Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Three-dimensional Airway Measurements and Algorithms Airway Analysis Pipeline

Advances in high-resolution computed tomography (CT) imaging are making a full three-dimensional analysis of the lungs feasible. In particular, airway morphology can be studied in vivo and quantitative metrics of airway size and shape can be extracted. The thickening process associated with the inflammatory response in the diseased lung can be quantified by means of image processing techniques that extract the airway lumen and airway wall. In this article, we give an overview of these imaging techniques and their diverse nature. We also offer a comprehensive view of the analysis pipeline for three-dimensional airway trees and a validation framework that is needed to compare different techniques. A wide range of lung diseases have some pathologic involvement of the airways. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), for example, is associated with a heterogeneous mixture of emphysema and airway disease leading to incompletely reversible expiratory airflow obstruction. Unfortunately, standard spirometric methods for the assessment of disease severity are insensitive to the relative burden of these two processes. Further, due to the heterogeneous nature of this disease, investigating the mutual interrelation and the potential pathogenetic associations of airspace and airway disease requires large study cohorts. Because of this, image-based tools that facilitate the study of bronchial tree morphometry and identify more homogeneous subsets of disease phenotypes are crucial (1). Over the last 30 years, X-ray Computer Tomography (CT) has become the most promising clinical image modality for the thorax because of its ease of use and its ability to exploit the marked contrast in X-ray absorption properties between air and tissue. Based on this tissue differentiation, CT has been used for both the assessment of emphysema and airway morphometry. Because of the limited out-of-plane resolution in early CT scan technology, initial image-based investigations of the lungs in subjects with COPD was constrained to the use of single slice data examination at selected airway locations (2–5). As scanner technology evolved and the speed of image acquisition improved such that volumetric data can be easily collected in a single breath hold, three-dimensional analysis of the tracheo-bronchial tree has become a reality. Such data sets provide a new venue for the application of computer vision techniques that automatically analyze the airway tree and report metrics of airway morphometry. The morphometric analysis of the airway tree can be broken down into three well-defined components. The first is the detection of the luminal part of the airway tree, also …
An iPad Order Management System for Fashion Trade

The fashion industry loves the new tablets. In 2011 we noted a 38% growth of e-commerce in the italian fashion industry. A large number of brands have understood the value of mobile devices as the key channel for consumer communication. The interest of brands in applications of mobile marketing and services have made a big step forward, with an increase of 129% in 2011 (osservatori.net, 2012). This paper presents a mobile version of the Fashion OMS (Order Management System) web application. Fashion Touch is a mobile application that allows clients and company’s sales networks to process commercial orders, consult the product catalog and manage customers as the OMS web version does with the added functionality of the off-line order entering mode. To develop an effective mobile App, we started by analyzing the new web technologies for mobile applications (HTML5, CSS3, Ajax) and their relative development frameworks making a comparison with the Apple’s native programming language. We selected Titanium, a multi-platform framework for native mobile and desktop devices application development via web technologies as the best framework for our purpose. We faced issues concerning the network synchronization and studied different database solutions depending on the device hardware characteristics and performances. This paper reports every aspect of the App development until the publication on the Apple Store.
A resilient feedback linearization control scheme for smart grids under cyber-physical disturbances

A cyber-enabled parametric control scheme is proposed for efficient transient frequency and phase stabilization in the power grid. Different implementations of the proposed control are investigated in this work. First, a centralized control scheme is proposed where the controller relies on timely phasor measurement unit (PMU) information about the grid to employ fast-acting energy storage systems for stabilization. Further, a decentralized controller implementation assumes information about the rest of the grid is not available, and hence acts based on local PMU measurements. For the case of cyber attacks targeting communication channels and resulting in large delays or absence of PMU data, we propose a robust combined control scheme where the controller operates in a centralized mode by default and switches to the decentralized scheme if PMU information is delayed or not available. Numerical results show the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed controller against physical and cyber-physical disturbances in the 39-bus 10-generator New England power system.
Genome-Wide Identification of Human Functional DNA Using a Neutral Indel Model

