LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Privacy-optimal strategies for smart metering systems with a rechargeable battery

In smart grids, a smart meter communicates fine-grained information about a user's energy demand to the utility provider. A user's energy demand can be used to infer its private activities. Therefore, smart meters post a risk of violating privacy. This risk may be mitigated by using a rechargeable battery to obfuscate the user's demand. We investigate battery charging (and discharging) strategies that minimize the amount of information leaked to the grid, where information leakage is measured using mutual information. We model the energy demand as a Markov process and, after a series of simplifications, show that the problem of determining privacy-optimal charging strategies can be recast as a Markov decision process; the optimal strategy and the minimum leakage rate are given by the solution of a dynamic program. For the special case of i.i.d. demand, we explicitly characterize the optimal strategy and show that the associated minimum information leakage rate is given by a single-letter mutual information expression.
Innovations in services and consumers’ competences

The author in her article presents services as a market product which is more and more often an innovative product. A particular attention is paid to the services' features which have an important impact on behaviour of the services market participants. Introduction to the market of new, improved, technologically advanced services requires a competent consumer.
Pharmacokinetic study for the establishment of bioequivalence of two inhalation treatments containing budesonide plus formoterol.

OBJECTIVES
The aim of this study was to compare lung deposition and assess the bioequivalence of two formulations containing budesonide and formoterol and being delivered via Elpenhaler and Turbuhaler, respectively. A pharmacokinetic (PK) study was conducted.


METHODS
An open, randomized, two-sequence, two-period, crossover, single-dose study in 100 asthmatic patients under fasting conditions was performed. Wash out period was 6 days. Equivalence in lung deposition was assessed after a single inhalation of each treatment with concomitant oral administration of activated charcoal (40 g) to prevent gastrointestinal absorption of the drugs. Several PK parameters were estimated, the area under the drug concentration in plasma versus time curve (AUC0-t ) and the maximum drug concentration in plasma (Cmax ) being the primary response variables. Equivalent lung deposition was concluded if the 90% confidence interval (CI) for the Elpenhaler/Turbuhaler geometric mean ratio of AUC0-t and Cmax , for both drug substances fell within the regulatory limits (0.80-1.25).


KEY FINDINGS
Acceptance criteria were met. Equivalent lung deposition can be concluded. No statistically significant differences between treatments in the incidence of adverse events were found.


CONCLUSIONS
The formulations are bioequivalent regarding both rate and extent of absorption. The treatments were also well tolerated by the participating subjects.
Evaluation of a supervised multi-modal physical exercise program for prostate cancer survivors in the rehabilitation phase: Rationale and study protocol of the ProCaLife study.

BACKGROUND
After treatment for localized prostate cancer, many survivors experience severe physical and psychological/psychosocial impairments, such as urinary incontinence, erectile dysfunction, fatigue, depressive symptoms and decreased physical functioning. Physical activity and exercise can positively influence such side effects and improve quality of life. However, the majority of prostate cancer survivors are not physically active. Thus, supportive interventions, such as supervised exercise programs, are necessary. But particularly in the post-treatment phase, infrastructure and resources are limited and specific exercise recommendations for prostate cancer survivors do not yet exist.


METHODS/DESIGN
The ProCaLife study is a quasi-randomized controlled intervention trial evaluating a specific 26-week physical exercise program for prostate cancer survivors in the rehabilitation phase following medical treatment. Participants are assigned to one of two intervention groups (supervised multi-modal physical exercise including or not including further behavior-oriented techniques) or a control group (not receiving any supervised intervention). Exercise sessions are performed twice weekly and contain specific aerobic, strengthening, flexibility, balance, relaxation and pelvic floor/sphincter exercises as well as mixed games. Behavior-oriented techniques include physical activity-related knowledge transfer and barriers management. The primary endpoint quality of life and secondary psychological/psychosocial, urological, physical fitness and physical activity outcomes are assessed at pre-intervention, post-intervention and follow-up time points.


