Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The influence of follicle size on the developmental kinetics of bovine embryos

1Clinic for reproduction and Obstetrics, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia 2Postgraduate specialist student, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia 3Department of Physiology and radiobiology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia 4Center for Reproduction and Animals Breeding of Croatia, Križevci, Croatia 5Croatian Veterinary institute, Zagreb, Croatia
Towards Sensor-Actuator Coupling in an Automated OrderPicking System by Detecting Sealed Seams on PouchPacked Goods

In this paper, a novel concept of coupling the actuators of an automated order picking system for pouch packed goods with an embedded CCD camera sensor by means of image processing and machine learning is presented. The picking system mechanically combines the conveyance and singularization of a still-connected chain of pouch packed goods in a single machinery. The proposed algorithms perform a per-frame processing of the captured images in real-time to detect the sealed seams of the ongoing pouches. The detections are used to deduce cutting decisions in order to control the system’s actuators, namely the drive pulley for conveyance and the cutting device for the separation. Within this context, two controlling strategies are presented as well which specify the interaction of the sensor and the actuators. The detection is carried out by two different marker detection strategies: enhanced Template Matching as a heuristic and Support Vector Machines as a supervised classification based concept. Depending on the employed marker, detection rates of almost 100% with a calculation time of less than 40 ms are possible. From a logistic point of view, sealed seam widths of 20 mm prove feasible.
Multi Layer Analysis

This thesis presents a new methodology to analyze one-dimensional signals trough a new approach called Multi Layer Analysis, for short MLA. It also provides some new insights on the relationship between one-dimensional signals processed by MLA and tree kernels, test of randomness and signal processing techniques. The MLA approach has a wide range of application to the fields of pattern discovery and matching, computational biology and many other areas of computer science and signal processing. This thesis includes also some applications of this approach to real problems in biology and seismology.
Hemodynamic effect of atrioventricular and interventricular dyssynchrony in patients with biventricular pacing: Implications for the pacemaker syndrome

Background/Objectives: Pacemaker syndrome was mainly described as the sequel of atrioventricular (AV) dyssynchrony. The role of interventricular (VV) dyssynchrony has not been studied yet. The aims of this study were to noninvasively assess the hemodynamic effects of different ventricular pacing sites with and without AV and VV dyssynchrony and to observe the patients for clinical symptoms of the pacemaker syndrome during the AV sequential and ventricular-only pacing modes. Materials and Methods: Between March 2009 and February 2010, 40 patients (28 men; mean age, 61 ± 15 years) with biventricular (BiV) device were enrolled. Mean systolic and diastolic blood pressures (BP) of 5 beats were measured 5 minutes after each mode change using fingertip plethysmography. The patients were also observed for the occurrence of symptoms suggestive of the pacemaker syndrome, including dyspnea, palpitations, dizziness, presyncope, and syncope. Results: There was no difference in mean systolic BP among different ventricular-only pacing modes (all P = NS). However, mean systolic BP was significantly higher in AV sequential biventricular pacing (DDD-BiV) compared with ventricular-only pacing modes (all P<0.05). In addition, there was no difference in terms of pacemaker syndrome-related symptoms following mode change from DDD-BiV to DDD-RV or DDD-LV (all P>0.05). Conclusions: The present study showed that the non-AV sequential BiV and LV pacing may have no significant benefit compared with RV pacing in terms of systolic blood pressure. However, there was marked hemodynamic improvement following mode change to AV sequential BiV pacing. This study may have important implications for pathogenesis of pacemaker syndrome.
Effects of different iron supply to pregnant sows (Sus scrofa domestica L.) on reproductive performance as well as iron status of new-born piglets

ABSTRACT The present study aimed to investigate the effects of different iron (Fe) supply to sows during gestation on their reproductive performance and placental Fe load. Additionally, the Fe status of the corresponding offspring was assessed. Twenty multiparous sows were fed from insemination to farrowing with isoenergetic and isonitrogenic balanced diets differing in Fe content. The diet low in Fe (Group −Fe) was mainly composed of soybean meal and maize meal and had a Fe content of 114 mg/kg DM. For the diet high in Fe (Group +Fe), the diet was supplemented with Fe(II)SO4 · 7H2O to a total Fe content of 256 mg/kg. Blood characteristics (haemoglobin, haematocrit, mean corpuscular haem concentration, total Fe-binding capacity, transferrin saturation) of all sows were measured at the beginning and at the end of gestation. Daily Fe retention was calculated at the day of farrowing. After birth, reproductive performance (litter size, piglet weight, litter weight), placental Fe content and Fe blood characteristics of the piglets were determined. Apparent daily Fe retention tended to be greater in Group +Fe (p < 0.1). Blood parameters of the sows did not show any variations between feeding groups, neither at the beginning nor at the end of pregnancy, whereas placental Fe content was lower in Group −Fe (p < 0.05). In addition, Fe supply during gestation improved litter size (p < 0.01) and litter weight (p < 0.05). Although all sows were supplied according to the current Fe recommendations, a significant decline in reproductive performance of Group −Fe was recognised. Therefore, it was concluded that the re-evaluation of the gross Fe requirements of pregnant sows is inevitable to accommodate the current feeding recommendations.
Pancreas sparing resection for giant hamartoma of Brunner's glands.

