Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Improving the Performance of Mammography

Theory of Tomosynthesis Conventional x-ray mammography is a two-dimensional imaging modality. In conventional mammography, pathologies of interest are sometimes difficult to visualize because of the clutter of signals from objects above and below. This is because the signal detected at a location on the film cassette or digital detector is dependent upon the total attenuation of all the tissues above the location. Tomosynthesis1,2,3,7,8 is a three-dimensional method of imaging that can reduce or eliminate the tissue overlap effect. While stabilizing the breast, images are acquired at a number of different x-ray source angles. Objects at different heights in the breast display differently in the different projections. In Figure 1, two objects (a spiculated lesion and ellipse) superimpose when the x-rays are at 0o, but the off-axis acquisitions shift the objects’ shadows relative to one another in the images. The final step in the tomosynthesis procedure is reconstructing the data to generate images that enhance objects from a given height by appropriate shifting of the projections relative to one another. An example is shown in Figure 2 where we reconstruct a cross sectional slice at one specific height. In this example, the images are summed, shifting one relative to another in a specific way that reinforces the spiculated lesion object and reduces the contrast of the ellipsoidal object by blurring it out. Note that additional acquisitions are not required to enhance the visibility of objects at any given height—one set of acquired data can be reprocessed to generate the entire 3D volume set.
FACTORS AND LIMITATIONS INFLUENCING THE DEVELOPMENT OF ENTERPRISE DIVIDEND POLICY: EXPERIENCE OF RUSSIA

The mystery of dividends has been worrying the researchers of foreign capital markets for many years, but an active process of studying the practice and the features of dividend policy creation among public companies only starts. The maximization of business value for owners is the main goal of management. Therefore, financial relationships with owners, whether they are represented by sole proprietors or by the millions of shareholders of a large corporation, make a significant impact on the development strategy of any firm. In economic practice, the adoption of management decisions in this area is carried out within the framework of the dividend policy. Theoretical aspects of dividend policy are very multifaceted, however, the following issues are the main ones: do the payment decisions to owners affect the value of a firm and what should be an optimal value of payments? Despite numerous studies in this field abroad, these issues remain the subject of debate among scholars and practitioners. In this article we examined the factors and limitations that influence the development of dividend policy among Russian enterprises.
Highly proficient L2 speakers still need to attend to a talker’s mouth when processing L2 speech

ABSTRACT Adults attend to a talker’s mouth whenever confronted with challenging speech processing situations. We investigated whether L2 speakers also attend more to the mouth and whether their proficiency level modulates such attention. First, in Experiment 1, we presented native speakers of English and Spanish with videos of a talker speaking in their native and non-native language while measuring eye-gaze to the talker’s face. As predicted, participants attended more to the talker’s mouth in response to non-native than native speech. Then, Experiment 2 explored whether language proficiency affects attention to the talker’s eyes and mouth when perceiving non-native, second-language speech. Results indicated that non-native speakers attended more to the mouth than native speakers, regardless of their level of L2 expertise. These results not only confirm that attention to a talker’s mouth increases whenever speech-processing becomes more challenging, but crucially, they show that this is also true in highly competent L2 speakers.
Characterization of a campus Internet workload

The campus network is a microcosm of the entire Internet, containing various types of users utilizing a variety of Internet applications. This paper characterizes the campus Internet workload for a mid-size university consisting of over 10,000 users. The paper characterizes bandwidth usage, top bandwidth consuming applications and users’ Internet usage patterns on our campus network. The total amount of data transferred between campus and the Internet for an entire year, as well as the data amounts for individual application classes are presented. The paper also distinguishes the signiﬁcant differences between students and faculty usage patterns. Over the past few years, there has been a major shift in application usage on campus networks. Real-time and bandwidth intensive applications dominate the workload of academic networks. The work-load characterization in this paper identiﬁes the degree of impact that these applications have on system resources and user workloads.
Gene expression under water deficit in loblolly pine (Pinus taeda):isolation and characterization of cDNA clones.

Poly(A + ) RNA was extracted from roots of loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) seedlings subjected to gradual and prolonged water deficit. This RNA was used to construct a cDNA library. A number of cDNA clones were isolated whose expression was induced by water deficit. Four of these cDNA clones, designated pLP2, pLP3, pLP4 and pLP5, were characterized further. Each of these pine genes has unique characteristics either in sequence or pattern of expression. The protein encoded by pLP2 shows 91% identity to S-adenosylmethionine synthetase from a range of plants. The protein encoded by pLP3 is similar to a tomato protein induced by water deficit and during fruit ripening, but the pine protein possesses a unique 34-amino-acid region near the amino terminal. The LP4 protein is similar to stellacyanin, a copper-binding protein in the Japanese lacquer tree, but possesses a proline/serine-rich carboxy terminus not found in other plants. Clone pLP5 encodes a novel glycine-rich protein with similarity to both silk fibroin and the rat chondroitin core protein, but the putative pine protein is distinct from previously characterized glycine-rich proteins. Transcript levels of the four genes rose under moderate water deficit stress and then declined as stress became severe (1 month without water), with the exception of pLP5 mRNA, which remained at elevated levels even under severe stress. The possible roles of the encoded proteins in cell wall reinforcement are discussed.
Farmers' Perceptions of Pesticide Efficacy: Reflections on the Importance of Pest Management Practices Adoption