DISCUSSION/CONCLUSION
By evaluating a specific supervised multi-modal physical exercise program, the ProCaLife study contributes to identify effective forms of physical exercise for prostate cancer survivors in the rehabilitation phase. This is of great importance for establishing specific exercise recommendations which are missing so far.
Changes in force associated with the amount of aligner activation and lingual bodily movement of the maxillary central incisor

OBJECTIVE
The purposes of this study were to measure the orthodontic forces generated by thermoplastic aligners and investigate the possible influences of different activations for lingual bodily movements on orthodontic forces, and their attenuation.


METHODS
Thermoplastic material of 1.0-mm in thickness was used to manufacture aligners for 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, and 0.6 mm activations for lingual bodily movements of the maxillary central incisor. The orthodontic force in the lingual direction delivered by the thermoplastic aligners was measured using a micro-stress sensor system for the invisible orthodontic technique, and was monitored for 2 weeks.


RESULTS
Orthodontic force increased with the amount of activation of the aligner in the initial measurements. The attenuation speed in the 0.6 mm group was faster than that of the other groups (p < 0.05). All aligners demonstrated rapid relaxation in the first 8 hours, which then decreased slowly and plateaued on day 4 or 5.


CONCLUSIONS
The amount of activation had a substantial influence on the orthodontic force imparted by the aligners. The results suggest that the activation of lingual bodily movement of the maxillary central incisor should not exceed 0.5 mm. The initial 4 or 5 days is important with respect to orthodontic treatment incorporating an aligner.
Simulating Cellular Communications in Vehicular Networks: Making SimuLTE Interoperable with Veins

The evolution of cellular technologies toward 5G progressively enables efficient and ubiquitous communications in an increasing number of fields. Among these, vehicular networks are being considered as one of the most promising and challenging applications, requiring support for communications in high-speed mobility and delay-constrained information exchange in proximity. In this context, simulation frameworks under the OMNeT++ umbrella are already available: SimuLTE and Veins for cellular and vehicular systems, respectively. In this paper, we describe the modifications that make SimuLTE interoperable with Veins and INET, which leverage the OMNeT++ paradigm, and allow us to achieve our goal without any modification to either of the latter two. We discuss the limitations of the previous solution, namely VeinsLTE, which integrates all three in a single framework, thus preventing independent evolution and upgrades of each building block. Keywords— SimuLTE, Veins, vehicular networks, cellular
Circumventing anxiety during interpersonal encounters to promote interest in contact: An implementation intention approach ☆

Abstract Interactions with new acquaintances are often filled with anxiety that can reduce the desire for long-term contact. The present research tested whether providing participants with implementation intentions (“if–then” plans) that specify how to act when feeling anxious boosted interest in sustained contact and close interpersonal distance. Implementation intentions led to increased interest in sustained contact during anxiety-provoking interactions in the laboratory (Study 1) and daily interracial interactions (Study 2). They also led to closer interpersonal distance in anticipation of interracial interactions (Study 3). Implementation intentions were more effective than forming goal-directed responses (Studies 1, 2, & 3), or not forming a self-regulation strategy (Studies 2 & 3), and were effective over multiple interactions and across time, despite being learned only once (Study 2). Participants across conditions reported similar levels of anxiety, suggesting that promoting an interest in sustained contact can be accomplished without reducing anxiety, but rather, by shielding individuals from the negative effects of anxiety during social interactions.
Parental presence and visiting policies in Italian pediatric intensive care units: a national survey.

OBJECTIVE
To investigate parental presence and visiting policies in Italian pediatric intensive care units (PICUs).


DESIGN
: Descriptive survey.


SETTING
All 34 Italian PICUs.


PATIENTS
Patients were not involved in this work.


INTERVENTIONS
None.


MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS
A questionnaire was sent to the unit heads. Response rate was 100%. Median daily visiting time for parents was 300 mins; for other visitors, it was 120 mins. Twelve percent of PICUs had unrestricted policies; 59% did not allow the constant presence of a parent, even during the day. Visits from other relatives and from nonfamily were not permitted in 35% and 88% of units, respectively. Policies were not modified for a dying patient in 6% of PICUs. Children's visits were not allowed in 76% of units. Cardiac surgical PICUs were more likely to have restrictive visiting hours. Parents were permitted to be present at the bedside during ordinary nursing procedures, invasive procedures or cardiopulmonary resuscitation in 62%, 3%, and 9% of PICUs, respectively. No waiting room was provided in 32% of PICUs. Gowning procedures were compulsory for visitors in 94% of units. In 48% of PICUs, a formal process of revising visiting policies was ongoing. On patient admission, 77% of PICUs provided the family with informative material on the unit. Phone information on the patient was given frequently (often/always, 70% of PICUs).


CONCLUSIONS
In Italian PICUs, there is a marked tendency to apply restrictive visiting policies, not to allow parents 24-hr access at bedside, and to limit the presence of parents during procedures and cardiopulmonary resuscitation. A revision of current policies has begun, signaling a readiness for change.
Effect of esmolol on oxidant status and antioxidant activity in acute myocardial infarction.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
The role of oxygen free radicals in reperfusion injury to the heart in myocardial infarction (MI) has been postulated. In this study, the clinical and antioxidant effects of esmolol, an ultra-short acting beta blocker in patients of acute MI was studied.


MATERIAL AND METHODS
This was a randomized, double-blind, controlled, prospective study. Total 30 patients with acute MI were included. All patients were thrombolysed with streptokinase. Fifteen of these patients were randomly selected to receive esmolol while other 15 patients served as controls. The parameters compared at 0, 2 and 24 hours between the esmolol group and the controls were--malondialdehyde (MDA), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GPX).


RESULTS
Patients with MI had 5.16 times higher MDA level at 0 hours (20.34 +/- 6.12 nmol/ml vs. 3.94 +/- 0.70 nmol/ml, p < 0.0001) than MDA level in normal healthy population. At 2 hours, patients with MI had 5.71 times higher MDA level compared to normal healthy population (22.51 +/- 5.51 nmol/ml vs. 3.94 +/- 0.70 nmol/ml, p < 0.0001). A statistically significant difference in MDA levels at 2 and 24 hours was observed in MI patients given esmolol (mean change 2.06 +/- 5.39 nmol/ml vs. -4.47 +/- 6.93 nmol/ml, p = 0.009). Esmolol infusion also caused significant difference in GPX level at 2 hours compared to controls (23.79 + 14.68 U/gm Hb vs 38.3 +/- 8.95 U/gm Hb, p = 0.003).


CONCLUSION
Free radical levels are raised in patients with MI which may contribute to reperfusion injury. The antioxidant action of esmolol was clearly observed by significant difference in MDA level and GPX sparing effect. Large scale clinical trials may establish conclusively role of beta blockers as antioxidants as adjuvant to thrombolytic therapy in MI.
Towards an optimized model of incident ticket correlation

In recent years, IT Service Management (ITSM) has become one of the most researched areas of IT. Incident and Problem Management are two of the Service Operation processes in the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL). These two processes aim to recognize, log, isolate and correct errors which occur in the environment and disrupt the delivery of services. Incident Management and Problem Management form the basis of the tooling provided by an Incident Ticket Systems (ITS).
Analysis of multi-core architecture for automotive applications

