Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
CT for Additive Manufacturing Process Characterisation : Assessment of melt strategies on defect population

Selective Electron Beam Melting (SEBM) is a promising powder bed Additi ve Manufacturing (AM) technique for near netshape manufacturing of high-value titanium components. Howe ver, as with every emerging technique, the manufacturing processes can still be greatly improved and optimised. In particular, the links between AM settings and the resulting sample porosity is of great interest, as the fatigue life of SEBM parts is curren tly dominated by the presence of porosity. In this study, the size, volume fraction, and spatial distribution of the pores in mod el samples have been characterised in 3D, using X-ray Computed Tomography (CT), and correlated to the SEBM process var iables. A strong relationship was found with the different beam strategies used to contour, and infill by hatching, a par t section. The majority of pores were found to be small spherical gas pores, concentrated in the infill hatched region. Rarer irre gular shaped pores were mostly located in the contour region and have been attributed to a lack of fusion between powder particles.
A Pediatric Case Definition for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

AbstractFor a diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), most researchers use criteria that were developed by Fukuda et al. (1994), with modifications suggested by Reeves et al. (2003). However, this case definition was established for adults rather than children. A Canadian Case Definition (ME/CFS; Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/CFS) has recently been developed, with more specific inclusion criteria (Carruthers et al., 2003). Again, the primary aim of this case definition is to diagnose adult CFS. A significant problem in the literature is the lack of both a pediatric definition of ME/CFS and a reliable instrument to assess it. These deficiencies can lead to criterion variance problems resulting in studies labeling children with a wide variety of symptoms as having ME/CFS. Subsequently, comparisons between articles become more difficult, decreasing the possibility of conducting a meta-analysis. This article presents recommendations developed by the International Association of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Pedia.
Design Management from a Contractor's Perspective: The Need for Clarity

Abstract Over the past 40 years, a concern with the adoption of business methods to support successful design development has emerged. Design management as a discipline addresses such concern through two central schools of thought. The first focuses on organizing the design firm, and the second aims to better understand the design process (its nature, stages and activities) and to propose improved communication and coordination mechanisms. Both schools of thought have taken essentially a design professional's perspective to analyse design. Nevertheless, the recent adoption of procurement routes in which contractors are responsible for design, construction and facilities management has imposed on contractors the need to manage design to maintain competitiveness. This paper presents results from two case studies investigating the contractor's role in managing the design process. Research results are presented in terms of the problems contractors face in managing design, the necessity for appropriate design management and the skills contractors believe are required for effective design management. The paper concludes by advocating a need for clarity in the definition of design management from a contractor's perspective.
Psychological factors and asthma quality of life: a population based study

Background: Reports of psychological conditions in asthmatic subjects have been limited to certain population groups or convenience samples. A study was undertaken of the prevalence of psychological distress in asthma in the general population and its associations with quality of life. Methods: The WANTS Health and Well-being Survey is a population household interview survey of adults (age ⩾18) in Western Australia, the Northern Territory, and South Australia. Data obtained were weighted to the closest census data to provide population representative estimates. Positive answers to two questions: “Have you ever been told by a doctor that you have asthma? ” and “Do you still have asthma? ” determined current doctor-diagnosed asthma. Other items included the SF-12, the Kessler-10 index of psychological distress, questions on feelings of lack of control in different areas of life, and on mental health conditions. Results: From the available sample of 10 080, 7619 interviews were completed (participation rate 74.8%), with 834 people reporting current doctor-diagnosed asthma (11.2%). Psychological distress was more frequent in those with asthma (17.9% v 12.2%, p<0.01) and a higher proportion with asthma were at higher risk for anxiety or depression (40.5% v 31.2%, p<0.01). Mental health conditions were also more common (16.2% v 10.8%, p<0.01), as was the frequency of those who sometimes or always felt a lack of control over their health (33.5% v 24.3%, p<0.01). People with both asthma and psychological distress had significantly lower scores on the SF-12 physical component summary (PCS) than those with either asthma or distress alone. Among those with psychological distress, mental component summary (MCS) scores did not differ between asthmatic and non-asthmatic respondents. In a multiple regression model the frequency of a feeling of lack of control over health—together with age, family’s financial situation, education level, and number of days partially unable to work or perform usual duties—was significantly associated with scores on the PCS (r = 0.73, adjusted r2 = 0.54). Conclusion: These results, from a representative population sample, show that psychological distress and decreased feelings of control are common in asthma and are significantly associated with physical health status.
Adaptive Dispatching of Tasks in the Cloud

