Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An improved highly sensitive method to determine low oxyresveratrol concentrations in rat plasma and its pharmacokinetic application.

Existing methods to determine oxyresveratrol, a trans-polyphenolic stilbene, lack selectivity, require large plasma sample volumes or have time-consuming sample preparation and chromatographic isolation. Here an improved highly sensitive liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method was developed to determine low oxyresveratrol concentrations in rat plasma. The plasma samples were prepared by liquid-liquid extraction with acetoacetate. The analytes were separated on Venusil hydrophilic interaction chromatography (HILIC) column (2.1 × 50 mm, 5.0 µm) guarded by a HILIC column (4 × 3.0 mm, 5.0 µm). The mobile phase consisted of acetonitrile-water (containing 1 mmol/L ammonium formate) at gradient elution mode with a flow rate of 0.3 mL/min. Resveratrol was used as the internal standard. An electrospray ionization source was applied and operated in the negative multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode. Oxyresveratrol and resveratrol were detected on MRM by the transitions from the precursor to the product ion (m/z 243.1 → 175.1 and 227.1 → 143.0). The total running time was 5 min and the retention times of oxyresveratrol and resveratrol were 1.97 and 1.82 min. Chromatograms showed no endogenous interfering peaks with blank samples. The linear calibration curve was obtained over the concentration range of 1-500 ng/mL. The injection volume was 10 μL and the limit of quantification was 1 ng/mL. The extraction recovery varied from 78.2 to 84.3% for low, medium and high quality control samples. At the same time, the intra- and inter-day relative standard deviations were <6.78 and <10.02%, respectively, while the corresponding intra- and inter-day accuracy relative error values fell in the range of 3.75-6.67%. The HPLC-MS/MS method was successfully applied to a pharmacokinetics study, in which the experimental rats received a single dose of oxyresveratrol (10 mg/kg, intragastric administration). The pharmacokinetic results are presented.
A Cloth Detection Method Based on Image Wrinkle Feature for Daily Assistive Robots

—This paper describes an image based clothes detection method. Our method enables daily assistive robots to ﬁnd clothes which are readily placed on real environments. No prior knowledge related to shape model or color information is needed because wrinkles on a cloth are extracted as image feature. The feature is constructed through SVM learning by using training data which is the result of Gabor ﬁltering. Clothes extraction based on the feature is combined with Graph Cut, image regions are divided into cloth regions and background. Effectiveness of the proposed method was illustrated through tidying clothes up by a real robot in living room.
Blood Eosinophils and Exacerbations in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. The Copenhagen General Population Study.

RATIONALE Whether high blood eosinophils are associated with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbations among individuals with COPD in the general population is largely unknown. OBJECTIVES To test the hypothesis that high blood eosinophils predict COPD exacerbations. METHODS Among 81,668 individuals in the Copenhagen General Population Study, we examined 7,225 with COPD based on spirometry. We recorded blood eosinophils at baseline and future COPD exacerbations longitudinally, defined as moderate (short-course treatment with systemic corticosteroids) or severe (hospitalization). We also assessed exacerbation risk in a subgroup of 203 individuals with clinical COPD, defined as participants with a smoking history of at least 10 pack-years, FEV1 less than 70% of predicted value, and at least one moderate or severe exacerbation in the year before baseline. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS During a median of 3.3 years of follow-up (range, 0.03-8.1), 1,439 severe and 2,864 moderate COPD exacerbations were recorded. Among all participants with COPD, blood eosinophils above versus below 0.34 × 10(9) cells per liter had multivariable-adjusted incidence rate ratios of 1.76 (95% confidence interval, 1.56-1.99) for severe exacerbations and 1.15 (1.05-1.27) for moderate exacerbations. Corresponding values in those with clinical COPD were 3.21 (2.49-4.14) and 1.69 (1.40-2.04). In contrast, using a cutpoint of 2% for blood eosinophils, the risk of exacerbations was increased for severe exacerbations only among individuals with clinical COPD and not in individuals in the broader population. CONCLUSIONS Among individuals with COPD in the general population, increased blood eosinophil levels above 0.34 × 10(9) cells per liter were associated with a 1.76-fold increased risk of severe exacerbations.
Convection links biomass burning to increased tropical ozone : however, models will tend to overpredict O3

