Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fourier-Based Shape Servoing: A New Feedback Method to Actively Deform Soft Objects into Desired 2-D Image Contours

This paper addresses the design of a vision-based method to automatically deform soft objects into desired two-dimensional shapes with robot manipulators. The method presents an innovative feedback representation of the object's shape (based on a truncated Fourier series) and effectively exploits it to guide the soft object manipulation task. A new model calibration scheme that iteratively approximates a local deformation model from vision and motion sensory feedback is derived; this estimation method allows us to manipulate objects with unknown deformation properties. Pseudocode algorithms are presented to facilitate the implementation of the controller. Numerical simulations and experiments are reported to validate this new approach.
Aggravation of Acute Ischemic Stroke by Hyperthermia Is Related to an Excitotoxic Mechanism

Objective: To examine whether hyperthermia aggravates cerebral injury in acute ischemia by an excitotoxic mechanism, we studied the relationship between body temperature on admission and CSF concentrations of neuroexcitatory amino acids in 128 patients with acute ischemic stroke of less than 24 h duration. Methods: Stroke worsening was defined as the percent change between the Canadian Stroke Scale (CSS) at 48 h and the CSS on admission. Infarct volume was measured on days 4–7 on cranial computed tomography. Excitatory amino acids were analyzed using HPLC. Results: Glutamate concentration [median (min.-max.)] was 11 (2–19) µmol/l in hyperthermic patients (body temperature >37.5°C) and 5 (2–22) µmol/l in normothermic patients (p < 0.0001). Glycine concentration in hyperthermic and normothermic patients was 16 (3–21) µmol/l and 9 (3–50) µmol/l, respectively (p < 0.0001). Glutamate was significantly higher in patients with hyperthermia only during the first 12 h after the onset of symptoms. The CSF concentrations of glutamate (r = 0.52; p < 0.0001) and glycine (r = 0.62; p < 0.0001) correlated with body temperature. Body temperature was significantly related to stroke worsening and infarct size, but this effect was dependent on the glutamate effect. Conclusion: Glutamate and glycine release during the acute phase of cerebral ischemia could be responsible for the increased brain damage in hyperthermia.
A Sequential Multi-type POI Recommendation Service Based on Location

Nowadays locaiton-based services (LBSs) are becoming more and more popular. However, all the existing service can only support the single POI recommendation, which is the typical LBS. A user sends his current location and the single type of POIs (Points of Interest) to the server. Then the server will return proper POIs to the user. In people's life, we have the need of multiple types service. That is, what the user wants is some combinations of different POIs rather than single POIs. For example, one restaurant, one cafe and one cinema. In addition, the visit time of these POIs are different. So the order of each POI in one combination is up to the user. More precisely, what the user need is sequential multi-type POI recommendation. To support this service, we propose a new framework where the interaction between the user and the server is changed. This new service is totally different from the typical one. Therefore, a new algorithm to solve this challenging problem is proposed too. It adopts a recursion idea. At the last, some simulations are conducted to testify the effectiveness of the algorithm based on real data from the Internet.
Evidence that FK506 alleviates ischemia/reperfusion injury to the rat liver: in vivo demonstration for suppression of TNF-a production in response to endotoxemia.

The mechanism by which FK506 (FK) prevents hepatic injury induced by ischemia/reperfusion was studied. Adult Sprague-Dawley rats were subjected to 60-min normothermic liver ischemia. Animals were divided into two groups: group I, controls, saline vehicle treatment; group II, FK treatment. FK (1 mg/kg/day, p.o.) was given for 4 consecutive days prior to inducing ischemia. In addition to a survival study, plasma levels of endotoxin and serum activities of tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) were assessed in the blood collected from suprahepatic vena cava. Results showed: (1) FK therapy significantly improved 7-day survival (80.0%) compared with nontreated animals (50.0%, p < 0.05); (2) both TNF and endotoxin were elevated following reperfusion, reaching maximum values at 3 h after reperfusion (217.0 +/- 40.6 and 280.5 +/- 31.4 pg/ml, respectively, in the control; mean +/- SEM), and (3) serum activities of TNF and AST following reperfusion were substantially suppressed with FK treatment, whereas FK did not reduce the rise in endotoxin. These findings suggest that suppression of TNF production in response to endotoxemia might account at least in part for the protective effect of FK against ischemia-induced hepatic injury.
Detection of pathogenic bioaerosols and occupational risk in a Philippine landfill site

