Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effectiveness of a Batteryless and Wireless Wearable Sensor System for Identifying Bed and Chair Exits in Healthy Older People

Aging populations are increasing worldwide and strategies to minimize the impact of falls on older people need to be examined. Falls in hospitals are common and current hospital technological implementations use localized sensors on beds and chairs to alert caregivers of unsupervised patient ambulations; however, such systems have high false alarm rates. We investigate the recognition of bed and chair exits in real-time using a wireless wearable sensor worn by healthy older volunteers. Fourteen healthy older participants joined in supervised trials. They wore a batteryless, lightweight and wireless sensor over their attire and performed a set of broadly scripted activities. We developed a movement monitoring approach for the recognition of bed and chair exits based on a machine learning activity predictor. We investigated the effectiveness of our approach in generating bed and chair exit alerts in two possible clinical deployments (Room 1 and Room 2). The system obtained recall results above 93% (Room 2) and 94% (Room 1) for bed and chair exits, respectively. Precision was >78% and 67%, respectively, while F-score was >84% and 77% for bed and chair exits, respectively. This system has potential for real-time monitoring but further research in the final target population of older people is necessary.
Understanding Users' Recommendation Intention of Taxi-hailing Apps: An Internal Perception Perspective

Users’ recommendation intention has drawn greater intention by both scholars and managers under the context of electronic commerce. Based on TAM (Technology Acceptance Model), this study aims to examine factors affecting users’ recommendation intention of Taxi-hailing apps in Chinese context. Structural equation model is used in this study. Data collected from 261 Taxi-hailing apps users. The results show the following key interesting findings: (1) both perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use have positive effect on users’ perceived benefits; (2) perceived benefits has positive effect on users’ trust, while perceived privacy risk has negative effect on users’ trust; (3) users’ trust has positive effect on users’ recommendation intention; (4) perceived benefits acts as a partial mediator between perceived usefulness/users’ trust and perceived ease of use/users’ trust, and users’ trust acts as a partial mediator between perceived benefits and users’ recommendation intention. Implications for researchers and practice are discussed.
Deletion of Presenilin 1 Hydrophilic Loop Sequence Leads to Impaired γ-Secretase Activity and Exacerbated Amyloid Pathology

γ-Secretase processing of the amyloid precursor protein (APP) generates Aβ40 and Aβ42, peptides that constitute the principal components of the β-amyloid plaque pathology of Alzheimer's disease (AD). The γ-secretase activity is executed by a high-molecular-weight complex of which presenilin 1 (PS1) is an essential component. PS1 is a multi-pass membrane protein, and the large hydrophilic loop domain between transmembrane domains 6 and 7 has been shown to interact with various proteins. To determine the physiological function of the loop domain, we created a strain of PS1 knock-in mice in which the exon 10, which encodes most of the hydrophilic loop sequence, was deleted from the endogenous PS1 gene. We report here that the homozygous exon 10-deleted mice are viable but exhibit drastically reduced γ-secretase cleavage at the Aβ40, but not the Aβ42, site. Surprisingly, this reduction of Aβ40 is associated with exacerbated plaque pathology when expressed on APP transgenic background. Thus, the PS1 loop plays a regulatory role in γ-secretase processing, and decreased Aβ40, not increased Aβ42 is likely the cause for the accelerated plaque deposition in these animals. Our finding supports a protective role of Aβ40 against amyloid pathology and raises the possibility that impaired γ-secretase activity could be the basis for AD pathogenesis in general.
Validez de los test lineales de extensibilidad isquiosural en mujeres mayores

Un total de 120 mujeres mayores participaron en el estudio. Los test de elevacion de pierna recta (EPR) (izquierda y derecha), distancia dedos-planta (DDP) y distancia dedos-suelo (DDS) se realizaron, en dos ocasiones, en un orden aleatorio. Las participantes fueron asignadas, en base al valor angular del EPR, al grupo de extensibilidad baja (Grupo A, EPR 86o). El grupo de extensibilidad baja evidencio los valores mas reducidos de correlacion entre los test lineales y el test EPR (r= 0,41-0,48), mientras que el grupo de extensibilidad alta mostro los valores mas elevados (r= 0,70-0,78). La validez de criterio de la distancia alcanzada en los test lineales esta influida por la extensibilidad isquiosural. Los test lineales DDP y DDS no son medidas validas en mujeres mayores con una reducida extensibilidad isquiosural
Effect of clinical examination and anatomical location on native arteriovenous fistula maturation rate in high risk patients

