Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Morphometric Analysis of the Femur in Cerebral Palsy: 3-dimensional CT Study

Background The cause of hip disorder in cerebral palsy (CP) has been thought to involve muscle imbalance, flexion, and adduction contracture of the hip joint, acetabular dysplasia, and femoral growth abnormalities. The aim of this study was to quantitatively evaluate the 3-dimensional femoral geometry and subluxation/dislocation of the hip in spastic CP using 3D-CT reconstructed images of the pelvis and the femur, focusing on the femoral growth abnormalities in CP. Methods Between June 2006 and September 2009, 186 hips in 93 bilateral spastic CP patients, including spastic diplegia (SD) in 73 patients and spastic quadriplegia (SQ) in 20 patients, who had not received any surgical treatment, were investigated using 3D-CT at our hospital. There were 59 boys and 34 girls with an average age of 5.3 years (range: 2.6 to 6.8 y). As an index for the femoral geometry, the neck-shaft angle, the femoral anteversion, and the femoral offset were 3-dimensionally measured. The center of the acetabulum and the femoral head were determined to calculate the CT migration percentage as the distance between these centers divided by the femoral head diameter. To elucidate the factors related to hip subluxation/dislocation, the relationships between the neck-shaft angle, the femoral anteversion, the femoral offset, and the CT migration percentage were investigated. Results The mean neck-shaft angle was 150.4±9.4 degrees (range: 129.4 to 173.2 degrees). The mean femoral anteversion was 44.4±13.6 degrees (range: 5.8 to 84.0 degrees). The mean CT migration percentage was 22.4±22.7% (range: 3 to 129%). There was positive correlation between the CT migration percentage and the neck-shaft angle (r=0.49). Hips with large CT migration percentage tended to show coxa valga. There was an inverse correlation between the neck-shaft angle and the femoral offset (r=−0.90), but no correlation between the CT migration percentage and the femoral anteversion (r=0.26), between the femoral offset and the femoral anteversion (r=−0.25), or between the neck-shaft angle and the femoral anteversion (r=0.23). The neck-shaft angle, the femoral anteversion, and the CT migration percentage were significantly larger, and the femoral offset was significantly smaller, in patients with the Gross Motor Functional Classification System (GMFCS) level IV/V (nonwalking children) and SQ type, than in patients with GMFCS level II/III (mostly walking children) and SD type. Conclusions The 3-dimensional femoral geometry in CP patients can be analyzed quantitatively using 3D-CT regardless of the abnormal spastic posture. Our data indicate that 3-dimensional evaluation is accurate and useful for analysis of the femur and acetabulum in CP, and that the extent of coxa valga and femoral anteversion is more severe in the patients with GMFCS level IV/V and SQ type. Level of Evidence Level IV.
Adult height after long-term, continuous growth hormone (GH) treatment in short children born small for gestational age: results of a randomized, double-blind, dose-response GH trial.

