Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Modeling the Superovulation Stage in In Vitro Fertilization

In vitro fertilization (IVF) is the most common technique in assisted reproductive technology and in most cases the last resort for infertility treatment. It has four basic stages: superovulation, egg retrieval, insemination/fertilization, and embryo transfer. Superovulation is a drug-induced method to enable multiple ovulation per menstrual cycle. The success of IVF majorly depends upon successful superovulation, defined by the number and similar quality of eggs retrieved in a cycle. Modeling the superovulation stage can help in predicting the outcomes of IVF before the cycle is complete. In this paper, we developed a model for superovulation stage. The model is adapted from the theory of batch crystallization. The aim of crystallization is to get maximum crystals of similar size and purity, while superovulation aims at eggs of similar quality and size. The rate of crystallization and superovulation are both dependent on the process conditions and varies with time. The kinetics of follicle growth is modeled as a function of injected hormones and the follicle properties are represented in terms of the moments. The results from the model prediction were verified with the known data from Jijamata Hospital, Nanded, India. The predictions were found to be in agreement with the actual observations.
The Changing IASB and AASB Relationship

This article takes the reader inside the changing relationship between the Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB) and other standard setters, and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) in 2012. Critically, it looks at the prospect that relationships between the IASB and domestic standard setters might now change markedly as attempts are made to establish more formal links with domestic and regional groupings of standard setters, a move currently being mooted by the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Trustees and the IASB. Related to this development, the article looks at a rapidly emerging aspect of standard setting – the rise of regional groupings such as the Asian-Oceanian Standard-Setters Group (AOSSG). Such groups are having a direct impact on relationships between domestic standard setters and the IASB.
A disturbed state concept model of granular material considering physical state

On the basis of the theory of the concept of disturbed state of the granular materials proposed by C.S. Desai for sandy soil, through defining the relatively complete state and the completely adjusted state, we established the disturbance function, the constitutive model for the disturbed state of granular materials, and the methods for determining the parameters. The calculation results obtained from the numerical simulation towards the triaxial test results of two different kinds of granular materials in a real engineering work are consistent with the test results, which shows that this model can satisfactorily reflect the main mechanical properties of the granular materials, including the non-linear characteristics like strength and confining pressures, and the volume change characteristics that these materials show relatively obvious dilations under low confining pressure and relatively obvious contraction under high confining pressure.
DOVE : Detection of Movie Violence using Motion Intensity Analysis on Skin and Blood

DOVE is an automated system which detects violence in motion pictures. Violence in this paper is defined as movie sequences involving actions producing blood such as extreme punching, kicking, stabbing, and similar actions. Frames are analyzed from the MPEG stream from a VideoCD file. The color histograms of each pair of frames are used to compute the pairs’ Euclidean distances which determine whether a scene cut operation will be performed. The system finds a representative frame within each of the scenes and these frames are passed to the Self-Organising Map for labeling of skin, blood and nonskin/nonblood pixels. Labeled pixels are grouped through Connected Components to determine which regions should be observed for possible occurrence of violent motion these regions are characterized by the presence of relatively large skin and blood components. The pixels of these components are then cross-checked with the Pixel Change Ratio Map (PCRM) which represents the motion intensity of each pixel in all the frames of a scene. A scene is considered violent if the PCRM finds ’high’ motion intensity for the pixels within the skin and blood components determined earlier. Experiments show that the methods used by the system are effective even if the movie is very dynamic i.e., with numerous many camera pans, tilts and zooms. It also proved to be useful in identifying violent motion for movies with varying speeds.
Integrating landscape improvement indices and discrete choice experiments: evidence from the Rural Environment Protection Scheme in Ireland

This paper reports findings from two discrete choice experiments that were carried out to value landscape improvement measures within the Rural Environment Protection (REP) Scheme in Ireland. Using a mixed logit specification willingness to pay (WTP) distributions based on the parameter estimates obtained from the individual conditional distributions are derived. These estimates are subsequently adjusted using landscape improvement indices to reflect landscape improvements actually arising from the REP Scheme. Individual-specific WTP estimates are contrasted with the cost of the REP Scheme. Results indicate that the REP Scheme contributes substantial benefits to rural landscapes.
Inotrope use at separation from cardiopulmonary bypass and the role of prebypass TEE.

