Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Guidance of a Mobile Robot using Computer Vision over a Distributed System

Previously, there have been several 4th-year projects using computer vision to follow a robot and thereby control it. The essence of this project is disconnectedness. The robot is controlled over a wireless link and is no-longer dependent on an umbilical cable. The user control has also been abstracted using CORBA allowing operations to be invoked on the robot from a remote location. Thanks to CORBA, the interface is universal and a small client program can be written to run on any platform connected to the Internet. An aerial camera connected to a server machine monitors the robot. This uses a B-spline snake, updated in an affine manner, to estimate the robot’s position in the image. A plane-to-plane homography is established using four known points and the system can map image coordinates to world coordinates. The server can therefore estimate the robot’s position in world coordinates and a discrete control strategy then moves the robot between positions. Such movement may be initiated from either the server or a client machine using CORBA.
Accounting for biological and physical sources of acoustic backscatter improves estimates of zooplankton biomass

To convert measurements of backscattered acoustic energy to estimates of abundance and taxonomic information about the zooplankton community, all of the scattering processes in the water column need to be identified and their scattering contributions quantified. Zooplankton populations in the eastern edge of Wilkinson Basin in the Gulf of Maine in the Northwest Atlantic were surveyed in October 1997. Net tow samples at different depths, temperature and salinity profiles, and multiple frequency acoustic backscatter measurements from the upper 200 m of the water column were collected. Zooplankton samples were identified, enumerated, and measured. Temperature and salinity profiles were used to estimate the amount of turbulent microstructure in the water column. These data sets were used with theoretical acoustic scattering models to calculate the contributions of both biological and physical scatterers to the overall measured scattering level. The output of these predictions shows that the dominant source of.
High efficacy of albendazole-PEG 6000 in the treatment of Toxocara canis larva migrans infection.

OBJECTIVES In vitro and in vivo experiments were used to determine whether albendazole-PEG 6000 solid dispersions would be effective in the treatment of Toxocara canis larva migrans. METHODS Albendazole-PEG 6000 (1:1, 1:5 and 1:9 ratios) solid dispersions were prepared by the solvent evaporation method. The morphology of the particles was evaluated by scanning electron microsocopy (SEM), and in vitro dissolution assays were also carried out. Mice were infected with T. canis and then treated orally with albendazole-PEG 6000 systems or albendazole suspended in water. The anthelmintic effect was examined at 28 days post-infection (p.i.). The number of larvae recovered from mice treated with albendazole alone and those treated with albendazole-PEG 6000 were compared with the numbers from the placebo group. RESULTS Dissolution of albendazole from solid dispersions was markedly enhanced by increasing the polymer concentration. At a 1:9 drug:polymer ratio, >90% of the albendazole was dissolved in 10 min. SEM showed microparticles to be of small spherical shape compared with the pure components. In vivo evaluation of larva migration showed that both albendazole-PEG 6000 solutions exhibited a greater anthelmintic effect in the brain (0 larvae/mouse). In addition it was also found that liver and lung showed a significant decrease in the number of larvae. Evaluation of vehicle toxicity (PEG 6000 in water) showed a mice survival rate of 100% at the assayed concentrations. CONCLUSIONS These data suggest that albendazole-PEG 6000 solid dispersions markedly increased the effectiveness of albendazole against the migratory activity of larvae. Particularly, these polymeric solutions were able to totally prevent migration of larvae to the mouse brain.
Chart Mining-based Lexical Acquisition with Precision Grammars

In this paper, we present an innovative chart mining technique for improving parse coverage based on partial parse outputs from precision grammars. The general approach of mining features from partial analyses is applicable to a range of lexical acquisition tasks, and is particularly suited to domain-specific lexical tuning and lexical acquisition using low-coverage grammars. As an illustration of the functionality of our proposed technique, we develop a lexical acquisition model for English verb particle constructions which operates over unlexicalised features mined from a partial parsing chart. The proposed technique is shown to outperform a state-of-the-art parser over the target task, despite being based on relatively simplistic features.
Reduction Mammoplasty With Superolateral Dermoglandular Pedicle: Details of 15 Years of Experience

