Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evulation of Intranasal Anatomy and Pathologies in the Etiopathogenesis and Treatment of Nasolacrimal Duct Obstruction

Methods: Thirty two patients with distal lacrimal system pathology who underwent endonasal endoscopic DCR surgery in the Ear Nose and Throat Clinic were examined with endoscopy and their computed tomographies were evaluated for the nasal and paranasal pathologies. These findings were compared with 50 healthy subjects’ physical examination and computed tomography results. During the DCR operation patients were re-evaluated peroperatively for the nasal pathologies to be corrected if necessary. Results: No statistically significant difference was detected for the nasal septal deviation, agger nasi, concha bullosa, osteomeatal complex or ethmoid pathologies.
Determinants of perception of heartburn and regurgitation

Background and aim: It is not known why some reflux episodes evoke symptoms and others do not. We investigated the determinants of perception of gastro-oesophageal reflux. Methods: In 32 patients with symptoms suggestive of gastro-oesophageal reflux, 24 hour ambulatory pH and impedance monitoring was performed after cessation of acid suppressive therapy. In the 20 patients who had at least one symptomatic reflux episode, characteristics of symptomatic and asymptomatic reflux episodes were compared. Results: A total of 1807 reflux episodes were detected, 203 of which were symptomatic. Compared with asymptomatic episodes, symptomatic episodes were associated with a larger pH drop (p<0.001), lower nadir pH (p<0.05), and higher proximal extent (p<0.005). Symptomatic reflux episodes had a longer volume and acid clearance time (p<0.05 and p<0.002). Symptomatic episodes were preceded by a higher oesophageal cumulative acid exposure time (p<0.05). The proximal extent of episodes preceding regurgitation was larger than those preceding heartburn; 14.8% of the symptomatic reflux episodes were weakly acidic. In total, 426 pure gas reflux episodes occurred, of which 12 were symptomatic. Symptomatic pure gas reflux was more frequently accompanied by a pH drop than asymptomatic gas reflux (p<0.05). Conclusions: Heartburn and regurgitation are more likely to be evoked when the pH drop is large, proximal extent of the refluxate is high, and volume and acid clearance is delayed. Sensitisation of the oesophagus occurs by preceding acid exposure. Weakly acidic reflux is responsible for only a minority of symptoms in patients off therapy. Pure gas reflux associated with a pH drop (“acid vapour”) can be perceived as heartburn and regurgitation.
Adaptive physical resource block design for enhancing voice capacity over LTE network in PMR context

In this paper, we introduce a new Adaptive Physical Resource Block Design for Enhancing Voice Capacity over Long-Term Evolution (LTE) Downlink in Professional Mobile Radio (PMR) Context. In this method, we reorganize the structure of the Physical Resource Block (PRB) to optimize the voice capacity of LTE downlink in the PMR Context. Available PRBs in each subframe are reorganized into a number of Sub Physical Resource Blocks. The number of control symbols can be selected flexibly. The proposed method allows reducing both data overhead and control overhead issues for Voice services over LTE downlink in the PMR context. On average, the voice capacity gain were shown up to 117.2% in comparison with the standard LTE.
Load Balancing with Analogy to Thermal Di ff usion for Dynamic P 2 P File-Sharing Environments ∗

In this paper, we propose a file replication method to achieve load balancing in terms of write access to storage device (“write storage access load balancing” for short) in unstructured peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing networks in which the popularity trend of queried files varies dynamically. The proposed method uses a write storage access ratio as a load balance index value in order to stabilize dynamic P2P file-sharing environments adaptively. In the proposed method, each peer autonomously controls the file replication ratio, which is defined as a probability to create the replica of the file in order to uniform write storage access loads in the similar way to thermal diffusion phenomena. Theoretical analysis results show that the behavior of the proposed method actually has an analogy to a thermal diffusion equation. In addition, simulation results reveal that the proposed method has an ability to realize write storage access load balancing in the dynamic P2P file-sharing environments. key words: P2P file sharing, file replication, write storage access load balancing, thermal diffusion, dynamic environment
Concentrations of androgens in human benign prostatic hypertrophic tissues incubated for up to three days

