Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Accuracy assessment of an N-ocular motion capture system for surgical tool tip tracking using pivot calibration

Optical tracking system (OTS) is nowadays the most commonly used surgical instrument tracking system for image-guided surgery (IGS) because of its high accuracy and robustness. However, it suffers from occlusion problem during the surgery. Multi-camera tracking system can potentially eliminate this problem with its redundancy of camera numbers. However, no systematic evaluation has been conducted to study the feasibility of a multi-camera tracking system in surgical instrument tracking. In this paper, the pivot calibration and tip tracking accuracy using customized phantom were respectively evaluated at three seperate locations. Various evaluation metrics were included to assess the pivot calibration and tracking accuracy comprehensively. The results indicate that pivot calibration process should be conducted near central place of field of view (FOV) in order to achieve less calibration error. The target registration error (rms) of the surgical instrument tool tip tracking was 0.39, 0.35 and 0.75 mm when the phantom was placed at three seperate locations in the FOV of tracking system. The experimental results show the multi-camera tracking system's potential possibility to be used in image-guided surgery.
STOCHASTIC CYCLES IN VAR PROCESSES

MASSIMO FRANCHI AND PAOLO PARUOLO PRELIMINARY VERSION Abstract. This paper presents an additive decomposition of the moving average representation of VAR processes into cyclical components. We give a de nition of cyclical component that encompasses seasonal components as well as (stationary) long-run and short-run uctuations. Each cyclical component is univariate and is characterized by a spectrum with peak at a given spectral frequency. The representation is unique and it provides explicit formulae for the the (dynamic) loadings of the variables onto the di erent cyclical components. We discuss relations with existing de nitions of stochastic cycles. Finally we discuss how to obtain cancelations of the cyclical components by linear combinations and/or by ltering of the observed series.
An Iterative Approach to Area and Performance Optimization for Superscalar Processors

When designing embedded systems, one needs to make decisions concerning the di(cid:11)erent components that will be included in a microprocessor. An important issue in this phase is the chip area vs. performance trade-o(cid:11). In this paper we investigate the relationship between chip area and performance for superscalar microprocessors. We evaluate how one can obtain a suitable con(cid:12)guration by using an approach that is based on iterative compilation. It turns out that our approach returns a reasonably suitable con(cid:12)guration after a few hundred iterations. We investigate if this approach is feasible enough to be used in practice.
A fast and simple gradient function guided filling order prioritization for exemplar-based color image inpainting

Image inpainting is the art of recovering the original image from images which are generally incomplete due to various factors, including degradation due to ageing, damage due to wear and tear and missing image details due to occlusion. In such situations, there is a need to predict the missing image information without introducing undesirable artifacts. Original contribution in this direction is due to a seminal paper by Cri-minisi et al. This has led to a number of novel contributions in terms of patch filling prioritization and associated metrics to measure colour and structure. In this paper, we propose a fast and simple technique based on a novel gradient function and its generalization via fractional derivative to evaluate the filling order prioritization. Results demonstrate superior and robust performance over all the recent advances quoted in the literature.
Evaluation of Parkinson Disease Risk Variants as Expression-QTLs

The recent Parkinson Disease GWAS Consortium meta-analysis and replication study reports association at several previously confirmed risk loci SNCA, MAPT, GAK/DGKQ, and HLA and identified a novel risk locus at RIT2. To further explore functional consequences of these associations, we investigated modification of gene expression in prefrontal cortex brain samples of pathologically confirmed PD cases (N = 26) and controls (N = 24) by 67 associated SNPs in these 5 loci. Association between the eSNPs and expression was evaluated using a 2-degrees of freedom test of both association and difference in association between cases and controls, adjusted for relevant covariates. SNPs at each of the 5 loci were tested for cis-acting effects on all probes within 250 kb of each locus. Trans-effects of the SNPs on the 39,122 probes passing all QC on the microarray were also examined. From the analysis of cis-acting SNP effects, several SNPs in the MAPT region show significant association to multiple nearby probes, including two strongly correlated probes targeting the gene LOC644246 and the duplicated genes LRRC37A and LRRC37A2, and a third uncorrelated probe targeting the gene DCAKD. Significant cis-associations were also observed between SNPs and two probes targeting genes in the HLA region on chromosome 6. Expanding the association study to examine trans effects revealed an additional 23 SNP-probe associations reaching statistical significance (p<2.8×10−8) including SNPs from the SNCA, MAPT and RIT2 regions. These findings provide additional context for the interpretation of PD associated SNPs identified in recent GWAS as well as potential insight into the mechanisms underlying the observed SNP associations.
Body mass index and the risk of giant cell arteritis: results from a prospective study.

