Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Automatic Cardiac Motion Quantification by Extracting Landmarks from an Echocardiography Sequence

Cardiovascular diseases are a major health concern world-wide. Analysis of the cardiac motion is a standard technique for studying and understanding the etiology of heart disease such as ischemic heart disease. Ultrasound imaging is a very important and competitive medical diagnostic tool, due to its low cost, short acquisition time, and non-invasive nature. Echocardiography is a widely used ultrasound imaging technique to examine myocardial function and cardiac motion in patients with known or suspected heart disease. Whereas echocardiographic imaging has reached a high level of technical sophistication, the myocardial function and cardiac motion analysis still relies mainly on the visual assessment and manual measurements by experienced cardiologists. Automating the analysis of echocardiographic images is therefore highly desirable but also challenging because of the low image quality and the high amount of speckle noise. In this paper, we present a fully automatic method that does not require segmentation, our approach is non invasive, because there is no injection needed. Besides, no markers are physically implanted on the surface of the ventricle wall. This approach has two parts, first, we extracted landmarks from echocardiography sequence, and this step is based on corner detection algorithms, especially Harris and SUSAN corner detectors. Second, landmarks using Gradient Vector Matcher (GVM) and Product Moment Coefficient Matcher (PMCM) were tracked.
Depletion of microglia exacerbates postischemic inflammation and brain injury

Brain ischemia elicits microglial activation and microglia survival depend on signaling through colony-stimulating factor 1 receptor (CSF1R). Although depletion of microglia has been linked to worse stroke outcomes, it remains unclear to what extent and by what mechanisms activated microglia influence ischemia-induced inflammation and injury in the brain. Using a mouse model of transient focal cerebral ischemia and reperfusion, we demonstrated that depletion of microglia via administration of the dual CSF1R/c-Kit inhibitor PLX3397 exacerbates neurodeficits and brain infarction. Depletion of microglia augmented the production of inflammatory mediators, leukocyte infiltration, and cell death during brain ischemia. Of note, microglial depletion-induced exacerbation of stroke severity did not solely depend on lymphocytes and monocytes. Importantly, depletion of microglia dramatically augmented the production of inflammatory mediators by astrocytes after brain ischemia. In vitro studies reveal that microglia restricted ischemia-induced astrocyte response and provided neuroprotective effects. Our findings suggest that neuroprotective effects of microglia may result, in part, from its inhibitory action on astrocyte response after ischemia.
A Pan-Sharpening Based on the Non-Subsampled Contourlet Transform: Application to Worldview-2 Imagery

Two pan-sharpening methods based on the non-subsampled contourlet transform (NSCT) are proposed. NSCT is very efficient in representing the directional information and capturing intrinsic geometrical structures of the objects. It has characteristics of high resolution, shift-invariance, and high directionality. In the proposed methods, a given number of decomposition levels are used for multispectral (MS) images while a higher number of decomposition levels are used for Pan images relatively to the ratio of the Pan pixel size to the MS pixel size. This preserves both spectral and spatial qualities while decreasing computation time. Moreover, upsampling of MS images is performed after NSCT and not before. By applying upsampling after NSCT, structures and detail information of the MS images are more likely to be preserved and thus stay more distinguishable. Hence, we propose to exploit this property in pan-sharpening by fusing it with detail information provided by the Pan image at the same fine level. The proposed methods are tested on WorldView-2 datasets and compared with the standard pan-sharpening technique. Visual and quantitative results demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed methods. Both spectral and spatial qualities have been improved.
Children’s experiences and parents’ perceptions of retailers’ mobile applications

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe the nature of a branded mobile application experience for children, and analyse how these experiences affect the children’s and parents’ brand perceptions. Design/methodology/approach The authors use a qualitative approach focussing on the consumer perspective. Children were asked to use two selected applications from an I-Pad tablet (“La Grande Recre” – A1 and “MonkiMi” – A2). Children and parents were subsequently interviewed. Findings Children primarily valued the emotional experience of the application (app). The parents appreciated their children’s cognitive experience of the mobile app. Parents are much more responsive to mobile application communication, as they perceive to have more control over this new media and value the cognitive and emotional dimension of their children experience of the app. Research limitations/implications The study shows that branded apps can be an extremely effective way in delivering valuable brand content which positively impact brand perceptions. This initial and exploratory study calls for further extensive research in this area. Practical implications This research demonstrates the untapped potential of sponsored apps as a communication medium. Originality/value The paper indicates that mobile applications constitute a new communication channel for retailers and brand owners to interact at an emotional level with their existing or prospective customers.
Procrustean Statistical Inference of Deformations

