Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Deformable Contour Method: A Constrained Optimization Approach Abstract. In this paper, a class of deformable contour methods using a constrained optimization approach of minimizing a contour energy function

In this paper, a class of deformable contour methods using a constrained optimization approach of minimizing a contour energy function satisfying an interior homogeneity constraint is proposed. The class is defined by any positive potential function describing the contour interior characterization. An evolutionary strategy is used to derive the algorithm. A similarity threshold Tv can be used to determine the interior size and shape of the contour. Sensitivity and significance of Tv and σ (a spreadness measure) are also discussed and shown. Experiments on noisy images and the convergence to a minimum energy gap contour are included. The developed method has been applied to a variety of medical images from CT abdominal section, MRI image slices of brain, brain tumor, a pig heart ultrasound image sequence to visual blood cell images. As the results show, the algorithm can be adapted to a broad range of medical images containing objects with vague, complex and/or irregular shape boundary, inhomogeneous and noisy interior, and contour with small gaps.
The Protective Effect of Radix Polygoni Multiflori on Diabetic Encephalopathy via Regulating Myosin Light Chain Kinase Expression

Currently there has been no effective treatment of diabetic encephalopathy. Radix Polygoni Multiflori, a famous traditional Chinese medicine, is widely used in antiaging treatment, especially in prevention and treatment of Alzheimer's diseases. In this study we tried to explore the effect of Radix Polygoni Multiflori on cognitive function among diabetic rats with demonstrated cognitive impairment. SD rats were divided into group A (control group), group B (diabetes), group C (treated with Radix Polygoni Multiflori at the dose of 2 g/kg/d), and group D (treated with same drug at the dose of 1 g/kg/d). The results showed that 8 weeks of Radix Polygoni Multiflori treatment could improve the cognitive dysfunction of diabetic rats (P < 0.01), recover the ultrastructure of hippocampal neurons, and increase the number of synapses in a dose-dependent manner. Further experiment also suggested that the neuroprotective effect of Radix Polygoni Multiflori was partly achieved by downregulating MLCK expression in hippocampus via ERK signaling.
INTEGRITY CHECKERS : STATE OF THE ART AND BEST PRACTICES

Assuring that system files have not been tampered with over time is a vital, but oftoverlooked, aspect of system security. File integrity checkers provide ways to assure the validity of files on a system. This paper concerns itself with a review of file integrity checkers. It pays particular attention to what the minimum requirements for an integrity checker are, the different approaches taken to integrity checking, the strengths and weaknesses of each approach, major divisions in checker design, innovative or unusual features of certain checkers, and appropriate situations under which each type of checker should be used. The design of an integrity checker which combines the best features of various checkers is described and discussed.
Constructing and validating a language teachers’ temporal intelligence scale and examining its relationship with teacher burnout

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to design and validate a scale to measure language teachers’ temporal intelligence and to explore its role in teacher burnout. To this aim, 210 English as Foreign Language (EFL) teachers, teaching at different language institutes were asked to complete two questionnaires: the newly-designed language teachers’ temporal intelligence scale (LTTI-S) and the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). First, Rasch measurement was used to substantiate the construct validity of the LTTI-S. Next, multiple correspondence analysis and regression were run, which revealed significant relationships between temporal intelligence and the three subconstructs of burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment). Moreover, the results of t-test and one-way ANOVA demonstrated that female teachers’ temporal intelligence is significantly higher than their male counterparts and teachers with higher academic degrees have significantly higher temporal intelligence. Finally, the results were discussed and implications were provided in the context of language education.
Infections, medication use, and the prevalence of symptoms of asthma, rhinitis, and eczema in childhood

