Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An empirical study on project-specific traceability strategies

Effective requirements traceability supports practitioners in reaching higher project maturity and better product quality. Researchers argue that effective traceability barely happens by chance or through ad-hoc efforts and that traceability should be explicitly defined upfront. However, in a previous study we found that practitioners rarely follow explicit traceability strategies. We were interested in the reason for this discrepancy. Are practitioners able to reach effective traceability without an explicit definition? More specifically, how suitable is requirements traceability that is not strategically planned in supporting a project's development process. Our interview study involved practitioners from 17 companies. These practitioners were familiar with the development process, the existing traceability and the goals of the project they reported about. For each project, we first modeled a traceability strategy based on the gathered information. Second, we examined and modeled the applied software engineering processes of each project. Thereby, we focused on executed tasks, involved actors, and pursued goals. Finally, we analyzed the quality and suitability of a project's traceability strategy. We report common problems across the analyzed traceability strategies and their possible causes. The overall quality and mismatch of analyzed traceability suggests that an upfront-defined traceability strategy is indeed required. Furthermore, we show that the decision for or against traceability relations between artifacts requires a detailed understanding of the project's engineering process and goals; emphasizing the need for a goal-oriented procedure to assess existing and define new traceability strategies.
The rubber hand illusion revisited: visuotactile integration and self-attribution.

Watching a rubber hand being stroked, while one's own unseen hand is synchronously stroked, may cause the rubber hand to be attributed to one's own body, to "feel like it's my hand. " A behavioral measure of the rubber hand illusion (RHI) is a drift of the perceived position of one's own hand toward the rubber hand. The authors investigated (a) the influence of general body scheme representations on the RHI in Experiments 1 and 2 and (b) the necessary conditions of visuotactile stimulation underlying the RHI in Experiments 3 and 4. Overall, the results suggest that at the level of the process underlying the build up of the RHI, bottom-up processes of visuotactile correlation drive the illusion as a necessary, but not sufficient, condition. Conversely, at the level of the phenomenological content, the illusion is modulated by top-down influences originating from the representation of one's own body.
A new class of hyper-bent Boolean functions in binomial forms

Bent functions, which are maximally nonlinear Boolean functions with even numbers of variables and whose Hamming distance to the set of all affine functions equals $2^{n-1}\pm 2^{\frac{n}{2}-1}$, were introduced by Rothaus in 1976 when he considered problems in combinatorics. Bent functions have been extensively studied due to their applications in cryptography, such as S-box, block cipher and stream cipher. Further, they have been applied to coding theory, spread spectrum and combinatorial design. Hyper-bent functions, as a special class of bent functions, were introduced by Youssef and Gong in 2001, which have stronger properties and rarer elements. Many research focus on the construction of bent and hyper-bent functions. In this paper, we consider functions defined over $\mathbb{F}_{2^n}$ by $f_{a,b}:=\mathrm{Tr}_{1}^{n}(ax^{(2^m-1)})+\mathrm{Tr}_{1}^{4}(bx^{\frac{2^n-1}{5}})$, where $n=2m$, $m\equiv 2\pmod 4$, $a\in \mathbb{F}_{2^m}$ and $b\in\mathbb{F}_{16}$. When $a\in \mathbb{F}_{2^m}$ and $(b+1)(b^4+b+1)=0$, with the help of Kloosterman sums and the factorization of $x^5+x+a^{-1}$, we present a characterization of hyper-bentness of $f_{a,b}$. Further, we use generalized Ramanujan-Nagell equations to characterize hyper-bent functions of $f_{a,b}$ in the case $a\in\mathbb{F}_{2^{\frac{m}{2}}}$.
Relationship between Drug Abuse and Deviant Behaviour among Undergraduate Students of University of Lagos, Nigeria

The study investigated the relationship between drug abuse and deviant behaviour among undergraduate students of the University of Lagos. A Sample of 100 undergraduate students was randomly selected from the Faculties of Education, Science, Engineering, Business Administration and the College of Medicine. Three hypotheses were tested while data were generated using a structured questionnaire. Pearson Product Moment correlation statistic was used to analyze the data. Results showed no significant relationship between drug abuse and each of truancy, cultism and high risk sexual behaviour among undergraduate students of the University of Lagos, Nigeria.
Alcohol Consumption and Mortality From Coronary Heart Disease: An Updated Meta-Analysis of Cohort Studies.