Twenty‐one samples of surgically removed benign prostatic hypertrophy (BPH) were brought to the laboratory either in an insulated container (ambient temperature) or on ice. They were cleaned and roughly minced at room temperature. In 18 cases, samples of up to 1 g were kept at various temperatures (4°C, c. 20°C, and 37°C) for up to 77 h; some were taken for storage (— 70°C) at the beginning and others at various times within this period. In three cases, portions of tissue were incubated in liquid medium in the absence and presence of testosterone. The concentrations of six androgens (testosterone, 5α‐dihydrostestosterone (5α‐DHT), 5α‐androstane‐3α,17β‐diol, androstenedione, 5α‐androstanedione, and androsterone) were measured by radioimmunoassays.
Facteur V Leiden (VL) et Résistance à la Protéine C activée (PCA), Facteur II Leiden (G20210 G>A), aspects physiopathologiques et stratégies diagnostiques

La decouverte des mutations V et II Leiden a ete l'occasion pour beaucoup de biologistes d'entrer dans le monde ' de la biologie moleculaire a partir de 1994. Diagnostic moleculaire le plus frequemment recherche avec la fibrose cystique et le X fragile, la recherche des mutations Leiden a connu une evolution rapide des techniques fonctionnelles de screening et des techniques moleculaires de mise en evidence. Les mecanismes expliquant le lien entre la presence d'une mutation ponctuelle Vou II Leiden et le risque clinique de developper un evenement thromboembolique ont ete explicites. Cette revue expose les aspects physiopathologiques de ces deux mutations, elle aborde les questions liees a l'indication des tests et aux strategies diagnostiques associant des methodes fonctionnelles et moleculaires.
Maintaining diversity by clustering in dynamic environments

Maintaining population diversity is a crucial issue for the performance of evolutionary algorithms (EAs) in dynamic environments. In the literature of EAs for dynamic optimization problems (DOPs), many studies have been done to address this issue based on change detection techniques. However, many changes are hard or impractical to be detected in real-world applications. Although, some research has been done by means of maintaining diversity without change detection. These methods are not effective because the continuous focus on diversity slows down the optimization process. This paper presents a maintaining diversity method without change detection based on a clustering technique. The method was implemented through particle swarm optimization (PSO), which was named CPSOR. The performance of the CPSOR algorithm was evaluated on the GDBG benchmark. A comparison study with another algorithm based on change detection has shown the effectiveness of the CPSOR algorithm for tracking and locating the global optimum in dynamic environments.
Prediction handover trigger scheme for reducing handover latency in two-tier Femtocell networks

Service continuity in two-tier Femtocell networks, especially impaired by the handover latency, remains as a problem to be solved. Motivated by this problems, a Layer 3 prediction handover scheme is proposed, which can be integrated into the user equipment (UE) part of industry-preferable mobile-assisted network-controlled handover (MANCH). The main contributions of the proposed scheme include: 1) based on time series analysis theory, the prediction model of Layer 3 (L3) filtered reference signal received power (RSRP) is constructed to activate L3 handover prior to Layer 2 (L2) handover procedure; 2) in order to improve the reliability and robustness of the L3 prediction model, a two-priority handover trigger event evaluation method is designed, where the classical and prediction handover trigger event evaluation parts co-exist, and the former is prior to the latter; 3) the relationship between defined prediction handover gain (PHG) and the probability of false handover prediction trigger is derived. In simulations, to evaluate the robustness of the proposed scheme, a module of UEs' movement pattern is designed, considering characteristics of the UE's movement pattern. Results of the performance evaluation show that handover latency of indoor handover UEs can be effectively reduced with high prediction accuracy.
Palaeolithic Huts at Dolní Věstonice, Czechoslovakia