Background: The “hygiene hypothesis” postulates that infections during infancy may protect against asthma and atopy. There is also some evidence that antibiotic and/or paracetamol use may increase the risk of asthma. Methods: The study measured the association between infections, and medication use early in life and the risk of asthma at age 6–7 years. It involved 1584 children who had been notified to public health services with serious infections at age 0–4 years, and 2539 children sampled from the general population. For both groups, postal questionnaires were completed by parents. Results: There was little difference in the prevalence of current wheezing between the childhood infections group (prevalence = 23.5%) and the general population group (prevalence = 24.3%). There was also little difference whether the major site of infection was gastrointestinal (prevalence = 24.1%), invasive (prevalence = 24.6%) or respiratory (prevalence = 21.1%). However, in both groups, there were associations with antibiotic (OR = 1.78, 95% CI 1.49 to 2.14) or paracetamol (OR = 1.38, 95% CI 1.04 to 1.83) use in the first year of life or recent paracetamol use (OR = 2.10, 95% CI 1.78 to 2.49) and current wheezing. There was a weak protective effect of childhood infections in children who had not used antibiotics in the first year of life (OR = 0.78, 95% CI 0.55 to 1.10). Conclusions: These findings are consistent with other evidence that antibiotic use early in life may increase the risk of asthma. They are also consistent with some preliminary evidence associating paracetamol use with an increased risk of asthma. Any protective effect of notifiable childhood infections was weak.
Amino acid availability: aspects of chemical analysis and bioassay methodology

Abstract It is important to be able to characterise foods and feedstuffs according to their available amino acid contents. This involves being able to determine amino acids chemically and the conduct of bioassays to determine amino acid digestibility and availability. The chemical analysis of amino acids is not straightforward and meticulousness is required to achieve consistent results. In particular and for accuracy, the effect of hydrolysis time needs to be accounted for. Some amino acids (for example, lysine) can undergo chemical modification during the processing and storage of foods, which interferes with amino acid analysis. Furthermore, the modified amino acids may also interfere with the determination of digestibility. A new approach to the determination of available lysine using a modified in vivo digestibility assay is discussed. Research is required into other amino acids susceptible to structural damage. There is recent compelling scientific evidence that bacterial activity in the small intestine of animals and man leads to the synthesis and uptake of dietary essential amino acids. This has implications for the accuracy of the ileal-based amino acid digestibility assay and further research is required to determine the extent of this synthesis, the source of nitrogenous material used for the synthesis and the degree of synthesis net of amino acid catabolism. Although there may be potential shortcomings in digestibility assays based on the determination of amino acids remaining undigested at the terminal ileum, there is abundant evidence in simple-stomached animals and growing evidence in human subjects that faecal-based amino acid digestibility coefficients are misleading. Hindgut microbial metabolism significantly alters the undigested dietary amino acid profile. The ileal amino acid digestibility bioassay is expected to be more accurate than its faecal-based counterpart, but correction of the ileal amino acid flow for amino acids of endogenous origin is necessary. Approaches to correcting for the endogenous component are discussed.
Vascular permeability in a human tumor xenograft: molecular size dependence and cutoff size.

Molecular size is one of the key determinants of transvascular transport of therapeutic agents in tumors. However, there are no data in the literature on the molecular size dependence of microvascular permeability in tumors. Therefore, we measured microvascular permeability to various macromolecules in the human colon adenocarcinoma LS174T transplanted in dorsal skin chambers in severe combined immunodeficient mice. These molecules were fluorescently labeled and injected i.v. into mice. The microvascular permeability was calculated from the fluorescence intensity measured by the intravital fluorescence microscopy technique. The value of permeability varied approximately 2-fold in the range of molecular weight from 25,000 to 160,000. These data indicate that tumor vessels are less permselective than normal vessels, presumably due to large pores in the vessel wall. The transport of macromolecules appears to be limited by diffusion through these pores. The cutoff size of the pores was estimated by observations of transvascular transport of sterically stabilized liposomes of 100-600 nm in diameter. We found that tumor vessels in our model were permeable to liposomes of up to 400 nm in diameter, suggesting that the cutoff size of the pores is between 400 and 600 nm in diameter.
The effective role of work environment and its influence on managerial innovation

