Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Use of ridge regression for improved estimation of kinetic constants from PET data

The estimation of parameters in radio-tracer models from positron emission tomography (PET) data by nonlinear least squares (NLS) often leads to results with unacceptable mean square error (MSE) characteristics. The introduction of constraints on parameters has the potential to address this problem. We examine a ridge regression technique that augments the standard NLS criterion by the addition of a term which penalizes estimates which deviate from physiologically reasonable values. A variation on a plug-in methodology of Hoerl et al. (1975) is examined for data-dependent selection of the degree of reliance to place on the penalizing term. A simulation study is carried out to evaluate the performance of this approach in the context of estimation of kinetic constants in the three-compartment model used to analyze data from PET studies with fluoro-deoxyglucose (FDG). The results show that, over a range of realistic noise levels, the ridge regression procedure can be expected to reduce the root MSE of parameter estimates by 60%. This result is not found to be substantially dependent on the precise formulation of the penalty function used. Thus, the use of ridge regression for the estimation of kinetic parameters in PET studies is thus considered to be a promising tool.
Using opinion polls to help measure business impact in agile development

The achievement of quantifiable business impact is an essential goal of improvement activities in software development. Traditionally, a set of well-defined metrics built up a sound foundation for measuring the effects on business improvements before and afterwards. However, those metrics are not always equally applicable throughout all development methodologies, especially when moving from traditional (waterfall) towards agile development. Furthermore, some major impacts of improvement activities (e.g. customer satisfaction) might not be directly accessible with standard measurements. For this reason we suggest that opinion polls should supplement traditional metrics. Opinion polls fit perfectly into the idea of frequent feedback, given by customers as well as team members, that is an inherent part of agile processes. Thus, opinion polls are especially suitable for agile improvements. Adding subjectivity and the power of individual evaluation to objective metrics can help to analyze root causes that form the major levers for achieving business impact.
The neurotoxicity of trimethyltin chloride in hamsters, gerbils and marmosets

Trimethyltin chloride (TMT) was given to Syrian hamsters, gerbils and marmosets, and the changes in the brain were studied 1 day to 7 weeks later by light and electron microscopy. Within the marmoset brain, TMT was found to be uniformly distributed, similar to that in the rat. In all three species, signs of poisoning included whole‐body tremors and prostration, while death might occur in 3–4 days; in marmosets ataxia, agitation, aggression and occasional fits were also observed. Bilateral symmetrical neuronal necrosis and chromatolysis were seen in the majority, which involved the hippocampus, pyriform cortex, amygdaloid nucleus, neocortex, various brain stem nuclei and in marmosets the retina. The probably lethal dose of TMT in all three species is approximately 3 mg kg−1, while the LD50 for the rat is 12.6 mg kg−1. The lower figure is probably related to lack of binding to haemoglobin in contrast to the binding in the rat. TMT does not bind to human haemoglobin and thus the predicted lethal dose for humans may be about 3 mg kg−1 (15.1 μmolkg−1), while the dose required to produce neuronal damage could well be less.
Prolyl hydroxylase inhibitors delay neuronal cell death caused by trophic factor deprivation

Nerve growth factor (NGF) serves a critical survival‐promoting function for developing sympathetic neurons. Following removal of NGF, sympathetic neurons undergo apoptosis characterized by the activation of c‐Jun N‐terminal kinases (JNKs), up‐regulation of BH3‐only proteins including BcL‐2‐interacting mediator of cell death (BIM)EL, release of cytochrome c from mitochondria, and activation of caspases. Here we show that two small‐molecule prolyl hydroxylase inhibitors frequently used to activate hypoxia‐inducible factor (HIF) – ethyl 3,4‐dihydroxybenzoic acid (DHB) and dimethyloxalylglycine (DMOG) – can inhibit apoptosis caused by trophic factor deprivation. Both DHB and DMOG blocked the release of cytochrome c from mitochondria after NGF withdrawal, whereas only DHB blocked c‐Jun up‐regulation and phosphorylation. DHB, but not DMOG, also attenuated the induction of BIMEL in NGF‐deprived neurons, suggesting a possible mechanism whereby DHB could inhibit cytochrome c release. DMOG, on the other hand, was substantially more effective at stabilizing HIF‐2α and inducing expression of the HIF target gene hexokinase 2 than was DHB. Thus, while HIF prolyl hydroxylase inhibitors can delay cell death in NGF‐deprived neurons, they do so through distinct mechanisms that, at least in the case of DHB, are partly independent of HIF stabilization.
Effects of logging and recruitment on community phylogenetic structure in 32 permanent forest plots of Kampong Thom, Cambodia