It has become clear that a large proportion of functional DNA in the human genome does not code for protein. Identification of this non-coding functional sequence using comparative approaches is proving difficult and has previously been thought to require deep sequencing of multiple vertebrates. Here we introduce a new model and comparative method that, instead of nucleotide substitutions, uses the evolutionary imprint of insertions and deletions (indels) to infer the past consequences of selection. The model predicts the distribution of indels under neutrality, and shows an excellent fit to human–mouse ancestral repeat data. Across the genome, many unusually long ungapped regions are detected that are unaccounted for by the neutral model, and which we predict to be highly enriched in functional DNA that has been subject to purifying selection with respect to indels. We use the model to determine the proportion under indel-purifying selection to be between 2.56% and 3.25% of human euchromatin. Since annotated protein-coding genes comprise only 1.2% of euchromatin, these results lend further weight to the proposition that more than half the functional complement of the human genome is non-protein-coding. The method is surprisingly powerful at identifying selected sequence using only two or three mammalian genomes. Applying the method to the human, mouse, and dog genomes, we identify 90 Mb of human sequence under indel-purifying selection, at a predicted 10% false-discovery rate and 75% sensitivity. As expected, most of the identified sequence represents unannotated material, while the recovered proportions of known protein-coding and microRNA genes closely match the predicted sensitivity of the method. The method's high sensitivity to functional sequence such as microRNAs suggest that as yet unannotated microRNA genes are enriched among the sequences identified. Futhermore, its independence of substitutions allowed us to identify sequence that has been subject to heterogeneous selection, that is, sequence subject to both positive selection with respect to substitutions and purifying selection with respect to indels. The ability to identify elements under heterogeneous selection enables, for the first time, the genome-wide investigation of positive selection on functional elements other than protein-coding genes.
Multi sensor fusion of camera and 3D laser range finder for object recognition

This paper proposes multi sensor fusion based on an effective calibration method for a perception system designed for mobile robots and intended for later object recognition. The perception system consists of a camera and a three-dimensional laser range finder. The three-dimensional laser range finder is based on a two-dimensional laser scanner and a pan-tilt unit as a moving platform. The calibration permits the coalescence of the two most important sensors for three-dimensional environment perception, namely a laser scanner and a camera. Both sensors permit multi sensor fusion consisting of color and depth information. The calibration process based upon a specific calibration pattern is used to define the extrinsic parameters and calculate the transformation between a laser range finder and a camera. The found transformation assigns an exact position and the color information to each point of the surroundings. As a result, the advantages of both sensors can be combined. The resulting structure consists of colored unorganized point clouds. The achieved results can be visualized with OpenGL and used for surface reconstruction. This way, typical robotic tasks like object recognition, grasp calculation or handling of objects can be realized. The results of our experiments are presented in this paper.
Production of the Escherichia coli Common Pilus by Uropathogenic E. coli Is Associated with Adherence to HeLa and HTB-4 Cells and Invasion of Mouse Bladder Urothelium

Uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC) strains cause urinary tract infections and employ type 1 and P pili in colonization of the bladder and kidney, respectively. Most intestinal and extra-intestinal E. coli strains produce a pilus called E. coli common pilus (ECP) involved in cell adherence and biofilm formation. However, the contribution of ECP to the interaction of UPEC with uroepithelial cells remains to be elucidated. Here, we report that prototypic UPEC strains CFT073 and F11 mutated in the major pilin structural gene ecpA are significantly deficient in adherence to cultured HeLa (cervix) and HTB-4 (bladder) epithelial cells in vitro as compared to their parental strains. Complementation of the ecpA mutant restored adherence to wild-type levels. UPEC strains produce ECP upon growth in Luria-Bertani broth or DMEM tissue culture medium preferentially at 26°C, during incubation with cultured epithelial cells in vitro at 37°C, and upon colonization of mouse bladder urothelium ex vivo. ECP was demonstrated on and inside exfoliated bladder epithelial cells present in the urine of urinary tract infection patients. The ability of the CFT073 ecpA mutant to invade the mouse tissue was significantly reduced. The presence of ECP correlated with the architecture of the biofilms produced by UPEC strains on inert surfaces. These data suggest that ECP can potentially be produced in the bladder environment and contribute to the adhesive and invasive capabilities of UPEC during its interaction with the host bladder. We propose that along with other known adhesins, ECP plays a synergistic role in the multi-step infection of the urinary tract.
Exponential Stability on Stochastic Neural Networks With Discrete Interval and Distributed Delays

This brief addresses the stability analysis problem for stochastic neural networks (SNNs) with discrete interval and distributed time-varying delays. The interval time-varying delay is assumed to satisfy 0 < d<sub>1</sub> ¿ d(t) ¿ d<sub>2</sub> and is described as <i>d</i>(<i>t</i>) = <i>d</i> <sub>1</sub>+<i>h</i>(<i>t</i>) with 0 ¿ <i>h</i>(<i>t</i>) ¿ <i>d</i> <sub>2</sub> - <i>d</i> <sub>1</sub>. Based on the idea of partitioning the lower bound <i>d</i> <sub>1</sub>, new delay-dependent stability criteria are presented by constructing a novel Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional, which can guarantee the new stability conditions to be less conservative than those in the literature. The obtained results are formulated in the form of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). Numerical examples are provided to illustrate the effectiveness and less conservatism of the developed results.
Helicobacter pylori colonization of the human gastric epithelium: A bug's first step is a novel target for us