Article history: Received: September 19, 2018 Received in revised format: October 2, 2018 Accepted: October 19, 2018 Available online: October 19, 2018 Trying to create an innovative organization means to have employees who are innovative, within the internal structure of the organization. This paper aimed at examining the influence of work environment on managerial innovation within the insurance sector in Kuwait. A quantitative tool, selfadministered questionnaire, was adopted and distributed among165 managers who worked for 21 insurance companies in Kuwait. The results indicate that among the chosen variables representing the dimensions of the work environment, the most influential dimension was facilities. This reveals that it was the influence of facilities that provided a healthy work environment for the employees who enhanced their abilities to present their best performance and be innovative. The study suggests that organizations should pay extra attention to certain factors of employee appraisal such as incentives, appreciation and recognition, that may, in turn, help increase the degree of managerial innovation. In addition, it is suggested to examine the influence of work environment on the leaders’ ethical orientations within the insurance sector in Kuwait. © 2019 by the authors; licensee Growing Science, Canada
A Hybrid System for Automatic Generation of Style-Specific A ccompaniment

Creating distinctive harmonizations in an identifiable sty le may be one of the most difficult tasks for amateur song writers, a novel and acceptable melody being relatively easier to produce; and this difficulty may result in the abandonment of otherwise worthwhile projects. To model and assist in this creative process, we propose a hybrid system for generating style-specific accompaniment, which is capable of creating new harmonizations for melodies, with proper harmonic resolutions, in a style that is learned from only a few examples. In the proposed system, a chord tone determination module first learns, then determines, which notes in a given melody are likely chord tones. According to these chord tones, triads are assigned first to the bars with unambiguous solutions, and these triads serve as checkpoints. The system then constructs possible chord progressions using neo-Riemannian transforms between checkpoints, and represents the alternate paths in a tree structure. A Markov chain with learned probabilities for these neo-Riemanian transforms then generates the final chord progression. We select four songs by the British rock band, Radiohead, to evaluate the system. Three songs are used for training, and an accompaniment is generated for the held out melody. We present the results of two case studies. We find that the system generates chords closely related to the original, and the resulting chord transitions reinforce the phrase structur e of the melody.
Childbearing and Marriage: Investigating the Importance of Context for Meaning-Making of First-Time Marriage

ABSTRACT Previous research reveals that the temporal ordering of childbearing and marriage can have an impact on the meaning of first-time marriage. This article aims to obtain a deeper understanding of meaning-making of first-time marriage in relation to childbearing. Narrative interviews with 16 brides and grooms in 8 couples in Sweden were conducted. The material was analyzed in relation to the temporal ordering of childbearing and marriage. The study reveals that the construction of meaning of marriage does not only relate to the temporal context. Social factors such as social class or family formation might also be relevant for how meaning is constructed. This article contributes to a deeper understanding of meaning-making as a relational process constructed within particular contexts.
Sharing a Secret Two-Tone Image in Two Gray-Level Images

In this paper, we shall propose two spatial-domain image hiding schemes with the concept of secret sharing. The two new schemes use the two-out-of-two visual secret sharing technique to generate two shares for hiding a secret two-tone image. These two secret shares are embedded into two gray-level cover images by the proposed embedding scheme. To decode the hidden messages, we can superimpose the extracted shares from the secret-share-carrier images (namely the embedding images). The advantages of our scheme are simple computation and good security, and thus it is very suitable for applications involving low power verification systems. Besides, our scheme can support two participants to share one secret two-tone image. According to our experimental results, the two proposed schemes are capable of offering satisfactory embedding image quality
Preparation of SiO2-Protecting Metallic Fe Nanoparticle/SiO2 Composite Spheres for Biomedical Application

