Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Polarity-coincidence filter banks and nondestructive evaluation

In Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE) applications, the technique of split-spectrum processing (SSP) decomposes the received signal into many subbands, and then uses nonlinear processing techniques (such as minimization or polarity thresholding) to detect the flaws' signal and location. The resulting subband signals are coherently combined to obtain a high-resolution version of the original signal. In this paper, we introduce the notion of Polarity-Coincidence (PC) in the context of wideband-signal detection. In an appropriately designed filter bank, all subband signals display a common polarity at the time of a transient (flaw). Necessary and sufficient conditions on the filter banks with PC properties are derived. Various conventional filter banks are studied for their PC properties. It turns out that the cosine-modulated filter bank cannot be a PC filter bank whereas certain linear-phase and pairwise-mirror-image filter banks may be PC. Design methods and examples of PC filter banks are given. The use of these filter banks, together with a PC polarity thresholding and recomposition algorithm, is simulated on ultrasonics data. <<ETX>>
Design of variable-damping control for prosthetic knee based on a simulated biped

This paper presents the development of a variable-damping controller for a prosthetic knee using a simulated biped in a virtual environment before real tests are conducted on humans. The simulated biped incorporates several features of human walking, such as functional morphology, exploitation of inherent dynamics, hierarchical control network, combination of feed-forward and feedback controllers and phase-dependent modulation. Based on this virtual model of human walking, we have studied biomechanical aspects of the knee joint during walking. Observing the damping profile developed by the simulated biped throughout a gait cycle, we designed a controller for the knee joint. This controller has been evaluated on a modified version of the simulated biped, in which the model of a real prosthetic leg was incorporated. Results of such experiments for walking on flat and rough terrains have provided satisfactory outputs, including improved robustness.
Translocation Renal Cell Carcinomas in Adults: A Single-institution Experience

Translocation renal cell carcinoma is a newly recognized subtype of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) with chromosomal translocations involving TFE3 (Xp11.2) or, less frequently, TFEB (6p21). Xp11 translocation RCC was originally described as a pediatric neoplasm representing 20% to 40% of pediatric RCCs, with a much lower frequency in the adult population. TFEB translocation RCC is very rare, with approximately 10 cases reported in the literature. Here, we describe the clinicopathologic features of adult translocation RCC from a single institution. Using tissue microarray, immunohistochemistry, cytogenetic examination, and fluorescence in situ hybridization, we identified 6 (∼5%) cases of TFE3 translocation RCC and 1 (<1%) case of TFEB translocation RCC in 121 consecutive adult RCC cases between 2001 and 2009. Our results suggest that weak TFE3 staining of a significant proportion of RCC cases may be because of expression of the full-length TFE3 protein rather than the chimeric fusion protein resulting from chromosomal translocation.
Fast implementation of model predictive control with guaranteed performance

A fast implementation of a given predictive controller for nonlinear systems is introduced through a piecewise constant approximate function defined over an hyper-cube partition of the system state space. Such a state partition is obtained by maximizing the hyper-cube volumes in order to guarantee, besides stability, an a priori fixed trajectory error as well as input and state constraints satisfaction. The presented approximation procedure is achieved by solving a set of nonconvex polynomial optimization problems, whose approximate solutions are computed by means of semidefinite relaxation techniques for semialgebraic problems.
Disambiguating Spatial Prepositions Using Deep Convolutional Networks

We address the coarse-grained disambiguation of the spatial prepositions as the first step towards spatial role labeling using deep learning models. We propose a hybrid feature of word embeddings and linguistic features, and compare its performance against a set of linguistic features, pre-trained word embeddings, and corpus-trained embeddings using seven classical machine learning classifiers and two deep learning models. We also compile a dataset of 43,129 sample sentences from Pattern Dictionary of English Prepositions (PDEP). The comprehensive experimental results suggest that the combination of the hybrid feature and a convolutional neural network outperforms state-of-the-art methods and reaches the accuracy of 94.21% and F1-score of 0.9398.
Valsalva Maneuver for the Analysis of Interaction Hemodynamic Model Study