L OW CARDIAC OUTPUT syndrome (LCOS) occurring during or shortly after cardiovascular (CV) surgery is characterized by cardiac and/or circulatory failure and results in a spectrum of clinical entities ranging from the inability to wean from cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) to postcardiotomy cardiogenic shock. Although the latter represents a dreadful postoperative clinical complication occurring in 1% to 2% of adult cardiac procedures and carries a substantial morbidity and in-hospital mortality, cardiogenic shock remains the strongest indication for mechanical circulatory support. 1,2 Inability to wean from CPB and use of inotropes to this end may potentially be associated with adverse events such as increased rates of perioperative myonecrosis, longer intensive care unit stay, prolonged mechanical ventilation and, particularly, increased arrhythmias. Supraventricular and ventricular arrhythmias produce challenging CV problems in the early perioperative period. LCOS may occur secondary to abnormalities in heart rate (tachyarrhythmias or bradyarrhythmias), hypovolemia, inappropriately elevated afterload, or myocardial dysfunction. Myocardial dysfunction or " stunning " describes a phenomenon of transient global biventricular dysfunction that may occur even in the presence of normal preoperative cardiac function and that usually dissipates within 24 to 48 hours postopera-tively. 3 Initial treatment of LCOS aims at addressing surgically correctable causes (graft occlusion, bleeding, valve malfunction , and so on) and then initiating inotropes for circulatory support followed by mechanical support, if needed, of which the intra-aortic balloon pump is a first-line modality. 4,5 In this context, cardiac imaging during CV surgery can provide substantial insights into the mechanisms of periopera-tive LCOS and help guide therapy. Since the initial introduction of echocardiography as an intraoperative imaging modality, 6,7 intraoperative transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) has progressively become an essential tool in CV surgery with various applications, including evaluation of valvular anatomy and function, ischemic wall motion abnormalities, ventricular function, hemodynamics, thoracic aortic anatomy, identification of intracardiac shunts, monitoring of pericardial procedures , and other miscellaneous uses. 8 Routine intraoperative TEE use has become especially widespread with the increasing number of anesthesiologists adequately trained to perform and evaluate these procedures and with its proven safety; in 1 series of 7,200 cardiac surgical patients, 0% mortality and only 0.2% morbidity (mostly postoperative dysphagia) due to TEE were observed. 9 More importantly, TEE proved to be an important tool to guide intraoperative therapy such as fluid administration , inotropic use, and anti-ischemic therapy. In 1 report of 75 cardiac surgical procedures, TEE was the single most important guiding factor …
Robust Image Segmentation Using FCM Based on New Kernel-Induced Distance Measure with Membership Constraints

The accurate and effective algorithm for segmenting image is very useful in many fields, especially in medical image. In this paper, we present a novel algorithm for fuzzy segmentation of magnetic resonance (MR) images. The algorithm is realized by modifying the objective function in the conventional fuzzy C-means (FCM) algorithm using a kernel-induced distance metric and a membership constraints on the membership functions. With synthetic image and the clinical MR images, the experiments show that our proposed algorithm is effective.
Craving Behavior Intervention in Ameliorating College Students' Internet Game Disorder: A Longitudinal Study

Craving, as a central feature of addiction and a precursor of relapse, is targeted recently in addiction intervention. While Internet gaming disorder (IGD), conceptualized as a behavioral addiction, is lack of effective treatment practice and exploration of its mechanism. This research aims to test the effectiveness and detect the active ingredients of craving behavior intervention (CBI) in mitigation of IGD among young adults. A total of 63 male college students with IGD were assigned into the intervention group (six-session CBI intervention) or the waiting-list control group. Structured questionnaires were administered at pre-intervention (T1), post-intervention (T2), 3-month follow-up (T3), and 6-month follow-up (T4). Compared to the control group, a significant decrease in the severity of IGD in intervention group was found at post-intervention and lasting to 6 months after intervention. The value changes of craving could partially mediate the relationship between intervention and changes of IGD among all effects tests (immediate, T2-T1; short-term, T3-T1; and long-term effects, T4-T1). Further, explorations of the active ingredients of intervention found depression relief and shift of psychological needs from Internet to real life significantly predict craving amelioration at both post-intervention and 6-month follow-up. Although preliminary, the current study provides evidence for the value of craving-aimed intervention practice in IGD treatment and identifies two potential active ingredients for mitigation of craving, and the long-term therapeutic benefits are further conferred. Registry name: The behavioral and brain mechanism of IGD; URL: https://www.clinicaltrials. gov/ct2/show/NCT02550405; Registration number: NCT02550405.
An improved method for experimental evaluations of TCP Congestion Control Algorithms

Benchmarks are a vital part of most of the performed research activity. Internet is an extremely complex internetwork composed of many smaller but still complex networks based on the Internet Protocol (IP). Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is the most common protocol for IP networks and one of the toughest to perform realistic tests on. It is assumed that it is impossible to emulate all of Internet’s behavior under lab conditions and thus accurate benchmarking and testing of TCP consists a difficult task. We present a review of existing tools that are being used for evaluating TCP Congestion Control Algorithms. We also include a new method for performing detailed benchmarks of TCP Congestion Control Algorithms. The paper presents a custom made utility with more abilities than existing tools and a set of scripts for automating benchmarks and graphing collected data.
Bit parallel string matching

