Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hand-assisted right laparoscopic nephrectomy in living donor.

OBJECTIVE To assess results obtained with the authors' technique of right hand-assisted laparoscopic nephrectomy in living kidney donors. MATERIALS AND METHODS We retrospectively analyzed 16 kidney donors who underwent hand-assisted right laparoscopic nephrectomy from February 2001 to July 2004. Among these patients, 7 were male and 9 were female, with mean age ranging between 22 and 58 years (mean 35.75). RESULTS Surgical time ranged from 55 to 210 minutes (mean 127.81 min) and warm ischemia time from 2 to 6 minutes (mean 3.78 min) with mean intra-operative blood loss estimated at 90.62 mL. There was no need for conversion in any case. Discharge from hospital occurred between the 3rd and 6th days (mean 3.81). On the graft assessment, immediate diuresis was seen in 15 cases (93.75%) and serum creatinine on the 7th post-operative day was 1.60 mg/dL on average. Renal vein thrombosis occurred in 1 patient (6.25%) who required graft removal, and lymphocele was seen in 1 recipient (6.25%). CONCLUSION Hand-assisted right laparoscopic nephrectomy in living donors is a safe and effective alternative to open nephrectomy. Despite a greater technical difficulty, the procedure presented low postoperative morbidity providing good morphological and functional quality of the graft on the recipient.
A Model of Budget Constraint and Enterprise Restructuring

This paper presents a managerial utility maximisation framework to investigate the impact of budget constraints on enterprise restructuring in transitional economies. Assuming that managerial effort is allocated between restructuring and subsidy seeking, and using non-linear programming technique, we have demonstrated that hardening budget constraint by reducing state subsidies to state firms have positive effects on managerial incentives towards enterprise restructuring. Our results apply both to the perfectly competitive case and the monopolistic case. We have, however, uncovered a perverse relationship between labour demand and wage rate.
Chapter 1 OWLS AND AGENT-BASED SYSTEMS

Over the last decade, research in agent-based systems (ABS) has spawned a multi-faceted field, addressing a broad range of challenges and generating a varied array of technical approaches. Web service technologies, in contrast, KDYH DULVHQ LQ D PRUH LQFUHPHQWDO IDVKLRQ ZLWK PRUH PRGHVW DLPV DOWKRXJK the vision statements associated with Web services sometimes overlap significantly with those of ABS. Work on Semantic Web services aims to provide richer specifications of services, so as to enable fuller, more flexible automation of service provision and use, support the construction of more powerful tools and methodologies, and promote the use of semantically wellfounded reasoning about services. This chapter provides an overview of OWLS, a Semantic Web services ontology, and discusses its connections with work on agent-based systems. We argue that OWL-S takes some significant, although limited, steps towards a foundation for the deployment of agent technologies on the Web.
The Wroclaw University of Technology Participation at ImageCLEF 2010 Photo Annotation Track

In this paper we present three methods for image autoannotation used by the Wroclaw University of Technology group at ImageCLEF 2010 Photo Annotation track. All of our experiments focus on robustness of the global color and texture image features in connection with different similarity measures. To annotate training set we use two version of PATSI algorithm which searches for the most similar images and transferring annotations from them to the target image by applying transfer function. We use both the simple version of the algorithm working only on single similarity matrix, as well as multi-PATSI which uses many similarity measures in order to obtain the final annotations. As third approach to image auto-annotation we use Penalized Discriminant Analysis to train multi class classifier in One-vs-All manner. During training and optimization process of all annotators we use F-measure as evaluation measure trying to achieve its highest value on a training set. Obtained results indicate that our approach achieved a high quality measure only for a small group of terms and it is necessary to take into account also local image characteristics.
Optimization Scheduling for Scientific Applications with Different Priorities across Multiple Clouds