A comprehensive lumped parameter electrical analog model of cardiopulmonary (CP) system to study the interaction between cardiovascular and respiratory system is presented. This model consists of 1) cardiovascular model which integrates four cardiac chambers with valves, pulmonary and systemic circulation, septal and pericardial coupling, and baroreflex control 2) respiratory system with lung mechanics and gas transport at alveolar-capillary membrane. The cardio-pulmonary interaction is realized by intrapleural pressure (Ppl). The governing equations for pressure, volume and flow in each vascular and respiratory compartment are derived from mass balance and continuity principles. Computer simulations are accomplished by numerically integrating the differential equations. Parameters of this combined model are adjusted to fit nominal data, yielding accurate hemodynamic waveforms and validated with literature data. Sensitivity analysis is also performed to individual model parameters. The respiratory influence on aortic pressure is analyzed with pulse pressure (PP) in Valsalva Maneuver(VM). Photoplethesmography is recorded to validate the aortic pressure variations in VM. The maximal percentage changes of PP in phase II of VM shows moderate negative correlation in both simulation and experiment. In summary, this model can be used to analyze cardiopulmonary interactions in normal and pathological states of both the systems.
From Individual to Collective Behavior in Bacterial Chemotaxis

Bacterial chemotaxis is widely studied from both the microscopic (cell) and macroscopic (population) points of view, and here we connect these very different levels of description by deriving the classical macroscopic description for chemotaxis from a microscopic model of the behavior of individual cells. The analysis is based on the velocity jump process for describing the motion of individuals such as bacteria, wherein each individual carries an internal state that evolves according to a system of ordinary differential equations forced by a time- and/or space-dependent external signal. In the problem treated here the turning rate of individuals is a functional of the internal state, which in turn depends on the external signal. Using moment closure techniques in one space dimension, we derive and analyze a macroscopic system of hyperbolic differential equations describing this velocity jump process. Using a hyperbolic scaling of space and time, we obtain a single second-order hyperbolic equation for the.
Smart walker use for ataxia's rehabilitation: Case study

It is important to verify the potential of assistive technology like smart walkers and their long-term effects in rehabilitation therapies. Thus, this study introduced a smart walker in the rehabilitation of an ataxic patient during 3 weeks. His gait pattern and postural stability was acquired and evaluated. Great improvements in gait parameters as well as in postural stability were observed.
Effect of radiation therapy on the latest generation of pacemakers and implantable cardioverter defibrillators: A systematic review

The increasing human lifespan and development of technology over the last number of decades has seen an increase in the number of pacemaker and implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) implantations worldwide. Given the number of risk factors common to both heart disease and cancer, it is not uncommon for several of these patients to present for radiation therapy treatment each year. A systematic review was conducted using online databases Medline and Scopus. Results were grouped into in vitro and in vivo studies. In 1994, the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) defined guidelines for the management of these patients, which have since been adopted by many radiation oncology departments internationally. More recently, a number of studies have reported an increase in radiation sensitivity of these devices (encompassing the coiled metal leads and generator unit) due to the incorporation of complementary metal oxide semiconductor circuitry. Further avenues of device failure, such as the effect of dose rate and scatter radiation, have only more recently been investigated. There are also the unexplored avenues of electromagnetic interference on devices when incorporating newer treatment technologies such as respiratory gating and intensity modulated radiation therapy. It is suggested that each radiation oncology department employ a policy for the management of patients with ICDs and pacemakers, potentially based upon an updated national or international standard similar to that released by the AAPM in 1994.
When to Initiate Disease-Modifying Drugs for Relapsing Remitting Multiple Sclerosis in Adults?

