Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Role of Ezetimibe in Combination with Statins(Simvastatin and Atorvastatin) in Controlling Dyslipidemia

Cardiovascular risk is independently increased by plasma lipids abnormalities (low- density and high density lipoprotein -cholesterol and triglycerides). Most patients have more than one lipid abnormality. Combination therapy with lipid-modifying agents could offer an important therapeutic option for improving the overall lipid profile. Combinations have demonstrated to provide additive efficacy and significant reductions in coronary events . This study was designed to evaluate the effect of ezetimibe, when used in combination with other hypolipidaemic agents ( statins) on lipid profile as well as on liver function ,renal function, oxidative stress, and platelets function when given to dyslipidaemic patients . Forty four patients (24 males and 20 females) with age ranged between 40-70 years (54 Â±14.6) with dyslipidaemia on statins therapy for at least 6 month were involved in this clinical trials. They were randomized into two groups treated with either a combination of 20 mg/day simvastatin or a combination of 20mg/day atorvastatin and 10mg/day of ezetimibe.The study also included 22 apparently healthy subjects with age ranged (40-70years) and sex(11males and 11 females) matching that of the patients group. Serum lipid profile (total cholesterol -TC, triglycerides -TG, low density lipoprotein-cholesterol â€“LDL-C, very low density lipoprotein-cholesterol-VLDL-C, and high density lipoprotein-cholesterol â€“HDL-C), oxidative stress marker (Malondialdehyde-MDA), liver functions indices (Alanin aminotransferase -ALT,Aspartate aminotransferase- AST, total bilirubin), renal function parameters (urea, creatinine, and microalbuminuria) and platelets function test (bleeding time)were evaluated before and after 4 and 6 weeks of starting ezetimibe treatment . Treatment with ezetimibe plus simvastatin or atrovostatin resulted in significant lowering in TC, TG, LDL-C levels with elevation in HDL-C also the LDL/HDL ratio lowered significantly ( by 38.16%). This effect was associated with significant changes in liver function , and oxidative stress without changes in platelets function nor in renal function. The results presented in this study indicated that ezetimibe can be used in clinical practice for the treatment of dyslipidaemia, when combined with other hypolipidaemic agents like simvastatin and atorvastatin to improve the therapeutic profile with ameliorating some of their adverse effects. Keywords : Ezetimibe , Statins , Dyslipidemia
Design and Test of Automatic Loading and Unloading Machine for Egg Tray

A kind of egg tray automatic loading and unloading machine is designed for the high strength and low efficiency of egg tray loading and unloading in the egg candling process. Through the analysis of egg tray loading and unloading process, the automatic loading and unloading process of the egg tray is determined. Imitating manual handling, egg tray automatic loading and unloading machine is composed of lifting mechanism and scissors type combination mechanism. The lifting mechanism completes the positioning of the egg tray and the scissors type combination mechanism completes the delivery of the egg tray. The prototype was designed and tested, and the result shows that the unloading efficiency reached 122 trays/h, and the average time of single tray leaving the incubator was 29s. So the automatic loading and unloading machine of the egg tray improves the automation degree of the incubation industry, reduces the labor intensity, improves the detection efficiency of the egg, and shortens the time that the embryo egg leaves the incubator.
Design and Comparative analysis using SVD-DCT-DWT Composite Watermarking Scheme having Robustness to noise and blurring effect

In the today’s high scale communication of data there is a pressing need is generated for protection of the data information from many of the illegal duplication and modifications. For this purpose image watermarking is getting a very growing focus for a solution to the theft and tampering by involving the applications of advanced digital image processing operations to watermark copyright and authentication information inside the image content. Image watermarking is a signal that is embedded in a image data permanently such that it can be extracted by dewatermarking using some operations for checking the authenticity of data or user. The watermark is inseparable from the host image and it should be robust enough to resist any modifications along with preserving the image quality. In this way the watermarking helps in keeping intellectual properties accessible while being permanently water marked. We have considered four pairs of different images and applied SVD-DCT_DWT, SVD-DWT , SVD-DCT watermarking algorithms and after watermarking we have investigated the peak signal to noise ratio(PSNR) in between our host image and watermarked image.After watermarking we have added different image attacks like Gaussian noise,salt and pepper noise,motion blur and Gaussian blur on the watermarked images.After processing images to the attacks we applied dewatermarking algorithm to extract our watermark image from the watermarked image . We have check the performance of our algorithm by calculating PSNR in between watermark and extracted watermark image along with the evalution of normalized correlation (NC).
Depression, Hopelessness, and Suicidal Ideation Among the Elderly

