Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Characterizing Change in Postural Stability and Variability during Complex, Whole-body Movements due to Ageing and following an Unexpected Loss of Balance

CHARACTERIZING CHANGES IN POSTURAL STABILITY AND VARIABILITY DURING COMPLEX, WHOLE-BODY MOVEMENTS DUE TO AGEING AND FOLLOWING AN UNEXPECTED LOSS OF BALANCE Andrew H. Huntley Advisor: University of Guelph, 2016 Dr. Lori Ann Vallis This dissertation presents the investigation into volitional movement control during complex, multi-plane tasks from both an ageing and reactive control of posture perspective. While the cause of falls in older adults is multifactorial, recent scientific findings have shown a relationship between falls and improper weight transfers during volitional movements. In the past, balance ability and falls risk has been assessed in both clinical and research settings using relatively simple, single plane tasks despite the fact that many activities of daily living that may result in a fall event involve multiple planes of movement, and thus require a single or multiple weight transfers to complete. Two aims were established; the first was to challenge younger and older adults to complete a series of volitional complex, multi-plane goal-directed tasks and identify any age related differences in the movement control patterns used to execute these tasks at different speeds and with different base of support restrictions. The second aim was to generate a baseline set of data for a group of healthy young adults following a support surface perturbation that required a reactive postural control strategy to maintain balance. The current thesis thus is comprised of four studies. Whole-body stability, variability, and motor coordination aspects of movement control were calculated for all tasks. In general, older adults altered motor control patterns and slowed their movement to maintain consistent stability levels. Baseline data for the healthy young adults found that movement variability was greatest during the trip perturbation however this occurred simultaneously with increased stability preceding the perturbation. Collectively, the current work contributes novel findings to the literature specifically by characterizing age related changes in postural control strategies for complex tasks, including some strategies that may place older adults at risk of being unable to effectively respond to any forthcoming postural perturbations, should they occur. A secondary contribution of this dissertation is the foundation of data for a healthy combined volitional and reactionary control of movement task, which provides the basis of much needed reactive control work in older adults to be undertaken.
Revisiting Benchmarking Methodology for Interconnect Devices

Ever growing demand for network bandwidth makes computer networks an area of constant development and fast adjustments. The steady change makes good performance assessments equally necessary and challenging. This development motivated us to revisit the established benchmarking methodology. We provide an overview of the state-of-the-art in router benchmarking, the currently available benchmarking tools, and challenges for benchmarks. A discussion of benchmarking results for three different devices (routers based on Linux and FreeBSD, and a MikroTik router) reveal different properties currently not covered by standardized benchmarks. We conclude by adding tests to the common benchmarking methodology reflecting these properties to make the results more valuable. The prototype software implementation of our own benchmarking tool and its measurement reports are publicly available.
Comptabilité et analyse financière à Decazeville dans les années 1830

Au debut du XIXe siecle, des grandes entreprises industrielles francaises doivent creer de toute pieces leur propre systeme d’information comptable, adapte a la situation nouvelle creee par la revolution industrielle. A Decazeville, on met donc en place un systeme de calcul des prix de revient a chaque stade de la fabrication, on s’essaie meme au calcul de prix de cessions internes entre les divers etablissements de l’entreprise. En outre, les difficultes financieres des dix premieres annees et la presence de banquiers au Comite d’Administration poussent vraisemblablement a la mise en place d’outils d’analyse financiere en avance sur leur temps.
Evaluation of a Fuzzy Ontology-Based Medical Information System

Evidence-based medicine (EBM) requires appropriate information to be available to clinicians at the point of care. Electronic sources of information may fulfill this need but require a high level of skill to use successfully. This paper describes the rationale and initial testing of a system to allow collaborative search and ontology construction for professional groups in the health sector. The approach is based around the use of a browser using a fuzzy ontology based on the National Library of Medicine (NLM) Unified Medical Language System (UMLS). This approach may provide high quality information for professionals in the future.
Oligodendrocyte Precursor Cell-Intrinsic Effect of Rheb1 Controls Differentiation and Mediates mTORC1-Dependent Myelination in Brain