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to examine potential risk factors for GCA in a nested case-control study based on two prospective health surveys. METHODS We used two population-based health surveys, the Malmö Preventive Medicine Program (MPMP) and the Malmö Diet Cancer Study (MDCS). Individuals who developed GCA after inclusion were identified by linking the MPMP and MDCS databases to several patient administrative registers. A structured review of the medical records of all identified cases was performed. Four controls for every confirmed case, matched for sex, year of birth and year of screening, were selected from the corresponding databases. Potential predictors of GCA were examined in conditional logistic regression models. RESULTS Eighty-three patients (70% women, 64% biopsy positive, mean age at diagnosis 71 years) had a confirmed diagnosis of GCA after inclusion in the MPMP or MDCS. A higher BMI was associated with a significantly reduced risk of subsequent development of GCA [odds ratio (OR) 0.91/kg/m(2) (95% CI 0.84, 0.98)]. Smoking was not a risk factor for GCA overall [OR 1.36 (95% CI 0.77, 2.57)], although there was a trend towards an increased risk in female smokers [OR 2.14 (95% CI 0.97, 4.68)]. In multivariate analysis, adjusted for smoking and level of formal education, the inverse association between BMI and GCA remained significant (P = 0.027). CONCLUSION In this study, GCA was predicted by a lower BMI at baseline. Potential explanations include an effect of reduced adipose tissue on hormonal pathways regulating inflammation.
A Multimodal Haptic Mouse for Visually Impaired People

This work describes early research activity on a haptic mouse interface. This project aims to join tactile and kinesthetic feedbacks in order to improve the accessibility of the PC to visually impaired persons. In this phase a planar haptic interface has been developed. It is based on two linear motors, which allows a simple mechanical structure, with high stiffness and without backlash. The system is backdrivable but to reduce the friction effects and therefore enhance its transparency, the device has been equipped with a load cell along each axis. A suitable controller exploiting a force loop has been developed and some significant tasks experimentally verified. In particular, since this haptic mouse will be applied to interact with graphical user interfaces, the tracking of predefined paths and the rendering of geometrical shape have been tested.
Coupled plasma filtration adsorption: rationale, technical development and early clinical experience.

The adjuvant treatment of sepsis remains a major therapeutic challenge. Blood purification is theoretically appealing if the humoral theory of sepsis is accepted as the basis for intervention. In this setting, blood purification would provide a broad-based restoration of humoral homeostasis thereby avoiding both excessive inflammation and counterinflammation. Several techniques of blood purification have been tried or are under active investigation. One of these is the so-called coupled plasma filtration adsorption (CPFA). CPFA is a novel extracorporeal blood purification therapy aimed at nonselectively reducing the circulating levels and activities of both pro- and anti-inflammatory mediators during sepsis and multiorgan failure. In vitro studies have shown CPFA to be effective in binding a broad range of such mediators proving its technical efficacy. Subsequent animal models have shown a beneficial effect on survival in endotoxemia. These studies have provided the necessary technical developments and biologic rationale for initial human studies. Two phase I/IIa clinical studies have now been performed. Both studies have shown that CPFA improves blood pressure and restores immune function in patients with severe sepsis and multiorgan dysfunction. In this article, we will discuss some of the basic principles involved in sorbent technology, and how these may contribute to treatment efficacy, review animal experiments with CPFA and finally discuss the results of recent human studies and their implications.
9.2 Some Results from Functional Analysis

If u(x, t) represents the temperature in a body Ω ⊂ R n at a point x ∈ Ω at time t, then the propagation (or diffusion) of heat is (approximately) described by the heat equation u t = ∆u. The heat equation is the usual example of a parabolic equation that one finds in most books on partial differential equations. In what follows we will attempt to describe some of the basic ingredients in a classical disscussion of the heat equation. At the same time we try to provide the student with a brief introduction to some important tools used in PDEs which have not been discussed up to this point. One such tool that could have used all along is the Fourier transform. One problem is that to use this tool most effectively the student should have had a course in real analysis. Since this is not required for the present class it presents a situation in which we must strike a delicate balance between what we would like to do and what we can really do rigorously. At some point I will present results without proof and simply give references for details. Following [3] we first give a few caveats concerning the heat equation in physics. As pointed out in [3], the heat equation does not say anything about the microscopic physical processes that accompany heat flow. It merely describes a limiting situation in which the size of the atoms can be considered infinitesimally small. It does not recognize the existence of an absolute zero temperature – indeed, temperatures for the heat equation can even be negative. Nonetheless, the heat equation is a very important an interesting model to study. At this point we digress to discuss several topics from real and functional analysis.
An Explorable Immersive Panorama

