Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Utilizing Augmented Reality to Support Students' Learning in Popular Science Courses

Augmented reality is an emerging technology for the connection between the real world and the virtual world. The applications of the augmented reality technology in education field have profoundly changed the traditional education pattern. It is pointed out that utilizing augmented reality in class can increase the effectiveness and attractiveness of teaching and learning activities. In this paper, a case study of learning about dinosaurs in popular science courses of middle school based on the augmented reality technology is taken as an example. The samples of students' feedback show that this instructional design was conducive to resulting in a high-quality learning experience, active classroom atmosphere, and good learning performance.
Clinical Image Hydrophilic Polymer-Coated Polysulfone Membrane Improves Endothelial Function of Hemodialysis Patients : A Pilot Study

Accelerated atherosclerosis is a major risk factor for longterm survivors receiving maintenance hemodialysis (HD); in particular, cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in HD patients [1,2]. Atherosclerosis results from complex processes accompanied by endothelial dysfunction and inflammation. HD patients have 3 types of risk factors for atherosclerosis: traditional, uremia-related, and dialysis-related [3]. Dialysis-related risk factors result from bio-incompatibility between the blood and medical equipment, including the dialyzer. Therefore, it is extremely important to reduce dialysisrelated risk factors to prevent the progression of accelerated atherosclerosis.
Throughput-based performance evaluation of 5G-candidate waveforms in high speed scenarios

The radio access technology for railway communications is expected to migrate from GSM for Railways (GSM-R) to a more suitable generation of communication systems for the services offered nowadays, like the fourth generation (4G) or the fifth generation (5G). Recently, considerable attention has been devoted to high-speed trains since this particular environment poses challenging problems in terms of performance simulation and measurement. In order to considerably decrease the cost and complexity of high-speed measurement campaigns, we proposed in the past a technique to induce effects caused by highly-time varying channels on multicarrier signals while conducting measurements at low speeds. This technique has been proved to be accurate for Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (OFDM) signals, as well as for the waveforms proposed for 5G systems, such as Filter Bank Multicarrier (FBMC). In this work, we employ the technique to estimate experimentally the throughput of modulation schemes proposed for 5G (Cyclic Prefix Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (CP-OFDM) and FBMC) at high speeds.
Motor axon navigation relies on Fidgetin-like 1–driven microtubule plus end dynamics

During neural circuit assembly, extrinsic signals are integrated into changes in growth cone (GC) cytoskeleton underlying axon guidance decisions. Microtubules (MTs) were shown to play an instructive role in GC steering. However, the numerous actors required for MT remodeling during axon navigation and their precise mode of action are far from being deciphered. Using loss- and gain-of-function analyses during zebrafish development, we identify in this study the meiotic clade adenosine triphosphatase Fidgetin-like 1 (Fignl1) as a key GC-enriched MT-interacting protein in motor circuit wiring and larval locomotion. We show that Fignl1 controls GC morphology and behavior at intermediate targets by regulating MT plus end dynamics and growth directionality. We further reveal that alternative translation of Fignl1 transcript is a sophisticated mechanism modulating MT dynamics: a full-length isoform regulates MT plus end–tracking protein binding at plus ends, whereas shorter isoforms promote their depolymerization beneath the cell cortex. Our study thus pinpoints Fignl1 as a multifaceted key player in MT remodeling underlying motor circuit connectivity.
Child soil ingestion in rural Ghana – frequency, caregiver perceptions, relationship with household floor material and associations with child diarrhoea

The objectives of this work were to evaluate (i) the prevalence and frequency of caregiver‐reported soil ingestion by children, (ii) whether household flooring material in the bedroom (earth vs. concrete) affected caregiver‐reported soil ingestion, (iii) whether caregiver‐reported soil ingestion was associated with caregiver‐reported diarrhoea and (iv) caregivers’ perceptions of their children ingesting soil.
Image retrieval based on saliency for urban image contents

