gebhart/patrepeval huggingface dataset:
Smartphone-based floor detection in unstructured and structured environments (2016)

Fall related injuries are one of the biggest problem the elderly and the visually impaired populations face everyday. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported that about one-third of Americans over the age of 65 fall every year. And according to the American Foundation for the Blind, 25 million Americans suffer from total or partial vision loss, which are twice as likely to fall as their sighted counterparts. This creates a need for preventative systems that would allow for the detection of objects that may constitute a tripping hazard. This paper relates to the implementation of a component that will be part of a much larger system that will allow elderly and visually impaired people navigate safely in indoors environments using off-the-shelf smartphones. The component refers to a floor detection module that will identify the floor ahead of the walking person in structured and unstructured environments in real time. A structured environment is an area with a well defined shape such as hallway, and an unstructured environment is an area without a known shape (not all rooms are the same). Floor detection is a challenging task considering the real time nature of the system, and the use of resource-constrained devices such as smartphones. The evaluation of the system showed that it can work in real time with a run time of 1s. The accuracy of the floor detection module in unstructured environments was measured at 87.6% and 93% in structured environment.
Analysis of Circulating Forms of proBNP and NT-proBNP in Patients with Severe Heart Failure (2008)

We obtained clear evidence for circulating proBNP in patients with severe HF and provided the first demonstration of O-glycosylation of NT-proBNP. The higher molecular masses for NT-proBNP and proBNP observed in the Western blotting analyses than those expected from calculations can be explained by O-glycosylation of these peptides in vivo.
Differential Models of Social Work Groups with Family Violence (1988)

This paper examines the research literature on multiple forms of family violence and proposes three social work group models to apply to this widespread phenomenon. The models proposed are group work with wife abusers, groups of reciprocated violent marital dyads and multiple violent family unit groups. The theoretical approach of each model is discussed as well as group composition, goals, tasks, structure, relational-interactional systems, worker role and means of service delivery. Important problems in group development of each model are identified and suggestions for worker intervention are outlined.
Neural Network Aided Potential Field Approach For Pedestrian Prediction (2019)

Autonomous driving is one of the key challenges in recent time. As pedestrians are the most vulnerable traffic participants, collisions with pedestrians have to be avoided under all circumstances. Hence, prediction of pedestrian trajectories is of high interest for automated vehicles. For this purpose, a plethora of algorithms has been proposed to model the pedestrian in the last decades, reaching from simple kinematic models to advanced microscopic models. In addition, the machine learning community started to learn the behavior of pedestrians and showed major improvements in complex scenarios or unexpected situations. However, as most of the machine learning algorithms are treated as black boxes, the safeguarding of the software is one key challenge which has to be solved. This contribution proposes to combine classic modeling of pedestrians with machine learning algorithms by learning the model errors between a simple physical model and real data. In particular, it is proposed to combine a physical model based on potential fields with a neural network to predict the future behavior of pedestrians. It is shown that the combined approach outperforms the physical model in learnable areas, whereas the physical model without the neural network is more robust in areas where almost no training data is available. In addition, different structures of neural networks are analyzed.
An Updated Review on the Treatment Strategy for Spinal Metastasis from the Spine Surgeon’s Perspective (2022)

Spinal metastasis is a common issue causing significant pain and disability in cancer patients. A multidisciplinary approach consisting of chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and surgical treatment is used for treating patients with metastatic spinal tumors. Due to recent advancements in medical and radiation oncology, like tumor genetics and stereotactic radiotherapy, this treatment strategy would change inevitably. Therefore, the decision-making systems developed for assisting physicians and surgeons to choose the most appropriate treatment for each patient with spinal metastasis need to evolve. In this review, the recent developments, validations, and modifications of these systems, as well as suggestions for future systems have been discussed. Recently, separation surgery combined with stereotactic radiotherapy (hybrid therapy) has gained popularity. Additionally, the evidence for hybrid therapy presented in the literature has been reviewed.
Net growth rate of continuum heterogeneous biofilms with inhibition kinetics (2018)

Biofilm systems can be modeled using a variety of analytical and numerical approaches, usually by making simplifying assumptions regarding biofilm heterogeneity and activity as well as effective diffusivity. Inhibition kinetics, albeit common in experimental systems, are rarely considered and analytical approaches are either lacking or consider effective diffusivity of the substrate and the biofilm density to remain constant. To address this obvious knowledge gap an analytical procedure to estimate the effectiveness factor (dimensionless substrate mass flux at the biofilm-fluid interface) was developed for a continuum heterogeneous biofilm with multiple limiting-substrate Monod kinetics to different types of inhibition kinetics. The simple perturbation technique, previously validated to quantify biofilm activity, was applied to systems where either the substrate or the inhibitor is the limiting component, and cases where the inhibitor is a reaction product or the substrate also acts as the inhibitor. Explicit analytical equations are presented for the effectiveness factor estimation and, therefore, the calculation of biomass growth rate or limiting substrate/inhibitor consumption rate, for a given biofilm thickness. The robustness of the new biofilm model was tested using kinetic parameters experimentally determined for the growth of <i>Pseudomonas putida</i> CCRC 14365 on phenol. Several additional cases have been analyzed, including examples where the effectiveness factor can reach values greater than unity, characteristic of systems with inhibition kinetics. Criteria to establish when the effectiveness factor can reach values greater than unity in each of the cases studied are also presented.
A robotic excavator for autonomous truck loading (2002)

