Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Common Framework for Generating Liver Tetrahedral FEM Models from CT Slices

Generating tetrahedral meshes from CT slices is a very important step in a hepatic surgical simulation. Manual creating of these tetrahedrons is often very hard or impossible, because of hepatic geometry complexity. Therefore we have developed a common framework for generating liver tetrahedral FEM models from CT slices. This framework is consists of several steps includes liver segmentation, 3D reconstruction, mesh simplification and Delaunay triangulation. The tetrahedrons we finally get can be used for further FEM analysis. This framework could be extended to use in the other human tissue modeling with small change.
Supervised frequency change detection using MCMC methods

Classical abrupt change detection needs to fix a threshold often difficult to be tuned. We propose to learn this value on a training set of signals, considering then the detection as a supervised classification problem. We describe here a bayesian approach. As a closed form of this bayesian learning is untractable, a stochastic simulation method (MCMC) is proposed leading to a good approximation of the posterior probability of change. The method is applied first to an academic problem for which an analytical solution exists and allows comparisons. Then a generalization of the composite hypothesis, corresponding to the most of real cases, is proposed and applied to abrupt frequency change detection in noisy multicomponent signals. Presented results show the influence of training set size on the performances of detection.
Simultaneous Elicitation of Preference Features and Utility

Most frameworks for utility elicitation assume a predefined set of features over which user preferences are expressed. We consider utility elicitation in the presence of subjective or user-defined features, whose definitions are not known in advance. We treat the problem of learning a user's feature definition as one of concept learning, but whose goal is to learn only enough about the concept definition to enable a good decision to be made. This is complicated by the fact that user utility is unknown. We describe computational procedures for identifying optimal alternatives w.r. t minimax regret in the presence of both utility and concept uncertainty; and develop several heuristic query strategies that focus simultaneously on reduction of relevant concept and utility uncertainty.
Molecular cloning, tissue distribution, and ontogenetic expression of ghrelin and regulation of expression by fasting and refeeding in the grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idellus).

Ghrelin is a recently discovered brain-gut peptide in fish and mammals. It has two main physiological functions-stimulating growth hormone secretion and regulating appetite. To investigate the biological function of ghrelin in appetite regulation in grass carp Ctenopharyngodon idellus, the full-length cDNA sequence of the ghrelin gene was obtained by RT-PCR and rapid amplification of cDNA ends methods. Homology analysis indicated that ghrelin cDNA sequence is conserved in teleosts. The grass carp ghrelin gene consists of four exons and three introns, which is similar to that of common carp, zebrafish and humans. Real-time quantitative PCR was used to detect ghrelin mRNA expression in the study. In adult tissues, high levels of gene expression were found in the foregut; moderate levels in the muscle, liver, hypothalamus, white adipose tissue, midgut, heart, and pituitary; and lower levels in the three other examined tissues. During embryonic development, ghrelin mRNA expression could be detected as early as fertilized egg stage and displayed an increase in expression until heart appearance stage. After hatching, the level of ghrelin mRNA expression decreased sharply to the lowest level at 1 day post-hatching (dph), then increased to a higher level at 7 dph and subsequently decreased to a relative stabilized level from 15 to 35 dph. The ghrelin mRNA expression was significantly upregulated in the brain and intestine during fasting and was downregulated after refeeding. The results suggest that ghrelin mRNA expression has obvious tissue specificity and may have a role in appetite regulation in grass carp.
Load Instruction Characterization and Acceleration of the BioPerf Programs

The load instructions of some of the bioinformatics applications in the BioPerf suite possess interesting characteristics: only a few static loads cover almost the entire dynamic load execution and they almost always hit in the data cache. Nevertheless, these load instructions represent a major performance bottleneck. They often precede or follow branches that are hard to predict, which makes their L1 hit latency difficult to hide even in dynamically scheduled execution cores. This paper investigates this behavior and suggests simple source-code transformations to improve the performance of these benchmark programs by up to 92%
Pseudorandom Bits for Polynomials