OBJECTIVE Previous meta-analyses estimate that low-volume alcohol consumption protects against coronary heart disease (CHD). Potential errors in studies include systematic misclassification of drinkers as abstainers, inadequate measurement, and selection bias across the life course. METHOD Prospective studies of alcohol consumption and CHD mortality were identified in scholarly databases and reference lists. Studies were coded for potential abstainer biases and other study characteristics. The alcohol-CHD risk relationship was estimated in mixed models with controls for potential biases. Stratified analyses were performed based on variables identified as potential effect modifiers. RESULTS Fully adjusted meta-analysis of all 45 studies found significantly reduced CHD mortality for current low-volume drinkers (relative risk [RR] = 0.80, 95% CI [0.69, 0.93]) and all current drinkers (RR = 0.88, 95% CI [0.78, 0.99]). There was evidence of effect modification by cohort age, gender, ethnicity, and heart health at baseline. In stratified analyses, low-volume consumption was not significantly protective for cohorts ages 55 years or younger at baseline (RR = 0.95, 95% CI [0.75, 1.21]), for studies controlling for heart health (RR = 0.87, 95% CI [0.71, 1.06]), or for higher quality studies (RR = 0.86, 95% CI [0.68, 1.09]). In studies in which the mean age was 55 years or younger at baseline, there were significantly increased RRs for both former (RR = 1.45, 95% CI [1.08, 1.95]) and occasional drinkers (RR = 1.44, 95% CI [1.09, 1.89]) compared with abstainers. CONCLUSIONS Pooled analysis of all identified studies suggested an association between alcohol use and reduced CHD risk. However, this association was not observed in studies of those age 55 years or younger at baseline, in higher quality studies, or in studies that controlled for heart health. The appearance of cardio-protection among older people may reflect systematic selection biases that accumulate over the life course.
Missed Initial Medical Visits: Predictors, Timing, and Implications for Retention in HIV Care

Abstract HIV disproportionately affects racial/ethnic minorities and individuals living in the southern United States, and missed clinic visits account for much of this disparity. We sought to evaluate: (1) predictors of missed initial HIV medical visits, (2) time to initial visit, and (3) the association between initial visit attendance and retention in HIV care. Chart reviews were conducted for 200 consecutive HIV‐infected patients (100 in Dallas, 100 in San Antonio) completing case management (CM) intake. Of these, 52 (26%) missed their initial visit, with 22 (11%) never presenting for care. Mean age was 40 years, 85% were men, >70% were of minority race/ethnicity, and 28% had a new HIV diagnosis. Unemployment (OR [95% CI] = 2.33 [1.04‐5.24], p = 0.04) and lower attendance of CM visits (OR = 3.08 [1.43‐6.66], p = 0.004) were associated with missing the initial medical visit. A shorter time to visit completion was associated with CD4 ≤ 200 (HR 1.90 [1.25‐2.88], p = 0.003), Dallas study site (HR = 1.48 [1.03‐2.14], p = 0.04), and recent hospitalization (HR = 2.18 [1.38‐3.43], p < 0.001). Patients who did not complete their initial medical visit within 90 days of intake were unlikely to engage in care. Initial medical visit attendance was associated with higher proportion of visits attended (p = 0.04) and fewer gaps in care (p = 0.01). Missed medical visits were common among HIV patients initiating or reinitiating care in Texas. Employment and CM involvement predicted initial medical visit attendance, which was associated with retention in care. New, early engagement strategies are needed to decrease missed visits and reduce HIV health disparities.
Computational and Statistical Tradeoffs in Learning to Rank

For massive and heterogeneous modern datasets, it is of fundamental interest to provide guarantees on the accuracy of estimation when computational resources are limited. In the application of learning to rank, we provide a hierarchy of rank-breaking mechanisms ordered by the complexity in thus generated sketch of the data. This allows the number of data points collected to be gracefully traded off against computational resources available, while guaranteeing the desired level of accuracy. Theoretical guarantees on the proposed generalized rank-breaking implicitly provide such trade-offs, which can be explicitly characterized under certain canonical scenarios on the structure of the data.
Men, masculinity, and engagement with treatment as prevention in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

ABSTRACT Men’s poorer engagement with healthcare generally and HIV care specifically, compared to women, is well-described. Within the HIV public health domain, interest is growing in universal test and treat (UTT) strategies. UTT strategies refer to the expansion of antiretroviral therapy (ART) in order to reduce onward transmission and incidence of HIV in a population, through a “treatment as prevention” (TasP). This paper focuses on how masculinity influences engagement with HIV care in the context of an on-going TasP trial. Data were collected in January–November 2013 using 20 in-depth interviews, 10 of them repeated thrice, and 4 focus group discussions, each repeated four times. Analysis combined inductive and deductive approaches for coding and the review and consolidation of emerging themes. The accounts detailed men’s unwillingness to engage with HIV testing and care, seemingly tied to their pursuit of valued masculinity constructs such as having strength and control, being sexually competent, and earning income. Articulated through fears regarding getting an HIV-positive diagnosis, observations that men preferred traditional medicine and that primary health centres were not welcoming to men, descriptions that men used lay measures to ascertain HIV status, and insinuations by men that they were removed from HIV risk, the indisposition to HIV care contrasted markedly with an apparent readiness to test among women. Gendered tensions thus emerged which were amplified in the context where valued masculinity representations were constantly threatened. Amid the tensions, men struggled with disclosing their HIV status, and used various strategies to avoid or postpone disclosing, or disclose indirectly, while women’s ability to access care readily, use condoms, or communicate about HIV appeared similarly curtailed. UTT and TasP promotion should heed and incorporate into policy and health service delivery models the intrapersonal tensions, and the conflict, and poor and indirect communication at the micro-relational levels of couples and families.
Induction of Interleukin-18 in Atherosclerotic Patients: A Role for Chlamydia pneumoniae

