Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prediction and classification of Alzheimer disease based on quantification of MRI deformation

Detecting early morphological changes in the brain and making early diagnosis are important for Alzheimer’s disease (AD). High resolution magnetic resonance imaging can be used to help diagnosis and prediction of the disease. In this paper, we proposed a machine learning method to discriminate patients with AD or mild cognitive impairment (MCI) from healthy elderly and to predict the AD conversion in MCI patients by computing and analyzing the regional morphological differences of brain between groups. Distance between each pair of subjects was quantified from a symmetric diffeomorphic registration, followed by an embedding algorithm and a learning approach for classification. The proposed method obtained accuracy of 96.5% in differentiating mild AD from healthy elderly with the whole-brain gray matter or temporal lobe as region of interest (ROI), 91.74% in differentiating progressive MCI from healthy elderly and 88.99% in classifying progressive MCI versus stable MCI with amygdala or hippocampus as ROI. This deformation-based method has made full use of the pair-wise macroscopic shape difference between groups and consequently increased the power for discrimination.
Validity, reliability, and responsiveness of the Self-reported Foot and Ankle Score (SEFAS) in forefoot, hindfoot, and ankle disorders

Background and purpose — The self-reported foot and ankle score (SEFAS) is a questionnaire designed to evaluate disorders of the foot and ankle, but it is only validated for arthritis in the ankle. We validated SEFAS in patients with forefoot, midfoot, hindfoot, and ankle disorders. Patients and methods — 118 patients with forefoot disorders and 106 patients with hindfoot or ankle disorders completed the SEFAS, the foot and ankle outcome score (FAOS), SF-36, and EQ-5D before surgery. We evaluated construct validity for SEFAS versus FAOS, SF-36, and EQ-5D; floor and ceiling effects; test-retest reliability (ICC); internal consistency; and agreement. Responsiveness was evaluated by effect size (ES) and standardized response mean (SRM) 6 months after surgery. The analyses were done separately in patients with forefoot disorders and hindfoot/ankle disorders. Results — Comparing SEFAS to the other scores, convergent validity (when correlating foot-specific questions) and divergent validity (when correlating foot-specific and general questions) were confirmed. SEFAS had no floor and ceiling effects. In patients with forefoot disorders, ICC was 0.92 (CI: 0.85–0.96), Cronbach's α was 0.84, ES was 1.29, and SRM was 1.27. In patients with hindfoot or ankle disorders, ICC was 0.93 (CI: 0.88-0.96), Cronbach's α was 0.86, ES was 1.05, and SRM was 0.99. Interpretation — SEFAS has acceptable validity, reliability, and responsiveness in patients with various forefoot, hindfoot, and ankle disorders. SEFAS is therefore an appropriate patient- reported outcome measure (PROM) for these patients, even in national registries.
Conservative prior distributions for variance parameters in hierarchical models

Bayesian hierarchical models typically involve specifying prior distributions for one or more variance components. This is rather removed from the observed data, so specification based on expert knowledge can be difficult. While there are suggestions for “default” priors in the literature, often a conditionally conjugate inverse‐gamma specification is used, despite documented drawbacks of this choice. The authors suggest “conservative” prior distributions for variance components, which deliberately give more weight to smaller values. These are appropriate for investigators who are skeptical about the presence of variability in the second‐stage parameters (random effects) and want to particularly guard against inferring more structure than is really present. The suggested priors readily adapt to various hierarchical modelling settings, such as fitting smooth curves, modelling spatial variation and combining data from multiple sites.
Review of Literature of Radial Nerve Injuries Associated with Humeral Fractures—An Integrated Management Strategy

Background Radial nerve palsy associated with fractures of the shaft of the humerus is the most common nerve lesion complicating fractures of long bones. However, the management of radial nerve injuries associated with humeral fractures is debatable. There was no consensus between observation and early exploration. Methods and Findings The PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Google Scholar, CINAHL, International Bibliography of the Social Sciences, and Social Sciences Citation Index were searched. Two authors independently searched for relevant studies in any language from 1966 to Jan 2013. Thirty studies with 2952 humeral fractures participants were identified. Thirteen studies favored conservative strategy. No significant difference between early exploration and no exploration groups (OR, 1.03, 95% CI 0.61, 1.72; I2 = 0.0%, p = 0.918 n.s.). Three studies recommend early radial nerve exploration in patients with open fractures of humerus with radial nerve injury. Five studies proposed early exploration was performed in high-energy humeral shaft fractures with radial nerve injury. Conclusions The conservative strategy was a good choice for patients with low-energy closed fractures of humerus with radial nerve injury. We recommend early radial nerve exploration (within the first 2 weeks) in patients with open fractures or high-energy closed fractures of humerus with radial nerve injury.
Cellular ATP levels are affected by moderate and strong static magnetic fields