The immersive panoramas are widely used to provide virtual tours of real scene. Their use covers a wide field of applications: art, industry, space research, topography, forensic investigation and all those systems requiring the exploration of a virtual environment which simulates a real one. Often sophisticated devices are used to perform the panorama acquisition. In this paper, we present an image based immersive panorama requiring low cost devices for the acquisition task and provides an innovative human-computer interaction approach. Many panoramic images of the same location are captured. The visualization system changes the panorama in a transparent way with respect to the user interaction in function of the position of the virtual point of view. Indeed, the new and more detailed panorama is loaded each time the current point of view position corresponds to a point of acquisition. Our solution is particularly suited to tele-immersive software environments, because it is lighter than a full 3D scene, but the user can lives a full exploration experience of a scene.
Analysis of Patterns of Bushmeat Consumption Reveals Extensive Exploitation of Protected Species in Eastern Madagascar

Understanding the patterns of wild meat consumption from tropical forests is important for designing approaches to address this major threat to biodiversity and mitigate potential pathways for transmission of emerging diseases. Bushmeat consumption has been particularly poorly studied in Madagascar, one of the world's hottest biodiversity hotspots. Studying bushmeat consumption is challenging as many species are protected and researchers must consider the incentives faced by informants. Using interviews with 1154 households in 12 communes in eastern Madagascar, as well as local monitoring data, we investigated the importance of socio-economic variables, taste preference and traditional taboos on consumption of 50 wild and domestic species. The majority of meals contain no animal protein. However, respondents consume a wide range of wild species and 95% of respondents have eaten at least one protected species (and nearly 45% have eaten more than 10). The rural/urban divide and wealth are important predictors of bushmeat consumption, but the magnitude and direction of the effect varies between species. Bushmeat species are not preferred and are considered inferior to fish and domestic animals. Taboos have provided protection to some species, particularly the Endangered Indri, but we present evidence that this taboo is rapidly eroding. By considering a variety of potential influences on consumption in a single study we have improved understanding of who is eating bushmeat and why. Evidence that bushmeat species are not generally preferred meats suggest that projects which increase the availability of domestic meat and fish may have success at reducing demand. We also suggest that enforcement of existing wildlife and firearm laws should be a priority, particularly in areas undergoing rapid social change. The issue of hunting as an important threat to biodiversity in Madagascar is only now being fully recognised. Urgent action is required to ensure that heavily hunted species are adequately protected.
An NN-based approach to prosodic information generation for synthesizing English words embedded in Chinese text

In this paper, a neural network-based approach to generating proper prosodic information for spelling/reading English words embedded in background Chinese texts is discussed. It expands an existing RNN-based prosodic information generator for Mandarin TTS to an RNN-MLP scheme for Mandarin-English mixed-lingual TTS. It first treats each English word as a Chinese word and uses the RNN, trained for Mandarin TTS, to generate a set of initial prosodic information for each syllable of the English word. It then refines the initial prosodic information by using additional MLPs. The resulting prosodic information is expected to be appropriate for English-word synthesis as well as to match well with that of the background Mandarin speech. Experimental results showed that the proposed RNN-MLP scheme performed very well. For English word spelling/reading, RMSEs of 41.8/78.2 ms, 30.8/26 ms, 0.65/0.45 ms/frame, and 3.06/4.9 dB were achieved in the open tests for the synthesized syllable duration, inter-syllable pause duration, pitch contour, and energy level, respectively. So it is a promising approach.
Transcriptome Analysis of Paracoccidioides brasiliensis Cells Undergoing Mycelium-to-Yeast Transition

ABSTRACT Paracoccidioides brasiliensis is a thermodimorphic fungus associated with paracoccidioidomycosis (PCM), a systemic mycosis prevalent in South America. In humans, infection starts by inhalation of fungal propagules, which reach the pulmonary epithelium and transform into the yeast parasitic form. Thus, the mycelium-to-yeast transition is of particular interest because conversion to yeast is essential for infection. We have used a P. brasiliensis biochip carrying sequences of 4,692 genes from this fungus to monitor gene expression at several time points of the mycelium-to-yeast morphological shift (from 5 to 120 h). The results revealed a total of 2,583 genes that displayed statistically significant modulation in at least one experimental time point. Among the identified gene homologues, some encoded enzymes involved in amino acid catabolism, signal transduction, protein synthesis, cell wall metabolism, genome structure, oxidative stress response, growth control, and development. The expression pattern of 20 genes was independently verified by real-time reverse transcription-PCR, revealing a high degree of correlation between the data obtained with the two methodologies. One gene, encoding 4-hydroxyl-phenyl pyruvate dioxygenase (4-HPPD), was highly overexpressed during the mycelium-to-yeast differentiation, and the use of NTBC [2-(2-nitro-4-trifluoromethylbenzoyl)-cyclohexane-1,3-dione], a specific inhibitor of 4-HPPD activity, as well as that of NTBC derivatives, was able to inhibit growth and differentiation of the pathogenic yeast phase of the fungus in vitro. These data set the stage for further studies involving NTBC and its derivatives as new chemotherapeutic agents against PCM and confirm the potential of array-based approaches to identify new targets for the development of alternative treatments against pathogenic microorganisms.
Using field data to design a sensor network