We present a new approach to constructing pseudorandom generators that fool low-degree polynomials over finite fields, based on the Gowers norm. Using this approach, we obtain the following main constructions of explicitly computable generators G : FsrarrFn that fool polynomials over a prime field F: (1) a generator that fools degree-2 (i.e., quadratic) polynomials to within error 1/n, with seed length s = O(log n); (2) a generator that fools degree-3 (i.e., cubic) polynomials to within error epsiv, with seed length s = O(Iog|F| n) + f(epsiv, F) where f depends only on epsiv and F (not on n), (3) assuming the "Gowers inverse conjecture," for every d a generator that fools degree-d polynomials to within error epsiv, with seed length, s = O(dldrIog|F| n) + f(d, epsiv, F) where f depends only on d, epsiv, and F (not on n). We stress that the results in (1) and (2) are unconditional, i.e. do not rely on any unproven assumption. Moreover, the results in (3) rely on a special case of the conjecture which may be easier to prove. Our generator for degree-d polynomials is the component-wise sum of d generators for degree-l polynomials (on independent seeds). Prior to our work, generators with logarithmic seed length were only known for degree-1 (i.e., linear) polynomials (Naor and Naor; SIAM J. Comput., 1993). In fact, over small fields such as F2 = {0,1}, our results constitute the first progress on these problems since the long-standing generator by Luby, Velickovic and Wigderson (ISTCS1993), whose seed length is much bigger: s = exp (Omega(radiclogn)), even for the case of degree-2 polynomials over F2.
Broncho-alveolar lavage in chronic upper respiratory tract infections

Abstract The relationship between upper and lower respiratory tract infections has been demonstrated previously, although the effect of chronic infection of One tract on the other has not been well studied. This work analyses the broncho-alveolar lavage fluid of patients with chronic purulent rhino-sinusitis and reveals and increase in the neutrophil nitro-blue tetrazolium dye reduction test positivity provides evidence for increased phagocutosis to compensate for the increased contamination of the lower respiratory tract.
Crosslinguistic Analysis and Modeling of Prosody

This study concerns analysis and modeling of prosody in a computational context. It aims at an exploration of the interaction between prosodic markers on the one hand, and the lexical, the syntactic and discourse level of the utterances on the other. The analysis is a step towards a computational discourse-grammar-prosody model. We concentrate on the pattern of distribution and duration of silent pauses in German and Swedish. The possibility of integrating the results in a multilingual text generation system is then discussed.
Development of human complement system.

The development of the human C′ system was studied by quantitation of total serum hemolytic C′ activity (C′H50) and the individual serum protein C′ components, C′3, C′4 and C′5, in premature and term neonates. It was found that term and premature newborns were deficient in C′H50, C′3, C′4 and C′5 as compared with their mothers and normal adults. In only one instance the neonatal concentrations of C′H50, C′3, C′4 and C′5 were greater than those in the maternal serum; in this instance mother had a marked deficiency of serum C′H50, C′3, C′4 and C′5. The ratios of term neonatal-to-maternal serum concentrations were: C′H50, 0.53; C′3, 0.54; C′4, 0.56; C′5, 0.61. The calculated maternal-neonatal correlation coefficients (r) were: C′H50, 0.61; C′3, 0.32; C′4, 0.50; C′5, 0.31. Serum concentrations of C′H50, C′3, C′4 and C′5 increased proportionally with gestational neonatal age and reached adult concentrations within 3 to 6 months of age. In general, the synthesis of C′3, C′4 and C′5 appeared to develop simultaneously and in sequence with total hemolytic activity (C′H50).
DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN CAPITAL AS A TOOL FOR IMPROVING PRODUCTIVITY OF AGRICULTURAL SECTOR – CASE OF SERBIA

New trends in global economy require greater capacity of the agricultural workforce. In order improve agricultural productivity it is needed to increase the level of human capital of the agrarian population. Human capital is accumulated knowledge, created in the long term process of human resources development, which begins in early stages and last all through the life, which is especially true for agricultural business. During transition Serbian economy went through major changes, with agriculture trailing to other sectors of the economy. Each farmer is producing only around 3,000 € gross added value per year, which is substantially lower than in other sectors. This paper will analyze what innovative activities are used worldwide in agriculture and give some possible solutions for investments in human capital and development of human resources in order to increase the level of competitiveness. Finally we analyze Serbian agricultural education system and give some instructions for improvements.
Accumulation of metals in the five commercially important freshwater fishes available in vellar river, Tamil Nadu, India

