Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
2 Designing and Assessing Interactive Systems Using Task Models

Task analysis is meant to identify user goals and tasks when using an interactive system. In the case of users performing real-life work, task analysis can be a cumbersome process gathering a huge amount of unorganized information. Task Models provide a mean for the analyst to organize information gathered during task analysis in an abstract way that can be further detailed if needed. This chapter aims at providing newcomers with background in task modeling. It provides an overview on how the recent advances in task description techniques can be exploited to design and assess interactive systems. As task models can be large it is important to provide the analyst with computer-based tools for editing task models, for analyzing them and for simulating them. For that, the HAMSTERS notation and its eponym modeling tool are used in this chapter to illustrate the examples issued from real industrial projects
Recognition of common areas in a Web page using visual information: a possible application in a page classification

Extracting and processing information from Web pages is an important task in many areas like constructing search engines, information retrieval, and data mining from the Web. A common approach in the extraction process is to represent a page as a "bag of words" and then to perform additional processing on such a flat representation. We propose a new, hierarchical representation that includes browser screen coordinates for every HTML object in a page. Using visual information one is able to define heuristics for the recognition of common page areas such as header, left and right menu, footer and center of a page. We show in initial experiments that using our heuristics defined objects are recognized properly in 73% of cases. Finally, we show that a Naive Bayes classifier, taking into account the proposed representation, clearly outperforms the same classifier using only information about the content of documents.
Preschool onset attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: course and predictors of stability over 24 months.

OBJECTIVE The present study examined the course of ADHD over 24 months in a preschool population. METHOD n=48 preschoolers with ADHD, aged 3.0-5.11 years, subjects included in a larger sample of preschoolers with depression and other disorders (n=306) were comprehensively assessed at 3 annual time points over 24 months in a prospective longitudinal follow-up study. RESULTS Baseline diagnoses of preschool MDD, ODD, and CD were risk factors for ADHD diagnosis over 24 months in this preschool population. Among older preschoolers and after controlling for key demographic variables, ADHD predicted later ADHD diagnosis, along with other significant risk factors - baseline diagnosis of ODD, and/or family history of disruptive disorders, and stressful life events. CONCLUSIONS ADHD showed greater homotypic continuity at later rather than earlier preschool ages. Other disruptive comorbidities also emerged as key predictors of stable ADHD course. Study findings may help to inform which preschool ADHD populations to target for early intervention. Larger sample sizes are needed to confirm these findings and to further explore the stability, course, and predictors of outcome of preschool onset ADHD.
Health promotion research: dilemmas and challenges

OBJECTIVE To analyse dilemmas and challenges in health promotion research, and to generate ideas for future development. METHOD The analysis is based on authors' experiences in working in the field of research and action in health promotion and on experiences of others as found in literature. RESULTS The assumptions underlying scientific research as based in the biomedical design are difficult to meet in community-based health promotion research. Dilemmas are identified in relation to the possibility of defining the independent and dependent variables beforehand and the intermingling of these variables (the intervention and outcome dilemma), the difficulty in quantifying the desired outcomes (the number dilemma), and the problem of diffusion of the programme to the control group (the control group dilemma). CONCLUSION Research in health promotion has specific reasons to reconsider the approach towards research, the selection of outcome variables, and research techniques. Strategies and methods to make activities and their outcomes clear are discussed and criteria to judge confidence and applicability of research findings are presented.
A New Suchian Archosaur From The Upper Triassic Of North Carolina

Abstract A partial but largely articulated skeleton of a ‘rauisuchian’ archosaur from Late Upper Triassic strata of the Durham sub-basin, Deep River basin, Newark Supergroup, North Carolina, represents a new species of Postosuchus Chatterjee, 1985. It represents the first record of this taxon from eastern North America. The well preserved specimen includes cranial bones, a largely articulated right manus, right and left pedes, pubes, axis, several postaxial cervical, dorsal, and caudal vertebrae, chevron bones, osteoderms, interclavicle, clavicles, cervical ribs, a sacral rib, and a complete set of gastralia. The skeletal elements are described and compared to those of other ‘rauisuchians’. An apparant autapomorphy of Postosuchus alisonae includes a well developed flange on the proximal portion of metacarpal II fitting into strongly proximally grooved metacarpal I. The new specimen includes many bones previously unknown for Postosuchus and it allows a more complete differentiation of Postosuchus from other ‘rauisuchian’ genera. Diagnostic features of this genus include an axis with two ventral keels; postaxial cervical centra with strongly developed single ventral keels that are anteriorly and/or posteriorly extended into hypapophyses; short ribs on the anterior cervical vertebrae; heart-shaped cervical neural ‘spine tables’; a subrectangular, relatively short coracoid; and proportionately short manus with dorsoventrally compressed, reduced, blunt unguals on manual digits III and IV. Morphological comparisons indicate a close relationship between Postosuchus and Batrachotomus and possibly also Tikisuchus.
Congestion-aware, loss-resilient bio-monitoring sensor networking for mobile health applications