The increasingly wide application of Cloud Computing enables the consolidation of tens of thousands of applications in shared infrastructures. Thus, meeting the QoS requirements of so many diverse applications in such shared resource environments has become a real challenge, especially since the characteristics and workload of applications differ widely and may change over time. This paper presents an experimental system that can exploit a variety of online QoS aware adaptive task allocation schemes, and three such schemes are designed and compared. These are a measurement driven algorithm that uses reinforcement learning, secondly a “sensible” allocation algorithm that assigns tasks to sub-systems that are observed to provide a lower response time, and then an algorithm that splits the task arrival stream into sub-streams at rates computed from the hosts’ processing capabilities. All of these schemes are compared via measurements among themselves and with a simple round-robin scheduler, on two experimental test-beds with homogenous and heterogenous hosts having different processing capacities.
Tangible Reels: Construction and Exploration of Tangible Maps by Visually Impaired Users

Maps are essential in everyday life, but inherently inaccessible to visually impaired users. They must be transcribed to non-editable tactile graphics, or rendered on very expensive shape changing displays. To tackle these issues, we developed a tangible tabletop interface that enables visually impaired users to build tangible maps on their own, using a new type of physical icon called Tangible Reels. Tangible Reels are composed of a sucker pad that ensures stability, with a retractable reel that renders digital lines tangible. In order to construct a map, audio instructions guide the user to precisely place Tangible Reels onto the table and create links between them. During subsequent exploration, the device provides the names of the points and lines that the user touches. A pre-study confirmed that Tangible Reels are stable and easy to manipulate, and that visually impaired users can understand maps that are built with them. A follow-up experiment validated that the designed system, including non-visual interactions, enables visually impaired participants to quickly build and explore maps of various complexities.
Mental terms in mothers' and children's speech: similarities and relationships

ABSTRACT In this study, mental terms in mothers' and their children's speech at two and three years of age were studied in order to examine the relationships between maternal and child use. Nineteen mother and child dyads were videotaped for one hour on each of two days when the children were 2;0 and again for two one-hour sessions on separate days when they were 3;0, and mental terms were noted. The utterances in which mental terms were used were coded for function. Results supported the existing picture of children's mental term use. Few terms appeared at 2;0, but many were used at 3;0 with think and know predominating. Mental terms occurred more commonly in utterances used to regulate the interaction between the participants than in utterances referring to mental states. Children's mental term use mirrored that of their mothers. Further, mothers' use of mental terms for particular functions when their children were 2;0 predicted their children's use at 3;0. While allowing no conclusions about causation, our findings suggest that the development of mental state language, and thus presumably a theory of mind, is fostered by the linguistic environment. Specifically, it is argued that the tendency of mothers to focus their children's attention on mental processes by talking about them and, more importantly, by using utterance types which conceivably direct the children to reflect on their own mental states, is associated with children's use of mental terms.
Identification of Chemokines and Growth Factors in Proliferative Diabetic Retinopathy Vitreous

Associations were investigated between levels of chemokines and growth factors in the vitreous and proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR). Enrolled were 58 patients (58 eyes) requiring pars plana vitrectomy (PPV), with PDR (n = 32, none with traction retinal detachment) or not (non-PDR). In the latter, 16 had macular hole (MH) and 10 had epiretinal membrane (ERM). With a multiplex bead immunoassay, levels of 11 chemokines and growth factors were measured from the undiluted vitreous sample from each patient. In the non-PDR eyes, the levels of the 11 chemokines and growth factors tested were similar between patients with MH and those with ERM. However, the levels of all 11 were significantly higher in the PDR eyes relative to the non-PDR; CCL17, CCL19, and TGFβ3 were markedly upregulated and have not been investigated in PDR previously. The significantly higher levels of CCL4 and CCL11 in PDR contradict the results of previous reports. Based on Spearman's nonparametric test, moderate-to-strong correlations were found between VEGF and other mediators. Our results indicate that these chemokines and growth factors could be candidates for research into targeted therapies applied either singly or in combination with anti-VEGF drugs for the treatment of PDR.
The Design and Development of Spam Risk Assessment Prototype: In Silico of Danger Theory Variants