Objectives: The present work explored gene expression and spontaneous induction of the inflammatory cytokine interleukin-18 (IL-18) in atherosclerotic patients. In addition, the effect of the chlamydial antigen heat shock protein 60 (HSP60) and lipopolysaccharide (LPS) on the induction of this mediator was examined. Subjects and Methods: Detection of IL-18 mRNA and protein level were assessed by in situ hybridization and immunohistochemistry, respectively, in 15 patients with coronary artery disease undergoing angiograms and 15 matching controls. Results: These experiments showed significantly high levels of spontaneously expressed IL-18 mRNA and high protein levels in patients compared to healthy controls (p < 0.0005). Cells stimulated with chlamydial HSP60 (CHSP60) and LPS showed a significantly high expression of IL-18 at the mRNA level (p < 0.0005 for CHSP60 and p < 0.005 for LPS) and an increased production of IL-18 at protein level (p < 0.0005 for CHSP60 and p < 0.005 for LPS). Conclusion: This study demonstrated de novo synthesis of the inflammatory cytokine IL-18 in atherosclerosis and, furthermore, that chlamydial antigens might play a role in the immunopathological events in this disease by generating more inflammatory mediators such as IL-18.
Removal of Zinc from Water Using Modified and Non-Modified Carbon Nanofibers

High removal of zinc from water was achieved using acid treated Carbon Nanofibers. Four independent variables including pH, CNFs dosage, contact time and agitation speed were carried out to determine the influence of these parameters on the adsorption capacity of the zinc from water. The morphology of the Carbon Nanofibers (CNFs) were characterized by using field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) in order to measure the diameter and the length of the CNFs. The diameter of the Carbon Nanofibers was varied from 100-200 nm and 30 micrometer in length. Results of the study showed that, 97 % of zinc was removed by using COOH-CNFs at pH 7, 150 rpm, and 2 hours. These high removal efficiencies were likely attributed to the strong affinity of zinc to the physical and chemical properties of the CNFs. Key word: Carbon Nanofibers, Zinc
A Novel Performance Model for Distributed Prioritized MAC Protocols

Distributed prioritized channel access mechanisms have been adopted by the IEEE 802.11e enhanced distributed channel access (EDCA) and the Multiband OFDM Alliance prioritized channel access (PCA) to support service differentiation. In this paper, we propose a novel analytical model for performance study of such mechanisms. The proposed model gives the average frame service time first and then the per station and network normalized throughput, which makes it applicable to both saturated and unsaturated stations. Furthermore, the model is especially helpful in understanding the different effects of the same prioritizing mechanisms in saturated and unsaturated conditions. To the best of our knowledge, there is no similar work reported in the open literature. The accuracy of the analytical model is demonstrated by extensive simulation.
Activation of c-Jun N-Terminal Kinase and p38 in an Alzheimer's Disease Model Is Associated with Amyloid Deposition

The mechanisms by which neurons and synapses are lost in Alzheimer's disease (AD) are not completely understood. To characterize potential signaling events linked to AD pathogenesis, activation-specific antibodies were used to examine mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) kinase pathways at various ages in mice transgenic for human amyloid precursor protein-695 with the Swedish familial AD mutations (Tg2576) and homozygous for a P264L familial AD mutation introduced by targeting of the presenilin-1 gene (PS1P264L). Although the c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) and p38 pathways were significantly activated in the cortex at both 7 and 12 months of age, there was no significant activation of the extracellular signal-regulated kinase pathway. MAPK kinase-4, an upstream activator of JNK, was also significantly activated at 7 and 12 months, whereas c-Jun, a downstream effector of JNK-associated apoptotic signaling, was not induced. The lack of c-Jun activation is consistent with the absence of neuronal loss in both cortex and hippocampal CA1 at 12 months. The JNK activation was localized to amyloid deposits, within neurites containing phosphorylated tau. Synaptophysin was quantified biochemically as a measure of synaptic integrity and was significantly reduced in an age-dependent manner in the Tg2576/PS1P264L cortex but not in either PS1P264L or Tg2576 cortex. Stress-responsive MAP kinase pathways were activated in the brain of the Tg2576/PS1P264L AD model, and this activation was coincident with the age-dependent increase in amyloid deposition, tau phosphorylation, and loss of synaptophysin.
Improved optimal shared memory simulations, and the power of reconsideration

