Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hallux Valgus Plantar Pressure Distribution before and after a Distal Metatarsal Osteotomy

Background: Hallux valgus (HV) morphological alterations impact forefoot kinetics. Surgery aims to restore both the morphology and function. Plantar pressure (PP) distribution systems represent an innovative additional tool to evaluate the hallux functional outcome after surgery in order to assess the hallux dorsiflexion, coupled with plantar flexion of the first ray. However, the literature reports limited evidence regarding the rebalancing of the plantar pressure distribution following surgery. The purpose of the present study was to examine the PP distribution in HV patients before and after a distal metatarsal osteotomy using a novel anatomically based protocol for in-shoe plantar load analysis during gait. Methods: A consecutive series of 18 patients with mild-to-moderate symptomatic HV who underwent a distal metatarsal osteotomy (S.E.R.I. technique) were prospectively evaluated using clinical scores (AOFAS and NRS), radiographic parameters (hallux valgus angle, intermetatarsal angle), and PP measurements via W-INSHOE© (Medicapteurs, Balma, France). Data were collected preoperatively and 12 months after surgery. Results: At 12 months follow-up, 3 patients were lost to follow-up, leaving 15 patients (24 HV) for examination. Both clinical and radiographical outcomes showed significant improvements from the pre- to postoperative periods. The PP distribution pattern revealed a significant increase in the peak pressure under the first metatarsal head associated with a significant increase in the peak pressure under the central metatarsals area between the pre- and postoperative periods. Conclusions: PP measurement systems hold promise as an additional clinical tool, yet current findings remain inconclusive. Further long-term follow-up studies that incorporate additional parameters are warranted.
Termination analysis of logic programs through combination of type-based norms

This article makes two contributions to the work on semantics-based termination analysis for logic programs. The first involves a novel notion of type-based norm where for a given type, a corresponding norm is defined to count in a term the number of subterms of that type. This provides a collection of candidate norms, one for each type defined in the program. The second enables an analyzer to base termination proofs on the combination of several different norms. This is useful when different norms are better suited to justify the termination of different parts of the program. Application of the two contributions together consists in considering the combination of the type-based candidate norms for a given program. This results in a powerful and practical technique. Both contributions have been introduced into a working termination analyzer. Experimentation indicates that they yield state-of-the-art results in a fully automatic analysis tool, improving with respect to methods that do not use both types and combined norms.
A modular architecture for systematic text categorisation

This work examines and attempts to overcome issues caused by the lack of formal standardisation when defining text categorisation techniques and detailing how they might be appropriately integrated with each other. Despite text categorisation’s long history the concept of automation is relatively new, coinciding with the evolution of computing technology and subsequent increase in quantity and availability of electronic textual data. Nevertheless insufficient descriptions of the diverse algorithms discovered have lead to an acknowledged ambiguity when trying to accurately replicate methods, which has made reliable comparative evaluations impossible. Existing interpretations of general data mining and text categorisation methodologies are analysed in the first half of the thesis and common elements are extracted to create a distinct set of significant stages. Their possible interactions are logically determined and a unique universal architecture is generated that encapsulates all complexities and highlights the critical components. A variety of text related algorithms are also comprehensively surveyed and grouped according to which stage they belong in order to demonstrate how they can be mapped. The second part reviews several open-source data mining applications, placing an emphasis on their ability to handle the proposed architecture, potential for expansion and text processing capabilities. Finding these inflexible and too elaborate to be readily adapted, designs for a novel framework are introduced that focus on rapid prototyping through lightweight customisations and reusable atomic components. Being a consequence of inadequacies with existing options, a rudimentary implementation is realised along with a selection of text categorisation modules. Finally a series of experiments are conducted that validate the feasibility of the outlined methodology and importance of its composition, whilst also establishing the practicality of the framework for research purposes. The simplicity of experiments and results gathered clearly indicate the potential benefits that can be gained when a formalised approach is utilised.
Low‐Level Laser Therapy for Wound Healing: Mechanism and Efficacy

