Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Auditory status of persons with intellectual disability at the German Special Olympic Games

Among persons with intellectual disability, the prevalence of hearing impairments is high. During the German Special Olympics Summer Games 2004, a hearing screening was conducted on 755 athletes with intellectual disabilities. Obligatory screening included ear inspection and recording of otoacoustic emissions, and optional screening included tympanometry and brief pure-tone audiometry. 38.0% of the athletes failed the screening. 53.0% needed ear wax removal. 56.1% of the fails indicated sensorineural hearing loss and 13.6% indicated mixed hearing loss. 12.5% of the fails were caused by unremovable ear wax, 1.4% by ear canal affections, and 16.4% by middle ear problems. Left ear fails were more frequent than right ear fails. A peripheral hearing disturbance can thus be expected in every third subject. The high failure rate, a considerable percentage of previously undetected profound hearing loss (1.1%), and the frequent need for ear wax removal, suggest that nearly half of persons with intellectual disabilities need regular otological or audiological consultations. Sumario La prevalencia de hipoacusia entre personas con discapacidad auditiva, es alta. Durante los juegos olímpicos de verano 2004 en Alemania, se realizó un tamiz auditivo en 755 atletas con discapacidad intelectual. Éste incluyó otoscopia, prueba de emisiones otoacústicas y opcionalmente una timpanometría y una audiometría breve. El 38% de los atletas no pasaron el tamiz y a 53% se les retiró cerumen. El 56.1% de los que no pasaron el tamiz presentaban hipoacusia sensorineural y 13% hipoacusia mixta; a 12.5% no fue posible retirarles el cerumen, 1.4% presentaban alteraciones del conducto auditivo externo y 16.4% tenían algún problema del oído medio. Fueron más frecuentes las alteraciones en el oído izquierdo que en el derecho. Se puede esperar una alteración auditiva periférica en un tercio de los sujetos. El alto índice de falla en el tamiz, un porcentaje considerable de hipoacusia profunda no detectada (1.1%) y la necesidad frecuente de remoción de cerumen, sugiere que casi la mitad de las personas con discapacidad intelectual necesitan consulta audiológica u otológica regular.
Routing and wavelength assignment in all-optical networks

Considers routing connections in a reconfigurable optical network using WDM. Each connection between a pair of nodes in the network is assigned a path through the network and a wavelength on that path, such that connections whose paths share a common link in the network are assigned different wavelengths. The authors derive an upper bound on the carried traffic of connections (or equivalently, a lower bound on the blocking probability) for any routing and wavelength assignment (RWA) algorithm in such a network. The bound scales with the number of wavelengths and is achieved asymptotically (when a large number of wavelengths is available) by a fixed RWA algorithm. The bound can be used as a metric against which the performance of different RWA algorithms can be compared for networks of moderate size. The authors illustrate this by comparing the performance of a simple shortest-path RWA (SP-RWA) algorithm via simulation relative to the bound. They also derive a similar bound for optical networks using dynamic wavelength converters, which are equivalent to circuit-switched telephone networks, and compare the two cases. Finally, they quantify the amount of wavelength reuse achievable in large networks using the SP-RWA via simulation as a function of the number of wavelengths, number of edges, and number of nodes for randomly constructed networks as well as de Bruijn networks. They also quantify the difference in wavelength reuse between two different optical node architectures. >
Detection of hepatic steatosis on contrast-enhanced CT images: diagnostic accuracy of identification of areas of presumed focal fatty sparing.

