Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dissertation Proposal Dialogue Glue: Cue Words and Prosody

An inspection apparatus, system and method for inspecting parts during a manufacturing process. The apparatus comprises a conveyor line for moving a part during a manufacturing process and a plurality of sensors and cameras mounted on stationary supports around the conveyor line. The conveyor line may be a part of or adjacent to the production line. The sensors measure a characteristic of a first part and produce an inspection output, and can be reconfigured for inspection of at least one different characteristic of a second part or for re-inspection of the first part at a different stage of the manufacturing process. The apparatus may include a computer system that receives the sensor inspection outputs and produces operator-accessible information. The apparatus may include means for identification of the parts. Alternatively, the parts may be stationary and the supports on which the sensors are mounted may be moving relative to the parts.
Is Maximum Food Intake in Endotherms Constrained by Net or Factorial Aerobic Scope? Lessons from the Leaf-Eared Mouse

Food availability varies substantially throughout animals' lifespans, thus the ability to profit from high food levels may directly influence animal fitness. Studies exploring the link between basal metabolic rate (BMR), growth, reproduction, and other fitness traits have shown varying relationships in terms of both magnitude and direction. The diversity of results has led to the hypothesis that these relationships are modulated by environmental conditions (e.g., food availability), suggesting that the fitness consequences of a given BMR may be context-dependent. In turn, there is indirect evidence that individuals with an increased capacity for aerobic work also have a high capacity for acquiring energy from food. Surprisingly, very few studies have explored the correlation between maximum rates of energy acquisition and BMR in endotherms, and to the best of our knowledge, none have attempted to elucidate relationships between the former and aerobic capacity [e.g., maximum metabolic rate (MMR), aerobic scope (Factorial aerobic scope, FAS; Net aerobic scope, NAS)]. In this study, we measured BMR, MMR, maximum food intake (recorded under low ambient temperature and ad libitum food conditions; MFI), and estimated aerobic scope in the leaf-eared mouse (Phyllotis darwini). We, then, examined correlations among these variables to determine whether metabolic rates and aerobic scope are functionally correlated, and whether an increased aerobic capacity is related to a higher MFI. We found that aerobic capacity measured as NAS is positively correlated with MFI in endotherms, but with neither FAS nor BMR. Therefore, it appears plausible that the capacity for assimilating energy under conditions of abundant resources is determined adaptively by NAS, as animals with higher NAS would be promoted by selection. In theory, FAS is an invariant measurement of the extreme capacity for energy turnover in relation to resting expenditure, whereas NAS represents the maximum capacity for simultaneous aerobic processes above maintenance levels. Accordingly, in our study, FAS and NAS represent different biological variables; FAS, in contrast to NAS, may not constrain food intake. The explanations for these differences are discussed in biological and mathematical terms; further, we encourage the use of NAS rather than FAS when analyzing the aerobic capacity of animals.
Age Estimation from Faces and Voices: A Review

Age estimation is a skill that we use in everyday life and that is also important in more specific settings such as police testimony. Researchers investigated age estimation either from faces or voices but a direct comparison between voices and faces was rather infrequently performed. This paper reviews the literature on age estimation from faces and voices and highlights some similarities and differences. Data from a series of experiments suggest that age estimation from faces and voices can be fairly accurate, but in some cases, a superiority of faces is observed. The age of participants and stimuli both seem to affect age estimation from faces and voices in the same way: (1) age estimation is more accurate for young stimuli than for older stimuli, (2) younger participants are more accurate than older participants irrespective of the age of stimuli, and (3) an own-age bias affects age estimation. By contrast, the influence of ethnicity and gender has been less documented. Available data support that ethnicity influence age estimation from faces but not clearly age estimation from voices. Regarding the effect of stimuli gender, results were opposite: in age estimation from faces, an advantage for male faces was reported whereas in age estimation from voices, the advantage is in favor of female voices.
Alternative Relations and Higher-Level Categories

Abstract Alternative relations are one of the main relation types between states of affairs and disjunctions are the dedicated morphosyntactic constructions used for encoding them. The standard approach to disjunctions, which assumes two readings, Inclusive and Exclusive, has recently been challenged. A fundamental requirement, shared by the alternatives in all the readings they identified, is that they must be construable as members of a single higher-level category. This requirement also defines specifically one of the readings of disjunctions, or or constructions, HLC (the Higher-level category reading), in which the explicit disjuncts serve only as a means for constructing, often only ad-hoc, a higher-level concept. This concept, rather than the explicit alternatives, is actually the prominent concept profiled by the construction. The study presented here adopts the same bottom-up Usage-Based approach advocated by Ariel and Mauri, and examines the Hebrew or constructions of the Old Testament, given in the Masoretic Tiberian version. It focusses on the question of how those categories are constructed. The data was analyzed adopting a comparative linguistic and textual method, and taking into consideration different philological and diachronic aspects. It reveals that HLC (such as ‘any beast’ for ox or ass, Exodus 23, 4) is the most common reading in this corpus (108/319, 34%). Interestingly, the higher-level categories are extracted from disjuncts of various parts of speech and can be explicit, but in most cases they are inferred. Furthermore, we observe cases which almost equally profile both the single, higher-level category and the alternatives. The methodology adopted revealed some linguistic changes in progress, as well as inclinations of ancient biblical editors and jurists.
Fitted dynamic framed slotted ALOHA anti-collision algorithm in RFID systems