With the wide adoption of cloud computing, the scientific applications are migrated to cloud for execution. The complex structure of scientific applications bring challenges to optimization scheduling scientific applications across multiple heterogeneous clouds. In this paper, the directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) are adopted to represent scientific applications, which have different priorities in the process of scheduling. We propose a dynamic multi-cloud priority list scheduling algorithm (DMPLS), combining with workloads preemptive strategy and feedback mechanism to schedule scientific applications in time. Our algorithm regulates the workloads scheduling dynamically based on the updated information about the actual workloads execution time. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm reduces the average time to complete the applications compared with First-Come-First-Service and Round-Robin algorithm. Moreover, the advantage of the DMPLS algorithm is more significant under the severe resources confliction situations.
Detecting Events from Twitter in Real-Time by Siqi Zhao

Detecting Events from Twitter in Real-Time by Siqi Zhao Twitter is one of the most popular online social networking sites. It provides a unique and novel venue of publishing: it has over 500 million active users around the globe; tweets are brief, limited to 140 characters, an ideal way for people to publish spontaneously. As a result, Twitter has the short delays in reflecting what its users perceive, compared to other venues such as blogs and product reviews. We design and implement SportSense, which exploits Twitter users as human sensors of the physical world to detect major events in real-time. Using the National Football League (NFL) games as a targeted domain, we report in-depth studies of the delay and trend of tweets, and their dependence on other properties. We present event detection method based on these findings, and demonstrate that it can effectively and accurately extract major game events using open access Twitter data. SportSense has been evolving during the 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012-13 NFL seasons and it has been collecting hundreds of millions tweets. We provide SportSense API for developers to use our system to create Twitter-enabled applications.
FURTHER STUDY OF RAINFALL EFFECT ON VHF FORESTED RADIO-WAVE PROPAGATION WITH FOUR- LAYERED MODEL

In this paper, rainfall efiect on the VHF radio-wave propagation in a tropical forest is further studied in details. Theoretical study and experimental investigations are performed with the help of a four-layered model for forested environment. It is found that the lateral wave traveling along the air-canopy interface, the direct waves, and the ground re∞ected waves are the main modes for VHF radio-wave propagation in forest. The rainfall can afiect these propagating waves to difierent extents. Especially, due to the increase in the dielectric permittivity of the wet canopy layer by rain water, the time of arrival of the direct wave traveling through the canopy layer can be delayed signiflcantly. Finally, the dielectric permittivity for the wet canopy layer under difierent rain events is evaluated empirically.
Scaling of B K for 2 + 1 flavour domain wall fermions from 24 3 and 32 3 × 64 lattices

We present preliminary results from a 323 × 64 lattice calculation of the neutral kaon mixing factor BK using 2+1 flavours of Domain Wall fermions, focussing on the chiral extrapolation and non-perturbative renormalisation (NPR) of this quantity and comparing to our previous results obtained from a 243 ×64 lattice. These simulations were performed using the Iwasaki gauge action at two different lattice spacings: a−1 = 1.729(28) GeV for the 243×64 calculation and a−1 = 2.42(4) 0.47 r0(fm) GeV for the 32 3×64, maintaining an approximately fixed physical volume of (2.7fm)3. In the discussion of the chiral extrapolation to the physical quark masses, we compare the fits to an SU(2) partially-quenched chiral fit form for which the kaon is coupled into the theory as a heavy external particle. As the 323 × 64 results are preliminary at the time of writing we do not present a result for the chiral extrapolation on this data set. Results for the 243 × 64 lattice calculation have been published [1]. For the NPR we compare the stages of the calculation of the non-perturbative renormalisation constant ZBK using the Rome-Southampton regularisation-invariant momentum scheme (RI/MOM), where for the recent 323×64 calculation we have used a lattice-volume source for the calculation of the propagators, an approach which offers a substantial gain over the point source approach used for the 243 × 64 calculation due to the volume averaging of the bilinear and four-quark vertex locations.
Characterizing nonrigid aggregated soil-water medium using its shrinkage curve

The properties of the soil-water medium are presented in the literature independent of its internal organization and operation. The objective of this study is to develop and test a conceptual model that used a continuously measured shrinkage curve (SC) to describe the functional organization of the soil-water medium. In this model, two functional porosities (micro and macro) are delineated and quantified by the SC. In addition, the equilibrium for four functional water pools is represented and parameterized by the SC. A set of eleven parameters was found necessary to model the seven phases of the SC and to describe the corresponding soil hydrostructural changes. A method to accurately obtain the parameters of this model by a specific analysis of the continuously measured SC is demonstrated. Examples of continuously measured and modeled SCs according to the pedostructure model (PS) are presented and discussed.
An Efficient Merge Technology for Constant Degree P2P Systems

