Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
ISAR Imaging of Targets With Complex Motions Based on the Keystone Time-Chirp Rate Distribution

In inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) imaging of targets with complex motions such as fluctuating ships with oceanic waves and high maneuvering airplanes, the azimuth echo signals can be modeled as cubic phase signals (CPSs). In this letter, a new ISAR imaging algorithm based on the keystone time-chirp rate distribution (KTCRD) is proposed for the targets with complex motions. Compared with the recently published algorithms for the CPSs, the KTCRD can estimate the parameters of multicomponent CPSs without searching procedures and can acquire high antinoise performance with a relatively low computational load. With the estimated motion parameters, high-quality ISAR images can be obtained. Several simulation examples on the synthetic model are shown to validate the effectiveness of the new algorithm presented in this letter.
Two new species of the spider genus Belisana Thorell (Araneae: Pholcidae) from Xishuangbanna, Yunnan, China.

Two new species of the spider genus Belisana Thorell, 1898 are described based on material collected in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan, China: Belisana menghai Yao Li sp. nov. (male, female) and Belisana xishuangbanna Yao Li sp. nov. (male), bringing the total Chinese Belisana fauna to 41 species. The DNA barcode COI of B. menghai Yao Li sp. nov. is documented. All material studied is deposited in the Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IZCAS) in Beijing, China.
Derivation of epithelial-like cells from eyelid fat-derived stem cells in thermosensitive hydrogel

Abstract Injectable hydrogel is one of the great interests for tissue engineering and cell encapsulation. In the study, the thermosensitive chitosan/gelatin/β-glycerol phosphate (C/G/GP) disodium salt hydrogels were designed and investigated by different analyses. The eye fat-derived stem cells were used to evaluate the biocompatibility of hydrogels based on their phenotypic profile, viability, proliferation, and attachment ability. The results show that the sol/gel transition temperature of the C/G/GP hydrogel was in the range of 31.1–33.8 °C at neutral pH value, the gelation time was shortened, and the gel strength also improved at body temperature when compared with the C/GP hydrogel. In vitro cell culture experiments with eyelid fat-derived stem cells in hydrogel showed beneficial effects on the cell phenotypic morphology, proliferation, and differentiation. Microscopic figures showed that the eyelid fat stem cell were firmly anchored to the substrates and were able to retain a normal stem cell phenotype. Immunocytochemistry (ICC) and real-time–PCR results revealed change in the expression profile of eyelid fat stem cells grown with hydrogels when compared to those grown on control in epithelial induction condition. This study indicates that using chitosan/gelatin/β-glycerol phosphate hydrogel for cell culture is feasible and may apply in minimal invasive surgery in the future.
Predominance of large LDL and reduced HDL2 cholesterol in normolipidemic men with coronary artery disease.

Previous studies have indicated that a predominance of small, dense LDL particles is associated with coronary artery disease (CAD) risk. In the present study we examined the LDL peak particle diameter (determined by lipid-stained 2% to 16% gradient gel electrophoresis) in 92 normolipidemic men with CAD (total cholesterol < 200 mg/dL and triglyceride < 250 mg/dL) and 92 matched healthy controls. Plasma triglyceride, LDL cholesterol, and apo B levels were similar in subjects with CAD and in control subjects, whereas subjects with CAD had decreased HDL2 cholesterol levels (mean +/- SEM, 10 +/- 0.7 compared with 15 +/- 0.7 mg/dL in control subjects; P < .0002). Mean LDL particle diameter (+/- SEM) was increased in the subjects with CAD compared with control subjects (26.8 +/- 0.08 and 26.4 +/- 0.08 nm, respectively; P < .001). The association between large LDL size and CAD was significant (P < .0001) after adjustments were made for age, body mass index, HDL cholesterol levels, and VLDL cholesterol levels. An LDL particle size distribution characterized by a predominance of the largest of three classes of LDL particles (> 26.8 nm) was more prevalent among subjects with CAD (43%) than among control subjects (25%) (P < .002). Among subjects with this LDL size profile, subjects with CAD had significantly higher (P < .05) VLDL triglyceride, VLDL cholesterol, and VLDL apo B levels and significantly lower (P < .0001) HDL2 cholesterol levels than controls. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Patterns of Use of an Automated Interactive Personalized Coaching Program for Smoking Cessation