CONTEXT Benign proliferative changes of the Brunner's glands account for about 10% of neoplasias of the duodenal bulb. CASE REPORT The authors present a case of giant hamartoma of Brunner's glands. The patient presented clinically with vague epigastric discomfort. A pancreas-sparing duodenal resection was performed. The patient made an uneventful recovery and is well at a one year follow-up. The diagnosis was established on histopathology. CONCLUSION Duodenal hamartomas are rare and may become very large, mandating surgical removal. A pancreas-sparing duodenal resection is one of the modalities of treating such lesions.
Success in the management of crowdfunding projects in the creative industries

Purpose – Crowdfunding has become a significant way of funding independent film. However, undertaking a campaign can be time consuming and risky. The purpose of this paper is to understand the predictors likely to produce a film campaign that meets its funding goal. Design/methodology/approach – This study analyses 100 creative crowdfunding campaigns within the film and video category on crowdfunding website Kickstarter. Campaigns were analysed in relation to a number of variables, followed by a discriminant analysis to highlight the main predictors of crowdfunding success. Findings – This study finds key predictors of crowdfunding success and investigates differences between successful and failed crowdfunding campaigns. The attributes of these predictors lead us to question the long-term ability of crowdfunding to aid companies poorer in terms of time, financial and personnel resources, and therefore arguably in the greatest need of crowdfunding platforms. Practical implications – The findings provide in.
Design and implementation of FPGA-based FSK IF digital receiver

FSK (frequency-shift keying) IF (intermediate frequency) digital receiver based on FPGA (field programmable gate array) technique is studied. With compared to fixed analog circuits, FPGA can offer more system flexibility, programmability than fixed analog systems. Bandpass sampling, DDC and CORDIC digital phase discrimination techniques are adopted, which are implemented in FPGA. Its performance is investigated over practical signal. The experiments results show that the performance of it is almost same as that of optimal noncoherent receiver. The highlight is that the receiver proposed can offer more system flexibility, programmability than fixed analog systems
Gene for incontinentia pigmenti maps to band Xp11 with an (X;10) (p11;q22) translocation

Incontinentia pigmenti (IP) is a genetic disease that is usually lethal in males. We report finding an X;10 translocation in a girl with IP. Three other X/autosome translations have been observed in females with IP: two involving chromosome 9 and one involving chromosome 17. The breakpoint in all four cases in the X chromosome was in band Xp11. The IP gene locus can therefore be confidently assigned to the X chromosome and, specifically, to band Xp11. The IP gene is most likely in subband Xp11.2. We propose that IP may prove to be a submicroscopic deletion.
Stochastic optimal control with variable impedance manipulators in presence of uncertainties and delayed feedback

Muscle co-contraction can be modeled as an active modulation of the passive musculo-skeletal compliance. Within this context, recent findings in human motor control have shown that active compliance modulation is fundamental when planning movements in presence of unpredictability and uncertainties. Along this line of research, this paper investigates the link between active impedance control and unpredictability, with special focus on robotic applications. Different types of actuators are considered and confronted to extreme situations such as moving in an unstable force field and controlling a system with significant delays in the feedback loop. We use tools from stochastic optimal control to illustrate the possibility of optimally planning the intrinsic system stiffness when performing movements in such situations. In the extreme case of total feedback absence, different actuators model are considered and their performance in dealing with unpredictability compared. Finally, an application of the proposed theories on planning reaching movements with the iCub humanoid platform is proposed.
Influences of Stereotypes and Emotions Toward Women Immigrants by Marriage on Social Distances

The purpose of this study was to investigate the social distance of college students toward women immigrants by marriage and influencing factors. The considered factors were stereotypes, emotions and socioeconomic variables. The subjects were 324 college students and the data were collected during October 15-29, 2007. Findings of this study are as follows: the college students' scores of social distance toward women immigrants by marriage were less than midpoint (3.0), which means that the social distance of college students toward women immigrants by marriage was not that high. The college students' score of negative stereotype and positive stereotype were very similar. The score of sympathetic emotion was a little higher than negative emotion and positive emotion. To find the factors affecting social distances, regression analysis was executed. The social distances of students were influenced by negative emotions and positive emotions toward the women immigrants by marriage. Stereotypes toward women immigrants by marriage did not have a significant influence on social distances. These variables accounted for 44% of the variance of social distances.
EL CUESTIONARIO DE ATRIBUCIONES PARA EDUCACIÓN FÍSICA: ANÁLISIS EXPLORATORIO Y CONFIRMATORIO THE ATTRIBUTIONS QUESTIONAIRE FOR THE PHYSICAL EDUCATION: EXPLORATORY AND CONFIRMATION ANALYSIS

