Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A survey of subdivision surfaces technique

In geometric modeling, we always want our geometric model looks realistic as the real world. In this respect, we need to create very smooth geometry models as one of the real world criteria. Therefore, what kind of technique can help us to produce very smooth model? The most common approaches that the computer graphics communities use is known as subdivision surface technique. In general, subdivision surface is a way to represent polygonal model smoothly. Considering this method our main interest in order to produce smooth surface is the surface curvature. One of the famous examples to create smooth human character is illustrated as Figure 1. In this paper, we will make a review on subdivision surfaces technique and elaborate some comparison for the scheme in subdivision surfaces. Figure 1. Geri’s Game [1] : Pixar Animation Studios
Spinal Inhibitory Interneuron Pathology Follows Motor Neuron Degeneration Independent of Glial Mutant Superoxide Dismutase 1 Expression in SOD1-ALS Mice

Motor neuron degeneration and skeletal muscle denervation are hallmarks of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), but other neuron populations and glial cells are also involved in ALS pathogenesis. We examined changes in inhibitory interneurons in spinal cords of the ALS model low-copy Gurney G93A-SOD1 (G1del) mice and found reduced expression of markers of glycinergic and GABAergic neurons, that is, glycine transporter 2 (GlyT2) and glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD65/67), specifically in the ventral horns of clinically affected mice. There was also loss of GlyT2 and GAD67 messenger RNA-labeled neurons in the intermediate zone. Ubiquitinated inclusions appeared in interneurons before 20 weeks of age, that is, after their development in motor neurons but before the onset of clinicalsigns and major motor neuron degeneration, which starts from 25weeks of age. Because mutant superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1) in glia might contribute to the pathogenesis, we also examined neuron-specific G93A-SOD1 mice; they also had loss of inhibitory interneuron markers in ventral horns and ubiquitinated interneuron inclusions. These data suggest that, in mutant SOD1-associated ALS, pathological changes may spread from motor neurons to interneuronsin a relatively early phase of the disease, independent of the presence of mutant SOD1 in glia. The degeneration of spinal inhibitory interneurons may in turn facilitate degeneration of motor neurons and contribute to disease progression.
Postoperative Cognitive Dysfunction: Current Developments in Mechanism and Prevention

Postoperative cognitive dysfunction (POCD) is a subtle disorder of thought processes, which may influence isolated domains of cognition and has a significant impact on patient health. The reported incidence of POCD varies enormously due to lack of formal criteria for the assessment and diagnosis of POCD. The significant risk factors of developing POCD mainly include larger and more invasive operations, duration of anesthesia, advanced age, history of alcohol abuse, use of anticholinergic medications, and other factors. The release of cytokines due to the systemic stress response caused by anesthesia and surgical procedures might induce the changes of brain function and be involved in the development of postoperative cognitive dysfunction. The strategies for management of POCD should be a multimodal approach involving close cooperation between the anesthesiologist, surgeon, geriatricians, and family members to promote early rehabilitation and avoid loss of independence in these patients.
Using landsat images for urban change detection, a case study in Algiers town

In this paper three images of Landsat Thematic Mapper and Enhanced Thematic Mapper plus TM/ETM+ data of 1987, 2001 and 2010 being used to analyze the urban changes in Algiers areas. The paper followed the expansion of urban tissue using the novel method of difference soil adjusted vegetation index DSAVI, difference normalized difference bult up index DNDBI and also the post classification of multi-spectral and multi-temporal L5 and L7 Landsat satellite. The TM reflectance's images have been corrected and transformed to ETM+ reflectance's images using a regression method. The Maximum Likelihood and neural network algorithm are used to classify the reflectance images into the thematic urban, vegetation and bare soil map. The Thresholds changes are calculated for both DSAVI and DNDBI based on the means and standards deviation images. The proposed method is based on the study which mentioned that the DSAVI, DNDBI and the post classification is a good tools to study the urban change which was faster growing with an annually rate of 0.5% from studied area. Our proposed method is applied to Algiers town.
American preservice elementary teachers’ self-reported learning outcomes from participating in Korean percussion lessons in a music-methods course

