Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Posture Kinematics Reconstruction and Body Model Creation Using a Marker-free Subpixel Algorithm

Postural ability can be evaluated through the analysis of body oscillations, by estimating the displacements of selected sets of body segments [1]. The analysis of human movement is generally achieved through the exploitation of stereophotogrammetric systems that rely on the use of markers [2]. Marker systems show a high cost and a lengthy patient settings with which patients could feel uneasy. On the other hand, the use of force platform has some limitations: the acquisition of dynamics data permits to estimate only the body oscillations as a whole, without any information about individual body segment movements. Some of these drawbacks can be overcome by the use of video systems, applying a marker-free sub-pixel algorithm. Therefore in this paper, a novel method to evaluate balance strategies that utilises commercial available systems and applies methods for feature extraction and markerfree image processing algorithms [3] is presented.
Pathology, genetics and cytogenetics of Wilms' tumour

Wilms' tumour (WT) is an embryonal cancer of childhood and is thought to be derived from embryonic kidney precursor cells. The Knudson two hit model was initially thought to occur in WT, but findings emerging from genetic and cytogenetic studies in the past two decades have implicated several genetic events. Recent techniques in genetic analysis have improved our ability to characterise changes in genes involved in WT which include WT1, CTNNB1, IGF2 and WTX. These genetic events have not only provided insight into the pathobiology of this malignancy, but the recognition of these candidate genes may offer potential targets for novel therapies. In this review, we will provide an overview of the pathological, genetic and cytogenetic characteristics of WT.
Clinical Medicine Insights: Endocrinology and Diabetes

Background: Increased protein proportions in the diet combined with energy restriction has been shown to enhance weight loss during dietary intervention. It is not known if the beneficial effect of dietary protein exists in the general population under normal living conditions without a negative energy balance. Methods: A total of 1834 participants (n = 443 men, n = 1391 women) were recruited from the CODING study. Participants’ dietary macronutrient compositions were determined through a Willett FFQ. Body composition variables including percent body fat (%BF), percent trunk fat (%TF), percent total lean mass (%LM), and percent trunk lean mass (%TLM) were determined using DXA. Major confounding factors including age, physical activity levels, total caloric intake, carbohydrate intake, menopausal status, smoking status and medication use were controlled for in all analyses. Results: Significant inverse relationships were observed between dietary protein intake (g/kg body weight/day) and weight, waist circumference, waist-to-hip ratio, BMI, %BF, and %TF (P , 0.001). Significant positive relationships were observed with %LM and %TLM (P , 0.001). Additionally, significant differences in weight (12.7 kg in men, 11.4 kg in women), BMI (4.1 BMI units in men, 4.2 units in women), and %BF (7.6% in men, 6.0% in women) were observed between low and high dietary protein consuming groups (P , 0.001). Dietary protein explained 11% of the total variation in %BF in the NL population. Conclusion: This study provides strong evidence that higher protein intake, even in the absence of energy restriction, is associated with a more favorable body composition in the general population.
Interpreting and Generating Indirect Answers

This paper presents an implemented computational model for interpreting and generating indirect answers to yes-no questions in English. Interpretation and generation are treated, respectively, as recognition of and construction of a responder's discourse plan for a full answer. An indirect answer is the result of the responder providing only part of the planned response, but intending for his discourse plan to be recognized by the questioner. Discourse plan construction and recognition make use of shared knowledge of discourse strategies, represented in the model by discourse plan operators. In the operators, coherence relations are used to characterize types of information that may accompany each type of answer. Recognizing a mutually plausible coherence relation obtaining between the actual response and a possible direct answer plays an important role in recognizing the responder's discourse plan. During generation, stimulus conditions model a speaker's motivation for selecting a satellite. Also during generation, the speaker uses his own interpretation capability to determine what parts of the plan are inferable by the hearer and thus do not need to be explicitly given. The model provides wider coverage than previous computational models for generating and interpreting indirect answers and extends the plan-based theory of implicature in several ways.
Design of multi-dimensional derivative filters