With the increase of image datasets size and of descriptors complexity in Content-Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) and Computer Vision, it is essential to find a way to limit the amount of manipulated data, while keeping its quality. Instead of treating the entire image, the selection of regions which hold the essence of information is a relevant option to reach this goal. As the visual saliency aims at highlighting the areas of the image which are the most important for a given task, in this paper we propose to exploit visual saliency maps to prune the most salient image features. A novel visual saliency approach based on the local distribution analysis of the edges orientation, particularly dedicated to structured contents, such as street view images of urban environments, is proposed. It is evaluated for CBIR according to three criteria: quality of retrieval, volume of manipulated features and computation time. The proposal can be exploited into various applications involving large sets of local visual features; here it is experimented within two applications: cross-domain image retrieval and image-based vehicle localisation.
Design of a Tactile Instrument to Measure Human Roughness Perception in a Virtual Environment

This paper presents the experimental results on the measurement of human texture perception in virtual environments. The experiment is conducted with a haptic tactile instrument that provides sensations of rough textures directly to the fingertip of the users. It consists of a brush and a DC motor. The brush rubs directly against the user's fingertip. Simulated texture is felt through an aperture on the tactile actuator where the users place their fingertip. The speed and direction of the brush are varied to control the roughness of the virtual surface and to determine the effect of either variable on perceived roughness. The actuator is designed to be attached to an existing force feedback device in order to create an interface that can provide force feedback and tactile feedback. The magnitudes of rough textures are measured through this device by comparing the virtual textures with real sandpapers of different grit sizes. Through human factor testing, it is found that the direction of rotation has negligible effects on roughness perception when the time gap between two consecutive stimuli is as large as 10 s. However, when the time gap is reduced to 0.5 s, the effects of direction become prominent. The just noticeable difference with respect to speed is found to decrease as the base speed of the brush increases. The results also show that although each subject's perception of roughness is biased using various sandpapers, the measured data is divided between two trends. One group of users perceives the roughness to increase with increasing speed, while the other group perceives the roughness to decrease.
Emerging growth factor receptor antagonists for ovarian cancer treatment

ABSTRACT Introduction: Epithelial Ovarian Cancer (EOC) is the most lethal gynecological malignancy. EOC outcomes remain unsatisfactory despite aggressive surgical approach, disease chemo-sensitivity and recent introduction of agents targeting angiogenesis and tumour genome instability. Advances in EOC research have allowed for a tailored treatment approach and accelerated development of novel treatments strategies from bench to bed side, anticipated to improve patient outcomes. Areas covered: Comprehensive review of growth factor receptor antagonists for EOC treatment currently in different stages of development was performed. English peer-reviewed articles and abstracts were searched in MEDLINE, PubMed, Embase and major conferences. We focused on agents that antagonize growth factors promoting sustained proliferative signaling, angiogenesis and evasion of immune destruction blocking the receptor or its stimulating factors. Expert opinion: Receptor signaling has been well characterized for most cancer generating pathways. Growth receptor antagonists are represented by both high receptor affinity monoclonal antibodies as well as tyrosine kinase inhibitors; both are especially effective when a related predictive biomarker of response is identified. Therefore, along with the promising development of novel receptor antagonists or modulators in EOC treatment, targeting essential growth pathways in the tumour and associated microenvironment, is fundamental for biomarker discovery and towards achieving significant improvements in response.
A Complete Solution for Dissecting Pure Main and Epistatic Effects of QTL in Triple Testcross Design

