gebhart/patrepeval huggingface dataset:
Affine Intra-prediction for Versatile Video Coding (2020)

New algorithms are being investigated in the context of next generation video coding to achieve higher compression efficiency. In particular, intra block copy is well known to accurately predict screen content and artificially generated content where patterns and edges may repeat within the frame. On the other hand, such type of video content is often subject to geometrical transformations such as transitions, rotations, zooms etc, which may not be accurately captured by simply copying neighbouring pixels. A new intra-prediction scheme is presented in this paper whereby blocks of samples from already reconstructed areas are processed by means of an affine-type transformation. This allows more accurate prediction of blocks which improve compression efficiency in a variety of conditions. Experiments in the context of Versatile Video Coding standard show the proposed method can improve intra-coding compression efficiency by 2.01% BD-rates on average, and up to 4.81%, with negligible impact on the decoder complexity.
Handwritten Arabic numerals recognition using multi-span features &amp; Support Vector Machines (2010)

In this work, a technique for handwritten Arabic (Indian) numerals recognition using multi-span features is presented. Angle, ring, horizontal, and vertical span features are used. All combinations of these features are tested and the combinations that result in the best recognition rates using Support Vector Machine (SVM) are identified. The SVM classifier is trained with 15840 digits and tested with the remaining 5280 digits. It is shown that the recognition rates using angle & horizontal span features achieved better recognition rates than all other combinations including using all features. The recognition rates of SVM are compared with published results using Hidden Markov Model (HMM) and the Nearest Mean (NM) classifiers. The achieved average recognition rates are 99.4%, 97.99% and 94.35% using SVM, HMM and NM classifiers, respectively. The use of SVM and angle & horizontal span features give the highest recognition rates and are superior to HMM and NM classifiers for all digits.
Surgical reconstruction of the ossicular chain with custom 3D printed ossicular prosthesis (2017)

A custom 3D printed ossicular prosthesis is a viable solution for conductive hearing loss due to ossicular chain defects. Commercially available CT scanners can detect significant anatomic differences in normal human middle ear ossicles. These differences can be accurately represented with current 3D printing technology and, more significantly, surgeons can detect these differences.
Ultrafast Scanning Probe Microscopy (1993)

We have combined the time resolution of short pulse laser techniques with the spatial resolution of the scanning tunneling microscope to image surfaces with 2 ps time resolution and 50 Å spatial resolution. Conventional short-pulse laser experiments have spatial resolution of a few μm due to the diffraction limit of optical beams. Scanned probe microscopes (SPM) have demonstrated spatial resolution better than 1Å, sufficient to resolve individual atoms, but time resolution is on the order of 1 ms for point measurements and 1 s for imaging, limited by the mechanical constraints of SPM scanners.
A lenslet-based device for measuring oxygen saturation in the retina (2007)

Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is a complication of diabetes affecting up to 80% of all diabetic patients. DR can lead to blindness and reduced quality of life. Some authors have hypothesized that changes in the flow dynamics associated with DR as well as changes in retinal oxygenation can lead to macular edema. Measurements of oxygen saturation in the retina could help understand the real mechanisms behind this condition. We present a novel spectroscopic imaging device to measure oxygen saturation in the retina. Our system uses a lenslet array to spatially and spectrocopically divide a fundus image. A three wavelengths algorithm is used to calculate oxygen saturation in small vessels. Only wavelengths in the 500 - 580 nm range are considered in order to minimize the wavelength dependence of the scattering from erythrocytes. Preliminary testing on healthy subjects showed values of oxygen saturation comparable to the one reported in the literature.
Accurate reconstruction of frequency-sparse signals from non-uniform samples (2012)

