Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A model for automatically tracing object boundaries

In this paper, we propose a novel algorithm for tracing object boundaries automatically based on a model called “point flow” in image induced vector fields. An ordinary differential equation describes the movement of points under the action of an image-induced vector field and generates induced trajectories. The trajectories of the flows allow to find and integrate edges and determine object boundaries. We tested our method on real image dataset. Compared with the other classical edge detection and integration models, our point flow method is better at providing precise and continuous curves. The experimental results clearly exhibit the robustness and effectiveness of the proposed method.
Stochastic optimization of a neural network-based controller for aggressive maneuvers on loose surfaces

In this study we develop a feedback controller for a four wheeled autonomous mobile robot. The purpose of the controller is to guarantee robust performance of an aggressive maneuver (90 degrees turn) at high velocity (about 10 m/s) on a loose surface (dirty road). To tackle this highly nonlinear control problem, we employ multi-objective evolutionary algorithms to explore and optimize the parameters of a neural network-based controller. The obtained controller is shown to be robust with respect to uncertainties of the robot parameters, speed of the maneuver and properties of the ground. The controller is tested using two mathematical models of significantly different complexity and accuracy.
Effect of apolactoferrin on experimental pneumococcal otitis media.

OBJECTIVE To find the effect of apolactoferrin administration on the middle and inner ears after experimentally induced pneumococcal otitis media. DESIGN Histopathologic and morphometric analysis of the middle and inner ears. SETTING University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. SUBJECTS Ten chinchillas. INTERVENTIONS The middle ear cavities of chinchillas were inoculated bilaterally with type 2 wild-type Streptococcus pneumoniae. Twenty-four hours later, the ears of 5 of the animals were injected with phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) and the other 5 with human apolactoferrin. The animals were killed 24 hours after the last injection. Bacterial counts were made of the middle ear effusions, and the cochleae were processed for histologic analysis. The thickness of the round window membranes and bacterial and inflammatory cell infiltration of the round window membranes, and scala tympani and damage of the hair cells and stria vascularis were compared for these 2 groups of animals. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Comparison of inflammatory and bacterial cells in the middle and inner ears, and damage to inner ear structures. RESULTS Bacterial plate counts of middle ear effusions (P = .005) and the number of inflammatory cells in the round window membrane (P = .047) were significantly lower in the apolactoferrin group compared with the group treated with PBS. CONCLUSION Further investigation of apolactoferrin as a nonantibiotic approach for the treatment of otitis media and its complications is needed to confirm its safety and efficacy.
Rac1 links integrin-mediated adhesion to the control of lactational differentiation in mammary epithelia

The expression of tissue-specific genes during mammary gland differentiation relies on the coincidence of two distinct signaling events: the continued engagement of β1 integrins with the extracellular matrix (ECM) and a hormonal stimulus from prolactin (Prl). How the integrin and Prl receptor (PrlR) systems integrate to regulate milk protein gene synthesis is unknown. In this study, we identify Rac1 as a key link. Dominant-negative Rac1 prevents Prl-induced synthesis of the milk protein β-casein in primary mammary epithelial cells cultured as three-dimensional acini on basement membrane. Conversely, activated Rac1 rescues the defective β-casein synthesis that occurs under conditions not normally permissive for mammary differentiation, either in β1 integrin–null cells or in wild-type cells cultured on collagen. Rac1 is required downstream of integrins for activation of the PrlR/Stat5 signaling cascade. Cdc42 is also necessary for milk protein synthesis but functions via a distinct mechanism to Rac1. This study identifies the integration of signals provided by ECM and hormones as a novel role for Rho family guanosine triphosphatases.
A Stable and Distributed Community Detection Algorithm Based on Maximal Cliques

In the research area of community detection which aims at detecting some highly cohesive vertex subsets in social network, there mainly exist some problems, such as the algorithms with comparatively excellent quality of the final partitioning usually have high time complexity and some other fast algorithms often result in low quality of partitioning or other disadvantages. Nowadays, the increasing demands for community detection in large-scale social networks necessitate the use of distributed and scalable methods to detect communities in an effective and efficient manner. Label propagation algorithm (LPA), whose time complexity is O (m) on a network with m edges, is a near linear time algorithm to detect community effectively. Besides, owing to having good scalability, the parallel version of LPA (DLPA) is suitable for community detection in large-scale social networks. However, DLPA synchronously updates the vertices labels, which usually brings about label oscillations and results in low quality of partitioning. In this paper, we analyze the drawbacks of DLPA and propose a novel method C-DLPA, which combines DLPA with the notion of maximal cliques and at the same time utilizes a new updating mechanism that updating each node' label by probability of its adjacent nodes, to make final partitioning become more accurate and to avoid oscillations effectively. The experimental results show that C-DLPA has better performance is not only low time cost by as much to avoid oscillations but its community detection accuracy compared with DLPA.
T-cell epitope strength in WAP-T mouse mammary carcinomas is an important determinant in PD1/PD-L1 immune checkpoint blockade therapy