For patients with Relapsing Remitting Multiple Scierosis Beta Interfaerons and Glatiramer Acetate were the first to be licensed for treatment. This review deals with one major question: when to initiate therapy? Through exploring the unique characteristics of the disease and treatement we suggest an approach that should be helpful in the process of decision-making.
Empathic Empowerment : : Supporting Latina/o First- Generation College-Bound Students

There is a significant achievement gap for Latina/o students, evidenced by low rates of high school graduation and enrollment in post-secondary education. This dissertation summarizes literature on factors that promote academic success for Latina/o student's success employing two theoretical perspectives: resiliency and social capital. Research in these areas points to the significance of supportive relationships with educators to fostering academic success for students from under-served populations. Nevertheless, many students from Latino backgrounds report a lack of caring relationships with adults at school. Empathy has been identified as a foundational element of human relationships and essential for caring and cultural sensitivity. This study defines empathy, and suggests that educator empathy is essential to creating supportive relationships between Latina/o students and teachers, administrators, and other school personnel. A mixed-method study explored the attitudes and behaviors of educators who demonstrate empathic understanding for students in order to learn what is needed to replicate and spread empathic attitudes and behaviors in the school environment. Findings from this study suggest that Latina/o first-generation college-bound students perceive supportive high school educators as empathic and non-judgmental. Analysis of student and educator descriptions of supportive relationships reveals six thematic clusters : relationship building, perspective taking, cultural empathy, high expectations, undocumented students, and organizational context. These findings suggest a conceptual model showing how educator competencies and organizational context can support or constrain empathic relationship building in schools
Degradable Poly(ester amide)s for Biomedical Applications

Poly(ester amide)s are an emerging group of biodegradable polymers that may cover both commodity and speciality applications. These polymers have ester and amide groups on their chemical structure which are of a degradable character and provide good thermal and mechanical properties. In this sense, the strong hydrogen‑bonding interactions between amide groups may counter some typical weaknesses of aliphatic polyesters like for example poly(e-caprolactone). Poly(ester amide)s can be prepared from different monomers and following different synthetic methodologies which lead to polymers with random, blocky and ordered microstructures. Properties like hydrophilic/hydrophobic ratio and biodegradability can easily be tuned. During the last decade a great effort has been made to get functionalized poly(ester amide)s by incorporation of a-amino acids with hydroxyl, carboxyl and amine pendant groups and also by incorporation of carbon-carbon double bonds in both the polymer main chain and the side groups. Specific applications of these materials in the biomedical field are just being developed and are reviewed in this work (e.g., controlled drug delivery systems, hydrogels, tissue engineering and other uses like adhesives and smart materials) together with the main families of functionalized poly(ester amide)s that have been developed to date.
Capacity allocation in statistical multiplexing of ATM sources

The authors are concerned with the allocation of the available capacity of a statistical multiplexer to serve a number of heterogeneous on-off sources, with the cell loss rate as the performance criterion. In order to avoid using potentially lengthy simulations, they have derived computationally efficient bounds and asymptotic approximations for the cell loss rate. The union of all partitions of the available capacity which satisfies the capacity bound and the performance criterion is defined as the capacity region. Both linear approximation and nonlinear approximation of the capacity region are investigated. It is shown that the linear approximation is reasonably accurate when the activity factors of the sources are not too high (less than 0.8). For the case where the linear approximation appears too optimistic, a simple nonlinear approximation for determining the capacity region is suggested. The accuracy of the method is demonstrated using numerical examples. <<ETX>>
Indexing Metric Spaces with Nested Forests of Topological Balls and Hyperplanes

Searching in a dataset for objects that are similar, with respect to a distance, to a given query object is a fundamental problem for several applications that use complex data, e.g., strings, graphs. The main difficulties are to focus the search on as few elements as possible and to further limit the computationally-extensive distance calculations between them. Here, we introduce a forest data structure for indexing and querying such data. The efficiency of our proposal is studied through experiments on real-world datasets and a comparison with previous proposals.
Beta and gamma actin mRNAs are differentially located within myoblasts

