Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The fantastic organ

The Age of Insight by Eric Kandel is a brutal and beautiful book. Its pages burgeon with beautiful images and beautiful ideas. The ideas are pursued with relentless honesty and diligence for more than 600 pages. There are parts of this book that should only be read in private. I know this after a slightly fraught flight to London, trying to read the book while covering its pictures of masturbating women with my boarding card—I did not want to offend the sensibilities of an Indian gentleman, who showed a polite interest in my reading material. I am not quite sure why I did this, perhaps because I am English; or perhaps because I found the pictures curiously arousing—despite their innocent titles {e.g. ‘Seated Woman in Armchair’ by Gustav Klimt [(1862–1918): c.1913], pencil and white chalk}. Happily, the book explained why I found them so alluring. THE AGE OF INSIGHT: THE QUEST TO UNDERSTAND THE UNCONSCIOUS IN ART, MIND, AND BRAIN, FROM VIENNA 1900 TO THE PRESENT By Eric R. Kandel 2012 New York: Random House ISBN: 978-1-4000-6871-5 Price: $40.00 Kandel’s treatment is a book of two parts. The first deals with innovative thinking and insights in science and art in turn of the century Vienna. The second overviews the neurobiology of perception and emotion, bringing the reader back to deep questions about perspective taking and neuroaesthetics. The premise that underpins both parts is that the brain is an inference machine, generating hypotheses and fantasies that are tested against sensory data. Put simply, the brain is—literally—a fantastic organ (fantastic: from Greek phantastikos , able to create mental images, from phantazesthai ). For me, the story starts with Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–94) and the notion of unconscious inference (Helmholtz, 1866/1962). Kandel places this story in the context of history and art, in an …
Visual inspection of the cervix as a primary means of cervical cancer screening: results of a pilot study.

OBJECTIVE To measure the effectiveness of unaided visual inspection (UVI) of the cervix as a primary means of cervical cancer screening. DESIGN A cross sectional study. SETTING Five primary health care clinics in Mashonaland Province, Zimbabwe. SUBJECTS 1,000 women aged between 25 and 55 years. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Sensitivity and specificity of UVI. METHODS 1,000 women attending primary health care clinics were screened for cervical cancer by six qualified nurses. An unlubricated bivalve speculum was inserted into the vagina under good light to visualize the cervix and a cervical cytology specimen was obtained followed by visual inspection of the cervix stained by 4% acetic acid. All women found to have abnormal cervices by visual inspection and/or by cervical cytology report were scheduled for colposcopy examination at Harare Central Hospital. RESULTS 236 (23.6%) women had an abnormal cervical appearance after application with 4% acetic acid, out of which 157 (15.7%) were reported abnormal by cytology. True disease as defined by positive colposcopy and positive cytology was confirmed in 38 (3.8%) women. The sensitivity of UVI using colposcopy and cytology as a reference standard was 68.4%, specificity was 3.4%. CONCLUSION The results of this study suggest that naked eye inspection of the cervix after application of acetic acid is a practical alternative to cervical cytology in screening for cervical cancer in countries with few resources like Zimbabwe.
Impact of Telepresence on Consumer Learning: A Consumer Information Processing Approach

Based on the communication literature, telepresence is defined as “a mediated experience that creates for the user a strong sense of presence and entails an illusion of non-mediation”. The main body of previous studies serves industrial communication where technology is of vital concern. However, in the context of e-commerce, the appropriate focus of telepresence should be the human experience rather than the technology. Therefore, it is pertinent to discuss the impact of telepresence on consumer cognitive responses and activities. Consumer learning plays an important role in consumer purchase decision. Helping consumers learn has been proven to be an efficient marketing communication goal and lead to the long-term profit performance. Note that consumer information processing theory lies at the heart of a wide range of consumer cognitive activities including consumer learning. We intend to investigate the concept of telepresence in e-commerce context, and integrate consumer information processing theory around the concept of telepresence to explore its impact on consumer learning.
Morphological and Color Differences between Island and Mainland Populations in the Mexican Red Rump Tarantula, Brachypelma vagans