Transportation is the artery of India's economy and also the back bone of cultural exchange, national unity and integrity. Nearly 60% of the world's population has vehicles. This vital increase in vehicles is due to the rapid development of electronics. In a car nearly 30% of the weight goes to electronics which symbolizes the major role of electronics. These advancements led to the increase in the number of electronic control units (ECUs) in modern vehicles. Higher safety concern and good comfort in turn puts higher computational demand on ECUs, which further increases the design complexity of automotive control systems. Multi-core processors, whose usage in the general purpose machines have now extended its hand to support the additional computation needs of the automotive industry. This paper illustrates the multicore processor based ECU system and states its advantages compared to the current single core based ECU. In this paper, the timing analysis is made by comparing both the systems. The timing analysis is based on the number of instructions capable of running in the processors and time taken to execute a number of tasks. This timing analysis is made using RTaW - ECU and SNIPER. The former is scheduling software and the latter is the multicore based simulator of tasks. Also in this paper, the power consumed in both the systems is manipulated using SNIPER power estimation tool. This proves that the number of ECU's get reduced which in turn reduces the cost and power consumed thus paving way to the modern transportation system.
Knowledge Extraction In Hadith Using Data Mining Technique

Muslims believe that the Sunnah of the Prophet Muha mm d(SAAW) is the second of the two revealed fundamental sources of Islam, after the Holy Qur'an . Hadith can provide a Gold Standard "ground truth" for AI (Artificial Intelligent) knowledge extraction and k nowledge representation experiments. In the present tudy, the extracted Islamic knowledge represented the focal p oint of the research, three famous books in Hadith science framed the corpus of the study. This study attempte d to explore new approach to classify Hadith using data mining techniques to classify Hadith according to i ts validity degree (Sahih, Hasan, Da'eef and Maudo' ), the proposed Hadith classifier model was built through learning process, DT classifier modeling had been represented by the tree structure model, and the at tribu es of the instances originally were obtained from the source books. Whilst some attributes were indicated as null values, or missing values. A novel mechan ism called missing data detector (MDD) was employed to handle these missing data. This mechanism was gener at d based on the Isnad validity methods in Hadith scien ce. The results of the research were compared with the resource books, concurrently with the point of view of the experts in the Hadith science. The findings of the research showed that the performance of DT Hadith c lassifier had significant effect with DDM, the CCR was sharply increased from (50.1502 %) to (97.597%) Fur the more, the favorable obtained results indicated hat the DT Modeling is a viable approach to classify Ha dith due to the ease of rules induction and results  interpretation
Validation and Calibration of a Computer Simulation Model of Pediatric HIV Infection

BACKGROUND
Computer simulation models can project long-term patient outcomes and inform health policy. We internally validated and then calibrated a model of HIV disease in children before initiation of antiretroviral therapy to provide a framework against which to compare the impact of pediatric HIV treatment strategies.


METHODS
We developed a patient-level (Monte Carlo) model of HIV progression among untreated children <5 years of age, using the Cost-Effectiveness of Preventing AIDS Complications model framework: the CEPAC-Pediatric model. We populated the model with data on opportunistic infection and mortality risks from the International Epidemiologic Database to Evaluate AIDS (IeDEA), with mean CD4% at birth (42%) and mean CD4% decline (1.4%/month) from the Women and Infants' Transmission Study (WITS). We internally validated the model by varying WITS-derived CD4% data, comparing the corresponding model-generated survival curves to empirical survival curves from IeDEA, and identifying best-fitting parameter sets as those with a root-mean square error (RMSE) <0.01. We then calibrated the model to other African settings by systematically varying immunologic and HIV mortality-related input parameters. Model-generated survival curves for children aged 0-60 months were compared, again using RMSE, to UNAIDS data from >1,300 untreated, HIV-infected African children.


RESULTS
In internal validation analyses, model-generated survival curves fit IeDEA data well; modeled and observed survival at 16 months of age were 91.2% and 91.1%, respectively. RMSE varied widely with variations in CD4% parameters; the best fitting parameter set (RMSE = 0.00423) resulted when CD4% was 45% at birth and declined by 6%/month (ages 0-3 months) and 0.3%/month (ages >3 months). In calibration analyses, increases in IeDEA-derived mortality risks were necessary to fit UNAIDS survival data.


