Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Retinal iron homeostasis in health and disease

Iron is essential for life, but excess iron can be toxic. As a potent free radical creator, iron generates hydroxyl radicals leading to significant oxidative stress. Since iron is not excreted from the body, it accumulates with age in tissues, including the retina, predisposing to age-related oxidative insult. Both hereditary and acquired retinal diseases are associated with increased iron levels. For example, retinal degenerations have been found in hereditary iron overload disorders, like aceruloplasminemia, Friedreich's ataxia, and pantothenate kinase-associated neurodegeneration. Similarly, mice with targeted mutation of the iron exporter ceruloplasmin and its homolog hephaestin showed age-related retinal iron accumulation and retinal degeneration with features resembling human age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Post mortem AMD eyes have increased levels of iron in retina compared to age-matched healthy donors. Iron accumulation in AMD is likely to result, in part, from inflammation, hypoxia, and oxidative stress, all of which can cause iron dysregulation. Fortunately, it has been demonstrated by in vitro and in vivo studies that iron in the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) and retina is chelatable. Iron chelation protects photoreceptors and retinal pigment epithelial cells (RPE) in a variety of mouse models. This has therapeutic potential for diminishing iron-induced oxidative damage to prevent or treat AMD.
In vitro and in vivo evaluation of SN-38 nanocrystals with different particle sizes

7-Ethyl-10-hydroxycamptothecin (SN-38) is a potent broad-spectrum antitumor drug derived from irinotecan hydrochloride (CPT-11). Due to its poor solubility and instability of the active lactone ring, its clinical use is significantly limited. As one of the most promising formulations for poorly water-soluble drugs, nanocrystals have attracted increasing attention. In order to solve these problems and evaluate the antitumor effect of SN-38 in vitro and in vivo, two nanocrystals with markedly different particle sizes were prepared. Dynamic light scattering and transmission electron microscopy were used to investigate the two nanocrystals. The particle sizes of SN-38 nanocrystals A (SN-38/NCs-A) and SN-38 nanocrystals B (SN-38/NCs-B) were 229.5±1.99 and 799.2±14.44 nm, respectively. X-ray powder diffraction analysis showed that the crystalline state of SN-38 did not change in the size reduction process. An accelerated dissolution velocity of SN-38 was achieved by nanocrystals, and release rate of SN-38/NCs-A was significantly faster than that of SN-38/NCs-B. Cellular uptake, cellular cytotoxicity, pharmacokinetics, animal antitumor efficacy, and tissue distribution were subsequently examined. As a result, enhanced intracellular accumulation in HT1080 cells and cytotoxicity on different tumor cells were observed for SN-38/NCs-A compared to that for SN-38/NCs-B and solution. Besides, compared to the SN-38 solution, SN-38/NCs-A had a higher bioavailability after intravenous injection; while the bioavailability of SN-38/NCs-B was even lower than that of the SN-38 solution. SN-38/NCs-A exhibited a significant inhibition of tumor growth compared to SN-38 solution and SN-38/NCs-B in vivo. The antitumor effect of SN-38/NCs-B was stronger than SN-38 solution. The tissue distribution study in tumor-bearing mice showed that nanocrystals could markedly improve the drug accumulation in tumor tissue by the enhanced permeability and retention effect compared to SN-38 solution, and the amount of SN-38 in tumors of SN-38/NCs-A group was much more than that of SN-38/NCs-B group. In conclusion, nanocrystals dramatically enhanced the anticancer efficacy of SN-38 in vitro and in vivo, and the particle size had a significant influence on the dissolution behavior, pharmacokinetic properties, and tumor inhibition of nanocrystals.
Efficient Preconditioning for Noisy Separable NMFs by Successive Projection Based Low-Rank Approximations

The successive projection algorithm (SPA) can quickly solve a nonnegative matrix factorization problem under a separability assumption. Even if noise is added to the problem, SPA is robust as long as the perturbations caused by the noise are small. In particular, robustness against noise should be high when handling the problems arising from real applications. The preconditioner proposed by Gillis and Vavasis (2015) makes it possible to enhance the noise robustness of SPA. Meanwhile, an additional computational cost is required. The construction of the preconditioner contains a step to compute the top-$k$ truncated singular value decomposition of an input matrix. It is known that the decomposition provides the best rank-$k$ approximation to the input matrix; in other words, a matrix with the smallest approximation error among all matrices of rank less than $k$. This step is an obstacle to an efficient implementation of the preconditioned SPA. To address the cost issue, we propose a modification of the algorithm for constructing the preconditioner. Although the original algorithm uses the best rank-$k$ approximation, instead of it, our modification uses an alternative. Ideally, this alternative should have high approximation accuracy and low computational cost. To ensure this, our modification employs a rank-$k$ approximation produced by an SPA based algorithm. We analyze the accuracy of the approximation and evaluate the computational cost of the algorithm. We then present an empirical study revealing the actual performance of the SPA based rank-$k$ approximation algorithm and the modified preconditioned SPA.
A text-independent speaker verification system using support vector machines classifier

