Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Real-Time Analysis of Intracranial Pressure Waveform Morphology

The cranial vault is composed of four fundamental components: arterial blood, venous blood, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), and brain parenchyma. Intracranial pressure (ICP) represents the pressure within the brain parenchyma and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). The environment within the cranial vault is unique compared to other organ systems; it is enclosed within a rigid skull and thus small volumetric changes in any of the four elements lead to significant changes in ICP. One example of this, is the periodic influx of arterial blood over the cardiac cycle; this change causes the ICP pulse pressure waveform. The pulse pressure waveform has three characteristic peaks hypothesized to correspond to different physiologic components. Early work [1] demonstrated the relationship between pulsations in the choroid plexus and the pulse pressure waveform. Moreover, other studies [2] compared the right atrium (venous) and the aortic (arterial) pressures to the intracranial waveform in the cistern magna and showed that although the cranial pulse pressure is related to arterial pulsations, there is also a venous component. The results of these studies support the current theories for the etiology of the characteristic peaks in the ICP pulse pressure waveform. The majority of the literature indicates that P1, the percussion wave, corresponds with the pulsation of the choroid plexus and/or large intracranial conductive vessels [3-5]. The rebound of the percussion wave is thought to contribute to P2, which has also been related to cerebral compliance [5]. Finally, the dicrotic wave, or P3, is thought to be venous in origin [2, 4, 6].
Social identity, electronic word-of-mouth and referrals in social network services

Purpose – The main aim of this work is to explore the mechanisms that promote the transmission and reception of online opinions (electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) and referrals) by travel services buyers in the context of social networks services (SNS). Design/methodology/approach – The research examines two areas of study: social identification theory and word-of-mouth communication in the virtual environment (eWOM). Based on these theories an explicative model has been proposed applying structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis to a sample of SNS users buying travel services. Partial least squares was chosen as a method to conduct an SEM analysis. Findings – First, the results support the central role of social identification in SNS communication. Second, the results show that SNS users give greater importance to the transmission of communication than to its reception. This fact supports the idea that SNS is used more as a tool for highlighting and maintaining social status than as a channel for informa.
Increased Bone Marrow Interleukin-7 (IL-7)/IL-7R Levels but Reduced IL-7 Responsiveness in HIV-Positive Patients Lacking CD4+ Gain on Antiviral Therapy

Background The bone marrow (BM) cytokine milieu might substantially affect T-lymphocyte homeostasis in HIV-positive individuals. Interleukin-7 (IL-7) is a bone marrow-derived cytokine regulating T-cell homeostasis through a CD4+-driven feedback loop. CD4+ T-lymphopenia is associated with increased free IL-7 levels and reduced IL-7R expression/function, which are only partially reverted by highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). We investigated the BM production, peripheral expression and signaling (pStat5+ and Bcl-2+ CD4+/CD8+ T cells) of IL-7/IL-7Rα in 30 HAART-treated HIV-positive patients who did not experience CD4+ recovery (CD4+ ≤200/µl) and who had different levels of HIV viremia; these patients included 18 immunological nonresponders (INRs; HIV-RNA≤50), 12 complete failures (CFs; HIV-RNA>1000), and 23 HIV-seronegative subjects. Methods We studied plasma IL-7 levels, IL-7Rα+CD4+/CD8+ T-cell proportions, IL-7Rα mRNA expression in PBMCs, spontaneous IL-7 production by BM mononuclear cells (BMMCs), and IL-7 mRNA/IL-7Rα mRNA in BMMC-derived stromal cells (SCs). We also studied T-cell responsiveness to IL-7 by measuring the proportions of pStat5+ and Bcl-2+ CD4+/CD8+ T cells. Results Compared to HIV-seronegative controls, CFs and INRs presented elevated plasma IL-7 levels and lower IL-7Rα CD4+/CD8+ cell-surface expression and peripheral blood production, confirming the most relevant IL-7/IL-7R disruption. Interestingly, BM investigation revealed a trend of higher spontaneous IL-7 production in INRs (p = .09 vs. CFs) with a nonsignificant trend toward higher IL-7-Rα mRNA levels in BMMC-derived stromal cells. However, upon IL-7 stimulation, the proportion of pStat5+CD4+ T cells did not increase in INRs despite higher constitutive levels (p = .06); INRs also displayed lower Bcl-2+CD8+ T-cell proportions than controls (p = .04). Conclusions Despite severe CD4+ T-lymphopenia and a disrupted IL-7/IL-7R profile in the periphery, INRs display elevated BM IL-7/IL-7Rα expression but impaired T-cell responsiveness to IL-7, suggesting the activity of a central compensatory pathway targeted to replenish the CD4+ compartment, which is nevertheless inappropriate to compensate the dysfunctional signaling through IL-7 receptor.
A Survey of the Stream Processing Landscape