The techniques of reduction mammoplasty are multiple and varied. Each one has advantages and disadvantages. With any of them, full preservation of vascularity and sensitizing of the nipple-areola complex (NAC) should be sought, as well as functionality of the breast. We present our 15 years’ experience using the superolateral dermoglandular pedicle, a technique that fully preserves the integrity of the breast. During that 15-year period, we operated on 702 breasts in 356 patients, using the superolateral dermoglandular pedicle, with the NAC requiring a migration of 5 to 16 cm (mean: 9.2 cm), having resected breast tissue between 300 and 1380 g, (average: 660 g). The technique was used in women between 16 and 63 years of age (average 37), who wanted breast reduction and who required a migration of the NAC greater than 5 cm.We had minor complications consisting of wound dehiscence (5.9%), scar hyperpigmentation (3.9%), fat necrosis (3.8%), hypertrophic scarring (3.1%), alterations in sensitivity (2.27%), and keloid scarring (0.5%). We had 9 cases of necrosis of the NAC (1.28%), of which 7 were partial (0.99%) and 2 were total (0.28%). Satisfaction with the results was 94%. The technique of reduction mammoplasty with a superolateral dermoglandular pedicle has been used in mammary hypertrophy and gigantomasty with excellent results. Its design is simple, its performance easy, and its aesthetic results are highly reproducible. The position of the pedicle allows full preservation of the vascularity, sensitivity, and functionality of the breast, and is therefore a highly recommendable technique.
Upper-arm elevation during office work.

The present aim was to measure and quantify upper-arm elevation and to find how changed work organization and work tasks influence arm movement during a working day. Sixteen female office workers participated in the study. Their main work was statistical data entry. Upper-arm elevation was measured on two occasions separated by 18 months, i.e., before and after a change of work organization. The measurements were performed during the whole of one ordinary working day. The differences between the two measurements were mostly non-significant. Arm elevation remained essentially below 30 degrees during the main time of the working day, and the subjects worked with limited arm movements. Despite new alternative office tasks, they did not achieve a change in their habitual arm postures, or in their neck-and-shoulder disorders.
Effects of oxygen on pyruvate formate-lyase in situ and sugar metabolism of Streptococcus mutans and Streptococcus sanguis

The strictly anaerobic metabolism of sugar in strains of Streptococcus mutans and Streptococcus sanguis was studied because deep layers of dental plaque are strictly anaerobic. Galactose-grown cells of these streptococcal strains had higher pyruvate formate-lyase activity than did glucose-grown cells. Among these strains, two strains of S. mutans had a significantly higher pyruvate formate-lyase activity than did the others. This enzyme is extremely sensitive to oxygen, and even in situ the enzyme was inactivated by exposure of the cells to air. Lactate was less than 50% of the total end product of the strictly anaerobic incubation of the galactose-grown cells of S. mutans with excess glucose, and a significant amount of formate, acetate, and ethanol was produced through the catalysis of pyruvate formate-lyase. But the cells exclusively produced lactate when exposed to air for 2 min before the anaerobic incubation. The metabolism of sorbitol by S. mutans was seriously impaired by the exposure of the cells to oxygen, and the metabolic rate was reduced to less than 1/20 of that found under strictly anaerobic conditions because of the inactivation of pyruvate formate-lyase. S. sanguis produced a smaller amount of the volatile products from glucose than did S. mutans because of the low level of pyruvate formate-lyase. However, the pyruvate formate-lyase in situ in S. sanguis was less sensitive to oxygen than was that in S. mutans. Because of this low sensitivity, S. sanguis metabolized glucose more rapidly under aerobic conditions, whereas the rates of the aerobic and anaerobic metabolism of glucose by S. mutans were similar, which suggests that S. mutans rather than S. sanguis can sustain the rapid sugar metabolism in the deep layers of dental plaque.
Differences in skeletal muscle loss caused by cytotoxic chemotherapy and molecular targeted therapy in patients with advanced non‐small cell lung cancer