Rheb1 is an immediate early gene that functions to activate mammalian target of rapamycin (mTor) selectively in complex 1 (mTORC1). We have demonstrated previously that Rheb1 is essential for myelination in the CNS using a Nestin-Cre driver line that deletes Rheb1 in all neural cell lineages, and recent studies using oligodendrocyte-specific CNP-Cre have suggested a preferential role for mTORC1 is myelination in the spinal cord. Here, we examine the role of Rheb1/mTORC1 in mouse oligodendrocyte lineage using separate Cre drivers for oligodendrocyte progenitor cells (OPCs) including Olig1-Cre and Olig2-Cre as well as differentiated and mature oligodendrocytes including CNP-Cre and Tmem10-Cre. Deletion of Rheb1 in OPCs impairs their differentiation to mature oligodendrocytes. This is accompanied by reduced OPC cell-cycle exit suggesting a requirement for Rheb1 in OPC differentiation. The effect of Rheb1 on OPC differentiation is mediated by mTor since Olig1-Cre deletion of mTor phenocopies Olig1-Cre Rheb1 deletion. Deletion of Rheb1 in mature oligodendrocytes, in contrast, does not disrupt developmental myelination or myelin maintenance. Loss of Rheb1 in OPCs or neural progenitors does not affect astrocyte formation in gray and white matter, as indicated by the pan-astrocyte marker Aldh1L1. We conclude that OPC-intrinsic mTORC1 activity mediated by Rheb1 is critical for differentiation of OPCs to mature oligodendrocytes, but that mature oligodendrocytes do not require Rheb1 to make myelin or maintain it in the adult brain. These studies reveal mechanisms that may be relevant for both developmental myelination and impaired remyelination in myelin disease.
Trust-distrust Balance: Trust Ambivalence in Sino-Western B2B Relationships

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how Chinese and Finnish managers in cross-cultural supply-chain relationships evaluate their business partners’ trustworthiness and distrustworthiness. Design/methodology/approach Representatives of two Finnish companies and their Chinese and Finnish suppliers were interviewed to collect qualitative data from 23 managers. Findings The Chinese managers emphasized relationship-specific, personalized trustworthiness. They highlighted personalized communication and benevolence, which manifested in respect and reciprocity, rooted in the Chinese notion of “guanxi” as personal ties. In contrast, the Finnish managers’ view of trustworthiness was more associated with depersonalized organizational attributes. They emphasized the dimension of integrity, especially promise-keeping. In addition, tentative signs of trust ambivalence, as a balance between trust- and distrust-related factors, were identified for both the Chinese and the Finns. Research limitations/implications Due to the exploratory nature of this study the validity of the findings is limited to these data and context. Future studies could explore other national contexts as well as the effects of industry, market position, and position in the supply chain. Practical implications The findings of this study bring a valuable understanding of the potential pitfalls and unique challenges in cross-border inter-firm transactions. These can enhance inter-firm trust building in a cross-cultural context. Originality/value This study enriches the view of trust as a holistic process of simultaneous evaluation of both trustworthiness and distrustworthiness. In this process, trust ambivalence could serve as the intermediate construct between trust and distrust. These two contrary yet complementary opposites constitute a duality to be managed from the perspective of yin-yang balancing.
Existence and iterative approximation of solutions of some systems of variational inequalities and inclusions

In 1968, Brézis [Ann. Inst. Fourier (Grenoble), 18(1) (1968) 115‐175] initiated the study of the existence theory of a class of variational inequalities later known as variational inclusions, using proximal‐point mappings due to Moreau [Bull. Soc. Math. France, 93 (1965) 273‐299]. Variational inclusions include variational, quasi‐variational, variational‐like inequalities as special cases.
Detecting dementia from written and spoken language