Few integrated pest management programs pay specific attention to the decision-making process of farmers in choosing and applying pest management interventions. Thus, practical recommendations provided through extension services frequently fail to be adopted by farmers. A survey of farmers was conducted in the rural area of Arsanjan County in Fars province of southern Iran to explore farmers' perceptions of pesticide efficacy and to evaluate whether these perceptions are reflected in attitudes towards the importance of pest management practices adoption. The study revealed two distinct groups of farmers: group A with farmers who clearly had a positive opinion about the efficacy of the current pesticide products (i.e., they felt that current pesticides are generally effective), and group B with farmers who had a rather negative opinion about the efficacy of the current pesticide products (i.e., they felt that current pesticides are not so effective). Farmers in group A considered IPM principles to be the most important of three areas of pest management practices, they were aware of the potential health hazards of pesticide use, and they were interested in knowing about other alternatives for pest control besides the use of pesticides. By contrast, farmers in group B rated IPM principles as less important, they felt that pesticide use is the sole method of pest control, and they tended to increase pesticide use every year to control pests. Moreover, farmers in group B were not aware of the potential health hazards of pesticide use. Perceptions of pesticide efficacy were found to play a major role in the behavior of farmers towards the use of pesticides and the adoption of alternative methods of pest control such as IPM. Evidently, farmers' perceptions of pesticide efficacy should receive special attention by extension services as a critical point of intervention for rational pesticide use and adoption of IPM programs.
Synthesis of site-specific antibody-drug conjugates by ADP-ribosyl cyclases

A new approach is developed for generating site-specific antibody-drug conjugates for targeted therapy. Most of the current antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) in clinic are heterogeneous mixtures. To produce homogeneous ADCs, established procedures often require multiple steps or long reaction times. The introduced mutations or foreign sequences may cause high immunogenicity. Here, we explore a new concept of transforming CD38 enzymatic activity into a facile approach for generating site-specific ADCs. This was achieved through coupling bifunctional antibody-CD38 fusion proteins with designer dinucleotide-based covalent inhibitors with stably attached payloads. The resulting adenosine diphosphate–ribosyl cyclase–enabled ADC (ARC-ADC) with a drug-to-antibody ratio of 2 could be rapidly generated through single-step conjugation. The generated ARC-ADC targeting human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) displays excellent stability and potency against HER2-positive breast cancer both in vitro and in vivo. This proof-of-concept study demonstrates a new strategy for production of site-specific ADCs. It may provide a general approach for the development of a novel class of ADCs with potentially enhanced properties.
Anti-twinning in nanoscale tungsten

Tungsten nanowires showed an unexpected anti-twinning phenomenon, which is strongly size-dependent. Nanomaterials often surprise us with unexpected phenomena. Here, we report a discovery of the anti-twinning deformation, previously thought impossible, in nanoscale body-centered cubic (BCC) tungsten crystals. By conducting in situ transmission electron microscopy nanomechanical testing, we observed the nucleation and growth of anti-twins in tungsten nanowires with diameters less than about 20 nm. During anti-twinning, a shear displacement of 1/3〈111〉 occurs on every successive {112} plane, in contrast to an opposite shear displacement of 1/6〈1¯1¯1¯〉 by ordinary twinning. This asymmetry in the atomic-scale shear pathway leads to a much higher resistance to anti-twinning than ordinary twinning. However, anti-twinning can become active in nanosized BCC crystals under ultrahigh stresses, due to the limited number of plastic shear carriers in small crystal volumes. Our finding of the anti-twinning phenomenon has implications for harnessing unconventional deformation mechanisms to achieve high mechanical preformation by nanomaterials.
Identifying blurry car license number plate using machine learning

Equipment used in a crime is a clue to solve cases. Cars are often used in crimes for transportation. Security cameras are set in everywhere of downtowns. Drive recorders are set in many cars in Japan. Security cameras and drive recorders can record an image of a license number plate. However, the license number plate is often recorded in a small part of the image. It is needed to enlarge the image to read. However, the enlarged image is in low-resolution and blurry. Therefore, edges of the image are not clear. It is difficult to read the number plate from the low-resolution and blurry image. Machine learning has been used to identify blurry letters in an image. Performances of machine learning method change depending on classifiers. In this paper, performances of five classifiers for identifying the license number plate were compared. The proposed research can potentially contribute in solving criminal cases.
Fast total-variation-based JPEG artifact removal via the accelerated ADMM