Ecological communities including tropical rainforest are rapidly changing under various disturbances caused by increasing human activities. Recently in Cambodia, illegal logging and clear-felling for agriculture have been increasing. Here, we study the effects of logging, mortality and recruitment of plot trees on phylogenetic community structure in 32 plots in Kampong Thom, Cambodia. Each plot was 0.25 ha; 28 plots were established in primary evergreen forests and four were established in secondary dry deciduous forests. Measurements were made in 1998, 2000, 2004 and 2010, and logging, recruitment and mortality of each tree were recorded. We estimated phylogeny using rbcL and matK gene sequences and quantified phylogenetic α and β diversity. Within communities, logging decreased phylogenetic diversity, and increased overall phylogenetic clustering and terminal phylogenetic evenness. Between communities, logging increased phylogenetic similarity between evergreen and deciduous plots. On the other hand, recruitment had opposite effects both within and between communities. The observed patterns can be explained by environmental homogenization under logging. Logging is biased to particular species and larger diameter at breast height, and forest patrol has been effective in decreasing logging.
Realising the right to primary education in Cameroon

Cameroon is party to all international and regional instruments providing for the right to education, and compulsory and free primary education in particular. The article examines Cameroon's compliance with the right to free education, based on the normative content of the right to education, defined by the United Nations Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights as compulsory and free universal access to primary education that is available, accessible, acceptable and appropriately adapted (known as the '4 A's'). The article reviews to what extent primary education is compulsory and free to all children in Cameroon; it focuses on the 4 A's framework and assesses the justiciability of the right. The article concludes that, although primary education is compulsory in the country, it is not yet available, accessible and adaptable, but is largely acceptable when it is available. Furthermore, the justiciability of the right to primary education is hindered by constitutional practices such as the lack of standing in court for private individuals, the lack of constitutional remedies in case of a violation of rights, and weak separation of powers, characterised by the pre-eminence of the executive.
Vascular Segmentation of Interstitial Pneumonia Patterns in Lung using MDCT

Pulmonary vascular tree segmentation is gaining importance since it is one of the fundamental basis for different applications, such as the detection of interstitial pneumonia (IP), pulmonary emboli etc. Such an application will require an accurate and reliable segmentation of pulmonary vessels. The accuracy of this preprocessing stage is bound to influence the accuracy in computer aided diagnosis (CAD) of IP patterns. While lot many algorithms aimed at improving accuracy of lung segmentation, vessel tree segmentation is still an open research issue. In this paper an automated vessel tree segmentation algorithm with high accuracy is proposed in presence of pathologies affecting lung parenchyma. The initial stage accounts for a vessel enhancement filtering, which uses second order local structure of an image (Hessian) with vessel ness measure obtained on the basis of all eigen values of the Hessian. Followingly texture based refinement using 3D co-occurrence matrix, which ties all textures together (a single value per feature will take into account all texture features within a lung, finally the classification is performed to correct possible over segmentation. The proposed method utilizes Fuzzy Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier which improves traditional SVM by adding fuzzy membership to training sample to indicate degree of membership of this sample to different class. Consequently it reduces noises and outliers in data and enhances performance and accuracy of SVM. The performance of the proposed scheme, and of the previously reported technique, in vessel tree segmentation was evaluated by means of area overlap; true positive fraction and false positive fraction of image dataset obtained from IP affected patient scans. The method is expected to improve the performance as compared to other reported techniques. Keywords; Pulmonary vascular tree segmentation, interstitial pneumonia, computer aided diagnosis, Fuzzy Support Vector Machine classifier, image enhancement, hessian matrix.
Understanding the Hispanic paradox.

