Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of Adjuvant Mental Practice on Affected Upper Limb Function Following a Stroke: Results of Three-Dimensional Motion Analysis, Fugl-Meyer Assessment of the Upper Extremity and Motor Activity Logs

Objective To investigate the effects of adjuvant mental practice (MP) on affected upper limb function following a stroke using three-dimensional (3D) motion analysis. Methods In this AB/BA crossover study, we studied 10 hemiplegic patients who had a stroke within the past 6 months. The patients were randomly allocated to two groups: one group received MP combined with conventional rehabilitation therapy for the first 3 weeks followed by conventional rehabilitation therapy alone for the final 3 weeks; the other group received the same therapy but in reverse order. The MP tasks included drinking from a cup and opening a door. MP was individually administered for 20 minutes, 3 days a week for 3 weeks. To assess the tasks, we used 3D motion analysis and three additional tests: the Fugl-Meyer Assessment of the upper extremity (FMA-UE) and the motor activity logs for amount of use (MAL-AOU) and quality of movement (MAL-QOM). Assessments were performed immediately before treatment (T0), 3 weeks into treatment (T1), and 6 weeks into treatment (T2). Results Based on the results of the 3D motion analysis and the FMA-UE index (p=0.106), the MAL-AOU scale (p=0.092), and MAL-QOM scale (p=0.273), adjuvant MP did not result in significant improvements. Conclusion Adjuvant MP had no significant effect on upper limb function following a stroke, according to 3D motion analysis and three clinical assessment tools (the FMA-UE index and the two MAL scales). The importance of this study is its use of objective 3D motion analysis to evaluate the effects of MP. Further studies will be needed to validate these findings.
Supplemental Information Cordon-Bleu Uses WH 2 Domains as Multifunctional Dynamizers of Actin Filament Assembly

Expression and purification of Cobl fragments. The different constructs of Cobl were amplified from the human Cobl cDNA clone (KIAA0633) by polymerase chain reaction and inserted in an expression vector using BamHI and XhoI restriction sites. ), were cloned in a modified pGEX-6P1 expression vector containing a C-terminal Histine tag. All the constructs were active and soluble following cleavage of the GST fusion. The folding and solubility of Cobl-ABC and Cobl-K-ABC constructs were facilitated by replacing the glutathione S-transferase (GST) by thioredoxine (TRX) fusion and the Histidine tag by a Streptag II. A N-terminal Histidine tag was added upstream the thioredoxine fusion to facilitate the purification. All experiments on Cobl-ABC and Cob-K-ABC were obtained with the TRX fusion since these constructs were insoluble following TRX cleavage. All generated constructs were confirmed by DNA sequencing. Cobl-AB, Cobl-K-AB, Cobl-A, Cobl-K-A and Cobl-B were expressed in Escherichia coli Artic (DE3) RP (Stratagene), in TB media. Protein expression was induced with 0.8 mM IPTG at 12°C overnight. Bacteria were lysed by sonication in lysis buffer consisting of PBS supplemented with 1 M NaCl, 1 mM DTT, 1 % sucrose, 15 mM imidazole, 0.5 mM EDTA, 1 % triton X-100, 0.5 mM PMSF, protease inhibitors (Roche). The cell lysates were ultracentrifuged at 150,000 g for 50 min. The supernatant was bound on HisTrap FF crude column (GE Healthcare). Following extensive washing with lysis buffer without EDTA, triton and protease inhibitors, then with additional 40mM imidazole, Cobl proteins were eluted with 300mM imidazole in column buffer. Pooled protein fractions were desalted on HiPrep 26/10 column (GE Healthcare) with prescission buffer (20 mM Tris, pH 7.5, 200 mM NaCl, 1 mM DTT, 1 % sucrose, 1 mM EDTA). GST cleavage was performed using Prescission Protease (5 U/mg fusion protein) at 4°C for 18 hours. The digested protein Cobl-A, Cobl-K-A and Cobl-B were ultracentrifuged at 400,000 g for 15 min and isolated in pure form by size exclusion chromatography (Superdex 75-16/60 (GE Healthcare) in Cobl buffer (20 mM Tris, pH=7.5, 150 mM KCl, 1% sucrose, 1 mM DTT). The digested and centrifuged Cobl-AB and Cobl-K-AB were firstly diluted with prescission buffer without salt to reach 50 mM NaCl concentration and purified on MonoS using a NaCl gradient. Final purification was achieved by size exclusion chromatography on Superdex 200 as above. Cobl-ABC and Cobl-K-ABC were expressed in Escherichia coli Rosetta (DE3) (Novagen), in TB media. Protein expression were induced with …
Capability to Paint and Alzheimer ’ s Disease : Relationship to Disease Stages and Instructions