Abstract This study attempts to compare levels of depression, hopelessness, and suicidal ideation among elderly males and females, in reference to their living arrangement, i.e., community vs. nursing homes. For many elderly people, old age is characterized by various losses: physiological, functional, social, cognitive, financial, etc. The outcomes of such losses often include, more often than not, environmental isolation, a subjective feeling of loneliness, anxiety, depression, and frequently, loss of motivation to continue living. In light of the rise in life expectancy and the multitude of losses which can be associated with the aging process, it is probable that one out of five elderly persons will spend part of his/her life in a long term care institute. Such living arrangements may have negative effects on the mental health of its residents, because placement is often accompanied by feelings of lack of control over one's own life, and inability to make decisions regarding daily issues. Elderly persons living in the community (227: 78 men, 149 women) and 91 living in nursing homes (33 men, 58 women), in both independent and frail functional status (ADL), participated in the study. Findings show significantly more hopelessness, helplessness, and depression among residents of nursing homes compared to those living in the community, differences between men and women living in both environments, and a correlation between other demographic variables and the three dependent variables of the study. The conclusions of the study indicate a need to pay interdisciplinary attention to the mental health of elderly residents of nursing homes, particularly in the preliminary stages of placement and adjustment.
Multisensory integration of redundant and complementary cues

During multisensory integration, information from distinct sensory systems that refers to the same physical event is combined. For example, the sound and image that an individual generates as s/he interacts with the world, will provide the nervous system with multiple cues which can be integrated to estimate the individual’s position in the environment. However, the information that is perceived through different sensory pathways/systems can be qualitatively different. The information can be redundant and describe the same property of an event in a common reference frame (i.e., the image and sound referring to the individual’s location), or it can be complementary. Combining complementary information can be advantageous in that it extends the range and richness of the information available to the nervous system, but can also be superfluous and unnecessary to the task at hand – i.e. olfactory cues about the individuals perfume can increase the richness of the representation but not necessarily aid in localisation. Over the last century or so, a large body of research has focused on different aspects of multisensory interactions at both the behavioural and neural levels. It is currently unclear whether the mechanisms underlying multisensory interactions for both type of cue are similar or not. Moreover, the evidence for differences in behavioural outcome, dependent on the nature of the cue, is growing. Such cue property effects possibly reflect a processing heuristic for more efficient parsing of the vast amount of sensory information available to the nervous system at any one time. The present thesis assesses the effects of cue properties (i.e., redundant or complementary) on multisensory processing and reports a series of experiments demonstrating that the nature of the cue, defined by the task of the observer, influences whether the cues compete for representation as a result of interacting, or whether instead multisensory information produces an optimal increase in reliability of the event estimate. Moreover, a bridging series of experiments demonstrate the key role of redundancy in inferring that two signals have a common physical cause and should be integrated, despite conflict in the cues. The experiments provide insights into the different strategies adopted by the nervous system and some tentative evidence for possible, distinct underlying mechanisms.
Drobne drogi oddechowe w chorobach obturacyjnych płuc

