Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Development of a VR Simulator for Medical Training Using Free Tools: A Case Study

The simulation of medical procedures through virtual reality systems can offer realistic training environments for new professionals. This paper presents the development of a simulator for medical training, based in a previous study case. The application was completely developed using a free system called CyberMed which provides high-level access to several functionalities expected in a virtual reality simulator. Details of the application development will be presented. The results obtained will be compared with the previous case study.
Analysis of food images: Features and classification

In this paper we investigate features and their combinations for food image analysis and a classification approach based on k-nearest neighbors and vocabulary trees. The system is evaluated on a food image dataset consisting of 1453 images of eating occasions in 42 food categories which were acquired by 45 participants in natural eating conditions. The same image dataset is used to test the classification system proposed in the previously reported work [1]. Experimental results indicate that using our combination of features and vocabulary trees for classification improves the food classification performance about 22% for the Top 1 classification accuracy and 10% for the Top 4 classification accuracy.
Robust Place Recognition With Stereo Sequences

We propose a place recognition algorithm for simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) systems using stereo cameras that considers both appearance and geometric information of points of interest in the images. Both near and far scene points provide information for the recognition process. Hypotheses about loop closings are generated using a fast appearance-only technique based on the bag-of-words (BoW) method. We propose several important improvements to BoWs that profit from the fact that, in this problem, images are provided in sequence. Loop closing candidates are evaluated using a novel normalized similarity score that measures similarity in the context of recent images in the sequence. In cases where similarity is not sufficiently clear, loop closing verification is carried out using a method based on conditional random fields (CRFs). We build on CRF matching with two main novelties: We use both image and 3-D geometric information, and we carry out inference on a minimum spanning tree (MST), instead of a densely connected graph. Our results show that MSTs provide an adequate representation of the problem, with the additional advantages that exact inference is possible and that the computational cost of the inference process is limited. We compare our system with the state of the art using visual indoor and outdoor data from three different locations and show that our system can attain at least full precision (no false positives) for a higher recall (fewer false negatives).
Effectiveness of Community-Wide and Individual High-Risk Strategies to Prevent Diabetes: A Modelling Study

Background Diabetes has been described as one of the most important threats to the health of developed countries. Effective population strategies to prevent diabetes have not been determined but two broad strategies have been proposed: “high-risk” and “community-wide” strategies. Methods We modelled the potential effectiveness of two strategies to prevent 10% of new cases of diabetes in Ontario, Canada over a 5-year period. The 5-year risk of developing physician-diagnosed diabetes was estimated for respondents to the Canadian Community Health Survey 2003 (CCHS 2.1, N = 26 232) using a validated and calibrated diabetes risk tool (Diabetes Population Risk Tool [DPoRT]). We estimated how many cases of diabetes could be prevented using two different strategies: a) a community-wide strategy that would uniformly reduce body mass index (BMI) in the entire population; and b) a high baseline risk strategy using either pharmacotherapy or lifestyle counselling to treat people who have an increased risk of developing diabetes. Results In 2003, the 5-year risk of developing diabetes was 4.7% (383 600 new diagnosed cases of diabetes in 8 189 000 Ontarians aged 20+) and risk was moderately diffused (0.5%, 3.1% and 17.9% risk in the 1st, 5th (median) and 10th deciles of risk). A 10% reduction in new cases of diabetes would have been achieved under any of the following scenarios: if BMI was 3.5% lower in the entire population; if lifestyle counselling covered 32.2% of high-risk people (371 900 of 1 155 000 people with 5 year diabetes risk greater than 10%); or, if pharmacotherapy covered 65.2% of high-risk people. Conclusions Prevention using pharmacotherapy alone requires unrealistically high coverage levels to achieve modest population reduction in new diabetes cases. On the other hand, in recent years few jurisdictions have been able to achieve a reduction in BMI at the population level, let alone a reduction of BMI of 3.5%.
A new random color filter array with good spectral properties