Although quite many qualitative studies on painting in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) have been conducted, there is a lack of quantitative studies, examining the ability to paint in people with AD in relation to disease stages, and to what extent instructions are associated with actual performance. The present study aimed at investigating the capability to paint among nonartist AD participants (N = 17) in an instructed painting condition versus a noninstructed painting condition. Differences in time spent and area of canvas used in the two painting conditions were assessed and related to scores on the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) and the Clock Test. Number of colors used and color preferences were also assessed. A withinsubjects experimental design was used. Analyses revealed a statistically significant difference between time and area used in the two painting conditions, where both time and area were used more in the noninstructed condition. MMSE scores and scores on the Clock Test correlated significantly with time spent in both conditions. Higher scores predicted longer painting sessions. Mean number of colors used was 5. Color preferences were bright colors in general and green in particular. Possible artistic development was noted. The overall conclusion is that people with AD have a preserved capability to paint, with and without instructions, even those in the later stages of the disease. The results also indicate that an artistic development is possible and that painting can be used as an appreciated and beneficial activity for people with AD.
Identfying Pure-Income Effects in an Empirical Model of Labour Supply: the case of the South African Social Pension

This paper investigates the income effects of the South African Social Pension. Using data from three waves of the the Labour Force Survey, we find that there appears to be a significant negative association between labour supply and pension receipt. However, we find little evidence to support the view that these results can be interpreted as pure income effects. Rather, the evidence suggests that the association is driven by age-cohort effects, which we argue reflects the burden of living with the elderly. We also report preliminary evidence which is suggestive of endogenous household formation in response to eligibility for the social pension.
Electrical resonance of isolated hair cells does not account for acoustic tuning in the free-standing region of the alligator lizard's cochlea

The cochlea of the alligator lizard is divided into two morphologically and physiologically distinct regions. In the “tectorial region,” hair bundles of hair cells are draped by a tectorial membrane, whereas in the “free-standing region,” hair bundles are said to be free-standing because there are no overlying tectorial structures. The acoustic tuning of the free-standing region depends at least in part on mechanical resonances of the hair bundles. In the turtle cochlea, in contrast, acoustic tuning depends in large part upon the electrical properties of the hair cells. We have investigated the electrical properties of hair cells isolated from the free-standing region of the alligator lizard's cochlea. When injected with steps of depolarizing current, these “free-standing hair cells” exhibited electrical resonances that were comparable in frequency and quality to electrical resonances in cochlear hair cells from turtles, chicks, and alligators, and in saccular hair cells from frogs and fish. In the lizard's free- standing hair cells, however, the electrical resonance frequencies (< 300 Hz) were a decade below the cells' acoustic characteristic frequencies (between 1 and 4 kHz), showing that the electrical resonance is not likely to contribute to acoustic tuning. The electrical resonances were not apparent at rest. The cells' resting potentials were significantly more negative than the activation voltage (approximately -40 mV) of the Ca(2+)-dependent K+ current upon which the electrical resonance has been shown to depend in other hair cells. At potentials more negative than -50 mV, an inwardly rectifying K+ conductance dominated. Because we observed no electrical tuning above 300 Hz, our results indirectly support a mechanical origin for acoustic tuning in the free-standing region of the alligator lizard cochlea. These results further show that acoustic tuning cannot be inferred solely from the electrical resonances of isolated hair cells.
Analysis and Design of Efficient and Flexible Fast-Convolution Based Multirate Filter Banks

In this paper, we investigate fast-convolution based highly tunable multirate filter bank (FB) configurations. Based on FFT-IFFT pair with overlapped processing, they offer a way to tune the filters' frequency-domain characteristics in a straightforward way. Different subbands are easily configurable for different bandwidths, center frequencies, and output sampling rates, including also partial or full-band nearly perfect-reconstruction systems. Such FBs find various applications, for example, as flexible multichannel channelization filters for software defined radios. They have also the capability to implement simultaneous waveform processing for multiple single-carrier and/or multicarrier transmission channels with nonuniform bandwidths and subchannel spacings. This paper develops an effective model for frequency response analysis and optimization for such filter banks, explores various practical issues of fast-convolution processing and reports the optimized frequency response characteristics versus direct raised cosine based designs. The fast-convolution approach is shown to be a competitive basis for filter bank based multicarrier waveform processing in terms of spectral containment and complexity.
The Impact of Trade Liberalization on Slovenian Households ∗