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this article is to determine the diagnostic accuracy of identifying focal areas of increased density along the gallbladder fossa or in the periphery of segment IV for diagnosing hepatic steatosis. MATERIALS AND METHODS Five hundred consecutive three-phase CT examinations were retrospectively evaluated. Two reference standards for hepatic steatosis were determined using the unenhanced CT examination: a liver-spleen attenuation difference of greater than 10 HU and the absolute attenuation of the liver less than 40 HU. The portal venous phase was independently analyzed by two radiologists. Hepatic steatosis was diagnosed on the contrast-enhanced images if there was increased attenuation in the liver, either at the gallbladder fossa or in the posterior medial aspect of segment IV, when compared with background liver parenchyma. RESULTS The criterion of relative liver-spleen attenuation difference diagnosed 38 cases. The criterion of absolute liver attenuation less than 40 HU diagnosed 44 cases. Of these cases, hepatic steatosis was diagnosed on the portal venous phase in 23 cases (κ = 1.0), with no false-positive cases. The criterion of relative liver-spleen attenuation difference yielded sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of 60.5%, 100%, 100%, and 96.9%, respectively. The criterion of absolute liver attenuation less than 40 HU yielded sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of 52.5%, 100%, 100%, and 95.7%, respectively. CONCLUSION Qualitative evaluation of the liver on a portal venous phase contrast-enhanced CT is highly specific for the diagnosis of hepatic steatosis; the sensitivity of the method, however, is rather low.
Chemokines: established and novel targets in atherosclerosis

In their role as small chemotactic cytokines, chemokines are crucial mediators and regulators of leukocyte trafficking during immune surveillance and inflammation. Their involvement in the development and progression of inflammatory diseases has been subject of intense investigation. Concordantly, the chemokine system has been explored in search for therapeutic targets to prevent or treat inflammatory disorders, such as atherosclerosis. Targeting the chemokine system offers various entry points for a causative treatment of this widespread and chronic illness. Although this approach has encountered some setbacks, several innovative compounds are currently in an advanced stage of development. In this review, the current standing of this dynamic field is highlighted and the potential advantages and drawbacks of particular strategies are discussed.
Extent and nature of contacts between protein molecules in crystal lattices and between subunits of protein oligomers

A survey was compiled of several characteristics of the intersubunit contacts in 58 oligomeric proteins, and of the intermolecular contacts in the lattice for 223 protein crystal structures. The total number of atoms in contact and the secondary structure elements involved are similar in the two types of interfaces. Crystal contact patches are frequently smaller than patches involved in oligomer interfaces. Crystal contacts result from more numerous interactions by polar residues, compared with a tendency toward nonpolar amino acids at oligomer interfaces. Arginine is the only amino acid prominent in both types of interfaces. Potentials of mean force for residue–residue contacts at both crystal and oligomer interfaces were derived from comparison of the number of observed residue–residue interactions with the number expected by mass action. They show that hydrophobic interactions at oligomer interfaces favor aromatic amino acids and methionine over aliphatic amino acids; and that crystal contacts form in such a way as to avoid inclusion of hydrophobic interactions. They also suggest that complex salt bridges with certain amino acid compositions might be important in oligomer formation. For a protein that is recalcitrant to crystallization, substitution of lysine residues with arginine or glutamine is a recommended strategy. Proteins 28:494–514, 1997. © 1997 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Privacy Skyline: Privacy with Multidimensional Adversarial Knowledge

Privacy is an important issue in data publishing. Many organizations distribute non-aggregate personal data for research, and they must take steps to ensure that an adversary cannot predict sensitive information pertaining to individuals with high confidence. This problem is further complicated by the fact that, in addition to the published data, the adversary may also have access to other resources (e.g., public records and social networks relating individuals), which we call external knowledge. A robust privacy criterion should take this external knowledge into consideration. In this paper, we first describe a general framework for reasoning about privacy in the presence of external knowledge. Within this framework, we propose a novel multidimensional approach to quantifying an adversary's external knowledge. This approach allows the publishing organization to investigate privacy threats and enforce privacy requirements in the presence of various types and amounts of external knowledge. Our main technical contributions include a multidimensional privacy criterion that is more intuitive and flexible than previous approaches to modeling background knowledge. In addition, we provide algorithms for measuring disclosure and sanitizing data that improve computational efficiency several orders of magnitude over the best known techniques.
Oral and Parenteral Versus Parenteral Antibiotic Prophylaxis in Elective Laparoscopic Colorectal Surgery (JMTO PREV 07–01): A Phase 3, Multicenter, Open-label, Randomized Trial

