Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
TSCH and 6TiSCH for Contiki: Challenges, Design and Evaluation

Synchronized communication has recently emerged as a prime option for low-power critical applications. Solutions such as Glossy or Time Slotted Channel Hopping (TSCH) have demonstrated end-to-end reliability upwards of 99.99%. In this context, the IETF Working Group 6TiSCH is currently standardizing the mechanisms to use TSCH in low-power IPv6 scenarios. This paper identifies a number of challenges when it comes to implementing the 6TiSCH stack. It shows how these challenges can be addressed with practical solutions for locking, queuing, scheduling and other aspects. With this implementation as an enabler, we present an experimental validation and comparison with state-of-the-art MAC protocols. We conduct fine-grained energy profiling, showing the impact of link-layer security on packet transmission. We evaluate distributed time synchronization in a 340-node testbed, and demonstrate that tight synchronization (hundreds of microseconds) can be achieved at very low cost (0.3% duty cycle, 0.008% channel utilization). We finally compare TSCH against traditional MAC layers: low-power listening (LPL) and CSMA, in terms of reliability, latency and energy. We show that with proper scheduling, TSCH achieves by far the highest reliability, and outperforms LPL in both energy and latency.
Association of Clinician Denial of Patient Requests With Patient Satisfaction

Importance Prior studies suggesting clinician fulfillment or denial of requests affects patient satisfaction included limited adjustment for patient confounders. The studies also did not examine distinct request types, yet patient expectations and clinician fulfillment or denial might vary among request types. Objective To examine how patient satisfaction with the clinician is associated with clinician denial of distinct types of patient requests, adjusting for patient characteristics. Design, Setting, and Participants Cross-sectional observational study of 1319 outpatient visits to family physicians (n = 56) by 1141 adults at one Northern California academic health center. Main Outcomes and Measures We used 6 Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems Clinician and Group Adult Visit Survey items to measure patient satisfaction with the visit physician. Standardized items were averaged to form the satisfaction score (Cronbach &agr; = 0.80), which was then percentile-transformed. Seven separate linear mixed-effects models examined the adjusted mean differences in patient satisfaction percentile associated with denial of each of the following requests (if present)—referral, pain medication, antibiotic, other new medication, laboratory test, radiology test, or other test—compared with fulfillment of the respective requests. The models adjusted for patient sociodemographics, weight, health status, personality, worry over health, prior visit with clinician, and the other 6 request categories and their dispositions. Results The mean (SD) age of the 1141 patients was 45.6 (16.1) years, and 902 (68.4%) were female. Among 1319 visits, 897 (68.0%) included at least 1 request; 1441 (85.2%) were fulfilled. Requests by category were referral, 294 (21.1%); pain medication, 271 (20.5%); antibiotic, 107 (8.1%); other new medication, 271 (20.5%); laboratory test, 448 (34.0%); radiology test, 153 (11.6%); and other tests, 147 (11.1%). Compared with fulfillment of the respective request type, clinician denials of requests for referral, pain medication, other new medication, and laboratory test were associated with worse satisfaction (adjusted mean percentile differences, −19.75 [95% CI, −30.75 to −8.74], −10.72 [95% CI, −19.66 to −1.78], −20.36 [95% CI, −29.54 to −11.18], and −9.19 [95% CI, −17.50 to −0.87]), respectively. Conclusions and Relevance Clinician denial of some types of requests was associated with worse patient satisfaction with the clinician, but not for others, when compared with fulfillment of the requests. In an era of patient satisfaction-driven compensation, the findings suggest the need to train clinicians to deal effectively with requests, potentially enhancing patient and clinician experiences.
Health-related quality of life and psychosocial implications in testicular cancer survivors. A literature review.

OBJECTIVE In this review, we focused our attention on Quality of Life (QoL) of testicular cancer survivors (TCSs), in general and in the most relevant areas. Several key findings have been highlighted in our review. MATERIALS AND METHODS PubMed, MEDLINE and PsycINFO databases were consulted to find published studies, from 1980 to May 2017, that met our inclusion criteria. RESULTS The majority of studies investigated older adult TCSs, while few studies on adolescent and young adult patients were available. Many studies indicate that health-related QoL (HRQoL) is similar among the TCSs and the general population. Even if QoL deteriorates so clear at the time of diagnosis and throughout treatment, afterward returns to normal levels, as defined by the matched controls. However, there are numerous chronic conditions consequent to diagnosis and treatment of testicular cancer that plague survivors and affect QoL, like Raynaud-like phenomena, peripheral neuropathy, fatigue, anxiety, sexual, fertility and body image problems. Even if these problems can have no effects on the measures of global QoL, they have an impact on the quality of life. Differences between TCSs with and without a partner bring to different outcomes in the adjustments to cancer. CONCLUSIONS It is necessary to identify TCSs with higher risks of poorer QoL outcomes, to focus interventions on the areas with the greatest impairments. Further researches should consider the effects of testicular cancer on the impaired areas, collecting more data to better identify survivor's needs and consequent interventions, with a special focus on adolescent and young adult TCSs. Other works are requested on therapies, preventive and ameliorative, to reduce chronic side effects of testicular cancer treatment.
Numerical solution for a class of pursuit-evasion problem in low earth orbit