The accumulation of metals like Chromium, Cadmium, Copper, Lead and Zinc in five freshwater fish Megalaspis cordyla, Heteropneustes fossilis, Tilapia mossambica, Mystus vittatus and Mugil cephalus, from vellar River Tamil Nadu, India, January 2010 to June 2010 were investigated in the present study. The levels of metals accumulated were analyzed through the Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer. The results shows the Cr concentrations were the maximum levels followed by Cd > Cu > P b >Zn among the metals analyzed, Zn were the lowest concentration in the five fish species. The levels of metals accumulated by the fish are may be due to increased fertilizers, agricultural wastes, industrial effluents and some anthropogenic activities. The magnitudes of metals concentration were discussed with the available literature.
Design of high energy efficiency 32bit processing unit using instruction-levels data gating and dynamic voltage scaling techniques

This paper describes design and circuit simulation of the high energy efficiency 32bit processing unit (PU) using instruction-levels data gating and dynamic voltage scaling (DVS) techniques. We present instruction-levels data gating and DVS technique. We can control activation and switching activity of the function units using the proposed data gating technique and we can control powers of the function units using the proposed DVS technique. We simulated the power and circuit simulation for running test program using Spectra with layout extraction data which does not include PAD. We selected the optimum reduced power supply to 0.667 times of the supplied power supply in this paper. The energy efficiency of the proposed 32bit processing unit using instruction-levels data gating and DVS techniques can improve about 88.4% than that of the 32bit processing unit without using instruction-levels data gating and DVS techniques. The energy efficiency of the proposed instruction-level DVS technique having dual-power supply is similar to the complicated DVS which is DC-DC converter and voltage scheduler controlled by the operation system but a hardware implementation is very easy. The designed high energy efficiency 32bit processing unit can utilize as the coprocessor processing massive data at high speed.
Why hour glasses tick.

We have found experimentally that the flow of sand in an hour glass is oscillatory in a certain range of parameters. The oscillatory motion results from a coupling between the flow of sand and convection of air through the sand matrix. The period of the oscillation is remarkably insensitive to the grain size, while the mass of the sand contained in one period strongly depends on it
FDG-PET / CT for prognostic stratification of patients with multiple myeloma relapse after stem cell transplantation

The aim of this study was to investigate the prognostic value of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography–computed tomography (18F-FDG-PET/ CT) in 37 patients with a history of multiple myeloma (MM) and suspected or confirmed recurrence after stem cell transplantation (SCT). All patients had been heavily pretreated. Time to progression (TTP) and overall survival (OS) were correlated to a number of different PET-derived as well as clinical parameters. Impact on patient management was assessed. Absence of FDG-avid MM foci was a positive prognostic factor for both TTP and OS (p<0.01). Presence of >10 focal lesions correlated with both TTP (p<0.01) and OS (p<0.05). Interestingly, presence of >10 lesions in the appendicular skeleton proved to have the strongest association with disease progression. Intensity of glucose uptake and presence of extramedullary disease were associated with shorter TTP (p=0.037 and p=0.049, respectively). Manifestations in soft tissue structures turned out to be a strong negative predictor for both, TTP and OS (p<0.01, respectively). PET resulted in a change of management in 30% of patients. Our data underline the prognostic value of 18F-FDG-PET/CT in MM patients also in the setting of post-SCT relapse. PET/CT has a significant impact on patient
The Role of the Substantia Nigra Pars Compacta in Regulating Sleep Patterns in Rats