Objective:To confirm the efficacy of oral and parenteral antibiotic prophylaxis (ABX) in the elective laparoscopic colorectal surgery. Background:There is no evidence for the establishment of an optimal ABX regimen for laparoscopic colorectal surgery, which has become an important choice for the colorectal cancer patients. Methods:The colorectal cancer patients scheduled to undergo laparoscopic surgery were eligible for this multicenter, open-label, randomized trial. They were randomized to receive either oral and parenteral prophylaxis (1 g cefmetazole before and every 3 h during the surgery plus 1 g oral kanamycin and 750 mg metronidazole twice on the day before the surgery; Oral-IV group) or parenteral prophylaxis alone (the same IV regimen; IV group). The primary endpoint was the incidence of surgical site infections (SSIs). Secondary endpoints were the incidence rates of Clostridium difficile colitis, other infections, and postoperative noninfectious complications, as well as the frequency of isolating specific organisms. Results:Between November 2007 and December 2012, 579 patients (289 in the Oral-IV group and 290 in IV group) were evaluated for this study. The incidence of SSIs was 7.26% (21/289) in the Oral-IV group and 12.8% (37/290) in the IV group with an odds ratio of 0.536 (95% CI, 0.305–0.940; P = 0.028). The 2 groups had similar incidence rates of C difficile colitis (1/289 vs 3/290), other infections (6/289 vs 5/290), and postoperative noninfectious complications (11/289 vs 12/290). Conclusions:Our oral-parenteral ABX regimen significantly reduced the risk of SSIs following elective laparoscopic colorectal surgery.
Speaker identification with whispered speech using unvoiced-consonant phonemes

A whisper is a speech production mode used by us to protect our privacy. Due to the differences between whispered and neutral speech, in both excitation and vocal tract function, the performance of speaker identification systems trained with neutral speech degrades significantly. This paper describes a neutral/whisper mismatched closed-set speaker identification system. The acoustic characteristics of vowels and voiced consonants are different between whispered and neutral speech. The acoustic characteristics of unvoiced consonants are relatively similar between whispered and neutral speech. In order to improve system performance, a feature extraction algorithm based on linear frequency scale is applied in this paper. The static linear frequency cepstral coefficient vectors are extracted as features from neutral and whispered unvoiced consonants. The closed-set speaker ID system using unvoiced consonants based on linear frequency cepstral coefficients achieves an absolute improvement for speaker recognition.
Integrin alpha V beta 3 as a target for treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and related rheumatic diseases

A substantial and persuasive body of data now exists that supports the view that integrin alpha V beta 3 plays a critical part in activated macrophage dependent inflammation, osteoclast development, migration, and bone resorption, and inflammatory angiogenesis. All of these processes play an important part in the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and related arthropathies. Animal arthritis model data further support these concepts and also suggest that therapeutic antagonism of integrin alpha V beta 3 is worthy of further investigation in RA and related arthropathies. To this end, Vitaxin, also known as MEDI-522, has been developed. Vitaxin is a humanised monoclonal IgG1 antibody that specifically binds a conformational epitope formed by both the integrin alpha V and beta 3 subunits. It blocks the interaction of alpha V beta 3 with various ligands such as osteopontin and vitronectin. Clinical trials with Vitaxin in patients with RA are in progress.
The Psycho-social Factors Associated with Teacher Assessment

The following paper outlines the major findings of a state-of-the-art review of non-academic factors that influence teacher evaluations, and proposes an interview technique to identify freely the concepts students use to evaluate their teachers. Through interview on classification without cards that contain the names of the teachers being assessed, the study shows the psycho-social factors or conceptualizations students employ when evaluating their teachers. In the end, doubts are expressed about the objectivity and validity of teacher evaluations based on structured questionnaires.
Three-dimensional simulation of a Richtmyer-Meshkov instability with a two-scale initial perturbation