Background The QuitCoach, an “expert system” program of tailored advice for smoking cessation developed in Australia, has been publicly available since July 2003, albeit with limited promotion. The program is designed to be used on multiple occasions, guiding the user through the process of smoking cessation in the manner of a “life coach”. Email reminders are sent at scheduled intervals to prompt optimal and repeated use. Objectives The aims of this study were to characterize QuitCoach users and to determine what characteristics of smokers affect their participation over time. Of particular interest was whether users tend to return following a relapse and, thus, use the program as a tool for relapse prevention or recovery. We also explored patterns of change associated with returns to the site, whether prompted by reminder emails or not prompted at all. Methods Between July 2003 and June 2007, 28,247 individuals completed an initial assessment on the QuitCoach, of whom 83.7% (n = 23,656) registered. Data were collected during a 10-minute online questionnaire that all users completed in order to obtain tailored cessation advice. This included questions concerning basic demographic information, quitting history, current smoking status and cigarette consumption, stage of change, and use of pharmacotherapy. Results The median age of users was 34 years, and 62% were female. Most (96%) were current smokers. Overall, 91% were planning to quit in the next 30 days, and half (49.9%) had set a quit date. Those who had recently relapsed to smoking following a quit attempt made up 37%. Among registered users, 27% returned for a second visit, a median 9 days after their first. Overall, a third visit was completed by 11% and 2% returned within 2 days. Women, older smokers, those who had recently quit, and those using pharmacotherapy were more likely to return. From the second visit on, most people who completed an assessment had quit. Likelihood of responding to a prompt to return was largely unrelated to user characteristics or cessation outcome. Conclusions Internet-based programs have considerable potential to reach large numbers of smokers at low cost. The QuitCoach is attracting considerable use, with most using it to make a quit attempt and, for those who continue to use the QuitCoach, to help them stay quit. Nonetheless, most users only visited the site once, suggesting improved strategies are needed for encouraging repeated use.
Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring in renal transplantation: should ABPM be routinely performed in renal transplant patients?

In renal transplant recipients, hypertension is common and associated with increased cardiovascular and allograft rejection risks. Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring is required for its accurate diagnosis and adequate treatment, as it clearly offers several advantages over office or casual blood pressure measurements. First, it correlates better with target-organ damage and with cardiovascular mortality. Second, ambulatory blood pressure monitoring can eliminate “white coat” hypertension. Most important is the identification of nocturnal hypertension, an independent cardiovascular risk factor. A circadian nondipping pattern is often found in renal transplant recipients, most probably resulting from cyclosporine A and persistent fluid overload in the early posttransplant phase (approximately 70% prevalence), but reflecting an underlying renal (parenchymal or vascular) allograft disease when persistent (approximately 25% prevalence) beyond the first year posttransplant.
Bewertung von Unternehmen im Financial Distress

Unternehmen werden finanziell anhand ihrer Zahlungsuberschusse bewertet, die sie aufgrund eines Geschaftsplans in der Zukunft erzeugen. Der Unternehmenswert ist gleich der Summe der Barwerte der zukunftigen Zahlungen. Vielfach kann der Barwert einer jeden dieser zukunftigen, unsicheren Zahlungen durch die traditionelle Diskontierung mit einer Vergleichsrendite bestimmt werden. Nur in gewissen Situationen muss auf den generellen Bewertungsansatz der Replikation zuruckgegriffen werden. Diese Situationen liegen vor, wenn der zu einem gewissen Zeitpunkt erwartete Zahlungsuberschuss gering ist in Relation zum Risiko. Das ist indessen genau die Situation, in der sich von Krisen bedrohte Unternehmen befinden: Ihr Cashflow ist gering, vielleicht sogar negativ (Eigner und Banken mussen Zahlungsmittel einbringen), und dennoch ist das Risiko hoch.
Monitoring of genetically modified food in Saudi Arabia.