PURPOSE This paper reviews the literature on the nature of the Hispanic paradox and the major explanations provided for it. We conclude by suggesting directions for future research. DATA IDENTIFICATION AND STUDY SELECTION: Articles were selected by a systematic review procedure using Medline (1966 through 1999) and Sociological Abstracts (1963 through 1999), as well as focused searches on specific diseases or factors believed to influence Hispanic health. FINDINGS For the past twenty years there has been widespread evidence of an Hispanic paradox in the United States, in which most Hispanic groups are characterized by low socioeconomic status, but better than expected health and mortality outcomes. A closer look reveals variations by age, gender, Hispanic subgroup, acculturation, country of birth, and cause of death. Possible under-reporting of Hispanic deaths, "salmon bias" and healthy migrant effects, and risk profile may contribute to, but do not explain, the paradox. The reasons for this paradox are likely to be multifactorial and social in origin. CONCLUSIONS Empirical studies should be conducted on the protective effects of immigrant status, identification with a subculture, interaction between acculturation and socioeconomic status, and supportive aspects of Hispanic culture.
Accumulation of talin in nodes at the edge of the lamellipodium and separate incorporation into adhesion plaques at focal contacts in fibroblasts

The focal contact forms beneath F-actin-rich ribs, or cytoplasmic precursors, present in the lamellipodia of fibroblasts. The basal part of the precursor is retained at the contact as the initial adhesion plaque. We have examined the distribution of talin in the lamellipodia and adhesion plaques of chicken embryo fibroblasts relative to the process of focal contact formation. Motility of single cells was recorded with differential interference contrast or interference reflection microscopy before fixation and fluorescent staining for talin, F-actin, and vinculin. Talin is present along the extreme edge of the lamellipodium, where it is further concentrated into a series of nodes. The nodes of talin are present at the tips of both larger and finer F-actin-rich ribs and at small structural nodes at the edge of the lamellipodium. We suggest that the talin in the nodes functions, via a cross-linking activity, in the convergence of actin filaments at the membrane during development of the ribs. Talin accumulates de novo in the adhesion plaque, independent of that at the tip of the precursor, in response to contact with the substrate. This second accumulation of talin at the focal contact starts before vinculin, consistent with a sequential binding of talin at the membrane and of vinculin to talin. The results imply that talin functions independently at two steps during formation of the focal contact: the development of the F-actin-rich precursor of the contact; and development of the contact-associated adhesion plaque, both involving organization of F- actin at the membrane.
Finding Facet Content on Web by Position Inverted Index

Entity facet can give the enhancement on search result since it can present web elements by multiple dimensions. Moreover, if web content is sorted by fixed dimension like term frequency, peculiarly data cannot be touched by user easily. Thus, how to extract and manage data facet is a significant work in web search area. Most of exist approaches find facets on web by manually defined annotation or cluster algorithm based on large corpus. These methods are very complex and need heavy resource. On the other hand, since inverted index structure is widely used on web search engine, in this paper, we propose a novel index structure called position index structure based on inverted index. By using this structure, we try to find a better solution to solve the facet extraction and peculiarly data find problems.
A dual redundancy technique for electromechanical actuation system applied to launch vehicles

This paper presents, an Electro-Mechanical Actuator (EMA) based position control system with redundancy technique is being presented. The servo system is composed of two chains, a prime chain and a redundant chain, which includes the position servo system of the EMA. Only one chain works at a time, probably the main chain operates during normal condition of the system. A new, simpler fault detection and isolation (FDI) technique is being developed, which will be monitoring the prime chain continuously. If any type of fault occurs in the prime chain, the FDI isolates the prime chain from the system and switches to the redundant chain. Thereafter redundant chain will be driving the system. The system model is then simulated using MATLAB/Simulink, with trapezoidal waveforms of backemf. Using the DSP controller chip, TMS320F2812 as a control core, hardware implementation has been carried out.
Chemopreventive glucosinolate accumulation in various broccoli and collard tissues: Microfluidic-based targeted transcriptomics for by-product valorization