The purpose of this study was to examine American preservice classroom teachers’ self-reported learning outcomes after partaking in a weekly Korean percussion ensemble in an elementary music-methods course. The preservice classroom teachers rehearsed a Korean percussion ensemble piece (Samulnori) as their course routine for half of the semester. Participants’ open-ended essays and semi-structured interviews were analyzed to determine their learning outcomes. Based on Abril’s (2006) three world music learning outcome categories (musical, cultural, and other) as initial codes, the emergent coding process was adopted. Through the data analysis, four themes emerged that illustrated preservice classroom teachers’ learning outcomes: (a) Cultural Awareness: Difference, (b) Music Fundamentals: Overlap with Traditional Course Content, (c) Bonding Experience: Community, and (d) Teacher Education: A Well-Rounded Teacher. Based on the results, possible implications for teaching culturally diverse musics to preservice classroom teachers in music-methods courses were discussed.
Genetische Grundlagen der Posttraumatischen Belastungsstörung (PTBS)

Zusammenfassung Bei der Posttraumatischen Belastungsstörung (PTBS) handelt es sich um eine psychische Erkrankung, die nach außergewöhnlich bedrohlichen Situationen (Traumata) auftreten kann und sich durch eine hohe Komorbidität auszeichnet. Jedoch gibt es selbst bei Personen mit dem gleichen traumatischen Erlebnis eine hohe interindividuelle Variabilität bezüglich des PTBS Risikos. Daher liegt die Vermutung nahe, dass biologische Korrelate wie genetische und epigenetische Einflüsse als Risikofaktoren für die Entwicklung einer PTBS eine Rolle spielen können. Im vorliegenden Übersichtsartikel soll der aktuelle Erkenntnisstand der genetischen Forschung bei PTBS vorgestellt werden, wobei der Schwerpunkt auf genetischen Befunden aus Kandidatengen-basierten Assoziationsstudien des monoaminergen Systems und der endokrinen Stressachse liegt. Des Weiteren werden Ergebnisse aus Genom-weiten Assoziationsstudien berichtet und auf die Rolle von Genen als Moderatoren der Effekte von Kindheitstraumen anhand von Gen-Umwelt-Interaktionsstudien und epigenetische Untersuchungen eingegangen. Abschließend wird ein kurzer Ausblick auf die aktuelle Forschung im Bereich der Pharmakogenetik gegeben.
Massive planets in FU Orionis discs: implications for thermal instability models

FU Orionis are young stellar objects undergoing episodes of enhanced luminosity, which are generally ascribed to a sudden increase of mass accretion rate in the surrounding protostellar disc. Models invoking a thermal instability in the disc are able to reproduce many features of the outburst, but cannot explain the rapid rise time-scale observed in many cases. Here we explore the possibility (originally suggested by Clarke and Syer) that the thermal instability is triggered away from the disc inner edge (at a distance of 10R ○. from the central protostar) due to the presence of a massive planet embedded in the disc. We have constructed simple, one-dimensional, time-dependent models of the disc evolution, taking into account both the interaction between the disc and the planet, and the thermal evolution of the disc. We are indeed able to reproduce rapid rise outbursts (with rise time-scale 1 yr), with a planet mass M s = 10-15 M Jupiter . We show that the luminosity and the duration of the outbursts are increasing functions of planet mass. We also show that the inward migration of the planet is significantly slowed once it reaches the radius where it is able to trigger FU Orionis outbursts, thus suggesting that a single planet may be involved in triggering several outbursts.
A robust multi-class traffic sign detection and classification system using asymmetric and symmetric features

