Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Piezoelectrically Actuated Robotic System for MRI-Guided Prostate Percutaneous Therapy

This paper presents a fully actuated robotic system for percutaneous prostate therapy under continuously acquired live magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) guidance. The system is composed of modular hardware and software to support the surgical workflow of intraoperative MRI-guided surgical procedures. We present the development of a 6-degree-of-freedom (DOF) needle placement robot for transperineal prostate interventions. The robot consists of a 3-DOF needle driver module and a 3-DOF Cartesian motion module. The needle driver provides needle cannula translation and rotation (2-DOF) and stylet translation (1-DOF). A custom robot controller consisting of multiple piezoelectric motor drivers provides precision closed-loop control of piezoelectric motors and enables simultaneous robot motion and MR imaging. The developed modular robot control interface software performs image-based registration, kinematics calculation, and exchanges robot commands and coordinates between the navigation software and the robot controller with a new implementation of the open network communication protocol OpenIGTLink. Comprehensive compatibility of the robot is evaluated inside a 3-T MRI scanner using standard imaging sequences and the signal-to-noise ratio loss is limited to 15%. The image deterioration due to the present and motion of robot demonstrates unobservable image interference. Twenty-five targeted needle placements inside gelatin phantoms utilizing an 18-gauge ceramic needle demonstrated 0.87-mm root-mean-square (RMS) error in 3-D Euclidean distance based on MRI volume segmentation of the image-guided robotic needle placement procedure.
Approaching a New Multimodal GIS-Interface

Geospatial information is used in emergency management centers, architectural bureaus, environmental protection offices and daily life. Not only are trained experts using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) but novices, e.g. government employees, rescue workers and the general public, also use GIS. Despite the success of various GIS applications, their current use and usability is still constrained by overly complex user interfaces. While keyboard and command line shortcuts can make use of GIS applications more efficient for expert users, often some functions can only be accessed through repetitive menu and wizard tool usage. These functions are “hidden” for novice users, which remain tethered by the WIMP (windows, icons, menus, pointers) model of human computer interaction. Another, more often overlooked limitation of current GIS interfaces is that GIS user interfaces are designed for single-user interaction and thus do not support aspects of collaborative group work [1].
An observability-based code coverage metric for functional simulation

Functional simulation is the most widely used method for design verification. At various levels of abstraction, e.g., behavioral, register-transfer level and gate level, the designer simulates the design using a large number of vectors attempting to debug and verify the design. A major problem with functional simulation is the lack of good metrics and tools to evaluate the quality of a set of functional vectors. Metrics used currently are based on instruction counts and are quite simplistic. Designers are forced to use ad-hoc methods to terminate functional simulation, e.g., CPU time limitations, We propose a new metric for measuring the extent of design verification provided by a set of functional simulation vectors. This metric is universal, and can be used uniformly for all designs. Our metric computes observability information to determine whether effects of errors that are activated by the program stimuli can be observed at the circuit outputs. We provide preliminary experimental evidence that supports the validity of the proposed metric. We believe that using this metric in design verification will result in higher-quality functional tests and improved correctness checking.
Computationally Generated Cardiac Biomarkers: Heart Rate Patterns to Predict Death Following Coronary Attacks

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, claiming over 830,000 lives each year (34% of all deaths or roughly one death every 38 seconds). A similar situation exists in other parts of the world, where an estimated 40% of all deaths in the developing world by the year 2020 are expected to be due to heart disease. The risk of death in these patients can be substantially lowered through the delivery of appropriate treatments (e.g., pharmacological and surgical interventions). However, matching patients to treatments that are appropriate for their risk remains challenging. In this paper, we aim to address this challenge by developing novel computational biomarkers that can be used to risk stratify patients. Our focus is on identifying high risk behavior in large datasets of electrocardiographic (ECG) signals from patients who experienced mortality following coronary attacks and those that remained event free. We frame the problem of finding risk markers as the discovery of approximately conserved heart rate sequences that are significantly overrepresented in either high or low risk patients. We propose a randomized hashingand greedy centroid selection-based algorithm to efficiently discover such heart rate patterns in large highresolution ECG datasets captured continuously over long periods from thousands of patients. When evaluated on data from 3,067 patients in two separate cohorts, our pattern discovery algorithm was able to correctly identify patients at high risk of death, even after adjusting for information in existing heart rate-based risk stratification metrics. Moreover, our approach can be easily extended to other clinical and non-clinical applications focused on approximate sequential patterns discovery in massive time-
Ly6Chi Monocyte Recruitment Is Responsible for Th2 Associated Host-Protective Macrophage Accumulation in Liver Inflammation due to Schistosomiasis

