the selected sleep vector during the standby mode. As technology scales into deep nanometer era, the sleep vector selection in dual Vt dynamic OR (DV-OR) circuits becomes challenging due to the impact of PVT (process, supply voltage and temperature) variations. In this paper, we analyze the relationship among PVT variations, leakage characteristics, and sleep vectors in DV-OR circuits. We further perform a comprehensive study on sleep vector selection and explore its design space in DV-OR circuits. Finally, we present a generalization of our analysis for multiple Vt dynamic OR circuits and provide sleep vector selection guidelines to achieve low leakage and robust register files in modern processors.
Cardioprotective effect of lycopene against isoproterenol-induced myocardial infarction in rats

The present study was designed to evaluate the cardioprotective potential of lycopene (LCP) against isoproterenol (ISP)-induced myocardial infarction (MI), by assessing hemodynamic, biochemical and histopathological parameters. Wistar male albino rats were orally administered with LCP (0.5, 1.0 and 1.5 mg/kg) or with vehicle for 30 days, with concurrent subcutaneous injections of ISP (85 mg/kg) on days 28 and 29. ISP significantly (p < 0.05) decreased systolic, diastolic and mean arterial blood pressure (SAP, DAP and MAP, respectively) and heart rate (HR). ISP also decreased contractility (+LVdP/dt), relaxation (−LVdP/dt) and increased left ventricular end-diastolic pressure (LVEDP). In addition to functional impairment, ISP also caused a significant (p < 0.05) decrease in antioxidants, namely, superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), glutathione peroxidase (GSHPx), glutathione (GSH), cardiac injury marker enzymes, creatine phosphokinase-MB (CK-MB) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), as well as induced lipid peroxidation, malonaldialdehyde (MDA) and histopathological alterations in heart. However, pretreatment with LCP significantly (p < 0.05) attenuated ISP-induced cardiac dysfunction as evidenced by improved SAP, DAP, MAP, HR, (±)LVdP/dt and reduced LVEDP. Pretreatment with LCP also significantly (p < 0.05) prevented the depletion of antioxidants (SOD, CAT, GSHPx and GSH), myocyte injury marker enzymes (CK-MB and LDH) and inhibited lipid peroxidation and MDA formation in the heart. Furthermore, reduced necrosis, edema and infiltration of inflammatory cells on histopathological examination also depicted the protective effect of LCP against the deleterious effect of ISP. Based on the results, it is suggested that LCP possesses significant cardioprotective potential and may serve as an adjunct in treatment and prophylaxis of MI.
Gaze Tracking by Binocular Vision Technology and PPBTF Features

In this paper, a new method for eye gaze tracking is proposed under natural head movement. In this method, pixel-pattern-based texture feature (PPBTF) is proposed to calculate the infrared eye features according to the characteristic of the infrared eye, and a new binocular vision approach is adopted to detect the space coordinate of the eye. The combined features of space coordinates and PPBTF features of the eyes are fed into support vector regression (SVR) to match the gaze mapping function, in the hope of tracking gaze direction under natural head movement. The experimental results prove that the proposed method can determine the gaze direction accurately.
Sensitivity of diffusion weighted steady state free precession to anisotropic diffusion

Diffusion‐weighted steady‐state free precession (DW‐SSFP) accumulates signal from multiple echoes over several TRs yielding a strong sensitivity to diffusion with short gradient durations and imaging times. Although the DW‐SSFP signal is well characterized for isotropic, Gaussian diffusion, it is unclear how the DW‐SSFP signal propagates in inhomogeneous media such as brain tissue. This article presents a more general analytical expression for the DW‐SSFP signal which accommodates Gaussian and non‐Gaussian spin displacement probability density functions. This new framework for calculating the DW‐SSFP signal is used to investigate signal behavior for a single fiber, crossing fibers, and reflective barriers. DW‐SSFP measurements in the corpus callosum of a fixed brain are shown to be in good agreement with theoretical predictions. Further measurements in fixed brain tissue also demonstrate that 3D DW‐SSFP out‐performs 3D diffusion weighted spin echo in both SNR and CNR efficiency providing a compelling example of its potential to be used for high resolution diffusion tensor imaging. Magn Reson Med 60:405–413, 2008. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.