Total-variation-based techniques for JPEG artifact removal have been proposed in the literature, which first formulate the artifact removal as a constrained minimization problem, and then solve it based on a convex optimization method. However, the techniques often require large computational cost due to a large number of iteration steps. In this paper, we thus propose a fast solution technique based on another convex optimization method, referred to as the accelerated alternating direction method of multipliers. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed solution technique is advantageous over the conventional ones in terms of computational cost.
Flexible learning, rather than inveterate innovation or copying, drives cumulative knowledge gain

Cumulative cultural evolution is driven by pragmatic individuals who know when to copy, innovate, explore, and take risks flexibly. Human technology is characterized by cumulative cultural knowledge gain, yet researchers have limited knowledge of the mix of copying and innovation that maximizes progress. Here, we analyze a unique large-scale dataset originating from collaborative online programming competitions to investigate, in a setting of real-world complexity, how individual differences in innovation, social-information use, and performance generate technological progress. We find that cumulative knowledge gain is primarily driven by pragmatists, willing to copy, innovate, explore, and take risks flexibly, rather than by pure innovators or habitual copiers. Our study also reveals a key role for prestige in information transfer.
CSSNet: image-based clothing style switch

We propose a framework, the CSSNet to exchange the upper clothes across people with different pose, body shape and clothing. We present an approach consists of three stages. (1) Disentangling the features, such as cloth, body pose and semantic segmentation from source and target person. (2) Synthesizing realistic and high resolution target dressing style images. (3) Transfer the complex logo from source clothing to target wearing. Our proposed end-to-end neural network architecture which can generate the specific person to wear the target clothing. In addition, we also propose a post process method to recover the complex logos on network outputs which are missing or blurring. Our results display more realistic and higher quality than previous methods. Our method can also preserve cloth shape and texture simultaneously.
Temporal and contextual aggregation for road marking semantic segmentation

In this paper, we propose convolutional neural networks for semantic segmentation on road markings in the situation where sequential segmentation ground truth masks are available. The proposed model aggregates the temporal information and the context information from the multiple frames. Moreover, we employ CGNet as the backbone network to reduce trainable parameters and computation speed. In the experiment, we evaluate the model using the Gifu-city Road Marking Segmentation Dataset, which includes road markings of open roads in Gifu city. As a result, the segmentation performance such as a white center line and white dash line is an improvement.
Post-stroke dysphagia: An exploration of initial identification and management performed by nurses and doctors

Background South African speech-language therapists are the only health professionals charged with dysphagia rehabilitation. However, registered nurses and doctors are often initial healthcare contact points for post-stroke dysphagia. Notwithstanding service concerns, they do indeed identify and manage post-stroke dysphagia. However, little is known about specifically what they do during these initial clinical encounters. Objective To explore how doctors and registered nurses, on initial clinical contact, identify and manage post-stroke dysphagia. Method A quantitative descriptive survey design, with non-probability, purposive sampling, was used. Twenty-one registered nurses and four doctors at a private South African hospital self-administered a questionnaire. Univariate analyses were completed by calculating frequency distributions of nurses’ and doctors’ identification and management practices. Results Most (86%) did not use a formal screening tool. Indicators screened informally included: presence of drooling (84%) or gag reflex (76%), level of alertness (80%) and spontaneous saliva swallow (80%). Participants neglected important indicators like voluntary cough and vocal quality. Management provided included head of bed elevation (96%), speech-language therapist referrals (92%), nasogastric tube insertions (88%), intravenous fluids (84%) and positional adjustments (76%). Alternative management included total parenteral nutrition (52%), syringe feeding (48%), swallow muscle strengthening exercises (56%) and swallow manoeuvres (52%). Conclusion Results indicated that doctors and registered nurses under-utilised important dysphagia indicators and used potentially harmful management practices like syringe feeding. Management practices further included out-of-scope methods like dysphagia rehabilitation exercises or manoeuvres. Recommendations include peer dysphagia screening training using formal tools and basic dysphagia management methods to better equip doctors and registered nurses when they clinically engage post-stroke patients.
The Circulating Fatty Acid Transporter Soluble CD36 Is Not Associated with Carotid Atherosclerosis in Subjects with Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