We present time-processor optimal randomized algorithms for simulating a shared memory machine (EREW PRAM) on, a distributed memory machine (DMM). The first algorithm simulates each step of an n-processor EREW PRAM on an n-processor DMM with O(log log n/log log log n) delay with high probability. This simulation is work optimal and can be made time-processor optimal. The best previous optimal simulations require O(log log n) delay. We also study reconfigurable DMMs which are a "complete network version" of the well studied reconfigurable meshes. We show an algorithm that simulates each step of an n-processor EREW PRAM DMM an n-processor reconfigurable DMM with only O(log* n) delay with high probability. We further show how to make this simulation time-processor optimal. <<ETX>>
On Approximate Reasoning Capabilities of Low-Rank Vector Spaces

In relational databases, relations between objects, represented by binary matrices or tensors, may be arbitrarily complex. In practice however, there are recurring relational patterns such as transitive, permutation, and sequential relationships, that have a regular structure which is not captured by the classical notion of matrix rank or tensor rank. In this paper, we show that factorizing the relational tensor using a logistic or hinge loss instead of the more standard squared loss is more appropriate because it can accurately model many common relations with a fixed-size embedding (depends sub-linearly on the number of entities in the knowledge base). We illustrate this fact empirically by being able to efficiently predict missing links in several synthetic and real-world experiments. Further, we provide theoretical justification for logistic loss by studying its connection to a complexity measure from the field of information complexity called sign rank. Sign rank is a more appropriate complexity measure as it is low for transitive, permutation, or sequential relationships, while being suitably large, with a high probability, for uniformly sampled binary matrices/tensors.
Prospective evaluation of methylated SEPT9 in plasma for detection of asymptomatic colorectal cancer

Background As screening methods for colorectal cancer (CRC) are limited by uptake and adherence, further options are sought. A blood test might increase both, but none has yet been tested in a screening setting. Objective We prospectively assessed the accuracy of circulating methylated SEPT9 DNA (mSEPT9) for detecting CRC in a screening population. Design Asymptomatic individuals ≥50 years old scheduled for screening colonoscopy at 32 US and German clinics voluntarily gave blood plasma samples before colon preparation. Using a commercially available assay, three independent blinded laboratories assayed plasma DNA of all CRC cases and a stratified random sample of other subjects in duplicate real time PCRs. The primary outcomes measures were standardised for overall sensitivity and specificity estimates. Results 7941 men (45%) and women (55%), mean age 60 years, enrolled. Results from 53 CRC cases and from 1457 subjects without CRC yielded a standardised sensitivity of 48.2% (95% CI 32.4% to 63.6%; crude rate 50.9%); for CRC stages I–IV, values were 35.0%, 63.0%, 46.0% and 77.4%, respectively. Specificity was 91.5% (95% CI 89.7% to 93.1%; crude rate 91.4%). Sensitivity for advanced adenomas was low (11.2%). Conclusions Our study using the blood based mSEPT9 test showed that CRC signal in blood can be detected in asymptomatic average risk individuals undergoing screening. However, the utility of the test for population screening for CRC will require improved sensitivity for detection of early cancers and advanced adenomas. Clinical Trial Registration Number: NCT00855348
Observability analysis and optimal information gathering of mobile robot navigation system

Observability and motion planning based on optimal information gathering of mobile robot navigation system is considered in this paper. In order to obtain the minimum standard of observable for the bearing-only mobile robot navigation system, the observability is analyzed in this paper. It is known that the observability analysis can only be used to illustrate the observable condition of mobile robot localization system. However it cannot be used to illustrate which observation is the best for observability. As a result, entropy based optimal information gathering method is introduced in this paper and is used to evaluate the effectiveness and difference of the different observations. Simulation results are presented to verify the effectiveness of the proposed optimal information gathering method.
New opportunity in ITS - transportation systems with wireless power transfer technology

In this industry application paper, we present the wireless power electric vehicle called On-Line Electric Vehicle (OLEV) developed at Korea Advanced Institute of Technology (KAIST). With the advanced wireless power transfer technology, the battery in the vehicle is charged remotely from the power transmitters embedded in the road. This road-way charging capability enables the vehicle to be charged while they are in motion and therefore the vehicle does not need to make frequent stops to charge the battery. In this paper, the wireless power transfer technology applied to the OLEV system is described. Also, the recent advances of the OLEV technology and commercialization processes are presented. Then the economical design method of the mass transportation system based on the OLEV technology is discussed. There is strong potential for further development of the OLEV system if the system effectively utilizes advanced information systems and real-time traffic data. This industry application oriented paper provides researchers and engineers with an opportunity to learn about the emerging transportation system, which could be further progressed with various methods developed in ITS.