Using the SV40 transgenic WAP-T/WAP-TNP mouse models for mammary carcinomas, we compared the response to immune checkpoint blockade therapy in tumor mice expressing either SV40 T-antigen containing the LCMV NP-epitope (T-AgNP in WAP-TNP mice), or the unmodified T-antigen (T-Ag in WAP-T mice). Specifically, we asked, whether the presence of the highly immunogenic NP-epitope in T-AgNP influences this response in comparison to the weakly immunogenic T-cell epitopes of T-Ag in WAP-T tumor mice. Treatment of WAP-TNP tumor mice with either anti-PD1 or anti-PD-L1 antibodies led to tumor regression, with anti-PD-L1 treatment being more effective. However, tumors had fully re-appeared after 21 days, indicating that CTL exhaustion had been rapidly re-established. Surprisingly, the same treatment applied to WAP-T tumor mice resulted in a significantly prolonged period of tumor regression. We provide evidence that in contrast to the weak antigenic stimuli exerted by T-cell epitopes of T-Ag, the strong antigenic stimulus of the NP-epitope in T-AgNP has a dual effect: (i) a rapid generation of active NP-specific CTLs, accompanied (ii) by accelerated CTL exhaustion. Our data support the hypothesis that the immunogenicity of tumor antigen T-cell epitopes strongly influences the success of immune checkpoint blockade therapy.
Student Misconceptions of Dynamic Programming

Dynamic Programming (DP) is considered to be one of the most difficult topics for students to understand in theoretical CS. Prior work suggests that misconceptions arise even when students have completed a course in which there is considerable focus on learning how to solve DP problems. We conducted think-aloud interviews with students who have completed the DP portion of the Algorithms course at a top North American research university. We report on three themes and their misconceptions discovered through this process. The first theme delves into students' struggles defining the notion of a subproblem and identifying particular subproblems. The second theme focuses on the understanding and usage of DP solution techniques compared to other algorithmic approaches. The third theme is composed of misconceptions related to defining and using recurrences. Analysis of each misconception provides insight into student thinking and offers ideas for improving the education of DP to university students.
Autonomic responses to ultrasound-guided percutaneous needle electrolysis of the patellar tendon in healthy male footballers.

BACKGROUND Ultrasound (US)-guided percutaneous needle electrolysis (PNE) is a novel minimally invasive approach, which involves the application of a galvanic current via an acupuncture needle. As in any procedure involving needling, vagal reactions have been reported during PNE. OBJECTIVE To examine for changes in autonomic activity during the US-guided PNE technique on healthy patellar tendons by measurement and analysis of heart rate variability (HRV). METHODS Twenty-two male footballers were randomly allocated to: a control group (11 players), for whom HRV was recorded for 10 min, both at rest and during an exhaustive US examination of the patellar tendon and adjacent structures; and an experimental group (11 players), for whom HRV was recorded for 10 min, both at rest and during application of US-guided PNE on the patellar tendon. The following HRV parameters were assessed: mean NN interval, mean heart rate, time domain parameters (SDNN, rMSSD, pNN50), diameters of the Poincaré plot (SD1, SD2), stress score, and sympathetic/parasympathetic ratio. RESULTS There were no differences between groups in any baseline measurements, nor were there any significant differences between control group measurements (baseline vs intervention). The experimental group exhibited statistically significant increases in SDNN/SD1 (p=0.02/p=0.03) and SD2 (p=0.03), indicating increased parasympathetic and decreased sympathetic activity, respectively. CONCLUSIONS US-guided PNE was associated with an autonomic imbalance characterised by greater parasympathetic activity, which could potentially result in a vasovagal reaction. Care should be taken to monitor for adverse reactions during US-guided PNE and simple HRV indicators may have a role in early detection.
Impact of a Pharmacist-Provided Spirometry Service on Access to Results in a Primary Care Setting