ABSTRACT Payatas landfill site is one of the major dumpsites in the Philippines. In this study, the landfill was evaluated regarding the presence and concentration of pathogenic bacterial aerosols through culture and molecular techniques. Bioaerosols are biological airborne particles that may or may not cause diseases. Active sampling was done using MAS-100 Air Sampler from both indoor and outdoor locations. To test the accuracy of the culture method, those that were presumptively identified as Staphylococcus aureus and Klebsiella pneumoniae were subjected to molecular analysis using 16s rRNA sequencing, and as a result, they were identified as different species. The exposure assessment done by interview showed matches among prevalent diseases. The results of this study can be used as a basis for creating standards and regulations for workers' and residents' safety and health in the landfill site.
Performance enhancement of AlGaN-based 365  nm ultraviolet light-emitting diodes with a band-engineering last quantum barrier.

In this Letter, the characteristics of the AlGaN-based near-ultraviolet light-emitting diodes with a band-engineering last quantum barrier (LQB) were analyzed experimentally and numerically. The experimental results show that the peak wavelengths of UV-LEDs are around 368 nm with a full width at half-maximum of 12-14 nm, and the optical and electrical properties are improved by using an AlxGa1-xN LQB with a gradually decreasing Al content. The designed LQB can reduce the forward voltage from 4.35 to 4.29 V and markedly enhance LOP by 47.4% at an injection current of 200 mA, compared with the original structure. These improvements are mainly attributed to less electron leakage and higher hole injection efficiency, resulting from the weakened polarization field in the electron-blocking layer (EBL) and LQB, as well as the alleviation of the band bending at the EBL/LQB interface.
Nutmeg oil alleviates chronic inflammatory pain through inhibition of COX-2 expression and substance P release in vivo

Background Chronic pain, or sometimes referred to as persistent pain, reduces the life quality of patients who are suffering from chronic diseases such as inflammatory diseases, cancer and diabetes. Hence, herbal medicines draw many attentions and have been shown effective in the treatment or relief of pain. Methods and Results Here in this study, we used the CFA-injected rats as a sustainable pain model to test the anti-inflammatory and analgesic effect of nutmeg oil, a spice flavor additive to beverages and baked goods produced from the seed of Myristica fragrans tree. Conclusions We have demonstrated that nutmeg oil could potentially alleviate the CFA-injection induced joint swelling, mechanical allodynia and heat hyperanalgesia of rats through inhibition of COX-2 expression and blood substance P level, which made it possible for nutmeg oil to be a potential chronic pain reliever.
Psychiatric Comorbidity in Essential Hypertension (Pattern, Prevalence of Psychiatric Comorbidity and Quality of Life in Subjects with Essential Hypertension)

