Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Application of Cognitive Rehabilitation Theory to the Development of Smart Prompting Technologies

—Older adults with cognitive impairments often have difficulty performing instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs). Prompting technologies have gained popularity over the last decade and have the potential to assist these individuals with IADLs in order to live independently. Although prompting techniques are routinely used by caregivers and health care providers to aid individuals with cognitive impairment in maintaining their independence with everyday activities, there is no clear consensus or gold standard regarding prompt content, method of instruction, timing of delivery, or interface of prompt delivery in the gerontology or technology literatures. In this paper, we demonstrate how cognitive rehabilitation principles can inform and advance the development of more effective assistive prompting technologies that could be employed in smart environments. We first describe cognitive rehabilitation theory (CRT) and show how it provides a useful theoretical foundation for guiding the development of assistive technologies for IADL completion. We then use the CRT framework to critically review existing smart prompting technologies to answer questions that will be integral to advancing development of effective smart prompting technologies. Finally, we raise questions for future exploration as well as challenges and suggestions for future directions in this area of research.
Mitigating the exposed node problem in IEEE 802.11 ad hoc networks

The enhancements to the IEEE 802.11 DCF MAC protocol which enable nodes to identify themselves as exposed nodes and to opportunistically schedule concurrent transmissions whenever possible, thereby improving utilization and mitigating the exposed node problem are described. The algorithm makes minimal changes to the IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol. It does not require the introduction of new frame types or changes to existing frame formats. We show, using simulations in GloMoSim, that it provides significant improvement in throughput.
Membrane Topology and Cellular Dynamics of Foot-and-Mouth Disease Virus 3A Protein

Foot-and-mouth disease virus non-structural protein 3A plays important roles in virus replication, virulence and host-range; nevertheless little is known on the interactions that this protein can establish with different cell components. In this work, we have performed in vivo dynamic studies from cells transiently expressing the green fluorescent protein (GFP) fused to the complete 3A (GFP3A) and versions including different 3A mutations. The results revealed the presence of a mobile fraction of GFP3A, which was found increased in most of the mutants analyzed, and the location of 3A in a continuous compartment in the cytoplasm. A dual behavior was also observed for GFP3A upon cell fractionation, being the protein equally recovered from the cytosolic and membrane fractions, a ratio that was also observed when the insoluble fraction was further fractioned, even in the presence of detergent. Similar results were observed in the fractionation of GFP3ABBB, a 3A protein precursor required for initiating RNA replication. A nonintegral membrane protein topology of FMDV 3A was supported by the lack of glycosylation of versions of 3A in which each of the protein termini was fused to a glycosylation acceptor tag, as well as by their accessibility to degradation by proteases. According to this model 3A would interact with membranes through its central hydrophobic region exposing its N- and C- termini to the cytosol, where interactions between viral and cellular proteins required for virus replication are expected to occur.
Relations between Concurrent Longitudinal Changes in Cognition, Depressive Symptoms, Self-Rated Health and Everyday Function in Normally Aging Octogenarians

Ability to predict and prevent incipient functional decline in older adults may help prolong independence. Cognition is related to everyday function and easily administered, sensitive cognitive tests may help identify at-risk individuals. Factors like depressive symptoms and self-rated health are also associated with functional ability and may be as important as cognition. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between concurrent longitudinal changes in cognition, depression, self-rated health and everyday function in a well-defined cohort of healthy 85 year olds that were followed-up at the age of 90 in the Elderly in Linköping Screening Assessment 85 study. Regression analyses were used to determine if cognitive decline as assessed by global (the Mini-Mental State Examination) and domain specific (the Cognitive Assessment Battery, CAB) cognitive tests predicted functional decline in the context of changes in depressive symptoms and self-rated health. Results showed deterioration in most variables and as many as 83% of these community-dwelling elders experienced functional difficulties at the age of 90. Slowing-down of processing speed as assessed by the Symbol Digits Modality Test (included in the CAB) accounted for 14% of the variance in functional decline. Worsening self-rated health accounted for an additional 6%, but no other variables reached significance. These results are discussed with an eye to possible preventive interventions that may prolong independence for the steadily growing number of normally aging old-old citizens.
Systematics of the Phyllognathopodidae (Copepoda, Harpacticoida): re-examination of Phyllognathopus viguieri (Maupas, 1892) and Parbatocamptus jochenmartensi Dumont and Maas, 1988, proposal of a new genus for hyllognathopus bassoti Rouch, 1972, and description of a new species of Phyllognathopus