Epistasis plays an important role in genetics, evolution and crop breeding. To detect the epistasis, triple test cross (TTC) design had been developed several decades ago. Classical procedures for the TTC design use only linear transformations Z1, Z2 and Z3, calculated from the TTC family means of quantitative trait, to infer the nature of the collective additive, dominance and epistatic effects of all the genes. Although several quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping approaches in the TTC design have been developed, these approaches do not provide a complete solution for dissecting pure main and epistatic effects. In this study, therefore, we developed a two-step approach to estimate all pure main and epistatic effects in the F2-based TTC design under the F2 and F∞ metric models. In the first step, with Z1 and Z2 the augmented main and epistatic effects in the full genetic model that simultaneously considered all putative QTL on the whole genome were estimated using empirical Bayes approach, and with Z3 three pure epistatic effects were obtained using two-dimensional genome scans. In the second step, the three pure epistatic effects obtained in the first step were integrated with the augmented epistatic and main effects for the further estimation of all other pure effects. A series of Monte Carlo simulation experiments has been carried out to confirm the proposed method. The results from simulation experiments show that: 1) the newly defined genetic parameters could be rightly identified with satisfactory statistical power and precision; 2) the F2-based TTC design was superior to the F2 and F2:3 designs; 3) with Z1 and Z2 the statistical powers for the detection of augmented epistatic effects were substantively affected by the signs of pure epistatic effects; and 4) with Z3 the estimation of pure epistatic effects required large sample size and family replication number. The extension of the proposed method in this study to other base populations was further discussed.
A Proteomic View at T Cell Costimulation

The “two-signal paradigm” in T cell activation predicts that the cooperation of “signal 1,” provided by the T cell receptor (TCR) through engagement of major histocompatility complex (MHC)-presented peptide, with “signal 2″ provided by costimulatory molecules, the prototype of which is CD28, is required to induce T cell effector functions. While the individual signalling pathways are well understood, little is known about global changes in the proteome pattern during TCR/CD28-mediated activation. Therefore, comparative 2-DE-based proteome analyses of CD3+ CD69- resting T cells versus cells incubated with (i) the agonistic anti-CD3 antibody OKT3 mimicking signal 1 in absence or presence of IL-2 and/or with (ii) the agonistic antibody 15E8 triggering CD28-mediated signaling were performed. Differentially regulated spots were defined leading to the identification of proteins involved in the regulation of the metabolism, shaping and maintenance of the cytoskeleton and signal transduction. Representative members of the differentially expressed protein families, such as calmodulin (CALM), glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH), L-lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), Rho GDP-dissociation inhibitor 2 (GDIR2), and platelet basic protein (CXCL7), were independently verified by flow cytometry. Data provide a detailed map of individual protein alterations at the global proteome level in response to TCR/CD28-mediated T cell activation.
Applications of the IP Timestamp Option to Internet Measurement

Limited support and inconsistent behavior for IP options has led to the common belief that most options cannot be useful. IP timestamp was no exception, until recently, when prespecied IP timestamp measurements were successfully integrated into the Reverse traceroute system. Prespecied timestamps allow the sender to request a series of up to four timestamps from all routers which may receive the packet. Each machine that receives a timestamp probe checks to see whether the next, unstamped IP address matches its own, and if so, provides a timestamp. In this paper, we provide a more extended argument for the role of prespecied timestamps in the measurement toolkit, and demonstrate two new practical use cases for timestamp measurements. We discover over 47% of ICMP ping-responsive routers in our sample support timestamp options, and both document and suggest methods for dealing with some of the dierences between implementations of the timestamp option. Where supported, timestamp probes can take advantage of several attributes uncharacteristic of other common measurement tools: a view of the complete path the probe takes, combined responses from up to four requested addresses, and timestamp values from each responsive address. Illustrating these characteristics, we provide several use cases for timestamp probes. First, we describe how timestamps are integrated into the Reverse traceroute system, discovering routers on the path taken from a destination back to the requesting source. Next, we conrm IP aliases by combining multiple timestamp requests for candidate alias pairs in the same probe. In our application, we identify thousands of alias clusters currently unaddressable by the leading alias resolution technique. As our nal use case, we apply the literal timestamp values to assessing one-way link delay. With this technique, we measure the delay between backbone PoPs on the Internet2 network with values comparable to those discovered through measurements at the source.
Left frontal cortex connectivity underlies cognitive reserve in prodromal Alzheimer disease