The Constant Degree P2P systems are turning into the research hotspot, but all topologically-aware technologies perform poorly when replanted to them. Combining constant degree topologies' property and taking FissionE as an example, we propose a merge technology RBFIM (Relaxed Balance based fast Induced Merge) to optimize the construction of topologically-aware hierarchy constant degree P2P Systems. Experiment results show that RBFIM not only preserves constant degree P2P systems' advantages on logically routing, but also strength the locality of communication and can be integrated with other optimization technologies.
Susceptibility of Broiler Chickens to Coccidiosis When Fed Subclinical Doses of Deoxynivalenol and Fumonisins—Special Emphasis on the Immunological Response and the Mycotoxin Interaction

Deoxynivalenol (DON) and fumonisins (FB) are the most frequently encountered mycotoxins produced by Fusarium species in livestock diets. The effect of subclinical doses of mycotoxins in chickens is largely unknown, and in particular the susceptibility of birds to pathogenic challenge when fed these fungal metabolites. Therefore, the present study reports the effects of DON and FB on chickens challenged with Eimeria spp, responsible for coccidiosis. Broilers were fed diets from hatch to day 20, containing no mycotoxins, 1.5 mg DON/kg, 20 mg FB/kg, or both toxins (12 pens/diet; 7 birds/pen). At day 14, six pens of birds per diet (half of the birds) were challenged with a 25×-recommended dose of coccidial vaccine, and all birds (challenged and unchallenged) were sampled 6 days later. As expected, performance of birds was strongly affected by the coccidial challenge. Ingestion of mycotoxins did not further affect the growth but repartitioned the rate of reduction (between the fraction due to the change in maintenance and feed efficiency), and reduced apparent nitrogen digestibility. Intestinal lesions and number of oocysts in the jejunal mucosa and feces of challenged birds were more frequent and intense in the birds fed mycotoxins than in birds fed control feed. The upregulation of cytokines (interleukin (IL) IL-1β, IL-6, IL-8 and IL-10) following coccidial infection was higher in the jejunum of birds fed mycotoxins. Further, the higher intestinal immune response was associated with a higher percentage of T lymphocytes CD4+CD25+, also called Tregs, observed in the cecal tonsils of challenged birds fed mycotoxins. Interestingly, the increase in FB biomarker of exposure (sphinganine/sphingosine ratio in serum and liver) suggested a higher absorption and bioavailability of FB in challenged birds. The interaction of DON and FB was very dependent on the endpoint assessed, with three endpoints reporting antagonism, nine additivity, and two synergism. In conclusion, subclinical doses of DON and FB showed little effects in unchallenged chickens, but seem to result in metabolic and immunologic disturbances that amplify the severity of coccidiosis.
Snow Globe: An Advancing-Front 3D Delaunay Mesh Refinement Algorithm

One of the objectives of a Delaunay mesh refinement algorithm is to produce meshes with tetrahedral elements having a bounded aspect ratio, which is the ratio between the radius of the circumscribing and inscribing spheres. The refinement is carried out by inserting additional Steiner vertices inside the circumsphere of a poor-quality tetrahedron (to remove the tetrahedron) at a sufficient distance from existing vertices to guarantee the termination and size optimality of the algorithm. This technique eliminates tetrahedra whose ratio of the radius of the circumscribing sphere and the shortest side, the radius-edge ratio, is large. Slivers, almost-planar tetrahedra, which have a small radius-edge ratio, but a large aspect ratio, are avoided by small random perturbations of the Steiner vertices to improve the aspect ratio. Additionally, geometric constraints, called "petals", have been shown to produce smaller high-quality meshes in 2D Delaunay refinement algorithms. In this paper, we develop a deterministic nondifferentiable optimization routine to place the Steiner vertex inside geometrical constraints that we call "snow globes" for 3D Delaunay refinement. We explore why the geometrical constraints and an ordering on processing of poor-quality tetrahedra result in smaller meshes. The stricter analysis provides an improved constant associated with the size optimality of the generated meshes. Aided by the analysis, we present a modified algorithm to handle boundary encroachment. The final algorithm behaves like an advancing-front algorithms that are commonly used for quadrilateral and hexahedral meshing.
Real Robots Controlled by Brain Signals-A BMI Approach