In this paper we present our research work in traffic sign detection and classification. Specifically we present a set of asymmetric Haar-like features that will be shown to be effective in reducing false alarm rates for traffic sign detection, and a robust multi-class traffic sign detection and classification system built based upon the stage-by-stage performance analysis of individual traffic sign detectors trained using Adaboost.
Price Setting in a Leading Swiss Online Supermarket

We study a newly released data set of scanner prices for food products in a large Swiss online supermarket. We find that average prices change about every two months, but when we exclude temporary sales, prices are extremely sticky, changing on average once every three years. Non-sale price behavior is broadly consistent with menu cost models of sticky prices. When we focus specifically on the behavior of sale prices, however, we find that the characteristics of price adjustment seems to be substantially at odds with standard theory.
Formulating Queries for Collecting Training Examples in Visual Concept Classification

Video content can be automatically analysed and indexed using trained classifiers which map low-level features to semantic concepts. Such classifiers need training data consisting of sets of images which contain such concepts and recently it has been discovered that such training data can be located using text-based search to image databases on the internet. Formulating the text queries which locate these training images is the challenge we address here. In this paper we present preliminary results on TRECVid data of concept classification using automatically crawled images as training data and we compare the results with those obtained from manually annotated training sets.
Lysosomal exocytosis in Schwann cells contributes to axon remyelination

Myelin biogenesis is a complex process involving coordinated exocytosis, endocytosis, mRNA transport, and cytoskeletal dynamics. Although abnormalities of myelin are common in lysosomal storage diseases, our understanding of the role of lysosomes in the formation and maintenance of myelin is still limited. Here, we show that late endosomes/lysosomes in Schwann cells contain abundant myelin protein P0, which accounts for over half the total protein of compact myelin in the peripheral nervous system and exhibit Ca2+‐dependent exocytosis in response to various stimuli. Downregulation of Rab27a, a small GTPase required for the trafficking of the secretory lysosomes to the plasma membrane, largely blocked lysosomal exocytosis in Schwann cells and reduced the remyelination of regenerated sciatic nerve. These findings highlight a novel role for lysosomes in Schwann cells and suggest that the regulated lysosome exocytosis in Schwann cells may have important physiological and pathological significance in the peripheral nervous system. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Evolutionary development of the amygdaloid complex

In the early 19th century, Burdach discovered an almond-shaped mass of gray matter in the anterior portion of the mammalian temporal lobe, which he called “amygdala” (Burdach, 1819–1822). The first anatomical description of the amygdala was made in 1867 by Meynert (1867). Subsequently, a large number of other nuclei were added to the amygdala to constitute what is now known as the “amygdaloid complex” (AC) (Johnston, 1923). Until this day, AC remains a subject of intense investigation in terms of content and evolutionary development since it is a much more complicated structure than what was previously thought. It is therefore, important to know the evolutionary developmental origin of AC before we can completely understand its function.
Proxy design for improving the efficiency of stored MPEG-4 FGS video delivery over wireless networks

The widespread use of the Internet and the maturing of digital video technology have led to an increase in various streaming media application. However, new classes of hosts such as mobile devices are gaining popularity, while the transmission became more heterogeneous. Due to the characteristics of mobile networks such as low speed, high error bit rate, etc., the applications over the wireless channel have different needs and limitations from desktop computers. An intermediary between two communicating endpoints to hide the heterogeneous network links is thought as one of the best approaches. In this paper, we adopted the concept of inter-packet gap and the sequence number between continuously received packets as the error discriminator, and designed an adaptive packet sizing mechanism to improve the network efficiency under varying channel conditions. Based on the proposed mechanism, the packetization scheme with error protection is proposed to scalable encoded video delivery. Finally, simulation results reveal that our proposed mechanism can react to the varying BER conditions with better network efficiency and gain the obvious improvement to video quality for stored MPEG-4 FGS video delivery.
Novel Role of Endogenous Catalase in Macrophage Polarization in Adipose Tissue