Biomass burning throughout the inhabited portions of the tropics generates precursors which lead to significant local atmospheric ozone pollution. Several simulations show how this smog could be only an easily observed, local manifestation of a much broader increase in tropospheric ozone. We illustrate basic processes with a one-dimensional time-dependent model that is closer to true meteorological motions than commonly used eddy diffusion models. Its application to a representative region of South America gives reasonable simulations of the local pollutants measured there. Three illustrative simulations indicate the importance of dilution, principally due to vertical transport, in increasing the efficiency of ozone production, possibly enough for high ozone to be apparent on a very large, intercontinental scale. In the first, cook-then-mix, simulation the nitrogen oxides and other burning-produced pollutants are confined to a persistently subsident fair weather boundary layer for several days, and the resultant ozone is found to have only a transient influence on the whole column of tropospheric ozone. In the second, mix-then-cook, simulation the effect of typical cumulonimbus convection, which vents an actively polluted boundary layer, is to make a persistent increase in the tropical ozone column. Such a broadly increased ozone column is observed over the the populated “continental” portion of the tropics. A third simulation averages all emission, transport, and deposition parameters, representing one column in a global tropospheric model that does not simulate individual weather events. This “oversmoothing” simulation produces 60% more ozone than observed or otherwise modeled. Qualitatively similar overprediction is suggested for all models which average significantly in time or space, as all need do. Clearly, simulating these O3 levels will depend sensitively on knowledge of the timing of emissions and transport.
A Study of ECG Signal Classification using Fuzzy Logic Control

: I in ECG signals, there are significant variations of waveforms in both normal and abnormal beats. In this study, we have three stages preprocessing, feature extraction (using wavelet transform) and classification (using fuzzy logic control). Signal processing techniques to detect abnormalities in ECG signals were investigated using the MIT-BIH Arrhythmia Database. The aim of developing methodology is to distinguish between normal beats and abnormal beats in an ECG signal. ECG signals were first decomposed using wavelet transform. The feature vectors were then extracted from these decomposed signals as normalized energy and entropy using wavelet analysis. To improve the classification of the feature vectors of normal and abnormal beat. The combination of wavelet decomposition and the classification using feature vectors of the beats in ECG signals separate abnormal beats from normal beats using fuzzy logic control. Evaluating the proposed algorithm, resulting in sensitivity 100% for all except AF 90%, specificity 100% and total classification accuracy 97%.
Host specialist clownfishes are environmental niche generalists

Why generalist and specialist species coexist in nature is a question that has interested evolutionary biologists for a long time. While the coexistence of specialists and generalists exploiting resources on a single ecological dimension has been theoretically and empirically explored, biological systems with multiple resource dimensions (e.g. trophic, ecological) are less well understood. Yet, such systems may provide an alternative to the classical theory of stable evolutionary coexistence of generalist and specialist species on a single resource dimension. We explore such systems and the potential trade-offs between different resource dimensions in clownfishes. All species of this iconic clade are obligate mutualists with sea anemones yet show interspecific variation in anemone host specificity. Moreover, clownfishes developed variable environmental specialization across their distribution. In this study, we test for the existence of a relationship between host-specificity (number of anemones associated with a clownfish species) and environmental-specificity (expressed as the size of the ecological niche breadth across climatic gradients). We find a negative correlation between host range and environmental specificities in temperature, salinity and pH, probably indicating a trade-off between both types of specialization forcing species to specialize only in a single direction. Trade-offs in a multi-dimensional resource space could be a novel way of explaining the coexistence of generalist and specialists.
MoneyBee: Towards enabling a ubiquitous, efficient, and easy-to-use mobile crowdsourcing service in the emerging market