Abstract Introduction: Maximal use of native arteriovenous fistulas (AVFs) for patients on hemodialysis therapy remains a clinical challenge. Primary failure rates remain high with risk factors such as female gender, diabetes mellitus, lower arm AVF and higher age. We wondered if a strategy of careful clinical examination prior to AVF creation and a preference towards an upper arm AVF in case of doubt about the quality of the vein in patients with any of the above mentioned risk factors, would lead to better maturation rates. Methods: The records of all patients who received an AVF between January 2005 and December 2009 at our University Hospitals Leuven were studied retrospectively. Demographic data, comorbidity, fistula characteristics, fistula maturation and fistula complications were recorded and analyzed. Results: Of 344 patients enrolled, 156 (45.3%) received a lower arm AVF and 188 (54.7%) an upper arm AVF. Two hundred and seventy-six (80.2%) fistulas had a normal maturation. Lower arm AVF was a significant risk factor for non-maturation in this series (73.1% versus 86.2%; p = 0,0024). Female gender, diabetes and high age were not, but female gender showed a significant difference in distribution in upper arm versus lower arm fistulas (62.40% versus 37.6%; p = 0,0218). Conclusion: Careful clinical examination prior to upper or lower arm AVF creation together with the integration of risk assessment in the planning of AVF is worthwhile. A preference towards upper arm fistulas if major risk factors are present can improve overall maturation rates and lead to the same maturation rates as in the overall dialysis population. Therefore, the presence of risk factors for non-maturation should not lead to the underuse of native AVFs.
The Morphology of the Thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Sky

At high angular frequencies, beyond the damping tail of the primary cosmic microwave background (CMB) power spectrum, the thermal Sunyaev–Zel’dovich (tSZ) effect constitutes the dominant signal in the CMB sky. The tSZ effect is caused by large-scale pressure fluctuations in the baryonic distribution in the universe, such that its statistical properties provide estimates of corresponding properties of the projected 3D pressure fluctuations. The power spectrum of the tSZ is a sensitive probe of the amplitude of density fluctuations, and the bispectrum can be used to separate the bias associated with the pressure. The bispectrum is typically probed with its one-point real-space analogue, the skewness. In addition to the ordinary skewness the morphological properties, as probed by the well-known Minkowski functionals, also require the generalized one-point statistics, which at the lowest order are identical to the generalized skewness parameters. The concept of generalized skewness parameters can be further extended to define a set of three associated generalized skew-spectra. We use these skew-spectra to probe the morphology of the tSZ sky or the y-sky. We show how these power spectra can be recovered from the data in the presence of an arbitrary mask and noise templates using the well known pseudo-Cl approach for arbitrary beam shape. We also employ an approach based on the halo model to compute the tSZ bispectrum. The bispectrum from each of these models is then used to construct the generalized skew-spectra. We consider the performance of an all-sky survey with Planck-type noise and compare the results against a noise-free ideal experiment using a range of smoothing angles. We find that the skew-spectra can be estimated with very high signal-to-noise ratio from future frequency-cleaned tSZ maps that will be available from experiments such as Planck. This will allow their mode-by-mode estimation for a wide range of angular frequencies l and will help us distinguish them from other sources of non-Gaussianity.
Probabilistically Bounded Staleness for Practical Partial Quorums