The continuous processing of streaming data has become an important aspect in many applications. Over the last years a variety of diﬀerent streaming platforms has been developed and a number of open source frameworks is available for the implementation of streaming applications. In this report, we will survey the landscape of existing streaming platforms. Starting with an overview of the evolving developments in the recent past, we will discuss the requirements of modern streaming architectures and present the ways these are approached by the diﬀerent frameworks.
Assembling ocean life

While welcoming the intervention of Winder and Le Heron (2006) as opening up a space for critical – and practical – engagement with ‘Blue Economy’ thinking, their employment of assemblage approaches could be extended. Doing so might produce a different conceptualization of the Blue Economy, while concurrently establishing new challenges for blue economic practices. In this commentary, I focus on three key areas: (1) the ontological separation of land and sea and the conceptualization of ‘marine space’; (2) the ‘liveliness’ of oceans; and (3) practical possibilities for Blue Economy policies to draw on and engage with ‘wet ontologies’. I argue that future geographical research on the Blue Economy would benefit from moving away from the categorizations of the ‘ecological’ or ‘bio’ and towards a fuller engagement with the diversity of actants and forces that contribute to the emergence of new practices, policies and (de)territorializations.
Belief in a Just World and Physical Attractiveness Stereotyping

Just-world theory provides a possible explanation of physical attractiveness stereotyping, in that believing in a just world should lead to a positive bias toward "winners," such as the physically attractive. Several hypotheses derived from this premise were tested by having adults complete the Just World Scale and rate the personality traits and expected life outcomes of an attractive or unattractive stimulus person. Predictions for the personality trait ratings were borne out for male but not for female stimulus persons: (a) Believers in a just world perceived the personalities of attractive, male stimulus persons as more socially desirable than nonbelievers and also attributed more socially desirable personalities to male stimulus persons who were attractive rather than unattractive; and Co) no effects were found for female stimulus persons. Predictions for the life-outcome ratings and differences in correlations between personality and life-outcome ratings as a function of belief in a just world were clearly supported. Implications for just-world theory, status-characteristics theory, and physical attractiveness stereotyping are discussed. Dion, Berscheid, and Walster (1972) were among the first researchers to postulate and demonstrate a stereotype for physical attractiveness. They presented university students with college yearbook photographs of stimulus persons previously categorized by other judges as attractive, average looking, or unattractive. Each stimulus person was rated on a series of personality traits selected to provide an index of overall social desirability. The subjects also estimated the stimulus person's suitability for various roles (e.g., marital partner, parent, etc.) as well as his or her likelihood of finding success and happiness in different spheres of life.
An empirical study of the use and usefulness of financial, non-financial and subjective measures for performance evaluation in industrial companies in Bahrain