With the advent of a new sampling theory in recent years, compressed sensing (CS), it is possible to reconstruct signals from measurements far below the Nyquist rate. The CS theory assumes that signals are sparse and that measurement matrices satisfy certain conditions. Even though there have been many promising results, unfortunately there still exists a gap between the theory and actual real world applications. This is because of the fundamental problem that the CS formulation is discrete. We propose a sampling and reconstructing method for frequency-sparse signals that addresses this issue. The signals in our scenario are supported in a continuous sparsifying domain rather than discrete. This work focuses on a typical case in which the unknowns are frequencies and amplitudes. However, directly looking for the unknowns that best fit the measurements in the least-squares sense is a non-convex optimization problem, because sinusoids are oscillatory. Our approach extends the utility of CS to simplify this problem to a locally convex problem, hence making the solutions tractable. Direct measurements are taken from non-uniform time-samples, which is an extension of the CS problem with a subsampled Fourier matrix. The proposed reconstruction algorithm iteratively approximates the solutions using CS and then accurately solves for the frequencies with Newton's method and for the amplitudes with linear least squares solutions. Our simulations show success in accurate reconstruction of signals with arbitrary frequencies and significantly outperform current spectral compressed sensing methods in terms of reconstruction fidelity for both noise-free and noisy cases.
CSF and blood plasma mass spectrometry measures of Aβ, tau, and NfL species and longitudinal relationship to preclinical and clinical staging of amyloid and tau aggregation and clinical stage of Alzheimer’s disease (2021)

Abstract Background Recent advances in the development of novel Alzheimer’s disease (AD) measures of amyloid, tau, and neurodegeneration in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and blood have enabled a better understanding of the links between amyloid‐beta (Aβ), tau species and neurodegeneration in the brain, CSF, and blood. The discoveries of novel tau species in CSF and blood, including specific phospho‐tau (p‐tau) and truncated species containing the microtubule binding region of tau (MTBR‐tau) which aggregates in tau tangles, have greatly expanded our understanding of tau biology and tau target development. The longitudinal Aβ, tau, and neurofilament light chain (NfL) changes previously measured in CSF are now being measured accurately in blood, enabling interpretation and understanding of AD progression in much larger and more robust populations. Method We analyzed longitudinal CSF and/or blood plasma mass spectrometry measures of Aβ42/Aβ40, multiple p‐tau species (including p‐tau217, 231, 181, 205, etc.), total tau, MTBR‐tau (e.g., MTBR‐tau243, MTBR‐tau299, and MTBR‐tau354), and NfL in sporadic AD and dominantly inherited AD cohorts. Mass spectrometry results were compared to amyloid and tau aggregation measures by Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scans and clinical and cognitive measures in local and international clinical cohorts including ADNI, AIBL, BioFINDER, Mayo Clinic, the Knight ADRC, and the DIAN. Result The longitudinal results indicate that a pathophysiological cascade of events begin with altered CSF and blood plasma Aβ42/Aβ40 ratio, followed by increases in amyloid plaques as measured by amyloid PET, associated with increased phosphorylation of specific CSF tau species (e.g., p‐tau217, p‐tau181, etc.), before increases in p‐tau205, NfL, total tau concentrations, hypometabolism, and atrophy. Finally, some species of MTBR‐tau increase before or with tau aggregation by tau PET and onset of clinical symptoms and correlate with longitudinal tau aggregation and clinical progression. Conclusion These findings indicate that CSF and blood plasma Aβ, p‐tau, MTBR‐tau and NfL measures are highly precise biomarkers of brain amyloidosis, tauopathy, and neurodegeneration and can accurately identify stages of preclinical and clinical AD.
Alternating direction method of multipliers for regularized multiclass support vector machines (2015)

The support vector machine (SVM) was originally designed for binary classifications. A lot of effort has been put to generalize the binary SVM to multiclass SVM (MSVM) which are more complex problems. Initially, MSVMs were solved by considering their dual formulations which are quadratic programs and can be solved by standard second-order methods. However, the duals of MSVMs with regularizers are usually more difficult to formulate and computationally very expensive to solve. This paper focuses on several regularized MSVMs and extends the alternating direction method of multiplier (ADMM) to these MSVMs. Using a splitting technique, all considered MSVMs are written as two-block convex programs, for which the ADMM has global convergence guarantees. Numerical experiments on synthetic and real data demonstrate the high efficiency and accuracy of our algorithms.
Liver fat quantification using a multi‐step adaptive fitting approach with multi‐echo GRE imaging (2013)