Data store replication results in a fundamental trade-off between operation latency and data consistency. In this paper, we examine this trade-off in the context of quorum-replicated data stores. Under partial, or non-strict quorum replication, a data store waits for responses from a subset of replicas before answering a query, without guaranteeing that read and write replica sets intersect. As deployed in practice, these configurations provide only basic eventual consistency guarantees, with no limit to the recency of data returned. However, anecdotally, partial quorums are often "good enough" for practitioners given their latency benefits. In this work, we explain why partial quorums are regularly acceptable in practice, analyzing both the staleness of data they return and the latency benefits they offer. We introduce Probabilistically Bounded Staleness (PBS) consistency, which provides expected bounds on staleness with respect to both versions and wall clock time. We derive a closed-form solution for versioned staleness as well as model real-time staleness for representative Dynamo-style systems under internet-scale production workloads. Using PBS, we measure the latency-consistency trade-off for partial quorum systems. We quantitatively demonstrate how eventually consistent systems frequently return consistent data within tens of milliseconds while offering significant latency benefits.
Effects of Using Graphic Notations on Creativity in Composing Music by Australian Secondary School Students.

Theory and research in visual imagery and creativity have shown that use of graphic notations could enhance creativity in composing music. However, no such study has been conducted with Australian students. The purpose of the study was to determine if composing music with graphic notations makes a significant difference in creativity in composing music when compared to composing music without graphic notations by Australian secondary school students. Subjects were 47 seventh-grade students (all male) attending a private school in Sydney, Australia. The students were divided into two equal groups of Experimental (n = 22) and Control (n = 25) group on the basis of their musical ability. The Experimental group received an instruction on how to use graphic notations for composing music, while the Control group did not. The students' compositions were videotape-recorded by the researcher for judges' evaluations. Four expert judges evaluated creativity of the compositions using 3 criteria, i.e. Being 1) Original, 2) Structured, and 3) Musical, and 5-point rating scales. The results showed that the Experimental group's creativity scores were significantly higher than the Control group's (p < .05). Therefore, the results confirmed the findings by Auh & Walker (1999) with Korean secondary school students in Korea. Implication: Teachers should use graphic notations to stimulate creative thinking in instructions on composing music.
Aspirations, Habit Formation, and Bequest Motive

We analyze how the presence of endogenous preferences affects the altruistic bequest motive from parents to children. We will show that the existence of habits raises the threshold value of the intergenerational discount factor above which altruistic bequests are positive, while aspiration formation could push this value down. Therefore, the dynamic inefficiency of the economy with no altruism is not sufficient to prevent the bequest motive from being operative under aspiration formation. We also discuss the implications of public debt when the bequest motive is inoperative and preferences exhibit habit and aspiration formation.
The Peculiar Velocities of Local Type Ia Supernovae and Their Impact on Cosmology

We quantify the effect of Type Ia supernova (SN Ia) peculiar velocities on the derivation of cosmological parameters. The published distant and local SNe Ia used for the Supernova Legacy Survey first-year cosmology report form the sample for this study. While previous work has assumed that the local SNe are at rest in the CMB frame (the no-flow assumption), we test this assumption by applying peculiar velocity corrections to the local SNe using three different flow models. The models are based on the IRAS PSCz galaxy redshift survey, have varying β = Ω/b, and reproduce the Local Group motion in the CMB frame. These data sets are then fit for w, Ωm, and ΩΛ using flatness or ΛCDM and a BAO prior, and the χ2 statistic is used to examine the effect of the velocity corrections on the quality of the fits. The most favored model is the β = 0.5 model, which produces a fit significantly better than the no-flow assumption, consistent with previous peculiar velocity studies. By comparing the no-flow assumption with the favored models, we derive the largest potential systematic error in w caused by ignoring peculiar velocities, Δw = +0.04. For ΩΛ the potential error is ΔΩΛ = -0.04, and for Ωm the potential error is ΔΩm < +0.01. The favored flow model (β = 0.5) produces the following cosmological parameters: w = -1.08, Ωm = 0.27 assuming a flat cosmology, and ΩΛ = 0.80 and Ωm = 0.27 for a w = -1 (ΛCDM) cosmology.
USP26 gene variations in fertile and infertile men.

