Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
UPDRS Tests for Diagnosis of Parkinson's Disease Employing Virtual-Touchpad

This paper presents a new approach to diagnosing Parkinson's disease. The progression of the disease can be measured by the UPDRS (Unified Parkinson Disease Rating Scale) scale which is used to evaluate behavioral and motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease. Hitherto the evaluation of the advancement of the disease in the UPDRS scale is made by a specialist through medical observation. The authors suggest a partial automation of this process, i.e. using a multimodal interface called Virtual-Touchpad (VTP) may support the medical diagnosis. The VTP is based on processing the image of hand acquired by a camera. Therefore, a patient is not constrained by any equipment. Two types of UPDRS tests that can be supported by VTP are presented in the paper. In the Finger Taps test the patient taps thumb with the index finger in rapid succession. The Rapid Alternating Movement of Hands test consists in pronation-supination movements of hands. VTP captures the image of the patient's hand while performing the test and, based on this image, it assigns hand gesture to the given class. The hand movement velocity is measured and used in the diagnostic process.
LOCAL AND GLOBAL MINIMALITY ISSUES FOR A NONLOCAL ISOPERIMETRIC PROBLEM ON R N

We consider a nonlocal isoperimetric problem deﬁned in the whole space R N , whose nonlocal part is given by a Riesz potential with exponent α ∈ (0 ,N − 1). We show that critical conﬁgurations with positive second variation are local minimizers and satisfy a quantitative inequality with respect to the L 1 -norm. This criterion provides the existence of a (ex-plicitly determined) critical threshold determining the interval of volumes for which the ball is a local minimizer. Finally we deduce that for small masses the ball is also the unique global minimizer, and that for small exponents α in the nonlocal term the ball is the unique minimizer as long as the problem has a solution.
Authentication based on a changeable biometric using gesture recognition with the Kinect™

Biometric systems either use physiological or behavioural characteristics to identify an individual. However, if a biometric is compromised it could be difficult or impossible to change it. This paper proposes a biometric authentication system based on gesture recognition, where gestures can be easily changed by the user. The system uses a Kinect™ device to capture and extract features, as it provides 20 skeleton tracking points: we use just six of these in our system. The Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) algorithm is used to find an optimal alignment between gestures which are time-bound sequences. We tested the system on a sample of 38 volunteers. Ten volunteers provided reference gestures of their own design and 28 volunteers attempted to attack these reference gestures by both guessing and copying. Guessing the gesture was unsuccessful in all cases, but when the attacker had previously seen a video of the reference gesture the experiment gave us an estimation of the True Positive Rate (TPR) of 0.93, False Positive Rate (FPR) of 0.017 and Equal Error Rate (EER) of 0.028.
Anatomic and functional results of laparoscopic-perineal neovagina construction by sigmoid colpoplasty in women with Rokitansky's syndrome.

BACKGROUND The Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome is a rare congenital cause of primary amenorrhea, due to utero-vaginal agenesis. Several surgical techniques have been used to create a neovagina. Neovagina construction with a sigmoid graft appears to be the best option, as it offers adequate length and natural lubrication, allowing early intercourse. However, few data are available on the complications, anatomic and functional results of laparoscopic-perineal neovagina construction by sigmoid colpoplasty. METHODS From September 1995 to November 2002, seven women with the MRKH syndrome underwent laparoscopic-perineal neovagina construction by sigmoid grafting. RESULTS The mean operating time was 312 min (range 220-450 min). The mean fall in haemoglobin was 3.6 g/dl (range 2-4.4 g/dl). Blood transfusion was never necessary. The only perioperative complications were one urinary tract infection and one vulvar haematoma not requiring drainage. The mean hospital stay was 7.7 days (range 6-12 days). The mean length of the neovagina was 11.5 cm (range 7-15 cm), and no shrinkage occurred during follow-up. The neovaginal introitus admitted two fingers in breadth in five of the seven patients. Dilation of the introitus was required in the other two women. None of the four women who had intercourse experienced dyspareunia or discomfort. CONCLUSION Our results confirm the feasibility of laparoscopic-perineal neovagina construction by sigmoid colpoplasty, when performed by surgeons with extensive experience in both gynaecological and gastrointestinal laparoscopic surgery. The anatomic and functional results were good.
Design and analysis of a high-performance CNFET-based Full Adder