Abstract In the recent years the technology for speaker verification orcall authentication has received an increasing amount ofattention in IVR industry. However due to the complexity ofspeaker information embedded in the speech signals thecurrent technology still can not produce the verificationaccuracy to meet the requirement for some applications. In thispaper we introduce a new pattern classification approach,support vector machines (SVM) for the text-independentspeaker verification. The SVM is a new way of statisticallearning based on a principle of structural risk minimisation.In the paper various evaluation results for the SVMverification system are presented and a comparison with abaseline GMM approach is also given. The results demonstratethat the SVM approach perform much better than the GMMapproach. On the same training and testing data set the SVMapproach gives an EER 1.2% versus 3.9% EER from theGMM approach. 1. Introduction In the recent years the technology for speaker verification(SV) or call authentication has received an increasing amountof attention in IVR industry. However due to the complexityof speaker information embedded in the speech signals thecurrent technology such as HMM, GMM, ANN etc. still cannot produce the verification accuracy to meet the requirementfor some applications. In this paper we introduce a newapproach support vector machines (SVM) for this problem.The SVM is a learning technique introduced by V. Vapnik [1]. It can be seen as a new way to statistical learning based on aprinciple of structural risk minimisation. An explicit noisedescription in the approach and the possibility of using non-linear kernel in the dual representation makes this method veryattractive in many pattern recognition areas. The technique hasbeen applied in the area of computer vision and others.Recently some works have shown that the algorithm canachieve better phoneme classification accuracy than someconventional methods for speech processing [2][3]. This paperpresents a text-independent SV system using the SVMapproach. In the paper some alternatives in the kernelfunctions and decision functions are discussed and evaluationresults are presented. The Gaussian mixture model (GMM)technique, one of most popular approach for the text-independent SV, is used as a baseline in our evaluations. Acomparison between the SVM and the GMM approach isgiven in the paper. Results demonstrate that the SVMalgorithm perform much better than the baseline GMM. Onthe same training and testing data set the SVM approach givesan equal error rate (EER) 1.2% versus 3.9% from the GMM.
Typhoon: Resource Sharing Protocol for Metropolitan Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks

In this paper, we propose a realistic resource sharing protocol for VANET. The main idea of our protocol comes from typhoons. Typhoons move according to their eyes' mobility, i.e., quorums which are responsible for a given resource holder/requester "moves" according to the resource holder's/ requester's mobility. Our protocol exploits spatial locality between requesters and resource holders. When resource requesters get their desired resources, they are able to be new resource holders. For hot-resources, requesters are so numerous that the spatial locality is much enhanced over time. Besides, lots of applications (e.g., available parking slot information) in VANET are location-aware which have spatial locality between requesters and resource holders. By the aid of the spatial locality, resource holders/requesters share/query sources in their vicinity in our protocol. Simulation results show that our protocol has lower search latency and well scalability comparing to the previous work. Besides, due to that the spatial locality is enhanced over time, successful rate increases over time.
Unterscheidet sich die Struktur des Arbeitsgedächtnisses bei Schulkindern mit und ohne Lernstörung

Zusammenfassung. 245 Kinder der ersten bis vierten Klassenstufe bearbeiten eine ausfuhrliche Testbatterie zur Erfassung der Funktionstuchtigkeit bei phonologischen, visuell-raumlichen und zentral-exekutiven Arbeitsgedachtnisanforderungen. Etwa die Halfte dieser Kinder leiden unter einer diagnostizierten Lernstorung (ICD-10). Mit Hilfe statistischer Dimensions- und Strukturanalysen konnte gezeigt werden, dass die der verwendeten Arbeitsgedachtnistestbatterie zugrunde liegende Vorstellung der Struktur von drei vergleichsweise unabhangigen Faktoren des Arbeitsgedachtnisses in gleicher Weise Gultigkeit hat fur Kinder mit vs. ohne Lernstorung.
Low-density parity-check convolutional codes applied to packet based communication systems

In this paper, the application of low-density parity-check convolutional codes (LDPC-CCs) to packet based communication systems is studied. By presenting analysis of encoder and decoder design as well as simulation results for such systems, we show that LDPC-CCs are more suited to packet based applications than LDPC block codes (LDPC-BCs). This is due to their ability to operate on arbitrary lengths of data, lower encoder complexity and the performance gain of presetting and termination. Moreover, in this paper, we propose an algorithm for terminating the LDPC-CC encoder from any state to the all-zero state.
3D reconstruction of indoor environments