Excavators are used for the rapid removal of soil and other materials in mines, quarries, and construction sites. The automation of these machines offers promise for increasing productivity and improving safety. To date, most research in this area has focused on selected parts of the problem. In this paper we present a system that completely automates the truck loading task. The excavator uses two scanning laser rangefinders to recognize and localize the truck, measure the soil face, and detect obstacles. The excavator's software decides where to dig in the soil, where to dump in the truck, and how to quickly move between these points while detecting and stopping for obstacles. The system was fully implemented and was demonstrated to load trucks as fast as human operators.
Short-wave and near infrared π-conjugated polymers hosted in a biocompatible microemulsion: a pioneering approach for photoacoustic contrast agents (2022)

In the present study a biocompatible oil-in-water (O/W) microemulsion was developed carrying short-wave infrared (SWIR) π-conjugated polymers and possessing photoacoustic properties for the first time. SWIR and NIR absorbing conjugated polymers were accomplished to be dissolved in a Food & Drug Administration (FDA) approved natural oil limonene, to formulate an O/W microemulsion using biocompatible surfactants (Span80, Labrasol®). Detailed structural characterization in the absence and presence of the polymers was performed by means of dynamic light scattering (DLS), small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy. In terms of biological evaluation of the loaded microemulsions, inhibition of cell proliferation in various cancer cell lines without exhibiting significant cytotoxicity was tested through the MTT assay. The developed π-conjugated polymers hosted in O/W microemulsions represent a technological approach with a wide range of biomedical and bioelectronic applications and in this contribution, their photoacoustic properties are presented as a proof-of-concept.
Myeloperoxidase-positive acute leukemia with precursor B cell immunophenotype (2010)

Is it always possible to make a complete diagnosis in leukemia? It is sometimes difficult to establish a clinical diagnosis in leukemia, especially without a concordance between morphology, immunop...
Helicobacter pylori cadA encodes an essential Cd(II)–Zn(II)–Co(II) resistance factor influencing urease activity (1999)

Inactivation of Helicobacter pylori cadA, encoding a putative transition metal ATPase, was only possible in one of four natural competent H. pylori strains, designated 69A. All tested cadA mutants showed increased growth sensitivity to Cd(II) and Zn(II). In addition, some of them showed both reduced 63Ni accumulation during growth and no or impaired urease activity, which was not due to lack of urease enzyme subunits. Gene complementation experiments with plasmid (pY178)-derived H. pylori cadA failed to correct the deficiencies, whereas resistance to Cd(II) and Zn(II) was restored. Moreover, pY178 conferred increased Co(II) resistance to both the cadA mutants and the wild-type strain 69A. Heterologous expression of H. pylori cadA in an Escherichia coli zntA mutant resulted in an elevated resistance to Cd(II) and Zn(II). Expression of cadA in E. coli SE5000 harbouring H. pylori nixA, which encodes a divalent cation importer along with the H. pylori urease gene cluster, led to about a threefold increase in urease activity compared with E. coli control cells lacking the H. pylori cadA gene. These results suggest that H. pylori CadA is an essential resistance pump with ion specificity towards Cd(II), Zn(II) and Co(II). They also point to a possible role of H. pylori CadA in high-level activity of H. pylori urease, an enzyme sensitive to a variety of metal ions.
Use of Principal Component and Cluster Analysis to Describe Phenotypes in COPD (2019)

COPD is a multidimensional and heterogeneous disease. In the past years, classification methods in COPD context have been developed based on clinical observation with a limited number of variables to define phenotypes. In such studies, the selection of variables included in the analysis may influence the results and have missed some phenotypes. The main purpose of this study is to identify clinical phenotypes among adults suffering from COPD. Clustering was applied to understand, manage and better predict future risks and optimize treatment selection based on the new groupings of patients. Furthermore, missing data and dimension-reduction, which are present in any large observational dataset, were handled. In this application, 178 patients were described by 85 multiple and huge sets of variables that structured into seven groups. At the first step, the missing values were imputed by multiple factor analysis (MFA). After imputation, MFA was applied for reducing the complexity of high-dimensional data. After this step, hierarchical clustering was performed using Ward’s criterion. In this step, the optimal number of clusters was selected based on several methods. In the final step, K-means as performed to improve the clustering. Three different phenotypes were defined in COPD. Phenotype 1 included severe males with exacerbation-prone, bacterial colonization/neutrophilic and systemic inflammation. phenotype 2 comprised women moderate COPD with emphysema and phenotype 3 included males with moderate COPD and mild atopic traits. These clinically meaningful clusters of patients with common characteristics can be used to predict outcomes of patients with COPD, to aid in the development of personalized therapy.
Myasthenia Gravis: A Review of Available Treatment Approaches (2011)