We propose in this work a new random pattern with R,G,B colors, which can be used to design color filter arrays (CFA) with good spectral properties, since the chrominance is modulated at high frequencies. Hence, the demosaicking artifacts appear as incoherent noise, which is less visually disturbing than the moiré structures characteristic of periodic CFAs.
An fMRI study of risk‐taking following wins and losses: Implications for the gambler's fallacy

Human decision‐making involving independent events is often biased and affected by prior outcomes. Using a controlled task that allows us to manipulate prior outcomes, the present study examined the effect of prior outcomes on subsequent decisions in a group of young adults. We found that participants were more risk‐seeking after losing a gamble (riskloss) than after winning a gamble (riskwin), a pattern resembling the gambler's fallacy. Functional MRI data revealed that decisions after riskloss were associated with increased activation in the frontoparietal network, but decreased activation in the caudate and ventral striatum. The increased risk‐seeking behavior after a loss showed a trend of positive correlation with activation in the frontoparietal network and the left lateral orbitofrontal cortex but a trend of negative correlation with activation in the amgydala and caudate. In addition, there was a trend of positive correlation between feedback‐related activation in the left lateral frontal cortex and subsequent increased risk‐seeking behavior. These results suggest that a strong cognitive control mechanism but a weak affective decision‐making and reinforcement learning mechanism that usually contribute to flexible, goal‐directed decisions can lead to decision biases involving random events. This has significant implications for our understanding of the gambler's fallacy and human decision making under risk. Hum Brain Mapp, 2011. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Inequalities in child mortality in sub-Saharan Africa: A social epidemiologic framework.

In the past twenty years or so, the study of the determinants of child survival in low-income countries has been based on demographic conceptual frameworks. The most widely known has been the Mosley and Chen framework (1). In that framework, the key concept was a set of proximate determinants, or intermediate variables, that directly influence the risk of morbidity and mortality. It assumes that all the more distal social and economic determinants must operate through these variables to affect child survival. However the Mosley and Chen framework has failed to directly incorporate the complex social dimension of health.The objective of this paper is to link more distal causes for child health by describing a framework that conceptualises the relation between distal and proximal factors and how they operate to cause inequalities in child mortality within sub-Saharan Africa. Additionally the framework defines policy entry points needing support of empirical evidence. Furthermore the paper acknowledges that the social context plays an important role for inequalities in children’s chances of survival. However, the relative importance of the mechanisms presented in the proposed framework may vary among the different countries of sub-Saharan Africa, thus researchers should empirically adapt the framework to their specific context.
Evaluation of Value-at-Risk Estimation Using Long Memory Volatility Models: Evidence from Stock Exchange of Thailand

This paper examines the accuracy of Value-at-Risk (VaR) estimation in the Stock Exchange of Thailand. We apply standard conditional volatility models (GARCH) and the GARCH model with long memory process (FIGARCH) in calculation of VaR. The empirical results from R|S statistics show that there is significant evidence of long memory process in volatility but not in mean of SET50 index returns. Comparing accuracy of VaR estimation, the results from the Kupiec-LR test show that 1-day ahead 1% VaR values calculated using FIGARCH(1,d,1) model with normal innovations are more accurate than those generated using short memory GARCH(1,1) models. Considering the Bank of International Settlement (BIS)’s regulatory back-testing, the results also confirm that the long memory models provide better performance than those of the standard GARCH models. In summary, our empirical results indicate that long-range memory could provide better performance in risk management than that of standard GARCH in the case of Stock Exchange of Thailand. However, our results from FIGARCH still do not outperform those of the asymmetric GARCH.
Mental Health at Universities: Universities are Not In Loco Parentis – Students are Active Partners in Mental Health

Mental health is currently in the national and international and African spotlight (Jacaranda, 2018; Mabasa, 2018). Recently, the South African higher education mourned losses at Wits University, Stellenbosch University, as well as other institutions of higher learning (Mabasa, 2018). The U.K. media featured an article in The Guardian, quoting the U.K. minister of higher education as saying that higher education institutions risk “failing an entire generation of students” (Adams, 2018). This article takes position on the emerging discourse around mental health in higher education. It discusses the extent of the problem and reveals the challenges in our understanding in terms of the absolute measures and highlights that particularly female students are at risk (Lochner et al., 2018). This article emphasises that constructions of students as active partners in higher education opens the opportunity to enlist students as active partners in creating conditions conducive to health and healthy choices that promote mental health.
Early Experiments in Consumer Demand Theory: 1930-1970