The string matching problem (SMP) consists of finding substring (generally pattern) P in text T . In the basic form both P and T consist of characters in the same alphabet Σ. In practice the text can contain spelling errors. Thus we can extend the problem and try to find all occurrences of P where some characters can be missing, in wrong order, or the text contains additional characters. In the extended pattern matching we can search for more complex patterns which can be described by regular expressions. This problem is described in some applications like word processors, virus scanning, text information retrieval systems, digital libraries, web search engine, etc [HELC01]. There are many approaches to solve SMP. The simplest way to find a substring in the given text is a brute force algorithm. It compares all characters of the text with the beginning of the substring. If the characters match, it compares the next characters in the text. The brute force algorithm does not need any additional preparations or space but its time complexity is O(nm) in the worst case and O(n) in the average case, where n is the size of the text and m is the size of the substring [HELC01]. The classical Boyer-Moore (BM) [HELC01, RSB77] algorithm is one of the most popular and efficient for common applications (e.g. text editors). BM is like brute force, but it compares characters from right to left starting from the rightmost character that give the opportunity to make larger shifts. The BM requires preprocessing which takes O(m + s) time, where m is the size of the pattern and s is the size of the alphabet. It also needs O(m + s) additional space where s is the size of the alphabet. Unlike the brute force algorithm, it has a time complexity O(n+m) in the average case. The time required for the algorithm decreases with the increase of the size of the pattern and the alphabet [HELC01].
OSISS: An operating system integrity surveillance system based on VMM

Kernel-level attacks can compromise the security of an operating system by tampering with key data and control flow in the kernel. Current approaches defend against these attacks by applying data integrity or control flow integrity control methods. However, they focus on only a certain aspect and cannot give a complete integrity monitoring solution. This paper tries our best to find out all resorts that violate the kernel integrity of operating system by analyzing what objects an action of the kernel relies on and affects. Then we examine all these objects to avoid them from being tamped with and also monitor whether the effect of an action of the kernel is the same as the semantics specified by the original design. Our operating system integrity surveillance system (OSISS) is implemented in a virtual machine monitor (VMM) and it can detect abnormity of an action by monitoring the data integrity and control flow integrity with acceptable performance loss.
Transfer RNAs with novel cloverleaf structures

Abstract We report the identification of novel tRNA species with 12-base pair amino-acid acceptor branches composed of longer acceptor stem and shorter T-stem. While canonical tRNAs have a 7/5 configuration of the branch, the novel tRNAs have either 8/4 or 9/3 structure. They were found during the search for selenocysteine tRNAs in terabytes of genome, metagenome and metatranscriptome sequences. Certain bacteria and their phages employ the 8/4 structure for serine and histidine tRNAs, while minor cysteine and selenocysteine tRNA species may have a modified 8/4 structure with one bulge nucleotide. In Acidobacteria, tRNAs with 8/4 and 9/3 structures may function as missense and nonsense suppressor tRNAs and/or regulatory noncoding RNAs. In δ-proteobacteria, an additional cysteine tRNA with an 8/4 structure mimics selenocysteine tRNA and may function as opal suppressor. We examined the potential translation function of suppressor tRNA species in Escherichia coli; tRNAs with 8/4 or 9/3 structures efficiently inserted serine, alanine and cysteine in response to stop and sense codons, depending on the identity element and anticodon sequence of the tRNA. These findings expand our view of how tRNA, and possibly the genetic code, is diversified in nature.
Krishna Bharadwaj, August 21, 1935 – March 8, 1992: A Memoir

Krishna Bharadwaj died on March 8, 1992 at the age of 56. For many years she was Professor of Economics at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. She spent several years in the United Kingdom, as a Fellow of Clare Hall and as a Research Officer of the Department of Applied Economics, Cambridge, in the 1960s and 1970s, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, in the 1980s. She also taught at Bombay, Stanford, and the New School for Social Research in New York and often visited Italy, both the University of Rome and the annual Intemational Summer Schools at Trieste in the 1980s. Krishna was one of the persons I loved best in all the world. She had complete integrity combined with the ability to inspire and support others. Thus, she was a warm and supportive friend, supportive in the best sense of being fearlessly honest and straight, realistic and tough, capable of telling people to get on with things, if that was what was needed. Krishna was not only a fine scholar with a wide range of interests and contributions, she was also a disinterested scholar who despised egotism and careerism. Don Harris (March 31, 1993) asked that I add: "She was herself a modest person, completely without airs and pretension, and of gentle manner in both personal and professional relations. " Of course I concur. Most of all, Krishna was a clear-headed, instinctive patriot who applied her intellectual gifts to the understanding
How Does the ECB Allot Liquidity in its Weekly Main Refinancing Operations? A Look at the Empirical Evidence