Background Given the recent interest in light-emitting diode (LED) photomodulation and minimally invasive nonablative laser therapies, it is timely to investigate reports that low-level laser therapy (LLLT) may have utility in wound healing. Objectives To critically evaluate reported in vitro models and in vivo animal and human studies and to assess the qualitative and quantitative sufficiency of evidence for the efficacy of LLLT in promoting wound healing. Method Literature review, 1965 to 2003. Results In examining the effects of LLLT on cell cultures in vitro, some articles report an increase in cell proliferation and collagen production using specific and somewhat arbitrary laser settings with the helium neon (HeNe) and gallium arsenide lasers, but none of the available studies address the mechanism, whether photothermal, photochemical, or photomechanical, whereby LLLT may be exerting its effect. Some studies, especially those using HeNe lasers, report improvements in surgical wound healing in a rodent model; however, these results have not been duplicated in animals such as pigs, which have skin that more closely resembles that of humans. In humans, beneficial effects on superficial wound healing found in small case series have not been replicated in larger studies. Conclusion To better understand the utility of LLLT in cutaneous wound healing, good clinical studies that correlate cellular effects and biologic processes are needed. Future studies should be well-controlled investigations with rational selection of lasers and treatment parameters. In the absence of such studies, the literature does not appear to support widespread use of LLLT in wound healing at this time. Although applications of high-energy (10–100 W) lasers are well established with significant supportive literature and widespread use, conflicting studies in the literature have limited low-level laser therapy (LLLT) use in the United States to investigational use only. Yet LLLT is used clinically in many other areas, including Canada, Europe, and Asia, for the treatment of various neurologic, chiropractic, dental, and dermatologic disorders. To understand this discrepancy, it is useful to review the studies on LLLT that have, to date, precluded Food and Drug Administration approval of many such technologies in the United States. The fundamental question is whether there is sufficient evidence to support the use of LLLT.
Long-Term Cost-Effectiveness of Providing Full Coverage for Preventive Medications After Myocardial Infarction

Background—Adherence to drugs that are prescribed after myocardial infarction remains suboptimal. Although eliminating patient cost sharing for secondary prevention increases adherence and reduces rates of major cardiovascular events, the long-term clinical and economic implications of this approach have not been adequately evaluated. Methods and Results—We developed a Markov model simulating a hypothetical cohort of commercially insured patients who were discharged from the hospital after myocardial infarction. Patients received &bgr;-blockers, renin–angiotensin system antagonists, and statins without cost sharing (full coverage) or at the current level of insurance coverage (usual coverage). Model inputs were extracted from the Post Myocardial Infarction Free Rx Event and Economic Evaluation trial and other published literature. The main outcome was an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio as measured by cost per quality-adjusted life year gained. Patients receiving usual coverage lived an average of 9.46 quality-adjusted life years after their event and incurred costs of $171 412. Patients receiving full coverage lived an average of 9.60 quality-adjusted life years and incurred costs of $167 401. Compared with usual coverage, full coverage would result in greater quality-adjusted survival (0.14 quality-adjusted life years) and less resource use ($4011) per patient. Our results were sensitive to alterations in the risk reduction for post-myocardial infarction events from full coverage. Conclusions—Providing full prescription drug coverage for evidence-based pharmacotherapy to commercially insured post-myocardial infarction patients has the potential to improve health outcomes and save money from the societal perspective over the long-term. Clinical Trial Registration Information—https://www.clinicaltrials. gov. Unique identifier: NCT00566774.
Analytic representation of multi-ion interatomic potentials in transition metals.

Dans le cadre du formalisme de la fonctionnelle de la densite, de la theorie du pseudopotentiel generalisee (GPT) developpee anterieurement pour les metaux a bande-d vide, on obtient une expansion rigoureuse dans l'espace reel de l'energie totale en volume en termes de potentiels interatomiques independants de la structure largement transferables. Developpement d'une version simplifiee du modele GPT dans laquelle les potentiels a trois et a quatre ions, v 3 et v 4 , peuvent etre exprimes analytiquement tout en conservant la physique la plus importante du traitement complet a principes premiers. Obtention d'un ensemble de potentiels qui donnent une bonne description de la cohesion, de la formation de lacunes, de la stabilite des phases structurales, des constantes elastiques, et des phonons dans le cas representatif du molybdene
Version 2 Machine Hyperconsciousness

Individual animal consciousness appears limited to a single giant component of interacting cognitive modules, instantiating a shifting, highly tunable, Global Workspace. Human institutions, by contrast, can support several, often many, such giant components simultaneously, although they generally function far more slowly than the minds of the individuals who compose them. Machines having multiple global workspaces – hyperconscious machines – should, however, be able to operate at the few hundred milliseconds characteristic of individual consciousness. Such multitasking – machine or institutional – while clearly limiting the phenomenon of inattentional blindness, does not eliminate it, and introduces characteristic failure modes involving the distortion of information sent between global workspaces. This suggests that machines explicitly designed along these principles, while highly efficient at certain sets of tasks, remain subject to canonical and idiosyncratic failure patterns analogous to, but more complicated than, those explored in Wallace (2006a). By contrast, institutions, facing similar challenges, are usually deeply embedded in a highly stabilizing cultural matrix of law, custom, and tradition which has evolved over many centuries. Parallel development of analogous engineering strategies directed toward ensuring an ‘ethical’ device – would seem requisite to the successful application of any form of hyperconscious machine technology.
Community Detection in Degree-Corrected Block Models