This paper reconstructs the history of experimental research on riskless choices during the period 1930-70. The experiments considered here regarded the derivation of indifference curves and the evaluation of the transitivity assumption, that is, matters that in neoclassical economics traditionally pertain to consumer demand theory. The paper examines the design of the experiments at issue, investigates their backgrounds and their reception among the economics profession, and discusses their impact on the development of neoclassical consumption theory.
Brazilian Long Term Care Plan : an Evaluation Based on the Singaporean Model

Acknowledgements I would like to thank all the people who have supported me during this Masters Programme. I thank my supervisor Professor Ben Rickayzen, for his guidance and instruction in presenting this topic. I praise, my actuarial friends Horacio Motta and Leonel Rodrigues for sharing their knowledge and insights over actuarial topics, and mainly for their invaluable friendship. I am grateful to Funenseg for the sponsorship award and for believing in my dedication. Lastly, I dedicate this to my family: my reason for being. Abstract Long Term Care Insurance (LTC) is becoming known worldwide as an efficient tool to mitigate the dependency costs that ageing populations are facing. As a consequence, LTC insurance schemes are being administered by governments around the world to manage the economic burden that dependency costs might generate in a society. Due to its relatively recent history, LTC insurance has limited data resources; therefore it is a challenging undertaking for the insurance industry and nations to forecast the costs generated by disabled dependency. This paper explores the recent and so far successful LTC insurance scheme introduced in Singapore and, in light of this, simulates the impact of establishing a similar LTC scheme in Brazil. Based on Leung (2004), the project applies a multiple state model developed by Rickayzen and Walsh (2002) in order to project the number of people in Brazil who are estimated to require LTC insurance over the next 50 years. The paper defines the steps necessary to obtain an estimated premium based on the Singaporean assumptions, and also compares different scenarios over the next decades. The pricing and projection exercise is performed by obtaining available data, comparing different assumptions and constructing a method capable of reproducing projected LTC costs in further studies. Furthermore, the paper obtains an office premium estimate for LTC insurance in Brazil and evaluates the affordability of the product based on the average earnings of the population. The study concludes that Brazilian national survey data was in valuable for deriving risk rates and premiums for LTC insurance, although restrictions were observed during the estimation process. As an initial approach, the method applied and findings are relevant to LTC schemes implementation in Brazil.
A Branch-and-Cut Algorithm for the Undirected Traveling Purchaser Problem

The purpose of this paper is to present a branch-and-cut algorithm for the undirectedTraveling Purchaser Problem which consists of determining a minimum-cost route through a subset of markets, where the cost is the sum of travel and purchase costs. The problem is formulated as an integer linear program, and several families of valid inequalities are derived to strengthen the linear relaxation. The polyhedral structure of the formulation is analyzed and several classes of valid inequalities are proved to be facet defining. A branch-and-cut procedure is developed and tested over four classes of randomly generated instances. Results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms all previous approaches and can optimally solve instances containing up to 200 markets.
Anti-Inflammatory Actions of Neuroprotectin D1/Protectin D1 and Its Natural Stereoisomers: Assignments of Dihydroxy-Containing Docosatrienes1