CONCLUSIONS
The CEPAC-Pediatric model performed well in internal validation analyses. Increases in modeled mortality risks required to match UNAIDS data highlight the importance of pre-enrollment mortality in many pediatric cohort studies.
Robust and reliable step counting by mobile phone cameras

Wearable sensors are being widely used to monitor daily human activities and vital signs. Accelerometer-based step counters are commonly available, especially after being integrated into smartphones and smart watches. Moreover, accelerometer data is also used to measure step length and frequency for indoor positioning systems. Yet, accelerometer-based algorithms are prone to over-counting, since they also count other routine movements, including movements of the phone, as steps. In addition, when users walk really slowly, or when they stop and start walking again, the accelerometer-based counting becomes unreliable. Since accurate step detection is very important for indoor positioning systems, more precise alternatives are needed for step detection and counting. In this paper, we present a robust and reliable method for counting foot steps using videos captured with a Samsung Galaxy® S4 smartphone. The performance of the proposed method is compared with existing accelerometer-based step counters. Experiments have been performed with different subjects carrying five mobile devices simultaneously, including smart phones and watches, at different locations on their body. The results show that camera-based step counting has the lowest average error rate for different users, and is more reliable compared to accelerometer-based counters. In addition, the results show the high sensitivity of the accelerometer-based step counters to the location of the device and high variance in their performance across different users.
Elderly activities recognition and classification for applications in assisted living

Assisted living systems can help support elderly persons with their daily activities in order to help them maintain healthy and safety while living independently. However, most current systems are ineffective in actual situation, difficult to use and have a low acceptance rate. There is a need for an assisted living solution to become intelligent and also practical issues such as user acceptance and usability need to be resolved in order to truly assist elderly people. Small, inexpensive and low-powered consumption sensors are now available which can be used in assisted living applications to provide sensitive and responsive services based on users current environments and situations. This paper aims to address the issue of how to develop an activity recognition method for a practical assisted living system in term of user acceptance, privacy (non-visual) and cost. The paper proposes an activity recognition and classification method for detection of Activities of Daily Livings (ADLs) of an elderly person using small, low-cost, non-intrusive non-stigmatize wrist worn sensors. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can achieve a high classification rate (>90%). Statistical tests are employed to support this high classification rate of the proposed method. Also, we prove that by combining data from temperature sensor and/or altimeter with accelerometer, classification accuracy can be improved. 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Fringe Projection Techniques : Whither we are ?

During recent years, the use of fringe projection techniques for generating three-dimensional (3D) surface information has become one of the most active research areas in optical metrology. Its applications range from measuring the 3D shape of MEMS components to the measurement of flatness of large panels (2.5 m × .45 m). The technique has found various applications in diverse fields: biomedical applications such as 3D intra-oral dental measurements [1], non-invasive 3D imaging and monitoring of vascular wall deformations [2], human body shape measurement for shape guided radiotherapy treatment [3, 4], lower back deformation measurement [5], detection and monitoring of scoliosis [6], inspection of wounds [7, 8] and skin topography measurement for use in cosmetology [9, 10, 11]; industrial and scientific applications such as characterization of MEMS components [12, 13], vibration analysis [14, 15], refractometry [16], global measurement of free surface deformations [17, 18], local wall thickness measurement of forced sheet metals [19], corrosion analysis [20, 21], measurement of surface roughness [22, 23], reverse engineering [24, 25, 26], quality control of printed circuit board manufacturing [27, 28, 29] and heat-flow visualization [30]; kinematics applications such as measuring the shape and position of a moving object/creature [31, 32] and the study of kinematical parameters of dragonfly in free flight [33, 34]; biometric identification applications such as 3D face reconstruction for the development of robust face recognition systems [35, 36]; cultural heritage and preservation [37, 38, 39] etc.