This thesis makes three main contributions to existing work on the automatic detection of dementia from language. First we introduce a new set of biologically motivated spatial neglect features, and show their inclusion achieves a new state of the art in classifying Alzheimer’s disease (AD) from recordings of patients undergoing the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination. Second we demonstrate how a simple domain adaptation algorithm can be used to leveraging AD data to improve classification of mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a condition characterized by a slight-but-noticeable decline in cognition that does not meet the criteria for dementia, and a condition for which reliable data is scarce. Third, we investigate whether dementia can be detected from written rather than spoken language, and show a range of classifiers achieve a performance far above baseline. Additionally, we create a new corpus of blog posts written by authors with and without dementia and make it publicly available for future researchers.
Abnormal response to negative feedback in depression

Background. Recent studies have suggested that subjects with depression suffer a diagnosis-specific motivational deficit, characterized by an abnormal response to negative feedback that endures beyond clinical recovery. Furthermore, it has been suggested that negative feedback may motivate non-depressed controls, but not depressed patients, to improve their performance in neuropsychological tests. Methods. We describe two studies. The first compared performance on the simultaneous and delayed match to sample (SDMS) task from the CANTAB neuropsychological test battery, in 20 patients with severe depression with 20 with acute schizophrenia, 40 with chronic schizophrenia and 40 healthy controls. The second examined the performance of depressed patients with diurnal variation in symptoms and cognitive function. Results. All patients groups showed impairments on the simultaneous and delayed match to sample task compared to controls. Depressed patients did not show an abnormal response to negative feedback. Controls did not show a motivational effect of negative feedback. Depressed patients with diurnal variation showed no variation in their response to perceived failure. There was no evidence of abnormal response to negative feedback in any patient group using the ‘runs test’ or of a motivational effect in controls. Conditional probability analysis was not independent of the total number of errors made in the SDMS task. Conclusions. Further studies are suggested to examine whether an abnormal response to negative feedback characterizes particular subgroups of patients suffering from depression.
Expression of Neutral Endopeptidase, Endothelin-1, and Nuclear Factor Kappa B in Prostate Cancer: Interrelations and Associations with Prostate-Specific Antigen Recurrence after Radical Prostatectomy

Objective. To study the impact of the neutral endopeptidase (NEP)/neuropeptides (NPs) axis and nuclear factor kappa B (NFκB) as predictors of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) recurrence after radical prostatectomy (RP). Patients and Methods. 70 patients with early-stage PC were treated with RP and their tumor samples were evaluated for expression of NEP, endothelin-1 (ET-1) and NFκB (p65). Time to PSA recurrence was correlated with the examined parameters and combined with preoperative PSA level, Gleason score, pathological TNM (pT) stage, and surgical margin (SM) assessment. Results and Limitations. Membranous expression of NEP (P < 0.001), cytoplasmic ET-1 (P = 0.002), and cytoplasmic NFκB (P < 0.001) were correlated with time to PSA relapse. NEP was associated with ET-1 (P < 0.001) and NFκB (P < 0.001). ET-1 was also correlated with NFκB (P < 0.001). NEP expression (P = 0.017), pT stage (P = 0.013), and SMs (P = 0.036) were independent predictors of time to PSA recurrence. Conclusions. There seems to be a clinical model of NEP/NPs and NFκB pathways interconnection, with their constituents following inverse patterns of expression in accordance with their biological roles and molecular interrelations.
Psychopharmacologic treatment of in-patients with schizophrenia: comparing forensic and general psychiatry

Abstract Patients with schizophrenia constitute a substantial proportion of patients hospitalized in forensic psychiatry. Antipsychotic medication is an essential part of evidence-based treatment and can significantly improve both the medical and legal prognosis. In this study, we compared psychopathological features, psychopharmacological treatment, and the neurologic and metabolic side effects of treatment in demographically comparable in-patients with schizophrenia being treated in either forensic or general psychiatry. Megalomanic ideations, animosity, affect flattening, weak will, social passivity, apathy, uncooperative behavior, and poor impulse control were more pronounced in the forensic psychiatry sample. Nevertheless, patients in the forensic setting were prescribed less antipsychotic medication than the general psychiatry patients. Polypharmacy was pronounced in both samples. There were no significant differences in prescription rates of depot antipsychotics, movement disorders, or metabolic parameters. Our preliminary findings suggest a number of differences in the symptomatology and antipsychotic drug treatment of forensic and general adult psychiatry patients with schizophrenia. These differences deserve reexamination with more sophisticated designs.
Reduced Cortical Folding in Mental Retardation