Floret, leaf, and root tissues were harvested from broccoli and collard cultivars and extracted to determine their glucosinolate and hydrolysis product profiles using high performance liquid chromatography and gas chromotography. Quinone reductase inducing bioactivity, an estimate of anti-cancer chemopreventive potential, of the extracts was measured using a hepa1c1c7 murine cell line. Extracts from root tissues were significantly different from other tissues and contained high levels of gluconasturtiin and glucoerucin. Targeted gene expression analysis on glucosinolate biosynthesis revealed that broccoli root tissue has elevated gene expression of AOP2 and low expression of FMOGS-OX homologs, essentially the opposite of what was observed in broccoli florets, which accumulated high levels of glucoraphanin. Broccoli floret tissue has significantly higher nitrile formation (%) and epithionitrile specifier protein gene expression than other tissues. This study provides basic information of the glucosinolate metabolome and transcriptome for various tissues of Brassica oleracea that maybe utilized as potential byproducts for the nutraceutical market.
Oxygenated volatile organic chemicals in the oceans: Inferences and implications based on atmospheric observations and air‐sea exchange models

Airborne measurements of oxygenated volatile organic chemicals (OVOC), OH free radicals, and tracers of pollution were performed over the Pacific during Winter/Spring of 2001. We interpret atmospheric observations of acetaldehyde, propanal, methanol, and acetone with the help of a global 3‐D model and an air‐sea exchange model to assess their oceanic budgets. We infer that surface waters of the Pacific are greatly supersaturated with acetaldehyde and propanal. Bulk surface seawater concentration of 7 nM (10−9 mol L−1) and 2 nM and net fluxes of 1.1 × 10−12 g cm−2 s−1 and 0.4 × 10−12 g cm−2 s−1 are calculated for acetaldehyde and propanal, respectively. Large surface seawater concentrations are also estimated for methanol (100 nM) and acetone (10 nM) corresponding to an under‐saturation of 6% and 14%, and a deposition velocity of 0.08 cm s−1 and 0.10 cm s−1, respectively. These data imply a large oceanic source for acetaldehyde and propanal, and a modest sink for methanol and acetone. Assuming a 50–100 meter mixed layer, an extremely large oceanic reservoir of OVOC, exceeding the atmospheric reservoir by an order of magnitude, can be inferred to be present. Available seawater data are both preliminary and extremely limited but indicate rather low bulk OVOC concentrations and provide no support for the existence of a large oceanic reservoir. We speculate on the causes and implications of these findings.
ON COTORSION THEORIES AND MODEL CATEGORIES

These are notes for two talks given by Mark Hovey at the Summer School on the Interactions between Homotopy Theory and Algebra at the University of Chicago, July 26 to August 6, 2004. Because they are notes, they are a bit more chatty and a bit more likely to contain errors than a paper would be, so caveat lector. They are based on the papers [Hov02], [Gil04b], and [Gil04a], and concern the relationship between Quillen model structures on abelian categories and cotorsion theories.
More precise typing of rewrite strategies

The programming concept of rewrite strategies supports versatile composition of rewrite rules and control of their application. Such programmability of rewrites can possibly lead to incorrect compositions of rewrites or incorrect applications of rewrites to terms within a strategic rewriting program. In this paper, we explore the analysis of strategic rewriting programs to detect certain programming errors statically. In particular, we introduce fine-grain types to closely approximate the dynamic behavior of rewriting. We develop an expressive type system for a core rewriting language. The resulting system detects programming errors of universally unreachable and failing rewrites. Static detection of such errors can substantially reduce testing and debugging efforts and lead to a more effective use of strategic rewriting in large and complex rewriting problems.
GLOBAL STABILITY CONTROL OF POWER SYSTEMS