Abstract The family Phyllognathopodidae (Crustacea, Copepoda, Harpacticoida) is heavily affected by the floating taxonomic status of the type-genus Phyllognathopus. A revision of the different character states displayed by members of the family is presented, and new phylogenetically informative characters are described, enlarging the analysis to the remaining genera of the family, Parbatocamptus and Allophyllognathopus. Phyllognathopus viguieri (Maupas, 1892) and Parbatocamptus jochenmartensi Dumont and Maas, 1988 are redescribed in detail, and Phyllognathopus inexspectatus sp. n. is described from ground water in Italy. The new genus Neophyllognathopus is established to accommodate Phyllognathopus bassoti Rouch, 1972,originally collected from Long Island (Papua - New Guinea), and subsequently recorded also from the Bantayan Island (Philippines), and from the Indian subcontinent. The new genus is presently monotypic and is easily defined by the unique construction and morphology of leg 5 in both male and female, of male leg 6, and by the peculiar ornamentation of male third and fourth urosomites. Biogeographical and ecological considerations are presented for members of the family.
New blind steganalysis and its implications

The contribution of this paper is two-fold. First, we describe an improved version of a blind steganalysis method previously proposed by Holotyak et al. and compare it to current state-of-the-art blind steganalyzers. The features for the blind classifier are calculated in the wavelet domain as higher-order absolute moments of the noise residual. This method clearly shows the benefit of calculating the features from the noise residual because it increases the features' sensitivity to embedding, which leads to improved detection results. Second, using this detection engine, we attempt to answer some fundamental questions, such as "how much can we improve the reliability of steganalysis given certain a priori side-information about the image source? " Moreover, we experimentally compare the security of three steganographic schemes for images stored in a raster format - (1) pseudo-random ±1 embedding using ternary matrix embedding, (2) spatially adaptive ternary ±1 embedding, and (3) perturbed quantization while converting a 16-bit per channel image to an 8-bit gray scale image.
A New Cellular-Automata-Based Fractional Frequency Reuse Scheme

A fundamental challenge in orthogonal-frequency-division-multiple-access (OFDMA)-based cellular networks is intercell interference coordination, and to meet this challenge, various solutions using fractional frequency reuse (FFR) have been proposed in the literature. However, most of these schemes are either static in nature, dynamic on a large time scale, or require frequent reconfiguration for event-driven changes in the environment. The significant operational cost involved can be minimized with the added functionality that self-organizing networks bring. In this paper, we propose a solution based on the center of gravity of users in each sector. This enables us to have a distributed and adaptive solution for interference coordination. We further enhance our adaptive distributed FFR scheme by employing cellular automata as a step toward achieving an emergent self-organized solution. Our proposed scheme achieves a close performance with strict FFR and better performance than SFR in terms of the edge user's sum rate.
Mean variance optimal control of Markov jump with multiplicative noise systems

In this paper we consider the mean variance stochastic optimal control problem of discrete-time Markov jump with multiplicative noise linear systems. The performance criterion is to minimize the final variance subject to a restriction on the final expected value of the output, or to maximize the final expected value subject to a restriction on the final variance of the output of the system. We also consider the performance criterion composed by a linear combination of the final variance and expected value of the output of the system. The optimal control strategies are obtained from a set of interconnected Riccati difference equations. Additionally, we formulate an asset liabilities management model for defined-benefit pension funds with regime switching using our model. We assume in this case that the market parameters depend on the market mode that switches according to a Markov chain among a finite number of states.
Glycerol and Other Energy Sources for Metabolism and Production of Transition Dairy Cows

Feeding the dairy cow around the time of calving poses unique nutritional challenges. Feed consumption during the week prior to calving declines 30% (Bertics et al., 1992), and feed intake is decreased compared with nutritional needs until 3 to 5 weeks after calving. During this time, the cow is in a negative energy balance with energy output in the form of milk exceeding energy intake. The single most important nutrient required for milk synthesis is glucose, yet nearly all glucose consumed by the dairy cow is degraded in the rumen to volatile fatty acids which are absorbed and delivered to the liver. The liver is responsible for converting propionate from glucose and starch fermentation in the rumen, glucogenic amino acids, and glycerol from adipose triglycerides into glucose which is exported and used primarily for milk synthesis in the mammary gland. When feed consumption, or supply of glucose precursors is insufficient to satisfy glucose demands for milk synthesis, the dairy cow mobilizes large amounts of body fat. When the delivery of mobilized body fat exceeds the liver’s ability to process and export it, the fat accumulates in the liver. The accumulation of fat within the liver results in impaired liver function leading to decreased blood glucose, increased production of ketone bodies, and ketosis.
Relative age effect in Turkish soccer