A two spacecraft pursuit-evasion problem in a low earth orbit with two payoffs, is investigated by an integrated approach using the semi-direct nonlinear programming and the multiple shooting method. The problem is formulated by a zero-sum differential game. The miss distance at a fixed terminal time and the capture time are defined as the payoffs. The pursuer strives to minimize the payoff while the evader attempts to maximize it. Semi-direct nonlinear programming serves as a preprocessor in which control is parameterized in piecewise form. Its solution is then used as the initial values for the multiple shooting method and thus a refined solution is obtained for a two-point boundary-value problem arising from the necessary conditions. The optimal trajectory and optimal control using the semi-direct nonlinear programming and the multiple shooting method are computed and compared. Numerical equivalence of the semi-direct method and the hybrid method with respect to the differential game is evidenced by a realistically modeled pursuit-evasion test case. This proposed integrated approach is shown to be robust, accurate and more efficient than using only a single method.
Design of nearly body-effect free Si/SiGe MODFETs

DC transfer characteristic measurements have been carried out on an n-channel Si/SiGe MODFET with an MOS gate at three different substrate biases. For our layer structure, electrons are supplied into the strained Si quantum well (QW) from the top heavily doped layer and below the QW is non-intentionally doped (setback). Here, we numerically studied the setback layer, for which the doping can be systematically designed to reduce the influence of the substrate bias on the threshold voltage (V/sub TH/) shift. By inserting and positioning a 15 nm-thick heavily doped n/sup +/ (2.10(-7) cm/sup -3/) layer into the 700 nm-thick setback layer, we found that, when we positioned the n/sup +/ layer 635 nm below the QW, the V/sub TH/ shifted by only 37 mV and only a slight change of the subthreshold slope occurred, 3.12 mV/dec, for -2 V applied to the substrate.
Carbon/Vinyl Ester Composites for Enhanced Performance in Marine Applications

The present study describes the processing and mechanical characterization of two different fibers (glass and carbon) and two different fabric architectures (woven roving and stitch bonded) made into composites with Dow Chemical’s Derakane 510A-40, a brominated vinyl ester (VE) resin. Both E-glass and T700 carbon fibers are coated with VE compatible sizing. The composite panels are fabricated by the vacuum assisted resin transfer molding (VARTM), the specimens are machined, and the mechanical tests are conducted as per the accepted test standards. Tension, compression, in-plane shear, and interlaminar shear properties are measured and their associated failure modes are compared with each other. The specific properties of the composites are compared with that of the marine steel. The carbon composites have superior properties, higher specific strength, and specific modulus than the marine steel. The glass composites have higher specific strength but lower specific modulus than marine steel. The glass composites are well suited for constructing ship hulls which are only strength critical. The topside (upper) structures of the ship are stiffness critical. The carbon composites are applicable to both the topside and the hull structures of the ship to reduce the total weight. The straightness of the fiber and the FOE sizing are the possible reasons for the superior performance of the carbon composites. The predicted elastic constants based on the simple micromechanical equations of the composites agree very well with the experimental data.
The Impact of Relationship-Specific Support and Strain on Depressive Symptoms Across the Life Course

Objective: This study integrates stress process theory into a life course framework to examine how support and strain from particular relationship types (spouse/partner, children, mother, and friends/relatives) influence trajectories of depressive symptoms among different age groups, net of support and strain from other relationship types. Method: Latent growth curve models were used on nationally representative panel data (N = 3,617) from the Americans’ Changing Lives survey (1986, 1989, 1994, and 2001/2002). Results: Net of support and strain from other relationships, support from a spouse was related to fewer depressive symptoms among each age group. Friendships were important for depressive symptoms among younger and older adults, whereas only support/strain from family relationships influenced depressive symptoms among adults in midlife. Discussion: Findings demonstrate the importance of support and strain in multiple types of network members for the mental health of adults across the life course.
Facial Emotion Recognition and Empathy in Employees at a Juvenile Detention Center

