Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Two-Photon Imaging for Non-Invasive Corneal Examination

Two-photon imaging (TPI) microscopy, namely, two-photon excited fluorescence (TPEF), fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM), and second-harmonic generation (SHG) modalities, has emerged in the past years as a powerful tool for the examination of biological tissues. These modalities rely on different contrast mechanisms and are often used simultaneously to provide complementary information on morphology, metabolism, and structural properties of the imaged tissue. The cornea, being a transparent tissue, rich in collagen and with several cellular layers, is well-suited to be imaged by TPI microscopy. In this review, we discuss the physical principles behind TPI as well as its instrumentation. We also provide an overview of the current advances in TPI instrumentation and image analysis. We describe how TPI can be leveraged to retrieve unique information on the cornea and to complement the information provided by current clinical devices. The present state of corneal TPI is outlined. Finally, we discuss the obstacles that must be overcome and offer perspectives and outlooks to make clinical TPI of the human cornea a reality.
The Importance of Monitoring and Factors That May Influence Leg Length Difference in Developmental Dysplasia of the Hip

In unilateral Developmental Dysplasia of the Hip (DDH), avascular necrosis (AVN), femoral or pelvic osteotomy, and residual dysplasia causing subluxation of the proximal femur may influence Leg Length Discrepancy (LLD). This can lead to gait compensation, pelvic obliquity, and spinal curvature. The aim of this study is to determine the prevalence of LLD, establish which limb segment contributes to the discrepancy, describe how AVN influences LLD, and ascertain variables that may influence the need for LLD corrective procedures. Methodology: This study assessed long-leg radiographs at skeletal maturity. Radiographs were assessed for the articulo-trochanteric distance (ATD) and femoral and tibial length. AVN was classified according to Kalamchi–MacEwen. Results: 109 patients were included. The affected/DDH leg was longer in 72/109 (66%) patients. The length difference was mainly in the subtrochanteric segment of the femur. AVN negatively influenced leg length. Older (≥three years) patients with multiple procedures were more likely to have AVN. LLD interventions were performed in 30 (27.5%) patients. AVN grade or type of DDH surgery did not influence the odds of needing a procedure to correct LLD. Conclusions: Procedures to correct LLD were performed irrespective of previous DDH surgery or AVN grades. In most patients, the affected/DDH leg was longer, mainly in the subtrochanteric segment of the femur, largely influenced by femoral osteotomy in patients with multiple operative procedures for DDH. We recommend careful monitoring of LLD in DDH.
Spherical means of solutions of partial differential equations in a conical region

The spherical means of the solutions of a linear partial differential equation $Lu = f$ in a conical region are studied. The conical region is bounded by a surface generated by curvilinear $\xi $ lines and by two truncating $\xi $ surfaces. The spherical mean is the average of u over a constant $\xi $ surface. Conditions on the linear differential operator, L, and on the orthogonal coordinates $\xi $, $\eta $ ,$\xi $ are established so that the problem for the determination of the spherical mean of the solution subjected to the appropriate boundary and initial conditions can be reduced to a problem with only one space variable. Conditions are then established so that the spherical mean of the solution in one conical region will be proportional to that of a known solution in another conical region. Applications to various problems of mathematical physics and their physical interpretations are presented.
Algorithm Optimization of Motion Tracking Based on Optical Flow

Optical flow is an important kind of video motion tracking algorithm, and Lucas-Kanade (LK) algorithm is an effective differential method in terms of calculating optical flow. The 3D Gaussian smoothing filter is properly introduced in the image preprocessing stage of the LK algorithm, which makes it possible to increase the correlation of the adjacent pixels in the time axis, improve the blur effect of the video image and overcome the 2D Gaussian filters disadvantage that is not suitable for the video image processing. More importantly, the optimized 3D non-Gaussian matching filter is chosen during the 3D derivative calculating, and it is capable of reducing the error rate of the velocity vector calculation and enhancing the calculation accuracy of the optical flow.
Speckle effect on diffusers in space-based spectrometers