Patients with autoimmune myasthenia gravis (MG) should be further classified before initiating therapy, as treatment response varies for ocular versus generalised, early onset versus late onset, and acetylcholine receptor antibody positive versus MuSK antibody positive disease. Most patients need immunosuppression in addition to symptomatic therapy. Prednisolone and azathioprine represent first choice drugs, whereas several second choice options are recommended and should be considered. Thymectomy should be undertaken in MG with thymoma and in generalised, early-onset MG. For MG crises and other acute exacerbations, intravenous immunoglobulin (IvIg) and plasma exchange are equally effective and safe treatments. Children and females in child bearing age need special attention regarding potential side effects of immunosuppressive therapy. MG pathogenesis is known in detail, but the immune therapy is still surprisingly unspecific, without a pin-pointed attack on the defined disease-inducing antigen-antibody reaction being available.
A Remote Monitoring System Based on Web and SNMP (2012)

According to the requirements of remote monitoring for TV transmitting station, presents a web-based centralized monitoring solution. In this solution, the ideas of network management system is put forward into the monitoring area, the device server is introduced as the agent of equipment controller, the simple network management protocol is used for data acquisition and equipment control. This Paper demonstrated the feasibility of the solution, introduced the architecture of the monitoring system, described the designs of equipment agent, monitoring server as well as monitoring client. Practical application shows that this solution can meet the needs of remote monitoring in heterogeneous network environment.
INPS-MD: a web server to predict stability of protein variants from sequence and structure (2016)

gigi@biocomp.unibo.it.
Introduction to clinical discourse analysis (2010)

Discourse represents that aspect of mental activity that most clearly reflects the intimate and over-lapping connections among cognition, language, and communication.(Ulatowska et al. 1985)
A Multiomics Study To Unravel the Effects of Developmental Exposure to Endosulfan in Rats: Molecular Explanation for Sex-Dependent Effects (2019)

Exposure to low levels of environmental contaminants, including pesticides, induces neurodevelopmental toxicity. Environmental and food contaminants can reach the brain of the fetus, affecting brain development and leading to neurological dysfunction. The pesticide endosulfan is a persistent pollutant, and significant levels still remain detectable in the environment although its use is banned in some countries. In rats, endosulfan exposure during brain development alters motor activity, coordination, learning, and memory, even several months after uptake, and does so in a sex-dependent way. However, the molecular mechanisms driving these effects have not been studied in detail. In this work, we performed a multiomics study in cerebellum from rats exposed to endosulfan during embryonic development. Pregnant rats were orally exposed to a low dose (0.5 mg/kg) of endosulfan, daily, from gestational day 7 to postnatal day 21. The progeny was evaluated for cognitive and motor functions at adulthood. Expression of messenger RNA and microRNA genes, as well as protein and metabolite levels, were measured on cerebellar samples from males and females. An integrative analysis was conducted to identify altered processes under endosulfan effect. Effects between males and females were compared. Pathways significantly altered by endosulfan exposure included the phosphatidylinositol signaling system, calcium signaling, the cGMP-PKG pathway, the inflammatory and immune system, protein processing in the endoplasmic reticulum, and GABA and taurine metabolism. Sex-dependent effects of endosulfan in the omics results that matched sex differences in cognitive and motor tests were found. These results shed light on the molecular basis of impaired neurodevelopment and contribute to the identification of new biomarkers of neurotoxicity.
Agrobacterium-mediated transformation of Lolium rigidum Gaud. (2014)