Relative Age Effect (RAE) refers to the difference between the individuals who were born in the early or the later period of the same year. The purpose of this study was to investigate the existence and prevalence of RAE in Turkish Soccer. The data were collected from 3074 (530 professional players and 2544 amateur players) active players who play for eight different age categories of 19 soccer clubs in Turkish First Soccer League. The significance of the distributions by birth month, distributions by quarter-year and the differences between groups were analyzed through chi-square test. For all categories, first month (January%=22.10), and first quarter (Q1%=44.44) of distributions by birth month and were found to be significantly high (p<0.01). The researchers observed the existence and prevalence of RAE in youth and professional teams of Turkish Soccer Clubs. Trainers should evaluate players carefully during talent selection, in order to eliminate this unfair competition.
Improved Pruning of Non-Dominated Solutions Based on Crowding Distance for Bi-Objective Optimization Problems

In this paper an algorithm for pruning a set of non-dominated solutions is proposed. The algorithm is based on the crowding distance calculation used in the elitist non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II). The time complexity class of the new algorithm is estimated and in most cases it is the same as for the original pruning algorithm. Numerical results also support this estimate. For used bi-objective test problems, the proposed pruning algorithm is demonstrated to provide better distribution compared to the original pruning algorithm of NSGA-II. However, with tri-objective test problems there is no improvement and this study reveals that crowding distance does not estimate crowdedness well in this case and presumably also in cases of more objectives.
Promotion of Electronic Resources in Academic Libraries on a Minimal Budget

ABSTRACT E-resources are now an integral part of the collections in academic libraries. Librarians are under pressure to justify the investment through evidence of usage. Consequently, librarians have realized that they must aggressively market and create awareness. Marketing, however, costs money. In many libraries, the allocation of funds for marketing has been overlooked. Many librarians have created promotional activities at a minimal cost to the library.
How Do Investors Value IT? An Empirical Investigation of the Value Relevance of IT Capability and IT Spending Across Industries

ABSTRACT: Drawing on the resource-based theory of the firm and using Ohlson’s (1995) residual income valuation framework, this paper investigates the relationships between IT capability and IT spending, and market value. We also assess whether these relationships differ based on the industry type (i.e., high-tech). Using publicly available ratings, and after controlling for firm-specific determinants as well as industry fixed-effects, we find that IT capability is value relevant (i.e., the stock market values of firms with superior IT capability are both economically and statistically higher than the values of a control sample), whereas the level of IT spending did not explain variation in market values. The results are shown to hold using two unique archival data sets representing the immediate pre-Internet (1992–1994) and the post-Internet commercialization (1999–2006) eras and are remarkably robust to variations in the control sample, sampling method, and model specifications. Consistent with these res.
Toward the identification of methanogenic archaeal groups as targets of methane mitigation in livestock animalsr

In herbivores, enteric methane is a by-product from the digestion of plant biomass by mutualistic gastrointestinal tract (GIT) microbial communities. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that is not assimilated by the host and is released into the environment where it contributes to climate change. Since enteric methane is exclusively produced by methanogenic archaea, the investigation of mutualistic methanogen communities in the GIT of herbivores has been the subject of ongoing research by a number of research groups. In an effort to uncover trends that would facilitate the development of efficient methane mitigation strategies for livestock species, we have in this review summarized and compared currently available results from published studies on this subject. We also offer our perspectives on the importance of pursuing current research efforts on the sequencing of gut methanogen genomes, as well as investigating their cellular physiology and interactions with other GIT microorganisms.
Acteoside Suppresses RANKL-Mediated Osteoclastogenesis by Inhibiting c-Fos Induction and NF-κB Pathway and Attenuating ROS Production

Numerous studies have reported that inflammatory cytokines are important mediators for osteoclastogenesis, thereby causing excessive bone resorption and osteoporosis. Acteoside, the main active compound of Rehmannia glutinosa, which is used widely in traditional Oriental medicine, has anti-inflammatory and antioxidant potentials. In this study, we found that acteoside markedly inhibited osteoclast differentiation and formation from bone marrow macrophages (BMMs) and RAW264.7 macrophages stimulated by the receptor activator of nuclear factor-kappaB (NF-κB) ligand (RANKL). Acteoside pretreatment also prevented bone resorption by mature osteoclasts in a dose-dependent manner. Acteoside (10 µM) attenuated RANKL-stimulated activation of p38 kinase, extracellular signal-regulated kinases, and c-Jun N-terminal kinase, and also suppressed NF-κB activation by inhibiting phosphorylation of the p65 subunit and the inhibitor κBα. In addition, RANKL-mediated increases in the expression of c-Fos and nuclear factor of activated T-cells, cytoplasmic 1 (NFATc1) and in the production of tumor necrosis factor-α, interleukin (IL)-1β, and IL-6 were apparently inhibited by acteoside pretreatment. Further, oral acteoside reduced ovariectomy-induced bone loss and inflammatory cytokine production to control levels. Our data suggest that acteoside inhibits osteoclast differentiation and maturation from osteoclastic precursors by suppressing RANKL-induced activation of mitogen-activated protein kinases and transcription factors such as NF-κB, c-Fos, and NFATc1. Collectively, these results suggest that acteoside may act as an anti-resorptive agent to reduce bone loss by blocking osteoclast activation.
Exploring Halo Substructure with Giant Stars. XI. The Tidal Tails of the Carina Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy and the Discovery of Magellanic Cloud Stars in the Carina Foreground