Background As of late, dopaminergic neurotransmission has been recognized to be involved in the generation of sleep disturbances. Increasing evidence shows that sleep disturbances in Parkinson's disease (PD) patients are mostly related to the disease itself, rather than being a secondary phenomenon. Evidence contained in the literature lends support to the hypothesis that the dopaminergic nigrostriatal pathway is closely involved in the regulation of sleep patterns. Methodology/Principal Findings To test this hypothesis we examined the electrophysiological activity along the sleep-wake cycle of rats submitted to a surgically induced lesion of the SNpc by 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP). We demonstrated that a 50% lesion of the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNpc) suffices to produce disruptions of several parameters in the sleep-wake pattern of rats. A robust and constant decrease in the latency to the onset of slow wave sleep (SWS) was detected throughout the five days of recording in both light [F(22.16) = 72.46, p<0.0001] and dark [F(22.16) = 75.0, p<0.0001] periods. Also found was a pronounced increase in the percentage of sleep efficiency during the first four days of recording [F(21.15) = 21.48, p<0.0001], in comparison to the sham group. Additionally, the reduction in the SNpc dopaminergic neurons provoked an ablation in the percentage of rapid eye movement sleep (REM) during three days of the sleep-wake recording period with a strong correlation (r = 0.91; p<0.0001) between the number of dopaminergic neurons lost and the percentage decrease of REM sleep on the first day of recording. On day 4, the percentage of REM sleep during the light and dark periods was increased, [F(22.16) = 2.46, p<0.0007], a phenomenon consistent with REM rebound. Conclusions/Significance We propose that dopaminergic neurons present in the SNpc possess a fundamental function in the regulation of sleep processes, particularly in promoting REM sleep.
LAND USE LEGACY REGULATES MICROBIAL COMMUNITY STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION IN TRANSPLANTED CHERNOZEMS

iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . iv LIST OF TABLES . ix LIST OF FIGURES . xi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS . xv 1.0. GENERAL INTRODUCTION . 1 1.1. Organization Of Dissertation . 5 2.0. LITERATURE REVIEW . 7 2.1. The Ecology of Soil Microbial Communities . 7 2.2. C-cycling in Terrestrial Ecosystems . 12 2.2.1. Soil C cycle . 12 2.2.2. Influence of land use practices on terrestrial C cycling . 13 2.3. N-cycling in Terrestrial Ecosystem: processes and agricultural impact . 15 2.3.1 Nitrogen inputs to ecosystem . 15 2.3.2. Soil nitrification . 16 2.3.3. Ammonia oxidizer community and factors affecting nitrification . 17 2.3.4 Soil denitrification . 18 2.3.5 Factors affecting denitrification . 19 2.3.6. Influence of N fertilizer application on soil microorganisms . 20 2.4. Tools to Soil Study Microbial Communities. 21 3.0. A SURVEY OF MICROBIAL ABUNDANCE AND DIVERSITY IN TRANSPLANTED CHERNOZEMS MANAGED UNDER COMMON CLIMATE AND TOPOGRAPHIC CONDITIONS FOR 21 YEARS . 24 vi 3.1. PREFACE . 24 3.2. ABSTRACT . 25 3.3. INTRODUCTION . 26 3.4. MATERIALS AND METHODS . 27 3.4. 1. Long-term soil quality experiment design and implementation . 27 3.4. 2. Microbial community profiling . 30 3.4. 3. Soil sampling and processing . 33 3.4. 4. Microbial abundance and community composition analysis . 33 3.4. 5. Extraction of DNA, microbial abundance and community structure analysis . 34 3.4. 6. Estimation of microbial population size using qPCR . 35 3.4. 7. Assessing nitrifier and denitrifier community structure . 38 3.4. 8. Soil chemical analysis . 43 3.4. 9. Statistical analysis. 43 3.5. RESULTS . 45 3.5. 1 Soil chemical properties 21 years after transplantation . 45 3.5. 2. Microbial abundance and community composition . 48 3.5. 3. Abundance of genes involved in nitrification and denitrification . 54 3.5. 4. Ammonia oxidizer and denitrifier community structures of the transplanted soils . 58 3.5. 5. Changes in soil C and N pools 21 years after transplantation . 62 3.5. 6. Relationships of current microbial abundance and composition with original soil properties . 65 3.6. DISCUSSION . 68 3.7 CONCLUSION . 76 4.0. CHANGES IN MICROBIAL COMMUNITY STRUCTURE USING ARCHIVE SOILS OF TRANSPLANTED CHERNOZEMS . 78
A 3.0GHz∼13.8GHz ultra-wideband planar monopole micro strip antenna