BACKGROUND The human X chromosome is enriched with testis-specific genes that may be crucial for male fertility. One is the ubiquitin-specific protease 26 (USP26). Five frequent mutations have been identified: 1737G>A, 1090C > T, 370-371insACA, 494T > C and 1423C>T (with the latter three usually detected in a cluster). Their role in infertility is still controversial. This study assesses the association of the most frequent USP26 mutations with male infertility and male infertility etiology factors. METHODS The study included 300 infertile and 287 fertile men. Data were collected on ethnicity (according to maternal origin) and family history of reproduction. Clinical records from 235 infertile and 62 fertile (sperm bank donors) men were available and summarized. The five mutations were investigated by bioinformatic tools and their frequencies were assessed by restriction analysis. The results were correlated with clinical findings. Segregation of the mutations in four families was analyzed. RESULTS The five analyzed mutations were detected in 44 men from both fertile and infertile groups. The cluster and the 1090C>T mutations showed the highest frequency among Arabs and Sephardic Jews of the infertile group, respectively. Inheritance studies showed that mutations were not always associated with the infertility trait. Mutations 1090C>T and 1737G>A were significantly associated with a history of inguinal hernia (P = 0.007 and P = 0.043, respectively). The prevalence of inguinal hernia among men with the 1090C > T mutation was 33.3% (5/15 men), higher than that reported in infertile men (6.7%). CONCLUSIONS Mutation 1090C > T may be a new genetic risk factor for developing inguinal hernia which may be associated with impaired male fertility.
Prevalence of Overweight and Obesity and Their Associations with Socioeconomic Status in a Rural Han Chinese Adult Population

Background The purpose of this study is to describe the prevalence of overweight, general obesity, and abdominal obesity and examine their associations with socioeconomic status in a rural Chinese adult population. Methods This cross-sectional study was performed on 15,236 participants ≥ 35 years of age (6,313 men [41.4%] and 8,923 women [58.6%]). Each participant’s weight, height, waist circumference (WC), and hipline circumference (HC) were measured, and demographic and socioeconomic data were collected using questionnaires. Results The mean body mass index (BMI) values were 23.31 ± 2.96 and 23.89 ± 3.23 kg m-2 and the mean WC values were 79.13 ± 8.43 and 79.54 ± 8.27 cm for men and women, respectively. The age-standardized prevalence rates of overweight (BMI ≥ 24.0 kg m-2), general obesity (BMI ≥ 28.0 kg m-2), and abdominal obesity (WC ≥ 85 cm for men and ≥ 80 cm for women) were 32.0%, 6.7%, and 27.0% for men and 35.1%, 9.7%, and 48.3% for women, respectively. All gender differences were statistically significant (p < 0.001). In addition, the age-specific prevalence rates of general and abdominal obesity slowly decreased among men but sharply increased among women as age increased (p < 0.001). In subsequent logistic regression analysis, educational level was negatively associated with both general obesity and abdominal obesity among women but positively associated with abdominal obesity among men. No significant correlation was found between obesity and income. Conclusions These results suggest a high prevalence of obesity which might differ by gender and age, and an inverse association among women and a mixed association among men noted between education and obesity in our locality. Preventive and therapeutic programs are warranted to control this serious public health problem. The gender-specific characteristics of populations at high-risk of developing obesity should be taken into consideration when designing interventional programs.
A Review of the Literature on Telecommuting and Its Implications for Vehicle Travel and Emissions