Abstract The introduction of species into new ecosystems, especially in small and isolated regions such as islands, offers an excellent opportunity to answer questions of the evolutionary processes occurring in natural conditions on a scale that could never be achieved in laboratory conditions. In this study, we examined the Mexican red rump tarantula Brachypelma vagans Ausserer (Mygalomorphae: Theraphosidae), a species that was introduced to Cozumel Island, Mexico, 40 years ago. This introduction provides an exceptional model to study effects such as morphological variation between island populations and those on the mainland in open habitats facing the island. Intraspecific variation related to the color polymorphism was compared. The aim of this study was to determine the phenotypic differences between continental populations of B. vagans and the introduced population on Cozumel Island. Phenotypic difference was evaluated using two approaches: 1) comparison of the morphometric measurements of adult and juvenile individuals at the local scale and between continental and island populations, and 2) comparison of individual color polymorphism between mainland and island populations. Two locations were sampled within the continental part of the Yucatan peninsula and two on the island of Cozumel. The number of samples analyzed at each site was 30 individuals. The morphometric results showed significant differences between continental and island populations, with bigger individuals on the island. In addition, three new variations of the typical color pattern of B. vagans recorded so far were observed. This study opens the door to further investigations to elucidate the origin of the phenotypic variation of the isolated individuals on Cozumel Island. Also, the widest range of color morphs found for a tarantula species is reported.
Incorporating drivability metrics into optimal energy management strategies for Hybrid Vehicles

Hybrid Vehicle fuel economy performance is highly sensitive to the energy management strategy used to select among multiple energy sources. Optimal solutions are easy to specify if the drive cycle is known a priori. It is very challenging to compute controllers that yield good fuel economy for a class of drive cycles representative of typical driver behavior. Additional challenges come in the form of constraints on powertrain activity, like shifting and starting the engine, which are commonly called ¿drivability¿ metrics. These constraints can adversely affect fuel economy. The benefits of including drivability restrictions in a Shortest Path Dynamic Programming (SPDP) formulation of the energy management problem are investigated for the first time. It is shown that this method yields up to 10% fuel economy improvement on a representative parallel electric hybrid when compared to a simpler instantaneous optimization formulation. This result is obtained by comparing a SPDP controller designed for drivability to a second SPDP controller, designed for fuel economy only, that uses an additional instantaneous optimization step for the incorporation of drivability. The results also quantify the tradeoff between drivability and fuel economy.
Mild mitochondrial uncoupling impacts cellular aging in human muscles in vivo

Faster aging is predicted in more active tissues and animals because of greater reactive oxygen species generation. Yet age-related cell loss is greater in less active cell types, such as type II muscle fibers. Mitochondrial uncoupling has been proposed as a mechanism that reduces reactive oxygen species production and could account for this paradox between longevity and activity. We distinguished these hypotheses by using innovative optical and magnetic resonance spectroscopic methods applied to noninvasively measured ATP synthesis and O2 uptake in vivo in human muscle. Here we show that mitochondrial function is unchanged with age in mildly uncoupled tibialis anterior muscle (75% type I) despite a high respiratory rate in adults. In contrast, substantial uncoupling and loss of cellular [ATP] indicative of mitochondrial dysfunction with age was found in the lower respiring and well coupled first dorsal interosseus (43–50% type II) of the same subjects. These results reject respiration rate as the sole factor impacting the tempo of cellular aging. Instead, they support mild uncoupling as a mechanism protecting mitochondrial function and contributing to the paradoxical longevity of the most active muscle fibers.
Repeated Games with Almost-Public Monitoring