Procrustean Statistical Inference of Deformations A two step method has been devised for the statistical inference of deformation changes. In the first step of this method and based on Procrustes analysis of deformation tensors, the significance of the change in a time or space series of deformation tensors is statistically analyzed. In the second step significant change(s) in deformations are localized. In other words, they are assigned to certain parameters of deformation tensor. This is done using the Global Model Test. Because of the key role of Procrustes analysis in the proposed method for the inference of deformation changes, it has been given the name of Procrustean Statistical Inference of Deformations. The method has been implemented to synthetic and real deformations. The 3D-deformation tensors of a regional GPS network in the Kenai Peninsula, for analyzing the spatial variation of deformation tensors or the change of deformation within the study area, and a local GPS network in France, for analyzing the temporal variation of deformation tensors or the change of deformation in time at every point of the network in the study area have been used for illustrating the practical application of the proposed method.
Chemical Constituents of the Plants of the Genus Calophyllum

by Xiao-Hui Sua), Man-Li Zhanga), Li-Geng Lia), Chang-Hong Huoa), Yu-Cheng Gub), and Qing-Wen Shi*a) a) Department of Natural Product Chemistry, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Hebei Medical University, 361 Zhongshan East Road, Shijiazhuang 050017, Hebei Province, P. R. China (phone: þ86-311-8626-5634; e-mail: shiqingwen@hebmu.edu.cn) b) Syngenta Jealott s Hill International Research Centre, Bracknell, UK-Berkshire RG426EY
A study of medical injury and medical malpractice.

For nearly two decades, an atmosphere of crisis has enveloped our system of medical-malpractice litigation and liability insurance. Courts have expanded the limits of tort liability, an increasing number of patients have sought to redress their grievances in court, and juries have awarded ever-increasing damages for medical injuries. Legislatures have responded to the problems of a shrinking insurance market and rising insurance costs by restricting liability and, in some cases, limiting damages. The courts have reviewed some of these statutory restrictions and have struck down a number of them as unconstitutional. Mean-while, report after report has come from federal and .
Adaptation of Campylobacter jejuni NCTC11168 to High-Level Colonization of the Avian Gastrointestinal Tract

ABSTRACT The genome sequence of the human pathogen Campylobacter jejuni NCTC11168 has been determined recently, but studies on colonization and persistence in chickens have been limited due to reports that this strain is a poor colonizer. Experimental colonization and persistence studies were carried out with C. jejuni NCTC11168 by using 2-week-old Light Sussex chickens possessing an acquired natural gut flora. After inoculation, NCTC11168 initially colonized the intestine poorly. However, after 5 weeks we observed adaptation to high-level colonization, which was maintained after in vitro passage. The adapted strain exhibited greatly increased motility. A second strain, C. jejuni 11168H, which had been selected under in vitro conditions for increased motility (A. V. Karlyshev, D. Linton, N. A. Gregson, and B. W. Wren, Microbiology 148:473-480, 2002), also showed high-level intestinal colonization. The levels of colonization were equivalent to those of six other strains, assessed under the same conditions. There were four mutations in C. jejuni 11168H that reduced colonization; maf5, flaA (motility and flagellation), and kpsM (capsule deficiency) eliminated colonization, whereas pglH (general glycosylation system deficient) reduced but did not eliminate colonization. This study showed that there was colonization of the avian intestinal tract by a Campylobacter strain having a known genome sequence, and it provides a model for colonization and persistence studies with specific mutations.
Additive Consistency of Risk Measures and Its Application to Risk-Averse Routing in Networks

We investigate the use of risk measures and theories of choice to model risk-averse routing and traffic equilibrium on networks with random travel times. We interpret the postulates of these theories in the context of routing, identifying additive consistency as a plausible condition that allows to reduce risk-averse route choice to a standard shortest path problem. Within the classical theories of choice, we show that the only preferences that satisfy this condition are the ones induced by the entropic risk measures.
The importance of perceived care and connectedness with friends and parents for adolescent social anxiety.

Nonclinical social anxiety in adolescence can be highly problematic, as it likely affects current and especially new social interactions. Relationships with significant others, such as close friends, mothers, and fathers, could aid socially anxious adolescents' participation in social situations, thereby helping reduce feelings of social anxiety. We examined whether making friends as well as high friendship quality help reduce social anxiety over time, and whether friends', mothers', and fathers' care interact in reducing social anxiety. Using longitudinal data from 2,194 participants in a social network (48% girls; Mage = 13.58) followed for 3 years, we estimated friendship selection and influence processes via a continuous time-modeling approach using SIENA. We controlled for the effects of depressive symptoms, self-esteem, gender, age, and family structure. Our findings suggest that perceived care by friends mediated the effect of making friends on social anxiety. Perceptions of mother and father, as well as friend care and connectedness, respectively, did not interact in decreasing social anxiety. Nonetheless, care and connectedness with mothers, fathers, and friends jointly predicted decreases in social anxiety. Caring relationships with friends and parents each play a role in mutually protecting early adolescents against increasing in social anxiety over time.
A proposed system for recapitulating tweets using graph-based clustering