We present a mobile crowdsourcing platform called MoneyBee that is accessible to mobile phone users in emerging markets through their mobile operators. The operator has a large subscriber base and the ability to pay task workers using prepaid airtime minutes. These advantages allow MoneyBee to reach far more people than conventional Internet crowdsourcing approaches. The mobile operator already has access to information on user demographics, location and presence, and monthly spending patterns. In addition, the MoneyBee platform gathers user information (such as preferences, skills, and reliability) from a user's interaction with the crowdsourcing service. Using this data to intelligently assign crowd-sourcing tasks to relevant workers is a challenging problem. Similarly, efficient dispatching of tasks to minimize the network load on the operator network is equally important. Further, simple interfaces (including speech) are needed to submit as well as execute crowdsourcing tasks on the mobile device. We describe initial solutions to some of these challenges in this paper.
Hyperspectral Imagery Further Unmixing Based On Analysis Of Variance

Hyperspectral imagery unmixing model based on sparse regression uses the existing endmembers’ library as priori information. Usually, the existing endmembers’ library contains almost all kinds of ground objects. Even though sparse regression-based imagery unmixing method added sparse constraint to the original unmxing model, the solution is still far away as sparse as real scenario. Therefore, we propose a hyperspectral imagery further unmixing method based on the analysis of variance. In this method, fractional abundances unmixed by sparse regression-based approach are analyzed with t-test. If the fractional abundances are not significant enough, the corresponding endmembers will be removed and a new optimal endmember subset will be extracted. Then the unmixing process was redid with acquired optimal endmember subset and the final result will be acquired. The experimental results indicate that the proposed method could acquire sparser solution, which is closer to the real sparsity of abundance, both in simulate scenario and real scenario. Furthermore, the precision of the endmember recognition of proposed method is more than 97%, which is a pretty good result. Keywords-Hyperspectral imagery; Linear unmixing; Sparse regression; Analysis of variance
Heart Failure Management in Skilled Nursing Facilities: A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association and the Heart Failure Society of America

Heart failure (HF) is a complex syndrome in which structural or functional cardiac abnormalities impair the filling of ventricles or left ventricular ejection of blood. HF disproportionately occurs in those ≥65 years of age.1 Among the estimated 1.5 to 2 million residents in skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) in the United States, cardiovascular disease is the largest diagnostic category, and HF is common.2,3 Despite the high prevalence of HF in SNF residents, none of the large randomized clinical trials of HF therapy included SNF residents, and very few included patients >80 years of age with complex comorbidities. Several issues make it important to address HF care in SNFs. The healthcare environment and characteristics of SNF residents are distinct from those of community-dwelling adults. Comorbid illness unrelated to HF (eg, dementia, hip fracture) increases with age >75 years, and these conditions may complicate both the initial HF diagnosis and ongoing management.4–6 Morbidity and mortality rates are significantly increased for hospitalized older adults with HF discharged to SNFs compared with those discharged to other sites.7 Transitions between hospitals and SNFs may be problematic.8 SNF 30-day rehospitalization rates for HF range from 27% to 43%,7,9,10 and long-term care residents sent to the emergency department are at increased risk for hospital admission and death.11 The purpose of this scientific statement is to provide guidance for management of HF in SNFs to improve patient-centered outcomes and reduce hospitalizations. This statement addresses unique issues of SNF care and adapts HF guidelines and other recommendations to this setting. This scientific statement on HF management in SNFs was developed by a writing group of experts representing nursing, medicine (cardiology, geriatrics, nursing home physicians, and palliative medicine), pharmacology, physical therapy, dietary clinical management, research, and …
Fine‐needle aspiration biopsy of the liver: A multicenter study of 602 radiologically guided FNA

With improved radiologic techniques fine‐needle aspiration (FNA) is becoming a rapid, effective diagnostic method in evaluating a wide range of liver masses. Review of six hundred two radiologically guided liver aspirates performed over a ten‐year period forms the basis of this report. Diagn. Cytopathol. 2000;23:326–328. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Determination of left ventricular mass in dogs with rapid-acquisition cardiac computed tomographic scanning.