This article presents a high-speed and high-performance Carbon Nanotube Field Effect Transistor (CNFET) based Full Adder cell for low-voltage applications. The proposed Full Adder cell is composed of two separate modules with identical hardware configurations which generate the Sum and C out signals in a parallel manner. The great advantage of the proposed structure is its very short critical path which is composed of only two carbon nanotube pass-transistors. This design also takes advantage of the unique properties of metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor-like CNFETs such as the feasibility of adjusting the threshold voltage of a CNFET by adjusting the diameter of its nanotubes to correct the voltage levels as well as to achieve a high performance. Comprehensive experiments are performed in various situations to evaluate the performance of the proposed design. Simulations are carried out using Synopsys HSPICE with 32-nm Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) and 32-nm CNFET technologies. The simulation results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed design in terms of speed, power consumption, power delay product, and less susceptibility to process variations, compared to other classical and modern CMOS and CNFET-based Full Adder cells.
Short- and Long-term Prognostic Value of Postoperative Cardiac Troponin I Concentration in Patients Undergoing Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting

Background The value of postoperative cardiac troponin I (cTnI) has been shown to indicate a higher risk of in-hospital death after cardiac surgery. The authors therefore assessed the long-term prognostic value of cTnI in patients undergoing elective coronary artery bypass grafting. Methods Consecutive patients (n = 202) were included and divided into two groups according to the postoperative value of cTnI (< or ≥ 13 ng/ml). In-hospital mortality and nonfatal cardiac events (delayed extubation > 24 h; postoperative requirement of inotropic agent; ventricular and supraventricular arrhythmia; postoperative myocardial infarction) were recorded. Survivors were then followed up over a 2-yr period. Data are median and odds ratio (95% confidence interval). Results Of all patients, 174 (86%) had a low cTnI (4.1 ng/ml; range, 1.1–12.6) and 28 (14%) had a high cTnI (23.8 ng/ml; range, 13.4–174.6). In-hospital mortality was not significantly different (4 vs. 2%), whereas long-term mortality (18 vs. 3%, P = 0.006) and mortality from cardiac cause (18 vs. 1%, P < 0.001) was greater in patients with a high cTnI. A high cTnI was a significant factor predicting death (odds ratio, 7.3 [2.0–27.1]) or death from cardiac causes (odds ratio, 37.4 [4.2–334.4]). Nonfatal cardiac events were also more frequent in the hospital (64 vs. 41%, P = 0.02) and within the 2-yr follow-up period (39%vs. 16%, P = 0.03) in patients with high cTnI. Conclusion A high postoperative peak of cTnI is associated with increased risk of death, death from cardiac causes, and nonfatal cardiac events within 2 yr after coronary artery bypass grafting.
Pulsed Power Hydrodynamics: Atlas results and future perspectives

Pulsed Power Hydrodynamics (PPH) is a new application of low-impedance, pulsed power technology to the study of complex hydrodynamics, instabilities, turbulence, and material properties in a highly precise, controllable environment at the extremes of pressure and material velocity. The Atlas facility, designed and built by Los Alamos, is the world’s first, and only, laboratory pulsed power system designed specifically to explore this relatively new family of pulsed power applications. Constructed in the year 2000 and commissioned in August 2001, Atlas is a 24-MJ high-performance capacitor bank delivering currents up to 30-Megamperes with a rise time of 5 to 6-μsec. The high-precision, cylindrically imploding liner is the tool most frequently used to convert electromagnetic energy into the hydrodynamic (particle kinetic) energy needed to drive strong shocks, quasi-isentropic compression, or large volume, adiabatic compression for the experiments. At typical parameters, a 30-gr, 1-mm-thick liner with an initial radius of 5-cm, and an intermediate current of 20-MA can be accelerated to 7.5-km/sec producing megabar shocks in medium density targets. Velocities up to 20-km/sec and pressures ≫20-Mbar in high density targets are possible.
Spatial network surrogates for disentangling complex system structure from spatial embedding of nodes