Twitter, a well-liked online social networking site, facilitates millions of users on a daily basis to dispatch and orate quick 140-character notes named tweets. Nowadays, twitter is cogitated as the fastest and popular intermediate of communication and is used to follow latest events. Tweets pertaining to a specific event can be effortlessly found using keyword matching, but there are numerous tweets that are likely to contain information that is semantically identical. Moreover, there exist many systems for recapitulating tweets related to a particular event, but they have numerous limitations and are unable to provide accurate results. This study aims to overcome the limitations of existing systems by proposing a system for recapitulating tweets using graph-based clustering.
Cognitive deficits and developmental language disorders in patients with malformations of cortical development

It is generally accepted that in patients with malformations of cortical development (MCD) the severity of the neurologic and developmental deficiencies is determined by the etiology, localization, and extent of the malformation, as well as by the severity of the associated epilepsy syndrome. Apart from two detailed reports on the occurrence of developmental dyslexia in patients with periventricular nodular heterotopia (Chang et al., 2005, 2007), precise neuropsychological information is available mainly in patients with polymicrogyria (PMG). A first set of studies has addressed the neuropsychological profiles of patients with bilateral perisylvian PMG. In a study of 17 patients with bilateral perisylvian PMG (Montenegro et al., 2001), 7 had bilateral perisylvian PMG limited to the posterior parietal areas, sparing the anterior two-thirds of the sylvian fissure, and 10 had diffuse bilateral perisylvian PMG. In the first group, neurologic examination was normal, seizures were absent, and two had mild dysarthria later in life. In the second group, all had pseudobulbar palsy with or without motor involvement, and seizures were present in four. A second study in 14 patients with bilateral perisylvian PMG (Jansen et al., 2005) showed that exceptionally low intelligence (Full IQ scores <70) was present in <30% of patients, memory abilities were average or low average, frontal lobe function was relatively well preserved, and both receptive and expressive language skills were severely impaired. These findings suggested that the observed cognitive profiles were related to specific areas of cortical dysfunction and not just to global brain dysfunction. This conclusion was supported by a study of six children with bilateral perisylvian PMG (Saletti et al., 2007) in whom mental retardation was related to the extent of cortical malformation, lexical comprehension and verbal production were more compromised than expected from nonverbal intellectual abilities, and lack of verbal language was not compensated by the use of referential gestures. These results suggested that compromised verbal and gestural communication in bilateral perisylvian PMG is not due simply to mental retardation and/or dysarthria but also to dysfunction of the perisylvian areas concerned with the totality of language processing. Care should be taken not to label patients with bilateral perisylvian PMG as mentally retarded, unless proven by detailed neuropsychological studies. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) facilitates early diagnosis, which should result in planning for appropriate education, and allow these individuals to develop to their maximum potential. A second set of studies consisted of patients with a diagnosis of developmental language disorder in whom imaging studies had been performed. Brain MRIs were carried out on a 2T scan and included multiplanar reconstructions
Evaluation of low cure temperature dielectric materials for EMWLP and TSV

This paper presents the evaluation results of low temperature cure dielectrics in terms of process ability, adhesion to Si, SiN, Cu RDL and mold compound substrates. Minimum via opening of 10µm without residue was achieved for 5µm dielectric film thickness. Adhesion tests results were conducted based on JEDEC standards for MSL1 and unbiased HAST testing and they demonstrated that the low temperature cure dielectric materials have good adhesion on Si, SiN, Cu RDL and mold compound surfaces. Dielectric materials also showed good adhesion in multi layer coatings (2 layer). Fabricated test vehicles, each using one of the dielectric material, were subjected to ball shear tests at the solder UBM. Ball shear results showed good adhesion of the dielectric materials onto the UBM metal pads.
A Comparison of Three Speech Intelligibility Measures for Deaf Students

The speech intelligibility of 21 severely to profoundly hearing-impaired adolescents representing a broad range of speaking proficiency was measured by using each of three assessment procedures: The National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) rating scale, the Speech Intelligibility Evaluation (Monsen, 1981), and the Speech Intelligibility Test for Deaf Children (Magner, 1980). The three measures were correlated at better than the 1% level of significance. Interjudge reliability was examined for the NTID scale and the Magner test. For both procedures the greatest variability in between-rater judgments was observed for intelligibilities in the middle of the range. The practical advantages and disadvantages of each procedure are discussed and recommendations made for their use.
Client-centred coaching in the paediatric health professions: a critical scoping review