The development of left ventricular hypertrophy in patients with heart disease often has far-reaching clinical implications with respect to overall morbidity and mortality. Approaches used to assess left ventricular mass include electrocardiography, echocardiography, contrast ventriculography, single photon-emission tomography, and conventional computed tomography. However, all of these modalities suffer from some major draw back that precludes widespread application to all patients. In this study we assessed the accuracy of determinations of left ventricular mass in 22 dogs by rapid-acquisition (50 msec) computed axial tomography (RACAT), an ultrafast computed tomographic (CT) instrument. Electrocardiographically triggered, end-diastolic, short-axis cardiac scans were obtained from apex to base during administration of intravenous iodinated contrast. Myocardial edges were determined for each tomographic scan by two methods: the regional half-contour method (the CT density half way between that of the left ventricular myocardium and adjacent ventricular cavities or lung) and "interactive plateau thresholding" of the cardiac borders. Left ventricular mass by RACAT was calculated as the sum of the mass of each individual scan from apex to base (modified Simpson's rule). Postmortem left ventricular mass ranged from 58 to 160 g. The correlation between true left ventricular mass and tomographically determined mass was excellent (r = .99), with the slope and y intercept not statistically different from 1 and 0, respectively. The standard error of the estimate was 4.1 g. Interobserver and intraobserver variability for determining left ventricular mass demonstrated excellent agreement (r = .99 and r = .99, respectively). We conclude that quantitative assessment of left ventricular mass can be accurately and reproducibly performed in dogs by rapid acquisition CT scanning. It is likely that this technique will be readily transferable to the clinical settings and prove to be an important method for quantifying left ventricular mass in patients.
Lysis from without

In this commentary I consider use of the term “lysis from without” (LO) along with the phenomenon’s biological relevance. LO originally described an early bacterial lysis induced by high-multiplicity virion adsorption and that occurs without phage production (here indicated as LOV). Notably, this is more than just high phage multiplicities of adsorption leading to bacterial killing. The action on bacteria of exogenously supplied phage lysin, too, has been described as a form of LO (here, LOL). LOV has been somewhat worked out mechanistically for T4 phages, has been used to elucidate various phage-associated phenomena including discovery of the phage eclipse, may be relevant to phage ecology, and, with resistance to LO (LOR), is blocked by certain phage gene products. Speculation as to the potential impact of LOV on phage therapy efficacy also is fairly common. Since LOV assays are relatively easily performed and not all phages are able to induce LOV, a phage’s potential to lyse bacteria without first infecting should be subject to at least in vitro experimental confirmation before the LOV label is applied. The term “abortive infection” may be used more generally to describe non-productive phage infections that kill bacteria.
A tactile function embedded flexible dynamic curvature sensor with rotational scanning detection ability

This paper presents a novel flexible dynamic curvature sensor with tactile sensing function (Fig. 1). The sensor is fabricated with a piezoelectric polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) film and integrated to the actuator made of arc-shaped ionic polymer metal composite (IPMC), allowing the curvature sensor to fit versatile curved targets, and rotationally scan the targets by electrical control. This polymer-based sensor can detect large curvature change and dynamically sense the curvature variation as a function of time. Meanwhile, the embedded tactile function of the curvature sensor can monitor whether the sensor touches the target. Detailed device design, fabrication process and testing are described in the text. This developed device could be applied to a dexterous robot for monitoring shape change of substance or possible to a catheter for medical applications.
Bitrate classification of twice-encoded audio using objective quality features