The GH dose-response effect of long-term continuous GH treatment on adult height (AH) was evaluated in 54 short children born small for gestational age (SGA) who were participating in a randomized, double-blind, dose-response trial. Patients were randomly and blindly assigned to treatment with either 3 IU (group A) or 6 IU (group B) GH/m(2). d ( approximately 0.033 or 0.067 mg/kg.d, respectively). The mean (+/-SD) birth length was -3.6 (1.4), the age at the start of the study was 8.1 (1.9) yr, and the height SD score (SDS) at the start of the study -3.0 (0.7). Seventeen of the 54 children were partially GH deficient (stimulated GH peak, 10-20 mU/liter). Fifteen non-GH-treated, non-GH-deficient, short children born SGA, with similar inclusion criteria, served as controls [mean (+/-SD) birth length, -3.3 (1.2); age at start, 7.8 (1.7) yr; height SDS at start, -2.6 (0.5)]. GH treatment resulted in an AH above -2 SDS in 85% of the children after a mean (+/-SD) GH treatment period of 7.8 (1.7) yr. The mean (SD) AH SDS was -1.1 (0.7) for group A and -0.9 (0.8) for group B, resulting from a mean (+/-SD) gain in height SDS of 1.8 (0.7) for group A and 2.1 (0.8) for group B. No significant differences between groups A and B were found for AH SDS (mean difference, 0.3 SDS; 95% confidence interval, -0.2, 0.6; P > 0.2) and gain in height SDS (mean difference, 0.3 SDS; 95% confidence interval, -0.1, 0.7; P > 0.1). When corrected for target height, the mean corrected AH SDS was -0.2 (0.8) for group A and -0.4 (0.9) for group B. The mean (+/-SD) AH SDS of the control group [-2.3 (0.7)] was significantly lower than that of the GH-treated group (P < 0.001). Multiple regression analysis indicated the following predictive variables for AH SDS: target height SDS, height SDS, and chronological age minus bone age (years) at the start of the study. GH dose had no significant effect. In conclusion, long-term continuous GH treatment in short children born SGA without signs of persistent catch-up growth leads to a normalization of AH, even with a GH dose of 3 IU/m(2). d ( approximately 0.033 mg/kg.d).
Factors Influencing the Accuracy of Age Estimates of Unfamiliar Faces

Factors affecting the accuracy with which adults could assess the age of unfamiliar male faces aged between 5 and 70 years were examined. In the first experiment twenty-five ‘young’ adult subjects, aged 16–25, and twenty-five ‘old’ adults, aged 51–60, were used. Each subject saw five versions of three different faces: these consisted of an original version of each face and four manipulated versions of it. The manipulations consisted of mirror reversal, pseudo-cardioidal strain, thresholding, and elimination of all but the internal features of the face. The second experiment was similar except that a between-subjects design was used: each subject saw three faces for each age category of target face, but was exposed to only a single type of manipulation (plus a set of ‘original’ faces which were identical for all groups, so that the comparability of the different groups in age estimation could be checked). Results from both experiments were similar. Age estimates for unmanipulated ‘original’ faces were highly accurate, although subjects were most accurate with target faces that were within their own age range. Results for the manipulated faces implied that the importance of cardioidal strain as a necessary and sufficient cue to age may have been overestimated in previous reports: subjects' age estimates were accurate when cardioidal strain was absent from the stimulus, and poor when cardioidal strain was the only cue available.
Do academic link types change over time?

Purpose – This paper seeks to address the question: do university web sites publish the same kind of information and use the same kind of hyperlinks year on year or do these change over time? Design/methodology/approach – A link classification exercise is used to identify temporal changes in the distribution of different types of academic web links changes, using the academic web spaces of the UK, Australia and New Zealand in the years 2000 and 2006.Findings – Significant increases in “research oriented”, “social/leisure” and “superficial” links were identified as well as notable decreases in “technical” and “personal” links. Some of these changes identified may be explained by general changes in the management of university web sites and some by more wide‐spread internet trends, e.g. dynamic pages, blogs and social networking. The increase in the proportion of research‐oriented links is particularly hopeful for future link analysis research.Originality/value – This is an important issue from the perspecti.
SDN wireless backhauling for Small Cells

Small Cells are recognized as one of the key enablers to address the forecasted exponential traffic increase in future mobile networks. However, several major technical hurdles need to be overcome to fulfill the promise of Small Cells. In this paper we introduce a novel architecture that enables the application of Software Defined Networking (SDN) techniques on the wireless Small Cell backhaul. We demonstrate our architecture in a testbed prototype, where we analyze the costs incurred in the additional processing and the centralization of state imposed by SDN, while motivating the benefits of our architecture in terms of improved network management and control.
Indexing spatio-temporal data warehouses