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) system is a new communication technology to identify the objects using electromagnetic waves. The main superiority of RFID systems in comparison with other identification systems, such as barcodes, is its ability in simultaneous identification process, but when more than one tag wants to communicate with the reader, collision problem occurs and wastes time and increases energy consumption. This reduces efficiency of the identification process in RFID systems. Collision problem happens when the reader has to identify more than one tag at the same time. Consequently, it is essential to develop an efficient anti-collision algorithm to save the time and energy and increase the performance of the system. In this paper, after investigating the previous works on ALOHA-based anti-collision algorithms, a new anti-collision algorithm is presented to improve the DFSA ALOHA-based anti-collision algorithms. Evaluation of the ALOHA-based algorithms and simulation of the results illustrate that presented work recognizes the tags more efficiently by reducing the number of time slots.
A Comparison of Mechanical Parameters Between the Counter Movement Jump and Drop Jump in Biathletes

Abstract The main objective of the study was to determine to what degree higher muscular activity, achieved by increased load in the extension phase (eccentric muscle action) of the vertical jump, affects the efficiency of the vertical jump. Sixteen elite biathletes participated in this investigation. The biathletes performed tests that consisted of five, single “maximal” vertical jumps (counter movement jump - CMJ) and five, single vertical jumps, in which the task was to touch a bar placed over the jumping biathletes (specific task counter movement jump - SCMJ). Then, they performed five, single drop jumps from an elevation of 0.4m (DJ). Ground reaction forces were registered using the KISTLER 9182C force platform. MVJ software was used for signal processing (Król, 1999) and enabling calculations for kinematic and kinetic parameters of the subject’s jump movements (on-line system). The results indicate that only height of the jump (h) and mean power (Pmean) during the takeoff are statistically significant. Both h and Pmean are higher in the DJ. The results of this study may indicate that elite biathletes are well adapted to eccentric work of the lower limbs, thus reaching greater values of power during the drop jump. These neuromuscular adaptive changes may allow for a more dynamic and efficient running technique.
Validity and accuracy of maternal tactile assessment for fever in under-five children in North Central Nigeria: a cross-sectional study

Objectives This study seeks to determine not only the reliability of parental touch in detecting fever as compared to rectal thermometry in under-five children, but also the sociodemographic factors that may predict its reliability. Setting The study was carried out in the Emergency Paediatric Unit of a tertiary hospital in North Central Nigeria. Participants 409 children aged less than 5 years with a history of fever in the 48 h prior to presentation and their mothers were recruited consecutively. All the children recruited completed the study. Children with clinical parameters suggestive of shock, and those who were too ill, were excluded from the study. Primary and secondary outcome measures The primary outcome was the proportion of mothers who could accurately predict if their child was febrile or not (defined by rectal temperature) using tactile assessment only. Secondary outcomes were the validity and accuracy of touch in detecting fever and factors related to its accuracy. Results About 85% of the children were febrile using rectal thermometry. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive and negative predictive values for touch as a screening tool were 63%, 54%, 88.3% and 21%, respectively. High maternal socioeconomic status and low maternal age influenced positively the accuracy of touch in correctly determining the presence or absence of fever. Conclusions This study has shown that tactile assessment of temperature is not reliable and that absence of fever in a previously febrile child should be confirmed by objective methods of temperature measurement.
Does Gender Inequity Increase the Risk of Intimate Partner Violence among Women? Evidence from a National Bangladeshi Sample