Actin is of fundamental importance to all eukaryotic cells. Of the six mammalian actins, beta (beta) and gamma (gamma) cytoplasmic are the isoforms found in all nonmuscle cells and differ by only four amino acids at the amino-terminal region. Both genes are regulated temporally and spatially, though no differences in protein function have been described. Using fluorescent double in situ hybridization we describe the simultaneous intracellular localization of both beta and gamma actin mRNA. This study shows that myoblasts differentially segregate the beta and gamma actin mRNAs. The distribution of gamma actin mRNA, only to perinuclear and nearby cytoplasm, suggests a distribution based on diffusion or restriction to nearby cytoplasm. The distribution of beta actin mRNA, perinuclear and at the cell periphery, implicates a peripheral localizing signal which is unique to the beta isoform. The peripheral beta actin mRNA corresponded to cellular morphologies, extending processes, and ruffling edges that reflect cell movement. Total actin and gamma actin protein steady-state distributions were identified by specific antibodies. gamma actin protein was found in both stress fibers and at the cell plasma membrane and does not correspond to its mRNA distribution. We suggest that localized protein synthesis rather than steady-state distribution functionally differentiates between the actin isoforms.
Functional disorders of the anus and rectum

In this report the functional anorectal disorders, the etiology of which is currently unknown or related to the abnormal functioning of normally innervated and structurally intact muscles, are discussed. These disorders include functional fecal incontinence, functional anorectal pain, including levator ani syndrome and proctalgia fugax, and pelvic floor dyssynergia. The epidemiology of each disorder is defined and discussed, their pathophysiology is summarized and diagnostic approaches and treatment are suggested. Some suggestions for the direction of future research on these disorders are also given.
EFFECT OF HYPERBARIC OXYGEN ON ENDOTOXIN-INDUCED LUNG INJURY IN RATS

Oxygen therapy remains the main component of the ventilation strategy for treatment of patients with acute lung injury. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBO2) is the intermittent administration of 100% oxygen at pressure greater than sea level and has been applied widely to alleviate a variety of hypoxia-related tissue injuries. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of hyperbaric oxygen on acute lung injury induced by intratracheal spraying of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in rats. Male Sprague-Dawley rats underwent implantation of a carotid artery catheter under general anesthesia. Aerosolized LPS was delivered twice into the lungs via intratracheal puncture. Animals were either breathing room air (n = 27) or subjected to hyperbaric oxygen (HBO2) exposure (n = 27) 1 h after LPS spraying. Acute lung injury was evaluated 5 h and 24 h later. Compared with the control group, intratracheal spraying of LPS caused profound hypoxemia, greater wet/dry weight ratio (W/D) of the lung (5.67 ± 0.22 vs. 4.98 ± 0.19), and higher protein concentration (1706 ± 168 vs. 200 ± 90 mg/L) and LDH activity (129 ± 30 vs. 46 ± 15, mAbs/min) in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid. Intratracheal spraying of LPS also caused significant WBC sequestration in the lung tissue. HBO2 treatment significantly reverted hypoxemia, reduced lung injury measures evaluated at 5 and 24 h, and enhanced 24-h animal survival rate (χ2 = 5.08, P = 0.024). The malondialdehyde (MDA) concentrations in lung tissue and serum were both increased after LPS spraying. Neither single HBO2 therapy nor five sequential daily treatments enhanced MDA production in lung tissue or serum. Our results suggested that hyperbaric oxygen might reduce acute lung injury caused by intratracheal spraying of LPS in rats. This treatment modality is not associated with enhancement of oxidative stress to the lung.
Towards better understanding of the model implied by the use of dynamic features in HMMs