Okre¶lenie drobne drogi oddechowe (DDO) dotyczy oskrzeli poni? ej 7. generacji, o ¶rednicy mniejszej ni? 2 mm. W artykule przedstawiono dowody, ? e ta cze¶ae drzewa oskrzelowego charakteryzuje sie pewnymi odmiennymi cechami zarowno w kontek¶cie budowy, fizjologii, jak i patofizjologii. Szczegolnie wa? n± funkcje odgrywaj± DDO w chorobach obturacyjnych uk³adu oddechowego. U zdrowych osob opor DDO nie jest wiekszy ni? 10% ca³kowitego oporu drog oddechowych, natomiast u pacjentow chorych na choroby obturacyjne, poprzez na³o? enie sie elementu zapalnego i skurczowego ich opor mo? e stanowiae nawet 60% oporu ca³kowitego. Zmiany w DDO w astmie oskrzelowej i przewlek³ej obturacyjnej chorobie p³uc (POChP) s± odpowiedzialne tak? e za powstawanie tak zwanej pu³apki powietrznej, szczegolnie w POChP. Nie ma obecnie doskona³ych metod diagnostyki DDO, w zale? no¶ci od do¶wiadczen w³asnych w ro? nych o¶rodkach przeprowadza sie tomografie komputerow± wysokiej rozdzielczo¶ci, badanie pletyzmograficzne ca³ego cia³a (stosunku objeto¶ci zalegaj±cej/ca³kowitej ilo¶ci zawartego w p³ucach powietrza [RV/TLC] lub innych parametrow). Pewne nadzieje wi±? e sie obecnie z po³±czeniem oscylometrii impulsacyjnej, testu wyp³ukiwania azotu w jednym wydechu i pomiaru wydychanego tlenku azotu(eNO). Ze wzgledu na coraz szersz± wiedze o istotnej roli DDO w patofizjologii chorob obturacyjnych, stworzono superdrobne aerozole, ktorych cz±stki zarowno teoretycznie, jak i praktycznie (do¶wiadczenia na impaktorze kaskadowym, skany ozonowe po inhalacjach) mog± wnikaae do tej cze¶ci drog oddechowych. Autorzy przedstawiaj± wybrane badania z dwiema grupami lekow — agonistami receptora b2-adrenergicznego (BA) i wziewnymi glikokortykosteroidami (wGKS). W przypadku tych pierwszych nie udowodniono, ? e tak g³eboka depozycja w drogach oddechowych przek³ada sie na poprawe efektu klinicznego. Natomiast w przypadku wGKS, g³eboka depozycja ultradrobnego aerozolu powoduje mo? liwo¶ae zmniejszenia dawki leku (nawet ponad dwukrotnej) przy utrzymaniu tego samego efektu terapeutycznego (poprawa indeksu terapeutycznego). Reasumuj±c, DDO wydaj± sie byae miejscem podstawowych procesow w rozwoju chorob obturacyjnych i w zwi±zku z tym celem potencjalnych terapii.
Questões emergentes das actuais negociações entre as crenças da imagem analógica e da imagemdigital

O espaco re-apresenta-se hoje como uma das principais forcas da mobilizacao politica das civilizacoes. A sua percepcao e fixacao dependem muito de imagens e modos de ver que tanto o captavam como o estendiam infinitamente. O surgimento da fotografia fazia emergir a promessa da sua delimitacao mas tambem o da sua refracao e desterritorializacao. Partindo de concepcoes e teorias do espaco e da experiencia de autores como Michael Foucalt, Edward T. Hall e Vilem Flusser, procura-se articular a forma como a tecnologia fotografica contribuiu para convencoes e perspectivas de um espaco subjectivado e apolitico que preparou o terreno para a firmacao de espacos virtuais, leves e nao concretos, onde parecem vir a centrar-se os principais eixos da experiencia do seculo XXI.
Estudi de la comunicació no verbal en contextos d'instal·lacionsinteractives amb interacció de cos sencer

Treball realitzat en el context de l'assignatura de Comunicacio Intercultural del professor Miquel Rodrigo Alsina dintre del Master Oficial Interdisciplinari dels Sistemes Cognitius i els Mitjans Interactius de la Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
Modeling and simulation for the development of a Quad-Rotor UAV capable of indoor flight