The Attributional Questionnaire for Physi cal Education was elaborated for the student’s causal attributions evaluation in physical edu cation classes. It was assumed that the attribu tions for the subjects’s outcomes has an effect on their expectancies and on the effort that pro vides on the performance (Weiner, 1986, 1992, 1996). The sample were 574 secondary educa tion students who completed the Attributions Questionnaire for Physical Education. Were car ried out exploratory factorial analysis, realibity and discrimination analysis, and confirmatory factorial analysis. The results showed that to ex ist two factors, internal and external attribu tions, the questionnaire’s reability was accept able, and the obteined values for the several goodness of fit indexes corresponding to com pletely standardized solution permits to con clude that the model fit the data, and evidences of the questionnaire’s construct validity were obtained.
Modulation of soluble ovarian adenosine 3',5'-monophosphate-dependent protein kinase activity during prepubertal development in the rat. II. Evaluation of the catalytic subunit inhibitor activity.

In a previous report on the ontogeny of the ovarian adenosine 3',5'-monophosphate (cAMP)-dependent protein kinase activity during prepubertal development of the rat, we concluded that the 4-fold decline in cAMP-dependent protein kinase activity observed in ovaries of 21- to 23-day-old rats was due to the presence of a heat-labile inhibitor in the ovarian extracts (Hunzicker-Dunn et al., 1984). We developed an assay for this ovarian kinase inhibitor activity that was based on the observation that ovarian cytosol added to an exogenous catalytic subunit of cAMP-dependent protein kinase caused a time-dependent and ovarian cytosol protein concentration-dependent inhibition of exogenous catalytic subunit phosphotransferase activity. The present studies were conducted to evaluate the basis for this catalytic subunit inhibitor present in soluble rat ovarian extracts of prepubertal-aged rats. This inhibitor activity was absent from cytosol extracts of rat corpora lutea, rat liver, rabbit follicles, and rabbit corpora lutea. Inhibitor activity present in rat ovarian cytosol was not attributable to insufficient levels of the phosphorylation substrate Kemptide. Inhibitor activity was also not related to the presence of the large amount of catalytic subunit-free regulatory subunit of the cAMP-dependent protein kinase present in ovarian extracts of late juvenile-aged rats. Inhibitor activity, however, did correlate with an endogenous adenosine triphosphatase (ATPase) activity that reduced assay ATP concentrations below levels needed to accurately measure phosphotransferase activity, despite the presence of sodium fluoride (an ATPase inhibitor) and ATP concentrations 5- to 15-fold greater than the Km of the kinase for ATP. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
A Moving Target Imaging Algorithm for HRWS SAR/GMTI Systems

For a target illuminated by a high-resolution and wide-swath synthetic aperture radar system, the velocity is estimated based on sparse direction-of-arrival estimation. Then, the space-time adaptive processing algorithm is utilized to suppress the clutter and reconstruct the spectra of the target, followed by the traditional target imaging. The performance of the proposed algorithm is analyzed in detail. The proposed algorithm can retain the power of the moving target, and is free of searching.
Quantifying episodes of sexual selection: Insights from a transparent worm with fluorescent sperm

Sexual selection operates through consecutive episodes of selection that ultimately contribute to the observed variance in reproductive success between individuals. Understanding the relative importance of these episodes is challenging, particularly because the relevant postcopulatory fitness components are often difficult to assess. Here, we investigate different episodes of sexual selection on the male sex function, by assessing how (precopulatory) mating success, and (postcopulatory) sperm‐transfer efficiency and sperm‐fertilizing efficiency contribute to male reproductive success. Specifically, we used a transgenic line of the transparent flatworm, Macrostomum lignano, which expresses green fluorescent protein (GFP) in all cell types, including sperm cells, enabling in vivo sperm tracking and paternity analysis. We found that a large proportion of variance in male reproductive success arose from the postcopulatory episodes. Moreover, we also quantified selection differentials on 10 morphological traits. Testis size and seminal vesicle size showed significant positive selection differentials, which were mainly due to selection on sperm‐transfer efficiency. Overall, our results demonstrate that male reproductive success in M. lignano is not primarily limited by the number of matings achieved, but rather by the ability to convert matings into successful fertilizations, which is facilitated by producing many sperm.
Intergenerational Family Care: Legacy of the Past, Implications for the Future

