Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Using Bayesian network for purchase behavior prediction from RFID data

This paper represents our recent studies about the prediction of purchase behavior and an advancement of in-store behavior with respect to RFID technology. In contrast to prior innovators in this research field, this paper has paid special attention to stay time spent on shopping in a target area rather than the whole supermarket, which can serve us to interpret the decision process of purchasing one product or a series of products in a much more intuitive and precise measurement. Also, we develop an integrated model to combine purchase behavior and in-store behavior. A probabilistic graphical model - bayesian network is employed to demonstrate a quantitative analysis process of purchase behavior decision over stay time. In order to distinguish purchase intention among different customers, an attitudinal factor - purchase background of customer is introduced in this paper to build bayesian network. As bayesian network can only deal with the discrete variables, a clustering algorithm is applied to discretize the continuous variables. In the experiments, the optimal cluster number of stay time and purchase background is examined for maximizing the performance evaluation with higher accuracy, and the results also show bayesian network has a better accuracy than other typical prediction models. Finally, we investigate the sensitivity and specificity of purchase behavior predicted by our proposal in adjustment of decision threshold, and use ROC (Receiver Operating Characteristic) curve to determine the optimal decision threshold which can maximize the classification accuracy of models.
Endogenous RNAi pathway evolutionarily shapes the destiny of the antisense lncRNAs transcriptome

A genome-wide comparative analysis of “cryptic” aslncRNAs decay in RNAi-capable and RNAi-deficient budding yeasts suggests an evolutionary contribution of RNAi in shaping the aslncRNAs transcriptome. Antisense long noncoding (aslnc)RNAs are extensively degraded by the nuclear exosome and the cytoplasmic exoribonuclease Xrn1 in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, lacking RNAi. Whether the ribonuclease III Dicer affects aslncRNAs in close RNAi-capable relatives remains unknown. Using genome-wide RNA profiling, here we show that aslncRNAs are primarily targeted by the exosome and Xrn1 in the RNAi-capable budding yeast Naumovozyma castellii, Dicer only affecting Xrn1-sensitive aslncRNAs levels in Xrn1-deficient cells. The dcr1 and xrn1 mutants display synergic growth defects, indicating that Dicer becomes critical in the absence of Xrn1. Small RNA sequencing showed that Dicer processes aslncRNAs into small RNAs, with a preference for Xrn1-sensitive aslncRNAs. Consistently, Dicer localizes into the cytoplasm. Finally, we observed an expansion of the exosome-sensitive antisense transcriptome in N. castellii compared with S. cerevisiae, suggesting that the presence of cytoplasmic RNAi has reinforced the nuclear RNA surveillance machinery to temper aslncRNAs expression. Our data provide fundamental insights into aslncRNAs metabolism and open perspectives into the possible evolutionary contribution of RNAi in shaping the aslncRNAs transcriptome.
Mental health status of North Korean refugees in South Korea and risk and protective factors: a 10-year review of the literature

ABSTRACT Background: North Korean refugees (NKRs) are often exposed to traumatic events in North Korea and during their defection. Furthermore, they face sociocultural barriers in adapting to the new society to which they have defected. Objective: To integrate previous findings on this mentally vulnerable population, we systematically reviewed articles on the mental health of NKRs in South Korea. Method: We searched for empirical studies conducted in the last 10 years in six online databases (international journals: Embase, PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science; Korean journals: DBPIA, KMbase) through June 2017. Only quantitative studies using new empirical data on the mental health of NKRs were included. We summarized the 56 studies ultimately selected in terms of NKRs’ mental health status and three domains of associated factors: pre- and post-settlement factors and personal factors. Results: NKRs had a high prevalence and severity of psychiatric symptoms, particularly post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. We identified nine risk factors consistently found in previous studies, including traumatic experience, longer stay periods in third country, forced repatriation, acculturative stress, low income, older age, poor physical health, and female and male sex, as well as four protective factors, including educational level in North Korea, social support, family relationship quality, and resilience. Conclusions: We suggest that future studies focus on the causal interactions between different risk and protective factors and mental health outcomes among NKRs from a longitudinal perspective. Furthermore, comprehensive policies for NKRs’ psychological adaptation are needed, particularly the development of evidence-based mental health interventions.
Autonomous manipulation with a general-purpose simple hand