Objectives: The primary objective of this study was to determine the effect of a pharmacist-provided spirometry service within a federally qualified health center on the percentage of spirometry referrals completed with results reviewed by the ordering provider. Secondary objectives evaluated differences between internal and external referrals, medication recommendations made by the pharmacist, and revenue brought in by the service. Methods: Chart reviews were completed to determine the referral completion rates between patients who received a spirometry referral before (December 2014–September 2015) and after (January 2016–October 2016) the implementation of the pharmacy-provided spirometry service. Chart reviews were also used to determine the number and completion rate among referrals for internal and external services in the postimplementation time frame. Chart reviews also assessed medication recommendations made by the pharmacist. Results: The results demonstrate an increase in referral completion rate from 38.1% to 47.0% (P = .08) between the pre- and postimplementation time frames. In the postimplementation time frame, there was a statistically significant difference in the percentage of referrals completed between in-house referrals and external referrals (70.0% and 40.9%, respectively, P = .0004). Comparing clinics with and without the spirometry service, there was a statistically significant difference in the total number of spirometry referrals (1.13% and 0.59%, respectively, P < .0001) and the percent of referrals completed (0.55% and 0.27%, respectively, P = .0002). Conclusion: The results suggest that offering spirometry within the primary care setting helps to increase the rate of completed spirometry tests with results available to the primary care provider. Additionally, the results show that there is an increased completion rate in patients who receive an internal spirometry referral, which may be due to reduced barriers in obtaining this testing. Overall, these results demonstrate that providing spirometry in the primary care setting helps to increase spirometry results obtained and could be beneficial in other primary care settings.
The Role of the Work Context in Multiple Wellness Outcomes for Hospital Patient Care Workers

Objective:To examine the relationships among low back pain (LBP), inadequate physical activity, and sleep deficiency among patient care workers, and of these outcomes to work context. Methods:A cross-sectional survey of patient care workers (N = 1572, response rate = 79%). Results:A total of 53% reported LBP, 46%, inadequate physical activity, and 59%, sleep deficiency. Inadequate physical activity and sleep deficiency were associated (P = 0.02), but LBP was not significantly related to either. Increased risk of LBP was significantly related to job demands, harassment at work, decreased supervisor support, and job title. Inadequate physical activity was significantly associated with low decision latitude. Sleep deficiency was significantly related to low supervisor support, harassment at work, low ergonomic practices, people-oriented culture, and job title. Conclusions:These findings point to shared pathways in the work environment that jointly influence multiple health and well-being outcomes.
Low power architecture for high speed packet classification

Today's routers need to perform packet classification at wire speed in order to provide critical services such as traffic billing, priority routing and blocking unwanted Internet traffic. With everincreasing ruleset size and line speed, the task of implementing wire speed packet classification with reduced power consumption remains difficult. Software approaches are unable to classify packets at wire speed as line rates reach OC-768, while state of the art hardware approaches such as TCAM still consume large amounts of power. This paper presents a low power architecture for a high speed packet classifier which can meet OC-768 line rate. The architecture consists of an adaptive clocking unit which dynamically changes the clock speed of an energy efficient packet classifier to match fluctuations in traffic on a router line card. It achieves this with the help of a scheme developed to keep clock frequencies at the lowest speed capable of servicing the line card while reducing frequency switches. The low power architecture has been tested on OC-48, OC-192 and OC-768 packet traces created from real life network traces obtained from NLANR while classifying packets using synthetic rulesets containing up to 25,000 rules. Simulation results of our classifier implemented on a Cyclone 3 and Stratix 3 FPGA, and as an ASIC show that power savings of between 17--88% can be achieved, using our adaptive clocking unit rather than a fixed clock speed.
Percutaneous Coronary Intervention for ST-elevation Myocardial Infarction: Drug-Eluting Stents or Bare Metal Stents?

The treatment paradigm for patients with an ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) has shifted greatly in the last 20 years. The use of fibrinolytic agents vastly altered the landscape in treating this entity and was further advanced by the introduction of percutaneous catheter-based methods of therapy. Percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) has become the preferred method of treatment for patients with this condition when compared with thrombolytic agents as evidenced by a number of positive clinical trials. However, PCI in itself has had several adaptations over the last decade, namely in the shift from a balloon-only approach to the widespread usage of balloon-expandable metallic stents. The use of bare metal stents has proven to be more efficacious in regard to rates of repeat procedures when compared with the balloon-only approach and has become a standard in PCI for STEMI. The composition of the stents themselves had also undergone transformation as evidenced by the introduction of drug-eluting stents (DES). Although there have been encouraging data to support the use of DES in the elective setting, the use of these devices in primary PCI has been controversial. The pathologic milieu that is present in the STEMI setting is distinctly different than that seen in the elective, stable atherosclerotic setting and the use of DES has raised concerns over safety issues with their implementation. There have been a host of recent studies dedicated to elucidating the risk of using DES versus bare metal stents in the setting of STEMI and although the results have been generally favorable for the use of DES, this subject remains one that is under significant scrutiny.
Virtual review of large scale image stack on 3D display

