Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Severity of Optic Nerve Damage in Eyes with POAG Is Correlated with Changes in the Trabecular Meshwork

Purpose:We wished to determine whether eyes with primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) and differing severity of optic nerve damage also have differences in severity of trabecular meshwork changes. Methods:The trabecular meshwork and optic nerve from 26 eyes (14 donors) with the clinical diagnosis of POAG were studied. Severity of disease ranged from increased intraocular pressure (IOP) without damage to eyes with severe visual field loss. Optic nerve cross-sections were examined with light microscopy, and axonal counts were determined. We studied the trabecular meshwork around the circumference of each eye, examining sections from each quadrant with light and transmission electron microscopy. Morphometric measurements were made of the components of the cribriform region and statistically correlated with the axonal counts by the Pearson correlation coefficient. Results:In eyes with advanced POAG, as determined by visual field loss, measurements of structures in the cribriform region of the trabecular meshwork and axon counts were in the same range as those reported previously in POAG. Axon counts showed a significant negative correlation with the amount of sheath-derived (SD) plaque material in the cribriform region: eyes with lower axon counts had larger amounts of SD plaques. Six eyes from four donors with increased pressure but no clinical signs of optic nerve damage showed no changes in axon counts and no increase in plaque material. Conclusions:Increasing severity of optic nerve damage in POAG is accompanied by an increase in the amount of SD plaque material in the trabecular meshwork.
Positive impulse flashover along smooth cylindrical insulating surfaces under variable humidity

Positive impulse flashover along smooth cylindrical insulating surfaces bridging a short rod-plane gap under standard lightning and switching impulse voltages is investigated under variable absolute humidity and by regarding the case of air alone as reference. Flashover is closely related to predischarge phenomena, specifically secondary corona under lightning impulses and corona streamers arrival at the earthed plane under switching impulse voltages. Under lightning impulses the dielectric strength of the gap is highest for air alone and decreases with material permittivity; the opposite is true, although less marked, under switching impulse voltages. Flashover voltage increases with absolute humidity, this being more pronounced for switching than lightning impulse voltages. The inhibitory effect of humidity on flashover, mainly determined by the trajectory of the spark channel with respect to the insulating surface, is similar to that observed in air alone where flashover occurs away from the insulating surface but reduced where the discharge develops close to the insulating surface. For insulating arrangements where at flashover the spark channel adheres to the insulating surface the IEC 60060-1:1989 atmospheric conditions correction procedure should be optimized by considering a reduced humidity correction factor.
Effect of repeat-sprint training in hypoxia on post-exercise interleukin-6 and F2-isoprostanes

Abstract This investigation examined the oxidative stress (F2-Isoprostane; F2-IsoP) and inflammatory (interleukin-6; IL-6) responses to repeat-sprint training in hypoxia (RSH). Ten trained male team sport athletes performed 3(sets)*9(repetitions)*5 s cycling sprints in simulated altitude (3000 m) and sea-level conditions. Mean and peak sprint power output (MPO and PPO) were recorded, and blood samples were collected pre-exercise, and again at 8 and 60 min post-exercise. Both MPO and PPO were significantly reduced in hypoxia (compared to sea-level) in the second (MPO: 855 ± 89 vs. 739 ± 95 W, p = .006; PPO: 1024 ± 114 vs. 895 ± 112 W, p = .010) and third (MPO: 819 ± 105 vs. 686 ± 83 W, p = .008; PPO: 985 ± 125 vs. 834 ± 99 W, p = .008) sets, respectively. IL-6 was significantly increased from pre- to 1 h post-exercise in both hypoxia (0.7 ± 0.2 vs. 2.4 ± 1.4 pg/mL, p = .004) and sea-level conditions (0.7 ± 0.2 vs. 1.6 ± 0.3 pg/mL, p < .001), with a large effect (d = 0.80) suggesting higher IL-6 levels of post-hypoxia. F2-IsoP was significantly lower 1 h post-exercise in both the hypoxic (p = .005) and sea-level (p = .002) conditions, with no differences between trials. While hypoxia can impact on exercise intensity and may result in greater post-exercise inflammation, it appears to have little effect on oxidative stress. These results indicate that team sport organisations with ready access to hypoxic training facilities could confidently administer RSH without significantly increasing the post-exercise inflammatory or oxidative stress response.
An automated framework to support testing for process‐level race conditions