Many elder patients have multiple health conditions such as heart attacks (of various kinds), brain problems (such as seizure, mental disorder, etc.), high blood pressure, etc. Monitoring those conditions needs different types of sensors for analog signal data acquisition, such as electrocardiogram (ECG) for heart beats, electroencephalogram (EEG) for brain signals, and electromyogram (EMG) for muscles motions. To reduce mobile-health (m-health) cost, the above sensors should be made in tiny size, low memory, and long-term battery operations. We have designed a series of medical sensors with wireless networking capabilities. In this paper, we report our work in three aspects: (1) networked embedded system design, (2) network congestion reduction, and (3) network loss compensation. First, for networked embedded system design, we have designed an integrated wireless sensor network hardware / software platform for multi-condition patient monitoring. Such a system integrates ECG/EEG/other sensors with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) into a Radio Frequency (RF) board through a programmable interface chip, called PSoc. Second, for network congestion reduction, the interface chip can use compressive signal processing to extract bio-signal feature parameters and only transmit those parameters. This provides an alternative approach to sensor network congestion reduction that aims to alleviate ? hot spot? issues. Third, for network loss compensation, we have designed wireless loss recovery schemes for different situations as follows. (1) If original sensor data streams are transmitted, network congestion will be a big concern due to the heavy traffic. A receiver-only loss prediction will be a good solution. (2) If the signal parameters are transmitted, the transmission loss mandates a 100% recovery rate. We have comprehensively compared the performance of those schemes. The proposed mechanisms for m-health system have potentially significant impacts on today's elder nursing home management and other mobile patient monitoring applications.
Circulating and Adipose Levels of Adipokines Associated With Insulin Sensitivity in Nonobese Subjects With Type 2 Diabetes

Context: The adipokines chemerin, dipeptidyl peptidase 4, and adiponectin influence insulin sensitivity. Whether their circulating levels and adipose secretion are altered in nonobese individuals with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is unknown. Objective: The objective of this study was to investigate SC adipose secretion and serum levels of the three adipokines in relation to T2DM features. Design: Fourteen nonobese T2DM and 13 healthy men were investigated. Insulin sensitivity and glucose control were assessed by hyperinsulinemic euglycemic clamp, homeostasis model assessment, and glycated hemoglobin. Main Outcome Measure: Association of circulating and adipose-secreted adipokines with fat cell volume and insulin sensitivity was measured. Participants: Volunteers in an outpatient academic clinic participated. Results: Although adipose secretion was similar between the groups, serum chemerin was higher (70 ± 10 vs 50 ± 1 ng/ml; P = .005), adiponectin lower (4.7 ± 1.3 vs 6.8 ± 2.2 μg/ml; P = .005), and dipeptidyl peptidase 4 unaltered in T2DM. Serum adiponectin (r = 0.53; P = .005) and chemerin (r = −0.42; P = .03) correlated with adipose secreted levels. Secreted and circulating chemerin correlated positively with adipocyte volume (r > 0.40; P < .05), whereas serum adiponectin correlated negatively with this measure (r = −0.61; P = .001). Adiponectin serum half-life was decreased in T2DM (168 ± 24 vs 186 ± 18 minutes; P = .029) and correlated negatively with glycated hemoglobin (r = −0.45; P = .03) and adipocyte volume (r = −0.56; P < .003). Serum adiponectin (r = 0.57; P = .017) and chemerin (r = −0.52; P = .03) associated with clamp measures independently of T2DM diagnosis. Conclusions: In nonobese men, circulating adiponectin and chemerin levels are altered in T2DM without changes in adipose secretion. Adipocyte volume is important for variations in serum chemerin and adiponectin and for serum clearance of adiponectin. In T2DM, poor glucose control also plays a role for adiponectin clearance.
The Components of Enterprise Risk Management and Financial Performance of the Non-Financial Firms through Mediation of Corporate Reputation