Growing global cultivation and trading of genetically modified (GM) crops has led to increasing complexity in managing identity preservation of diverse agriculture commodities in food chain. In Saudi Arabia, public has expressed desire of having informed choice in what they are eating. This is the first study conducted to survey for the presence of genetically modified food in the Saudi Arabian markets. A total of two hundred and two samples were tested. Twenty products were found to be positive: 16 samples, three samples of corn or corn products and one sample of potato. The ground meat samples were positive as a result of added soybean. Two of the three corn samples were pop corn and corn starch, of which both were positive for the presence of the 35S promoter only. The third corn sample was a product known in the market as mixed nuts, was positive for both the 35S promoter and (NOS) terminator. The sample of potato (which was positive) was positive for both the 35S promoter and (NOS) terminator. Key words: Genetically modified organisms, diagnosis, real time polymerase chain reaction, food, survey, Saudi Arabia.
Rate Regulation with Feedback Controller in ATM Networks - A Neural Network Approach

We propose the use of an artificial neural network (ANN) technique for a rate-based feedback controller in asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) networks. A leaky bucket (LB) mechanism is used for cell discarding, when the traffic violates a predefined threshold. Since the network cannot rely on the user's compliance with its declared parameters, it is extremely difficult to select the best threshold value and depletion rate for the LB. We propose an ANN model which monitors the status of the LB and predicts the possible cell discarding at the LB in the near future. The source rate is regulated to a certain amount depending on the feedback signal "strength" when possible cell discarding is detected. The lower the value carried in the feedback cell, the higher the possibility of cell discarding and, subsequently, the higher the probability that the traffic is regulated to a lower rate. Our model considers the propagation delay time of the feedback signal making our approach more realistic. This mechanism is transparent to the source if the LB is correctly set up and the traffic follows its declared parameters. We use the same trained ANN for different MPEG traces and the results of a simulation study suggest that our mechanisms provide simple and effective traffic management for ATM networks. Cell loss rate due to the congestion shows a two to five times improvement compared with the static approach, while transmission delays introduced by our ANN controller are also smaller than in the static approach. Channel utilization is also improved, showing that our mechanisms provides a better alternative to static feedback controllers.
Effects of a difference in respiratory cycle between treatment planning and irradiation for phase-controlled rescanning and carbon pencil beam scanning.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the impact of variation in respiratory cycle between treatment planning and irradiation for pencil beam scanning and phase-controlled rescanning (PCR) on the resulting dose distribution, we conducted a simulation study based on four-dimensional CT (4DCT) data for lung cancer patients. METHODS 4DCT data were acquired for seven patients with lung tumours. Treatment planning was designed to ensure the delivery of 95% of the prescribed dose to the clinical target volume in respective phases of the 4DCT by taking account of intrafractional beam range variations. Carbon ion pencil beam scanning dose distributions were calculated for various respiratory cycles that differed from the reference respiration (=4.4 s) but which stayed regular during irradiation. The number of rescannings was changed to 1, 4 or 8 times. PCR was correlated with the gating window in treatment planning to calculate the beam weighting map. RESULTS 8×PCR improved dose conformation to the target for all irradiation respiratory cycles. Minimum dose (Dmin) and lowest dose encompassing 95% of the target (D95) values with 4×PCR were decreased from 94.1% and 98.1% to 88.4% and 93.5% with an altered irradiation respiratory cycle of 2.4 s. However, these values were improved with 8×PCR to over 94.9% for Dmin and 98.6% for D95 for respective irradiation respiratory cycles. CONCLUSION Pencil beam scanning treatment with eight or more PCRs consistently improved dose conformation for moving lung targets even when different respiratory cycles were used for treatment planning and irradiation. ADVANCES IN KNOWLEDGE Scanning treatment with eight or more rescannings consistently improved dose homogeneity to a moving target even though respiratory cycles varied during treatment.
A novel saliency detection framework for infrared thermal images