Now-a-days, data is flowing with various types of information and it is absolutely enormous and moreover, it is in unstructured form. These raw data is meaningless unless it is processed and analyzed to retrieve all the valuable and meaningful information. In this paper, a design and principal functionalities of the system prototype is introduced. A process of information retrieval by applying the text mining with Artificial Immune System (AIS) is proposed to discover the possible level of severity for a Short Messaging Service (SMS) spam. This is expected to be a potential tool in retrieving an implicit danger that a spam might impact to the recipients. Furthermore, the development of this tool can be considered as an emergence of another data mining tool that also exceedingly possible to be embedded with another existing tool.
The Sounds of Physical Shapes

We propose a general framework for the simulation of sounds produced by colliding physical objects in a virtual reality environment. The framework is based on the vibration dynamics of bodies. The computed sounds depend on the material of the body, its shape, and the location of the contact. This simulation of sounds allows the user to obtain important auditory clues about the objects in the simulation, as well as about the locations on the objects of the collisions. Specifically, we show how to compute (1) the spectral signature of each body (its natural frequencies), which depends on the material and the shape, (2) the timbre of the vibration (the relative amplitudes of the spectral components) generated by an impulsive force applied to the object at a grid of locations, (3) the decay rates of the various frequency components that correlate with the type of material, based on its internal friction parameter, and finally (4) the mapping of sounds onto the object's geometry for real-time rendering of the resulting sound. The framework has been implemented in a Sonic Explorer program which simulates a room with several objects such as a chair, tables, and rods. After a preprocessing stage, the user can hit the objects at different points to interactively produce realistic sounds.
iJADE stock advisor: an intelligent agent based stock prediction system using hybrid RBF recurrent network

Financial predictions, such as stock forecasts, is always one of the hottest topics for research studies and commercial applications. With the rapid growth of Internet technology in recent years, e-finance has become a vital application of e-commerce. However, in this "sea" of information, made available through the Internet, an "intelligent" financial web-mining and stock prediction system can be a key to success. In this paper, the author introduces the iJADE Stock Advisor-an intelligent agent-based stock prediction system using our proposed hybrid radial basis-function recurrent network (HRBFN). By using ten-year stock pricing information (1990-1999), consisting of 33 major Hong Kong stocks for testing, the iJADE Stock Advisor has achieved promising results in terms of efficiency, accuracy, and mobility as compared with other contemporary stock prediction models. Also, various analyzes on this stock advisory system have been performed: including round trip time (RTT) analysis, window-size evaluation test (for both long-term trend and short-term prediction), and stock prediction performance test.
Statistical Properties of the GALEX-SDSS Matched Source Catalogs, and Classification of the UV Sources

We use the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) Medium and All-Sky Imaging Survey (MIS and AIS) data from the first public data release (GR1), matched to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) DR3 catalog, to perform source classification. The GALEX surveys provide photometry in far- and near-UV bands and the SDSS in five optical bands (u, g, r, i, z). The GR1/DR3 overlapping areas are 363 (86) deg2 for the GALEX AIS (MIS), for sources within the 0.5° central area of the GALEX fields. Our sample covers mostly |b| > 30° Galactic latitudes. We present statistical properties of the GALEX-SDSS matched sources catalog, containing >2 × 106 objects detected in at least one UV band. We classify the matched sources by comparing the seven-band photometry to model colors constructed for different classes of astrophysical objects. For sources with photometric errors <0.3 mag, the corresponding typical AB-magnitude limits are mFUV ∼ 21.5, mNUV ∼ 22.5 for AIS, and mFUV ∼ 24, mNUV ∼ 24.5 for MIS. At AIS depth, the number of Galactic and extragalactic objects are comparable, but the latter predominate in the MIS. On the basis of our stellar models, we estimate the GALEX surveys detect hot white dwarfs throughout the Milky Way halo (down to a radius of 0.04 R☉ at MIS depth), providing an unprecedented improvement in the Galactic WD census. Their observed surface density is consistent with Milky Way model predictions. We also select low-redshift QSO candidates, extending the known QSO samples to lower magnitudes, and providing z ≈ 1 candidates for detailed z ≈ 1 follow-up investigations. SDSS optical spectra available for a large subsample confirm the classification for the photometrically selected candidates with 97% purity for single hot stars, ≈45% (AIS) or 31% (MIS) for binaries containing a hot star and a cooler companion, and about 85% for QSOs.
An investigation of Newton-Sketch and subsampled Newton methods