The use of diffusers in space-based spectrometers leads to the creation of speckles, in the entrance slit. Due to these speckles, unwanted modulations in the measured spectral data are observed. We explain the origin of these unwanted modulations, which we refer to as speckle-induced spectral features or, in short, spectral features. A single value is introduced that can be used to indicate the effect of the speckle-induced spectral features, the spectral feature amplitude (SFA). Measurement and modeling of the SFA parameter on aluminum diffusers are presented.
Nonhydrostatic compression of elastically anisotropic polycrystals. I. Hydrostatic limits of 4:1 methanol-ethanol and paraffin oil

The compression of a foil of Cu 3 Au in 4:1 methanol-ethanol and parafﬁn oil pressure-transmitting media has been studied by energy-dispersive x-ray diffraction in a diamond-anvil cell. Line shifts and line proﬁles are used to analyze elastic and plastic strains. The increasing viscosity of 4:1 methanol-ethanol causes departures from hydrostatic conditions starting around 7 GPa even while the medium is in a liquid state. The glass transitions in the range 5–7 GPa for parafﬁn oil and 12–13 GPa for 4:1 methanol-ethanol cause a volume incompressibility and discontinuity followed by isotropic compression behavior. The hydrostatic limit of a liquid with respect to a polycrystalline sample may lie at pressures considerably below the pressure of solidiﬁcation. For nonideal powders, even small departures from nonhydrostatic conditions of the pressure transmitting medium, often termed quasihydrostatic, can have a strong inﬂuence on the compression behavior. (cid:64)
Coping with Spatial Unfairness and Overloading Problem in Mobile Networks via D2D Relaying

Device-to-device (D2D) relaying is able to increase the network capacity, enhance the network coverage, or mitigate the interference to legacy cellular transmissions. These benefits are even emphasized if a proper incentives are offered to the users to motivate them to act as relays. We first survey the state-of-the-art incentives to show that despite a proper incentivization, the benefits from relaying are enjoyed typically only by the users directly involved in relaying, that is, either those in favorable locations to act as relays or those exploiting such relays to improve their performance. Nevertheless, many users, who are not satisfied with their quality of service (QoS), may not profit from D2Drelaying due to their unfavorable locations. Besides, the current incentive mechanisms are not able to alleviate the overloading of the base station (BS) without violating QoS of already admitted users. Thus, to cope with the spatial unfairness and the overloading of BSs, we propose resource allocation framework extending D2Drelaying benefits also to the users not directly involved in the relaying process. The proposed framework enables efficient reuse of radio resources and takes inspiration from economy concept of taxes. Moreover, it gives an opportunity to the users distributing spared radio resources to increase their virtual monetary gain, reputation, or even helping other users depending on mutual social relationships. The simulations demonstrate that the proposed concept improves the ratio of satisfied users and/or maximizes the number of newly admitted users for which the BS would not have radio resources otherwise.
Simulation of a Hybrid Thermoelectric-Magnetocaloric Refrigerator with a Magnetocaloric Material Having a First-Order Transition

A simple hybrid thermoelectric-magnetocaloric (TE-MC) system is analytically and numerically simulated using the working parameters of commercial Peltier cells and the properties of a material with a first-order and low-hysteresis magneto-structural phase transition as La(Fe,Mn,Si)13H1.65. The need for a new master equation of the heat diffusion is introduced to deal with these materials. The equation is solved by the Crank–Nicolson finite difference method. The results are compared with those corresponding to a pure TE system and a pure MC system with ideal thermal diodes. The MC material acts as a heat “elevator” to adapt its temperature to the cold or hot source making the TE system very efficient. The efficiency of the realistic hybrid system is improved by at least 30% over the pure Peltier system for the same current supply and is similar to the pure MC with ideal diodes for the same cooling power.
The effect of surface charge of plasmonic gold nanoparticles on photoacoustic signal