Community detection is a central problem of network data analysis. Given a network, the goal of community detection is to partition the network nodes into a small number of clusters, which could often help reveal interesting structures. The present paper studies community detection in Degree-Corrected Block Models (DCBMs). We first derive asymptotic minimax risks of the problem for a misclassification proportion loss under appropriate conditions. The minimax risks are shown to depend on degree-correction parameters, community sizes, and average within and between community connectivities in an intuitive and interpretable way. In addition, we propose a polynomial time algorithm to adaptively perform consistent and even asymptotically optimal community detection in DCBMs.
Test case design based on Z and the classification-tree method

Software testing often consumes up to 50 percent of the overall software costs. A large amount of time and money within the test process is spent due to incomplete, inconsistent or ambiguous informal specifications of the test objects. A more formal approach to the early phases of software development can reduce the error rate drastically and in addition, can significantly improve the central testing activities like test case design and test evaluation. This paper presents an approach for generating test cases from formal specifications written in Z by combining the classification-tree method for partition testing with the disjunctive normal form approach. Firstly, a classification tree describing high level test cases is constructed from the formal specification of the test object. Then the high level test cases are further refined by generating a disjunctive normal form for them. The refined test cases obtained this way cover all specified aspects of the system explicitly and also contain all information necessary to evaluate the test results. The proposed combination of the classification-tree method with the disjunctive normal form approach preserves advantages of both methods, overcomes most of their limitations, and can be supported by tools.
BCI and FES Training of a Spinal Cord Injured End-User to Control a Neuroprosthesis

This article exemplarily summarizes the steps necessary for application of a brain controlled neuropros- thesis in one spinal cord injured end-user. After screen- ing an extensive training has to be performed until the fi- nal use of a neuroprosthesis based on functional electrical stimulation (FES) and controlled by a motor imagery (MI) brain-computer interface (BCI) is possible. The end-user maintained a very high BCI performance over a period of more than one year and successfully managed to control synchronous and asynchronous BCI applications.
Nominal Income Targeting

sumes that wageand price-setting institutions have an inflationary bias. This bias arises because labor markets adjust slowly to changes in economic conditions. Wage rates often fail to reflect the availability of unemployed workers, either because of established relationships between employers and their wor kers or because of a lack of competitive pressure-sometimes shielded by foreign trade barriers. Some advocates of nominal income targeting who hold this view of labor markets propose such targeting as part of a broader economic strategy that includes some form of labor-market reform or policies that would lead to more competitive behavior. "This involves increasing the power of the economically disenfranchised outsiders, whose availability for work has little impact on the wages paid insiders or the prices set by their employers" Tobin (1980, p. 66).
Phylogenetic relationships of Japanese species of Heterobasidion—H. annosum sensu lato and an undetermined Heterobasidion sp.

The phylogenetic relationships of two Japanese Heterobasidion species, H. annosum sensu lato and an undetermined species, were revealed based on three gene loci, glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase (gpd), heat shock protein (hsp) and elongation factor 1-α (ef). The tree, based on combined data of gpd, hsp and ef, showed that Japanese H. annosum s.l. was close to the European S-group, forming a subclade. The results of this study also provided strong support for the recognition of the undetermined Heterobasidion sp. as a distinct phylogenetic species closely related to H. araucariae.
The Effects of Multinational Production on Wages and Working Conditions in Developing Countries

This paper assesses the evidence regarding the effects of multinational production on wages and working conditions in developing countries. It is motivated by recent controversies concerning whether multinational firms in developing countries exploit workers by paying low wages and subjecting them to substandard conditions. We first address efforts of activist groups, universities, and colleges in the Anti-Sweatshop' Campaign in the United States, the social accountability of multinational firms, and the role of such international institutions as the International Labor Organization and World Trade Organization in dealing with labor standards and trade. We then consider conceptually how foreign direct investment might affect host-country wages. Available theories yield ambiguous predictions, leaving the effects to be examined empirically. We therefore, finally, review empirical evidence on multinational firm wages in developing countries, and the relationship between foreign direct investment and labor rights. This evidence indicates that multinational firms routinely provide higher wages and better working conditions than their local counterparts, and they are typically not attracted preferentially to countries with weak labor standards.
An adaptive algorithm for finite stochastic partial monitoring