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: MR is a developmental disorder associated with impaired cognitive functioning and deficits in adaptive behavior. With a 2D region of interest−based GI, a preliminary study reported significantly reduced gyrification in the prefrontal lobe in MR. The purpose of this study was to further investigate the abnormalities of cortical gyrification in MR and to explore the possible causes of these abnormalities. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Thirteen patients with MR and 26 demographically matched healthy controls were included in this study. A 3D surface-based lGI was calculated as a measure to quantify gyrification. Then vertex-by-vertex contrasts of lGI were performed between patients with MR and healthy controls. RESULTS: Statistical analysis showed that patients with MR had significantly reduced lGI in multiple brain regions compared with healthy controls. These regions include the lateral and medial prefrontal cortices, the right superior temporal gyrus, the left superior parietal lobe, the bilateral insular and adjacent cortices, and the visual and motor cortices. CONCLUSIONS: The observed abnormal pattern of cortical gyrification revealed by significant reduction of lGI in multiple brain regions might reflect the developmental disturbance in intracortical organization and cortical connectivities in MR.
Dimensionless robust control with application to vehicles

The selection of a nominal plant model and an uncertainty representation is a central design choice for a robust controller design. In this brief, we examine the choice of both a plant model and an uncertainty representation from a dimensionless viewpoint. We develop a dimensionless representation of a linear bicycle model for vehicle dynamics that is suitable for a generalized vehicle analysis. Within such a dimensionless framework, the average of vehicle parameters becomes well defined thereby giving a nominal vehicle. Additionally, it becomes easy to develop perturbations of the vehicle model about the nominal one that reasonably encompass all production vehicles. These uncertainty bounds are then used to generate a robust controller suitable for any vehicle. Tighter uncertainty bounds result from the dimensionless analysis versus a dimensioned one and therefore provide less conservative controllers. For the purposes of demonstration, the focus of this brief is a lateral-positioning control task. The resulting control design approach is demonstrated on a scaled experimental vehicle as well as through simulations.
A comparison of Asian e-government websites quality: using a non-parametric test

This research conducts tests to measure the quality of e-government websites of five Asian countries via web diagnostic tools online. We propose a methodology for determining and evaluating the best e-government website based on many criteria of website quality, consisting of linear weightage model (LWM), analytical hierarchy process (AHP), fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (FAHP), and one new hybrid model (NHM). This NHM has been implemented using combination FAHP and LWM to generate the weights for the criteria which are better and more fairly preferred. The results of this study confirmed that most Asian websites are neglecting in performance and quality criteria. By applying the hybrid model approach it has resulted in significant acceleration of implementation, raised the overall effectiveness and enabled more efficient procedure. To compare the ranking methods, a combination of Friedman's test and Dunn's multiple comparison procedure is adopted. When applied to the methods presented here, these tests indicate that AHP, FAHP, and Hybrid method methods perform better than LWM.
Field emission of individual carbon nanotubes in the scanning electron microscope.