Three-dimensional high-resolution simulations (up to 8 billion zones) have been performed for a Richtmyer–Meshkov instability produced by passing a shock through a contact discontinuity with a two-scale initial perturbation. The setup approximates shock-tube experiments with a membrane pushed through a wire mesh. The simulation produces mixing-layer widths similar to those observed experimentally. Comparison of runs at various resolutions suggests a mixing transition from unstable to turbulent flow as the numerical Reynolds number is increased. At the highest resolutions, the spectrum exhibits a region of power-law decay, in which the spectral flux is approximately constant, suggestive of an inertial range, but with weaker wave number dependence than Kolmogorov scaling, about k−6/5. Analysis of structure functions at the end of the simulation indicates the persistence of structures with velocities largest in the stream-wise direction. Comparison of three-dimensional and two-dimensional runs illustrates th.
A Case Study in Citizen Science: The Effectiveness of a Trap-Neuter-Return Program in a Chicago Neighborhood

Simple Summary Strong public support in the United States for the non-lethal management of free-roaming cats has prompted an increase in the practice of trap-neuter-return (TNR) over the past quarter-century, yet a paucity of analyzable data exists. Data sets collected by citizen scientists are likely to play an important role in filling this information void. A citizen scientist in Chicago, Illinois, recorded significant reductions in a free-roaming cat population as the result of a neighborhood TNR program. Colony populations, when grouped by the number of years enrolled in the program, declined by a mean of 54% from entry and 82% from peak levels. Results from concurrent TNR programs in the Chicago area are compatible with these findings. Abstract The use of trap-neuter-return (TNR) as a method of managing free-roaming cat populations has increased in the United States in recent decades. Historically, TNR has been conducted most often at a grassroots level, which has led to inconsistent data collection and assessment practices. Consequently, a paucity of analyzable data exists. An initiative is underway to standardize TNR program data collection and assessment. However, it could be some time before scientifically sound protocols are implemented on a broad scale. In the interim, sets of data collected by nascent citizen scientists offer valid opportunities to evaluate grassroots TNR programs. The purpose of the present study was to examine the effectiveness of a TNR program conducted by a citizen scientist located in Chicago, Illinois, where a county law permitting TNR was enacted in 2007. Colony populations, when grouped by the number of years enrolled in the program, declined by a mean of 54% from entry and 82% from peak levels. Results from coexistent TNR programs in the Chicago area are consistent with these findings.
Designing Defender Strategies Against Frequent Adversary Interaction

Recently, there has been an increase in interest in applying game theoretic approaches to domains involving frequent adversary interactions, such as wildlife and ﬁshery protection. In these domains, the law enforcement agency faces adversaries who repeatedly and frequently carry out illegal activities, and thus, do not have time for extensive surveillance before taking actions. This makes them signiﬁcantly different from counter-terrorism domains where game-theoretic approaches have been widely deployed. This paper presents a game-theoretic approach to be used by the defender in these Frequent Adversary Inter-action (FAI) domains. We provide the following contributions: (i) a novel game model for FAI domains, describing the interaction between the defender and the attackers in a repeated game; (ii) two sets of algorithms that plan for the defender strategies to achieve high average expected utility over all rounds; (iii) a novel framework that incorporates planning and learning in the presence of attack data; and (iv) detailed experimental analysis of the proposed algorithms.
A review of nursing research on the use of unlicensed assistive personnel (UAP).