The question of ancient artificial dwellings or huts has been the subject of lively scientific discussion recently, though notices of their discovery at various palaeolithic sites in Europe have appeared in the literature from time to time throughout the past thirty years. Most of the archaeological evidence on the subject has been collected by Soviet workers whose discoveries of traces of ancient huts (in the course of extensive excavations at several palaeolithic stations in the U.S.S.R., both in Europe and in Siberia) have extended the history of domestic architecture to the remotest times. This journal contained a detailed account of these discoveries in V. G. Childe’s article ‘Cave Men’s Buildings’ (ANTIQUITY, XXIV, 4-11). I can now report on the latest excavations at the well-known upper-palaeolithic mammoth hunters’ settlement on the Pavlov Hills near Dolni Věstonice (south Moravia, Czechoslovakia), where fresh evidence of ancient artificial human shelters has come to light during the past few years. Before doing so, I should like to point out that the identification of these hut-sites in the course of excavations is surely a sign of considerable advance in archaeology, its methods of research and principal aims. While former excavations often exploited cultural horizons with the sole object of collecting the greatest possible number of relics of ancient cultures, and particularly of rarities, recent researches have a more fundamental object: to reveal behind the mere artifact the living man and artificer himself, and thereby the conditions of his life, and the development of human society. For this reason archaeological research to-day, employing modern methods in cooperation with experts in allied sciences, endeavours first and foremost to amplify material finds by a most detailed description of the circumstances of discovery, and by a study of the inter-relation of these finds with each other and with the site. It is this that constitutes progress in archaeological science, and at the same time indicates why hut-sites were not recognized during the previous systematic excavations directed at Dolni Věstonice by Dr K. Absolon in the years 1924-38. These excavations, surely carried out in masterly fashion (for their period), are principally known through the rich collections furnished by them for the Moravian Museum at Brno, which contained many objects of considerable cultural and scientific value. The remains of huts failed however to be recognized then, although Dr Absolon expected to find evidence of dwellings of permanent construction. Dolni Věstonice is therefore chiefly known in international palaeolithic literature as the site of great accumulations of mammoth-bones, of small baked clay figurines of animals, of statuettes of women (the Vëstonice Venus, 1925), of a carved female portrait of mammoth ivory (1936), and of the oldest musical instruments.
Supporting carers in their caring role through design

Carers are people who look after family, partners or friends who could not manage without them because of frailness, illness or disability. Our contribution is to show the potential for design to support carers in their vital caring role, focusing on health information sharing. We describe why it is important to recognise and consider carers in the design of home health monitoring technology, and why it is important to help carers maintain their health and well being. We present design guidelines for home monitoring technology. These guidelines are distilled from a survey distributed to carers in a rural part of Scotland on health information sharing. We used these guidelines to design a new home monitoring system called @Hand. The main difference with current systems is the focus on facilitating information sharing between cared-for and carer rather than cared-for and health professional.
An artificial finger robot motion control based on finger joint angle estimation from EMG signals for a robot prosthetic hand system

As a first step of developing a robot prosthetic hand based on biosignal, an artificial finger robot has been designed and developed for patients with a cut-off finger. This finger robot has 2 DOF and each of joints is worked with motors and wires. The joints can control their angles by a PID control method. Using this robot and applying our proposed finger joint angle estimation method based on measured surface electromyography (EMG) signals, we carried out experiments that synchronize the robot with the subject's third finger motion. As a result, it was confirmed that our system is technically feasible for application to a real prosthetic hand system.
Anonymity-Based Privacy Preserving Network Data Publication

Network trace data provide valuable information which contributes to model the network behaviors, defend network attacks and develop new protocols, so releasing the data of network trace is highly demanded by researchers and organizations to promote the development of the network technologies. However, due to the sensitive nature of network trace data, it is a potential risk for organizations to publish the original data which may expose their commercial confidentiality and the customers' privacy within their networks. Several methods to defend the network trace attacks such as statistical fingerprinting and injection have been proposed, unfortunately, they are not enough to protect the privacy because the correspondence between the source and destination IP addresses can also help the adversary to identify the target host. In this paper, we extract the inherent graph structure between the source and destination IP addresses in network trace data, and use k-anonymity to prevent the target host from being identified. Combined with other protection techniques, our method can also prevent the fingerprinting and injection attacks.
Complete Genome Sequence of Strain HTCC2503T of Parvularcula bermudensis, the Type Species of the Order “Parvularculales” in the Class Alphaproteobacteria