Mitochondrion is the major cellular energy producing organelle that is at the boundary between chemical reactions and physical processes. Although mitochondria have been shown to be affected by physical methods such as nonthermal plasma, whether static magnetic field (SMF) could also affect them is still unclear. Here we used rat adrenal PC12 cells to compare SMFs of different intensities for their effects on ATP (adenosine‐5′‐triphosphate), the major energy source produced by mitochondria, which is essential for various cellular processes. Our results show that although 0.26 or 0.50 T SMFs did not affect ATP, 1 T and 9 T SMFs affected ATP level differently and time‐dependently. Moreover, SMF‐induced ATP level fluctuations are correlated with mitochondrial membrane potential changes. Our study provides insights not only into understanding various cellular effects of SMFs, but also the potential clinical applications of SMFs. Bioelectromagnetics. 39:352–360, 2018. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Micro-tunnel method of flux measurement on sample repeatability and flux predictive model

Field measurement of gas and odor flux rates from manure surfaces can be assessed using a variety of methods. In all cases, these methods are labor and cost intensive, resulting in a lack of published flux data at a time when the quantification of gas emissions is critical due to the changing federal regulations. This paper presents a method for quantifying gas flux rates from manure in controlled laboratory setting and evaluates three years of ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, total reduced sulfur, and volatile organic compound (VOC) flux measurements using a small scale wind tunnel (micro-tunnel). Analysis of results indicates that ammonia measurements are very repeatable and values are within flux ranges reported in literature. Hydrogen sulfide and total reduced sulfur measurements were less repeatable but also within the ranges reported in literature. VOC flux values were determined in triplicate on one swine manure sample with mixed results on repeatability. Additionally, correlation coefficients and predictive equation for ammonia and hydrogen sulfide were determined.
Computing Class Polynomials for Abelian Surfaces

We describe a quasilinear algorithm for computing Igusa class polynomials of Jacobians of genus-2 curves via complex floating-point approximations of their roots. After providing an explicit treatment of the computations in quartic CM fields and their Galois closures, we pursue an approach due to Dupont for evaluating ϑ-constants in quasilinear time using Newton iterations on the Borchardt mean. We report on experiments with our implementation and present an example with class number 20 016.
Cooperative caching in append-only databases with hot spots

We measure the performance of several cooperative caching policies for a database with hot spots. The workload consists of queries and append-only update transactions, and is modeled after a financial database of stock (historical) trading information. We show that cooperative caching is effective for this application. We show that selecting the correct set of peer servers when servicing a cache miss is crucial to achieving high performance, and we demonstrate a greedy algorithm that performs close to optimal for this workload. We also evaluate several cache replacement policies and show that a 2nd-chance algorithm performs best. In a 2nd-chance algorithm, replaced pages are transferred to a peer server rather than being discarded. When a page is selected for replacement a 2nd time, the page is discarded. Our results can be applied in the design of proxy servers for databases or Web servers where a layer of proxy servers are used to scale the system performance.
Author ' s personal copy Reduced cognitive control of response inhibition by the anterior cingulate cortex in autism spectrum disorders

In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier's archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: a b s t r a c t a r t i c l e i n f o Response inhibition, or the suppression of prepotent, but contextually inappropriate behaviors, is essential to adaptive, flexible responding. In autism spectrum disorders (ASD), difficulty inhibiting prepotent behaviors may contribute to restricted, repetitive behavior (RRB). Individuals with ASD consistently show deficient response inhibition while performing antisaccades, which require one to inhibit the prepotent response of looking towards a suddenly appearing stimulus (i.e., a prosaccade), and to substitute a gaze in the opposite direction. Here, we used fMRI to identify the neural correlates of this deficit. We focused on two regions that are critical for saccadic inhibition: the frontal eye field (FEF), the key cortical region for generating volitional saccades, and the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), which is thought to exert top–down control on the FEF. We also compared ASD and control groups on the functional connectivity of the dACC and FEF during saccadic performance. In the context of an increased antisaccade error rate, ASD participants showed decreased functional connectivity of the FEF and dACC and decreased inhibition-related activation (based on the contrast of antisaccades and prosaccades) in both regions. Decreased dACC activation correlated with a higher error rate in both groups, consistent with a role in top–down control. Within the ASD group, increased FEF activation and dACC/FEF functional connectivity were associated with more severe RRB. These findings demonstrate functional abnormalities in a circuit critical for volitional ocular motor control in ASD that may contribute to deficient response inhibition and to RRB. More generally, our findings suggest reduced cognitive control over behavior by the dACC in ASD. Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are common neurodevelopmental disorders that are characterized by restricted, repetitive behavior (RRB) and marked impairments in socialization and communication. These three symptom clusters are thought to arise from distinct genetic and cognitive mechanisms (Happe et al., 2006; London, 2007), but these mechanisms are not well understood. Accumulating evidence suggests that executive function deficits contribute to these core symptoms of ASD (Hill, 2004; Lopez et al., 2005; South et al., 2007). Response inhibition, or the suppression of prepotent, but contextually inappropriate behaviors, is …
An observational study of nurse staffing ratios and hospital readmission among children admitted for common conditions