Accumulation of M2 macrophages in the liver, within the context of a strong Th2 response, is a hallmark of infection with the parasitic helminth, Schistosoma mansoni, but the origin of these cells is unclear. To explore this, we examined the relatedness of macrophages to monocytes in this setting. Our data show that both monocyte-derived and resident macrophages are engaged in the response to infection. Infection caused CCR2-dependent increases in numbers of Ly6Chi monocytes in blood and liver and of CX3CR1+ macrophages in diseased liver. Ly6Chi monocytes recovered from liver had the potential to differentiate into macrophages when cultured with M-CSF. Using pulse chase BrdU labeling, we found that most hepatic macrophages in infected mice arose from monocytes. Consistent with this, deletion of monocytes led to the loss of a subpopulation of hepatic CD11chi macrophages that was present in infected but not naïve mice. This was accompanied by a reduction in the size of egg-associated granulomas and significantly exacerbated disease. In addition to the involvement of monocytes and monocyte-derived macrophages in hepatic inflammation due to infection, we observed increased incorporation of BrdU and expression of Ki67 and MHC II in resident macrophages, indicating that these cells are participating in the response. Expression of both M2 and M1 marker genes was increased in liver from infected vs. naive mice. The M2 fingerprint in the liver was not accounted for by a single cell type, but rather reflected expression of M2 genes by various cells including macrophages, neutrophils, eosinophils and monocytes. Our data point to monocyte recruitment as the dominant process for increasing macrophage cell numbers in the liver during schistosomiasis.
A trusted measurement scheme for wireless sensor networks

The information technology has made wireless sensor widely used. But however, the security problem of wireless sensor network becomes more and more serious. Due to limited resource, the security mechanism of traditional network can't be applied to wireless sensor network. This paper proposes a trusted measurement scheme to ensure wireless sensor network running well and securely. This scheme is based on static measurement and combines active measurement with passive measurement. The real-time measurement is the running security assurance for wireless sensor network. It can still run normally under the network security attack. The simulation proves that this scheme can ensure the wireless sensor network running well and has little effect on the network life cycle.
A GFP Expressing Influenza A Virus to Report In Vivo Tropism and Protection by a Matrix Protein 2 Ectodomain-Specific Monoclonal Antibody

The severity of influenza-related illness is mediated by many factors, including in vivo cell tropism, timing and magnitude of the immune response, and presence of pre-existing immunity. A direct way to study cell tropism and virus spread in vivo is with an influenza virus expressing a reporter gene. However, reporter gene-expressing influenza viruses are often attenuated in vivo and may be genetically unstable. Here, we describe the generation of an influenza A virus expressing GFP from a tri-cistronic NS segment. To reduce the size of this engineered gene segment, we used a truncated NS1 protein of 73 amino acids combined with a heterologous dimerization domain to increase protein stability. GFP and nuclear export protein coding information were fused in frame with the truncated NS1 open reading frame and separated from each other by 2A self-processing sites. The resulting PR8-NS1(1–73)GFP virus was successfully rescued and replicated as efficiently as the parental PR8 virus in vitro and was slightly attenuated in vivo. Flow cytometry-based monitoring of cells isolated from PR8-NS1(1–73)GFP virus infected BALB/c mice revealed that GFP expression peaked on day two in all cell types tested. In particular respiratory epithelial cells and myeloid cells known to be involved in antigen presentation, including dendritic cells (CD11c+) and inflammatory monocytes (CD11b+ GR1+), became GFP positive following infection. Prophylactic treatment with anti-M2e monoclonal antibody or oseltamivir reduced GFP expression in all cell types studied, demonstrating the usefulness of this reporter virus to analyze the efficacy of antiviral treatments in vivo. Finally, deep sequencing analysis, serial in vitro passages and ex vivo analysis of PR8-NS1(1–73)GFP virus, indicate that this virus is genetically and phenotypically stable.
The Plausibility of Adaptations for Homicide

A partner of mine said he might come over to my pad with some broads, so I hurried over to the liquor store right around the corner to get a case of beer. As I was walking across the parking lot of the store, this guy almost ran me over. I flipped him off. The driver and his partners jumped out of the car and rat-packed me. They knocked me down, and the driver pushed my head into the dirt next to the cigarette butts. Then they went into the store. I just felt, “What a low fucking thing to do to somebody. They are just a bunch of yellow motherfuckers. ” In my mind I suddenly thought, “I’ve got to get back at these dirty motherfuckers,” and I ran back to my pad for my rifle.
An Investigation into Small World Phenomenon in Engineering Informatics

Product information is complex and discrete in terms of design methods and manufacturing processes, its long term retention has for time been a great challenge. This paper presents an initial investigation into the small world phenomenon within product information with an emphasis on computer-aided design (CAD) data and its generating systems. The objective is to construct a networking model in the notion of six degrees separation and thereafter to produce useful findings for future reference in information organization. It is expected that this model will be an essence for effective CAD data translation, exchange, index and migration and for helping to deal with the key problems in long term retention of product data.
Classification with a reject option under Concept Drift: The Droplets algorithm