Background Evidence from developing countries regarding the association between gender inequity and intimate partner violence (IPV) victimization in women has been suggestive but inconclusive. Using nationally representative population-based data from Bangladesh, we examined the association between multidimensional aspects of gender inequity and the risk of IPV. Methods We used data from the 2007 Bangladesh Demographic Health Survey. The analyses were based on the responses of 4,467 married women. The main explanatory variable was gender inequity, which reflects the multidimensional aspects of women's autonomy and the relationship inequality between women and their partner. The experience of physical and/or sexual IPV was the main outcome variable of interest. Results Over 53% of married Bangladeshi women experienced physical and/or sexual violence from their husbands. In the adjusted models, women who had a higher level of autonomy (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] 0.48; 99% confidence interval [CI] 0.37–0.61), a particularly high level of economic-decision-making autonomy (AOR 0.12; 99% CI 0.08–0.17), and a higher level of non-supportive attitudes towards wife beating or raping (AOR 0.61; 99% CI 0.47–0.83) were less likely to report having experienced IPV. Education level, age at marriage, and occupational discrepancy between spouses were also found to be significant predictors of IPV. Conclusions In conclusion, dimensions of gender inequities were significant predictors of IPV among married women in Bangladesh. An investigation of the causal link between multidimensional aspects of gender inequity and IPV will be critical to developing interventions to reduce the risk of IPV and should be considered a public health research priority.
TESTING FOR A LINEAR MA MODEL AGAINST THRESHOLD MA MODELS

This paper investigates the (conditional) quasi-likelihood ratio test for the threshold in MA models. Under the hypothesis of no threshold, it is shown that the test statistic converges weakly to a function of the centred Gaussian process. Under local alternatives, it is shown that this test has nontrivial asymptotic power. The results are based on a new weak convergence of a linear marked empirical process, which is independently of interest. This paper also gives an invertible expansion of the threshold MA models.
Coronary endothelial dysfunction in patients with early coronary artery disease is associated with the increase in intravascular lipid core plaque.

AIMS Endothelial dysfunction is considered to play a key role in the development of atherosclerosis. However, only a limited number of human imaging studies have been available to demonstrate this hypothesis. The present study used near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) to investigate whether coronary endothelial dysfunction is associated with the lipid core plaque (LCP) in patients with early coronary artery disease. METHODS AND RESULTS A total of 32 patients with chest pain who had diameter stenosis <30% were enrolled. All patients underwent coronary endothelial function assessment using intracoronary acetylcholine infusion and NIRS of the proximal left anterior descending artery. The lipid core burden index (LCBI), LCBI/L (LCBI divided by the length of scanned artery), maxLCBI4mm (maximum value of LCBI for any of the 4-mm segment) and block chemogram (yellow: probability of LCP presence >0.98, tan: 0.84 ≤ P ≤ 0.98, orange: 0.57 ≤ P ≤ 0.84, red: P < 0.57) were measured. The mean percentage of yellow, tan, and orange colour blocks in patients with epicardial endothelial dysfunction was significantly higher than in those with normal epicardial endothelial function (9.5 ± 11.4 vs. 3.1 ± 6.5%, P = 0.042). There was a significant correlation between LCBI (r = -0.460, P = 0.008), LCBI/L (r = -0.453, P = 0.009), and maxLCBI4mm (r = -0.431, P = 0.014) and the degree of epicardial endothelial function. However, there was no significant correlation between LCBI (r = -0.101, P = 0.58), LCBI/L (r = -0.099, P = 0.59), and maxLCBI4mm (r = -0.063, P = 0.73) and the degree of microvascular endothelial function. CONCLUSION Patients with early coronary artery disease and endothelial dysfunction had a higher lipid content in the vascular wall than patients with normal endothelial function. The result of the present study supports the hypothesis that endothelial dysfunction is associated with pathogenesis of early atherosclerosis.
Classification of Scientific Papers Using Machine Learning

The project aims to develop a domain-independent and adaptive approach for scientific document classification using both information from document contents and citation links. We evaluate several content-based classification methods including K-nearest neighbours, nearest centroid, naive Bayes and decision trees and find that the naive Bayes outperform other when training set is sufficiently large. Using phrases in addition to words and a good feature selection strategy such as information gain is found to improve system accuracy in comparison with using words only. To combine citation links for classification, the project proposes two methods, linear labelling update and probabilistic labelling update. The two methods iteratively update the labellings of classified documents using categories information from neighbouring documents. Our experiments on the two methods show that, combining contents and citations significantly improves the system performance.
Minimizing within‐experiment and within‐group effects in activation likelihood estimation meta‐analyses