Many multi-dimensional signal processing problems require the computation of signal gradients or directional derivatives. Traditional derivative estimates based on adjacent or central differences are often inappropriate for multi-dimensional problems. As replacements for these traditional operators, the author designs a set of matched pairs of derivative filters and lowpass prefilters. The author demonstrates the superiority of these filters over simple difference operators. <<ETX>>
Rehabilitation of Concussion and Post-concussion Syndrome

Context: Prolonged symptoms after concussion are called post-concussion syndrome (PCS), which is a controversial disorder with a wide differential diagnosis. Evidence Acquisition: MEDLINE and PubMed searches were conducted for the years 1966 to 2011 using the search terms brain concussion/complications OR brain concussion/diagnosis OR brain concussion/therapy AND sports OR athletic injuries. Secondary search terms included post-concussion syndrome, trauma, symptoms, metabolic, sports medicine, cognitive behavioral therapy, treatment and rehabilitation. Additional articles were identified from the bibliographies of recent reviews. Results: Of 564 studies that fulfilled preliminary search criteria, 119 focused on the diagnosis, pathophysiology, and treatment/rehabilitation of concussion and PCS and formed the basis of this review. Rest is the primary treatment for the acute symptoms of concussion. Ongoing symptoms are either a prolonged version of the concussion pathophysiology or a manifestation of other processes, such as cervical injury, migraine headaches, depression, chronic pain, vestibular dysfunction, visual dysfunction, or some combination of conditions. The pathophysiology of ongoing symptoms from the original concussion injury may reflect multiple causes: anatomic, neurometabolic, and physiologic. Conclusions: Treatment approaches depend on the clinician’s ability to differentiate among the various conditions associated with PCS. Early education, cognitive behavioral therapy, and aerobic exercise therapy have shown efficacy in certain patients but have limitations of study design. An algorithm is presented to aid clinicians in the evaluation and treatment of concussion and PCS and in the return-to-activity decision.
Discovering communities by information diffusion

Discovering underlying communities in networks is an important task in network analysis. In the last decade, a large variety of algorithms have been proposed. However, most of them require global information or a centralized control. Those algorithms are infeasible in large-scale real networks due to computation and accessibility. In this paper, we propose a novel decentralized community detection algorithm based on information diffusion. We believe information diffusion in human society can allow us to understand the emergence of community structure. Being able to find out some critical nodes which play an important role in the formation of a community is an important byproduct for our algorithm. Experiments on various networks, including benchmark networks and synthetic networks, show that it is comparable to three decentralized algorithms and two representative centralized algorithms, in terms of stability and accuracy.
Carbon nanotube reinforced titanium composites: An experimental and molecular dynamics study

In this study, the mechanical properties of carbon nanotube reinforced titanium (CNT–Ti) composites have been predicted using molecular dynamics approach. An experimental study was also conducted in which spark plasma sintering was used for preparing the composites. The effect of variation in carbon nanotube volume fraction (V f ), temperature, and strain on the elastic moduli (E11, E22, and E33) and the shear modulus (G Reuss ) of CNT–Ti composites was studied. The elastic and shear moduli were all found to increase significantly because of the increasing carbon nanotube V f . Even at temperatures approaching 1 K, the CNT–Ti composites show high values of elastic and shear moduli. The elastic moduli tend to attain a constant value at high levels of strain. The results obtained from experiments corroborated the molecular dynamics results.
Feasibility and Safety of Magnetic Resonance Imaging-Based Thrombolysis in Patients with Stroke on Awakening: Initial Single-Centre Experience

