Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The minerological analysis of parietal pleura samples in cases with enviromentally exposed to mineral fibers Çevresel mineral liflerin etkisinde kalan olgularin parietal plevra örneklerinin minerolojik analizi

Summary Purpose: Inhalation of asbestos fibers results in a variety of neoplastic and nonneoplastic diseases of the respiratory tract. Asbestos related chest disease are endemic in the rural region of Eskisehir in Turkey. It has been demonstrated that the cause of this can be related to exposure to dust generated from a white-soil containing tremolite and/or tremolite-chrysotile mixture. Materials and methods: We have performed a minerological analysis by electron microscope of the dust contained in samples of tumor in the parietal pleura of cases arising in these rural areas. The results of the examination of the initial 8 cases are presented. Of the 8 cases, 4 had malignant pleural mesothelioma, 2 adenocarcinoma, 1 malignant melanoma, and 1 benign mesothelioma. Lengths and diameters of asbestos fibers were measured from the electron micrographs. Results: Tremolite, chrysotile and sepiolite fibres were detected in samples of parietal pleura from 2 of the malignant mesothelioma cases, and tremolite only in other 2 cases; tremolite and chrysotile fibres were observed in 1 adenocarcinoma case, and tremolite fibres only in the other; chrysotile fibres only were observed in one malignant melanoma case. No fibres were detected in the sample of the fibrous tumor case.
Structure-Property Relationships of Tantalum Carbide Foams and Synthesis of an Interpenetrating Phase Composite

Ceramic and refractory metal foams have a potential for use in extreme environments, such as in fuel elements within nuclear reactors both in space and terrestrial applications. In addition, infiltrating an open-cell ceramic foam with a continuous second phase can create an interpenetrating phase composite (IPC), consisting of a three-dimensional reinforcement structure. One aspect of investigation within this study was the influence of foam pore/strut size, foam composition, and foam density on neutronic and mechanical properties. Neutron transmission through open-cell tantalum carbide foams was measured using experimental techniques and modeled with Monte Carlo N-Particle (MCNP) transport code. Neutron transmission decreased linearly within tantalum carbide (TaC)/reticulated vitreous carbon (RVC) foams as areal TaC density increased. All MCNP modeling runs predicted slightly higher neutron transmission than what was experimentally measured, potentially indicating that the foam structure had a small influence on neutron transmission. Compressive strength and Young’s moduli of tantalum carbide foams were measured for foam specimens that were exposed to thermal cycling and thermal shock, as well as for baseline specimens. Extensive micro-cracking was observed in the foams after 18 thermal cycles to 2100° C. However, thermal shock in liquid nitrogen did not produce observable micro-cracking in the TaC foams. The average strengths of baseline TaC/RVC foams ranged from 1.97 MPa 3.82 MPa. The baseline TaC/PyC/RVC foams exhibited strengths ranging from 4.57 MPa 12.60 MPa. The compressive strength of thermally cycled foams tended to be 1/3-1/2 that of baseline specimens. Another aspect of this study investigated the infiltration of RVC foams with tungsten powder in an attempt to form a tungsten-ceramic foam interpenetrating phase composite (IPC). It was found that tungsten particle size influenced infiltrated densities more than foam pore size. Significantly lower infiltrated densities were obtained using sub-micron tungsten than with 5-10 micron tungsten as a result of particle agglomeration. Infiltrated 5-10 micron tungsten achieved
Effective Dispersion of CNTs to Fabricate CNT/Mg Nanocomposite

An effective dispersion process to cast CNT-reinforced in a concentrated magnesium alloy (AZ31) nanocomposite was investigated in this study. The metal magnesium powder was first coated with dispersed CNTs by wet process, followed by the fabricating of CNT/Mg precursor using mechanical briquetting and extrusion. The resultant precursor was then added into AZ31 alloy during the melting process. Finally, CNT/Mg nanocomposites with grain refinement matrix composite were fabricated in as-cast and as-extruded. Compared with the commercial AZ31 alloy, CNT/Mg nanocomposites exhibited higher yield strength of 270 MPa with an increase of 22.7%, which can be largely ascribed to the effective dispersion process of CNTs in the alloy matrix, and the elongation is no significant decrease.
SpeedMachines: Anytime Structured Prediction

Structured prediction plays a central role in machine learning applications from computational biology to computer vision. These models require significantly more computation than unstructured models, and, in many applications, algorithms may need to make predictions within a computational budget or in an anytime fashion. In this work we propose an anytime technique for learning structured prediction that, at training time, incorporates both structural elements and feature computation trade-offs that affect test-time inference. We apply our technique to the challenging problem of scene understanding in computer vision and demonstrate efficient and anytime predictions that gradually improve towards state-of-the-art classification performance as the allotted time increases.
Conformational States of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus Spike Protein Ectodomain