ABSTRACT The order “Parvularculales” represents the seventh order in the class Alphaproteobacteria. Parvularcula bermudensis, the type species of the order, was isolated from the Sargasso Sea using dilution-to-extinction culturing. We present here the complete genome sequence of Parvularcula bermudensis HTCC2503T, which contains genes for carotenoid biosynthesis, dimethylsulfoniopropionate demethylase, and transduction-like gene transfer agents.
Analysis of IgG antibody patterns against retinal antigens and antibodies to alpha-crystallin, GFAP, and alpha-enolase in sera of patients with "wet" age-related macular degeneration.

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to compare the IgG antibody patterns against retinal antigens in sera of patients with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and healthy subjects to learn more about possible immunological aspects of this disease and to identify some of the most important antigens. METHODS Sera of 140 patients were analyzed: healthy volunteers (CO, n=101) and patients with "wet" age-related macular degeneration (AMD, n=39). The sera were tested against western blots of bovine retinal antigens. The IgG antibody patterns were analyzed by multivariate statistical techniques and some antigens were identified via LC-MS/MS. RESULTS All patients showed complex patterns of IgG antibodies against retinal antigens. The discriminant analysis revealed a statistical significant difference between the antibody profiles of the AMD and the CO group (P=0.000023). Not only up-regulations of antigen-antibody-reactivities in the AMD group at some molecular weight ranges, e.g. at 46 and 52 kDa, could be seen, but also down-regulations, e.g. at 18 and 36 kDa. The 18 kDa antigen band was identified as alphaB-crystallin, the band at 46 kDa as alpha-enolase, and one at 52 kDa as glial fibrillary acidic protein. CONCLUSIONS We could demonstrate that both groups (wet AMD and CO) show complex IgG antibody patterns against retinal antigens, which are highly specific for each group. This provides further hints for the immunological basis of the disease. These changes in the antibody profiles in "wet" AMD could represent a secondary response to retinal damage or can play a causative role in the disease.
Darcy Velocity Is Not a Velocity

We write Darcy’s law as q = −K dh/ds . Preferences of notation aside, this is an unambiguous equation, but the terminology for “q” is ambiguous and often outright confusing, if not misleading! In groundwater hydrology “q” as defined above is variously termed: Darcy velocity, Darcy flux, groundwater flux, seepage velocity, filtration velocity, fictitious velocity, discharge velocity, and specific discharge. Does it matter? Yes, it does matter for two important reasons. To begin with, “q” is not a velocity, but a volumetric flux or specific discharge (volume of water per unit time per unit area). Moreover, an average (linear) groundwater velocity is defined as v = q /n where “n” is the effective porosity (ratio of the volume of interconnected pore space available for flow to the total volume of porous material), and values of n are typically in the range 0.1–0.4. Hence, although v and q have the same units, “v” is about an order of magnitude larger than “q . ” Secondly, some of the terms for “q” are also used for “v . ” For instance, “seepage velocity” most often means “v ,” but in the Russian literature is found to mean “q . ” Some authors use Darcy flux and Darcy velocity interchangeably in the same article! Authors of modern hydrogeology textbooks recognize the difference between “q” and “v” and explain concepts clearly (e.g., see Section 3.2.1 entitled “Specific Discharge and Average Linear Velocity” in the textbook by Fitts (2013)). However, many textbook authors (including Fitts) continue to include the term “Darcy velocity” in their discussion. Why are we so stubbornly calling a flux a velocity, fictitious or otherwise? The most likely reason is that flux has units [L/T] associated with a velocity. Furthermore, there is some confusion in history starting with Darcy himself. Darcy (1856) used the letter “v” and somewhat confusingly (although correctly) pointed out that “v” was “the velocity of decrease of the height of water above the filter. ” This velocity “v” then is the specific discharge q .
An Off-the-shelf Relay Attack in a Contactless Payment Solution