Abstract In this paper, we review 20 relatively recent empirical studies of telecommuting, all of which focus on the trip reduction perspective. The studies include earlier ones with smaller datasets, such as some pilot studies of individual employers, and more recent studies based on broader surveys of both telecommuters and nontelecommuters. We focus on the results of the studies with respect to participation and frequency of telecommuting, the effects on vehicle-miles-traveled (VMT) and trips, and in some cases, the impacts on emissions and air quality. Although there does not seem to be a consensus, there is a predominant view that certain factors increase both the likelihood of telecommuting and the frequency of telecommuting. These factors are having children in the household, being female, having more education, having a longer commute trip, having worked longer for one’s current employer and/or in one’s current position, and having a job that does not require face-to-face contact with coworkers or clients. Most studies of VMT and trip reductions from telecommuting show that telecommuters significantly reduce both daily trips and VMT. Not only does commute VMT fall, but noncommute VMT appears to fall in some cases as well. The studies of VMT, however, tend to focus on the reductions for individual employees who choose to telecommute. Although an individual telecommuter may experience a sharp reduction in VMT, total benefits depend on how many people are telecommuting, how often they are doing so, and the duration of telecommuting. More research is needed with larger and more broadly based datasets across employers that include both individual employee characteristics and employer and job characteristics. This would allow a better analysis of telecommuting choice and frequency as well as more reliable estimates of VMT and emissions impacts. This discussion paper is one in a series of four RFF papers on telecommuting published in December 2004. Discussion papers 04-42 and 04-43 present analyses of two recent datasets on telecommuters. In 04-42, Nelson and Walls analyze data from five pilot cities enrolled in the “ecommute” program. In 04-43, Safirova and Walls analyze data from a broad survey conducted by the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) of telecommuters and nontelecommuters. Finally, in 04-45 Nelson presents an assessment of institutional and regulatory barriers to using telecommuting in a mobile source emissions trading program. The studies by RFF are part of a larger report on the ecommute program completed by the Global Environment and Technology Foundation (GETF) for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. More information about the overall project can be found on the ecommute/GETF website: http://www.ecommute. net/program/.
Peritoneal Dialysis-Related Peritonitis in Southern Thailand

Objective To evaluate peritonitis in children receiving peritoneal dialysis (PD) in southern Thailand. Patients and Methods We reviewed the records of patients who received PD at the Department of Pediatrics, Prince of Songkla University from January 1994 to December 2003. Results Forty-six patients had PD performed for 228.6 patient-months. Their mean age was 9.5±4.8 years (range 3.0 months-16.7 years). Twenty-eight patients had complications with 61 episodes of peritonitis. The age, sex and causes of renal failure did not display any differences between patients who had or did not have peritonitis (p=0.2, 0.6 and 0.6, respectively). The first peritonitis occurrence was on average at 2.7±4.0 patient-months (median 0.4, range 0–12.5) following catheter insertion, with an average incidence rate of one infection per 3.5±4.8 patient-months (median 1.0, range 0–23.2). The causative agents were both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria, and fungi at 24%, 44%, and 8% respectively (24% of the cultures did not grow). There was no significant difference in causative agents between home- and hospital-acquired peritonitis (p=1.0). Conclusion PD-related peritonitis in this study occurred earlier and more often than in other studies, probably because all of our PDs were performed immediately after catheter insertion.
Hypoxia-inducible Factor-1 Deficiency Results in Dysregulated Erythropoiesis Signaling and Iron Homeostasis in Mouse Development*

Hypoxia-inducible factor-1 (HIF-1) regulates the transcription of genes whose products play critical roles in energy metabolism, erythropoiesis, angiogenesis, and cell survival. Limited information is available concerning its function in mammalian hematopoiesis. Previous studies have demonstrated that homozygosity for a targeted null mutation in the Hif1α gene, which encodes the hypoxia-responsive α subunit of HIF-1, causes cardiac, vascular, and neural malformations resulting in lethality by embryonic day 10.5 (E10.5). This study revealed reduced myeloid multilineage and committed erythroid progenitors in HIF-1α-deficient embryos, as well as decreased hemoglobin content in erythroid colonies from HIF-1α-deficient yolk sacs at E9.5. Dysregulation of erythropoietin (Epo) signaling was evident from a significant decrease in mRNA levels of Epo receptor (EpoR) in Hif1α-/- yolk sac as well as Epo and EpoR mRNA in Hif1α-/- embryos. The erythropoietic defects in HIF-1α-deficient erythroid colonies could not be corrected by cytokines, such as vascular endothelial growth factor and Epo, but were ameliorated by Fe-SIH, a compound delivering iron into cells independently of iron transport proteins. Consistent with profound defects in iron homeostasis, Hif1α-/- yolk sac and/or embryos demonstrated aberrant mRNA levels of hepcidin, Fpn1, Irp1, and frascati. We conclude that dysregulated expression of genes encoding Epo, EpoR, and iron regulatory proteins contributes to defective erythropoiesis in Hif1α-/- yolk sacs. These results identify a novel role for HIF-1 in the regulation of iron homeostasis and reveal unexpected regulatory differences in Epo/EpoR signaling in yolk sac and embryonic erythropoiesis.