Macrophages are important components of adipose tissue inflammation, which results in metabolic diseases such as insulin resistance. Notably, obesity induces a proinflammatory phenotypic switch in adipose tissue macrophages, and oxidative stress facilitates this switch. Thus, we examined the role of endogenous catalase, a key regulator of oxidative stress, in the activity of adipose tissue macrophages in obese mice. Catalase knockout (CKO) exacerbated insulin resistance, amplified oxidative stress, and accelerated macrophage infiltration into epididymal white adipose tissue in mice on normal or high-fat diet. Interestingly, catalase deficiency also enhanced classical macrophage activation (M1) and inflammation but suppressed alternative activation (M2) regardless of diet. Similarly, pharmacological inhibition of catalase activity using 3-aminotriazole induced the same phenotypic switch and inflammatory response in RAW264.7 macrophages. Finally, the same phenotypic switch and inflammatory responses were observed in primary bone marrow-derived macrophages from CKO mice. Taken together, the data indicate that endogenous catalase regulates the polarization of adipose tissue macrophages and thereby inhibits inflammation and insulin resistance.
Hormonally moderated neural control

Traditional Artificial Neural Networks have proven their worth since they were first developed, but they have also proven to be very inflexible in certain situations. Nevertheless, development in neurological research has allowed us to take those networks a step further and produce an architecture based on the role biological hormones have in the neural system. Three sets of experiments were performed with the goal of achieving autonomy through cyclic behaviour based on the surrounding environment. Having achieved the ability to create emergent complex behaviours through the interaction of simple structures opens the door to attaining emotional behaviours.
Older Adult Knowledge and Behavior Change in the Stepping On Fall Prevention Program in a Community Setting

One out of every three Americans age 65 and over falls at least once annually. Fall-related injuries among older adults are a major public health concern, and prevention of falls has emerged as a key issue in avoiding the risks to mobility and health that exist due to falls. Stepping On is an evidence-based fall prevention program designed to help older adults take control of their fall risk factors, explore different behavioral steps, and reduce their fall risk. This study shares findings from evaluation efforts conducted with 182 older adult participants in Stepping On from 2013 to 2015. Older adults in the program demonstrated (1) high satisfaction with program quality; (2) positive impacts on knowledge related to fall risk factors and prevention; and (3) substantial followthrough on behavioral steps designed to minimize fall risk. Program participants also shared positive feedback on the program in response to open-ended questions. Implications of the findings for fall risk reduction and programs to enhance fall prevention among older adults are discussed. Programs designed to reduce fall risk factors and enhance quality of life can be a critical tool to assist older adults, educators, and community leaders in addressing this public health issue.
Pathogenesis of myelin/oligodendrocyte damage in multiple sclerosis

Substantial evidence supports autoimmune activity as the etiologic mechanism underlying multiple sclerosis (MS). Both the innate and the adaptive arms of the immune system are involved in the aberrant response to several antigens associated with the myelin sheath and oligodendrocytes (OGCs) after the activation of immune cells by self- or cross-reactive microbial pathogens. The CD4+ Th1 cell, in particular, has been implicated, but it is abetted by a variety of other cell types (CD8+ cells, B cells, macrophages, and microglia) and soluble products (proteases, cytokines, and nitric oxide [NO]) that act both outside of and within the CNS. This review describes recent and salient findings from animal models and human clinical studies that have established our current understanding of the distinct steps in the development of immune autoreactivity that culminates in the CNS lesions associated with MS.
Impact of Land Use on Stream Water Quality in the German Low Mountain Range Basin Gersprenz