While complex hands seem to offer generality, simple hands are often more practical. This raises the question: how do generality and simplicity trade off in the design of robot hands? This paper explores the tension between simplicity in hand design and generality in hand function. It raises arguments both for and against simple hands, it considers several familiar examples, and it proposes an approach for autonomous manipulation using a general-purpose but simple hand. We explore the approach in the context of a bin-picking task, focused on grasping, recognition, and localization. The central idea is to use learned knowledge of stable grasp poses as a cue for object recognition and localization. This leads to some novel design criteria, such as minimizing the number of stable grasp poses. Finally, we describe experiments with two prototype hands to perform bin-picking of highlighter markers.
Ocean acidification may increase calcification rates, but at a cost

Ocean acidification is the lowering of pH in the oceans as a result of increasing uptake of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is entering the oceans at a greater rate than ever before, reducing the ocean's natural buffering capacity and lowering pH. Previous work on the biological consequences of ocean acidification has suggested that calcification and metabolic processes are compromised in acidified seawater. By contrast, here we show, using the ophiuroid brittlestar Amphiura filiformis as a model calcifying organism, that some organisms can increase the rates of many of their biological processes (in this case, metabolism and the ability to calcify to compensate for increased seawater acidity). However, this upregulation of metabolism and calcification, potentially ameliorating some of the effects of increased acidity comes at a substantial cost (muscle wastage) and is therefore unlikely to be sustainable in the long term.
Evaluation of gynoecious cucumber (Cucumis sativus) hybrids for early-summer greenhouse production in western Indian arid plains

A great stride is witnessed in area expansion under protected cultivation, particularly in arid-western parts of India, where cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) is a predominant greenhouse crop. The early-summer crop of cucumber is highly remunerative owing to high prevailing market price. In current study, efforts were made to select suitable greenhouse cucumber hybrids for early season harvest under western Indian arid plains. Growth, yield and commercial quality traits of seven commercial gynoecious and parthenocarpic (seedless) cucumber hybrids were studied under greenhouse condition during 2015-16. Among the hybrids evaluated for early summer greenhouse production, Terminator was more precocious for fruit harvest (36 days after transplanting) followed by Rica and Dinamik. The per plant fruit yield was highest in Ekron (5.3 kg) followed by Terminator (4.2 kg). The vine length, leaf size and leaf dry weight were also found to be highest in Ekron, followed by Terminator. The fruit appearance, taste and texture, and overall consumerâ€™s acceptability were also determined, which were found better in Rica, Terminator and Dinamik. Despite exhibiting highest production related traits, Ekron measured least score for sensory parameters, especially the fruit appearance due to presence of rudimentary spines on skin, and also the taste. Fruit pericarp thickness and dry matter content were significantly higher in Ekron but the values were at par with that recorded for Terminator and a few other hybrids. The character association analysis reveals that per plant fruit yield had significant positive correlation with vine length, leaf size, foliar (stem+leaf) dry mass and mean fruit weight. Based on targeted characters for earliness, fruit yield and commercial quality of evaluated hybrids, it is concluded that Terminator followed by Rica were highly suitable for early summer production under protected condition in western arid plains of India.
Design of a smart 3D-printed wristed robotic surgical instrument with embedded force sensing and modularity