Protectin D1, neuroprotectin D1 when generated by neural cells, is a member of a new family of bioactive products generated from docosahexaenoic acid. The complete stereochemistry of protectin D1 (10,17S-docosatriene), namely, chirality of the carbon-10 alcohol and geometry of the conjugated triene, required for bioactivity remained to be assigned. To this end, protectin D1/neuroprotectin D1 (PD1) generated by human neutrophils during murine peritonitis and by neural tissues was separated from natural isomers and subjected to liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Comparisons with six 10,17-dihydroxydocosatrienes prepared by total organic and biogenic synthesis showed that PD1 from human cells carrying potent bioactivity is 10R,17S-dihydroxy-docosa-4Z,7Z,11E,13E,15Z,19Z-hexaenoic acid. Additional isomers identified included trace amounts of Δ15-trans-PD1 (isomer III), 10S,17S-dihydroxy-docosa-4Z,7Z,11E,13Z,15E,19Z-hexaenoic acid (isomer IV), and a double dioxygenation product 10S,17S-dihydroxy-docosa-4Z,7Z,11E,13Z,15E,19Z-hexaenoic acid (isomer I), present in exudates. 18O2 labeling showed that 10S,17S-diHDHA (isomer I) carried 18O in the carbon-10 position alcohol, indicating sequential lipoxygenation, whereas PD1 formation proceeded via an epoxide. PD1 at 10 nM attenuated (∼50%) human neutrophil transmigration, whereas Δ15-trans-PD1 was essentially inactive. PD1 was a potent regulator of polymorphonuclear leukocyte (PMN) infiltration (∼40% at 1 ng/mouse) in peritonitis. The rank order at 1- to 10-ng dose was PD1 ≈ PD1 methyl ester ≫ Δ15-trans-PD1 > 10S,17S-diHDHA (isomer I). 10S,17S-dihydroxy-docosa-4Z,7Z,11E,13E,15Z,19Z-hexaenoic acid (isomer VI) proved ≥ PD1 in blocking PMN infiltration, but was not a major product of leukocytes. PD1 also reduced PMN infiltration after initiation (2 h) of inflammation and was additive with resolvin E1. These results indicate that PD1 is a potent stereoselective anti-inflammatory molecule.
Towards Efficient Verifiable SQL Query for Outsourced Dynamic Databases in Cloud

With the rising trend of outsourcing databases to the cloud, it is important to allow clients to securely verify that their queries on the outsourced databases are correctly executed by the cloud. Existing solutions on this issue either suffer from a high communication cost, or introduce too much computational cost on the client side. Besides, so far only four types of SQL queries (i.e., selection query, projection query, join query and weighted sum query) are supported in existing solutions. It still remains challenging to design a verifiable SQL query scheme that introduces affordable storage overhead, communication and computational cost, and supports more SQL queries used in practice. This paper investigates this problem and proposes an efficient verifiable SQL query scheme for dynamic databases outsourced to the cloud. Our proposed scheme makes several major progresses: 1) it reduces the communication complexity (excluding the query results) to a logarithmic level (i.e., O(log n), where n is the number of tuples in a table), while existing schemes all have a linear or quadratic complexity; 2) it constrains the computational complexity on the client side, in terms of expensive operations such as exponentiation, to a constant level, which is of linear level in existing schemes; 3) in addition to the queries supported by existing schemes, our proposed scheme also supports more practical query types including polynomial queries of any degrees, variance query and many other linear queries. Our design exploits techniques such as Merkle hash tree and constant size polynomial commitment. We shows the efficiency and scalability of our scheme through extensive numerical analysis. Based on the Strong Diffie-Hellman assumption, the Bilinear Strong Diffie-Hellman assumption and the Computational Diffie-Hellman problem, we show that our scheme is provably secure.
Section Ii‐ Exercise Physiology & Sports Medicine the Accumulative Effect of Concentric‐biased and Eccentric‐ Biased Exercise on Cardiorespiratory and Metabolic Responses to Subsequent Low‐intensity Exercise: a Preliminary Study