The field emission of individual multiwall carbon nanotubes grown by chemical vapor deposition was measured in a scanning electron microscope. By using a sharp anode, we were able to select one nanotube for measurements in carefully controlled conditions. Single nanotubes follow the Fowler-Nordheim law, and the dependence of the field enhancement with interelectrode distance and nanotube radius is in good agreement with the recent model of Edgcombe and Valdré. Our results suggest that only nanotubes with the highest field enhancement factors, i.e., at least 8x higher than those of the average nanotube population, contribute to the emitted current in usual large area measurements.
Computational Measurement of Social Communication Dynamics in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

ii Acknowledgements . v List of Figures . viii List of Tables . ix CHAPTER I General Introduction . 1 Quantifying Verbal Conversational Dynamics . 6 Categorical Recurrence Quantification Analysis (Cat-RQA) . 6 Discursis . 7 Quantifying Nonverbal Conversational Dynamics . 11 Pixel change time-series extraction . 12 Continuous Recurrence Quantification Analysis (Cont-RQA) . 13 Current Project . 18 CHAPTER II – Experiment 1 . 22 Method . 23 Participants . 23 Materials and Procedure . 23 Quantifying Verbal Conversational Dynamics . 24 Quantifying Nonverbal Conversational Dynamics . 25 Relationship between the Dynamical and Traditional Measures . 27 Results . 28 Traditional ASD Measures . 28 Dynamic Verbal Measures . 28 Dynamic Nonverbal Measures . 32 Relationship between the Traditional and Dynamical Measures . 33
Context-aware Argument Mining and Its Applications in Education

Context is crucial for identifying arguments and argumentative relations in text, but existing argument studies have not addressed context dependence adequately. In this thesis, we propose context-aware argument mining that makes use of contextual features extracted from writing topics and context sentences to improve state-of-the-art argument component and argumentative relation classifications. The effectiveness as well as generality of our proposed contextual features is proven through its application in different argument mining tasks in student essays. We further evaluate the applicability of our proposed argument mining models in automated persuasive essay scoring tasks.
A short-open calibration (SOC) technique to calculate the propagation characteristics of substrate integrated waveguide

In this letter, a numerical short-open-calibration (SOC) technique is developed to be directly integrated with the commercial electromagnetic software for accurate extraction of propagation constant of substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) with longitudinally periodic metallic posts. Short- and open-end circuits can be exactly realized by means of electric and magnetic wall in software respectively. After three distinctive equivalent circuit networks are described for SOC de-embedding procedure. The propagation constants of SIW with different dimensions are extracted. Comparison between our extracted and those reported propagation constant is made to validate our SOC technique. In final, the phase and attenuation constants of SIW are derived to demonstrate the propagation and leakage characteristics of SIW.
The impact of inquiry-based professional development on teachers ’ capacity to integrate literacy instruction in secondary subject areas *

(cid:1) PD is critical for building teachers' capacity to integrate literacy and content. (cid:1) PD lessons showed greater integration of complex literacy practices and content. (cid:1) PD lessons showed less delivery of content and more close reading and use of text. (cid:1) Reading and reasoning in PD classrooms served disciplinary knowledge building. (cid:1) Inquiry may be the key behind-the-scenes player in effective PD.
Limb immobilization alters functional electrophysiological parameters of sciatic nerve

Immobilization, used in clinical practice to treat traumatologic problems, causes changes in muscle, but it is not known whether changes also occur in nerves. We investigated the effects of immobilization on excitability and compound action potential (CAP) and the ultrastructure of the rat sciatic nerve. Fourteen days after immobilization of the right leg of adult male Wistar rats (n=34), animals were killed and the right sciatic nerve was dissected and mounted in a moist chamber. Nerves were stimulated at a baseline frequency of 0.2 Hz and tested for 2 min at 20, 50, and 100 Hz. Immobilization altered nerve excitability. Rheobase and chronaxy changed from 3.13±0.05 V and 52.31±1.95 µs (control group, n=13) to 2.84±0.06 V and 59.71±2.79 µs (immobilized group, n=15), respectively. Immobilization altered the amplitude of CAP waves and decreased the conduction velocity of the first CAP wave (from 93.63±7.49 to 79.14±5.59 m/s) but not of the second wave. Transmission electron microscopy showed fragmentation of the myelin sheath of the sciatic nerve of immobilized limbs and degeneration of the axon. In conclusion, we demonstrated that long-lasting leg immobilization can induce alterations in nerve function.