ABSTRACT The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus enters cells through the activities of a spike protein (S) which has receptor-binding (S1) and membrane fusion (S2) regions. We have characterized four sequential states of a purified recombinant S ectodomain (S-e) comprising S1 and the ectodomain of S2. They are S-e monomers, uncleaved S-e trimers, cleaved S-e trimers, and dissociated S1 monomers and S2 trimer rosettes. Lowered pH induces an irreversible transition from flexible, L-shaped S-e monomers to clove-shaped trimers. Protease cleavage of the trimer occurs at the S1-S2 boundary; an ensuing S1 dissociation leads to a major rearrangement of the trimeric S2 and to formation of rosettes likely to represent clusters of elongated, postfusion trimers of S2 associated through their fusion peptides. The states and transitions of S suggest conformational changes that mediate viral entry into cells.
Spiraling and Folding: The Topological View

For every n , we construct two arcs in the plane that intersect at least n times and do not form spirals. The construction is in three stages: we first exhibit two closed curves on the torus that do not form double spirals, then two arcs on the torus that do not form spirals, and finally two arcs in the plane that do not form spirals. The planar arcs provide a counterexample to a proof of Pach and Tóth concerning string graphs.
Passive and active exercises are similarly effective in elderly nursing home residents

[Purpose] The aim of this study was to compare the efficacy of passive motion exercise and active motion exercise on functional fitness in elderly nursing home residents. [Subjects and Methods] Twenty-three (female 22 and male 1) nursing home residents (84.8±4.3 yr) volunteered for this study. They were divided into a passive motion exercise group (n=12) and an active motion exercise group (n=11) and performed 30-min sessions of training twice a week for 12 weeks. Functional fitness (Arm Curl, Chair Stand, Up & Go, Sit & Reach, Back Scratch, functional Reach, and 12-min Walk tests) was evaluated before and after the intervention. [Results] No significant baseline difference was noted between the groups in measured variables. Following the 12 week intervention, no significant interaction (group × time) was noted in functional fitness variables between the groups, except for the functional reach scores (active motion exercise 40%, passive motion exercise 9%). Significant improvement over time was noted in passive motion exercise group in Arm Curl (19%), Chair Stand (15%), Up & Go (6%), and 12-min Walk (12%) scores; and in the active motion exercise group in Arm Curl (14%), Chair Stand (19%), Up & Go (11%), functional Reach (40%) and 12-min Walk (13%) scores. The adherence rates in the passive and active motion exercise groups were 95.8% and 93.1% respectively. [Conclusion] Passive motion exercise and active motion exercise were found to be similarly effective for improving the functional fitness of elderly nursing home residents.
THE ROLE OF IMAGING IN DIAGNOSIS OF HEPATOCELLULAR CARCINOMA ( HCC )

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the world’s most common cancersand its incidence is expected to rise rapidly over the next decade due to the , association with chronic liver disease, particularly HBV and HCV. Many patients known to have chronic liver disease are now being screened for the development of HCC by serial ultrasound scans of the liver or serum measurements of alpha-fetoprotein (AFP). Patients often present in middle age, either because of the symptoms of chronic liver disease (malaise, weakness, jaundice, ascites, variceal bleed, encephalopathy) or with the anorexia and weight loss of an advanced cancer. Diagnosis of HCC often requires more sophisticated imaging modalities such as ultrasound, CT scan and MRI, which have multiphasic contrast enhancement capabilities. Serum AFP used alone can be helpful if levels are markedly elevated, which occurs in fewer than half of cases at time of diagnosis. Confirmation by liver biopsy can be performed under circumstances when the diagnosis of HCC remains unclear.The surgical treatment options include resection of the tumour and liver transplantation. Which option is most appropriate for an individual patient depends on the stage of the underlying liver disease, the size and site of the tumour, the availability of organ transplantation and the management of the immunosuppressed patient. Key Points: Ultrasound, CT scan ,MRI, Angiography. et al., IJSIT, 2017, 6(5), 513-528 Dr. Sohan Kumar Sah IJSIT (www.ijsit.com), Volume 6, Issue 5, September-October 2017 514 INTRODUCTION Hepatocellular carcinoma is one of the most common malignant tumors, particularly in Southeast Asia, subSaharan Africa, Japan, Greece, and Italy. HCC occurs predominantly in men, with a male/female ratio of approximately 5 :1. (1) Etiologic factors depend on the geographic distribution. Although alcoholic cirrhosis remains a common predisposing cause for hepatoma in the West, both hepatitis C and hepatitis B are now of worldwide signifcance. These viral infections also account for the high incidence of HCC in sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, China, Japan, and in the Mediterranean. Of growing importance in the Western world, fatty liver with the development of steatohepatitis is increasing in signifcance as an antecedent to the development of cirrhosis and HCC. Aflatoxins, toxic metabolites produced by fungi in certain foods, have also been implicated in the pathogenesis of hepatomas in developing countries. (2) The clinical presentation of HCC is often delayed until the tumor reaches an advanced stage. Symptoms include RUQ pain, weight loss, and abdominal swelling when ascites is present. Pathologically, HCC occurs in the following three forms: Solitary tumor Multiple nodules Diffuse infltration There is a propensity toward venous invasion. The portal vein is involved in 30% to 60% of cases and more often than the hepatic venous system. (3,4,5)
Non-verbal cues as a test of gender and race bias in politics: the Italian case