The enhanced Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) technology called Near Field Communication (NFC), is a standards-based wireless communication technology. Passive NFC devices, such as contactless smart cards use NFC to communicate with other devices without any physical connection, or an internal battery source, deriving power inductively via the radio field generated by the NFC reader device. Nowadays, many Point-of-Sale (POS) terminals, credit cards and also mobile devices are NFC-capable and facilitate contactless payments. Thus, many security sensitive applications already use the contactless technology. A very important attack in the NFC security domain, is the relay attack. This work illustrates a practical relay attack on public transport POS terminals, using off-the-shelf mobile devices and hardware, and summarizes possible countermeasures against relay attacks in
Multiple gene approaches to delineate the role of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system in nephropathy.

Renal function and blood pressure are tightly linked. Physiologically, the kidneys provide a key mechanism of chronic blood pressure control via their infinite gain mechanism [1], whereas elevated blood pressure affects renal function via the pressure natriuresis mechanism [2,3]. Pathophysiologically, long-standing hypertension attenuates pressure natriuresis [4] and can cause, or at least contribute to, renal damage [5], whereas an impaired renal function can lead to, or at least aggravate, arterial hypertension [6]. Hypertension is a well-established risk factor for myocardial infarction, other cardiovascular events and premature death. Recent studies indicate that, independent of the presence of hypertension, even a mild impairment of renal function (i.e. a reduction of glomerular filtration rate by 10 ml/min) is a significant risk factor for myocardial infarction [7], cardiovascular events in general, hospitalization and death from any cause [8]. These complex relationships make it important to better understand the pathogenesis of impaired renal function in hypertensive patients.
Etude du brouillard en zone côtière par modélisation des processus physiques de la couche limite atmosphérique : cas du Grand Casablanca (Maroc)

Le brouillard est un phenomene meteorologique tres difficile a prevoir, meme a tres courte echeance, en raison de sa grande variabilite spatiale et temporelle qui est due a des interactions complexes entre divers processus physiques. Dans cette these, les caracteristiques meteorologiques locales et les processus synoptiques favorables aux brouillards sur la region du Grand Casablanca (Maroc) sont examines a l'aide des observations horaires aux deux stations meteorologiques permanentes de cette region cotiere. Un algorithme de classification objectif est developpe et utilise pour classer les evenements en des types de brouillard les plus rencontres. Cette etude climatologique a mis en evidence que le brouillard a le plus souvent un caractere localise et que le type d'advection-rayonnement est le plus frequent sur la region, suivi des types d'affaissement de stratus et de rayonnement. Quand le brouillard interesse simultanement les deux stations, la probabilite d'observer deux types differents est assez elevee. Les processus advectifs lies a la circulation de brise de mer au cours de l'apres-midi, suivis de ceux radiatifs en debut de nuit jouent un role important dans la formation du brouillard sur la region. Des simulations numeriques a l'aide du modele Meso-NH sont realisees. Ces simulations ont confirme que les processus physiques impliques dans le cycle de vie du brouillard peuvent etre differents selon la nature geographique de la surface. Elles ont aussi mis en evidence que la prevision numerique du brouillard en zone cotiere est sensible a la temperature de la surface de la mer, a la topographie locale, et a l'occupation du sol. De plus, la prevision du brouillard cotier depend fortement de la capacite du modele a reproduire correctement la circulation de brise au cours de l'apres-midi et les processus radiatifs en debut de nuit. Les simulations systematiques des cas de brouillard de l'hiver 2013-2014 a montre la capacite du modele Meso- NH a reproduire l'occurrence du brouillard avec neanmoins un taux relativement eleve de fausses alarmes, en particulier a la station cotiere.
High density bit-serial FPGA with LUT embedding shift register function

A new FPGA architecture and its VLSI implementation for bit-serial circuits are described. Its LUT (lookup table) is equipped with a shift register function that can efficiently implement bit-serial circuits. Comparisons against Xilinx XC4000XL FPGAs shows the effectiveness of this new FPGA architecture on bit-serial circuits.