In this paper a new on-line algorithm is proposed (the Droplets algorithm) for dealing with concept drifts and to produce reliable predictions. The two main characteristics of this algorithm are that it is able to adapt to different types of drifts without making any assumptions regarding their type or when they occur, and can provide reliable predictions in a non-stationary environment without using a fixed confidence threshold. Experimental results on five datasets based on Random RBF and Rotating Hyperplane generators as well as a new semi-synthetic dataset based weather temperatures show that, by discarding difficult observations, the Droplets algorithm manages to obtain the best average accuracy against ten classifiers. The results also indicate that the algorithm manages to provide reliable prediction by accurately distinguishing which observations are easily classifiable.
Conceptual ascendant feature extraction of a financial corpus

In the scope of Financial Watch project, in order to create a feature of a corpus reflecting its semantic structure, a general algorithm of text micro structuring and browsing is proposed. The same conceptual algorithm has been extended recursively to derive the macro feature of a space of documents, in an ascendant way. Obtained browsing system based on the extracted feature proved to help for a fast convergence to the user request. The same tool is extendable for report generation from a corpus, based on a general feature. The main goal of this paper is to propose new experiences on document feature composition, in order to compare different varieties of algorithms and find out better paradigms with respect to some well defined criteria.
Kinematic analysis of a 5 DOF upper-limb exoskeleton with a tilted and vertically translating shoulder joint

In this paper, an upper-limb exoskeleton with a tilted and vertically movable shoulder joint is proposed. By analyzing the biomechanics of the shoulder, the motion of the upper limb is approximated by including one degree of freedom (DOF), namely vertical translation of the glenohumeral joint, in addition to the three DOFs that are conventionally employed to analyze the motion of the shoulder. Also, the shoulder joint is tilted to avoid singularity problems in the workspace; by tilting the shoulder joint, the singularity position was placed outside of the normal range of motion. This configuration was analyzed using forward and inverse kinematics methods. Because the shoulder elevation affects all the joint angles, the angles were calculated by applying an inverse kinematics method in an iterative manner. The performance of the proposed upper-limb exoskeleton and analysis methods have been verified by simulations.
Isolation of a Viroid-like RNA from Hop Different from Hop Stunt Viroid

A viroid-like RNA was detected in nucleic acid preparations from two of the three commercial hop varieties grown in Spain. It had a size very close to that of avocado sunblotch viroid (ASBV), although dot-blot analysis revealed that it was very different in base sequence from ASBV, coconut cadang-cadang viroid, hop stunt viroid (HSV) and citrus exocortis viroid. In its physical and biological properties, the viroid-like RNA differed from the previously characterized HSV.
Abcc2 (Mrp2), Abcc3 (Mrp3), and Abcg2 (Bcrp1) are the main determinants for rapid elimination of methotrexate and its toxic metabolite 7-hydroxymethotrexate in vivo

The multidrug transporters ABCC2, ABCC3, and ABCG2 can eliminate potentially toxic compounds from the body and have overlapping substrate specificities. To investigate the overlapping functions of Abcc2, Abcc3, and Abcg2 in vivo, we generated and characterized Abcc3;Abcg2−/− and Abcc2;Abcc3;Abcg2−/− mice. We subsequently analyzed the relative impact of these transport proteins on the pharmacokinetics of the anticancer drug methotrexate (MTX) and its main, toxic, metabolite 7-hydroxymethotrexate (7OH-MTX) after i.v. administration of MTX (50 mg/kg). Whereas in single and double knockout mice, the plasma and liver concentrations of MTX and 7OH-MTX decreased rapidly after MTX administration, in the Abcc2;Abcc3;Abcg2−/− mice, they remained very high. One hour after administration, 67% of the MTX dose was still present in livers of Abcc2;Abcc3;Abcg2−/− mice as MTX or 7OH-MTX versus 7% in wild-type, showing dramatic liver accumulation of these toxic compounds when Abcc2, Abcc3, and Abcg2 were all absent. Furthermore, the urinary and fecal excretion of the nephrotoxic metabolite 7OH-MTX were increased 27- and 7-fold, respectively, in Abcc2;Abcc3;Abcg2−/− mice. Thus, Abcc2, Abcc3, and Abcg2 together mediate the rapid elimination of MTX and 7OH-MTX after i.v. administration and can to a large extent compensate for each other's absence. This may explain why it is still comparatively safe to use a toxic drug such as MTX in the clinic, as the risk of highly increased toxicity due to dysfunctioning of ABCC2, ABCC3, or ABCG2 alone is limited. Nevertheless, cotreatment with possible inhibitors of ABCC2, ABCC3, and ABCG2 should be done with utmost caution when treating patients with methotrexate. [Mol Cancer Ther 2009;8(12):3350–9]
Loss of Incretin Effect Is a Specific, Important, and Early Characteristic of Type 2 Diabetes