Lolium rigidum Gaud. is an annual grass grown for forage but also an economically damaging crop weed. A single genotype somatic embryogenic callus line, VLR1-60, was identified from a herbicide susceptible L. rigidum population, VLR1, and proved to be amenable to Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation. Somatic embryogenic calli were continuously induced from the meristematic region of VLR1-60 plants multiplied in vitro and the basic tolerance level of VLR1-60 to hygromycin B was determined. A hygromycin phosphotransferase gene was used as a selectable marker for hygromycin B selection. Somatic embryogenic calli derived from in vitro grown vegetative tillers were co-cultivated with the A. tumefaciens strain EHA105 harbouring binary vector carrying reporter genes and selectable marker in the presence of acetosyringone for 3 days. Inoculated calli were recovered on callus proliferation medium containing Timentin™ but lacking hygromycin and were then subcultured onto media with hygromycin concentrations increased progressively through time for selection of transformed plant cells. Putative transgenic plants were recovered and integration of transgenes was confirmed by Southern hybridization analysis and by detection of DsRed or GUS activity in transgenic plants. The frequency of plant transformation was 1.3 %. The ability to transform L. rigidum will provide opportunities for functional characterization of genes to improve forage quality and increase our understanding of the evolution of herbicide resistance and of the basic genetics underlying traits that make L. rigidum a damaging crop weed.
Linda[m] and Tiamat: Providing generative communications in a changing world (2006)

When generative communications, as exemplified by Linda [Gel85], were originally proposed, they were intended as a mechanism for coordination of parallel processes. Since that time, they have been adapted to a variety of distributed environments with great success, as can be seen in commercial systems such as T Spaces [WMLF98]. The time, space and identity decoupling afforded to coordinating entities by generative communications also seems to be ideally suited to mobile environments where devices can come and go frequently and often without warning. Such a rapidly changing environment, however, presents a new set of challenges and attempts to introduce the generative communications paradigm into these environments have, so far, met with limited success. Indeed evaluation of research platforms, such as LIME (Linda In a Mobile Environment) [PMR99.MPR01] and L[2]imbo [DFWB98] have led some to conclude that the generative communication paradigm is not well suited to mobile environments. It is my belief, however, that it is the research platforms in question, rather than the paradigm, which do not fit well with mobile environments. These platforms either attempt to impose tight constraints on an inherently loosely constrained environment, or require significant alterations to the semantics of generative communications. I believe that these systems do not work well as they are not designed around the environment, rather they are forced onto the environment. I will begin by examining why these systems do not suit their environment. This done, I will then show that the conclusions drawn from these systems, namely that generative communications are unsuitable for mobile environments, are incorrect. Further, through construction and examination of a proof of concept system built around an environment-centric design, I will show that generative communications can be provided in a mobile environment with few (minor) semantic alterations. An evaluation of some of the mechanisms used will also be presented along with characterisation of the operation of the system. A comparison with existing mobile solutions will be used to highlight how the environment-driven design results in a system which better suits the nature of the target environment.
The Role of Activated Protein C in Cancer (2011)

Abstract Abstract SCI-18 Activated protein C (APC) is a natural anticoagulant that blocks the amplification of the coagulation cascade via inactivation of factors Va and VIIIa. The APC/PC pathway is initiated by complex formation of thrombin, thrombomodulin (TM), and the endothelial protein C receptor (EPCR) allowing the conversion of zymogen protein C into its activated form. Based on the well-accepted view that coagulation contributes to cancer progression and that anticoagulant treatment may benefit some cancer patient groups, it has been hypothesized that the natural anticoagulant protein C pathway may also play a role in cancer progression. Interestingly, it has recently been shown that endogenous APC limits experimental metastasis of B16 melanoma cells in mouse lungs. Notably, an APC-blocking antibody dramatically increased the number of experimental lung metastasis although not due to diminished anticoagulant activity of APC but largely due to reduced APC-driven S1P1-mediated VE-cadherin-dependent vascular barrier enhancement. In line with these findings repeated administration of recombinant human APC as well as transgenic overexpression of EPCR also diminished experimental metastasis of B16 melanoma cells. It may thus be tempting to speculate that recombinant APC could be a novel treatment strategy to limit cancer progression. However, APC has however a short half-life, needs intravenous administration, and is associated with severe bleeding complications, complicating the potential clinical application of these findings. In contrast to APC, zymogen PC has a longer half-life and is associated with significantly less bleeding complications. To prove or refute the hypothesis that zymogen PC may be an attractive alternative treatment option for APC in cancer patients, we recently compared the effect of continuous overexpression of murine APC or zymogen PC in the liver by viral-mediated gene transfer in experimental metastasis. Interestingly, both APC and zymogen PC overexpression was highly effective in limiting experimental metastasis. An APC variant (APC-5A) with reduced anticoagulant but normal signaling properties did not limit experimental metastasis, whereas the protective effect of zymogen PC remained even in the absence of protease activated receptor-1 (PAR-1), which is the main mediator of APCs cytoprotective effect. Zymogen PC may thus be a novel therapeutic target to limit cancer progression. In conclusion, the natural anticoagulant APC pathway may play an important role in limiting cancer cell extravasation and interventions seeking to modulate the PC system may ultimately benefit the cancer patient. The challenge is however to confirm these findings in alternative preclinical cancer models and eventually to translate our findings into a clinical setting. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.