This is a study, based largely on a wide range of interviews, of the manifold effects of child care by grandparents in lower‐income multi‐generational families in Cape Town, and the wider implications of these findings for the long‐term effects of apartheid legislation, family and household patterns, and future welfare provision. The study revealed the particular but often hidden impact on the elderly of apartheid legislation in its many aspects, frequently as a consequence of their childcare functions. For African elderly, citizenship provisions and ‘independent homelands’, as well as influx control and its replacements, had particular effects; both groups were affected in unforseen ways by group areas legislation, the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act and its residual consequences, and the differential provision of relevant services: health, housing, educational and recreational facilities, and pension payments. The data highlighted the very different effects apartheid had on child care and the positio.
Computational Dissection of Dopamine Motor and Motivational Functions in Humans

Motor dysfunction (e.g., bradykinesia) and motivational deficit (i.e., apathy) are hallmarks of Parkinson's disease (PD). Yet, it remains unclear whether these two symptoms arise from a same dopaminergic dysfunction. Here, we develop a computational model that articulates motor control to economic decision theory, to dissect the motor and motivational functions of dopamine in humans. This model can capture different aspects of the behavior: choice (which action is selected) and vigor (action speed and intensity). It was used to characterize the behavior of 24 PD patients, tested both when medicated and unmedicated, in two behavioral tasks: an incentive motivation task that involved producing a physical effort, knowing that it would be multiplied by reward level to calculate the payoff, and a binary choice task that involved choosing between high reward/high effort and low reward/low effort options. Model-free analyses in both tasks showed the same two effects when comparing unmedicated patients to medicated patients: dopamine depletion (1) decreased the amount of effort that patients were willing to produce for a given reward and (2) slowed down the production of this effort, regardless of reward level. Model-based analyses captured these effects with two independent parameters, namely reward sensitivity and motor activation rate. These two parameters were respectively predictive of medication effects on clinical measures of apathy and motor dysfunction. More generally, we suggest that such computational phenotyping might help characterizing deficits and refining treatments in neuropsychiatric disorders. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Many neurological conditions are characterized by motor and motivational deficits, which both result in reduced behavior. It remains extremely difficult to disentangle whether these patients are simply unable or do not want to produce a behavior. Here, we propose a model-based analysis of the behavior produced in tasks that involve trading physical efforts for monetary rewards, to quantify parameters that capture motor dynamics as well as sensitivity to reward, effort, and fatigue. Applied to Parkinson's disease, this computational analysis revealed two independent effects of dopamine enhancers, which predicted clinical improvement in motor and motivational deficits. Such computational profiling might provide a useful explanatory level, between neural dysfunction and clinical manifestations, for characterizing neuropsychiatric disorders and personalizing treatments.
Dynamic Service Function Chaining in SDN-enabled networks with middleboxes

Network functions typically need to be visited in a specific order to meet certain objectives, giving rise to the notion of Service Function Chaining. Software-Defined-Networking enables fine-grained traffic routing optimization while satisfying correct traversal of network functions. In this work, we investigate the problem of maximizing throughput in SDN-enabled networks with respect to service chaining specifications under both traditional and new constraints. Besides the algorithm design, we also derive rigorous performance bounds. In the offline traffic routing case, we propose Traffic-Merging-Algorithm and prove that, although the underlying optimization problem is generally NP-hard, our algorithm can efficiently compute the optimal solution in practical settings. In the online traffic routing case, we propose the Primal-Dual-Update-Algorithm, which comes with a system parameter that trades off the algorithm's throughput competitiveness and its meeting of QoS requirements, and prove that our online algorithm achieves optimal tradeoff. We demonstrate that our solutions can be used to address practical problems by conducting simulation-based evaluation over backbone and data center topologies.
Knowledge-Discounted Event Detection in Sports Video

Automatic events annotation is an essential requirement for constructing an effective sports video summary. Researchers worldwide have actively been seeking the most robust and powerful solutions to detect and classify key events (or highlights) in different sports. Most of the current and widely used approaches have employed rules that model the typical pattern of audiovisual features within particular sport events. These rules are mainly based on manual observation and heuristic knowledge; therefore, machine learning can be used as an alternative. To bridge the gap between the two alternatives, we propose a hybrid approach, which integrates statistics into logical rule-based models during highlight detection. We have also successfully pioneered the use of play-break segment as a universal scope of detection and a standard set of features that can be applied for different sports, including soccer, basketball, and Australian football. The proposed method uses a limited amount of domain knowledge, making this method less subjective and more robust for different sports. An experiment using a large data set of sports video has demonstrated the effectiveness and robustness of the algorithms.