The prevalence of essential hypertension has continued to increase worldwide, and its consequences have remained a growing concern. A number of sociodemographic and clinical variables may however serve as key determinants of the extent to which it is associated with psychiatric comorbidity as well as impairment of quality of life. The aim of this study, therefore, was to determine the sociodemographic and clinical factors that may influence the level of psychiatric comorbidity and quality of life associated with persons with essential hypertension attending the general outpatient clinic of the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital (UPTH). Following ethical approval and informed consent from the participants, 360 subjects making up the study group were recruited based on the study’s inclusion and exclusion criteria. A pilot study was carried out. Subjects were further administered with the study’s instruments including the socio-demographic/clinical questionnaire, GHQ-12, WHO Composite International Diagnostic Interview (WHOCIDI) and the WHOQOL-Bref. The data were analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 16 statistical package. Confi‐ dence interval was set at 95%, while p-value of less than 0.05 was considered statisti‐ cally significant. The study found a prevalence of psychiatric comorbidity of 64.4% among the hypertensives. Among the study group, there was no significant relation‐ ship between the presence of psychiatric comorbidity and age class (p = 0.350), gender (p = 0.22), level of education (p = 043), income class (p = 0.81) and occupation. Persons who were married were significantly more likely to have a psychiatric comorbidity (p = 0.001). There was also no significant relationships between age of onset of illness (p = 0.60), duration of illness (p = 0.73), duration of treatment (p = 0.82) and self-stigma (p = 0.15). The findings of this study support the impression that essential hypertension is a chronic debilitating illness, associated with psychiatric comorbidity and reduced quality of life, that is largely significantly influenced by a number of sociodemograph‐ ic and clinical factors. The results support the call that the management of patients with © 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. essential hypertension should include attention to the mental health status of the sufferers.
Genetic drivers of vulnerability and resistance in relapsed acute lymphoblastic leukemia

Relapsed acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is associated with very poor outcomes despite modern therapies in both children and adults (1⇓–3). In PNAS, Oshima et al. elucidate both the mutational landscape as well as patterns of clonal evolution of pediatric relapsed ALL and identify potential therapeutic targets in this challenging illness (4). Although prior studies have performed SNP array analysis (SNPa), whole-exome sequencing (WES), whole-genome sequencing (WGS), and/or mRNA sequencing (RNA-seq) at diagnosis and relapse (Table 1), the majority of prior analyses have focused on relapsed pediatric B-ALL specifically. Here, the authors performed WES of 55 pediatric ALL patients (33 T-cell ALL and 22 B-cell precursor ALL) at diagnosis, remission, and relapse and complemented these data with RNA-seq of a validation cohort of 49 paired diagnosis/relapse B-ALL patient samples. This analysis has allowed for reevaluation of the pattern of clonal evolution in relapsed ALL and revealed that the majority of relapsed ALLs (∼85%) contain only some of the genetic lesions present in the major clone at diagnosis. In contrast, only in 4% of cases did the relapsed clones contain all mutations present at diagnosis plus additional secondary relapse-specific lesions. Together, these data identify that linear evolution is rarely involved in tumor progression in ALL and that relapsed ALL originates primarily as derivatives of ancestral subclones related to, but distinct from the main leukemic population present at diagnosis. This conclusion extends previous observations of the clonal basis of relapsed ALL by Mullighan et al. (5), which used SNPa to reveal that cells responsible for relapse were often minor subpopulations of the cells responsible for initial disease (Table 1). View this table: Table 1. Genomic analysis of relapsed ALL In addition to evaluating the clonal … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: abdelwao{at}mskcc.org. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1
The Predominant Microflora of Nursing Caries Lesions

The predominant microflora recovered from infected dentine of 52 carious teeth from 14 children with nursing caries was determined using both selective and non–selective media for the isolation of specific genera and acidified media (pH 5.2) to isolate the predominant aciduric microorganisms, and compared with the microflora of sound enamel surfaces in caries–free children. Streptococcus mutans formed a significantly greater proportion of the lesion flora while Streptococcus oralis, Streptococcus sanguis and Streptococcus gordonii formed a significantly greater proportion of the plaque flora from sound tooth surfaces. The proportions of Actinomyces naeslundii and Actinomyces odontolyticus were significantly greater in the plaque samples than in the lesion samples. Actinomyces israelii formed 18.2% of the flora from the lesions, but was not isolated from the plaque samples. The proportions of Candida albicans, Lactobacillus spp. and Veillonella spp. were also significantly greater in the carious dentine than in the plaque samples. The most frequently isolated lactobacilli were Lactobacillus casei, Lactobacillus fermentum and Lactobacillus rhamnosus. The predominant aciduric flora was S. oralis, S. mutans and A. israelii and these taxa were also isolated from a similar proportion of the lesions at pH 7.0. Strains of S. mutans, L. casei, L. fermentum and L. rhamnosus isolated from individual carious teeth were genotyped using PCR–based methods. Each species was genotypically heterogeneous and different genotypes were recovered from different carious teeth in the same child. These data indicate that the microflora of lesions in the same child is microbiologically diverse and support a non–specific aetiology for nursing caries in which the physiological characteristics of the infecting flora, not its composition, is the major determinant underlying the disease process.
The natural diversity and ecology of fission yeast