This multi-step adaptive fitting approach performed well in both simulated and initial clinical evaluation, and shows potential in the quantification of hepatic steatosis.
Molecular cloning and characterization of outer membrane protein E of Moraxella (Branhamella) catarrhalis (1994)

Outer membrane protein E (OMP E) is a 50-kDa protein of Moraxella (Branhamella) catarrhalis. It is a potential vaccine antigen because it is expressed on the surface of the bacterium and has antigenic determinants which are conserved among most strains of M. catarrhalis. To clone the gene encoding OMP E, an EMBL-3 genomic library of strain 25240 was screened with a family of degenerate oligonucleotides based on the amino-terminal protein sequence. The OMP E gene was identified in one of the six positive clones by Southern blot analysis. An open reading frame of 1,377 bp encoding a protein of 460 amino acids was identified. The calculated molecular mass of the mature protein of 436 amino acid residues was 47.03 kDa, which correlated well with the results of sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The protein product of the OMP E gene had a leader peptide of 25 amino acids and a signal peptidase 1 cleavage site similar to those of known OMPs of Escherichia coli. The transcription initiation site of the OMP E gene was mapped by primer extension to be 78 nucleotides upstream of the ATG start codon. Borderline homology was found to the FadL protein of E. coli (49.1% similarity and 25.6% identity), which is involved in the binding and transport of fatty acids. Analysis of restriction fragment length polymorphisms of the OMP E genes of 19 different strains of M. catarrhalis showed that the OMP E gene is highly conserved. The high degree of conservation of sequences of the OMP E genes of M. catarrhalis from diverse sources, along with earlier observations that the protein contains antigenic determinants on the bacterial surface, indicates that OMP E should be studied further as a potential vaccine antigen.
Rational Design and Combinatorial Evaluation of Enzyme Inhibitor Scaffolds:  Identification of Novel Inhibitors of Matrix Metalloproteinases (1998)

The discovery of a novel series of heterocyclic matrix metalloproteinase (MMPs) inhibitors is described. Published crystal structures of peptidyl hydroxamates bound to MMPs were the basis for the rational design of diketopiperazine (DKP) inhibitors. Combinatorial libraries were prepared and evaluated for their ability to inhibit collagenase-1, stromelysin-1, and gelatinase-B substrate hydrolysis. Deconvolution of active pools resulted in the identification of potent inhibitors (IC50's < 100 nM) of collagenase-1 and gelatinase-B, with the most potent inhibitor exhibiting an IC50 of 30 nM against collagenase-1. A description of the combinatorial evaluation process, as well as initial SAR interpretation for this novel series, is provided.
A dynamic test compaction procedure for high-quality path delay testing (2006)

We propose a dynamic test compaction procedure to generate high-quality test patterns for path delay faults. While the proposed procedure generates a compact two-pattern test set for paths selected by a path selection criterion, the generated test set would detect not only faults on the selected paths but also faults on many unselected paths. Hence both high test quality by detecting untargeted faults and test cost reduction by reducing test patterns can be achieved. Experimental results show that the proposed procedure could generate a compact test set that detect many untargeted path delay faults certainly, compared with the static test compaction method previously proposed in [15].
Fast Bit Rate Estimation for Mode Decision of H.264/AVC (2007)

To achieve the highest coding efficiency, H.264/AVC uses rate-distortion optimization technique. This means that the encoder has to code the video by exhaustively trying all the mode combinations including the different intra- and inter-prediction modes. Therefore, the complexity and computation load of video coding in H.264/AVC increase drastically compared to any previous standards. To reduce the complexity of rate-distortion cost computation, we propose a fast bit rate estimation technique to avoid the entropy coding method during intra- and inter-mode decision of H.264/AVC. The estimation method is based on the properties of context-based variable length coding (CAVLC). The proposed rate model predicts the rate of a 4 times 4 quantized residual block using five different tokens of CAVLC. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed estimation method reduces about 47% of total encoding time on using intra-modes only and saves about 34% of total encoding time on using both inter- and intra-modes with ignorable degradation of coding performance when the fast motion search algorithm is used. When full search motion estimation algorithm is used, the proposed algorithm reduces about 17% of total encoding time.
Progesterone Prevents Sleep Disturbances and Modulates GH, TSH, and Melatonin Secretion in Postmenopausal Women (2011)