This study aimed to determine the association of fatty acid transporter plasma soluble cluster of differentiation 36 (sCD36) with subclinical carotid atherosclerosis (SCA). A cross-sectional study was conducted in 1023 subjects, 225 with type 1 diabetes (T1D), 276 with type 2 diabetes (T2D) and 522 who were nondiabetic. Carotid atherosclerotic plaque (CAP) presence was determined using B-mode carotid ultrasound imaging. sCD36 were analysed by ELISA, and CD36 surface receptor and mRNA expression were measured by flow cytometry and real-time PCR. Logistic regression models were used to evaluate sCD36 as a biomarker of SCA. Up to 376 (36.75%) participants had at least one CAP, 76 T1D, 164 T2D and 136 without diabetes, while the remaining 647 (63.25%) did not have any CAP. There were no differences in sCD36 between patients with and without CAP in T1D (p = 0.287) or T2D (p = 0.513). Although nondiabetic subjects with plaques had lower sCD36 levels than those without (p = 0.023), the multivariate models revealed no association of sCD36 with CAP in any of the three study groups. No differences were found in surface CD36 or CD36 mRNA expression between the patients with and without CAP. sCD36 is not associated with SCA in type 1 or type 2 diabetic or in nondiabetic subjects.
Examination of intestinal conversion of cholesterol to coprostanol in 633 healthy subjects reveals an age- and sex-dependent pattern

Intestinal cholesterol can be absorbed by the host or converted by the intestinal microbiota. The main metabolite of cholesterol conversion is coprostanol, which is unabsorbable. The aim of the present study was to examine the intestinal microbial conversion of cholesterol to coprostanol in healthy subjects. Cholesterol and coprostanol were determined in faecal samples from individuals living in Norway, Scotland and Sweden and examined for possible relationship to age (<36 years, 36–50 years and >50 years old) and gender. The results were expressed as the percentage of coprostanol in the total amount of cholesterol plus coprostanol (coprostanol%). For purposes of classification, subjects were divided in non-converters (<5% conversion rate), low converters (between 5% and <40% conversion rate) and high converters (at least 40% conversion rate). Thus, faecal samples from 633 healthy individuals were examined. As no differences between countries were observed, the data were pooled. Overall, in the male group, a higher percentage of non-converters was observed in the youngest group compared with the two other age groups (17% compared with 7% and 2% in the two other age groups, respectively, p<0.05), whereas the percentage of high converters was increased in the oldest age group compared with the other age groups (84% vs 62% and 60%, respectively, p<0.05). In females, the percentage of converters was of the same order of magnitude in all age groups. We report a reduction in the number of non-converters and low converters of intestinal cholesterol to coprostanol in the oldest male group. We hypothesize that the observed alterations in the male group correspond to a loss of healthy subjects (by disease or death) among the non-converters and low converters.
The Absorption Characteristics of Nonvolatile Components in a Water Extraction From Amomi fructus as Determined by In Situ Single-Pass Intestinal Perfusion and High-Performance Liquid Chromatography

Background Amomi fructus is a famous traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) that can exert beneficial effects during the treatment of gastrointestinal diseases and is used widely in China and other countries in Southeast Asia. However, the nonvolatile active ingredients that are present in the water extractions from A. fructus used to treat gastrointestinal diseases have yet to be elucidated. The goal of this study was to identify the nonvolatile active ingredients of A. fructus. Methods We used an in situ single-pass intestinal perfusion (SPIP) model to identify the active ingredients of A. fructus that play significant roles in gastrointestinal absorption. In addition, we developed a high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method to identify key fractions in intestinal outflow perfusate. Results Nineteen components were identified in a water extraction from A. fructus; these exhibited different absorption capabilities in different intestinal segments. Of these, six components were determined by the newly developed HPLC method: catechin, vanillic acid, epicatechin, polydatin, isoquercitrin, and quercitrin. Conclusions The current study aimed to identify the active ingredients present in water extractions prepared from A. fructus in a single-intestinal perfusate from rats. Our findings provide an experimental basis to explain the pharmacodynamic actions of A. fructus.
Develop or Dissipate Fogs? Evaluating an IoT Application in Fog and Cloud Simulations

The recent advances in Information and Communication Technology had a significant impact on distributed systems by giving birth to novel paradigms like Cloud Computing, Fog Computing and the Internet of Things (IoT). Clouds and fogs have promising properties to serve IoT needs, which require enormous data to be stored, processed and analysed generated by their sensors and devices. Since such IoT-Fog-Cloud systems can be very complex, it is inevitable to use simulators to investigate them. Cloud simulation is highly studied by now, and solutions offering fog modelling capabilities have also started to appear. In this paper we briefly compare fog modelling approaches of simulators, and present detailed evaluations in two of them to show the effects of utilizing fog resources over cloud ones to execute IoT applications. We also share our experiences in working with these simulators to help researchers and practitioners, who aim to perform future research in