This study uses survey data from 47 industrial companies located in the Kingdom of Bahrain in order to examine to the extent to which the companies combine the use of financial, non-financial and subjective measures in evaluating their performance. The survey reports that, although ROI is the most popular financial measure, industrial companies use an integration of financial and non-financial measures. Firm size also influences the use of these measures and significant differences were observed among the large and medium size firms with respect to operations-related measures. With the exception of ROI in a few cases, the use of performance measures was not found to be significantly different between industries. However, significant differences are found in the use of measures, particularly in financial and non-financial measures, when the data is analysed by line of business (by number of divisions). Furthermore, the study indicates that the various types of measures have different impacts on important employee actions, such as 'contribute to the quality of the short-term operational decisions', 'contribute to the quality of the long-term strategic decisions', 'encourage gamesmanship or manipulation', 'encourage innovation' and 'provide focus on the goals of the departments in the firm'.
Mapping and localisation with sparse range data

We present an approach for indoor mapping and localisation with a mobile robot using sparse range data, without the need for solving the SLAM problem. The paper consists of two main parts. First, a split and merge based method for dividing a givenmetric map into distinct regions is presented, thus creating a topologicalmap in ametric framework. Spatial information extracted from this map is then used for self-localisation. The robot computes local confidence maps for two simple localisation strategies based on distance and relative orientation of regions. The local confidence maps are then fused using an approach adapted from computer vision to produce overall confidence maps. Experiments on data acquired by mobile robots equipped with sonar sensors are presented.
Run-time cache configuration for the LEON-3 embedded processor

Cache parameters such as size and associativity are fixed at manufacturing time which are often not tuned for the specific characteristics of each application code. The net result is excessive energy consumption and lower performance. This paper explores the benefits of the use of a reconfigurable data cache in terms of capacity and associativity in a LEON-3 embedded system. We present real energy and execution time results for a set of graph-based and numerical algorithms. For a combined application of these algorithms, the results reveal an aggregate energy savings of 7% and a execution time penalty of just 1% over the best fixed-associativity cache architecture with the same capacity. We further explore the performance of a dynamic cache way shutdown adaptive algorithm and evaluate its performance and energy benefits in the context of the SLAM-EKF position estimation robotics algorithm.
A Research Note on the Factor Structure, Reliability, and Validity of the Spanish Version of Two Auditory Imagery Measures

Few studies have measured auditory imagery in comparison to visual imagery. The aim of this study was to assess the reliability and validity of two Spanish versions of measures of imagery auditory: The Auditory Imagery Scale and the Auditory Imagery Questionnaire. Confirmatory factor analysis found that the Auditory Imagery Questionnaire had two factors, and the Auditory Imagery Scale had one factor. The correlations of both questionnaires with other measures of auditory imagery were significant. The results are discussed in light of future lines of research aimed at evaluating the measures of both Spanish versions.
Traffic Management in Sensor Networks with a Mobile Sink

The imminent growth of user-centric, pervasive sensing environments promotes sink mobility in an increasing number of event-based, sensor network applications including rescue missions, intrusion detection, and smart buildings. In these settings, one of the most critical challenges toward supporting quality of service, is effective distributed congestion avoidance. Congestion control techniques have been proposed in sensor networks mostly in the context of a static sink. In our work, we study the problem of traffic management in the context of sensor networks with a mobile sink. Under sink mobility, various new challenges arise that need to be effectively addressed. Adaptation to sink mobility requires agile as well as effective load estimation techniques. In addition, unlike static networks, path reliability often fluctuates due to path reconfigurations. Thus, injecting traffic during transient periods of poor path quality might wastefully detain network resources. In this work, we first study the effect of sink mobility on traffic load in sensor networks. We then propose adaptive routing as well as load estimation techniques that effectively adapt to sink relocations. A novel aspect of our approach is that it jointly considers the network load as well as path quality variations to facilitate intelligent, mobility-adaptive rate regulation at the sources. We provide a thorough study of the trade-offs induced due to persistent path quality variations and conduct extensive real MICA2-based testbed experiments to study the performance of the sensor network under sink mobility.
Physiological study of neurons in the dorsal and posteroventral cochlear nucleus of the unanesthetized cat.