Purpose: This research study aims to investigate the relationship between enterprise risk management (ERM) components and non-financial companies’ financial performance (FP), which are listed at PSX, while exploring the corporate reputation (CR) role as a mediation between ERM components and financial indicators performance. Design/Methodology/Approach: This study used a questionnaire survey, and 340 responses were collected from non-financial sector firms’ board executives and top management. The PLS-SEM technique was employed for the data analysis using smart PLS 4.0 software. Findings: the results showed that ERM components significantly influence the corporate reputation. Further, corporate reputation positively and significantly mediates between ERM components and financial performance. This study plays a crucial role in pinpointing and addressing risks within non-financial firms, aiming to enhance the prosperity of the non-financial sector and contribute to overall economic growth through the ERM components framework. Implications/Originality/Value: Future research could extend to various sectors, encompassing financial and non-financial companies, service firms, and the food industry. Such studies could explore the influence of ERM components on financial performance, particularly emphasizing reputation as a critical resource for success in competitive markets.
Bigger is not always better: display size, performance, and task load during peephole map navigation

Dynamic peephole navigation is an increasingly popular technique for navigating large information spaces such as maps. Users can view the map through handheld, spatially aware displays that serve as peepholes and navigate the map by moving these displays in physical space. We conducted a controlled experiment of peephole map navigation with 16 participants to better understand the effect of a peephole's size on users' map navigation behavior, navigation performance, and task load. Simulating different peephole sizes from 4' (smartphone) up to 120' (control condition), we confirmed that larger peepholes significantly improve learning speed, navigation speed, and reduce task load; however, this added benefit diminishes with growing sizes. Our data shows that a relatively small, tablet-sized peephole can serve as a 'sweet spot' between peephole size and both user navigation performance and user task load.
OntoQAI: An Ontology to Support Quality Assurance Inspections

According to Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI), the purpose of Process and Product Quality Assurance (PPQA) is to provide staff and management with objective insights about processes and their associated work products. Such purpose is usually achieved through the implementation of software inspections. Although software inspection be a common practice, it is time-consuming and expensive, which turns the implementation in small and medium-sized teams infeasible. To improve the software inspection, this paper proposes a domain ontology for representing the concepts of quality assurance inspection, which is independent, extensive, shareable and semantically strong. Through the ontology it is possible to provide a formal structure to support the development of software engineering solutions with quality. To support the quality assurance inspections, we developed an agent-based prototype that encapsulates the ontology model. The prototype is able to generate inspection checklists and automatically allocate noncompliance issues. We validated the approach through a case study that shows an increase of inspection coverage and adherence of process.
Cattle and water quality responses to shade and alternative water sources in grazed pastures in Georgia, USA

Shade and alternative water sources may affect cattle behavior and stream quality in cattle-grazed pastures. GPS collars were used to monitor cattle behavior in three pastures with unfenced streams as a function of shade and trough availability. Concurrently, water samples were taken during base flow and storm events to monitor changes in stream water quality. Daily time spent by cattle in riparian areas varied between 5% and 10% during warm months and was decreased by the availability of abundant non-riparian shade and water troughs. The stream draining the pasture with the most non-riparian shade had the smallest loads of DRP, TP, TSS, and E. coli. These contaminant loads were decreased when water troughs were available. The results of this study indicate that possible BMPs to reduce contamination from pastures would be to build shade and install a water trough away from the stream. INDEX WORDS: Cattle behavior, GPS animal tracking, Cattle grazing, Pasture management, Alternative water source, Pasture shade, Stream water quality, Nutrient enrichment, BMP CATTLE AND WATER QUALITY RESPONSES TO SHADE AND ALTERNATIVE WATER SOURCES IN GRAZED PASTURES IN GEORGIA, USA
Molecular Basis for Vulnerability to Mitochondrial and Oxidative Stress in a Neuroendocrine CRI-G1 Cell Line

Background Many age-associated disorders (including diabetes, cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases) are linked to mitochondrial dysfunction, which leads to impaired cellular bioenergetics and increased oxidative stress. However, it is not known what genetic and molecular pathways underlie differential vulnerability to mitochondrial dysfunction observed among different cell types. Methodology/Principal Findings Starting with an insulinoma cell line as a model for a neuronal/endocrine cell type, we isolated a novel subclonal line (named CRI-G1-RS) that was more susceptible to cell death induced by mitochondrial respiratory chain inhibitors than the parental CRI-G1 line (renamed CRI-G1-RR for clarity). Compared to parental RR cells, RS cells were also more vulnerable to direct oxidative stress, but equally vulnerable to mitochondrial uncoupling and less vulnerable to protein kinase inhibition-induced apoptosis. Thus, differential vulnerability to mitochondrial toxins between these two cell types likely reflects differences in their ability to handle metabolically generated reactive oxygen species rather than differences in ATP production/utilization or in downstream apoptotic machinery. Genome-wide gene expression analysis and follow-up biochemical studies revealed that, in this experimental system, increased vulnerability to mitochondrial and oxidative stress was associated with (1) inhibition of ARE/Nrf2/Keap1 antioxidant pathway; (2) decreased expression of antioxidant and phase I/II conjugation enzymes, most of which are Nrf2 transcriptional targets; (3) increased expression of molecular chaperones, many of which are also considered Nrf2 transcriptional targets; (4) increased expression of β cell-specific genes and transcription factors that specify/maintain β cell fate; and (5) reconstitution of glucose-stimulated insulin secretion. Conclusions/Significance The molecular profile presented here will enable identification of individual genes or gene clusters that shape vulnerability to mitochondrial dysfunction and thus represent potential therapeutic targets for diabetes and neurodegenerative diseases. In addition, the newly identified CRI-G1-RS cell line represents a new experimental model for investigating how endogenous antioxidants affect glucose sensing and insulin release by pancreatic β cells.
Shear strength response of glass fibre-reinforced sand with varying compacted relative density