Race conditions are difficult to detect because they usually occur only under specific execution interleavings. Numerous program analysis and testing techniques have been proposed to detect race conditions between threads on single applications. However, most of these techniques neglect races that occur at the process level due to complex system event interactions. This article presents a framework, SIMEXPLORER, that allows engineers to effectively test for process‐level race conditions. SIMEXPLORER first uses dynamic analysis techniques to observe system execution, identify program locations of interest, and report faults related to oracles. Next, it uses virtualization to achieve the fine‐grained controllability needed to exercise event interleavings that are likely to expose races. We evaluated the effectiveness of SIMEXPLORER on 24 real‐world applications containing both known and unknown process‐level race conditions. Our results show that SIMEXPLORER is effective at detecting these race conditions, while incurring an overhead that is acceptable given its effectiveness improvements.
Occurrence of 26 Mycotoxins in the Grain of Cereals Cultivated in Poland

The levels of 26 mycotoxins were determined in 147 samples of the grain of cereals cultivated in five regions of Poland during the 2014 growing season. The HPLC-HRMS (time-of-flight) analytical technique was used. An analytical procedure to simultaneously determine 26 mycotoxins in grain was developed, tested and verified. Samples from eastern and southern Poland were more contaminated with mycotoxins than the samples from northern and western Poland. Toxins produced by Fusarium fungi were the main contaminants found. Some deoxynivalenol (DON) was found in 100% of the tested samples of wheat (Osiny, Borusowa, Werbkowice), triticale, winter barley and oats, while the maximum permissible DON level (as defined in the EU Commission Regulation No. 1881/2006) was exceeded in 10 samples. Zearalenone (ZEN), DON metabolites and enniatins were also commonly found. The presence of mycotoxins in grain reflected the prevailing weather conditions during the plant flowering/earing stages, which were favorable for the development of blight. Among all investigated wheat genotypes, cv. Fidelius was the least contaminated, while Bamberka, Forkida and Kampana were the most contaminated. However, the single-factor ANOVA analysis of variance did not reveal (at a statistical significance level α = 0.05) any differences between levels of mycotoxins in individual genotypes. Triticale was the most contaminated grain among all of the tested varieties. ZEN, DON and the sum of 3-acetyldexynivalenol and 15-acetyldeoxynivalenol (3- and 15-ADON) were found in 100% of the tested triticale samples at concentrations within the 4–86, 196–1326 and 36–374 µg·kg−1 range, respectively. Of particular concern was the fact that some “emerging mycotoxins” (enniatins) (in addition to commonly-known and legally-regulated mycotoxins) were also found in the tested triticale samples (enniatin B (Enn-B), enniatin B1 (Enn-B1), enniatin A-1 (Enn-A1), 100% of samples, and enniatin A (Enn-A), 70% of samples). Depending on the toxin, they were found at levels between 8 and 3328 µg·kg−1.
La enseñanza de la traducción en lógica oracional

La traduccion presenta algunas dificultades en su ensenanza y en su aprendizaje. Uno de los problemas recurrentes es el desconcierto de los estudiantes ante traducciones diferentes para la misma oracion. El problema se soluciona cuando el estudiante nota las equivalencias entre las traducciones propuestas. La comprension de las equivalencias entre las conectivas no es tan dificil, pero 228 debe completarse con su aplicacion a las oraciones en lengua natural; ofreceremos algunos ejemplos. Algunas conectivas son mas pertinentes que otras, dicha pertinencia esta relacionada con los criterios que se establecen para decidir cuando una traduccion es mejor que otra. La traduccion de oraciones en espanol al simbolismo de la logica oracional, y viceversa, tiene tambien el peligro que tanto se ha senalado, la traicion. Pero en este aspecto, la logica y la hermeneutica se acercan, pues tienen un problema comun
Distribution, Expression, and Motif Variability of Ankyrin Domain Genes in Wolbachia pipientis