Recent studies have revealed a reduction in the skeletal muscle area in patients with advanced non‐small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) after chemotherapy. EGFR and ALK tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI)‐based therapies are less cytotoxic than chemotherapy, but differences in skeletal muscle mass between patients receiving EGFR and ALK TKI therapies and patients receiving cytotoxic chemotherapy have not yet been reported.
Consensus Protocols for Undirected Networks of Dynamic Agents with Communication Time-Delays

In this paper, we introduce linear and nonlinear consensus protocols for networks of dynamic agents that allow the agents to agree in a distributed and cooperative fashion. We consider the cases of networks with communication time-delays and channels that have ﬁltering eﬀects. We ﬁnd a tight upper bound on the maximum ﬁxed time-delay that can be tolerated in the network. It turns out that the connectivity of the network is the key in reaching a consensus. The case of agreement with bounded inputs is considered by analyzing the convergence of a class of nonlinear protocols. A Lyapunov function is introduced that quantiﬁes the total disagreement among the nodes of a network. Simulation results are provided for agreement in networks with communication time-delays and constrained inputs.
Genetic Aspects of Alzheimer Disease

Background:Alzheimer disease (AD) is a genetically complex disorder. Mutations in 3 genes, presenilin 1, amyloid precursor protein, and presenilin 2, lead to early-onset familial AD in rare families with onset of disease occurring prior to age 65. Specific polymorphisms in apolipoprotein E are associated with the more common, late-onset AD occurring after age 65. In this review, we discuss current advances in AD genetics, the implications of the known AD genes, presenilin 1, presenilin 2, amyloid precursor protein, and apolipoprotein E, and other possible genes on the clinical diagnosis, treatment, and genetic counseling of patients and families with early- and late-onset AD. Review Summary:In addition to the mutations in 4 known genes associated with AD, mutations in other genes may be implicated in the pathogenesis of the disease. Most recently, 2 different research groups have reported genetic association between 2 genes, sortilin-related receptor and GAB2, and AD. These associations have not changed the diagnostic and medical management of AD. Conclusions:New research in the genetics of AD have implicated novel genes as having a role in the disease, but these findings have not been replicated nor have specific disease causing mutations been identified. To date, clinical genetic testing is limited to familial early-onset disease for symptomatic individuals and asymptomatic relatives and, although not recommended, amyloid precursor protein apolipoprotein E testing as an adjunct to diagnosis of symptomatic individuals.
Near-Optimal Compression for Compressed Sensing

In this note we study the under-addressed quantization stage implicit in any compressed sensing signal acquisition paradigm. We also study the problem of compressing the bitstream resulting from the quantization. We propose using Sigma-Delta (ΣΔ) quantization followed by a compression stage comprised of a discrete Johnson-Lindenstrauss embedding, and a subsequent reconstruction scheme based on convex optimization. We show that this encoding/decoding method yields near-optimal rate-distortion guarantees for sparse and compressible signals and is robust to noise. Our results hold for sub-Gaussian (including Gaussian and Bernoulli) random compressed sensing measurements, and they hold for high bit-depth quantizers as well as for coarse quantizers including 1-bit quantization.
Hearing Loss and Cognition: The Role of Hearing Aids, Social Isolation and Depression