Abstract Triaxial compression tests were conducted to investigate the response to loading of glass fibre-reinforced sandy soil of varying relative densities (35, 65 and 85%). The fibre diameter was 0.15 mm, varying in length from 10 to 30 mm, and in content from 0 to 4% by weight of dry soil. The tests were performed at confining pressures ranging from 100 to 400 kPa. The separate and joint effects of fibre content, fibre length and confining pressure on the strength and deformation characteristics of the specimens were evaluated. The strength of specimens increases up to an optimum fibre content value of 3 or 4% depending on length. Fibre reinforcement has restricted the bulging and shear zones for specimens of all relative densities. A non-linear regression model has been developed for predicting the shear strength of reinforced soil, and scaling law has been employed for using the laboratory results for field application.
Relation between the Seasonal Transition of Circulations and Premonsoon Precipitation in the Himalayan Foothills

The relation between the seasonal transition of circulations and the premonsoon precipitation in the Himalayan foothills is investigated. The daily precipitation data in Nepal provided by the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology (DHM) from 1976 to 2002 are used for the analysis. From the interannual variations in the precipitation amount, the years 1981, 1988, 1990, and 2000 are defined as wet (active convection) years for the premonsoon season. The years 1979, 1995, 1996, and 1991 are selected as dry (non-active convection) years. In both types of years, a remarkable seasonal change in the circulations is observed during the premonsoon season. Increases in the air temperature and water vapor flux gradually occur from February or March in the lower troposphere. In the middle troposphere, the temperature increases three months later compared with the temperature in the lower troposphere. The vertical condition means convective instability during the premonsoon season. After June, the stratification becomes stable because the temperature is increase in the middle troposphere. The process of the temperature increase correlates with the northward shift of the westerly jet axis in the upper troposphere. The variation in precipitation amount for the premonsoon season is closely related to the strength of the subtropical jet stream. The strong jet axis is predominant in the dry years, and the weak jet axis is predominant in the wet years, with low and high air temperature anomalies, respectively, in the middle troposphere. The zonal wind at 200 hPa in February is a potential index for predicting the premonsoon rainfall amount in the Himalayan foothills.
Joint Entropy for Space and Spatial Frequency Domains Estimated from Psychometric Functions of Achromatic Discrimination

We used psychometric functions to estimate the joint entropy for space discrimination and spatial frequency discrimination. Space discrimination was taken as discrimination of spatial extent. Seven subjects were tested. Gábor functions comprising unidimensionalsinusoidal gratings (0.4, 2, and 10 cpd) and bidimensionalGaussian envelopes (1°) were used as reference stimuli. The experiment comprised the comparison between reference and test stimulithat differed in grating's spatial frequency or envelope's standard deviation. We tested 21 different envelope's standard deviations around the reference standard deviation to study spatial extent discrimination and 19 different grating's spatial frequencies around the reference spatial frequency to study spatial frequency discrimination. Two series of psychometric functions were obtained for 2%, 5%, 10%, and 100% stimulus contrast. The psychometric function data points for spatial extent discrimination or spatial frequency discrimination were fitted with Gaussian functions using the least square method, and the spatial extent and spatial frequency entropies were estimated from the standard deviation of these Gaussian functions. Then, joint entropy was obtained by multiplying the square root of space extent entropy times the spatial frequency entropy. We compared our results to the theoretical minimum for unidimensional Gábor functions, 1/4π or 0.0796. At low and intermediate spatial frequencies and high contrasts, joint entropy reached levels below the theoretical minimum, suggesting non-linear interactions between two or more visual mechanisms. We concluded that non-linear interactions of visual pathways, such as the M and P pathways, could explain joint entropy values below the theoretical minimum at low and intermediate spatial frequencies and high contrasts. These non-linear interactions might be at work at intermediate and high contrasts at all spatial frequencies once there was a substantial decrease in joint entropy for these stimulus conditions when contrast was raised.