Networks with nodes embedded in a metric space have gained increasing interest in recent years. The effects of spatial embedding on the networks' structural characteristics, however, are rarely taken into account when studying their macroscopic properties. Here, we propose a hierarchy of null models to generate random surrogates from a given spatially embedded network that can preserve certain global and local statistics associated with the nodes' embedding in a metric space. Comparing the original network's and the resulting surrogates' global characteristics allows one to quantify to what extent these characteristics are already predetermined by the spatial embedding of the nodes and links. We apply our framework to various real-world spatial networks and show that the proposed models capture macroscopic properties of the networks under study much better than standard random network models that do not account for the nodes' spatial embedding. Depending on the actual performance of the proposed null models, the networks are categorized into different classes. Since many real-world complex networks are in fact spatial networks, the proposed approach is relevant for disentangling the underlying complex system structure from spatial embedding of nodes in many fields, ranging from social systems over infrastructure and neurophysiology to climatology.
Model-based testing of a highly programmable system

The paradigm of model based testing shifts the focus of testing from writing individual test cases to developing a model from which a test suite can be generated automatically. We report on our experience with model based testing of a highly programmable system that implements intelligent telephony services in the US telephone network. Our approach used automatic test case generation technology to develop sets of self checking test cases based on a machine readable specification of the messages in the protocol under test. The AETG/sup TM/ software system selected a minimal number of test data tuples that covered pairwise combinations of tuple elements. We found the combinatorial approach of covering pairwise interactions between input fields to be highly effective. Our tests revealed failures that would have been difficult to detect using traditional test designs. However, transferring this technology to the testing organization was difficult. Automatic generation of cases represents a significant departure from conventional testing practice due to the large number of tests and the amount of software development involved.
IgE-FcεRI Interactions Determine HIV Coreceptor Usage and Susceptibility to Infection during Ontogeny of Mast Cells1

Progenitor mast cells (prMCs), derived from CD34+ precursors are CD4+/CCR5+/CXCR4+ and susceptible to CCR5(R5)-tropic virus but only marginally susceptible to CXCR4(X4)-tropic HIV. As infected prMCs mature within extravascular compartments, they become both latently infected and HIV-infection resistant, and thus capable of establishing an inducible reservoir of CCR5-tropic infectious clones. In this report we provide the first evidence that IgE-FcεRI interactions, occurring during a unique period of mast cell (MC) ontogeny, enhance prMC susceptibility to X4 and R5X4 virus. IgE-FcεRI interactions significantly increased expression of CXCR4 mRNA (∼400- to 1800-fold), enhanced prMC susceptibility to X4 and R5X4 virus (∼3000- to 16,000-fold), but had no significant effect on CD4, CCR3, or CCR5 expression, susceptibility to R5 virus, or degranulation. Enhanced susceptibility to infection with X4 virus occurred during the first 3–5 wk of MC ontogeny and was completely inhibited by CXCR4-specific peptide antagonists and omalizumab, a drug that inhibits IgE-FcεRI interactions. IgE-FcεRI coaggregation mediated by HIVgp120 or Schistosoma mansoni soluble egg Ag accelerated maximal CXCR4 expression and susceptibility to X4 virus by prMCs. Our findings suggest that for HIV-positive individuals with atopic or helminthic diseases, elevated IgE levels could potentially influence the composition of CXCR4-tropic and R5X4-tropic variants archived within the long-lived tissue MC reservoir created during infection.
Timbral aspects of reproduced sound in small rooms. II