Background Up to 25% of all acute ischaemic strokes occur during sleep. Because of the unclear time window, patients with stroke on awakening are usually not considered for acute therapy and excluded from most acute treatment trials. Aim To evaluate the feasibility of magnetic resonance imaging-based intravenous thrombolysis in patients with stroke on awakening in a routine clinical setting. Methods Forty-five patients with stroke on awakening clinically qualifying for intravenous thrombolysis and presenting within 6 h after symptom recognition were admitted to our institution between October 2006 and May 2008. Following an institutional protocol, patients received magnetic resonance imaging as a first-line imaging modality and were offered mismatch-based thrombolysis whenever possible. Baseline demographic data, clinical, laboratory and imaging findings were analysed. Outcome was assessed using the modified Rankin Scale score at 3 months. Results Magnetic resonance imaging screening was feasible in 43/45 patients (96%). After screening, 10 patients (22%) were treated with intravenous thrombolysis. There were no differences between treated and untreated patients regarding cardiovascular risk factors, stroke aetiology, previous prophylactic treatment and symptom recognition to door time or door to imaging time. Outcome was comparable in both groups despite a trend towards more severe strokes in the intravenous thrombolysis group. Only one asymptomatic and no symptomatic haemorrhage were observed. Conclusion Our data demonstrate that magnetic resonance imaging-based thrombolysis is feasible and possibly safe in patients with stroke on awakening (SOA). Randomised clinical trials for patients with stroke on awakening are needed to further test the safety and efficacy of intravenous thrombolysis in this patient group. The results of our study may help to initiate and design such studies.
Phylogenetic super-networks from partial trees

In practice, one is often faced with incomplete phylogenetic data, such as a collection of partial trees or partial splits. This paper poses the problem of inferring a phylogenetic super-network from such data and provides an efficient algorithm for doing so, called the Z-closure method. Additionally, the questions of assigning lengths to the edges of the network and how to restrict the "dimensionality" of the network are addressed. Applications to a set of five published partial gene trees relating different fungal species and to six published partial gene trees relating different grasses illustrate the usefulness of the method and an experimental study confirms its potential. The method is implemented as a plug-in for the program SplitsTree4
Missense mutations of ACTA1 cause dominant congenital myopathy with cores

ongenital myopathies (CM) are neuromuscular disorders classified by characteristic histopathological findings in muscle fibers. Areas devoid of oxidative enzyme activity (core lesions) are pathological hallmarks of autosomal dominant or recessive central core disease (CCD; MIM 117000) and multiminicore disease (MmD; MIM 255320). While large and solitary cores in the center and along the entire length of muscle fibers are considered typical for CCD and multiple smaller cores within muscle fibers define MmD, this classic histological distinction is complicated by the marked histological variability of core lesions. 1 Minicores and central cores have been detected concomitantly as well as separately in successive muscle biopsy specimens of single patients and in myofibers of different affected family members. 1–4 So far, mutations in
Switch-aided flooding operations in ATM networks

In this paper, we propose a flooding method, called switch-aided flooding (SAF), for use in ATM networks. SAF-based protocols take advantage of hardware-supported cell relay and cell duplication, characteristic of such networks, in order to reduce the time needed to disseminate changes in network topology and resource availability. SAF protocols use a spanning multipoint connection (SMC), which is a hardware-switched network spanning tree, but revert to conventional link-by-link flooding when the spanning MC is unavailable or under construction. The results of a simulation study reveal that the proposed flooding protocols deliver network updates several times faster than conventional approaches, while using significantly less bandwidth.
Determination of 3D object pose in point cloud with CAD model

This paper introduces improvements to estimate 3D object pose from point clouds. We use point-pair feature for matching instead of traditional approaches using local feature descriptors. In order to obtain high accuracy estimation, a discriminative descriptor is introduced for point-pair features. The object model is a set of point pair descriptors computed from CAD model. The voting process is performed on a local area of each key-point to boost the performance. Due to the simplicity of descriptor, a matching threshold is defined to enable the robustness of the algorithm. A clustering algorithm is defined for grouping similar poses together. Best pose candidates will be selected for refining and final verification will be performed. The robustness and accuracy of our approach are demonstrated through experiments. Our approach can be compared to state-of-the-art algorithms in terms of recognition rates. These high accurate poses especially useful for robot in manipulating objects in the factory. Since our approach does not use color feature, it is independent to light conditions. The system give accurate pose estimation even when there is no light in the area.
RtcB, a Novel RNA Ligase, Can Catalyze tRNA Splicing and HAC1 mRNA Splicing in Vivo*