Objective: To test whether higher global functional connectivity of the left frontal cortex (LFC) in Alzheimer disease (AD) is associated with more years of education (a proxy of cognitive reserve [CR]) and mitigates the association between AD-related fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG)-PET hypometabolism and episodic memory. Methods: Forty-four amyloid-PET–positive patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (MCI-Aβ+) and 24 amyloid-PET–negative healthy controls (HC) were included. Voxel-based linear regression analyses were used to test the association between years of education and FDG-PET in MCI-Aβ+, controlled for episodic memory performance. Global LFC (gLFC) connectivity was computed through seed-based resting-state fMRI correlations between the LFC (seed) and each voxel in the gray matter. In linear regression analyses, education as a predictor of gLFC connectivity and the interaction of gLFC connectivity × FDG-PET hypometabolism on episodic memory were tested. Results: FDG-PET metabolism in the precuneus was reduced in MCI-Aβ+ compared to HC (p = 0.028), with stronger reductions observed in MCI-Aβ+ with more years of education (p = 0.006). In MCI-Aβ+, higher gLFC connectivity was associated with more years of education (p = 0.021). At higher levels of gLFC connectivity, the association between precuneus FDG-PET hypometabolism and lower memory performance was attenuated (p = 0.027). Conclusions: Higher gLFC connectivity is a functional substrate of CR that helps to maintain episodic memory relatively well in the face of emerging FDG-PET hypometabolism in early-stage AD.
Measurements by A LEAP-Based Virtual Glove for the Hand Rehabilitation

Hand rehabilitation is fundamental after stroke or surgery. Traditional rehabilitation requires a therapist and implies high costs, stress for the patient, and subjective evaluation of the therapy effectiveness. Alternative approaches, based on mechanical and tracking-based gloves, can be really effective when used in virtual reality (VR) environments. Mechanical devices are often expensive, cumbersome, patient specific and hand specific, while tracking-based devices are not affected by these limitations but, especially if based on a single tracking sensor, could suffer from occlusions. In this paper, the implementation of a multi-sensors approach, the Virtual Glove (VG), based on the simultaneous use of two orthogonal LEAP motion controllers, is described. The VG is calibrated and static positioning measurements are compared with those collected with an accurate spatial positioning system. The positioning error is lower than 6 mm in a cylindrical region of interest of radius 10 cm and height 21 cm. Real-time hand tracking measurements are also performed, analysed and reported. Hand tracking measurements show that VG operated in real-time (60 fps), reduced occlusions, and managed two LEAP sensors correctly, without any temporal and spatial discontinuity when skipping from one sensor to the other. A video demonstrating the good performance of VG is also collected and presented in the Supplementary Materials. Results are promising but further work must be done to allow the calculation of the forces exerted by each finger when constrained by mechanical tools (e.g., peg-boards) and for reducing occlusions when grasping these tools. Although the VG is proposed for rehabilitation purposes, it could also be used for tele-operation of tools and robots, and for other VR applications.
Fuzzy logic technique for accurate analog circuits macromodel sizing

Design of analog integrated circuits requires extensive simulations at low levels of the analog design hierarchy. The simulations increase the overall design time and, thus, the analog part of a mixed ASIC requires most of the design time while using only a small part of the silicon die. To improve the efficiency of these simulations, it is necessary to use methodologies and tools based on hierarchical descriptions, where macromodels play an essential role. In this paper, an approach for applying fuzzy logic for accurate analog circuit macromodel sizing is presented. In our proposed method, multiple adaptive neuro‐fuzzy inference systems are trained to predict the performance characteristics (gain, bandwidth) of CMOS analog circuits. Moreover, the presented methodology provides reusable macromodels, since it is applicable for large number and large range of design parameters. This technique is applied to the accurate sizing of fully differential telescopic operational transconductance amplifier macromodel, a circuit widely used in the design of high‐performance analog‐to‐digital converters. The neuro‐fuzzy computed characteristic values are in excellent agreement and one order of magnitude faster than those obtained from device level SPICE simulations. Moreover, this method offers the best accuracy in comparison with other classical techniques such as polynomial regression, spline interpolation or artificial neural networks. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Variability of NT-proBNP and Its Relationship with Inflammatory Status in Patients with Stable Essential Hypertension: A 2-Year Follow-Up Study