Background Hospital patient-to-nurse staffing ratios are associated with quality outcomes in adult patient populations but little is known about how these factors affect paediatric care. We examined the relationship between staffing ratios and all-cause readmission (within 14 days, 15–30 days) among children admitted for common medical and surgical conditions. Methods We conducted an observational cross-sectional study of readmissions of children in 225 hospitals by linking nurse surveys, inpatient discharge data and information from the American Hospital Association Annual Survey. Registered Nurses (N=14 194) providing direct patient care in study hospitals (N=225) and children hospitalised for common conditions (N=90 459) were included. Results Each one patient increase in a hospital's average paediatric staffing ratio increased a medical child's odds of readmission within 15–30 days by a factor of 1.11, or by 11% (95% CI 1.02 to 1.20) and a surgical child's likelihood of readmission within 15–30 days by a factor of 1.48, or by 48% (95% CI 1.27 to 1.73). Children treated in hospitals with paediatric staffing ratios of 1 : 4 or less were significantly less likely to be readmitted within 15–30 days. There were no significant effects of nurse staffing ratios on readmissions within 14 days. Discussion Children with common conditions treated in hospitals in which nurses care for fewer patients each are significantly less likely to experience readmission between 15 and 30 days after discharge. Lower patient-to-nurse ratios hold promise for preventing unnecessary hospital readmissions for children through more effective predischarge monitoring of patient conditions, improved discharge preparation and enhanced quality improvement success.
Performance Analysis of Web Service Replica Selection in an Extranet

Providing Web service replicas improves the overall system performance and redundancy for hardware failures. In Business-to-Business, this may be particularly interesting for organizations in an extranet. In our previous work, we proposed a broker to perform the web service replica selection. Furthermore we investigated a replica selection algorithm called minU and performed a preliminary analysis comparing random replica selection algorithm in a simple 4-node ring topology. In this paper we present a detailed performance analysis of mini and the factors affecting its performance under a larger 11- node network. The factors are weight given to most recent utility value (p), weight given to communication delay (a) and replica placement to name a few. Results show that the response time achieved using the minU replica selection policy greatly depends on these factors and also on the topology used. For instance, as the weight given to the most recent utility value is increased, the response time of the Web services decreased. In our simulation experiments, choosing a to be 0.3 results in minimum response time.
New Low-Mass Stars and Brown Dwarfs with Disks in the Chamaeleon I Star-Forming Region

We have used images obtained with the Infrared Array Camera and the Multiband Imaging Photometer on board the Spitzer Space Telescope to search for low-mass stars and brown dwarfs with circumstellar disks in the Chamaeleon I star-forming region. Through optical spectroscopy of sources with red colors in these data, we have identified seven new disk-bearing members of the cluster. Three of these objects are probably brown dwarfs, according to their spectral types (M8, M8.5, M8-L0). Three of the other new members may have edge-on disks, based on the shapes of their infrared spectral energy distributions. One of the possible edge-on systems has a steeply rising slope from 4.5 to 24 μm, indicating that it could be a Class I source (star+disk+envelope) rather than a Class II source (star+disk). If so, then it would be one of the least massive known Class I protostars (M5.75, M ∼ 0.1 M☉).
Occlusion filling for high quality multiview synthesis

We investigate the problem of generation of new images and their corresponding disparity maps at vantage positions intermediate to a set of given stereo views. Linear interpolation is applied to generate the candidate views and disparity maps. Based on the input images, these candidate views contain a varying degree of occlusion. We present and compare two separate methods to fill these holes. We evaluate our methods using the Middlebury stereo dataset. Through our experiments, we show that both the methods we propose produce high quality images with higher PSNR and SSIM compared to state-of-the-art methods. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Performance tuning of Infrastructure-Mode wireless LANs