Distributed sensing and data acquisition in field applications is a labor intensive and expensive process. In such applications, measurements need to be performed in thousands of points. To design a sensor network for soil moisture measurement, we introduce a two step design procedure; in the first step, the data of soil moisture experiments known as SMEX03 (in Little Washita watershed, Oklahoma) is used to approximate the spatial variability of moisture data. Based on the numerical data of SMEX03, the spatial correlation of soil moisture is approximated. Our numerical analysis shows that the spatial correlation of moisture measurements of two points behaves similar to an exponentially decaying function of the distance of those points. The analysis also shows that the moisture measurements for the points with distance up to 150m show a high correlation, while the spatial correlation is practically zero for points that are more than 400m apart. In the second step, we use the spatial correlation of soil moisture to design a sensor network. It is assumed that the sensors are placed sparsely in the field, but it is desirable to estimate the soil moisture at any arbitrary point of the field based on the measurements of the nearby sensors. We use a linear estimator, and give the coefficients that minimize its variance. The value of the minimum variance of the linear estimator depends on the location. We give a closed form formula for the coefficients of the linear minimum variance estimator and the upper bound for the its variance as a function of spatial separation of sensors. Assuming a known value for the maximum allowable moisture estimation variance, we find the optimal placement of the sensors. The results show that in a grid like placement of the sensors in the field, with average separation of distance of 50-100m between neighboring sensor pairs, the soil moisture can be approximated with a good accuracy at any arbitrary point of the field, while increasing the distance of neighboring senors beyond 200m degrades the performance significantly.
EU Integration and Production Networks: Evidende from Spain

The aim of this paper is to advance knowledge of Spain's participation in international production networks using data on trade in parts and components from 1990 to 2006. Data analysis shows a remarkable dynamism of Spanish trade in P&C, both in imports and exports, being capable of keeping their shares despite the intense competition from less developed countries. Additionally, Spanish participation in networks is mostly in Europe. In fact, Spain has maintained itself as one of the primary destinations of European P&C exports and has been the only economy that has improved its position as a supplier. These facts allow us to infer a significant competitive capacity of the Spanish economy in Europe, for both production and assembly of P&C. The EU enlargement to Eastern European countries seems not to have damaged Spanish competitiveness as an assembler. In order to analyse the nature of Spanish participation in production networks, we estimate the determinants of trade in P&C using an extended gravity panel data model. In addition to the standard variables in gravity models, we also examine the role of differences in technology and factor endowment between Spain and its trading partners, and the role of service link costs in P&C trade. We find that Spain's integration in production networking responds to comparative advantage but also to other factors such as EU membership and a good quality transport and communication infrastructures. Some lessons from the experience of a middle-income country like Spain may be useful for the CEECs, which have increased their presence in European production sharing in the last decade. Future EU enlargement towards lower costs countries could threaten their position in networking. The reinforcement of these other factors, besides comparative advantage, would act as key element to strengthen their participation in cross-border networks. Key Words: international production networks, trade in P&C, Spanish economy, EU, gravity model.
Chinese Herbal Medicine on Cardiovascular Diseases and the Mechanisms of Action

Cardiovascular diseases are the principal cause of death worldwide. The potentially serious adverse effects of therapeutic drugs lead to growing awareness of the role of Chinese herbal medicine in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases. Chinese herbal medicine has been widely used in many countries especially in China from antiquity; however, the mechanisms by which herbal medicine acts in the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases are far from clear. In this review, we briefly describe the characteristics of Chinese herbal medicine by comparing with western medicine. Then we summarize the formulae and herbs/natural products applied in the clinic and animal studies being sorted according to the specific cardiovascular diseases. Most importantly, we elaborate the existing investigations into mechanisms by which herbal compounds act at the cellular levels, including vascular smooth muscle cells, endothelial cells, cardiomyocytes and immune cells. Future research should focus on well-designed clinic trial, in-depth mechanic study, investigations on side effects of herbs and drug interactions. Studies on developing new agents with effectiveness and safety from traditional Chinese medicine is a promising way for prevention and treatment of patients with cardiovascular diseases.