ABSTRACT The endosymbiotic bacterium Wolbachia pipientis infects a wide range of arthropods, in which it induces a variety of reproductive phenotypes, including cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI), parthenogenesis, male killing, and reversal of genetic sex determination. The recent sequencing and annotation of the first Wolbachia genome revealed an unusually high number of genes encoding ankyrin domain (ANK) repeats. These ANK genes are likely to be important in mediating the Wolbachia-host interaction. In this work we determined the distribution and expression of the different ANK genes found in the sequenced Wolbachia wMel genome in nine Wolbachia strains that induce different phenotypic effects in their hosts. A comparison of the ANK genes of wMel and the non-CI-inducing wAu Wolbachia strain revealed significant differences between the strains. This was reflected in sequence variability in shared genes that could result in alterations in the encoded proteins, such as motif deletions, amino acid insertions, and in some cases disruptions due to insertion of transposable elements and premature stops. In addition, one wMel ANK gene, which is part of an operon, was absent in the wAu genome. These variations are likely to affect the affinity, function, and cellular location of the predicted proteins encoded by these genes.
Periventricular hyperintensity as seen by magnetic resonance: prevalence and significance.

Periventricular hyperintensity was identified using long repetition and echo times in spin-echo magnetic resonance imaging of patients with white-matter disease (e.g., multiple sclerosis) caused by local demyelination and in hydrocephalic patients caused by transependymal migration of spinal fluid. A review of 365 consecutives studies revealed that some degree of periventricular hyperintensity is present in most patients (93.5%) regardless of diagnosis. Mild periventricular hyperintensity was seen in patients with no other evidence of intracranial pathology. Periventricular hyperintensity is a normal finding that should not be considered indicative of either demyelinating disease or hydrocephalus. More extensive and severe periventricular hyperintensity is associated with intracerebral pathology, but the finding often is nonspecific. For example, mild periventricular edema from hydrocephalus is impossible to differentiate from the increased periventricular hyperintensity seen in patients with multiple white-matter lesions. Thus, the pattern of periventricular hyperintensity has proven to be of limited value in the clinical assessment of hydrocephalic patients.
Architecture and prototypical implementation of a semantic querying system for big Earth observation image bases

ABSTRACT Spatiotemporal analytics of multi-source Earth observation (EO) big data is a pre-condition for semantic content-based image retrieval (SCBIR). As a proof of concept, an innovative EO semantic querying (EO-SQ) subsystem was designed and prototypically implemented in series with an EO image understanding (EO-IU) subsystem. The EO-IU subsystem is automatically generating ESA Level 2 products (scene classification map, up to basic land cover units) from optical satellite data. The EO-SQ subsystem comprises a graphical user interface (GUI) and an array database embedded in a client server model. In the array database, all EO images are stored as a space-time data cube together with their Level 2 products generated by the EO-IU subsystem. The GUI allows users to (a) develop a conceptual world model based on a graphically supported query pipeline as a combination of spatial and temporal operators and/or standard algorithms and (b) create, save and share within the client-server architecture complex semantic queries/decision rules, suitable for SCBIR and/or spatiotemporal EO image analytics, consistent with the conceptual world model.
Cerebral hemodynamics in ischemic cerebrovascular disease