RtcB enzymes are novel RNA ligases that join 2′,3′-cyclic phosphate and 5′-OH ends. The phylogenetic distribution of RtcB points to its candidacy as a tRNA splicing/repair enzyme. Here we show that Escherichia coli RtcB is competent and sufficient for tRNA splicing in vivo by virtue of its ability to complement growth of yeast cells that lack the endogenous “healing/sealing-type” tRNA ligase Trl1. RtcB also protects yeast trl1Δ cells against a fungal ribotoxin that incises the anticodon loop of cellular tRNAs. Moreover, RtcB can replace Trl1 as the catalyst of HAC1 mRNA splicing during the unfolded protein response. Thus, RtcB is a bona fide RNA repair enzyme with broad physiological actions. Biochemical analysis of RtcB highlights the uniqueness of its active site and catalytic mechanism. Our findings draw attention to tRNA ligase as a promising drug target.
A Family of Hybrid Random Number Generators with Adjustable Quality and Speed

Conventional random number generators provide the speed but not necessarily the high quality output streams needed for large-scale stochastic simulations. Cryptographically-based generators, on the other hand, provide superior quality output but are often deemed too slow to be practical for use in large simulations. We combine these two approaches to construct a family of hybrid generators that permit users to choose the desired tradeoff between quality and speed for a given application. We demonstrate the effectiveness, performance, and practicality of this approach using a standard battery of tests, which show that high quality streams of random numbers can be obtained at a cost comparable to that of fast conventional generators.
The effect of nerve growth factor on corneal sensitivity after laser in situ keratomileusis.

OBJECTIVE To determine if topically administered nerve growth factor (NGF) plays a role in accelerating the recovery of corneal sensitivity after laser in situ keratomileusis (LASIK). METHODS A prospective double-masked study comparing the effect of topical NGF with balanced salt solution on corneal sensitivity after LASIK in rabbits. Preoperative and postoperative corneal sensitivities were assessed using an esthesiometer (Cochet-Bonnet esthesiometer). RESULTS Eyes that were treated with topical NGF demonstrated an earlier and faster recovery of corneal sensitivity after LASIK (P =.007). A statistically significant difference in corneal sensitivity was found between the topical NGF and control group postoperatively at 2 (P =.01), 3 (P =.03), and 4 (P =.03) weeks. CONCLUSION Topically administered NGF may play a significant role in accelerating corneal reinnervation after LASIK. Clinical Relevance Our results showed that topical NGF had beneficial effects in the early recovery of corneal sensitivity after LASIK. Nerve growth factor can be a new therapeutic approach for dry eye syndrome after LASIK.
Searching for the Holy Grail

This article is about the interactivity of interactive television (ITV). It is both a theoretical elaboration of the concepts of interactivity and interactive television and a presentation of a survey among 74 American, Asian and European corporate experts of ITV. First, operational definitions of the concepts of interactivity and interactive television are presented as scholarly images of ITV. Then the main results of a questionnaire investigating corporate expert images of ITV are presented. These images are assessed by the investigators to be rather weak and imprecise. Still, the experts concerned are desperately seeking a suitable and concrete business model of ITV, as a kind of Holy Grail. Experts from the world of television production and internet production appear to have different images of interactivity, applications of ITV and the future of television. Finally, the authors present the main components of business models of ITV and the future prospects of this medium.
NO 2 climatology in the northern subtropical region: diurnal, seasonal and interannual variability