While the fission yeast is a powerful model of eukaryote biology, there have been few studies of quantitative genetics, phenotypic or genetic diversity. Here I survey the small collection of fission yeast diversity research. I discuss what we can infer about the ecology and origins of Schizosaccharomyces pombe from microbiology field studies and the few strains that have been collected.
Representing raw linguistic information in chinese text-to-speech system

In this paper, we propose a method of representing linguistic features for Chinese text-to-speech (TTS) systems. Traditional linguistic features for Chinese TTS include information about the related phones, syllables, words, prosodic words, prosodic phrases, etc. Normally, models would need to be built for word segmentation, part-of-speech tagging, prosodic word prediction, prosodic phrase prediction, etc. To train these models, large annotated corpora are normally needed. The quality of the models will have an effect on the quality of the TTS system. However, the annotated corpora are often unavailable for many low-resource languages. In this paper, we encode phone sequences and Chinese character sequences to form linguistic features without using annotated corpora. To represent the Chinese sequences, each Chinese character is converted into its pronunciation (represented by Pinyin), which is further mapped to an initial, a final and a tone. One- hot vectors can be used to represent each of the elements. To represent a context window covering a sequence of Chinese characters, we concatenate vectors of each character to form a long vector. Then an autoencoder is built to reduce the dimension of the vector. The compressed vector is used as part of the linguistic features together with phone sequence features. We have applied our proposed linguistic features in a deep neural network (DNN)-based TTS system, and we have compared the system with the one using traditional linguistic features. Both objective evaluation and subjective listening test show that the proposed linguistic representation achieves almost the same performance as the traditional features.
Breath Alcohol Analysis by Standardization to Water Vapour Enables Contact Free Sampling with Preserved High Accuracy and Precision As Compared With Mouthpiece Sampling

A novel breath analyzer has been developed that determines the breath alcohol concentration (BrAC) by standardizing the exhaled alcohol and water vapour concentrations to the fully saturated water vapour concentration at 37 oC (44 mg/L). The method enables the determination of a person’s BrAC without the use of a mouthpiece, i.e. contact free sampling. This, however, requires that the amount of breath sample dilution with ambient air is correctly determined. The main purpose of the study was to evaluate the impact of ambient air dilution on the analytical performance of the analyzer. Instrument performance was evaluated at vapour-alcohol concentrations ranging from 0.030 to 2.000 mg/L using a prototype simulator mimicking natural exhalations. The simulator outlet was either connected to the inlet of the analyzer (mouthpiece simulation) or placed at a distance of 50 and 100 mm (contact free simulation). The accuracy was > 98 % and the precision (coefficient of variation, CV) was < 0.3 % in the mouthpiece simulations at concentrations above 0.1 mg/L. In the contact free simulations from 50 and 100 mm the corresponding accuracy was > 98 and 97 % and the CVs were < 0.7 and 1 %, respectively (n = 90). A human drinking study was also performed where seven subjects drank 0.5 g alcohol/kg bodyweight, then providing 168 mouthpiece and contact free samples from a distance of 50 and 100 mm. There was no difference between the BrACs of samples from 50 mm and the mouthpiece samples (mean 0.239 mg/L). The BrACs of samples from 100 mm were negligibly lower (0.234 mg/L). Breath alcohol analysis by standardization to water vapour enables contact free sampling with preserved high accuracy and precision as compared with mouthpiece sampling.
A qualitative exploration of veteran and family perspectives on medical foster homes