Hearing loss is associated with poor cognitive performance and incident dementia and may contribute to cognitive decline. Treating hearing loss with hearing aids may ameliorate cognitive decline. The purpose of this study was to test whether use of hearing aids was associated with better cognitive performance, and if this relationship was mediated via social isolation and/or depression. Structural equation modelling of associations between hearing loss, cognitive performance, social isolation, depression and hearing aid use was carried out with a subsample of the UK Biobank data set (n = 164,770) of UK adults aged 40 to 69 years who completed a hearing test. Age, sex, general health and socioeconomic status were controlled for as potential confounders. Hearing aid use was associated with better cognition, independently of social isolation and depression. This finding was consistent with the hypothesis that hearing aids may improve cognitive performance, although if hearing aids do have a positive effect on cognition it is not likely to be via reduction of the adverse effects of hearing loss on social isolation or depression. We suggest that any positive effects of hearing aid use on cognition may be via improvement in audibility or associated increases in self-efficacy. Alternatively, positive associations between hearing aid use and cognition may be accounted for by more cognitively able people seeking and using hearing aids. Further research is required to determine the direction of association, if there is any direct causal relationship between hearing aid use and better cognition, and whether hearing aid use results in reduction in rates of cognitive decline measured longitudinally.
Computer Vision-Based Human Motion Capture - A Survey

This technical report is the documentation of a survey within computer vision-based human motion capture. The idea with this report is to present previous work in a structural manner using taxonomies at di erent levels. The report is structured in the following way. The rst chapter gives an introduction to new types of interfaces where one class is known as the "Looking at People" domain. Within this class computer vision-based human motion capture is de ned. In chapter two motion capture is described in a larger context describing the di erent sensors used for motion capture. Chapter three presents previous taxonomies which are commented and a new taxonomy is suggested. Chapter four describes a number of assumptions which are used in computer vision-based human motion capture. The next four chapters each give a detailed description of the four classes present in the taxonomy suggested in chapter three. Finally a conclusion is given in the last chapter. Throughout the descriptions of the taxonomy and its four classes a number of examples are given from the literature. Preface This technical report is the documentation of a survey within computer vision-based human motion capture. The writing of the report was carried out in the winter 98/99 while the reading of papers was done during the summer and fall of 1998. The work presented is the rst step in my Ph.D.study titled: "Multiple Cues for Model-Based Human Motion Capture". A large number of papers have been read to write this report. Approximately 2/3 of them (107) are directly concerned with computer vision-based human motion capture. Detailed summaries of these papers can be found in another concurrently written technical report: Summaries of 107 Computer Vision-Based HumanMotion Capture Papers [108]. Whenever I use 'he' throughout the report it should be read as he/she. Finally I would like to thanks Moritz Stoerring for his help editing the report. Aalborg, Denmark, March 1999 Thomas B. Moeslund (tbm@vision.auc.dk)
Communication Architecture , Challenges and Paradigms for Robotic Firefighters

Mobile robots can be helpful for post disaster management, e.g., to explore hazardous and damaged environments. However, many challenges in various areas have to be solved, e.g., mechanical issues, situation awareness, communication capabilities. We present the interdisciplinary research project Robotic Firefighters (RFF) which addresses some of the IT problems. We take a detailed look at the proposed distributed communication infrastructure enabling communication between different autonomous mobile RFF units. Besides direct multihop communication, the RFF communication architecture includes the ability to have an RFF robot physically distribute communication nodes called Dropboxes. They can be used to deploy a WSN or act as data exchange points enabling communication and coordination between RFF units. Prototype implementations of the RFF Dropbox concept, including two kinds of Dropboxes, and an experimental platform for automatic deployment, are introduced.
Keys for Free in Description Logics

DLR is an expressive Description Logic (DL) with n-ary relations, particularly suited for modeling database schemas and queries. Although DLR has constituted one of the crucial steps for applying DL technology to data management, there is one important aspect of database schemas that DLs, including DLR, do not capture yet, namely the notion of key. In this paper we show that keys are for free in DLR. In particular, we address the following question: can we add keys to DLR and still have EXPTIME associated reasoning techniques? Somewhat surprisingly we answer positively, by showing how to adapt the DLR reasoning algorithm in such a way that reasoning on a DLR schema with keys can be done with the same worst-case computational complexity as for the case without keys.
More evidence on the risks of passive smoking