ABSTRACT Sketching, a dimensionality reduction technique, has received much attention in the statistics community. In this paper, we study sketching in the context of Newton's method for solving finite-sum optimization problems in which the number of variables and data points are both large. We study two forms of sketching that perform dimensionality reduction in data space: Hessian subsampling and randomized Hadamard transformations. Each has its own advantages, and their relative tradeoffs have not been investigated in the optimization literature. Our study focuses on practical versions of the two methods in which the resulting linear systems of equations are solved approximately, at every iteration, using an iterative solver. The advantages of using the conjugate gradient method vs. a stochastic gradient iteration are revealed through a set of numerical experiments, and a complexity analysis of the Hessian subsampling method is presented.
Preserving mappings in fuzzy predicate logics

In this article, we develop the method of diagrams for fuzzy predicate logics and give a characterization of different kinds of preserving mappings in terms of diagrams. Our work is a contribution to the model-theoretic study of fuzzy predicate logics. We present a reduced semantics and we prove a completeness theorem of the logics with respect to this semantics. The main concepts being studied are the Leibniz congruence and the structure-preserving relation. On the one hand, the Leibniz congruence of a model identifies the elements that are indistinguishable using equality-free atomic formulas and parameters from the model. A reduced structure is the quotient of a model modulo this congruence. On the other hand, the structure-preserving relation between two structures plays the same role that the isomorphism relation plays in classical predicate languages with equality.
Partial Presentation of an Extinction Cue Enhances Renewal in an ABA Paradigm

It was investigated in humans whether the incorporation of an extinction cue attenuates renewal of extinguished conditioned performance using a computerized task. All participants received an acquisition phase against a specific background, context A. In this context they learned that two conditioned stimuli, CS1 and CS2, predicted the occurrence of an aversive unconditioned stimulus (US) and that a third stimulus, CS3, predicted the absence of the US. Next, half of the participants received an extinction treatment in a different context (B), whereas the other half did not (context A). Dur- ing extinction both CS1 and CS3 were repeatedly presented in absence of the US. For all participants, a so-called extinc- tion cue was presented partially during this extinction phase. Finally, a renewal test was conducted in which CS1, CS2, and CS3 were presented against the acquisition background (A). Half of the participants received the extinction cue along the renewal test. Participants demonstrated renewal, but only when they had received the extinction treatment in a differ- ent context. Contrary to the hypothesis, the extinction cue at test did not attenuate but appeared to augment this renewal. Different explanations for this result are discussed.
Violations of Personal Space by Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder

The ability to maintain an appropriate physical distance (i.e., interpersonal distance) from others is a critical aspect of social interaction and contributes importantly to real-life social functioning. In Study 1, using parent-report data that had been acquired on a large number of individuals (ages 4–18 years) for the Autism Genetic Resource Exchange and the Simons Simplex Collection, we found that those with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD; n = 766) more often violated the space of others compared to their unaffected siblings (n = 766). This abnormality held equally across ASD diagnostic categories, and correlated with clinical measures of communication and social functioning. In Study 2, laboratory experiments in a sample of high-functioning adults with ASD demonstrated an altered relationship between interpersonal distance and personal space, and documented a complete absence of personal space in 3 individuals with ASD. Furthermore, anecdotal self-report from several participants confirmed that violations of social distancing conventions continue to occur in real-world interactions through adulthood. We suggest that atypical social distancing behavior offers a practical and sensitive measure of social dysfunction in ASD, and one whose psychological and neurological substrates should be further investigated.
Are Pediatric Quality Care Measures Too Stringent?

Introduction: We aimed to demonstrate the application of national pediatric quality measures, derived from claims-based data, for use with electronic medical record data, and determine the extent to which rates differ if specifications were modified to allow for flexibility in measuring receipt of care. Methods: We reviewed electronic medical record data for all patients up to 15 years of age with ≥1 office visit to a safety net family medicine clinic in 2010 (n = 1544). We assessed rates of appropriate well-child visits, immunizations, and body mass index (BMI) documentation, defined strictly by national guidelines versus by guidelines with clinically relevant modifications. Results: Among children aged <3 years, 52.4% attended ≥6 well-child visits by the age of 15 months; 60.8% had ≥6 visits by age 2 years. Less than 10% completed 10 vaccination series before their second birthday; with modifications, 36% were up to date. Among children aged 3 to 15 years, 63% had a BMI percentile recorded; 91% had BMI recorded within 36 months of the measurement year. Conclusions: Applying relevant modifications to national quality measure definitions captured a substantial number of additional services. Strict adherence to measure definitions might miss the true quality of care provided, especially among populations that may have sporadic patterns of care utilization.