This paper introduces the design and characterization of a robotic surgical instrument produced mainly with rapid prototyping techniques. Surgical robots have generally complex structures and have therefore an elevated cost. The proposed instrument was designed to incorporate minimal number of components to simplify the assembly process by leveraging the unique strength of rapid prototyping for producing complex, assemble-free components. The modularity, cost-effectiveness and fast manufacturing and assembly features offer the possibility of producing patient or task specific instruments. The proposed robot incorporates an integrated force measurement system, thus allowing the determination of the force exchanged between the instrument and the environment. Detailed experiments were performed to validate the functionality and force sensing capability of the instrument.
Visual rating of the hippocampus in non‐demented elders: Does it measure hippocampal atrophy or other indices of brain atrophy? The SMART‐MR study

Visual rating of hippocampal atrophy is often used to differentiate between normal aging and Alzheimer's disease. We investigated whether two visual rating scales of hippocampal atrophy were related to hippocampal volumes, and if visual rating was related to global, cortical and subcortical brain atrophy in persons without dementia. Within the SMART‐MR study, a prospective cohort study among patients with manifest arterial disease, medial temporal lobe atrophy was qualitatively rated in 95 participants without dementia (mean age 62 ± 10 years) using two visual rating scales: the medial temporal lobe (MTA) score was rated on coronal oriented images and the perihippocampal cerebrospinal fluid (HCSF) score was rated on axial oriented images. Hippocampal volume assessed by manual segmentation on a 3‐dimensional FFE T1‐weighted MR image. Automated segmentation was used to quantify volumes of brain tissue and cerebrospinal fluid. Total brain volume, gray matter volume, and ventricular volume were divided by intracranial volume to obtain brain parenchymal fraction (BPF), gray matter fraction (GMF) and ventricular fraction (VF). Using ANOVA, crude hippocampal volumes were smaller with increasing MTA and HSCF scores as were hippocampal volumes normalized for intracranial volume (P < 0.05). However, hippocampal volumes normalized for total brain size were not smaller with increasing MTA or HSCF scores (P = 0.33 and P = 0.49). Also, with increasing visual rating scores, BPF was smaller and VF was larger (P < 0.001), and the GMF decreased with increasing HCSF score (P = 0.008). In this nondemented population, visual rating of the medial temporal lobe reflects hippocampal atrophy as well as global and subcortical atrophy. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Frames in outdoor 802.11 WLANs provide a hybrid binary-symmetric/packet-erasure channel

Corrupted frames with CRC errors potentially provide a useful channel through which information can be transmitted. Using measurements taken in an outdoor environment, it is demonstrated that for 802.11 wireless links the channel provided by corrupted frames alone (i.e. ignoring frames with PHY errors and frames received correctly) can be accurately modelled as a binary symmetric channel (BSC) provided appropriate pre- and post- processing is carried out. Also, the channel provided by corrupted frames and other frames combined can be accurately modelled as a hybrid binary symmetric/packet erasure channel. Importantly, it is found that this hybrid channel offers capacity increases of more than 100% compared to a conventional packet erasure channel over a wide range of RSSIs. This indicates that the potential exists for significant network throughput gains if the information contained in 802.11 corrupted packets is exploited.
Intensive analysis of gait in the elderly with Parkinson's disease using center of pressure during walking

Gait is usually a crucial indicator for recognizing and evaluating the progression of Parkinson's disease (PD). To assess gait variability in the elderly with PD in a continuous and natural way, we pay more attention to their feet pressure variability while walking, and try to obtain the varying patterns of center of pressure (CoP). In this paper, we propose a framework based on the bimodal distribution probability density functions (BDPDFs) to recognize gait patterns of PD patients. The result evaluated with the 10-fold cross-validation method demonstrates that the Bagging classifier is able to provide classification precision of 82.4% with AUC of 88.3%. The features and the classifiers used in the present study can also be used to study the effect of dopamine and rehabilitation in PD patients.
Modeling IoT Applications with SysML4IoT