This paper is a report on some of the inﬂuences of individual reﬂections on the timbre of reproduced sound. Bech (cid:64) J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 97 , 1717–1726 (cid:126) 1995 (cid:33)(cid:35) gave the ﬁrst report. A single loudspeaker with frequency-dependent directivity characteristics, positioned in a room of normal size with frequency-dependent absorption coefﬁcients of the room surfaces, has been simulated using an electroacoustic setup. The model included the direct sound, 17 individual reﬂections and the reverberant ﬁeld. The threshold of detection, and just-noticeable differences for an increase in level were measured for individual reﬂections, using four subjects for noise and three for speech. The results have conﬁrmed the ﬁndings of the ﬁrst report that the ﬁrst-order ﬂoor reﬂection is likely to individually contribute to the timbre of reproduced noise. However, for a speech signal none of the investigated reﬂections will contribute individually to the timbre. It is suggested that the threshold of detection is determined by the spectral changes in the dominant frequency range of 500 Hz–2 kHz. For increases in the level of individual reﬂections, the most likely to be audible is the ﬁrst-order ﬂoor reﬂection, for speech and noise. For a noise signal, additional reﬂections from the wall to the left and behind the listener also belong to this group. © 1996 Acoustical Society of America.
TNF-α stimulates System A amino acid transport in primary human trophoblast cells mediated by p38 MAPK signaling

Maternal obesity and gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) increase the risk of delivering infants that are large for gestational age with greater adiposity, who are prone to the development of metabolic disease in childhood and beyond. These maternal conditions are also associated with increased levels of the proinflammatory cytokine TNF‐α in maternal tissues and the placenta. Recent evidence suggests that changes in placental amino acid transport contribute to altered fetal growth. TNF‐α was previously shown to stimulate System A amino acid transport in primary human trophoblasts (PHTs), however the molecular mechanisms remain unknown. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that TNF‐α regulates amino acid uptake in cultured PHTs by a mitogen‐activated protein kinase (MAPK)‐dependent mechanism. Treatment of PHTs with TNF‐α significantly increased System A amino acid transport, as well as Erk and p38 MAPK signaling. Pharmacological antagonism of p38, but not Erk MAPK activity, inhibited TNF‐α stimulated System A activity. Silencing of p38 MAPK using siRNA transfections prevented TNF‐α stimulated System A transport in PHTs. TNF‐α significantly increased the protein expression of System A transporters SNAT1 and SNAT2, but did not affect their mRNA expression. The effects of TNF‐α on SNAT1 and SNAT2 protein expression were reversed by p38 MAPK siRNA silencing. In conclusion, TNF‐α regulates System A activity through increased SNAT1 and SNAT2 transporter protein expression in PHTs. These findings suggest that p38 MAPK may represent a critical mechanistic link between elevated proinflammatory cytokines and increased placental amino acid transport in obese and GDM pregnancies associated with fetal overgrowth.
Learning discriminative multi-scale and multi-position LBP features for face detection based on Ada-LDA

This paper presents a novel approach for face detection, which is based on the discriminative MspLBP features selected by a boosting technique called the Ada-LDA method. By scanning the face image with a scalable sub-window, many sub-regions are obtained from which the MspLBP features are extracted to describe the local structures of a face image. From a large pool of the MspLBP features within the face image, the most discriminative MspLBP features that are trained by two alternative LDA methods depending on the singularity of the within-class scatter matrix of the training samples are selected under the framework of AdaBoost. To verify the feasibility of our face detector, we performed extensive experiments on the MIT-CBCL and MIT+CMU face test sets. Given the same number of features, the proposed face detector shows a detection rate of 25% higher than the well-known Viola's detector at a given false positive rate of 10%. Challenging experimental results prove that our face detector can show promising detection performance with only a small number of the discriminative MspLBP features. It can also provide real-time performance. Our face detector can operate at over 16 frames per second.
Alteration of growth yield by overexpression of phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase and phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase in Escherichia coli

Phosphoenolpyruvate and oxaloacetate are key intermediates at the junction between catabolism and biosynthesis. Alteration of carbon flow at these branch points will affect the growth yield and the formation of products. We attempted to modulate the metabolic flow between phosphoenolpyruvate and oxaloacetate by overexpressing phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase and phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase from a multicopy plasmid under the control of the tac promoter. It was found that overexpression of phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase decreased the rates of glucose consumption and organic acid excretion, but the growth and respiration rates remained unchanged. Consequently, the growth yield on glucose was improved. This result indicates that the wild-type level of phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase is not optimal for the most efficient glucose utilization in batch cultures. On the other hand, overexpression of phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase increased glucose consumption and decreased oxygen consumption relative to those levels required for growth. Therefore, the growth yield on glucose was reduced because of a higher rate of fermentation product excretion. These data provide useful insights into the regulation of central metabolism and facilitate further manipulation of pathways for metabolite production.
Comparison of Adhesin Genes and Antimicrobial Susceptibilities between Uropathogenic and Intestinal Commensal Escherichia coli Strains