Gender and race biases persist in western democracies, with male and white candidates still being the norm. Voters may be more inclined to express sexist and racist attitudes in countries with a traditionally male-dominated political system and a majority-white population. As sexism and racism are notoriously difficult to document, and because many people are unaware of their biases toward social groups, we bypass conventional survey measurement and observe voters’ willingness to support candidates whose physical features have been manipulated to make them appear more prototypically feminine or non-white. We implemented this approach in the context of the 2013 Italian election, by presenting a national sample of Italian voters with pictures of male and female parliamentary candidates – both unknown and well known. Overall, we found no main effects of gender or race bias in political judgment. For Italian voters, party cues are by far the most powerful indicators of out-group status, and therefore the strongest predictors of candidate perception and support. This result may be of particular interest to other political contexts characterized by strong partisan polarization.
Dialogue frames in agent communication

Sophisticated models of inter-agent communication are making increasing use of intuitive notions of persuasion and negotiation. In this paper, a formal characterisation is provided which not only clearly distinguishes persuasion from negotiation, but also introduces three other dialogue types, and sets all five in a coherent framework. The notion of a dialogue frame is introduced, and is used to explore the dialogue typology and one of its important features, the concept of functional embedding. The approach offers a number of substantial benefits, including (i) the provision of definitions for classes of communicative encounters, (ii) improvements in expressive capability, (iii) facilitating comparison between diverse multi-agent research, and in some cases, (iv) reducing computational cost.
The MDM2-p53 pathway revisited

The p53 tumor suppressor is a key transcription factor regulating cellular pathways such as DNA repair, cell cycle, apoptosis, angiogenesis, and senescence. It acts as an important defense mechanism against cancer onset and progression, and is negatively regulated by interaction with the oncoprotein MDM2. In human cancers, the TP53 gene is frequently mutated or deleted, or the wild-type p53 function is inhibited by high levels of MDM2, leading to downregulation of tumor suppressive p53 pathways. Thus, the inhibition of MDM2-p53 interaction presents an appealing therapeutic strategy for the treatment of cancer. However, recent studies have revealed the MDM2-p53 interaction to be more complex involving multiple levels of regulation by numerous cellular proteins and epigenetic mechanisms, making it imperative to reexamine this intricate interplay from a holistic viewpoint. This review aims to highlight the multifaceted network of molecules regulating the MDM2-p53 axis to better understand the pathway and exploit it for anticancer therapy.
Deterministic Construction of Compressed Sensing Matrices using BCH Codes

In this paper we introduce deterministic $m\times n$ RIP fulfilling $\pm 1$ matrices of order $k$ such that $\frac{\log m}{\log k}\approx \frac{\log(\log_2 n)}{\log(\log_2 k)}$. The columns of these matrices are binary BCH code vectors that their zeros are replaced with -1 (excluding the normalization factor). The samples obtained by these matrices can be easily converted to the original sparse signal; more precisely, for the noiseless samples, the simple Matching Pursuit technique, even with less than the common computational complexity, exactly reconstructs the sparse signal. In addition, using Devore's binary matrices, we expand the binary scheme to matrices with $\{0,1,-1\}$ elements.
Association of Auditory Steady State Responses with Perception of Temporal Modulations and Speech in Noise

Amplitude modulations in the speech convey important acoustic information for speech perception. Auditory steady state response (ASSR) is thought to be physiological correlate of amplitude modulation perception. Limited research is available exploring association between ASSR and modulation detection ability as well as speech perception. Correlation of modulation detection thresholds (MDT) and speech perception in noise with ASSR was investigated in twofold experiments. 30 normal hearing individuals and 11 normal hearing individuals within age range of 18–24 years participated in experiments 1 and 2, respectively. MDTs were measured using ASSR and behavioral method at 60 Hz, 80 Hz, and 120 Hz modulation frequencies in the first experiment. ASSR threshold was obtained by estimating the minimum modulation depth required to elicit ASSR (ASSR-MDT). There was a positive correlation between behavioral MDT and ASSR-MDT at all modulation frequencies. In the second experiment, ASSR for amplitude modulation (AM) sweeps at four different frequency ranges (30–40 Hz, 40–50 Hz, 50–60 Hz, and 60–70 Hz) was recorded. Speech recognition threshold in noise (SRTn) was estimated using staircase procedure. There was a positive correlation between amplitude of ASSR for AM sweep with frequency range of 30–40 Hz and SRTn. Results of the current study suggest that ASSR provides substantial information about temporal modulation and speech perception.
An empirical comparison between direct and indirect test result checking approaches