During the past decade, technological advances have made it possible to measure regional cerebral hemodynamics in individual patients. Studies performed with these techniques have demonstrated that the degree of carotid stenosis correlates poorly with the hemodynamic status of the ipsilateral cerebral circulation. The primary determinant of cerebral perfusion pressure and blood flow under these circumstances is the adequacy of collateral circulatory pathways. Since collateral circulation varies from patient to patient, there is no critical degree of carotid stenosis that consistently produces hemodynamic compromise of the cerebral circulation. It is, thus, time to abandon the concept of the hemodynamically significant carotid stenosis as it relates to the pathogenesis and treatment of cerebrovascular disease. Measurement of regional cerebral hemodynamics have provided new insight into the pathogenesis of tranisent ischemic attacks and generated some preliminary data on the prognostic and therapeutic importance of chronic reductions in regional cerebral perfusion pressure. Further investigations into the importance of hemodynamic factors in ischemic stroke can now be based on accurate assessment of cerebral (not carotid or vertebrobasilar) hemodynamics in the context of other coexisting epidemiological, clinical, hematological, and angiographic risk factors.
Beating the Nernst limit of 59mV/pH with double-gated nano-scale field-effect transistors and its applications to ultra-sensitive DNA biosensors

Electronic sensing of biomolecules is an area of immerse interest for semiconductor industry. Here we utilize the remarkable sensitivity of double-gated field-effect transistors above the fundamental Nernst limit (59mV/pH) in pH sensing to improve the sensitivity of biomolecule detection in electrolyte screening limited conditions. Our simulation results and compact models are broadly supported by various experiments and will have important implications for the design and optimization of low cost, large throughput, semiconductor based biosensors.
Limitations of Using Dosimeters in Impulse Noise Environments

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) investigated the capabilities of noise dosimeters to measure personal exposure to impulse noise. The two leading types of commercially available dosimeters were evaluated in terms of their ability to measure and integrate impulses generated from gunfire during live-fire exercises at a law enforcement indoor firing range. Sound measurements were conducted throughout the firing range using dosimeters, sound level meters, and a measurement configuration that consisted of a quarter-inch microphone and a digital audiotape recorder to capture the impulse waveforms. Personal dosimetry was conducted on eight shooters, an observer, and the range master. Peak levels from gunfire reached 163 decibels (dB), exceeding the nominal input limit of the dosimeters. The dosimeters “clipped” the impulses by acting as if the gunfire had a maximum level of 146 dB. In other cases, however, peak levels (e.g., 108 dB) were below the dosimeter input limits, but the dosimeters still showed a peak level of 146 dB. Although NIOSH recommends that sound levels from 80 to 140 dB (A-weighted) be integrated in the calculation of dose and the time-weighted average, our present data suggest this criterion may be inadequate. These results showed that some instruments are incapable of providing accurate measures of impulse sounds because of their electroacoustic limitations.
Resource Optimized Distributed Source Coding for Complexity Constrained Data Gathering Wireless Sensor Networks

This paper addresses the problem of efficient data gathering based on distributed source coding (DSC) in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) with a complexity constrained data gathering node (DGN). A particular scenario of interest is a cluster of low complexity sensor nodes among which, one node is selected as the cluster head (CH) or the DGN. Utilizing DSC allows for reducing the required rate of communications by exploiting the dependency between the nodes observations in a distributed manner. We consider a DSC-based rate allocation structure, which takes into account the CH (DGN) memory and computational constraints. Specifically, this is accomplished, respectively, by limiting the number of nodes whose data may be stored at the CH and exploited during decoding, and the number of nodes that can be jointly (de)compressed using DSC. Based on this structure, we investigate two WSN resource optimization problems aiming at: (i) minimizing the total network cost and (ii) maximizing the network lifetime. To these ends, optimal dynamic programming solutions based on a trellis structure are proposed that incur substantially smaller computational complexity in comparison to an exhaustive search. Also, a suboptimal yet high performance solution is presented whose complexity grows in polynomial order with the number of network nodes. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed rate allocation structure and solutions, even with limited complexity, allow for exploiting most of the available dependency and hence the achievable compression gain.
Phoneme Sequence Modeling in the Context of Speech Signal Recognition in Language “Baoule”