After Helicobacter pylori enters the stomach, three steps are vital for infection: (i) establishing colonization; (ii) evading host immunity; and (iii) invading gastric mucosa; the last step is what is associated with diverse outcomes. Urease activity and motility mediated by the flagella of H. pylori are important in harboring colonies beneath the gastric mucus in niches adjacent to the epithelium. Several putative adhesins attach the organism to the gastric epithelium and prompt the succeeding processes for evading host immunity and invading the mucosa. Successful colonization is thus the leading and critical step. From another point of view, this can be a novel target to control this common and important infection. This review summarizes the putative adhesins that influence the evasion of host immunity, and how these could determine different clinico‐pathologic outcomes. The putative adhesins include the interplay between bacterial and host Lewis antigens (type I: Lea and Leb; type II: Lex and Ley), the dominant pathway between BabA and Leb, the SabA adhesin binding to sialylated Lex that is upregulated in inflamed gastric tissue or those with weak‐Leb, the CagL apparatus to adapt with the α5β1 integrin to mediate a type IV secretory system for CagA translocation into the epithelium; and other outer membrane proteins as HopZ, AlpA/AlpB, or OipA, without known corresponding receptors. This review implicates the adhesins vital for bugs that could be alternatively provided as novel targets for us to overcome the colonization.
Cumulative analysis of the association between the data of the gravitational wave detectors NAUTILUS and EXPLORER and the gamma ray bursts detected by BATSE and BeppoSAX

The statistical association between the output of the Gravitational Wave (GW) detectors EXPLORER and NAUTILUS and a list of Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) detected by the satellite experiments BATSE and BeppoSAX has been analyzed using cumulative algorithms. GW detector data collected between 1991 and 1999 have been searched for an energy excess in a 10 s interval around the GRB flux peak times. The cumulative analysis of the data relative to a large number of GRBs (387) allows to push the upper bound for the corresponding GW burst amplitude down to h=2.5x10{sup -19}.
Importance of the Renal Nerves in Established Two‐Kidney, One Clip Goldblatt Hypertension

Increased sympathetic nervous system activity has been demonstrated in established twokidney, one clip hypertension in the rat. To determine the importance of the renal nerves in this model of hypertension, renal denervation of the clipped kidney (n = 15), renal denotation of the nondlpped kidney (n = 14), sham operation (n = 20), or undlpping (n = 12) was carried out 6 weeks after the onset of two-kidney, one clip hypertension. Nortnotensive age- and sex-matched rats were used as controls (n = 10). Sham operation or renal denerration of the nonclipped kidney produced no change in systolic Mood pressure while renal denervation of the clipped kidney resulted in a significant decrease in systolic blood pressure (195±7 to 150±6 mm Hg; p < 0.01). Unclipping lowered systolic Mood pressure to normotensive levels (126±5 mm Hg). Eight days after operation, plasma norepinephrine and mean arterial pressure before and after ganglionic blockade with 30 mg/kg hexamethonium bromide were measured in conscious unrestrained resting animals as indices of peripheral sympathetic nervous system activity. Plasma norepinephrine was significantly higher in hypertensive sham-operated rats (347±26 pg/ml) and nondipped-kidney denervated rats (355±27 pg/ml) compared to nonnotensive controls (228±22 pg/ml) (p < 0.01). Both renal denervation of the clipped kidney and unclipping restored plasma norepinephrine to normal levels (215±16 and 232±19 pg/ml, respectively). Ganglionic blockade in hypertensive sham-operated and nondipped-kidney denervated animals resulted in a significantly greater decrease in mean arterial pressure than that which occurred in clipped-kidney denervated, undipped, or control rats. There was no difference in plasma renln activity, dipped-kidney renln activity, or blood pressure response to 250 fig SQ 20,881 administration among sham-operated, dipped-kidney deoervated, or nondipped-kidney denervated animals. The data indicate that the depressor effect of dipped kidney denervation or undipping in the two-kidney, one dip hypertensive rat is associated with a decrease in sympathetic nervous system activity. These results support the hypothesis that the afferent renal nerves contribute to the maintenance of hypertension in this model by modulating the activity of the sympathetic nervous system. (Hypertension 4 (suppl II): II-166-II-174, 1982)
Stressor categorization: acute physical and psychological stressors elicit distinctive recruitment patterns in the amygdala and in medullary noradrenergic cell groups