Daily NO 2 vertical column density (VCD) has been routinely measured by zenith sky spectroscopy at the subtropical station of Izana (28° N, 16° W) since 1993 in the framework of the Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC). Based on 14 years of data the first low latitude NO 2 VCD climatology has been established and the main characteristics from short timescales of one day to interannual variability are presented. Instrumental descriptions and different sources of errors are described in detail. The observed diurnal cycle follows that expected by gas-phase NO x chemistry, as can be shown by the good agreement with a vertically integrated chemical box model, and is modulated by solar radiation. The seasonal evolution departs from the phase of the hours of daylight, indicating the signature of upper stratospheric temperature changes. From the data record (1993–2006) no significant long-term trends in NO 2 VCD can be inferred. Comparison of the ground-based data sets with nadir-viewing satellite spectrometers shows excellent agreement for SCIAMACHY with differences between both datasets of 1.1%. GOME displays unrealistic features with the largest discrepancies during summer. The ground-based data are compared with long-term output of the SLIMCAT 3-D chemical transport model (CTM). The basic model, forced by ECMWF (ERA-40) analyses, captures the observed NO 2 annual cycle but significantly underestimates the spring/summer maximum (by 12% at sunset and up to 25% at sunrise). In a model run which uses assimilation of satellite CH 4 profiles to constrain the model long-lived tracers the agreement is significantly improved. This improvement in modelled column NO 2 is due to better modelled NO y profiles and points to transport errors in the ECMWF ERA-40 reanalyses.
Effect of low direct current on anaerobic multispecies biofilm adhering to a titanium implant surface.

PURPOSE Peri-implantitis is caused by biofilm adhering to the implant. It has been shown that bactericidal electrolysis products are generated when a low direct current is applied to a titanium implant used as the anode. The hypothesis of this study was that low-current electrolysis would eradicate viable bacteria in a simulated subgingival multispecies biofilm adhering to a titanium implant surface. MATERIAL AND METHODS Biofilms consisting of eight anaerobic species were grown on pellicle-coated titanium discs with sand-blasted, acid-etched, large-grit (SLA; Straumann, Basel, Switzerland) surface. After 40.5 hours of growth, discs were treated with 10 mA for 10 minutes in an electrolytical setup with physiological saline and gelatin. RESULTS Low direct current at discs used as the cathode caused a reduction of three to four orders of magnitude in viable counts, while no viable bacteria were recovered from anode discs (Mann-Whitney U-test, p < .01). Confocal laser scanning microscopy in combination with a live/dead stain showed biofilm detachment at the cathode and reduced viability at the anode. CONCLUSION Electrochemical treatment of diseased implants appears to be promising and well worth investigating further.
T-Cell Receptors Binding Orientation over Peptide/MHC Class I Is Driven by Long-Range Interactions

Crystallographic data about T-Cell Receptor – peptide – major histocompatibility complex class I (TCRpMHC) interaction have revealed extremely diverse TCR binding modes triggering antigen recognition. Understanding the molecular basis that governs TCR orientation over pMHC is still a considerable challenge. We present a simplified rigid approach applied on all non-redundant TCRpMHC crystal structures available. The CHARMM force field in combination with the FACTS implicit solvation model is used to study the role of long-distance interactions between the TCR and pMHC. We demonstrate that the sum of the coulomb interactions and the electrostatic solvation energies is sufficient to identify two orientations corresponding to energetic minima at 0° and 180° from the native orientation. Interestingly, these results are shown to be robust upon small structural variations of the TCR such as changes induced by Molecular Dynamics simulations, suggesting that shape complementarity is not required to obtain a reliable signal. Accurate energy minima are also identified by confronting unbound TCR crystal structures to pMHC. Furthermore, we decompose the electrostatic energy into residue contributions to estimate their role in the overall orientation. Results show that most of the driving force leading to the formation of the complex is defined by CDR1,2/MHC interactions. This long-distance contribution appears to be independent from the binding process itself, since it is reliably identified without considering neither short-range energy terms nor CDR induced fit upon binding. Ultimately, we present an attempt to predict the TCR/pMHC binding mode for a TCR structure obtained by homology modeling. The simplicity of the approach and the absence of any fitted parameters make it also easily applicable to other types of macromolecular protein complexes.