We present a new anytime algorithm that achieves near-optimal regret for any instance of finite stochastic partial monitoring. In particular, the new algorithm achieves the minimax regret, within logarithmic factors, for both "easy" and "hard" problems. For easy problems, it additionally achieves logarithmic individual regret. Most importantly, the algorithm is adaptive in the sense that if the opponent strategy is in an "easy region" of the strategy space then the regret grows as if the problem was easy. As an implication, we show that under some reasonable additional assumptions, the algorithm enjoys an O(√T) regret in Dynamic Pricing, proven to be hard by Bartok et al. (2011).
Mapping South Africa : A Historical Survey of South African Maps and Charts, Andrew Duminy : book review

This beautifully printed book illustrating the history of cartography in Southern Africa fails to live up to the cover blurb that claims it 'will long remain a standard work of its kind, admired for its informative text and for the beautiful reproductions it contains of almost a hundred maps'. Nevertheless, I found it very interesting, particularly the first chapters that deal with the earlier maps.
Comparative study on radiosensitivity of various tumor cells and human normal liver cells.

AIM To investigate the radiation response of various human tumor cells and normal liver cells. METHODS Cell lines of human hepatoma cells (SMMC-7721), liver cells (L02), melanoma cells (A375) and cervical tumor (HeLa) were irradiated with (60)Co gamma-rays. Cell survive was documented by a colony assay. Chromatid breaks were measured by counting the number of chromatid breaks and isochromatid breaks immediately after prematurely chromosome condensed by Calyculin-A. RESULTS Linear quadratic survival curve was observed in all of four cell lines, and dose-dependent increase in radiation-induced chromatid and isochromatid breaks were observed in GB2B phase. Among these four cell lines, A375 was most sensitive to radiation, while, L02 had the lowest radiosensitivity. For normal liver cells, chromatid breaks were easy to be repaired, isochromatid breaks were difficult to be repaired. CONCLUSION The results suggest that the gamma-rays induced chromatid breaks can be possibly used as a good predictor of radiosensitivity, also, unrejoined isochromatid breaks probably tightly related with cell cancerization.
Empowering Young Adult Second Language Learners through Extensive Reading Practices

Although English as a second language learners identify linguistic forms, structures, rules, and functions in the classroom, they are not able to use them correctly in receiving and producing meaning due to a lack of exposure to the language. Second-language learners can be exposed to the target language through extensive reading. Extensive reading may help the learner to recognize the function of linguistic forms, structures, patterns, and vocabulary of the target language and facilitate the learner to receive and produce meaning independently. Therefore, this study investigated the viability and validity of incorporating the extensive reading component into second language (L2) programmes designed to develop receptive and productive skills. This quasi-experimental study was conducted with 70 undergraduate students of both genders divided into two groups: experimental and control. Both groups were taught the same syllabus by the same teacher. However, the participants of the experimental group (N=35) were engaged in extensive reading programme whereas the participants of the control group (N=35) were not. When the achievement results of the two respective groups were compared, the results of the experimental group indicated a significant increase in receptive and productive skills. Therefore, extensive reading can be considered an effective and useful instrument in developing L2 receptive and productive skills.
Interactive Role of Protein Phosphatase 2A and Protein Kinase Cα in the Stretch-Induced Triphosphorylation of Myosin Light Chain in Canine Cerebral Artery

The interactive role of protein kinase C (PKC) isoforms and protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A) in the mechanisms underlying the gradual reduction in stretch-induced contraction through triphosphorylation of 20-kDa myosin light chain (MLC20) was investigated in the canine basilar artery. In the presence of 5 mM tetraethylammonium, stretching at a rate of 1 mm/s from the initial length (Li) to 1.5 Li produced a contraction. Maintaining the stretched state for 15 min (15-min stretch) produced triphosphorylation of MLC20 at Ser-19, Thr-18 and Thr-9, and a gradual reduction in the contraction, both of which were reversed by Gö6976 (1 µM), an inhibitor of conventional PKC. The 15-min stretch increased PKCα activity whereas it decreased PP2A activity, both of which were blocked by Y-27632, an inhibitor of rho kinase. Okadaic acid (OA; 1 µM), a PP2A inhibitor, also produced triphosphorylation of MLC20 at the same amino acid residues and activated PKCα, which was inhibited by Gö6976. Stretching and OA increased phosphorylation of 17-kDa PKC-potentiated inhibitory phosphoprotein (CPI-17), and this phosphorylation was inhibited by Gö6976. The present results suggest that activation of PKCα mediated by an inhibitor of PP2A is involved in the stretch-induced triphosphorylation of MLC20, and that this triphosphorylation counteracts the stretch-induced contraction.