Numerous studies have shown that emotion recognition is impaired in individuals with a history of violent offenses, especially in those diagnosed with psychopathy. However, in criminological contexts, there is insufficient research regarding the role of empathy and facial emotion recognition abilities of personnel employed in correction centers. Accordingly, we sought to explore facial emotion recognition abilities and empathy in administrative officers and security guards at a center for institutionalized juvenile offenders. One hundred twenty-two Mexican subjects, including both men and women, were recruited for the study. Sixty-three subjects were administrative officers, and 59 subjects were security guards at a juvenile detention center. Tasks included “Pictures of Facial Affect” and the “Cambridge Behavior Scale. ” The results showed that group and gender had an independent effect on emotion recognition abilities, with no significant interaction between the two variables. Specifically, administrative officers showed higher empathy than security guards. Moreover, women in general exhibited more empathy than men. This study provides initial evidence of the need to study emotion recognition and empathy among professionals working in forensic settings or criminological contexts.
Discovering Canonical Correlations between Topical and Topological Information in Document Networks

Document network is a kind of intriguing dataset which can provide both topical (textual content) and topological (relational link) information. A key point in modeling such datasets is to discover proper denominators beneath the text and link. Most previous work introduces the assumption that documents closely linked with each other share common latent topics. However, the heterophily (i.e., tendency to link to different others) of nodes is neglected, which is pervasive in social networks. In this paper, we simultaneously incorporate community detection and topic modeling in a unified framework, and appeal to Canonical Correlation Analysis (CCA) to capture the latent semantic correlations between the two heterogeneous factors, community and topic. Despite of the homophily (i.e., tendency to link to similar others) or heterophily, CCA can properly capture the inherent correlations which fit the dataset itself without any prior hypothesis. We also impose auxiliary word embeddings to improve the quality of topics. The effectiveness of our proposed model is comprehensively verified on three different types of datasets which are hyperlinked networks of web pages, social networks of friends, and coauthor networks of publications. Experimental results show that our approach achieves significant improvements compared with the current state of the art.
Very short DNA segments can be detected and handled by the repair machinery during germline chromothriptic chromosome reassembly

Analyses at nucleotide resolution reveal unexpected complexity of seemingly simple and balanced chromosomal rearrangements. Chromothripsis is a rare complex aberration involving local shattering of one or more chromosomes and reassembly of the resulting DNA segments. This can influence gene expression and cause abnormal phenotypes. We studied the structure and mechanism of a seemingly balanced de novo complex rearrangement of four chromosomes in a boy with developmental and growth delay. Microarray analysis revealed two paternal de novo deletions of 0.7 and 2.5 Mb at two of the breakpoints in 1q24.3 and 6q24.1‐q24.2, respectively, which could explain most symptoms of the patient. Subsequent whole‐genome mate‐pair sequencing confirmed the chromothriptic nature of the rearrangement. The four participating chromosomes were broken into 29 segments longer than 1 kb. Sanger sequencing of all breakpoint junctions revealed additional complexity compatible with the involvement of different repair pathways. We observed translocation of a 33 bp long DNA fragment, which may have implications for the definition of the lower size limit of structural variants. Our observations and literature review indicate that even very small fragments from shattered chromosomes can be detected and handled by the repair machinery during germline chromothriptic chromosome reassembly.
Lets keep it simple, Using simple architectures to outperform deeper and more complex architectures

Major winning Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), such as AlexNet, VGGNet, ResNet, GoogleNet, include tens to hundreds of millions of parameters, which impose considerable computation and memory overhead. This limits their practical use for training, optimization and memory efficiency. On the contrary, light-weight architectures, being proposed to address this issue, mainly suffer from low accuracy. These inefficiencies mostly stem from following an ad hoc procedure. We propose a simple architecture, called SimpleNet, based on a set of designing principles, with which we empirically show, a well-crafted yet simple and reasonably deep architecture can perform on par with deeper and more complex architectures. SimpleNet provides a good tradeoff between the computation/memory efficiency and the accuracy. Our simple 13-layer architecture outperforms most of the deeper and complex architectures to date such as VGGNet, ResNet, and GoogleNet on several well-known benchmarks while having 2 to 25 times fewer number of parameters and operations. This makes it very handy for embedded system or system with computational and memory limitations. We achieved state-of-the-art result on CIFAR10 outperforming several heavier architectures, near state of the art on MNIST and competitive results on CIFAR100 and SVHN. Models are made available at: this https URL
Development of Structure and Properties during Spunbonding of Metallocene Catalyzed Polypropylene