Abstract Purpose: Coaching is mainstream in business and is expanding into paediatric health care. With the focus on evidence-informed health practice, it is imperative to identify the key active components of interventions. Coaching is by definition a complex intervention with numerous components. The purpose of this critical review is to determine how coaching is currently defined, its prevalence in paediatric health care services and the frequency of the active components of coaching and to consider the findings of research to date. Method: A critical review of the literature was conducted. Inclusion/exclusion criteria were based on the International Coach Federation, which stipulates that coaching is a collaborative process that involves client-centred goal setting, facilitation, self-discovery and capacity building. Seventeen studies were selected for thorough review. Results: Throughout the literature, there was inconsistency in how coaching was defined. Studies included various components, but overall the literature lacked cohesion. Conclusion: To advance the field, a list of components that foster client engagement was developed along with a comprehensive definition of coaching involving affective, behavioural and cognitive components and a path of research necessary to evaluate this complex intervention. Implications for Rehabilitation A comprehensive approach to coaching involves consideration of multiple components. A coaching approach can enhance engagement in rehabilitation interventions. The operationalization of holistic ABC coaching that encapsulates the important components, which are affective, behavioural and cognitive in nature.
Can Anesthetic Technique for Primary Breast Cancer Surgery Affect Recurrence or Metastasis?

Background: Regional anesthesia is known to prevent or attenuate the surgical stress response; therefore, inhibiting surgical stress by paravertebral anesthesia might attenuate perioperative factors that enhance tumor growth and spread. The authors hypothesized that breast cancer patients undergoing surgery with paravertebral anesthesia and analgesia combined with general anesthesia have a lower incidence of cancer recurrence or metastases than patients undergoing surgery with general anesthesia and patient-controlled morphine analgesia. Methods: In this retrospective study, the authors examined the medical records of 129 consecutive patients undergoing mastectomy and axillary clearance for breast cancer between September 2001 and December 2002. Results: Fifty patients had surgery with paravertebral anesthesia and analgesia combined with general anesthesia, and 79 patients had general anesthesia combined with postoperative morphine analgesia. The follow-up time was 32 ± 5 months (mean ± SD). There were no significant differences in patients or surgical details, tumor presentation, or prognostic factors. Recurrence- and metastasis-free survival was 94% (95% confidence interval, 87–100%) and 82% (74–91%) at 24 months and 94% (87–100%) and 77% (68–87%) at 36 months in the paravertebral and general anesthesia patients, respectively (P = 0.012). Conclusions: This retrospective analysis suggests that paravertebral anesthesia and analgesia for breast cancer surgery reduces the risk of recurrence or metastasis during the initial years of follow-up. Prospective trials evaluating the effects of regional analgesia and morphine sparing on cancer recurrence seem warranted.
The Effects of R&D Expenditures on Bondholders

Purpose – The relation between research and development (R&D) expenditures and bondholder wealth is examined. Methodology/approach – A sample of firms that increase R&D expenditures is partitioned into two subsamples: firms with high default risk versus firms with low default risk. For each subsample, we examine the effect of R&D increases on bond returns and default risks. Findings – For firms with high default risk, R&D increases have a negative impact on bond returns and default risk. Further, there is a wealth transfer from bondholders to stockholders surrounding R&D increases. Neither of these results is found for firms with low default risk. Research limitations/implications – The present study highlights the importance of assessing firm's existing default risk to understand the effects that R&D expenditures have on bondholders. Social implications – The study reveals a potential social welfare and economic cost, as it reveals that stockholders may be able to gain wealth at the expense of bondholders. Originality/value – The study provides important insights to bondholders on how firms’ investment policies, such as R&D expenditures, may affect their wealth.
Technology Development via Human Resources Exploitation: Evidence from Southeast Asian Countries

The purpose of this article is to summarize and integrate the articles appearing in this special issue within the unique technology development (TD) and human resources (HR) of Southeast Asian countries. This paper examines how the synergy between TD and HR can lead to improved national economic performance. We proposed that better HR exploitation can sustain the capabilities of TD. Thus, the detail indexes are first evaluated with each category, which constructs the basic meanings of TD and HR. Consequently, the contexts of TD are clustered by different patterns with similar attributes in each nation. Each pattern can monitor the performance of HR in specific TD pattern. In this empirical study, we discover that the leading three countries (Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand) have a strong positive rank correlation between TD and HR; In contrast, the rest of countries are poor rank correlation with regard to the two categories. These results mention that the level of TD, which depends on HR exploitation, is an important indicator of technological capability and even a proof of economic growth. We also examine the TD policies with strategic grid and offer a better road path of TD to follow, not only for those type countries to retune their policy, but also to parallel development in HR areas—such as the level of education upgrading, labor force environment improving, man power utilizing. Finally, Southeast Asian countries should calibrate feasible HR when use it to elaborate TD.