We investigated the effects of surface charge of gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) on photoacoustic (PA) signal from cultured cancer cell. We used citrated-coated Au NPs and poly-L-lysine-coated Au NPs as the model of negatively and positively charged Au NPs, respectively. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) were performed for cellular uptake and intracellular localization. We demonstrated PA signal measurement using ring-shaped piezopolymer (P(VDFTrFE)) film sensor coaxially arranged with an optical fiber. The PA signal intensity of the cationic Au NPs was higher than that of the anionic Au NPs over an incubation period up to 3 hours. We found that the PA signal intensities were highly dependent on the surface charge of the Au NPs because the uptake of Au NPs by cultured cancer cells was dependent on the surface charge. We also found that the aggregation of the Au NPs highly influenced the PA signal intensity. These findings are invaluable to the design and synthesis of Au NPs as PA imaging contrast agents with maximized diagnostic efficacy.
Guiding Hardware-Driven Turbo with Application Performance Awareness

Parallel programming across many CPU cores offers many challenges in software design, such as mitigating performance or efficiency loss in applications that reach synchronization points at varying times across the CPU cores. Existing solutions often aim to resolve this through clever optimizations in application design, or by reacting to the imbalance by throttling the CPU core frequency of the early-finishing cores at application run time. In this work, we propose a method to rebalance bulksynchronous MPI applications by selectively speeding up the latefinishing cores throughout application run time. This algorithm makes use of the new Intel® Speed Select Turbo Frequency feature that enables software to guide the hardware toward increasing the turbo frequency limits of some cores in exchange for decreased turbo frequency limits in other cores. We demonstrate up to 40% energy reduction and 17% execution time reduction in a highly-imbalanced, compute-bound benchmark application and up to 21% energy reduction with 5% execution time reduction in an imbalanced real-world application.
Does a Little Difference Make a Big Difference? Bovine β-Casein A1 and A2 Variants and Human Health—An Update

For over 20 years, bovine beta-casein has been a subject of increasing scientific interest because its genetic A1 variant during gastrointestinal digestion releases opioid-like peptide β-casomorphin-7 (β-CM-7). Since β-CM-7 is involved in the dysregulation of many physiological processes, there is a growing discussion of whether the consumption of the β-casein A1 variant has an influence on human health. In the last decade, the number of papers dealing with this problem has substantially increased. The newest clinical studies on humans showed a negative effect of variant A1 on serum glutathione level, digestive well-being, cognitive performance score in children, and mood score in women. Scientific reports in this field can affect the policies of dairy cattle breeders and the milk industry, leading to the elimination of allele A1 in dairy cattle populations and promoting milk products based on milk from cows with the A2A2 genotype. More scientific proof, especially in well-designed clinical studies, is necessary to determine whether a little difference in the β-casein amino acid sequence negatively affects the health of milk consumers.
Single‐crystal diamond plate liftoff achieved by ion implantation and subsequent annealing

We describe a new method for removing thin, large area sheets of diamond from bulk or homoepitaxial diamond crystals. This method consists of an ion implantation step, followed by a selective etching procedure. High energy (4–5 MeV) implantation of carbon or oxygen ions creates a well‐defined layer of damaged diamond that is buried at a controlled depth below the surface. For C implantations, this layer is graphitized by annealing in vacuum, and then etched in either an acid solution, or by heating at 550–600 °C in oxygen. This process successfully lifts off the diamond plate above the graphite layer. For O implantations of a suitable dose (3×1017 cm−2 or greater), the liftoff is achieved by annealing in vacuum or flowing oxygen. In this case, the O required for etching of the graphitic layer is also supplied internally by the implantation. This liftoff method, combined with well‐established homoepitaxial growth processes, has considerable potential for the fabrication of large area single crystalline dia.
Spectral Analysis of Multidimensional Stochastic Geophysical Models with an Application to Decadal ENSO Variability