The responses of neurons in the posteroventral (PVCN) and dorsal (DCN) cochlear nucleus of the unanesthetized cat were determined for both long and short tones. These results were compared with recent studies in the barbiturate-anesthetized cat conducted in the same laboratory using similar stimuli and analysis programs. Every response pattern (poststimulus time histogram to short tones), which has been observed in previous studies using anesthetized animals, was also observed without anesthetic. The converse was also true: no novel response patterns were observed in the unanesthetized cat. This was also true for interval histogram, response area, isorate curve, and frequency sweep data. Some neurons were difficult to classify into existing descriptions of cochlear nucleus response patterns. For example: primary-like, onset, pauser, and buildup response patterns could also show chopper-like properties; onset-inhibitory, pauser, and buildup neurons appeared to form a response continuum rather than exist as separate response categories; and onset neurons with low characteristic frequencies (CFs) often showed sustained and strongly phase-locked responses below approximately 1,000 Hz. In addition, single neurons often showed more than one response pattern depending on the intensity and frequency of the acoustic stimulus. These ambiguities were also observed under anesthetic. Onset neurons within the PVCN appear to be well suited for the encoding of temporal and intensity information. At low stimulus frequencies they often respond to every cycle of a pure tone stimulus and exhibit the highest degree of phase-locking in the cochlear nucleus. The dynamic ranges associated with many onset neurons can exceed 80 dB compared with the 30- to 40-dB dynamic ranges associated with most other cochlear nucleus neurons. Onset neurons show a similar range of activities in the anesthetized cat. Neurons in the DCN have response properties that are more complex than those seen in the PVCN. Response patterns can change from sustained excitation to complete inhibition and are more often nonmonotonic near CF. DCN neurons can show well-defined tuning in the frequency domain and may be used to encode spectral information, but appear to be poorly suited for encoding temporal or intensity information as they are weakly phase-locked and have relatively small dynamic ranges. When DCN neurons "chop" they usually do so more slowly than do PVCN neurons. DCN neurons recorded in the anesthetized cat behave similarly. The relative frequency of a particular response pattern did vary with anesthetic state. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
Analysis of Dietary Pattern Impact on Weight Status for Personalised Nutrition through On-Line Advice: The Food4Me Spanish Cohort

Obesity prevalence is increasing. The management of this condition requires a detailed analysis of the global risk factors in order to develop personalised advice. This study is aimed to identify current dietary patterns and habits in Spanish population interested in personalised nutrition and investigate associations with weight status. Self-reported dietary and anthropometrical data from the Spanish participants in the Food4Me study, were used in a multidimensional exploratory analysis to define specific dietary profiles. Two opposing factors were obtained according to food groups’ intake: Factor 1 characterised by a more frequent consumption of traditionally considered unhealthy foods; and Factor 2, where the consumption of “Mediterranean diet” foods was prevalent. Factor 1 showed a direct relationship with BMI (β = 0.226; r2 = 0.259; p < 0.001), while the association with Factor 2 was inverse (β = −0.037; r2 = 0.230; p = 0.348). A total of four categories were defined (Prudent, Healthy, Western, and Compensatory) through classification of the sample in higher or lower adherence to each factor and combining the possibilities. Western and Compensatory dietary patterns, which were characterized by high-density foods consumption, showed positive associations with overweight prevalence. Further analysis showed that prevention of overweight must focus on limiting the intake of known deleterious foods rather than exclusively enhance healthy products.
Dengue Virus Infection of the Aedes aegypti Salivary Gland and Chemosensory Apparatus Induces Genes that Modulate Infection and Blood-Feeding Behavior