In repeated games with imperfect public monitoring, players can use public signals to coordinate their behavior perfectly, and thus support cooperative outcomes with the threat of punishments. But with even a small amount of private monitoring, players' private histories may lead them to have sufficiently different views of the world that such coordination on punishments is no longer possible (we describe a simple strategy profile that is a perfect public equilibrium of a repeated prisoner's dilemma with imperfect public monitoring, and yet is not an equilibrium for arbitrarily close games with private monitoring). If a perfect public equilibrium has players' behavior conditioned only on finite histories, then it induces an equilibrium in all close-by games with private monitoring. This implies a folk theorem for repeated games with almost-public almost-perfect monitoring.
A survey on image segmentation by Fuzzy C Means clustering techniques

This paper presents a survey of Hybrid fuzzy c-means (FCM) clustering algorithms, The algorithmic steps, parameters involved in the algorithm & the experimental results on various datasets of several hybrid clustering methods are discussed in this paper. Hybrid FCM clustering techniques are obtained by modifying the FCM either by incorporating hesitation degree of Intuionistic approach or by replacing the Euclidean distance by the kernel induced distance or by considering the possibilistic information or by assigning a pixel to a cluster based on similarity information with certainity or uncertainity of Rough set method‥ Hybrid FCM technique is more robust to noise than the conventional FCM. A Novel hybrid clustering technique is also proposed in this paper whose performance will be more than the existing algorithms.
Resistive and Pulsatile Arterial Load as Predictors of Left Ventricular Mass and Geometry: The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis

Arterial load is composed of resistive and various pulsatile components, but their relative contributions to left ventricular (LV) remodeling in the general population are unknown. We studied 4145 participants enrolled in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis, who underwent cardiac MRI and radial arterial tonometry. We computed systemic vascular resistance (SVR=mean arterial pressure/cardiac output) and indices of pulsatile load including total arterial compliance (TAC, approximated as stroke volume/central pulse pressure), forward wave amplitude (Pf), and reflected wave amplitude (Pb). TAC and SVR were adjusted for body surface area to allow for appropriate sex comparisons. We performed allometric adjustment of LV mass for body size and sex and computed standardized regression coefficients (&bgr;) for each measure of arterial load. In multivariable regression models that adjusted for multiple confounders, SVR (&bgr;=0.08; P<0.001), TAC (&bgr;=0.44; P<0.001), Pb (&bgr;=0.73; P<0.001), and Pf (&bgr;=−0.23; P=0.001) were significant independent predictors of LV mass. Conversely, TAC (&bgr;=−0.43; P<0.001), SVR (&bgr;=0.22; P<0.001), and Pf (&bgr;=−0.18; P=0.004) were independently associated with the LV wall/LV cavity volume ratio. Women demonstrated greater pulsatile load than men, as evidenced by a lower indexed TAC (0.89 versus 1.04 mL/mm Hg per square meter; P<0.0001), whereas men demonstrated a higher indexed SVR (34.0 versus 32.8 Wood Units×m2; P<0.0001). In conclusion, various components of arterial load differentially associate with LV hypertrophy and concentric remodeling. Women demonstrated greater pulsatile load than men. For both LV mass and the LV wall/LV cavity volume ratio, the loading sequence (ie, early load versus late load) is an important determinant of LV response to arterial load.
Graphs of low chordality

The chordality of a graph with at least one cycle is the length of the longest induced cycle in it. The odd (even) chordality is defined to be the length of the longest induced odd (even) cycle in it. Chordal graphs have chordality at most 3. We show that co-circular-arc graphs and co-circle graphs have even chordality at most 4. We also identify few other classes of graphs having bounded (by a constant) chordality values.
Intestinal transporters: enhanced absorption through P-glycoprotein-related drug interactions