Activation Likelihood Estimation (ALE) is an objective, quantitative technique for coordinate‐based meta‐analysis (CBMA) of neuroimaging results that has been validated for a variety of uses. Stepwise modifications have improved ALE's theoretical and statistical rigor since its introduction. Here, we evaluate two avenues to further optimize ALE. First, we demonstrate that the maximum contribution of an experiment makes to an ALE map is related to the number of foci it reports and their proximity. We present a modified ALE algorithm that eliminates these within‐experiment effects. However, we show that these effects only account for 2–3% of cumulative ALE values, and removing them has little impact on thresholded ALE maps. Next, we present an alternate organizational approach to datasets that prevents subject groups with multiple experiments in a dataset from influencing ALE values more than others. This modification decreases cumulative ALE values by 7–9%, changes the relative magnitude of some clusters, and reduces cluster extents. Overall, differences between results of the standard approach and these new methods were small. This finding validates previous ALE reports against concerns that they were driven by within‐experiment or within‐group effects. We suggest that the modified ALE algorithm is theoretically advantageous compared with the current algorithm, and that the alternate organization of datasets is the most conservative approach for typical ALE analyses and other CBMA methods. Combining the two modifications minimizes both within‐experiment and within‐group effects, optimizing the degree to which ALE values represent concordance of findings across independent reports. Hum Brain Mapp, 2012. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Is Multidirectional UV Exposure Responsible for Increasing Melanoma Prevalence with Altitude? A Hypothesis Based on Calculations with a 3D-Human Exposure Model

In a recent study, melanoma incidence rates for Austrian inhabitants living at higher altitudes were found to increase by as much as 30% per 100 m altitude. This strong increase cannot simply be explained by the known increase of erythemally-weighted irradiance with altitude, which ranges between 0.5% and 4% per 100 m. We assume that the discrepancy is partially explainable by upwelling UV radiation; e.g., reflected by snow-covered surfaces. Therefore, we present an approach where the human UV exposure is derived by integrating incident radiation over the 3D geometry of a human body, which enables us to take upwelling radiation into account. Calculating upwelling and downwelling radiance with a radiative transfer model for a snow-free valley and for snow-covered mountain terrain (with albedo of 0.6) yields an increase in UV exposure by 10% per 100 m altitude. The results imply that upwelling radiation plays a significant role in the increase of melanoma incidence with altitude.
Immediate–early gene induction in hippocampus and cortex as a result of novel experience is not directly related to the stressfulness of that experience

The stressful quality of an experience, as perceived by rats, is believed to be largely represented by the magnitude of a hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis response. The hippocampus may be especially important for assessing the stressfulness of psychological stressors such as novel experience. If such is the case then experience‐dependent immediate–early gene expression levels within the hippocampus may parallel relative levels of HPA axis activity. We examined this prospect in rats that were placed in four different novel environments (empty housing tub, circular arena, elevated pedestal or restraint tube). Restraint and pedestal produced the largest magnitude of increased ACTH and corticosterone secretion, arena an intermediate level (Experiment 2) and tub the least magnitude of increase. We saw a very similar experience‐dependent pattern of relative Fos protein, c‐fos mRNA and zif268 mRNA expression in the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus. However, in hippocampus (and select regions of cortex), immediate–early gene expression was associated with the exploratory potential of the novel experience rather than level of HPA axis activity; pedestal and arena elicited the greatest immediate–early gene expression, tub an intermediate level and restraint the least amount of expression. We conclude that the stressfulness of psychological stressors is not represented by the amount of immediate–early gene induction elicited in hippocampus and cortex, nor does there appear to be a general enhancing or depressive influence of acute stress on immediate–early gene induction in those brain regions.
Long-Term Persistence with Injectable Therapy in Relapsing-Remitting Multiple Sclerosis: An 18-Year Observational Cohort Study

Disease modifying therapies (DMTs) reduce the frequency of relapses and accumulation of disability in multiple sclerosis (MS). Long-term persistence with treatment is important to optimize treatment benefit. This long-term, cohort study was conducted at the Calgary MS Clinic. All consenting adults with relapsing-remitting MS who started either glatiramer acetate (GA) or interferon-β 1a/1b (IFN-β) between January 1st, 1996 and July 1st, 2011 were included. Follow-up continued to February 1st, 2014. Time-to-discontinuation of the initial and subsequently-prescribed DMTs (switches) was analysed using Kaplan-Meier survival analyses. Group differences were compared using log-rank tests and multivariable Cox regression models. Analysis included 1471 participants; 906 were initially prescribed GA and 565 were initially prescribed IFN-β. Follow-up information was available for 87%; 29 (2%) were lost to follow-up and 160 (11%) moved from Southern Alberta while still using DMT. Median time-to-discontinuation of all injectable DMTs was 11.1 years. Participants with greater disability at treatment initiation, those who started treatment before age 30, and those who started between 2006 and 2011 were more likely to discontinue use of all injectable DMTs. Median time-to-discontinuation of the initial DMT was 8.6 years. Those initially prescribed GA remained on treatment longer. Of 610 participants who discontinued injectable DMT, 331 (54%) started an oral DMT, or a second-line DMT, or resumed injectable DMT after 90 days. Persistence with injectable DMTs was high in this long-term population-based study. Most participants who discontinued injectable DMT did not remain untreated. Further research is required to understand treatment outcomes and outcomes after stopping DMT.