The female Aedes aegypti salivary gland plays a pivotal role in bloodmeal acquisition and reproduction, and thereby dengue virus (DENV) transmission. It produces numerous immune factors, as well as immune-modulatory, vasodilatory, and anti-coagulant molecules that facilitate blood-feeding. To assess the impact of DENV infection on salivary gland physiology and function, we performed a comparative genome-wide microarray analysis of the naïve and DENV infection-responsive A. aegypti salivary gland transcriptomes. DENV infection resulted in the regulation of 147 transcripts that represented a variety of functional classes, including several that are essential for virus transmission, such as immunity, blood-feeding, and host-seeking. RNAi-mediated gene silencing of three DENV infection-responsive genes - a cathepsin B, a putative cystatin, and a hypothetical ankyrin repeat-containing protein - significantly modulated DENV replication in the salivary gland. Furthermore, silencing of two DENV infection-responsive odorant-binding protein genes (OBPs) resulted in an overall compromise in blood acquisition from a single host by increasing the time for initiation of probing and the probing time before a successful bloodmeal. We also show that DENV established an extensive infection in the mosquito's main olfactory organs, the antennae, which resulted in changes of the transcript abundance of key host-seeking genes. DENV infection, however, did not significantly impact probing initiation or probing times in our laboratory infection system. Here we show for the first time that the mosquito salivary gland mounts responses to suppress DENV which, in turn, modulates the expression of chemosensory-related genes that regulate feeding behavior. These reciprocal interactions may have the potential to affect DENV transmission between humans.
Social learning and cultural evolution in embodied and situated agents

In this paper we investigate whether social learning or the combination of individual and social learning can provide an adaptive advantage for artificial embodied agents that have to develop behavioural abilities that are too difficult or too costly to be acquired through individual learning. Obtained results demonstrate that social learning provides an adaptive advantage when individuals are allowed to learn socially from experienced individuals and individually. Moreover, the obtained results indicate how the iteration of a social and individual learning through out generations lead to a cumulative cultural evolutionary process in which novelties are integrated with previously developed skills and are successfully transmitted in further generations
Freeway: Adaptively Isolating the Elephant and Mice Flows on Different Transmission Paths

The network resource competition of today' data enters is extremely intense between long-lived elephant flows and latency-sensitive mice flows. Achieving both goals of high throughput and low latency respectively for the two types of flows requires compromise, which recent research has not successfully solved mainly due to the transfer of elephant and mice flows on shared links without any differentiation. However, current data enters usually adopt clos-based topology, e.g. Fat-tree/VL2, so there exist multiple shortest paths between any pair of source and destination. In this paper, we leverage on this observation to propose a flow scheduling scheme, Freeway, to adaptively partition the transmission paths into low latency paths and high throughput paths respectively for the two types of flows. An algorithm is proposed to dynamically adjust the number of the two types of paths according to the real-time traffic. And based on these separated transmission paths, we propose different flow type-specific scheduling and forwarding methods to make full utilization of the bandwidth. Our simulation results show that Freeway significantly reduces the delay of mice flow by 85.8% and achieves 9.2% higher throughput compared with Hedera.
Selfie: Engaging Life Experiences into Writing

English language writing has always been a problem for second language learners to master. Developing learners’ ability in writing is one of the major problems faced by educators in tertiary education. The learners will only use English language when they are asked to and only when the opportunity arises during classroom lessons. Generating ideas for writing has always been a major difficulty faced by learners in English language learning. This had led to many studies by researchers in suggesting ways in helping learners to write in English language. This study was carried out to examine the effectiveness of selfie photo in generating ideas for narrative writing among 40 undergraduate students undertaking an English proficiency course at a local university in Malaysia. The findings had shown significant improvement in learners’ writing in term of ideas coherency and text length. It was observed that the learners had had the ability to come up with more number of words in writing when narrating self-experiences related to the captured selfie photo compared to normal classroom writing. As a whole, the use of selfie photo had improved learners’ writing ability in terms of not only language proficiency, but also their level of confidence and classroom participation.