Functionalized Fe nanoparticles (NPs) have played an important role in biomedical applications. In this study, metallic Fe NPs were deposited on SiO2 spheres to form a Fe/SiO2 composite. To protect the Fe from oxidation, a thin SiO2 layer was coated on the Fe/SiO2 spheres thereafter. The size and morphology of the SiO2@Fe/SiO2 composite spheres were examined by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The iron form and its content and magnetic properties were examined by X-ray diffraction (XRD), inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID). The biocompatibility of the SiO2@Fe/SiO2 composite spheres was examined by Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) tests. The intracellular distribution of the SiO2@Fe/SiO2 composite spheres was observed using TEM. XRD analysis revealed the formation of metallic iron on the surface of the SiO2 spheres. According to the ICP-MS and SQUID results, using 0.375 M FeCl3·6H2O for Fe NPs synthesis resulted in the highest iron content and magnetization of the SiO2@Fe/SiO2 spheres. Using a dye loading experiment, a slow release of a fluorescence dye from SiO2@Fe/SiO2 composite spheres was confirmed. The SiO2@Fe/SiO2 composite spheres co-cultured with L929 cells exhibit biocompatibility at concentrations <16.25 µg/mL. The TEM images show that the SiO2@Fe/SiO2 composite spheres were uptaken into the cytoplasm and retained in the endosome. The above results demonstrate that the SiO2@Fe/SiO2 composite spheres could be used as a multi-functional agent, such as a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agent or drug carriers in biomedical applications.
Laboratory aid to the diagnosis and therapy of infection in the neonate

Despite the advances in perinatal and neonatal care and use of newer potent antibiotics, the incidence of neonatal sepsis remains high and the outcome is still severe. For years, investigators have sought a test or panel of tests able to identify septic neonates accurately and rapidly in order to obtain an early diagnosis and develop a specific effective treatment for a successful outcome. In addition to the standard procedures (blood, CSF, and urine cultures), such panels have included a combination of haematological investigations (total, differential and immature cell counts), and levels of acute-phase reactants (principally CRP and procalcitonin), and cytokines (such as IL-6 or neutrophil CD64). Furthermore, the science of proteomics and genomics has been applied to the search for bio-markers, production of protein profiles and genetic polymorphisms that can rapidly help the prediction, early diagnosis, and treatment of human diseases, but, for now, data are as yet insufficient to confirm their validity.
Eigenhill vs. eigenface and eigenedge

In this study, we present a new approach to overcome the problems in face recognition associated with illumination changes by utilizing the edge images rather than intensity values. However, using edges directly has its problems. To combine the advantages of algorithms based on shading and edges while overcoming their drawbacks, we introduced "hills" which are obtained by covering edges with a membrane. Each hill image is then described as a combination of most descriptive eigenvectors, called "eigenhills", spanning hills space. We compare the recognition performances of eigenface, eigenedge and eigenhills methods by considering illumination and orientation changes on Purdue A&R face database and showed experimentally that our approach has the best recognition performance.
Load frequency control in interconnected power system using multi-objective PID controller

In this paper designing of multi-objective PID controller for load frequency control (LFC) based on adaptive weighted particle swarm optimization (AWPSO) has been proposed. Conventional methods such as Ziegler-Nichols and Cohen-Coon are based on trial-and-error and their best performances are achieved for first-order process. Single-objective population based methods such as genetic algorithm (GA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) have only one solution in a single run. Unlike single objective methods, multi-objective optimization can find different solutions in a single run. In the proposed method, overshoot/undershoot and settling time are used as objective functions for multi-objective optimization. The proposed method is used for designing of PID parameters for two area interconnected power system.
Effects of Exercise Intensity on Spatial Memory Performance and Hippocampal Synaptic Plasticity in Transient Brain Ischemic Rats