Spunbonding is one of the most widely used processing techniques to convert polymers into nonwoven fabrics. metallocene-catalyzed polypropylene is becoming more and more important. A study was carried out to understand the development of structure and properties of a metallocene-catalyzed isotactic polypropylene during spunbonding. This research was conducted using the Reicofil spunbond line at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The filaments at three different throughput rates were studied for tensile properties and for structural features by birefringence, X-ray diffraction, and thermal measurements. The fabrics produced at different process conditions were tested for various mechanical properties. The failure mechanism of the fabrics at different bonding temperatures was studied using the scanning electron microscope. The results are compared with a conventional polypropylene processed under similar conditions. The results showed that the mPP produced fabrics with better strength and elongation at comparable processing conditions. Also, failure mechanisms were found to be different for the fabrics produced from the two polymers, which are due to differences in the produced structures.
Environmental selection on transcriptome‐derived SNPs in a high gene flow marine fish, the Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus)

High gene flow is considered the norm for most marine organisms and is expected to limit their ability to adapt to local environments. Few studies have directly compared the patterns of differentiation at neutral and selected gene loci in marine organisms. We analysed a transcriptome‐derived panel of 281 SNPs in Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus), a highly migratory small pelagic fish, for elucidating neutral and selected genetic variation among populations and to identify candidate genes for environmental adaptation. We analysed 607 individuals from 18 spawning locations in the northeast Atlantic, including two temperature clines (5–12 °C) and two salinity clines (5–35‰). By combining genome scan and landscape genetic analyses, four genetically distinct groups of herring were identified: Baltic Sea, Baltic–North Sea transition area, North Sea/British Isles and North Atlantic; notably, samples exhibited divergent clustering patterns for neutral and selected loci. We found statistically strong evidence for divergent selection at 16 outlier loci on a global scale, and significant correlations with temperature and salinity at nine loci. On regional scales, we identified two outlier loci with parallel patterns across temperature clines and five loci associated with temperature in the North Sea/North Atlantic. Likewise, we found seven replicated outliers, of which five were significantly associated with low salinity across both salinity clines. Our results reveal a complex pattern of varying spatial genetic variation among outlier loci, likely reflecting adaptations to local environments. In addition to disclosing the fine scale of local adaptation in a highly vagile species, our data emphasize the need to preserve functionally important biodiversity.
The Role of Communication Perceptions in the Mental Health of Older Adults: Views From Thailand and the United States

ABSTRACT This study examines age ingroup and outgroup communication perceptions of older Thai and American adults to assess whether communication perceptions of self and others are associated with mental health outcomes such as personal self-esteem, collective self-esteem, and life satisfaction. Results suggest that more accommodation by same-age older others leads to greater personal self-esteem, greater group esteem, and greater life satisfaction, while more nonaccommodation by younger others leads to less life satisfaction for the Thais and Americans. More overaccommodation by younger others was found to lead to less personal self-esteem and less life satisfaction for the sample as a whole. Discriminant loadings show life satisfaction was the most important variable in distinguishing between the prototypical older Thai and American respondent. The overall profile shows the typical Thai older adult participants as perceiving members of their own age ingroup as communicatively avoidant and overaccommodating while also experiencing lower collective self-esteem and life satisfaction. Typical older Americans tended to be associated with higher collective self-esteem and life satisfaction.
Differences in adrenocortical secretory and gene expression responses to stimulation in vitro by ACTH or prolactin between high- and low-avoidance Hatano rats

Rats of the Hatano high-avoidance (HAA) and low-avoidance (LAA) strains have been genetically selected on the basis of their two-way active avoidance behavior, and have different endocrine responses to stress. The present study focused on the adrenal steroid hormone responses of the Hatano strains and identifies differences in regulation of the adrenal cortex in vitro of HAA and LAA rats. Although incubation with prolactin (PRL) and/or adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH) resulted in a dose-dependent increase of corticosterone and progesterone release by adrenal cells from both HAA and LAA male rats, the responses were markedly increased for adrenal cells from LAA rats as compared with HAA rats. This finding suggested that adrenal glands of HAA rats are less sensitive to PRL and/or ACTH than adrenals from LAA rats. Several possible intra-adrenal regulators were investigated. The basal level of expression of steroidogenic acute regulatory protein (StAR) and the long form of the PRL receptor (PRLR-L) mRNAs was higher in adrenals of LAA rats. ACTH treatment of adrenal cells from HAA rats resulted in statistically significant increases in melanocortin receptor 2 (MC2R) mRNA expression, while neither ACTH nor PRL altered MC2R mRNA expression in adrenal cells of LAA rats. Conversely, the increase in PRLR-L mRNA expression induced by PRL was observed only in adrenal cells from LAA rats. Treatment of adrenal cells with PRL and/or ACTH increased the expression of StAR and CYP11A1 mRNAs for both Hatano strains. However, the induction of StAR mRNA expression was higher in LAA rats, but the CYP11A1 response was lower. These findings indicate that adrenal cells of the LAA strain have higher sensitivity to secretagogues than those of the HAA strain. These results suggest that PRL may also be important in stimulating secretion of adrenal steroid hormones.