Large scale images allow pathologists to perform reviews, using computer workstations instead of microscopes. This trend raises a wide range of issues related to the management of these massive datasets. In particular, efficient solutions for data storage and processing have to be developed in order to deliver increasingly reliable and faster analyses. In addition, the improvement of workflows also requires the reinforcement of visualization capabilities. In this paper, we present a new virtual microscopy (VM) approach for interactive-time navigation in large images stack with 3D visualization on multistereo display. Our work is based on a tool that combines 3D pyramidal representation and out-of-core data management for interactive on-demand streaming of large datasets on GPUs. The preliminary results suggest that the proposed solution facilitates the reading and the understanding of data essentially because they are spatialized.
Independent Association of Muscular Strength and Carotid Intima-Media Thickness in Children

Abstract The aim of this cross-sectional study was to examine the influence of muscular strength on carotid intima-media thickness (cIMT) in children, controlling for the effect of cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and central adiposity and to examine if differences among muscular strength tertiles translate to physiological differences. We assessed cIMT of the common carotid artery in 366 children between 11–12 years of age (191 girls). Measures included cIMT assessed with high-resolution ultrasonography, a maximal handgrip strength test, body fat mass and lean mass from DXA and CRF determined using a maximal cycle ergometer test. Association between muscular strength and cIMT adjusted for CRF and central adiposity, as measured by trunk fat, was tested with multiple linear regression analysis. Differences in risk factors among muscular strength groups were tested with ANOVA. The Muscular Strength Index (MSI) was inversely associated with cIMT independently of CRF and central adiposity (p<0.05). The low MSI group had the highest values of cIMT, waist circumference and systolic blood pressure and the lowest CRF (p<0.05). There was an inverse and independent association between muscular strength and cIMT. Low muscular strength was associated with higher levels of cardiovascular disease risk factors in children.
Dose‐escalation is needed for gross disease in high‐risk neuroblastoma

Locoregional failure is common after subtotal resection in high‐risk neuroblastoma. Although a dose of 21 Gy radiation therapy (RT) is standard for treatment of high‐risk neuroblastoma after gross total resection, the dose needed for local control of patients with gross residual disease at the time of RT is unknown. We sought to evaluate local control after 21–36 Gy RT in patients with high‐risk neuroblastoma undergoing subtotal resection.
Region average pooling for context-aware object detection

Object detection has been a key task in computer vision with deep convolutional neural networks being a significant performer. We propose a method named Region Average Pooling that leverages object co-occurrence to improve object detection performance. Given regions of interest in an image, our method augments object detection networks with pooled contextual features from other regions of interest in the scene. We implement our scheme and evaluate it on the Pascal Visual Object Classes (VOC) 2007 and Microsoft Common Objects in Context (MS COCO) datasets. When used as part of the Faster R-CNN object detection framework with VGG-16, we show an increase in mAP from 24.2% to 25.5% over baseline Faster R-CNN and Global Average Pooling when testing on MS COCO.
Joint nonlocal sparse representation for depth map super-resolution

Depth image super-resolution reconstruction has gained significant popularity due to its practicability. However, conventional depth image super-resolution reconstruction methods access high frequency information either from a high-resolution depth image database or from a high-resolution color image of the same scene, which is limited in specific applications. In this paper, a novel joint nonlocal sparse representation model is proposed, which is able to capture the interdependency of low-resolution depth and intensity information. As a relative new and not well addressed problem, we reconstruct a high-resolution depth image from a single low-resolution depth image with a low-resolution color image as reference. Experiment results demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms many current state-of-the-art depth map super-resolution approaches on both visual effects and objective image quality.
Delta Features From Ambient Sensor Data are Good Predictors of Change in Functional Health

Sensor systems can be deployed in the homes of older adults living alone for functional health assessments. Their information is very useful for health care specialists. The problem lies in developing person independent models while facing a large variability in behavior. We address this problem by, first, proposing a new feature extraction method for data from ambient motion sensors. The method uses functional similarities between houses and daily structure to extract meaningful features. Second, we propose a change-based approach for analyzing data, taking difference scores of both the sensor features and health metrics. To evaluate our approach, experiments on longitudinal data were conducted, where the relationship between sensor data and health measurements was modeled with linear regression and (nonlinear) regression forests. These experiments show that the change-based approach yields better results and that the resulting models can be used as a reliable metric for (functional) health. In addition, feature analysis can help health care specialists understand relevant aspects of behavior. Prediction of health metrics is possible even with simple sensors. With such sensors, it is possible to detect problems and health decline in an early stage. This will have great impact on clinical practice.