This paper presents a new 3D scene analysis system that automatically reconstructs the 3D model of real-world scenes from multiple range images acquired by a laser range finder on board of a mobile robot. The reconstruction is achieved through an integrated procedure including range data acquisition, geometrical feature extraction, planning the next view, registration and integration of multiple views. The system relies only on the acquired data. Experimental results on real range images are presented in the paper. Direct applications of this technique include 3D reconstruction and/or update of architectural or industrial plans into a CAD model, design verification of buildings, navigation of autonomous robots, and input to virtual reality systems.
Machine transliteration survey

Machine transliteration is the process of automatically transforming the script of a word from a source language to a target language, while preserving pronunciation. The development of algorithms specifically for machine transliteration began over a decade ago based on the phonetics of source and target languages, followed by approaches using statistical and language-specific methods. In this survey, we review the key methodologies introduced in the transliteration literature. The approaches are categorized based on the resources and algorithms used, and the effectiveness is compared.
Approximating the Diameter of Planar Graphs in Near Linear Time

We present a (1 + ϵ)-approximation algorithm running in <i>O</i>(<i>f</i>(ϵ) · <i>n</i>log <sup>4</sup><i>n</i>) time for finding the diameter of an undirected planar graph with <i>n</i> vertices and with nonnegative edge lengths.
Electronic Nose Prediction of a Clinical Pneumonia Score: Biosensors and Microbes

Background: The authors performed a prospective study to determine whether breath test analysis using an electronic nose correlates with a clinical pneumonia score. Methods: Exhaled gas was sampled from the expiratory limb of the ventilator in mechanically ventilated surgical intensive care patients and assayed with the electronic nose. Components of a clinical pneumonia score were recorded concurrently. Results: The score predicted by the electronic nose showed good correlation with the actual pneumonia score (r2 = 0.81). Bland Altman analysis showed a mean bias of 0.0 (limits ± 2.6). Conclusions: The electronic nose is a new biosensor technology that correlates with a clinical pneumonia score.
FET college lecturers: the ‘devolving’ link in the South African skills development equation

National attention on the role of skills development has focused on the role of Further Education and Training (FET) colleges in providing intermediate‐level education and training necessary to meet the South African national development challenge. In particular, attention has been focused on reorganisation and rationalisation of college structures: through infrastructural development using recapitalisation funds; by curriculum renewal; and by proposing to boost learner enrolment to more than a million learners by 2014. The changes presuppose that college lecturers, as key strategic players, are a well‐motivated and an effective component of the college system ready to take on these challenges. This paper considers that this may not necessarily be the case. Some attention has been paid to them in passing in the South African literature on FET colleges, and a report on ‘staffing challenges’ commissioned by the national department provided important information as to their form and composition. Very little consideration has, however, been paid to the implications of the latest legislation on FET colleges. This paper examines the origins and impacts of these latest policy proposals on college lecturers. It examines the legislation in light of the international evidence and proposes that the latest devolution of employment responsibility to governing bodies, although in line with international trends, is less likely to be a positive development.
Microfinance dans les pays du Sud : quelle compatibilité entre solidarité et pérennité

Si la question de la perennite des dispositifs de microfinance est aujourd’hui centrale, elle peut difficilement etre dissociee de la question de la solidarite. A partir d’etudes de cas, cet article propose d’analyser dans quelles mesures perennite et solidarite sont compatibles, tant en ce qui concerne la gestion des risques que la gestion des couts. Concernant la gestion des risques, le credit solidaire, base sur la responsabilite conjointe des emprunteurs, est aujourd’hui l’instrument privilegie. La pratique montre toutefois que plusieurs conditions sont necessaires pour que le groupe puisse jouer un role effectif d’autoselection et d’incitation. Concernant la gestion des couts, notamment ceux lies a la croissance, deux issues sont envisagees. La premiere consiste a faire de la solidarite et de la perennite un seul et meme principe : c’est le principe des caisses autogerees. La seconde consiste a dissocier les deux dimensions en nouant des partenariats entre organismes de proximite et institutions financieres. ; Classification JEL : D63, O16
TSH measurement is not an appropriate screening test for autonomous functioning thyroid nodules: a retrospective study of 368 patients.