We examine a widely-used kind of Hidden Markov Model (HMM), in which “dynamic features” are included along with the direct measurements. We conclude that the generative model implied by the use of dynamic features is quite different from the conventional view and that such models are capable of providing a surprising amount of the sort of dynamics that we thought were necessary to describe the important properties of speech patterns. We suggest that one reason why several attempts to replace HMMs with models with explicit dynamics have failed is that the dynamics already implicit in standard HMMs are roughly equivalent.
Voice activity detection

A method for detecting voice activity comprises receiving audio signals on a plurality of channels and processing the audio signals on the channels e.g. by beamformers 200 to improve the signal-to-noise ratio thereof. The processed audio signals on each channel are then fed to associated voice activity detection algorithms 202 and further processed. A voice or silence determination is then rendered by decision logic 204 based on at least the output of the voice activity detection algorithms. The method is useful in talker localization systems e.g. for teleconferencing.
La logistique des déchets industriels entre rivalité et partenariat : une analyse des formes collectives de contrepouvoir

Cet article porte sur les stratégies collectives de contre-pouvoir dans le secteur des déchets industriels en France. Alors que les théories des canaux de distribution n’ont fait qu’évoquer la coalition d’acteurs comme solution stratégique, le courant des stratégies collectives apporte un éclairage approfondi du sujet. La méthode a consisté à étudier, selon les principes de l’analyse qualitative, 13 cas de gestion collective de déchets initiée par des industriels. Les résultats mettent en évidence un contexte très favorable à la forme collective du contre-pouvoir, le rôle clef de l’organisation commune créée pour l’occasion et la portée réelle du contre-pouvoir ainsi exercé.
Interchangeable adaptors regulate mitochondrial dynamin assembly for membrane scission

Significance Mitochondrial fission is critical for mammalian cell division, mitophagy, and development. Fission initiates via recruitment of dynamin-related GTPases to the mitochondrial surface. In yeast and human, the recruitment utilizes adaptors that differ in sequence and predicted structure. Key unresolved issues are whether these adaptors function independently in membrane recruitment and whether a single adaptor and GTPase are sufficient to catalyze scission. We show that three human adaptors work interchangeably with a single mitochondrial dynamin to accomplish fission. We also show that an adaptor alters the architecture of the dynamin polymer in a manner that could facilitate membrane constriction and severing. Mitochondrial fission is mediated by the dynamin-related GTPases Dnm1/Drp1 (yeast/mammals), which form spirals around constricted sites on mitochondria. Additional membrane-associated adaptor proteins (Fis1, Mdv1, Mff, and MiDs) are required to recruit these GTPases from the cytoplasm to the mitochondrial surface. Whether these adaptors participate in both GTPase recruitment and membrane scission is not known. Here we use a yeast strain lacking all fission proteins to identify the minimal combinations of GTPases and adaptors sufficient for mitochondrial fission. Although Fis1 is dispensable for fission, membrane-anchored Mdv1, Mff, or MiDs paired individually with their respective GTPases are sufficient to divide mitochondria. In addition to their role in Drp1 membrane recruitment, MiDs coassemble with Drp1 in vitro. The resulting heteropolymer adopts a dramatically different structure with a narrower diameter than Drp1 homopolymers assembled in isolation. This result demonstrates that an adaptor protein alters the architecture of a mitochondrial dynamin GTPase polymer in a manner that could facilitate membrane constriction and severing activity.
Towards enhanced control of upper prosthetic limbs: A force-myographic approach

Reliable decoding of a user's intention is a key step to control prosthetic devices. Force myography (FMG) is often used to assess topographic force patterns resulting from volumetric changes of activated muscles. However, during limb position changes this approach may give deteriorating performance over time. To address this limitation, we developed a position-aware platform that integrates an inertial measurement unit (IMU) and a force sensing array (FSA) with an advanced signal processing module. The module analyzes data using an artificial neural network (ANN) to predict an intended hand movement. Our results demonstrate that by utilizing multi-sensory information this decoding strategy provides a 90% accuracy.