ABSTRACT Since 2008, the Veterans Health Administration Medical Foster Home (MFH) program has served as an alternative to nursing home care for Veterans. As part of a larger national research study, 55 in-person interviews with 62 Veterans and/or their families were conducted to identify reasons for selecting or declining MFH placement. Enrollment was attributed to: a need for increased care and a preference for highly individualized care oversight and family-oriented settings. Reasons for declining placement included: costs, location of MFHs, lack of readiness of family or Veteran to move, and level of confidence that MFHs would meet care needs. Experiences and perspectives regarding advantages and challenges of the MFH program are also described.
POSTHARVEST INFILTRATION OF POLYAMINES AND CALCIUM INFLUENCES ETHYLENE PRODUCTION AND TEXTURE CHANGES IN 'GOLDEN DELICIOUS' APPLES

Prestorage infiltration of 'Golden Delicious' apples (Malus domestica Borkh.) with calcium (Ca) retarded texture changes during storage at 0C and inhibited ethylene production of the fruit at 20C. Infiltration of the fruit with the polyamines (PA) putrescine (PUT) or spermidine (SPD) also altered texture changes, but did not inhibit ethylene production. When the fruit were treated with Ca first and then with PA, cell wall-hound Ca concentration s increased 4-fold, but PA levels in the cell wall increased only slightly. When the fruit were treated with PA first and then with Ca, PA levels in the cell wall increased 3-fold, but Ca concentration increased only 2-fold. These results indicate that Ca and PA may he competing for the same binding sites in the cell wall and that the improvement of fruit quality during storage by these cations could involve strengthening of the cell wall. Considerable evidence has shown that polyamines actively regulate plant growth, development, and senescence (Slocum and Flores, 1991). Polyamines are ubiquitous in plant cells and their concentrations fluctuate in response to environmental changes such as light and temperature (Galston, 1983). Dramatic changes in the polyamine content of plant tissues have been reported under various kinds of stresses (Flores et al., 1985). Polyamines can affect DNA and RNA synthesis and degradation; regulate rates of transcription; inhibit activities of protease, ribonuclease, peroxi- dase, and polygalacturonase; stabilize ribosomal structure; and maintain membrane integrity (Smith, 1990). Application of polyamines prevented lysis of isolated protoplasts and reduced the breakdown of macromolecule s (Altman et al., 1977). Exogenous polyamines also delayed senescence in excised leaves and leaf segments of some monocots and dicots (Kaur-Sawhney and Galston, 1979). Further, postharvest treatments that delayed senescence of apples, such as low O2 storage, also maintained high levels of polyamines in the fruit tissue (Kramer et al., 1989). Exogenous applications of polyamines retarded softening of 'Golden Deli- cious' and 'McIntosh' apples (Kramer et al., 1991). The potential of using polyamines for maintaining postharvest quality of fruits deserves further investigation. High Ca content in fruit tissues has been shown to reduce disorders (Sharples and Johnson, 1977), retard softening (Mason et al., 1975), and inhibit decay (Conway et al., 1991). In addition to strengthening cell walls and membranes, Ca also regulates some physiological processes that may directly or indirectly affect the
Cost-aware virtual machines placement problem under constraints over a distributed cloud infrastructure

Massively Multi-players Online Gaming (MMOG) presents one of the most popular large scale Cloud Gaming services. However, minimizing the overall MMOG operating cost is viewed as a critical task. The main challenge for MMOG providers is to find the best tradeoff between cost and response delay when allocating resources: in fact, allocating powerful resources lead to an excellent operating delay, but it is costly. However, cheapest resources don't guarantee even acceptable latency especially for high peak periods. In this view, the present paper contributes to optimize, under delay constraint, the resources allocation cost of MMOG service over a distributed Cloud infrastructure. We develop a model to capture the intrinsic trade-off between response delays relative to allocated resources and their corespondent costs. Then, we formulate the optimal VMs placement problem, which is NP-hard. Besides, we propose a Cost-aware Virtual Machines placement algorithm that approximates the best trade-off point between the two compromise terms. We evaluate our contribution comparing to a Random, Greedy Allocation Cost (GAC) and Minimum Allocation Cost (MAC) placement algorithms via Matlab tool. Results show elasticity and effectiveness of our contribution in maintaining the balance between cost and delay.