Recent works on Brain Machine Interface (BMI) has given promising results for developing prosthetic devices aimed at restoring motor functions in paralyzed patients. The goal of this work is to create a part mechanical, part biological robot that operates on the basis of the neural activity of rat brain cells. In our method, first the rat learns to move the robot by pressing the right and left lever in order to get food. Then, we utilize the data of multi-electrode recordings to train artificial neural controllers, which are later employed to control the robot motion based on the brain activity of rats. The results show a good performance of artificial neural network controlling the real robot.
Fos Protein Expression and Cocaine-Seeking Behavior in Rats after Exposure to a Cocaine Self-Administration Environment

To examine neuronal activation associated with incentive motivation for cocaine, cocaine-seeking behavior (operant responding without cocaine reinforcement) and Fos expression were examined in rats exposed to saline and cocaine priming injections and/or a self-administration environment. Rats were first trained to self-administer cocaine or received yoked saline administration (“control”). They then received 21 daily exposures to either the self-administration environment (“extinction”) or a different environment (“no extinction”) without cocaine available. Extinction training, used to decrease incentive motivation for cocaine elicited by the self-administration environment, decreased cocaine-seeking behavior elicited by both the environment and the cocaine priming injection. Exposure to the self-administration environment enhanced Fos expression in the no extinction group relative to control and extinction groups in the anterior cingulate, basolateral amygdala, hippocampal CA1 region, dentate gyrus, nucleus accumbens shell and core, and central gray area, regardless of whether or not priming injections were given. The priming injections enhanced Fos expression in the ventral tegmental area, caudate putamen, substantia nigra pars reticulata, entorhinal cortex, central amygdala, lateral amygdala, arcuate nucleus, and central gray area, regardless of group. Thus, these changes likely reflect an unconditioned effect from either cocaine or injection stress. The priming injections also enhanced Fos expression in the anterior cingulate, but only in cocaine-experienced groups, suggesting that this enhancement reflects an experience-dependent motivational effect of the priming injections. The results suggest that different neural circuits may be involved in the incentive motivational effects of cocaine-paired environmental stimuli versus priming injections and that the anterior cingulate may be part of a common pathway for both.
Mobility for a special configuration of a shape-shifting robot in urban terrain

The work in the complicated environment requires the robot to possess the better mobility, which is the basis that the robot can complete the task successfully and ensure itself security. To improve the adaptability in the unstructured environments, the aim is the mobility of a special d-configuration of AMOEBA-I, and the cooperative turning and cooperative negotiation of the d-configuration is presented. The capability on the turning and traversing the channel are analyzed theoretically. Also the relationship between the climb height and the location of center of gravity is discussed. The maximum climb heights respectively in the normal negotiation method and cooperative negotiation are compared theoretically. Finally, the experiment in the indoor and outdoor relic environment verifies the mobility of the d-configuration, which satisfies the requirement that the robot can perform the task in the unstructured environments.
2-D Algorithm for Removing Scattered Light from STIS Echelle Data

Using the cores of saturated interstellar absorption lines, we demonstrate that a twodimensional model of scattered light should be used when extracting STIS echelle spectra, particularly in the FUV where echelle grating scatter is significant. We describe the 2-D scattered light model of Lindler & Bowers, which includes the effects of echelle grating scatter, detector halo, telescope PSF, cross-disperser scatter, and ghosts. We also describe the algorithm developed by Lindler & Bowers to remove scattered light from STIS images by iteratively constructing a scattered light estimate from the extracted spectrum. Finally, we describe the implementation and performance of the Lindler & Bowers algorithm in the IRAF task x1d, which is part of the calstis spectral extraction package.
When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment

Acknowledgments xi Introduction e How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment 1 Chapter 1: The Trap 8 Chapter 2: Thinking about Crime Control 16 Chapter 3: Hope 34 Chapter 4: Tipping, Dynamic Concentration, and the Logic of Deterrence 49 Chapter 5: Crime Despite Punishment 68 Chapter 6: Designing Enforcement Strategies 86 Chapter 7: Crime Control without Punishment 117 Chapter 8: Guns and Gun Control 136 Chapter 9: Drug Policy for Crime Control 149 Chapter 10: What Could Go Wrong? 164 Chapter 11: An Agenda for Crime Control 175 Notes 191 Bibliography 207 Index 227
The relationship of drought-related gene expression in Arabidopsis thaliana to hormonal and environmental factors

Almost 2000 drought-responsive genes were identified in Arabidopsis thaliana under progressive soil drought stress using whole-genome oligonucleotide microarrays. Most of the drought-regulated genes recovered to normal expression levels by 3 h after rewatering. It has previously been shown that the abscisic acid (ABA) analogue (+)-8′-acetylene-ABA (PBI425) hyperinduces many ABA-like changes in gene expression to reveal a more complete list of ABA-regulated genes, and it is demonstrated here that PBI425 produced a correspondingly increased drought tolerance. About two-thirds of drought-responsive genes (1310 out of 1969) were regulated by ABA and/or the ABA analogue PBI425. Analysis of promoter motifs suggests that many of the remaining drought-responsive genes may be affected by ABA signalling. Concentrations of endogenous ABA and its catabolites significantly increased under drought stress and either completely (ABA) or partially (ABA catabolites) recovered to normal levels by 3 h after rehydration. Detailed analyses of drought transcript profiles and in silico comparisons with other studies revealed that the ABA-dependent pathways are predominant in the drought stress responses. These comparisons also showed that other plant hormones including jasmonic acid, auxin, cytokinin, ethylene, brassinosteroids, and gibberellins also affected drought-related gene expression, of which the most significant was jasmonic acid. There is also extensive cross-talk between responses to drought and other environmental factors including light and biotic stresses. These analyses demonstrate that ABA-related stress responses are modulated by other environmental and developmental factors.
Encapsulated cell-based delivery of CNTF reduces photoreceptor degeneration in animal models of retinitis pigmentosa.

PURPOSE The objective of the present study was to evaluate the therapeutic efficacy of ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNTF) delivered through encapsulated cells directly into the vitreous of the eye in an rcd1 canine model of retinitis pigmentosa. The dose-range effect of the treatment was also investigated. METHODS Polymer membrane capsules (1.0 cm in length and 1.0 mm in diameter) were loaded with mammalian cells that were genetically engineered to secrete CNTF. The cell-containing capsules were then surgically implanted into the vitreous of one eye of rcd1 dogs at 7 weeks of age, when retinal degeneration is in progress but not complete. The contralateral eyes were not treated. The capsules remained in the eyes for 7 weeks. At the end of the studies, the capsules were explanted, and CNTF output and cell viability were evaluated. The eyes were processed for histologic evaluation. RESULTS In each animal, the number of rows of photoreceptor nuclei in the outer nuclear layer (ONL) was significantly higher in the eye that received a CNTF-secreting implant than in the untreated contralateral eye. No adverse effects were observed on the retina in the treated eyes. The explanted capsules produced a low level of CNTF. The cells in the capsules remained viable and densely distributed throughout. CONCLUSIONS CNTF delivered through encapsulated cells directly into the vitreous of the eye protects photoreceptors in the PDE6B-deficient rcd1 canine model. Furthermore, sparing of photoreceptors appeared dose-dependent with minimum protection observed at CNTF doses of 0.2 to 1.0 ng/d. Incrementally greater protection was achieved at higher doses. The surgically implanted, cell-containing capsules were well tolerated, and the cells within the capsule remained viable for the 7-week implantation interval. These results suggest that encapsulated cell therapy may provide a safe and effective strategy for treating retinal disorders in humans.