Spatio-temporal databases store information about the positions of individual objects over time. In many applications, however, such as traffic supervision or mobile communication systems, only summarized data, like the average number of cars in an area for a specific period, or the number of phones serviced by a cell each day, is required. Although this information can be obtained from operational databases, its computation is expensive, rendering online processing inapplicable. A vital solution is the construction of a spatio-temporal data warehouse. In this paper, we describe a framework for supporting OLAP operations over spatio-temporal data. We argue that the spatial and temporal dimensions should be modeled as a combined dimension on the data cube and we present data structures which integrate spatio-temporal indexing with pre-aggregation. While the well-known materialization techniques require a-priori knowledge of the grouping hierarchy, we develop methods that utilize the proposed structures for efficient execution of ad-hoc group-bys. Our techniques can be used for both static and dynamic dimensions.
A Consistent Backup Mechanism for Disaster Recovery that Using Container Based Virtualization

Today's businesses have relied much on system backup and disaster recovery, of which there are more and more products that based on various virtualization platforms, as the virtualization technologies kept developing. Container based virtualization, which is a kind of high efficiency virtualization technology, has great potential to support building more flexible backup and disaster recovery system on its platform. In this paper, we introduce a consistent backup mechanism for disaster recovery that using container based virtualization. First, we proposed the concept of consistent checkpoint which contains both memory and disk image at the backup point in time. Then, for backing up disk image, we use incremental backup method and a two-step aggressive backup process, in which production system and data backup can run at the same time, to deal with it. At last, we combine our disk backup method and the memory checkpoint function of virtualization platform together to accomplish the whole consistent checkpoint's backup. A prototype of our system, in which a non-volatile local buffer is introduced for both speed and reliability purpose, is implemented. And the experimental testing result shows that our system's running overhead to production system is sensible, especially the overhead can drop to only 0.5% when backup is done. Also by using our system, backup frequency of production system has the potential to reach over fifteen times per minute. All these can prove that our consistent backup mechanism is suitable for disaster recovery purpose in container based virtualization platform.
Optical Perfusion and Oxygenation Characterization in a Liver Phantom

Optical Perfusion and Oxygenation Characterization in a Liver Phantom. (December 2011) Travis J. King, B.S., Louisiana Tech University Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. Gerard L. Coté Continuous monitoring of blood perfusion and oxygenation is essential in assessing the health of a transplanted organ. Particularly, monitoring the perfusion and oxygenation of the organ during the two-week period after the transplant procedure is crucial in detecting a sustained loss in perfusion or a reduction in oxygen saturation before these changes render irreversible damage to the organ or patient. Pulse oximetry is a clinically accepted method of monitoring the arterial oxygen saturation of a patient in a non-invasive manner. Pulse oximeters exploit the wavelength-dependent absorption of oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin to measure a patient’s arterial oxygen saturation. However, traditional pulse oximeters do not provide perfusion information and produce erroneous oxygen saturation measurements under low perfusion levels. An optical blood perfusion and oxygenation sensor, based on a modified reflectance pulse oximeter, has been developed for in situ monitoring of transplanted organs. To reduce the number of animal experiments, phantoms that mimic the optical and anatomical properties of liver parenchyma have also been developed. In this work, in vitro data was gathered from dye solutions mimicking oxygenated blood that were
Forecasting Foreign Exchange Rates With Artificial Neural Networks: A Review

Forecasting exchange rates is an important financial problem that is receiving increasing attention especially because of its difficulty and practical applications. Artificial neural networks (ANNs) have been widely used as a promising alternative approach for a forecasting task because of several distinguished features. Research efforts on ANNs for forecasting exchange rates are considerable. In this paper, we attempt to provide a survey of research in this area. Several design factors significantly impact the accuracy of neural network forecasts. These factors include the selection of input variables, preparing data, and network architecture. There is no consensus about the factors. In different cases, various decisions have their own effectiveness. We also describe the integration of ANNs with other methods and report the comparison between performances of ANNs and those of other forecasting methods, and finding mixed results. Finally, the future research directions in this area are discussed.
Use of Salmonellae Antagonists in Fermenting Egg White