The increased use of unlicensed assistive personnel (UAP) has raised the question: "What nursing research has been conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the UAP in relation to patient outcomes? " To answer this question, the New York State Nurses Association Council on Nursing Research conducted a literature review on the issue of UAP. The specific purposes of this article are to: (a) present an overview of the health care climate and consumer and RN reaction in relation to the UAP movement, (b) summarize reported reviews of UAP research conducted between 1988 and 1994, (c) critique and synthesize the most recent UAP nursing research conducted between 1994 and 1997, and (d) make recommendations for education, practice, and research.
Effect of Psoriatic Arthritis According to the Affected Categories of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health

Objective. To determine the categories of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) checklist and core sets of rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis frequently occurring in people with psoriatic arthritis (PsA) and to compare the number of such categories with scores on self-report measures of participation restrictions and activity limitations. Methods. Data were collected from 94 patients with PsA attending rheumatology clinics in 6 centers. For each ICF category affected by PsA in at least 30% of patients, the percentage of such patients was determined for Body Structures, Body Functions, Activities and Participation, and Environmental Factors. A count of all affected categories by ICF chapter was compared to patient self-report scores on a number of functional and health status instruments using Spearman’s correlation. Results. There were 25 categories in the Body Functions section, 6 categories in the Body Structures section, and 51 categories in the Activities and Participation section that were relevant in at least 30% of participants. Thirteen Environmental Factors were facilitating and 1 Environmental Factor (climate) was a barrier in at least 30% of participants. The number of involved Activities and Participation categories by chapter did not correlate in predictable ways with self-report measures of participation restrictions and activity limitations. Conclusion. PsA is associated with a wide range of impairments, limitations, and restrictions across the ICF categories. People with PsA find environmental factors to be helpful more often than to be barriers. The unexpected pattern of correlation between ICF chapters and self-report measures suggests the need for a better way of quantitatively representing the ICF concepts.
Retrieving Tract Variables From Acoustics: A Comparison of Different Machine Learning Strategies

Many different studies have claimed that articulatory information can be used to improve the performance of automatic speech recognition systems. Unfortunately, such articulatory information is not readily available in typical speaker-listener situations. Consequently, such information has to be estimated from the acoustic signal in a process which is usually termed “speech-inversion. ” This study aims to propose and compare various machine learning strategies for speech inversion: Trajectory mixture density networks (TMDNs), feedforward artificial neural networks (FF-ANN), support vector regression (SVR), autoregressive artificial neural network (AR-ANN), and distal supervised learning (DSL). Further, using a database generated by the Haskins Laboratories speech production model, we test the claim that information regarding constrictions produced by the distinct organs of the vocal tract (vocal tract variables) is superior to flesh-point information (articulatory pellet trajectories) for the inversion process.
S$A: A Shared Cache Attack That Works across Cores and Defies VM Sandboxing -- and Its Application to AES

The cloud computing infrastructure relies on virtualized servers that provide isolation across guest OS's through sand boxing. This isolation was demonstrated to be imperfect in past work which exploited hardware level information leakages to gain access to sensitive information across co-located virtual machines (VMs). In response virtualization companies and cloud services providers have disabled features such as deduplication to prevent such attacks. In this work, we introduce a fine-grain cross-core cache attack that exploits access time variations on the last level cache. The attack exploits huge pages to work across VM boundaries without requiring deduplication. No configuration changes on the victim OS are needed, making the attack quite viable. Furthermore, only machine co-location is required, while the target and victim OS can still reside on different cores of the machine. Our new attack is a variation of the prime and probe cache attack whose applicability at the time is limited to L1 cache. In contrast, our attack works in the spirit of the flush and reload attack targeting the shared L3 cache instead. Indeed, by adjusting the huge page size our attack can be customized to work virtually at any cache level/size. We demonstrate the viability of the attack by targeting an Open SSL1.0. 1f implementation of AES. The attack recovers AES keys in the cross-VM setting on Xen 4.1 with deduplication disabled, being only slightly less efficient than the flush and reload attack. Given that huge pages are a standard feature enabled in the memory management unit of OS's and that besides co-location no additional assumptions are needed, the attack we present poses a significant risk to existing cloud servers.