An oracle on software testing is a mechanism for checking whether the system under test has behaved correctly for any executions. In some situations, oracles are unavailable or too expensive to apply. This is known as the oracle problem. It is crucial to develop techniques to address it, and metamorphic testing (MT) was one of such proposals. This paper conducts a controlled experiment to investigate the cost effectiveness of using MT by 38 testers on three open-source programs. The fault detection capability and time cost of MT are compared with the popular assertion checking method. Our results show that MT is cost-efficient and has potentials for detecting more faults than the assertion checking method.
Enhancing face recognition at a distance using super resolution

The characteristics of surveillance video generally include low-resolution images and blurred images. Decreases in image resolution lead to loss of high frequency facial components, which is expected to adversely affect recognition rates. Super resolution (SR) is a technique used to generate a higher resolution image from a given low-resolution, degraded image. Dictionary based super resolution pre-processing techniques have been developed to overcome the problem of low-resolution images in face recognition. However, super resolution reconstruction process, being ill-posed, and results in visual artifacts that can be visually distracting to humans and/or affect machine feature extraction and face recognition algorithms. In this paper, we investigate the impact of two existing super-resolution methods to reconstruct a high resolution from single/ multiple low-resolution images on face recognition. We propose an alternative scheme that is based on dictionaries in high frequency wavelet subbands. The performance of the proposed method will be evaluated on databases of high and low-resolution images captured under different illumination conditions and at different distances. We shall demonstrate that the proposed approach at level 3 DWT decomposition has superior performance in comparison to the other super resolution methods.
Hip osteoarthritis and dysplasia in Chinese men.

OBJECTIVE--To estimate the prevalence of hip osteoarthritis (OA hip) and hip dysplasia in a sample of Hong Kong men who were unselected with respect to hip symptoms. METHODS--The postmicturition films of 999 men aged 60-75 years, consecutive attenders for intravenous urography between 1987 and 1990 at a regional hospital, were reviewed. OA hip was diagnosed as the occurrence of two or more features of OA using a modified version of the Kellgren and Lawrence scale, or a minimal joint space of 1.5 mm or less. Hip dysplasia was defined as a centre-edge angle of less than 25 degrees, or an acetabular depth of less than 9 mm. The results were compared with British data obtained by similar methods. RESULTS--In the Hong Kong sample, the proportion of men with two or more features of osteoarthritis in at least one hip was about 50% that of the men in the British study (5.4% and 11.0%, respectively). Severe joint space narrowing (of 1.5 mm or less) occurred in 0.7% of the hips in Hong Kong men, compared with 2% in the British men. The proportion of hips with centre-edge angles less than 25 degrees was 4.5% in Hong Kong, compared with 3.6% in Britain, and the prevalence of shallow acetabular depth was greater in Chinese (14.5%) than in the British (2.1%). Radiographic measures of hip dysplasia were not associated with minimal joint space. CONCLUSIONS--Our results have confirmed the lower prevalence of radiographic hip osteoarthritis in Hong Kong men compared with British men. However, acetabular dysplasia was as prevalent among Chinese men as in the British sample. This is evidence against the hypothesis that variations in the frequency of hip osteoarthritis are caused by differences in the occurrence of hip dysplasia.
Surface Structure of LiNi0.8Co0.2O2: a New Experimental Technique Using in Situ X-ray Diffraction and Two-Dimensional Epitaxial Film Electrodes

Surface and bulk structural changes in LiNi0.8Co0. 2O2 were observed during electrochemical reactions using synchrotron X-ray scattering and a restricted reaction plane of two-dimensional (2D) epitaxial-film electrodes. The bulk structural changes confirmed lithium diffusion through the (110) surface, which is perpendicular to the 2D edges of the layered structure. No (de)intercalation reaction was observed through the (003) surface in the voltage range of 3.0−5.0 V. However, intercalation proceeded below 3.0 V, which indicates unusual three-dimensional lithium diffusion in the 2D structure in the overlithiated state. Structural changes at the electrode surface were different from those in the bulk. Contact with the liquid electrolyte caused an abrupt deformation of the surface crystal lattice, followed by restructuring upon applying a cell voltage. These slow reconstruction processes were dependent on the crystal lattice orientations. The reaction mechanism of the intercalation electrodes for lithium batt.