Pasteurization at 60 C cannot be used to eliminate Salmonellae from liquid egg white, since this process coagulates the proteins and destroys the functional properties of egg white. Therefore, other means of destroying these organisms have been investigated. These include storage of the dried egg white at 50 to 70 C (Banwart and Ayres, 1956) and irradiation with high voltage cathode rays (Nickerson et al., 1957). The industrial efficacy and economy of these methods have not yet been fully evaluated. In addition to the problem of eliminating Salmonellae there is also the problem of removal of glucose from the egg white in order to prepare a successful dried product (Stewart and Kline, 1941). Several types of bacterial fermentations (Ayres, 1958) and a process employing glucose oxidase (Scott, 1953) are available for sugar removal from egg white. In the present investigations a new method for processing egg white has been explored; namely, fermentation with a nonpathogenic strain of Escherichia coli, which is antagonistic to the growth and survival of Salmonellae. This procedure overcomes the disadvantage of the multiplication of Salmonellae during the fermentative desugaring of egg albumen (Ayres, 1958). In addition, the prospect of eliminating both glucose and Salmonellae in a single procedure is attractive. That coliform bacteria of the genera Escherichia and Aerobacter are common fermenting organisms in the "natural" fermentation of egg white has been demonstrated (Stuart and Goresline, 1942a, 1942b).
Non-01 Vibrio cholerae.

The amount of toxin produced and the diarrhea caused by 0 139 serotype are very similar to that caused by V. cholerae 01. This new serotype is sensitive to tetracycline, ampicillin and chloramphenicol, but is resistant to co-trimoxazole (98%), and furazolidine (86%), the latter two agents often used to treat cholrea(2,5). In India even in children, tetracycline for three days or single dose of doxycycline should now be preferred(4).
Low Rate Coded Interleave Division Multiple Access on Rician Fading Channels

The performance of Interleave Division Multiple Access (IDMA) with a new set of low rate turbo codes is evaluated on Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) and Rician fading channels. Despite the simplicity of the scheme and excessive multiuser interference, very good performance close to theoretical limit is demonstrated. The effect of varying number of users, code rate and channel characteristics on the performance is investigated.
Anthraquinones from Polygonum cuspidatum as tyrosinase inhibitors for dermal use

Four anthraquinones, physcion (1), emodin (2), citreorosein (3) and anthraglycoside B (6), and two stilbenes, resveratrol (4), and piceid (5), were isolated previously from the root of Polygonum cuspidatum. These bioactive compounds were examined for their antityrosinase potency. No antityrosinase activity was detected with treatment using stilbenes. On the other hand, the anthraquinones showed moderate to strong inhibition of tyrosinase. Physcion exhibited the most potent tyrosinase inhibition among the four anthraquinones examined, which was comparable to kojic acid. The ability of anthraquinones to permeate the skin was also examined. Based on the same thermodynamic activity, physcion showed a higher permeation compared with emodin (48‐fold), suggesting it as a potent candidate for dermal use. As naturally occurring tyrosinase inhibitors, anthraquinones from P. cuspidatum may be useful as skin‐whitening agents to inhibit tyrosinase for dermal use. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Speed and Current Sensor Fault Detection and Isolation Technique for Induction Motor Drive Using Axes Transformation

This paper presents a new technique for fault detection and isolation to make the traditional vector-controlled induction motor (IM) drive fault tolerant against current and speed sensor failure. The proposed current estimation uses d- and q-axes currents and is independent of the switching states of the three-leg inverter. While the technique introduces a new concept of vector rotation to generate potential estimates of the currents, speed is estimated by one of the available model reference adaptive system (MRAS) based formulations. A logic-based decision mechanism selects the right estimate and reconfigures the system (by rejecting the signal from the faulty sensors). Such algorithm is suitable for different drives, including electric vehicles to avoid complete shutdown of the system, in case of sensor failure. The proposed method is extensively simulated in MATLAB/SIMULINK and experimentally validated through a dSPACE-1104-based laboratory prototype.
Language modelling for task-oriented domains