Memory impairment is commonly noted in stroke survivors, and can lead to delay of functional recovery. Exercise has been proved to improve memory in adult healthy subjects. Such beneficial effects are often suggested to relate to hippocampal synaptic plasticity, which is important for memory processing. Previous evidence showed that in normal rats, low intensity exercise can improve synaptic plasticity better than high intensity exercise. However, the effects of exercise intensities on hippocampal synaptic plasticity and spatial memory after brain ischemia remain unclear. In this study, we investigated such effects in brain ischemic rats. The middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) procedure was used to induce brain ischemia. After the MCAO procedure, rats were randomly assigned to sedentary (Sed), low-intensity exercise (Low-Ex), or high-intensity exercise (High-Ex) group. Treadmill training began from the second day post MCAO procedure, 30 min/day for 14 consecutive days for the exercise groups. The Low-Ex group was trained at the speed of 8 m/min, while the High-Ex group at the speed of 20 m/min. The spatial memory, hippocampal brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), synapsin-I, postsynaptic density protein 95 (PSD-95), and dendritic structures were examined to document the effects. Serum corticosterone level was also quantified as stress marker. Our results showed the Low-Ex group, but not the High-Ex group, demonstrated better spatial memory performance than the Sed group. Dendritic complexity and the levels of BDNF and PSD-95 increased significantly only in the Low-Ex group as compared with the Sed group in bilateral hippocampus. Notably, increased level of corticosterone was found in the High-Ex group, implicating higher stress response. In conclusion, after brain ischemia, low intensity exercise may result in better synaptic plasticity and spatial memory performance than high intensity exercise; therefore, the intensity is suggested to be considered during exercise training.
Understory vegetation, resource availability, and litterfall responses to pine thinning and woody vegetation control in longleaf pine plantations

In six 8- to 11-year-old plantations of longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.) near Aiken, S.C. , responses of understory vegetation, light, and soil water availability and litterfall were studied in relation to pine thinning (May 1994), herbicidal treatment of nonpine woody vegetation (1995-1996), or the combined treatments (treatment responses described below are in absolute units). Treatment differences in fifth-year (1998) herbaceous species density were as follows: pine thinning > woody control = combined treatments > untreated (33, 30, 30, and 25 species per 40 m2, respectively). Forb and grass covers were 13 and 8% greater, respectively, after pine thinning and 7 and 9% greater after woody control. Pine thinning stimulated a large increase in third-year gap fraction (0.26), short-term increases in soil water content (1%), and a reduction in pine litterfall by half (-120 g·m-2 per year). Woody control had no effect on gap fraction, decreased litterfall of nonpine woody vegetation (-32 g·m-2 per year),.
On the interpretation of the age and chemical composition of composite stellar populations determined with line-strength indices

We study the simple stellar population-equivalent (SSP-equivalent) age and chemical composition measured from the Lick/IDS line-strength indices of composite stellar populations (CSPs). We build two sets of similar to 30 000 CSP models using stellar populations synthesis models, combining an old population and a young population with a range of ages and chemical compositions representative of early-type galaxies. We investigate how the SSP-equivalent stellar parameters of the CSPs depend on the stellar parameters of the two input populations; how they depend on V-band luminosity-weighted stellar parameters; and how SSP-equivalent parameters derived from using different Balmer-line indices can be used to reveal the presence of a young population on top of an old one. We find that the SSP-equivalent age depends primarily on the age of the young population and on the mass fraction of the two populations, and that the SSP-equivalent chemical composition depends mainly on the chemical composition of the old population. Furthermore, the SSP-equivalent chemical composition tracks quite closely the V-band luminosity-weighted one, while the SSP-equivalent age is strongly biased towards the age of the young population. In this bias, the age of the young population and the mass fraction between old and young population are degenerate. Finally, assuming typical error bars, we find that a discrepancy between the SSP-equivalent parameters determined with different Balmer-line indices can reveal the presence of a young stellar population on top of an old one as long as the age of the young population is less than similar to 2.5 Gyr and the mass fraction of young-to-old population is between 1 and 10 per cent.