Conventional wisdom about 802.11 WLANs dictates that as the number of active users increases, the contention windows (CW) of all the contending users needs to increase to prevent collision losses. However, given the increasing data rates of 802.11 standards, the fraction of time spent not transmitting information (as a result of back-off) is also increasing, leading to reduced throughput when compared to the theoretical maximum. While there appears to be an inherent conflict between reducing collisions by increasing the CW and reducing overhead by decreasing the CW, we demonstrate in this paper that this conflict can be eliminated in Infrastructure-Mode wireless LANs (I-WLAN) where downlink TCP and UDP flows dominate. Unlike the traditional trend of WLAN performance analysis that assumes that all the stations are greedy, we consider the case in which only the access point (AP) is greedy while the mobile users in the cell react to the information sent to them. This setting captures the traffic patterns in I-WLANs more accurately as users typically utilize their WLAN connections predominantly for downloading information through TCP (i.e., web browsing) and UDP (i.e., video streaming) connections. We show via analysis and extensive experimentation that by changing the minimum CW at the APs and the users, we can achieve 25–30% greater throughput than the typically recommended 802.11 settings. We achieve this without requiring any changes to the MAC or PHY, and utilizing only the standard features present on current-generation 802.11 chip-sets.
Time series analysis of the long-term hydrologic impacts of afforestation in the Águeda watershed of north-central Portugal

The north-central region of Portugal has under- gone significant land cover change since the early 1900s, with large-scale replacement of natural vegetation types with plantation forests. This transition consisted of an initial con- version primarily to Pinus pinaster, followed by a secondary transition to Eucalyptus globulus. This land cover change is likely to have altered the hydrologic functioning of this re- gion; however, these potential impacts are not fully under- stood. To contribute to a better understanding of the poten- tial hydrologic impacts of this land cover change, this study examines the temporal trends in 75 years of data from the Agueda watershed (part of the Vouga Basin) over the period of 1936-2010. A number of hydrometeorological variables were analyzed using a combined Thiel-Sen/Mann-Kendall trend-testing approach, to assess the magnitude and signifi- cance of patterns in the observed data. These trend tests indi- cated that there have been no significant reductions in stream- flow over either the entire test period, or during sub-record periods, despite the large-scale afforestation which has oc- curred. This lack of change in streamflow is attributed to the specific characteristics of the watershed and land cover change. By contrast, a number of significant trends were found for baseflow index, with positive trends in the early data record (primarily during Pinus pinaster afforestation), followed by negative trends later in the data record (primar- ily during Eucalyptus globulus afforestation). These trends are attributed to land use and vegetation impacts on stream- flow generating processes, both due to species differences and to alterations in soil properties (i.e., infiltration capac- ity, soil water repellency). These results highlight the impor- tance of considering both vegetation types/dynamics and wa- tershed characteristic when assessing hydrologic impacts, in particular with respect to soil properties.
An Experimental Analysis of the Power Consumption of Convolutional Neural Networks for Keyword Spotting

Nearly all previous work on small-footprint keyword spotting with neural networks quantify model footprint in terms of the number of parameters and multiply operations for a feedforward inference pass. These values are, however, proxy measures since empirical performance in actual deployments is determined by many factors. In this paper, we study the power consumption of a family of convolutional neural networks for keyword spotting on a Raspberry Pi. We find that both proxies are good predictors of energy usage, although the number of multiplies is more predictive than the number of model parameters. We also confirm that models with the highest accuracies are, unsurprisingly, the most power hungry.
Public service motivation and socialization in graduate education

The purpose of this study is to explore the extent to which the characteristics of public administration degree programs are related to public service motivation (PSM) using a higher education socialization framework. Using a sample of approximately 500 students enrolled in 26 Master’s degree programs across the country, this study confirms that gender, work experience, core course requirements, service learning opportunities, climate, Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration accreditation, and full-time status were all meaningful predictors of PSM among the students. The implications of these findings are discussed.
Terahertz detection of alcohol using a photonic crystal fiber sensor.

Ethanol is widely used in chemical industrial processes as well as in the food and beverage industry. Therefore, methods of detecting alcohol must be accurate, precise, and reliable. In this content, a novel Zeonex-based photonic crystal fiber (PCF) has been modeled and analyzed for ethanol detection in terahertz frequency range. A finite-element-method-based simulation of the PCF sensor shows a high relative sensitivity of 68.87% with negligible confinement loss of 7.79×10-12 cm-1 at 1 THz frequency and x-polarization mode. Moreover, the core power fraction, birefringence, effective material loss, dispersion, and numerical aperture are also determined in the terahertz frequency range. Owing to the simple fiber structure, existing fabrication methods are feasible. With the outstanding waveguiding properties, the proposed sensor can potentially be used in ethanol detection, as well as polarization-preserving applications of terahertz waves.