Abstract Simple linear models with additive stochastic forcing have been rather successful in explaining the observed spectrum of important climate variables. Motivated by this, the authors analyze the spectral character of such a general stochastic system of finite dimension. The spectral matrix is derived in the case that the spectrum is a linear combination of dynamical variables and their stochastic forcings. It is found that the most convenient basis for analysis is provided by the normal modes. In general the spectrum consists of two pieces. The first “diagonal” piece is a symmetric Lorentzian curve centered on the normal mode frequencies with breadth and strength determined by the normal mode dissipation. The second cross-spectrum piece derives usually from the coherency of the stochastic forcing of two different normal modes. The cross-spectrum is smaller in magnitude than the corresponding two diagonal pieces. This relative magnitude is controlled by the Wiener coherency, which is equal to the ma.
Direct Numerical Simulation and Large Eddy Simulation on a Turbulent Wall-Bounded Flow Using Lattice Boltzmann Method and Multiple GPUs

Direct numerical simulation (DNS) and large eddy simulation (LES) were performed on the wall-bounded flow at using lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) and multiple GPUs (Graphic Processing Units). In the DNS, 8 K20M GPUs were adopted. The maximum number of meshes is , which results in the nondimensional mesh size of for the whole solution domain. It took 24 hours for GPU-LBM solver to simulate LBM steps. The aspect ratio of resolution domain was tested to obtain accurate results for DNS. As a result, both the mean velocity and turbulent variables, such as Reynolds stress and velocity fluctuations, perfectly agree with the results of Kim et al. (1987) when the aspect ratios in streamwise and spanwise directions are 8 and 2, respectively. As for the LES, the local grid refinement technique was tested and then used. Using grids and Smagorinsky constant , good results were obtained. The ability and validity of LBM on simulating turbulent flow were verified.
A method for improving near-field BP imaging that Uses radiation pattern compensation

This paper presents a method for acquiring the spatial structure of a target using millimeter-wave radar under near-field conditions and imaging a 3D target using 2D and 3D BP imaging methods. The situation that bright spots appear in the BP imaging algorithm to affect the imaging effect is analyzed. A compensation method using the radiation pattern is proposed to achieve the suppression of bright spots caused by strong scattering points. The 2D and 3D BP imaging effects are improved. The correctness of the method is verified by comparing the measured data.
Improvement of Restricted Boltzmann Machine by Sparse Representation Based on Lorentz Function

Restricted Boltzmann machine (RBM) is an effective feature extraction algorithm. Inspired by the visual cortex sparse representation, sparsity is introduced into RBM to get sparse representation. In the paper, the Lorentz function is introduced to RBM to construct constrained sparse RBM model (LRBM) to improve RBM. The experimental results show that the LRBM model can effectively extract the feature information. The average classification rate increases by 2% than that of RBM.
Analytic Parameterization of Stabilizing Controllers for the Moore-Greitzer Compressor Model

This work presents an extension, simplification and application of a design procedure for dynamic output feedback design for systems with nonlinearities satisfying quadratic constraints (QC). Our method was motivated by the challenges of output feedback control design for the three-state Moore-Greitzer (MG) compressor model. The classical three-state MG model is a nonlinear dynamical system that is widely used in stall/surge analysis and control design. First, we find the parameter set of the stabilizing dynamic output feedback controllers for the surge subsystem by using conditions for stability of a transformed system and the associated matching conditions. Second, we choose the optimal control parameters from the stabilizing set with respect to different desired criteria. We show the set of parameters of the stabilizing controllers for the surge subsystem and the set of parameters of the stabilizing controllers with extended integral part for MG compressor. We present simplified sufficient conditions for stabilization, new constraints for the corresponding parameters and examples of optimal problem for the surge subsystem of the Moore-Greitzer compressor model. We discuss the degree of robustness and clarify an alternative proof of stability of the closed-loop system with the surge subsystem and the stabilizing dynamic output feedback controller without an integral state. In addition, we show the derivation of a quadratic function by using CVX.
The Influence of Lifestyle and Treatment on Oxidative Stress and Inflammation in Diabetes