Whereas glucose-tolerant individuals are capable of adjusting their insulin secretion to their actual insulin sensitivity, people with type 2 diabetes are incapable of doing so (1). β-Cell failure is therefore the hallmark of this disease, although failure may be precipitated by the development of insulin resistance, typically as a consequence of obesity. In healthy subjects, a considerable part of the postprandial insulin response is due to the actions of the incretin hormones glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP). Together, the two hormones are responsible for the so-called incretin effect, i.e., the amplification of insulin secretion that is observed when glucose is taken orally as opposed to infused intravenously to provide identical plasma glucose concentrations (2). Although frequently ignored, the effect strongly depends on the dose of glucose (3). A convenient way of describing the effect is to calculate the gastrointestinally mediated glucose disposal (GIGD) (4). Here the amount of glucose required by intravenous infusion to copy the glucose excursions after the oral load is related to the oral load. Thus, if 25 g is required to copy a 75-g oral glucose load, the GIGD amounts to 100 × (75 – 25)/75 = 66%. In other words, mechanisms associated with and activated by the oral ingestion resulted in a disposal of 75 – 25 = 50 g of the ingested glucose. In healthy subjects, most of the GIGD is accounted for by the actions of the incretin hormones, but inhibition of hepatic glucose production by suppression of glucagon secretion, hepatic uptake of glucose from the portal vein, and gut-brain or liver-brain reflex activity may also play a role. GIGD is particularly useful in the study of oral glucose handling in C-peptide–negative patients with type 1 diabetes, where the classical incretin definitions have no meaning (4). In a …
Propagation in cellular networks

Received signal level measurements are frequently used to check the performance and the Quality Of Service (QOS) inside the coverage area in cellular networks. These expensive time consuming measurements are carried out using actual drive tests to assess the coverage area of a base station for a given cell and thus evaluate the QOS. In a drive test measurement system, a receiving antenna is placed on top of a vehicle and the vehicle is then driven along radial and circular lines around the base station to measure the received power and thus assess the QOS. These drive test measurements are also used to tune the empirical models in the radio planning tools which have to be carried out for various types of environments. In this paper, it is shown that an electromagnetic macro modeling of the environment can provide simulation results comparable to the data as one would obtain in an actual drive test measurement for a cellular environment. The input parameters for the electromagnetic macro model can be generated using only the physical parameters of the environment like the height of the transmitting and receiving antennas over the ground, their tilts towards the ground, and the electrical parameters of the ground. Such analysis can provide realistic plots for the received power versus separation distance between the receiving and the transmitting base station antennas without any statistical or empirical curve fitting or an adhoc choice of a reference distance. A method of moments-based integral equation solver code has been used to simulate the effects of the macro parameters of the environment on the propagation path loss of the signals emanating from a base station antenna. This code is based on Sommerfeld Green's function to treat the imperfectly conducting planar ground.
Evaluation of task realizability for robot systems in representation space

This paper investigates task realizability for robot systems with a representation space-based technique. It is a general technique which can be applied to different robot systems with various tasks. In this paper, initial results on evaluation of motion planning tasks are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed technique. Path planning tasks of a two-link revolute manipulator in presence of obstacles are exemplified. Optimal strategy for a realizable task is solved out, while root causes for unrealizable tasks are diagnosed and strategies are designed to fix unrealizable tasks. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed technique helps in determining whether a task is feasible and fixing infeasible tasks.
Relationship of substantia nigra echogenicity and motor function in elderly subjects

Background: Patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) exhibit an increased echogenicity of the substantia nigra (SN) on transcranial sonography. Some healthy adults with the same echo characteristics showed a reduced 18fluorodopa uptake on PET, indicating a subclinical alteration of the nigrostriatal system. Objectives: To determine whether the sonographic phenotype of hyperechogenic SN has any relevance for motor function in elderly subjects and whether an increased echogenicity of the SN is associated with an impaired motor function. Method: In a population-based, cross-sectional study, 93 subjects older then 60 years without history of extrapyramidal disorder underwent sonographic and neurologic examinations, with a quantitative motor assessment. Results: Elderly healthy subjects without prediagnosed extrapyramidal disorder but with SN hyperechogenicity had more frequent and more severe parkinsonian symptoms and a slower finger tapping than those with a regular echogenicity of the SN (p < 0.05, U test). Conclusion: With increasing age, subjects with SN hyperechogenicity develop a more substantial slowing of movements than subjects without this echo pattern, stressing the functional relevance of this sonographic finding. The authors speculate that hyperechogenicity of the SN may be detected by transcranial sonography early in life and may serve as a risk marker for nigral injury, although only a minority of these subjects will develop the full clinical picture of PD.