This paper presents a planar microstrip-fed monopole antenna for ultra wideband (UWB) applications. This antenna is based on the planar rectangle monopole antenna. The characteristic of the antenna can be improved by altering the figure of the radiation patch and the ground. HFSS is used to conduct simulation calculation so as to get various performance parameter of the antenna, to make sure that its frequency band range is 3.1GHz~10.6GHz, and to meet the design requirement of the ultra-wideband antenna. The antenna size 32mm × 38mm × lmm, and it realizes the miniaturization of the antenna.
Testing the Effects of a Decision Aid for Prostate Cancer Screening

There is an ever-growing trend toward more patient involvement in making health care decisions. This trend has been accompanied by the development of “informed decision-making” interventions to help patients become more engaged and comfortable with making these decisions. We describe the effects of a prostate cancer screening decision aid on knowledge, beliefs about screening, risk perception, control preferences, decisional conflict, and decisional anxiety. Data were collected from 200 males aged 50–70 years in the general population who randomly were assigned to exposure to the decision aid or no exposure as a control condition. A Solomon four-group design was used to test for possible pretest sensitization effects and to assess the effects of exposure to the decision aid. No significant pretest sensitization effects were found. Analysis of the exposure effects found that knowledge increased significantly for those exposed to the decision aid compared with those unexposed. Exposure to the decision aid also had some influence on decreasing both decisional conflict and decisional anxiety. Decision aids can play an important role in increasing patients' knowledge and decreasing anxiety when asked to make health care decisions.
Environmental geochemistry and petrology of the recent sediments from lakes in the vicinity of the coal-fired power plants in central Alberta, Canada

This study utilizes geochemical and petrological approaches to characterize recent sediments and their porewaters from the central Alberta lakes to elucidate the possible impact from coal utilization in this region. A multi-elemental analysis of recent sediments in conjunction with other inorganic and organic geochemical approaches are applied to determine the sources, quantity, and processes involved in the temporal and spatial distribution of trace elements in the study region. Concentration versus depth profiles in the sediments and the associated porewaters suggest that geochemical processes impact the mobility and vertical distribution of trace elements in these sediments. Although inputs of trace elements to ecosystems have clearly been elevated by emissions from the coal-fired power plants, diagenetic processes and natural inputs cannot be ignored in determining the temporal and spatial distribution of lake sediments. A combination of various biogeochemical processes may control the distribution of elements and nutrients in sediment and porewater. However, because of the alkalinity and eutrophic conditions of the studied lakes, and in particular Wabamun Lake, the Ca-OM fraction plays the most important role as substrate for trace elements and nutrients (e.g., P). The higher input of calcareous fly ash in Wabamun Lake as compared to the other studied lakes may cause higher scavenging of trace metals. The size of fly ash particles tends to decrease towards the more recent part of the sediment profile indicating the effect of particle emission control measures adopted by
Quasi-Developable Mesh Surface Interpolation via Mesh Deformation

We present a new algorithm for finding a most "developable" smooth mesh surface to interpolate a given set of arbitrary points or space curves. Inspired by the recent progress in mesh editing that employs the concepts of preserving the Laplacian coordinates and handle-based shape editing, we formulate the interpolation problem as a mesh deformation process that transforms an initial developable mesh surface, such as a planar figure, to a final mesh surface that interpolates the given points and/or curves. During the deformation, the developability of the intermediate mesh is maintained by means of preserving the zero-valued Gaussian curvature on the mesh. To treat the high nonlinearity of the geometric constrains owing to the preservation of Gaussian curvature, we linearize those nonlinear constraints using Taylor expansion and eventually construct a sparse and over-determined linear system which is subsequently solved by a robust least-squares solution. By iteratively performing this procedure, the initial mesh is gradually and smoothly "dragged" to the given points and/or curves. The initial experimental data has shown some promising aspects of the proposed algorithm as a general quasi-developable surface interpolation tool.