This paper is focused on the language modelling for task-oriented domains and presents an accurate analysis of the utterances acquired by the Dialogos spoken dialogue system. Dialogos allows access to the Italian Railways timetable by using the telephone over the public network. The language modelling aspects of specificity and behaviour to rare events are studied. A technique for getting a language model more robust, based on sentences generated by grammars, is presented. Experimental results show the benefit of the proposed technique. The increment of performance between language models created using grammars and usual ones, is higher when the amount of training material is limited. Therefore this technique can give an advantage especially for the development of language models in a new domain.
“Denoising” Of Mixed Noise in Ultrasound Images

Medical images are affected by the mixed noise, which is the combination of speckle and Gaussian noise. This paper proposes an efficient algorithm for reducing the mixed noise in ultrasound images. The proposed method reduces the noise and also preserves edges effectively and hence the quality of the image is enhanced. Based on w avelet thresholding, ST-PCNN and Bayesian maximum a posteriori (MAP) are fused together to denoise the ultrasound images. Experimental results show a significant improvement in removing the mixed noise present in the ultrasound images and this method outperforms the other methods in terms of PSNR and MSE.
The Adaptive Sampling Gradient Method Optimizing Smooth Functions with an Inexact Oracle

Consider settings such as stochastic optimization where a smooth objective function f is unknown but can be estimated with an inexact oracle such as quasi-Monte Carlo (QMC) or numerical quadrature. The inexact oracle is assumed to yield function estimates having error that decays with increasing oracle effort. For solving such problems, we present the Adaptive Sampling Gradient Method (ASGM) in two flavors depending on whether the step size used within ASGM is constant or determined through a backtracking line search. ASGM’s salient feature is the adaptive manner in which it constructs gradient estimates (henceforth called gradient approximates), by exerting just enough oracle effort at each iterate to keep the error in the gradient approximate within a constant factor of the norm of the gradient approximate. ASGM applies to both derivative-based and derivative-free contexts, and generates iterates that globally convergence to a first-order critical point. We also prove two sets of results on ASGM’s work complexity with respect to the gradient norm: (i) when f is non-convex, ASGM’s work complexity is arbitrarily close to O(ǫ 1 μ(α) ), where μ(α) is the error decay rate of the gradient approximate expressed in terms of the error decay rate α of the objective function approximate; (ii) when f is strongly convex, ASGM’s work complexity is arbitrarily close to O(ǫ 1 μ(α) ). We compare these complexities to those obtained from methods that use traditional random sampling. We also illustrate the calculation of α and μ(α) for common choices, e.g., QMC with finite-difference derivatives.
Medium Term Business Cycles

Over the postwar, the U.S., Europe and Japan have experienced what may be thought of as medium frequency oscillations between persistent periods of robust growth and persistent periods of relative stagnation. These medium frequency movements, further, appear to bear some relation to the high frequency volatility of output. That is, periods of stagnation are often associated with significant recessions, while persistent booms typically are either free of recessions or are interrupted only by very modest downturns. In this paper we explore the idea of medium term cycles, which we define as reflecting the sum of the high and medium frequency variation in the data. We develop a methodology for identifying these kinds of fluctuations and then show that a number of important macroeconomic time series exhibit significant medium term cycles. The cycles feature strong procyclical movements in both disembodied and embodied technological change, research & development, and the efficiency of resource utilization. We then develop a model to explain the medium term cycle that features both disembodied and embodied endogenous technological change, along with countercyclical markups and variable factor utilization. The model is able to generate medium term fluctuations in output, technological change, and resource utilization that resemble the data, with a non-technological shock as the exogenous disturbance. In particular, the model offers a unified approach to explaining both high and medium frequency variation in aggregate business activity.