It has been hypothesized that the brain categorizes stressors and utilizes neural response pathways that vary in accordance with the assigned category. If this is true, stressors should elicit patterns of neuronal activation within the brain that are category‐specific. Data from previous immediate–early gene expression mapping studies have hinted that this is the case, but interstudy differences in methodology render conclusions tenuous. In the present study, immunolabelling for the expression of c‐fos was used as a marker of neuronal activity elicited in the rat brain by haemorrhage, immune challenge, noise, restraint and forced swim. All stressors elicited c‐fos expression in 25–30% of hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus corticotrophin‐releasing‐factor cells, suggesting that these stimuli were of comparable strength, at least with regard to their ability to activate the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis. In the amygdala, haemorrhage and immune challenge both elicited c‐fos expression in a large number of neurons in the central nucleus of the amygdala, whereas noise, restraint and forced swim primarily elicited recruitment of cells within the medial nucleus of the amygdala. In the medulla, all stressors recruited similar numbers of noradrenergic (A1 and A2) and adrenergic (C1 and C2) cells. However, haemorrhage and immune challenge elicited c‐fos expression in subpopulations of A1 and A2 noradrenergic cells that were significantly more rostral than those recruited by noise, restraint or forced swim. The present data support the suggestion that the brain recognizes at least two major categories of stressor, which we have referred to as ‘physical’ and ‘psychological’. Moreover, the present data suggest that the neural activation footprint that is left in the brain by stressors can be used to determine the category to which they have been assigned by the brain.
Reputation mechanism of services supply chains based on Markov process

Nowadays, the services supply chains and widespread applications of E-commerce carry on attentions from researchers. If we set an E-commerce platform for the products of services supply chains, the macroscopic products can be transacted as merchandise through E-commerce. However, e-commercial websites use the traditional twain reputation mechanism to show reputation of each merchant. Under this mechanism, individual judgments could be ineffective. This paper suggests a singular reputation mechanism for the services supply chains. It focuses on the design method of the singular reputation mechanism under the continues-time Markov decision process (CTMDP). Besides, the paper discusses the sensitivity of the model and provides a guideline for setting the reputation mechanism. The singular reputation mechanism constructed by this paper shows a new idea of services supply chains and provides a new method to study the trust problem of the E-commerce.
Subset Selection via Implicit Utilitarian Voting

How should one aggregate ordinal preferences expressed by voters into a measurably superior social choice? A well-established approach -- which we refer to as implicit utilitarian voting -- assumes that voters have latent utility functions that induce the reported rankings, and seeks voting rules that approximately maximize utilitarian social welfare. We extend this approach to the design of rules that select a subset of alternatives. We derive analytical bounds on the performance of optimal (deterministic as well as randomized) rules in terms of two measures, distortion and regret. Empirical results show that regret-based rules are more compelling than distortion-based rules, leading us to focus on developing a scalable implementation for the optimal (deterministic) regret-based rule. Our methods underlie the design and implementation of an upcoming social choice website.
A Corpus Study for Identifying Evidence on Microblogs

Microblogs are a popular way for users to communicate and have recently caught the attention of researchers in the natural language processing (NLP) field. However, regardless of their rising popularity, little attention has been given towards determining the properties of discourse relations for the rapid, large-scale microblog data. Therefore, given their importance for various NLP tasks, we begin a study of discourse relations on microblogs by focusing on evidence relations. As no annotated corpora for evidence relations on microblogs exist, we conduct a corpus study to identify such relations on Twitter, a popular microblogging service. We create annotation guidelines, conduct a large-scale annotation phase, and develop a corpus of annotated evidence relations. Finally, we report our observations, annotation difficulties, and data statistics.
Revealed Preference and the Strength/Weight Hypothesis

Most decisions are made in the face of uncertainty due to incomplete evidence. The strength/weight hypothesis is that people are more persuaded when that evidence is extreme (high strength) than when it is reliable (high weight), even when these two dimensions of evidence are equivalent according to Bayes Rule. We investigate this hypothesis in an incentive-compatible revealed preference experiment. We confirm the hypothesis. Although earlier researchers using hypothetical, stated preference methods have found a pattern of overconfidence for high strength/low weight information, and underconfidence for low strength/high weight information, we find that underconfidence is the main direction of the bias. Moreover, the strength/weight effect in our revealed preference experiment was much smaller than in earlier stated preference studies.
Adoptive T-cell transfer combined with a single low dose of total body irradiation eradicates breast tumors

The major objectives of tumor vaccination are to induce the regression of established tumors and to favor the establishment of long-lasting tumor-specific immunity, capable of protecting the host from relapse. Immunotherapeutic strategies such as the administration of tumor-associated antigenic peptides offer one means to boost preexisting antitumor CD8+ T cell immunity. Our recent work reveals that established breast tumors are rejected and tumor recurrence prevented when low-dose irradiation is combined with the adoptive transfer of Mammaglobin A epitope-specific CD8+ T cells.