OBJECTIVE Based on the assumption that normal TSH concentration rules out the presence of autonomous functioning thyroid nodules (AFTNs), clinical guidelines on the management of thyroid nodules only recommend a thyroid scan if TSH concentration is subnormal. However, the proportion of AFTN presenting with a normal TSH is unknown. Our objective is therefore to determine the proportion of AFTNs with a normal TSH level to ascertain whether a normal TSH really rules out an AFTN. DESIGN Retrospective study on 368 patients with an AFTN. METHODS Thyroid scans with a diagnosis of AFTN were reviewed retrospectively by one of us (R Moreno-Reyes), blinded to the clinical data. The diagnosis of solitary AFTN was confirmed in 368 patients. Among them, we selected 217 patients based on the absence of another thyroid nodule >10 mm, the absence of medical conditions able to interfere with thyroid function, and the completeness of the data. RESULTS The proportion of AFTNs with normal TSH was 49%. This proportion increased to 71% in patients for whom thyroid scan was performed in the workup of a thyroid nodule. CONCLUSIONS Our data suggest that serum TSH is not an effective screening tool to diagnose AFTNs. Using 'TSH-only' screening, as recommended by the majority of guidelines, the diagnosis of AFTN would have been missed in 71% of our patients in the workup of a thyroid nodule. Thyroid scan remains the gold standard for detecting AFTN and should be considered before performing fine-needle aspiration cytology (FNAC), as the reliability of FNAC in an unsuspected AFTN remains unclear.
Determinig the Orientation of Surfaces from Optical Flow

This paper presents a method for computing the orientation of physical surfaces relative to the moving observer. The method is theoretically derived; it is not 'ad hoc'. The method exploits the remarkable properties of the optical flow, a concept which figures prominently in the Gibsonian theory of visual perception. We first describe the dynamic nature of visual information, and formally derive the optically sensed velocity field transformation (optical flow) for a moving observer. Then we derive the inverse transformation to show how gradients of optical flow uniquely inform about the orientation and shape of physical surfaces.
The application of a diagnostic model and surveys in organizational development

Examines the relationship between employees’ responses to the Organizational Diagnosis Questionnaire and ratings of organizational effectiveness in two organizations. Preziosi’s (1980) Organizational Diagnosis Questionnaire (ODQ), and Steele’s (1987) Organizational Effectiveness Questionnaire (OEQ), were distributed to employees in two Australian companies, and a total of 349 useable responses were obtained. Factor analysis of the ODQ yielded six meaningful factors which were interpreted in terms of the original sub‐scales of the ODQ as proposed by Preziosi. Factor analysis of the OEQ gave rise to two positively correlated effectiveness factors. Cronbach alpha reliability estimates were obtained for each of the original ODQ sub‐scales and for the six sub‐scales derived from the factor analysis of the questionnaire responses. Reliabilities for the two sets of sub‐scales were comparable, but with the factor‐based scales giving slightly higher reliabilities. Comparison of mean scores derived from the two org.
Differential effects of aging on explicit and implicit memory

Abstract In the present study, five consecutive age groups ranging from the 20s to the 60s were compared on a range of explicit and implicit memory tests which were modelled on the clinical tasks used to assess amnesia. With respect to explicit memory, the ability to recall verbal or visual material was seen to decline steadily with increasing age at immediate and delayed testing; there were, however, no consistent age differences regarding performance on recognition tasks. Perceptual skill acquisition within the context of a mirror reading task was unaffected by age, while word stem completion priming tended to decline across the age groups. Factor analysis revealed three factors: verbal explicit memory, visual memory (comprising visual recall and stem completion priming), and skill acquisition. the present findings indicate dissociable effects of normal aging on explicit and implicit memory, and thereby some degree of qualitative resemblance to human amnesia.
Exploring Male and Female Voices through Epistemic Modality and Evidentiality in Some Modern English Travel Texts on the Canaries

Abstract This article describes authorial voice through evidential and epistemic sentential devices in a corpus of 19th and early 20th century travel texts. The corpus contains four works written by female travellers and the other four by men. Therefore, apart from providing a catalogue of the strategies deployed by the authors in order to mark modality and evidentiality, we also report on expected differences in their frequencies of use in relation to the writer’s gender. In addition, the interest of this study lies in the fact that, to the best of our knowledge, no research on writer stance has previously been carried out in texts belonging to the genre of travel writing.
On the life of Ralstonia solanacearum, a destructive bacterial plant pathogen

Ralstonia solanacearum is a relevant and widespread phytopathogenic bacterium that causes a wilt disease with deadly effects on many economically important crops and ornamentals. It belongs to the β-proteobacteria and is considered a “species complex”. This soil and water borne bacterium enters the plant roots, multiplies through the xylem, collapses the host and returns to the environment. It has effective pathogenicity determinants to invade and colonize host plants but, also exhibits successful strategies for survival in harsh conditions. Thus, in the presence of host plant cells, a regulatory cascade activates secretion of cell wall-degrading enzymes and the cluster of hypersensitive reaction and pathogenicity genes encoding components of a type III secretion system. Once in the plant tissues, high densities of the pathogen increase expression of virulence genes and production of exopolysaccharide, the main pathogenicity determinant. These genes are controlled by a density-dependent regulatory network taking part in a quorum sensing system. After destroying the plant, the bacterium can persist in the environment through diverse survival forms until contact with a new host.