In this paper, we present a novel human detection method by devising a saliency framework on visual attention HOG features for infrared thermal imaging cameras. The proposed approach extends the saliency map by including the representation not only spatial features but also gaze distribution features. During thermal videos, the developed framework consists several computational stages: (a) the regions of interest areas are outlined based on saliency contrast; (b) the grids of HOG descriptor are selected to extract features in each image; (c) the training features are optimized by gaze visual attention map; (d) finally support vector machine algorithm is used to register positive human saliency model for trained classifiers. In order to validate our algorithm, we constructed a thermal infrared image database collected by real-time inspection system that contains labeled gaze attention map. The experimental results using this database demonstrated that our algorithm outperforms previous state-of-the-art methods for human detection tasks in thermal infrared images.
Open loop controllers to solve the disturbance decoupling problem for max-plus linear systems

This paper presents the new investigations on the disturbance decoupling problem (DDP) in the geometric control of max-plus linear systems. Due to the monotone nondecreasing property of max-plus linear systems, a modified disturbance decoupling problem (MDDP) is defined and an optimal controller to solve the MDDP is obtained using a prefilter mapping by taking the disturbances into account. Moreover, this paper presents a necessary and sufficient condition such that the same optimal controller for the MDDP can be used to solve the DDP for max-plus linear systems. When the necessary and sufficient condition is not satisfied, a new disturbance mapping is developed in order to guarantee the solvability of the DDP by the same optimal controller for the MDDP. The main results of this paper are illustrated by using a timed event graph model of a manufacturing network.
CONTINUOUS IN VIVO DETERMINATION OF BLOOD GLUCOSE IN HUMAN SUBJECTS

An instrumental syst.em for continuous automatic colorimetric analysis, 1 he . Zu toAnalyzer,* has been described The unit consists of a proportioning pump for metering reagents and sample. Continuous dialysis of the sample after addition of the reagents is used to achieve separation from interfering materials. The reagent mixture is heated so that the reaction may take place, and then it passes into the continuous flow cuvette of thc colorimeter, where optical densities are measured and a ratio recording is obtained. This system was applied by Ferrari et a1.T to continuous chemical monitoring of blood glucose concentrat ions, and the effect of pharmacological agents on these levels was measured in rabbits. An intravenous iieedle was insert ed into the jugular vein and polyethylene tubing was introduced inside thc needle. The tubing was tied in place and the needle removed. In the same way, a second cannula was then inserted in the vein. The first cathcter used for the continuous removal of blood and the second one, for the continuous infusion of a sedative-anticoagulant medication. The first catheter w a s connected through a variable-speed proportioning pump to the sampling side of the manifold. A second channel of the pump was used for the cont inuous infusion of the sedative-anticoagulant mixture a t the same rate. 'This accomplishment suggested a technique for use in human subjects. The purpose of this study was to demonstrate the feasibility of automatic, continuous determinations of blood glucose in patients, and to show the difference between the type of curve resulting and the intermittent measurements in standard use for many years.
Organization of noradrenergic efferents to arousal‐related basal forebrain structures