Knowledge of the interactions of hydrological processes with the landscape are important to understand variations in basic hydrological data for the comprehensive management of basins. Land cover and land use is one essential factor in the assessment of such management problems. In this study in a representative German basin, available land cover and land use data is analysed in correspondence with available hydrological measuring data.The aim of this study is to analyse the relationships between hydrological data and land use and to obtain a monitoring strategy which allows a valuable support to a comprehensive management of river basins.Two spatial scales, the basin Gersprenz and its subbasin Fischbach, are described in detail regarding the variations in electrical conductivity (EC) as a parameter of water quality with high resolution field data from the state-wide monitoring network (12 stations) as well as from own research monitoring (12 stations). The results show that water quality, using EC as an indicator, can be related to land use pattern. From stream source to mouth, there is an increase in anthropogenic impacts and the EC values show an increasing tendency in downstream direction. This anthropogenic impact is due to agricultural use, settlements, commerce and industry areas, and discharges of waste water. The hydrological monitoring will be continued in the future to give the possibility to assess long-term variations on different spatial and temporal scales.
Nicotinic acetylcholine receptor β2 subunit gene implicated in a systems-based candidate gene study of smoking cessation

Although the efficacy of pharmacotherapy for tobacco dependence has been previously demonstrated, there is substantial variability among individuals in treatment response. We performed a systems-based candidate gene study of 1295 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 58 genes within the neuronal nicotinic receptor and dopamine systems to investigate their role in smoking cessation in a bupropion placebo-controlled randomized clinical trial. Putative functional variants were supplemented with tagSNPs within each gene. We used global tests of main effects and treatment interactions, adjusting the P-values for multiple correlated tests. An SNP (rs2072661) in the 3′ UTR region of the β2 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor subunit (CHRNB2) has an impact on abstinence rates at the end of treatment (adjusted P = 0.01) and after a 6-month follow-up period (adjusted P = 0.0002). This latter P-value is also significant with adjustment for the number of genes tested. Independent of treatment at 6-month follow-up, individuals carrying the minor allele have substantially decreased the odds of quitting (OR = 0.31; 95% CI 0.18–0.55). Effect of estimates indicate that the treatment is more effective for individuals with the wild-type (OR = 2.14, 95% CI 1.20–3.81) compared with individuals carrying the minor allele (OR = 0.83, 95% CI 0.32–2.19), although this difference is only suggestive (P = 0.10). Furthermore, this SNP demonstrated a role in the time to relapse (P = 0.0002) and an impact on withdrawal symptoms at target quit date (TQD) (P = 0.0009). Overall, while our results indicate strong evidence for CHRNB2 in ability to quit smoking, these results require replication in an independent sample.
Robust Watermark Algorithm using Genetic Algorithm

Geometric attacks are among the most challenging problems in present day data hiding. Such attacks are very simple to implement yet they can defeat most of the existing data hiding algorithms without causing serious perceptual image distortion. In this research, we report a novel method to estimate the geometric manipulation. Geometric attacks can very easily confuse the decoder unless it transforms the image back to its original size/orientation, i.e., recover the lost synchronism. To be able do so, the decoder needs to know how the image has been manipulated, i.e., needs to know geometric transformation parameters. In our approach, the point pattern matching measure is computed for the geometric manipulation. The reference point patterns (i.e., a triple) are computed from feature ellipse of the original image. The point pattern matching is realized by genetic algorithm. The proposed scheme does not require the original image because reference triple information of the watermarked image has been contained in the secret key. Novel method has been proved its robustness to geometric attacks through experiments.
Very fast adaptation with a compact context-dependent eigenvoice model

The "eigenvoice" technique achieves rapid speaker adaptation by employing prior knowledge of speaker space obtained from reference speakers to place strong constraints on the initial model for each new speaker. It has previously been shown to yield very fast adaptation for a large-vocabulary system. In this paper, we describe a new way of applying the eigenvoice technique to context-dependent acoustic modeling, called the "eigencentroid plus delta trees" (EDT) model. Here, the context-dependent model is defined so that it consists of a speaker-dependent component with a small number of parameters linked to a speaker-independent component with far more parameters. The eigenvoice technique can then be applied to the speaker-dependent component alone to attain very fast adaptation of the entire context-dependent model (e.g., 10% relative reduction in error rate after 3 sentences). EDT requires only a small number of parameters to represent speaker space and works even if only a small amount of data is available per reference speaker.