This model provides a simple weekly model of the regular supply of liquidity in the euro area, with a view to understanding the functioning of the euro area money market. The main result of the analysis is that liquidity has normally been provided by the ECB in a neutral and smooth manner, but also that there has been attempt, albeit very limited, to correct deviations of the overnight rate from the main refinancing rate. Moreover, the paper finds that liquidity has affected the overnight interest rate to a significant extent only after the last main refinancing operation of the maintenance period, when it is not possible for the ECB to adjust liquidity imbalances except by making recourse to fine-tuning operations. JEL Classification: E52, E43, G21
Design of operating software and electrical system of mobile robot for environmental monitoring

Environmental monitoring robot is a new method for approaching environmental monitoring. The main issue with the development of this is to develop accessible its system. Several studies have been conducted on the autonomous monitoring system and they performed well, however, almost they are costly and complex therefore be not considered well to be accessible design. The purpose of our work was to develop an accessible system and implement to root for other field's researchers. The objectives of the work were to design operating software and electrical system that could be easily used to operate the robot and monitor the environment as a monitoring system. The middle sections of the article introduce and describe specific information about these objectives. We also explain the results of its experimental implementations to an autonomous environmental monitoring robot named Waseda Animal Monitoring robot (WAMOT). An operating software and electrical system were successfully designed by using the existing infrastructure and product, especially, smartphone and public cloud server were used for making the robot easy to use. The developed method is significant, not only because it fills a gap in the mobile robot, but also because it makes possible to adapt to the conventional monitoring method such as monitoring post. Therefore, achieves the core concept of accessibility.
A model for warehouse layout

This paper describes an approach to determine a layout for the order picking area in warehouses, so that the average travel distance for the order pickers is minimized. We give analytical formulas that can be used to calculate the average length of an order picking route under two different routing policies. The optimal layout can be determined by using these formulas as the objective function in a nonlinear programming model. The optimal number of aisles in an order picking area appears to depend strongly on the required storage space and the pick list size.
An experimental study of time-constrained aggregate queries

Although the notion of time-constrained query was first introduced two decades ago to address the problem of long running SQL queries, none of the commercial database systems support such a feature. This is rather surprising given the fact that database systems are beginning to accommodate large datasets in the order of terabytes to petabytes. Thus, the long running SQL query problem needs to be addressed. Recently, at Oracle we investigated and proposed a mechanism of supporting time-constrained quenes to provide quick approximate answers by use of sampling for such long running SQL quenes. This we followed up by coming up with error estimates as a measure of goodness for the approximation. To further validate our time-constrained query work, in this paper we present an experimental study conducted on our time-constrained query prototype built on the Oracle Database. It is our hope that this work will revive interest in time-constrained queries.
Nordamnacanthal potentiates the cytotoxic effects of tamoxifen in human breast cancer cells

Tamoxifen (TAM) is the mainline drug treatment for breast cancer, despite its side effects and the development of resistance. As an alternative approach, in the present study a novel combination therapy was established through combining TAM with nordamnacanthal (NDAM) in order to investigate the additive effect of these drugs in MCF-7 human breast cancer cells. A significant dose-dependent reduction in cell viability and an increase in apoptosis were observed in the MCF-7 cells cotreated with TAM and NDAM compared with the untreated control cells or the cells treated with TAM and NDAM alone (P<0.05). The cytotoxic influence of the combination of TAM and NDAM was found to be two-fold that of the individual agents. Annexin V/propidium iodide double-staining revealed the typical nuclear features of apoptosis. Furthermore, an increase in the proportion of apoptotic, Annexin V-positive cells was observed with the combination therapy. Moreover, this apoptotic induction was associated with a collapse of the mitochondrial membrane potential and the generation of reactive oxygen species. To the best of our knowledge, the findings of the present study are the first to suggest that combining TAM with NDAM may be a potential combination therapy for the treatment of breast cancer and may have the potential to minimize or eliminate the side effects associated with high doses of TAM.
LDL as a Cause of Atherosclerosis

The low density lipoprotein particle is the major transporter of cholesterol around the body and has been shown to be a strong independent risk factor for atherosclerotic events. This review discusses the normal and abnormal metabolism of low density lipoprotein (LDL). Mechanisms by which LDL causes atherosclerosis are discussed with particular reference to the importance of alteration in LDL composition including attachment of other proteins to the circulating LDL particle.