The presence of adhesins is arguably an important determinant of pathogenicity for Uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC). Antimicrobial susceptibilities were tested by agar dilution method, fifteen adhesin genes were detected by polymerase chain reaction, and multilocus sequence typing (MLST) was analyzed in 70 UPEC isolates and 41 commensal E. coli strains. Extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL) was determined with confirmatory test. The prevalence of ESBL-producers in UPEC (53%, 37/70) was higher than the commensal intestinal isolates (7%, 3/41), and 97% (36/37) of the ESBL-producing UPEC harbored bla CTX-M genes. afa was present in 36% (10/28) UPEC isolates from recurrent lower urinary tract infection (UTI), and none in the acute pyelonephritis, acute uncomplicated cystitis or commensal strains (P<0.0001). papG was detected in 28% (20/70) of UPEC isolates, while 5% (2/41) of the commensal strains were papG positive (P = 0.0025), and the prevalence of papG was significantly higher in acute pyelonephritis group (71%) than the other two UTI groups (P<0.0001). The prevalence of flu, yqi, yadN and ygiL was significantly higher in UPEC isolates than in the commensal strains. ESBL-producing UPEC showed a lower prevalence of adhesin genes compared with non-ESBL-producing strains. The MLST profiles were different between UPEC and commensal strains, with ST131 (19%, 13/70) and ST10 (20%, 8/41) being the most common MLSTs, respectively. This study demonstrated that several adhesin genes were more prevalent in UPEC isolates than in commensal E. coli, and afa may be associated with recurrent lower UTI whereas papG is more frequently associated with acute pyelonephritis.
New DCM Operated Single Phase Bridgeless Cuk Derived Converters for Power Factor Correction

This paper presents a power factor corrected (PFC) new bridgeless (BL) Cuk Topologies for low power applications. A BL configuration of Cuk converter is proposed which eliminates the usage of diode bridge rectifier at the front end of the PFC converter, thus reducing the switching and conduction losses coupled with it. This new BL Cuk converter has two semiconductors switches. The current flow during each switching cycle interval of the converter reduces the conduction losses compared to the conventional Cuk PFC converter. It also reduces the input current ripple and Electromagnetic Interference (EMI). The inrush current during the starting period is limited and the input, output currents of the converter are continuous with minimum current ripple. Hence it is preferred mostly compared to other PFC circuits. The proposed topology works in the Discontinuous Conduction Mode (DCM) with simple control circuitry to achieve almost a unity power factor with less distortion in the input AC current. The switching of the power switches is done under zero current. The proposed PFC topologies are theoretically investigated and performance comparisons are made with the conventional rectifiers. The proposed PFC converter is simulated in MATLAB/SIMULINK with Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC) and results are demonstrated to evaluate the effectiveness of the controller.
Persistence of Orientia tsutsugamushi in Humans

We investigated the persistence of viable Orientia tsutsugamushi in patients who had recovered from scrub typhus. Blood specimens were available from six patients with scrub typhus who were at 1 to 18 months after the onset of the illness. The EDTA-treated blood specimens were inoculated into ECV304 cells, and cultures were maintained for 7 months. Sequencing of the 56-kDa type-specific antigen gene of O. tsutsugamushi was performed to ascertain the homology of isolates. O. tsutsugamushi was isolated from all six patients, and nucleotide sequences of isolates serially collected from each patient were identical in all five patients in whom nucleotide sequences were compared. One patient relapsed 2 days after completion of antibiotic therapy; two patients complained of weakness for 1 to 2.5 months after the illness; one patient underwent coronary angioplasty 6 months later; and one patient suffered from a transient ischemic attack 8 months later. This finding suggests that O. tsutsugamushi causes chronic latent infection, which may be associated with certain clinical illnesses, preceded by scrub typhus. Antibiotic therapy abates the symptoms of scrub typhus, but does not eradicate O. tsutsugamushi from the human body.