Introduction: There are many factors that can affect the absorption process of orally administered drugs. Intestinal transporters play an important role in drug absorption. These transporters are divided into two major classes: the solute carriers and the ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters. P-glycoprotein (P-gp), belonging to the ABC transporter superfamily, flushes out the substrate drugs from a cell, thus regulating the intestinal absorption of drugs. Areas covered: This review gives a brief overview of uptake and efflux transporters localized in the intestine. However, because P-gp has been identified as an important underlying mechanism of drug interactions in humans, the review is strongly focused on summarizing the currently available data on the impact of P-gp for absorption of drugs. Expert opinion: The concomitant use of P-gp substrates and inhibitors (preferably in a single nanocarrier formulation) could be an effective and safe way to improve the bioavailability of drugs. It seems the study of P-gp and modulating its activity may be an interesting therapeutic goal to be considered in future research.
Iterative encoding with Gauss-Seidel method for spatially-coupled low-density lattice codes

While it is known that spatially-coupled low-density lattice codes (SC-LDLC) have better decoding performance than conventional (non-coupled) LDLC lattices, in this paper it is shown that their encoding complexity is also lower. Since nonzero elements are mainly in lower triangular entries of the sparse inverse generator matrix of SC-LDLC, iterative encoding with the Gauss-Seidel method performs well. The convergence speed of iterative encoding is evaluated by both the mean square error (MSE) and the symbol error rate between a given integer vector b and the inversely generated integer vector from the codeword of b. Numerical experiments show that the convergence of encoding for SC-LDLC is 3 times faster than that of the conventional LDLC, at an MSE of 10-10 for dimension n = 10000.
Comparison of sequential and nonsequential detection systems with uncertainty feedback

In a previous paper, we found optimal signals for, and evaluated the performance of, a binary sequential detection system in which the detector constantly feeds back to the transmitter its "state of uncertainty" concerning what is being sent. In the present paper, we consider a similar system, which uses a nonsequential detector. Comparison of the results of the two papers shows that: 1) when the prescribed peak-to-average power ratio is small, the sequential system operates with a 6 -dB average-power advantage over the nonsequential system; 2) when the prescribed peak-to-average power ratio is large, the sequential system operates with a 6 -dB peak-power advantage over the nonsequential system. In both systems, the performance improves rapidly as the peak-power constraint is relaxed, i.e., as the prescribed peak-to-average power ratio is increased.
Effect of Oral Alpha Lipoic Acid in Preventing the Genesis of Canine Diabetic Cataract: A Preliminary Study

Blinding cataract is a significant effect of canine diabetes with 75% of animals affected two years after diagnosis. Lens opacification occurs primarily through the generation of sorbitol, a sugar alcohol, through the action of aldose reductase (AR). The osmotic effect of sorbitol draws water into the lens, causing opacification. Inhibition of AR should thus prevent the generation of cataracts. A topical AR inhibitor has been shown to have this effect, as has the commercially available neutraceutical OcuGLO, containing the AR inhibitor alpha lipoic acid (ALA) together with other plant-based antioxidants. Here a comparison is made between the number of diabetic dogs developing cataracts when given oral ALA alone and those given a mix containing ascorbic acid and tocopherol. Animals given ALA developed significantly fewer lens opacities than those given conventional antioxidants. Cataracts which formed occurred at a significantly greater duration after the commencement of treatment than those on the antioxidant mix. Although this is a small study conducted over a short period, the significant benefit of ALA in diabetic dogs is a reason to evaluate these effects in larger trials. As AR is involved in diabetic retinopathy and neuropathy, this enzyme inhibitor may be worthy of evaluation in preventing these conditions in human diabetics also.
Antagonistic control of oxidative stress-induced cell death in Arabidopsis by two related, plant-specific zinc finger proteins

The most familiar form of plant programmed cell death is the hypersensitive response (HR) associated with successful plant immune responses. HR is preceded by an oxidative burst and the generation of both reactive oxygen intermediates (ROI) and NO. The Arabidopsis LSD1 gene encodes a negative regulator of plant programmed cell death that meets several criteria for a regulator of processes relevant to ROI management during pathogen responses. Here we demonstrate that a highly conserved LSD1 paralogue, LOL1, acts as a positive regulator of cell death. Manipulation of LOL1 expression alters both the superoxide-dependent, runaway cell death phenotype of lsd1 plants and the normal HR. We also show that LSD1 and LOL1 have antagonistic effects on copper-zinc superoxide dismutase accumulation, consistent with functions in cell death control via maintenance of ROI homeostasis.
Application of FEG‐SEM and EBSD Methods for the Analysis of the Restoration Processes Occurring During Continuous Annealing of Dual‐Phase Steel Strips