Progesterone had no effect on undisturbed sleep but restored normal sleep when sleep was disturbed (while currently available hypnotics tend to inhibit deep sleep), acting as a "physiologic" regulator rather than as a hypnotic drug. Use of progesterone might provide novel therapeutic strategies for the treatment of sleep disturbances, in particular in aging where sleep is fragmented and of lower quality.
Modeling and minimizing interference from corneal birefringence in retinal birefringence scanning for foveal fixation detection (2011)

Utilizing the measured corneal birefringence from a data set of 150 eyes of 75 human subjects, an algorithm and related computer program, based on Müller-Stokes matrix calculus, were developed in MATLAB for assessing the influence of corneal birefringence on retinal birefringence scanning (RBS) and for converging upon an optical/mechanical design using wave plates ("wave-plate-enhanced RBS") that allows foveal fixation detection essentially independently of corneal birefringence. The RBS computer model, and in particular the optimization algorithm, were verified with experimental human data using an available monocular RBS-based eye fixation monitor. Fixation detection using wave-plate-enhanced RBS is adaptable to less cooperative subjects, including young children at risk for developing amblyopia.
Estimation of the Visibility Distance by Stereovision: A Generic Approach (2006)

An atmospheric visibility measurement system capable of quantifying the most common operating range of onboard exteroceptive sensors is a key parameter in the creation of driving assistance systems. This information is then utilized to adapt sensor operations and processing or to alert the driver that the onboard assistance system is momentarily inoperative. Moreover, a system capable of either detecting the presence of fog or estimating visibility distances constitutes in itself a driving aid. In this paper, we present a technique to estimate the mobilized visibility distance through use of onboard CCD cameras. This distance represents the distance to the most distant object on the road surface having a contrast above 5 %. This definition is very close to the definition of the meteorological visibility distance proposed by the International Commission on Illumination (CIE). Our method combines the computations of a depth map of the vehicle environment using stereovision and of local contrasts above 5 %. In this paper, both methods are described separately. Then, their combination is detailed. Our method is operative in every kind of meteorological conditions and is evaluated thanks to video sequences under sunny weather and foggy weather.
Epstein‐Barr virus infection and risk of lymphoma: Immunoblot analysis of antibody responses against EBV‐related proteins in a large series of lymphoma subjects and matched controls (2007)

Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) is consistently associated with distinct lymphoproliferative malignancies and aberrant EBV antibody patterns are found in most EBV cancer patients. We evaluate the detection of an abnormal reactive serological pattern to EBV (ab_EBV) infection and the risk of lymphoma in a multicentric case-control study. Serum samples were collected at study entry from 1,085 incident lymphoma cases from Spain, France, Germany, Czech Republic, Italy and 1,153 age, sex and country matched controls. EBV immunoglobulin G (IgG) serostatus was evaluated through a peptide-based ELISA combining immunodominant epitopes of EBNA1 (BKRF1) and VCA-p18 (BFRF3). Further, immunoblot analysis was performed to evaluate distinct antibody diversity patterns to EBV early antigens (EA), besides EBNA1, VCA-p18, VCA-p40 (BdRF1) and Zebra (BZLF1). Patients with chronic active EBV infection and aberrant EBV activity were characterized as having an abnormal reactive pattern (ab_EBV). Ab_EBV was observed in 20.9% of 2,238 included subjects with an increased proportion of cases presenting ab_EBV as compared to the control population (23.9% vs. 18.0% p = 0.001). Ab_EBV positivity was a risk factor for all lymphomas combined (odds ratio [OR] = 1.42, 95% confidence interval [CI]=1.15-1.74), and specifically for chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (OR = 2.96, 95%CI = 2.22-3.95). Lower levels of ab_EBV were observed for follicular lymphoma (OR = 0.38, 95%CI = 0.15-0.98). EBV may be involved in a larger subset of lymphomas among clinically immunocompetent subjects than previously thought, probably explained by an underlying loss of immune control of EBV latent infection. Ab_EBV is a useful tool to explore EBV imbalances preceding or paralleling possible EBV associated oncogenic events.
Use of guided ultrasonic waves for characterization of cancellous and cortical bone (2004)