Diabetes is considered a new pandemic of the modern world, and the number of sufferers is steadily increasing. Sustained hyperglycemia promotes the production of free radicals and leads to persistent, low-grade inflammation. Oxidative stress causes mitochondrial destruction, which along with activation of the hexosamine pathway, nuclear factor-κB (Nf-κb), p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (p38 MAPK), c-jun NH2 terminal kinase/stress-activated protein kinase (JNK/SAPK) or toll-like receptors (TLRs), leads to pancreatic β-cell dysfunction. However, there is also the protective mechanism that counteracts oxidative stress and inflammation in diabetes, mitophagy, which is a mitochondrial autophagy. An important part of the strategy to control diabetes is to lead a healthy lifestyle based on, among other things, regular physical activity, giving up smoking, eating a balanced diet containing ingredients with antioxidant potential, including vegetables and fruits, and using hypoglycemic pharmacotherapy. Tobacco smoke is a recognized modifiable risk factor for many diseases including diabetes, and it has been shown that the risk of the disease increases in proportion to the intensity of smoking. Physical activity as another component of therapy can effectively reduce glucose fluctuations, and high intensity interval exercise appears to have the most beneficial effect. A proper diet not only increases cellular sensitivity to insulin, but is also able to reduce inflammation and oxidative stress. Pharmacotherapy for diabetes can also affect oxidative stress and inflammation. Some oral drugs, such as metformin, pioglitazone, vildagliptin, liraglutide, and exenatide, cause a reduction in markers of oxidative stress and/or inflammation, while the new drug Imeglimin reverses pancreatic β-cell dysfunction. In studies of sitagliptin, vildagliptin and exenatide, beneficial effects on oxidative stress and inflammation were achieved by, among other things, reducing glycemic excursions. For insulin therapy, no corresponding correlation was observed. Insulin did not reduce oxidative stress parameters. There was no correlation between glucose variability and oxidative stress in patients on insulin therapy. The data used in this study were obtained by searching PubMed online databases, taking into account recent studies.
Lower Fiber Consumption in Women with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome: A Meta-Analysis of Observational Studies

Polycystic ovary syndrome is a common endocrine disorder associated with metabolic abnormalities and gut microbiota dysbiosis. The deficiency of dietary fiber, a crucial nutrient in the daily diet, is also associated with a wide range of metabolic and reproductive abnormalities, as well as an altered gut microbial ecosystem. This study is a meta-analysis to summarize the available evidence on the dietary fiber intake level in PCOS patients. Databases of PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, and ClinicalTrials.gov were searched for observational studies, and 13 studies were finally included. The pooled standardized mean difference (SMD) with the 95% confidence interval (CI) of daily dietary fiber intake and total energy intake were calculated using the random-effects model. The pooled result (12 studies) on absolute dietary fiber intake showed that while there was no significant difference in the total energy intake [−0.17 (−0.44, 0.09), p = 0.208], the dietary fiber intake was significantly lower in PCOS women than those of controls [−0.32 (−0.50, −0.14), p < 0.001]. However, significant heterogeneity was detected across the studies (I2 = 65.6%, p = 0.001). Meta-regression suggested that geographic region and dietary assessment method may confer borderline significance of influence on the heterogeneity. The pooled result (two studies) on dietary fiber intake which adjusted for total energy intake, however, showed no significant difference [−2.11 (−4.77, 0.56), p = 0.122]. In subgroup analyses based on absolute dietary fiber intake, a lower dietary fiber intake in PCOS was observed in studies conducted in Asia, adopted food diary or records or food recall as the dietary assessment method, had a case–control study design, or used Rotterdam criteria for PCOS diagnosis. The difference in SMD was still significant in the adult subgroup or in studies matched or unmatched for age.
Online based Viva Voce Control System

Viva voce is an assessment method carried out by academic staff to assess the knowledge capacity of candidates. The assessment is usually held physically. With the Covid-19 pandemic, the whole process has been shifted onto an online context. There are several difficulties that come across when conducting online, such as marking of answers, guaranteeing the honesty of the candidate, and the manageability of the whole viva session. This research paper discusses the solution to the problem of conducting and managing online viva voce assessments. The proposed solution consists of mechanisms such as, a sandboxed environment to isolate the application, an advanced authenticating system to identify the intended candidate, a comprehensive monitoring system to monitor the candidate during the assessment, an answer validating system to provide a percentage mark to the answers provided by the candidate against a set marking scheme and finally a process to coordinate the viva voce session.