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a paradigm thatrefers to the ubiquitous presence around us of physical objects equipped with sensing, networking and processing capabilities that allow them to cooperate with each other and with their environment to reach common goals. General objectives of IoT are improving the quality of human life and optimizing industrial processes, by automating tasks that humans must perform. Such benefits are obtained by developing IoT applications. The heterogeneity and interdisciplinary present in the development of any IoT application classifies such a task as a Systems Engineering problem. However, to the best of our knowledge, no Systems Engineering approach to develop IoT applications has been proposed so far. The objective of this paper is to introduce a Model-Based Systems Engineering methodology for IoT application development, focusing on the design phase, which aims at helping organizations to develop IoT applications to fully achieve the benefits of this new paradigm. The approach is comprised of a method and a tool, which are aligned with proven concepts from Systems Engineering and Software Architecture literature.
Effect of Prophylactic Medication and Influence of Vitreous Reflux in Pressure Rise after Intravitreal Injections of Anti-VEGF Drugs

Purpose To assess the efficacy of a hypotensive prophylactic medication in preventing intraocular pressure (IOP) changes after intravitreal injections, and the effect of occurrence of vitreous reflux on the variation of IOP. Methods A total of 141 intravitreal injections of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor drugs (0.05 mL) were randomly distributed into 2 groups: in group 1 (n = 77), no prophylactic IOP-lowering medication was used; in group 2 (n = 64), a fixed combination of brimonidine and timolol was instilled 5 minutes before the injection. The IOP was measured before and 1, 15, and 30 minutes after the injection. The presence of vitreous reflux was recorded. Results Despite significantly reducing the IOP by ~3 mm Hg, prophylactic medication did not prevent a transient IOP rise. A total of 22.7% of injections showed vitreous reflux, and those patients experienced much lower initial spikes. Indeed, only 6.5% out of 77 injections above 30 mm Hg within 1 minute after injection showed vitreous reflux. Only one case showed an IOP >30 mm Hg at 15 minutes, and none at 30 minutes postinjection. The IOP normalization rates over time were similar in all groups within 15 minutes. Conclusions Prophylactic medication instilled 5 minutes before the injection was not effective in preventing a pressure rise after intravitreal injections. Vitreous reflux decreased significantly the spike figures compared to injections with no reflux.
Mating System of the Anther Smut Fungus Microbotryum violaceum: Selfing under Heterothallism

Sexual reproduction is of such fundamental importance in eukaryotes that, with unique exceptions, it appears essential for the long-term persistence of species (43). The benefits of sex stem from both the DNA maintenance and repair during meiotic divisions and the impact of various forms of mating upon genetic variation. Meiosis is retained by virtually all sexual organisms, and aside from the meiotic parthenogens, mating is required between distinct and alternate forms, called sexes or mating types (but interesting cases exist in fungi of same-sex mating and sex without evidence of meiosis [17, 76]). Mating compatibility is determined by a great variety of mechanisms. In reptiles, diploid males and females are determined by the incubation temperature during egg development (60). Some fish and plants can switch sexes during their lifetime in response to environmental conditions (4, 70). However, the irreversible differentiation into different sexes or mating types is genetically determined in the majority of species. In many animals and plants, sexual development is established by genes found on a dimorphic pair of sex chromosomes, where females and males differ with regard to being homogametic or heterogametic (i.e., whether or not a diploid carries two copies of the same sex chromosome or one copy of each alternate sex chromosome). The origin of sex chromosomes is believed to have involved suppression of recombination around the essential sex determining genes on an ancestral autosomal pair (86) and progressive expansion of this region of suppressed recombination through the recruitment of other sex-related factors (92). Recombination suppression and the bias in the extent of heterozygosity between the homogametic or heterogametic sex chromosomes would then drive the accumulation of load loci and the degeneration of sex chromosomes via reduced effective
The Longitudinal Transcriptomic Response of the Substantia Nigra to Intrastriatal 6-Hydroxydopamine Reveals Significant Upregulation of Regeneration-Associated Genes