Background The variability of NT-proBNP levels has been studied in heart failure, yet no data exist on these changes over time in hypertensive patients. Furthermore, studies on the relationship between natriuretic peptides and inflammatory status are limited. Methodology/Principal Findings 220 clinically and functionally asymptomatic stable patients (age 59±13, 120 male) out of 252 patients with essential hypertension were followed up, and NT-proBNP was measured at baseline, 12 and 24 months. No differences in NT-proBNP were found with respect to the basal stage in the hypertrophic group, but significant changes were found in non-hypertrophic subjects. The reproducibility of NT-proBNP measurements was better in patients with hypertrophy than in the non-hypertrophic group for the three intervals (stage I-basal; stage II-stage I; stage II-basal) with a reference change value of 34%, 35% and 41%, respectively, in the hypertrophic group. A more elevated coefficient of correlation was obtained in the hypertrophic group than in patients without hypertrophy: basal versus stage I (r = 0.79, p<0.0001 and r = 0.59, p<0.0001) and stage I versus stage II (r = 0.86, p<0.0001 and r = 0.56, p<0.0001). Finally, levels of NT-proBNP significantly correlated with sTNF-R1 (p<0.0001) and IL-6 (p<0.01) during follow-up. A multivariate linear regression analysis showed that sTNF-R1 is an independent factor of NT-proBNP. Conclusions/Significance This work shows that there is good stability in NT-proBNP levels in a follow-up study of asymptomatic patients with stable hypertension and left ventricular hypertrophy. As a consequence, assessment of NT-proBNP concentrations may be a useful tool for monitoring the follow-up of hypertensive patients with hypertrophy. Measured variations in peptide levels, exceeding 35% in a 12-month follow-up and 41% in a 24-month follow-up, may indicate an increase in cardiovascular risk, and therefore implies adjustment in the medical treatment. In addition, this study shows a link between neurohormonal and inflammatory activation in these patients.
Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Detectable Metabolomic Fingerprint of Response to Antineoplastic Treatment

Targeted therapeutic approaches are increasingly being implemented in the clinic, but early detection of response frequently presents a challenge as many new therapies lead to inhibition of tumor growth rather than tumor shrinkage. Development of novel non-invasive methods to monitor response to treatment is therefore needed. Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) and magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging are non-invasive imaging methods that can be employed to monitor metabolism, and previous studies indicate that these methods can be useful for monitoring the metabolic consequences of treatment that are associated with early drug target modulation. However, single-metabolite biomarkers are often not specific to a particular therapy. Here we used an unbiased 1H MRS-based metabolomics approach to investigate the overall metabolic consequences of treatment with the phosphoinositide 3-kinase inhibitor LY294002 and the heat shock protein 90 inhibitor 17AAG in prostate and breast cancer cell lines. LY294002 treatment resulted in decreased intracellular lactate, alanine fumarate, phosphocholine and glutathione. Following 17AAG treatment, decreased intracellular lactate, alanine, fumarate and glutamine were also observed but phosphocholine accumulated in every case. Furthermore, citrate, which is typically observed in normal prostate tissue but not in tumors, increased following 17AAG treatment in prostate cells. This approach is likely to provide further information about the complex interactions between signaling and metabolic pathways. It also highlights the potential of MRS-based metabolomics to identify metabolic signatures that can specifically inform on molecular drug action.