A new large-area Washington M, T2+DDO51 filter survey of more than 10 deg2 around the Carina dSph galaxy reveals a spectroscopically confirmed power-law radial density "break" population of Carina giant stars extending several degrees beyond the central King profile. Magellan telescope MIKE spectroscopy establishes the existence of Carina stars to at least 4.5 times its central King limiting radius, rlim, and primarily along Carina's major axis. To keep these stars bound to the dSph would require a global Carina mass-to-light ratio of M/L ≥ 6300 (M/L)☉. The MIKE velocities, supplemented with ~950 additional Carina field velocities from archived VLT+GIRAFFE spectra with r ≲ rlim, demonstrate a nearly constant Carina velocity dispersion (σv) to just beyond r = rlim and both a rising σv and a velocity shear at still larger radii. Together, the observational evidence suggests that the discovered extended Carina population represents tidal debris from the dSph. Of 65 giant candidates at large angular radii from the Carina center for which MIKE spectra have been obtained, 94% are associated with either Carina or a second, newly discovered diffuse, but strongly radial velocity-coherent (σv = 9.8 km s-1), foreground halo system. The 15 stars in this second, retrograde velocity population have (1) a mean metallicity ~1 dex higher than that of Carina and (2) colors and magnitudes consistent with the red clump of the LMC. Additional spectroscopy of giant star candidates in fields linking Carina and the LMC shows a smooth velocity gradient between the LMC and the retrograde Carina moving group. We conclude that we have found Magellanic stars almost twice as far (22°) from the LMC center than previously known.
Application of Quantum Annealing to Training of Deep Neural Networks

In Deep Learning, a well-known approach for training a Deep Neural Network starts by training a generative Deep Belief Network model, typically using Contrastive Divergence (CD), then fine-tuning the weights using backpropagation or other discriminative techniques. However, the generative training can be time-consuming due to the slow mixing of Gibbs sampling. We investigated an alternative approach that estimates model expectations of Restricted Boltzmann Machines using samples from a D-Wave quantum annealing machine. We tested this method on a coarse-grained version of the MNIST data set. In our tests we found that the quantum sampling-based training approach achieves comparable or better accuracy with significantly fewer iterations of generative training than conventional CD-based training. Further investigation is needed to determine whether similar improvements can be achieved for other data sets, and to what extent these improvements can be attributed to quantum effects.
Curbing Craving

Although one third of children and adolescents are overweight or obese, developmental changes in food craving and the ability to regulate craving remain poorly understood. We addressed this knowledge gap by examining behavioral and neural responses to images of appetizing unhealthy foods in individuals ages 6 through 23 years. On close trials (assessing unregulated craving), participants focused on a pictured food’s appetitive features. On far trials (assessing effortful regulation), participants focused on a food’s visual features and imagined that it was farther away. Across conditions, older age predicted less craving, less striatal recruitment, greater prefrontal activity, and stronger frontostriatal coupling. When effortfully regulating their responses to the images, all participants reported less craving and exhibited greater recruitment of lateral prefrontal cortex and less recruitment of ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Greater body mass predicted less regulation-related prefrontal activity, particularly among children. These results suggest that children experience stronger craving than adults but can also effectively regulate craving. Moreover, the mechanisms underlying regulation may differ for heavy and lean children.
Facility Location with Stochastic Demand and Constraints on Waiting Time

We analyze the problem of optimal location of a set of facilities in the presence of stochastic demand and congestion. Customers travel to the closest facility to obtain service; the problem is to determine the number, locations, and capacity of the facilities. Under rather general assumptions (spatially distributed continuous demand, general arrival and service processes, and nonlinear location and capacity costs) we show that the problem can be decomposed, and construct an efficient optimization algorithm. The analysis yields several insights, including the importance of equitable facility configurations (EFCs), the behavior of optimal and near-optimal capacities, and robust class of solutions that can be constructed for this problem.