Abstract This paper introduces an adaptive coordination scheme to optimally enhance the transient stability, voltage security and frequency damping of a power system network by scheduling the parameters of the available controllers. A set of real-time stability indicators are used to reflect the power system stabilities. The relative significances of a group of controllers to the power system are used as a reference to schedule new controller parameters. This scheme effectively allocates power system resources to handle different stability issues in different time frames. The results suggest that power system security can be further enhanced by means of coordinated control.
Postsynaptic density protein transcripts are differentially modulated by minocycline alone or in add-on to haloperidol: Implications for treatment resistant schizophrenia

In this study, we investigated whether minocycline, a second-generation tetracycline proposed as an add-on to antipsychotics in treatment-resistant schizophrenia (TRS), may affect the expression of Homer and Arc postsynaptic density (PSD) transcripts, implicated in synaptic regulation. Minocycline was administered alone or with haloperidol in rats exposed or not to ketamine, mimicking acute glutamatergic psychosis or naturalistic conditions, respectively. Arc expression was significantly reduced by minocycline compared with controls. Minocycline in combination with haloperidol also significantly reduced Arc expression compared with both controls and haloperidol alone. Moreover, haloperidol/minocycline combination significantly affected Arc expression in cortical regions, while haloperidol alone was ineffective on cortical gene expression. These results suggest that minocycline may strongly affect the expression of Arc as mediated by haloperidol, both in terms of quantitative levels and of topography of haloperidol-related expression. It is noteworthy that no significant pre-treatment effect was found, suggesting that pre-exposure to ketamine did not grossly affect gene expression. Minocycline was not found to significantly affect haloperidol-related Homer1a expression. No significant changes in Homer1b/c expression were observed. These results are consistent with previous observations that minocycline may modulate postsynaptic glutamatergic transmission, affecting distinct downstream pathways initiated by N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor modulation, i.e. Arc-mediated but not Homer1a-mediated pathways.
Automated design of hyper-heuristics components to solve the PSP problem with HP model

The Protein Structure Prediction (PSP) problem is one of the modern most challenging problems from science. Simplified protein models are usually applied to simulate and study some characteristics of the protein folding process. Hence, many heuristic strategies have been applied in order to find simplified protein structures in which the protein configuration has the minimal energy. However, these strategies have difficulties in finding the optimal solutions to the longer sequences of amino-acids, due to the complexity of the problem and the huge amount of local optima. Hyper heuristics have proved to be useful in this type of context since they try to combine different heuristics strengths into a single framework. However, there is lack of work addressing the automated design of hyper-heuristics components. This paper proposes GEHyPSP, an approach which aims to achieve generation, through grammatical evolution, of selection mechanisms and acceptance criteria for a hyper-heuristic framework applied to PSP problem. We investigate the strengths and weaknesses of our approach on a benchmark of simplified protein models. GEHyPSP was able to reach the best known results for 7 instances from 11 that composed the benchmark set used to evaluate the approach.
Urological Survey Urological Oncology : Prostate Cancer Re : Effect of Soy Protein Isolate Supplementation on Biochemical Recurrence of Prostate Cancer after Radical Prostatectomy : A Randomized Trial

available at http://jurology.com/ Editorial Comment: Soy protein has long been postulated to carry beneficial effects in men with prostate cancer and women with breast cancer, largely due to a high content of isoflavones, a group of naturally occurring estrogens. In particular an isoflavone called genistein is known to bind to estrogen receptor-beta and exert an antiproliferative effect on prostate cancer cells. In this prospective randomized trial men at high risk for recurrence following radical prostatectomy were randomized to receive a soy protein supplement or placebo daily for up to 20 months. No decrease in the rate of biochemical recurrence was observed among men receiving soy protein. Broad interpretation of trials such as this is difficult owing to a lack of dosing studies with dietary supplements and a wide variety of available soy products with differing concentrations. It is difficult to know if soy supplementation is of no benefit or if the study design explains the result.