When a user uploads audio files to a music streaming service, these files are subsequently re-encoded to lower bitrates to target different devices, e.g. low bitrate for mobile. To save time and bandwidth uploading files, some users encode their original files using a lossy codec. The metadata for these files cannot always be trusted as users might have encoded their files more than once. Determining the lowest bitrate of the files allows the streaming service to skip the process of encoding the files to bitrates higher than that of the uploaded files, saving on processing and storage space. This paper presents a model that uses quality predictions from ViSQOLAudio, a full reference objective audio quality metric, as features in combination with a multi-class support vector machine classifier. An experiment on twice-encoded files found that low bitrate codecs could be classified using audio quality features. The experiment also provides insights into the implications of multiple transcodes from a quality perspective.
Vision and Audition Do Not Share Attentional Resources in Sustained Tasks

Our perceptual capacities are limited by attentional resources. One important question is whether these resources are allocated separately to each sense or shared between them. We addressed this issue by asking subjects to perform a double task, either in the same modality or in different modalities (vision and audition). The primary task was a multiple object-tracking task (Pylyshyn and Storm, 1988), in which observers were required to track between 2 and 5 dots for 4 s. Concurrently, they were required to identify either which out of three gratings spaced over the interval differed in contrast or, in the auditory version of the same task, which tone differed in frequency relative to the two reference tones. The results show that while the concurrent visual contrast discrimination reduced tracking ability by about 0.7 d′, the concurrent auditory task had virtually no effect. This confirms previous reports that vision and audition use separate attentional resources, consistent with fMRI findings of attentional effects as early as V1 and A1. The results have clear implications for effective design of instrumentation and forms of audio–visual communication devices.
ELECTRICAL BIOIMPEDANCE CEREBRAL MONITORING: FROM HYPOTHESIS

ii ABSTRACT Stroke is among the leading causes of death worldwide and requires immediate care to prevent death or permanent disability. Unfortunately, the current state of stroke diagnosis is limited to fixed neuroimaging facilities that do not allow rapid stroke diagnosis. Hence, a portable stroke-diagnosis device could assist in the pre-hospital triage of patients. Moreover, such a portable device could also be useful for bedside stroke monitoring of patients in the Neuro Intensive Care Unit (Neuro-ICU) to avoid unnecessary neuroimaging. Recent animal studies and numerical simulations have supported the idea of implementing Electrical Bioimpedance (EBI) in a portable device, allowing non-invasive assessment as a useful tool for the pre-hospital triage of stroke and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) patients. Unfortunately, these studies have not reported any results from human subjects in the acute phase of the stroke. The numerical simulations are also based on simple models that sometimes lack necessary details. Finite Element Method (FEM) simulations on a realistic numerical head model as well as experimental Bioimpedance Spectroscopy (BIS) measurements from human subjects in the acute, subacute and chronic phases of stroke were used to answer the following research questions: (i) Does stroke modify the electrical properties of brain tissue in a way that is detectable via EBI? (ii) Would it be possible to detect stroke via EBI as early as in the acute and sub-acute phase? (iii) Is EBI sensitive enough to monitor changes caused by stroke pathogenesis? Using FEM to simulate electrical current injection on the head and study the resulting distribution of electrical potential on the scalp, it was shown that Intra-Cranial Hemorrhage (ICH) affects the quasi-symmetric scalp potential distribution, creating larger left-right potential asymmetry when compared to the healthy head model. Proof-of-concept FEM simulations were also tested in a small cohort of 6 ICH patients and 10 healthy controls, showing that the left-right potential difference in the patients is significantly (p<0.05) larger than in the controls. Using bioimpedance measurements in the acute, subacute and chronic phases of stroke and examining simple features, it was also shown that the head EBI measurements of patients suffering stroke are different from controls, enabling the discrimination of healthy controls and stroke patients at any stage of the stroke. The absolute change in test-retest resistance measurements of the control group (~5.33%) was also found to be significantly (p<0.05) smaller than the EBI measurements of patients obtained 24 hours and 72 hours after …