This paper presents a modeling and simulation tool for the design and development of a Quad-Rotor UAV, which is capable of indoor flight with the aid of MEMS-based sensors and ultrasonic rangefinders. The vehicle requires an attitude stabilizing controller to allow it to be flown indoors without a high degree of operating skill. Attitude estimations are difficult without GPS aiding and expensive inertial sensors. An Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) is proposed to estimate the attitude states with the aid of rangefinders, but the system must be thoroughly tested in simulation. The paper presents a dynamics model and simulation tool for design and validation of the controller and state estimator prior to flight test. The simulation is performed under Mathworks’ Matlab/Simulink environment. A method for real-time simulation and visualization is also developed.
A SOAP capable HF-RFID-Reader

This paper describes an RFID system mainly comprising an HF-RFID reader with an ethernet-based SOAP extension. SOAP is the abbreviation for Simple Object Access Protocol and provides the user with an easy-to-use alternative for exchanging data with the RFID reader via http or https protocol. The big advantage provided by SOAP is the ability to remotely control the HF reader via remote procedure calls by using a specific XML format with communication over ethernet. Besides the functionality of SOAP, the reader incorporates a compact web server and the possibility to access the reader via telnet or Universal Serial Bus connection. Regarding the RFID features, the reader supports ISO 14443 A (MIFARE extension) and ISO 15693 standard at 13.56 MHz. In principle it is possible to realize such a system with other standards, e.g. Gen2 (RFID standard EPCglobal UHF Class 1 Generation 2) at UHF frequencies.
Education maintenance allowance: the first year: a quantitative evaluation

One of the main aims of the Government's Connexions Strategy is to provide financial support for young people who might otherwise be unable to remain in fulltime education post-16; that is, after the end of compulsory schooling. EMA is a means-tested allowance available to 16 to 19 year olds. It aims to encourage participation, retention and achievement among young people, particularly those from low-income families. This evaluation focuses on the four models of EMA that were introduced into the original 15 pilot LEAs in September 1999. The pilots have subsequently been extended to a further 41 LEA areas. As well as evaluating the impact of EMA on participation, retention and achievement, the evaluation must also make recommendations on the level at which EMA should be set; the effectiveness of bonuses for retention and achievement; and to whom EMA should be paid (parent or young person). The evaluation will also address a range of subsidiary issues relating to the effect of EMA on young people's lives. The evaluation has four main elements, which combine both qualitative and quantitative research methods. This report focuses on the impact of EMA on those most directly affected, young people and their parents. It describes quantitative findings from the first wave of interviews with the first cohort of young people potentially eligible for EMA; those who completed compulsory education in summer 1999.
A method of coding television signals based on edge detection

A method is described for transmitting digitalized video signals to reduce channel capacity front that needed for standard PCM. This method takes advantage of the inability of the human eye to notice the exact amplitude and shape of short brightness transients. The transmitted information consists of the amplitudes and times of occurrence of the “edge” points of video signals. These selected samples are coarsely quantized if they belong to high-frequency regions, and the receiver then interpolates straight lines between the samples. The system was simulated on the IBM 704 computer. The processed pictures and obtained channel-capacity savings are presented.
Warping and morphing of graphical objects

1 Introduction to Basic Concepts 2 Graphical Objects 3 Transformation of Graphical Objects 4 Warping and Morphing 5 Domain and Range Morphing 6 Image Mapping 7 Introduction to Graphical Objects 8 Description of Graphical Objects 9 Representation of Graphical Objects 10 Reconstruction of Graphical Objects 11 Introduction to Transformations of Graphical Objects 12 Specification of Transformations 13 Computation of Transformations 14 Warping and Morphing Techniques 15 Introduction to A Tour of Warping and Morphing 16 Image-Based Rendering 17 Warping and Morphing of Plane Curves 18 Warping and Morphing of Images 19 Warping and Morphing of Surfaces 20 Warping and Morphing of Volumetric Objects 21 The Morphos System
Evolutionary algorithms with and without adaptive mutation in AI based cryptography