But existing evidence is enough to implicate it as a health hazard R ecently the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) reviewed more than 50 studies of passive smoking and lung cancer.1 The pooled excess risk of lung cancer from exposure to spousal smoking was about 20% for women and 30% for men. So what do the two articles featured in this issue add to the evidence on the health hazards of passive smoking, which is already quite extensive (277, 287)? 2 3 Compared with the large number of cases of lung cancer (about 6700) available for the IARC meta-analysis, the report from the EPIC study makes a relatively modest contribution (about 100 newly diagnosed cases). 2 The adjusted hazard ratio for lung cancer among people exposed to passive smoking was 1.70 (95% confidence interval 1.11 to 2.60). Some methodological limitations have been noted in …
Percutaneous PFO closure, further data but many unanswered questions.

This editorial refers to ‘Patent foramen ovale closure in patients with cryptogenic thrombo-embolic events using the Cardia PFO occluder’† by C. Spies et al . , on page 365 The pace of technological development in interventional congenital cardiology over the last two decades has been fast and relentless. Successful and reliable closure of secundum atrial septal defects in the catheter laboratory translated to interest in the use of similar devices for the occlusion of the patent foramen ovale (PFO), a common remnant of the fetal circulation. The pathological potential of the PFO in the genesis of unexplained thrombotic stroke had long been suspected,1 with Lechat et al. 2 in 1988 reporting a higher prevalence of PFO in patients with cryptogenic thrombotic stroke, an observation confirmed in a number of subsequent studies.3 With low risk and a simple technique for PFO closure as an alternative to surgery, many clinicians faced with patients affected by crypotogenic stroke have been quick to advance the cause of percutaneous therapy in this setting, despite the lack of a really robust evidence base. As a result, we have found ourselves in a scenario familiar to many involved with transcatheter intervention in congenital heart disease where technological advances and the ability to perform a procedure have to some degree outpaced our understanding … *Corresponding author. Tel: +44 113 3928184; fax: +44 113 3928375. E-mail address : john.thomson{at}lineone.net
The Microenvironmental Effect in the Progression, Metastasis, and Dormancy of Breast Cancer: A Model System within Bone Marrow

Despite diagnostic advances, breast cancer remains the most prevalent cancer among women in the United States. The armamentarium of treatment options for metastatic disease is limited and mostly ineffective with regards to eradicating cancer. However, there have been novel findings in the recent literature that substantiate the function of the microenvironment in breast cancer progression and the support of metastasis to tertiary sites such as bone marrow. The uncovered significance of the microenvironment in the pathophysiology of breast cancer metastasis has served to challenge previously widespread theories and introduce new perspectives for the future research to eradicate breast cancer. This paper delineates the current understanding of the molecular mechanisms involved in the interactions between breast cancer cells and the microenvironment in progression, metastasis, and dormancy. The information, in addition to other mechanisms described in bone marrow, is discussed in the paper.
A computationally efficient solution to the simultaneous localisation and map building (SLAM) problem

The theoretical basis of the solution to the simultaneous localisation and map building (SLAM) problem where an autonomous vehicle starts in an unknown location in an unknown environment and then incrementally build a map of landmarks present in this environment while simultaneously using this map to compute absolute vehicle location is well understood. Although a number of SLAM implementations have appeared in the literature, the need to maintain the knowledge of the relative relationships between all the landmark location estimates contained in the map makes SLAM computationally intractable in implementations containing more than few tens of landmarks. In this paper, the theoretical basis and a practical implementation of a computationally efficient solution to SLAM is presented. The paper shows that it is indeed possible to remove a large percentage of the landmarks from the map without making the map-building process statistically inconsistent. Furthermore, it is shown that the efficiency of the SLAM can be maintained by judicious selection of landmarks, to be preserved in the map, based on their information content.