Norepinephrine acts within select basal forebrain regions to modulate behavioral state and/or state‐dependent processes, including the general regions encompassing the medial septal area, the medial preoptic area, and the substantia innominata. The present study examined the origin and organization of noradrenergic efferents to these basal forebrain regions by using combined immunohistochemical identification of noradrenergic neurons with retrograde tracing. Results indicate that the locus coeruleus provides the majority of noradrenergic input to these regions. Lesser, although at times substantial, contributions from the A1/C1 and A2/C2 adrenergic cell groups were also observed, particularly in the case of the medial preoptic region. Given the prominent state‐modulating actions of the locus coeruleus, additional studies examined: 1) lateralization of locus coeruleus efferents to these regions; 2) the topographical organization of basal forebrain‐projecting locus coeruleus neurons; and 3) the degree of collateralization of individual locus coeruleus neurons across these regions. Approximately 80–85% of locus coeruleus efferents to these regions project ipsilaterally. In general, basal forebrain‐projecting neurons were distributed throughout the entire dorsoventral and rostrocaudal extent of the locus coeruleus. Additionally, a large proportion of locus coeruleus neurons project simultaneously to these basal forebrain terminal fields. Combined, these observations indicate coordinated actions of locus coeruleus neurons across these basal forebrain regions implicated in the regulation of behavioral state and/or state‐dependent processes. J. Comp. Neurol. 496:668–683, 2006. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Clinical Effectiveness of Intra-articular Pulsed Radiofrequency Compared to Intra-articular Corticosteroid Injection for Management of Atlanto-occipital Joint Pain: A Prospective Randomized Controlled Pilot Study

Study Design. A prospective randomized controlled pilot study. Objective. We aimed to assess the effectiveness of pulsed radiofrequency (PRF) stimulation on the atlanto-occipital (AO) joint in patients with chronic joint pain. In addition, we compared the effects of AO intra-articular (IA) PRF and AO IA corticosteroid. Summary of Background Data. IA injection of corticosteroids into the AO joint is widely used for the management of head and upper cervical pain, and its effectiveness has been shown in previous studies. However, little is known about the effect of PRF stimulation on the AO joint for controlling chronic head or upper cervical pain. Methods. Twenty-three consecutive patients with chronic upper cervical pain were enrolled according to the inclusion criteria and divided into one of two groups. Twelve patients received PRF stimulation with a PRF needle electrode in the IA space of the AO joint (PRF group) and 11 patients received AO IA corticosteroid injection (ICI group. Pain intensity was assessed using a numeric rating scale (NRS) before treatment and 1, 3, and 6 months afterward. Successful pain relief was defined as ≥50% reduction in NRS score 6 months post-treatment compared to pretreatment. Results. Mean NRS scores were significantly reduced compared to those pretreatment (P < 0.001) in both groups. Temporal changes in NRS score were not significantly different between groups (P = 0.227). Successful pain relief was achieved in 66.7% and 63.6% of patients in the PRF and ICI groups, respectively. Conclusion. IA PRF stimulation significantly relieved AO joint pain and its effect persisted for at least 6 months after treatment. In addition, the degree of pain relief after IA PRF was not significantly different from that after ICI. We think that PRF stimulation of the AO joint could be a useful clinical treatment for patients with AO joint pain. Level of Evidence: 2
Lignin formation in plants. The dilemma of linkage specificity.

Lignification is the process of forming the collective of phenylpropanoid macromolecules termed lignin. There are two ways to define lignin: 1) from a chemical point of view (i.e. its chemical composition and structure), and 2) from a functional view that stresses what lignin does within the plant.
The heterogeneity of cell subtypes from a primary culture of human amniotic fluid

Heterogeneous human amniotic fluid contains various cell types. Herein, we report on the possibility of simultaneously isolating three subtypes of cells from one primary culture. Using a stainless steel instrument named a colony poculum, two of the three cell subtypes could be efficiently cultured, and these were further characterized. The results indicated that these two cell subtypes had different morphologies and were characterized by different cell marker expression profiles, including the differential expression of CD105, CD117 and EBAF. Furthermore, their gene expression array data revealed their different gene expression profiles. Although both cell types expressed several embryonic stem cell-specific markers, they were non-tumorigenic in vivo. This paper not only provides new insight into the heterogeneity of human amniotic fluid, it also presents a simple yet efficient cell isolation method. These results will contribute to the thorough investigation of the properties and potential future applications of human amniotic fluid-derived cells.