The study investigated the accumulative effect of concentric-biased and eccentric-biased exercise on cardiorespiratory, metabolic and neuromuscular responses to low-intensity exercise performed hours later. Fourteen young men cycled at low-intensity (~60 rpm at 50% maximal oxygen uptake) for 10 min before, and 12 h after: concentric-biased, single-leg cycling exercise (CON) (performed ~19:30 h) and eccentric-biased, double-leg knee extension exercise (ECC) (~06:30 h the following morning). Respiratory measures were sampled breath-by-breath, with oxidation values derived from stoichiometry equations. Knee extensor neuromuscular function was assessed before and after CON and ECC. Cardiorespiratory responses during low-intensity cycling were unchanged by accumulative CON and ECC. The RER was lower during low-intensity exercise 12 h after CON and ECC (0.88 ± 0.08), when compared to baseline (0.92 ± 0.09; p = 0.02). Fat oxidation increased from baseline (0.24 ± 0.2 g·min-1) to 12 h after CON and ECC (0.39 ± 0.2 g·min-1 ; p = 0.01). Carbohydrate oxidation decreased from baseline (1.59 ± 0.4 g·min-1) to 12 h after CON and ECC (1.36 ± 0.4 g·min-1 ; p = 0.03). These were accompanied by knee extensor force loss (right leg:-11.6%, p < 0.001; left leg:-10.6%, p = 0.02) and muscle soreness (right leg: 2.5 ± 0.9, p < 0.0001; left leg: 2.3 ± 1.2, p < 0.01). Subsequent concentric-biased and eccentric-biased exercise led to increased fat oxidation and decreased carbohydrate oxidation, without impairing cardiorespiration, during low-intensity cycling. An accumulation of fatiguing and damaging exercise increases fat utilisation during low intensity exercise performed as little as 12 h later.
A New Scale Measuring Psychologic Impact of Genetic Susceptibility Testing for Alzheimer Disease

This paper describes the development and psychometric properties of a new scale for assessing the psychologic impact of genetic susceptibility testing for Alzheimer disease (AD). The new instrument, The REVEAL Impact of Genetic Testing for Alzheimer's disease (IGT-AD) was designed to examine the unique nature of genetic information and the disease course of AD. The scale was tested as a part of a multicenter clinical trial designed to evaluate the impact of AD risk assessment and data were collected from 276 participants in the study. Using an iterative process of principal component analysis and Cronbach α, the final 16-item IGT-AD was found to have a 2-factor structure with excellent internal reliability. Construct validity was established by patterns of correlation with other standardized self-reported measures. This scale should be useful in the identification of patients who maybe susceptible to the negative effects of receiving genetic information, monitoring of patients who have received genetic information, and as a tool for researchers who wish to study the effects of genetic susceptibility testing for AD.
Modelling of Climate Conditions in Forest Vegetation Zones as a Support Tool for Forest Management Strategy in European Beech Dominated Forests

The regional effects of climate change on forest ecosystems in the temperate climate zone of Europe can be modelled as shifts of forest vegetation zones in the landscape, northward and to higher elevations. This study applies a biogeographical model of climate conditions in the forest vegetation zones of the Central European landscape, in order to predict the impact of future climate change on the most widespread tree species in European deciduous forests—the European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.). The biogeographical model is supported by a suite of software applications in the GIS environment. The model outputs are defined as a set of conditions - climate scenario A1B by the Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES) for a forecast period, for a specified geographical area and with ecological conditions appropriate for the European beech, which provide regional scenarios for predicted future climatic conditions in the context of the European beech’s environmental requirements. These predicted changes can be graphically visualized. The results of the model scenarios for regional climate change show that in the Czech Republic from 2070 onwards, optimal growing conditions for the European beech will only exist in some parts of those areas where it currently occurs naturally. Based on these results, it is highly recommended that the national strategy for sustainable forest management in the Czech Republic be partly re-evaluated. Thus, the presented biogeographical model of climate conditions in forest vegetation zones can be applied, not only to generate regional scenarios of climate change in the landscape, but also as a support tool for the development of a sustainable forest management strategy.
Physical Distribution Service : A Fundamental Marketing Concept ?

This article contends that current discussion and research into the role of physical distribution service in the marketing miz are hampered by a lack of consistent definition of the concept ofphysical distribution service and its component dimensions. In order to clarify this concept, prerequisites for a theoretically meaningful understanding of physical distribution service are presented and supported by an integrative literature review. The implications of this undertaking are also discussed.