The possibility of accessing mechanical, structural, and geometrical parameters of both the cancellous and cortical bone components by different modes of ultrasonic guided waves has been demonstrated in several laboratories in Europe and the USA. Making measurements of acoustic wave propagation parameters in a wide frequency band, e.g., from 100 kHz to several MHz, enables assessment of bone layers at different depths from the bone surface. At lower frequencies, the acoustic wave velocity is found to be sensitive to changes of the cortical thickness in middleshaft areas. In epiphyseal zones, the measured low-frequency (100-kHz) wave, velocity reflects contributions of both the spongy and compact bone components and can be sensitive to changes of the trabecular structure. At higher frequencies in the MHz range, the main acoustic mode manifested in the received signal is related to the longitudinal wave, which characterizes mainly the elastic properties of the compact bone closer to the periosteum. Measurements of the ultrasonic pulse propagation parameters in a broad frequency band using surface transmission scanning mode enables the possibility to obtain the profile of acoustic properties of long bones. [Work supported by NIH and NASA.]
Cloning and sequencing of a complementary DNA encoding a Mr 70,000 human breast epithelial mucin-associated antigen. (1990)

The human milk fat globule (HMFG) membrane contains several glycoproteins that have been referred to as breast differentiation antigens and that are expressed in normal breast, breast tumors, breast tumor-derived cell lines, and are found in breast cancer patient serum. These antigens include a high molecular weight mucin and several smaller components including Mr 150,000; 70,000; and 46,000 glycoproteins. We have used 2 monoclonal antibodies (McR2 and Mc13) that bind the Mr 70,000 component of HMFG to immunoscreen a lambda gt11 expression library prepared from human lactating breast tissue. We report here the sequence of a complementary DNA clone (BA70-1) that codes for a peptide that binds both McR2 and Mc13 but not monoclonal antibodies to the breast mucin or other components of HMFG.A 1.8-kilobase RNA was detected in 9 of 9 breast tumor cell lines using 32P-labeled BA70-1 as probe. The BA70-1 RNA was highly expressed in 6 of 9 cells lines of breast and several other carcinomas lines compared with a lymphoblastoid cell line (Raji). The BA70-1 complementary DNA sequence has no extensive homology with previously reported sequences including the high-molecular weight mucin complementary DNA. Since the Mr 70,000 molecule appears to be associated with the breast mucin by disulfide bonds, its study could help elucidate the structure of this latter complex and how it is organized in the cell membrane, and prove useful in diagnosis and therapy of breast cancer.
Characterization of Coatings Deposited by Laser-Assisted Atmospheric Plasma Spraying (2003)

Abstract Laser-assisted atmospheric plasma spraying (LAAPS) is a newly developed one-step coating process in which the laser beam interacts simultaneously with the plasma torch on the substrate or deposited coating surface in order to generate the coating. LAAPS combines the advantages of plasma spraying, such as high coating rates, with those of laser cladding. In addition, there is no need for a special surface preparation method, such as grit blasting. In this paper, the principle of LAAPS is described and the use of this process for the preparation of NiCrBSi and Al2O3- 3%TiO2 coatings is demonstrated. The coatings were characterized by optical microscopy, hardness and bond strength testing, X-ray diffraction measurements, and an oscillating sliding wear test. Coating microstructures and properties were compared to those of APS coatings. The bond strengths of LAAPS coatings were higher for NiCrBSi coatings, but they were lower for Al2O3-3%TiO2 with a NiAl bond coat due to the very complex processes occurring in the contact region between the metallic substrate and the ceramic coating material.