The paper presents results of the investigation aimed at the identification both qualitative and quantitative characterization of changes occurring in the structure of cold rolled DP steel during annealing in temperature range 600–700 °C. The investigation was conducted mostly by means of scanning electron microscopy combined with EBSD method. In the study, mechanisms of processes leading to subgrains formation related to static recovery, as well as to the processes connected with formation and growth of new grains in the examined material, which is characteristic feature of static recrystallization, were described. The role of the Fe3C carbide dissolution was examined which is crucial at the initial stages of as cold rolled structure transformation into austenite. Significance and the limitations of the parameters determined in EBSD analysis, such as IQ, KAM, GAM, and GOS for the quantitative characterization of the changes occurring in the structure were analyzed. These parameters are very important both for the qualitative and quantitative analysis of the structural changes occurring. They allow, among others, for determination of the fraction of deformed substructure subject to restoration processes during annealing. Examples illustrating the significance of these parameters and constraints on the analysis of recovery and recrystallization processes are presented.
On nested depth first search

We show in this paper that the algorithm for solving the model checking problem with a nested depth-first search can interfere with algorithms that support partial order reduction. We introduce a revised version of the algorithm that guarantees compatibility. The change also improves the performance of the nested depth-first search algorithm when partial order reduction is not used.
Environmental Effects on Engineered Materials

Metallic alloys: ferrous alloys (ferritic and martensitic) austenitic stainless steels nickel-based alloys for resistance to aqueous corrosion nickel-based alloys for resistance to high-temperature corrosion corrosion of copper and its alloys reactive and refractory alloys aluminium alloys magnesium alloys. Intermetallic alloys: environmental embrittlement of nickel-based and iron-based intermetallics. Ceramics: nonoxide ceramics oxide ceramics. Composites: metal matrix composites ceramic matrix composites issues in predicting long-term environmental degradation of fibre-reinforced plastics. Metallic glasses: amorphous and nanocrystalline alloys.
Mechanical Fault Patterns Identification and Grades Cognizance Based on Geometrical Learning

This paper proposed a method of geometrical learning (GL) for identifying mechanical fault patterns and its grades. The method aimed at optimal covering for each class, and constructed some complicated geometry bodies (CGBs) to cover one class samples distributing in the feature space approximately. The rolling bearing was studied by GL-based method in this paper, firstly, energy spectrum was extracted for features by wavelet packet transform, and then the feature vectors data was done topological analysis to construct CGBs for each class by the training algorithm of geometrical learning; secondly, the independent test set was tested by the identification algorithm of geometrical learning. On the condition of experiment, the fault patterns and its grades (from gently to severity) could be identified correctly. Moreover, the identification ability of the GL-based method was compared with that of supper vector machine (SVM), the experimental results showed that GL-based method performed better than SVM.
Time series behavior of the short-term real interest rates in industrial countries

With quarterly data of a sample period starting from 1973, the conventional unit root tests reject the null of nonstationarity in favor of the alternative of linear stationarity for short-term real interest rates (RIRs) of non-European industrial countries. There is evidence of nonlinearities in many European countries’ RIRs, most of which appear to be stationary exponential smooth transition autoregressive processes.
Finding k-cuts within twice the optimal

Two simple approximation algorithms are presented for the minimum k-cut problem. Each algorithm finds a k-cut having weight within a factor of (2-2/k) of the optimal. One of the algorithms is particularly efficient, requiring a total of only n-1 maximum flow computations for finding a set of near-optimal k-cuts, one for each value of k between 2 and n. <<ETX>>