This paper presents the recognition of “Baoule” spoken sentences, a language of C? te d’Ivoire. Several formalisms allow the modelling of an automatic speech recognition system. The one we used to realize our system is based on Hidden Markov Models (HMM) discreet. Our goal in this article is to present a system for the recognition of the Baoule word. We present three classical problems and develop different algorithms able to resolve them. We then execute these algorithms with concrete examples.
Evaluating and Comparing the Ability to Predict the Bankruptcy Prediction Models of Zavgren and Springate in Companies Accepted in Tehran Stock Exchange

Recent bankruptcy of large companies at international level and volatilities of securities in Iran have highlighted the necessity of evaluating the financial power of companies. One of the evaluating tools is using bankruptcy prediction models. Bankruptcy prediction models are one of the tools for estimating the future condition of companies. The aim of this research is to present theoretical foundations and compare the results of investigating two models of Zavgren (1985) and Springate (1978) in Iran’s exchange market through main and adjusted coefficients according to statistical techniques of Logit and Multiple Discriminant Analysis (MDA). The data was gathered and tested from 2009 to 2013. The results indicated that the adjusted Springate Model was more efficient than other models in the bankruptcy year.
Dairy Cooperative Growth Challenges: Technology, Ingredients (Proteins) and Equity Financing

Filtration separates milk components for use as ingredients in new products or new manufacturing processes. Technology developments in filtration and new manufacturing processes are certain to shape the future of the dairy industry. Some ingredients, such as milk protein concentrate (MPC), casein and caseinate, are almost all imported due to lower prices in foreign markets. When domestic production becomes economically feasible, cooperatives are potential producers of milk protein ingredients, especially in the West region. Research and development, product development and marketing, acquiring manufacturing and processing technology and equity financing are cooperatives’ major challenges. A brief historical review of tomatoes shows how technology has caused profound changes to an industry that strikingly resembles milk.
Trade-offs for low power integrated pulse oximeters

The paper presents detailed trade-offs encountered in the design of low-power integrated pulse oximeters(PO). The significance and interdependence of parameters such as the switching frequency, duty cycle, settling speed, stability and capacitor area and their role in system power and noise are discussed thoroughly. Quantitative relations between these parameters are derived and numerical examples with typical values given.
Transforming growth factor-β signaling in systemic sclerosis

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a complex, multiorgan autoimmune disease of unknown etiology. Manifestation of the disease results from an interaction of three key pathologic features including irregularities of the antigen-specific immune system and the non-specific immune system, resulting in autoantibody production, vascular endothelial activation of small blood vessels, and tissue fibrosis as a result of fibroblast dysfunction. Given the heterogeneity of clinical presentation of the disease, a lack of universal models has impeded adequate testing of potential therapies for SSc. Regardless, recent research has elucidated the roles of various ubiquitous molecular mechanisms that contribute to the clinical manifestation of the disease. Transforming growth factor β (TGF-β) has been identified as a regulator of pathological fibrogenesis in SSc. Various processes, including cell growth, apoptosis, cell differentiation, and extracellular matrix synthesis are regulated by TGF-β, a type of cytokine secreted by macrophages and many other cell types. Understanding the essential role TGF-β pathways play in the pathology of systemic sclerosis could provide a potential outlet for treatment and a better understanding of this severe disease.
Design Considerations and Evaluation Methodology for Adapted Navigational Assistants for People with Cognitive Disabilities

Assisting pedestrians with cognitive disabilities in their movements through a city is not a simple task. Despite of the new mobile navigational software available in the market, many of these users (and their caregivers) are still resistant to use them. In some cases, due to the lack of adaptation to their needs. This issue motivated us to elaborate a set of design considerations to keep in mind when designing navigational assistants for people with cognitive disabilities. Besides, we developed a navigational prototype for smartphones that was evaluated with two users with Down syndrome. Therefore, we also propose some hints about how the evaluation should