We hypothesized that the study of gene expression at 1, 2, 4, 6 and 16 weeks in the substantia nigra (SN) after intrastriatal 6-OHDA in the Sprague-Dawley rat (rattus norvegicus) would identify cellular responses during the degenerative process that could be axoprotective. Specifically, we hypothesized that genes expressed within the SN that followed a profile of being highly upregulated early after the lesion (during active axonal degeneration) and then progressively declined to baseline over 16 weeks as DA neurons died are indicative of potential protective responses to the striatal 6-OHDA insult. Utilizing a κ-means cluster analysis strategy, we demonstrated that one such cluster followed this hypothesized expression pattern over time, and that this cluster contained several interrelated transcripts that are classified as regeneration-associated genes (RAGs) including Atf3, Sprr1a, Ecel1, Gadd45a, Gpnmb, Sox11, Mmp19, Srgap1, Rab15,Lifr, Trib3, Tgfb1, and Sema3c. All exemplar transcripts tested from this cluster (Sprr1a, Ecel1, Gadd45a, Atf3 and Sox11) were validated by qPCR and a smaller subset (Sprr1a, Gadd45a and Sox11) were shown to be exclusively localized to SN DA neurons using a dual label approach with RNAScope in situ hybridization and immunohistochemistry. Upregulation of RAGs is typically associated with the response to axonal injury in the peripheral nerves and was not previously reported as part of the axodegenerative process for DA neurons of the SN. Interestingly, as part of this cluster, other transcripts were identified based on their expression pattern but without a RAG provenance in the literature. These "RAG-like" transcripts need further characterization to determine if they possess similar functions to or interact with known RAG transcripts. Ultimately, it is hoped that some of the newly identified axodegeneration-reactive transcripts could be exploited as axoprotective therapies in PD and other neurodegenerative diseases.
Multiple face contour detection based on geometric active contours

An approach based on a multiphase geometric active contour model is presented for multiple face contour detection in grayscale still images. The proposed method first adopts the multiphase Chan-Vese model for image segmentation. Bassed on the four-color theorem this model can use only two level set functions to represent any partition in the piecewise smooth case. Then the Hausdorff distance is used as a similarity between a general elliptical face model and the segmented closed curves. Based on the predefined threshold, the final face contours are achieved in this validation step. Experiments are performed on a large test set and show the efficiency of the method.
Complement activation in septic shock patients

To evaluate the status of the complement system and to determine the effects of corticosteroids on complement component levels in septic shock, C3, C4, and Factor B were measured in 42 patients with severe late septic shock. Serum levels of C4 and Factor B correlated with C3 levels (r = 0.48 and 0.64, respectively; p < .01) in patients in shock for more than 4 h, but only Factor B correlated with C3 (r = 0.85; p < .01) in patients in shock for 4 h or less. C3 and Factor B levels were significantly (p < .05) lower in patients who died (12,174 ± 1,524 CH50 U/ml and 14 ± 1 mg/dl, respectively) than in patients who survived (18,418 ± 2,833 CH50 U/ml and 21 ±2 mg/dl, respectively). Corticosteroids did not alter complement component levels.The alternative pathway appears to be activated early in septic shock, whereas the classical pathway is activated later. C3 and Factor B levels may predict survival of patients in septic shock. In this study, corticosteroids did not change the complement component levels of patients in late severe septic shock.
Evaluating pleural effusions. A two-stage laboratory approach.

PLEURAL effusions are commonly seen in a variety of diseases. Based on the underlying pathophysiological abnormality, these effusions can be divided into transudates and exudates. 1 Transudative effusions develop when there is a change in systemic factors such as an increase in capillary hydrostatic pressure or a decrease in colloid osmotic pressure with no change in the pleural surface. Common causes of transudative effusions include congestive heart failure, chronic renal failure, and low protein states. Exudative effusions are caused by an altered permeability of the pleural vessels or by obstruction of lymphatics as is seen in neoplasms, infections, or other inflammatory processes. Physicians use a number of laboratory tests to determine which of these processes is occurring in a particular patient. Light et al 2 have shown that in a select group of patients, transudates and exudates can be separated in the laboratory by measuring the protein and lactate dehydrogenase