The key role of cryptography is to make cipher so hard to reproduce without knowing all the details that no one besides the recipient could decipher the message. Those algorithms which are used nowadays gets its security mostly from highly reliable algorithms and/or complicated cryptographic keys. Unfortunately, those human-made methods aren‘t invulnerable so sooner or later they compromise. So, it could be really useful to make a cipher which could change. But currently only neural networks are capable of thing known as transfer learning. In this article similar method was proposed in order to make it possible to re-learn already established evolutionary algorithm to do new, similar task.
Diseño de una aplicación para el tratamiento de imágenes dermatoscópicas

Esta memoria recoge el diseno de una aplicacion para la clasificacion de imagenes dermatoscopicas en funcion de si contienen nevus comunes benignos o melanomas. Para llevar a cabo este proyecto se ha realizado un estudio previo de la enfermedad y de las tecnicas de deteccion y diagnosis de esta. Tras la realizacion de un analisis de varios de los sistemas de diagnostico por ordenador del melanoma descritos en la actualidad, se ha implementado un completo algoritmo que adquiere las caracteristicas de la lesion y las parametriza para dar lugar a un clasificado de imagen binario de malignidad. Con la ayuda de dos bases de datos de imagenes dermatoscopicas, PH2 Dataset y ISIC Archive, se ha desarrollado el analisis y evaluacion de la aplicacion. Teniendo en cuenta la limitacion funcional de estar disenado para estas resoluciones y magnificaciones de imagen, se ha podido extraer una sensibilidad del 97.5% acompanada de una especificidad nada despreciable del 62.5%.
Block-safe Information Flow Control

Flow-sensitive dynamic enforcement mechanisms for information flow labels offer increased permissiveness. However, these mechanisms may leak sensitive information when deciding to block insecure executions. When enforcing two labels (e.g., secret and public), sensitive information is leaked from the context in which this decision is taken. When enforcing arbitrary labels, additional sensitive information is leaked from the labels involved in the decision to block an execution. We give examples where, contrary to a common belief, a mechanism designed to enforce two labels may not be able to enforce arbitrary labels, due to this additional leakage. In fact, it is not trivial to design a dynamic enforcement that offers increased permissiveness, handles multiple labels, and does not introduce information leakage due to blocking insecure executions. In this paper, we present a dynamic enforcement mechanism of information flow labels that has all these three attributes. Our mechanism is not purely dynamic, since it uses a light-weight, on-the-fly, static analysis of untaken branches. We prove that the set of all normally terminated and blocked traces of a program, which is executed under our mechanism, satisfies noninterference, against principals that make observations throughout execution. ∗Supported in part by AFOSR grants F9550-16-0250 and grants from Microsoft. †Research supported by NSERC.
The Socio-Economic Impact of Land Use and Land Cover Change on the Inhabitants of Mount Bambouto Caldera of the Western Highlands of Cameroon

This work assessed the impact of land use and land cover (LULC) change on the socio-economic conditions of the inhabitants in the Mount Bambouto Caldera from 1980-2016. To achieve this, three time series satellite images; Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) (1980), Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM) (2001), and Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) (2016) scenes were employed to investigate the changes in LULC. The use of satellite images was supplemented with individual interviews, discussions with focus groups and key informants, and direct field observations. Five categories of LULC classes were identified namely: thick woody vegetation (natural forest and oil palms), light vegetation (croplands), savannah (grasslands), buildings (settlements), and bare grounds. The results showed that between 1980 and 2016, croplands, buildings and bare lands increased by 4%, 0.43% and 5.7% respectively while savannah/grassland and natural forest decreased by 4.4% and 5.8% respectively. Household survey revealed soil fertility decline and lack of credit schemes to be major constraints to crop production. Many religious holidays contribute to seasonal food shortages and the community faces a host of socio-economic and institutional challenges. Consequently, majority of house-holds are destitute, live in abject poverty; which is an indication of the need for interventions by government and other development stakeholders to tackle the problems of soil fertility, land use change and food insecurity.