This paper analyzes the potential effects Slovenia joining the European Union and the distributional impacts on its households. We construct a static Applied General Equilibrium Model and perform a numerical experiment that consists on eliminating all import tariffs that Slovenia imposes on European Union. To calibrate our models, we work with Input-Output tables and construct a Social Accounting Matrix for each country. For household groups, we use Slovenia Household Survey 2004 to disaggregate into nine household groups differentiated by income, age, and skill intensity. We perform additional numerical experiments, such as proposing a free trade agreement framework for Slovenia and an alternative fiscal arrangement of distributing tariff revenues. We find that while trade liberalization reforms lead to falling prices in the import sector, rising production in the export sector, and improvement in welfare, the distributional impacts on household groups vary in its degree. JEL classification: D58, F14, F15.
Homogeneous coordinate rings and mirror symmetry for toric varieties

Given a smooth toric variety X and an ample line bundle O(1), we construct a sequence of Lagrangian submanifolds of (C^*)^n with boundary on a level set of the Landau-Ginzburg mirror of X. The corresponding Floer homology groups form a graded algebra under the cup product which is canonically isomorphic to the homogeneous coordinate ring of X.
Social Network Characteristics and Psychological Well-Being: A Replication and Extension

This article represents a replication and extension of a previous study by Israel and her colleagues that investigated the relationship between psychological well-being and social network characteristics. The present research included both a comparable sample of white women (N=104) between the ages of 60 and 68 (as in the original study), and a more extensive adult population of men and women (N=718) between the ages of 50 and 95. The network characteristics examined are categorized along three broad dimensions: Structure—linkages in the overall network (size and density); interaction-nature of the linkages themselves (frequency, geographic dispersion, and reciprocity); and functions that networks provide (affective support and instrumental support). The results indicate a predominance of comparable findings for both the replication and extension studies. Of the eight network characteristics examined, the results of five of the regression analyses were the same across all three studies. The network characteristics of size, density, geographic dispersion, reciprocal instrumental support, and instrumental support did not make a significant contribution to the variance in psychological well-being. Of the other three network characteristics, the effect of frequency of interaction varied across the studies, and a pattern of significant results was found for affective support and reciprocal affective support. A discussion of this evidence in light of current literature and implications for practice and research is included.
Discrete Cosserat Approach for Multisection Soft Manipulator Dynamics

Nowadays, the most adopted model for the design and control of soft robots is the piecewise constant curvature model, with its consolidated benefits and drawbacks. In this work, an alternative model for multisection soft manipulator dynamics is presented based on a discrete Cosserat approach, in which the continuous Cosserat model is discretized by assuming a piecewise constant strain along the soft arm. As a consequence, the soft manipulator state is described by a finite set of constant strains. This approach has several advantages with respect to the existing models. First, it takes into account shear and torsional deformations, which are both essential to cope with out-of-plane external loads. Furthermore, it inherits desirable geometrical and mechanical properties of the continuous Cosserat model, such as intrinsic parameterization and greater generality. Finally, this approach allows to extend to soft manipulators, the recursive composite-rigid-body and articulated-body algorithms, whose performances are compared through a cantilever beam simulation. The soundness of the model is demonstrated through extensive simulation and experimental results.
Dust-to-gas ratios in the Kepler supernova remnant

A new method to evaluate the dust-to-gas ratios in the Kepler SNR is presented. Dust emission in the infrared and bremsstrahlung are calculated consistently, considering that dust grains are collisionally heated by the gas throughout the front and downstream of both the expanding and the reverse shocks. The calculated continuum SED is constrained by the observational data. The dust-to-gas ratios are determined by the ratio of the dust emission bump and bremsstrahlung in the infrared. The shell-like morphological similarity of X-ray and radio emission, and of images in H α and in infrared wavelengths confirms that both radio and X-ray emissions are created at the front of the expanding shock and that dust and gas are coupled crossing the expanding and reverse shock fronts. The results show that large grains with radius of ~1 μ m with dust-to-gas ratios -3 survive sputtering and are heated to a maximum temperature of 125 K downstream of the shock expanding outwards with a velocity of about 1000 $\rm km\,s^{-1}$. The high velocity shocks become radiative for dust-to-gas ratios >10 -3 . Such shocks do not appear in the NE region, indicating that dust grains are not homogeneously distributed throughout the remnant. Smaller grains with radius of about 0.2 μ m and dust-to-gas ratios of ~4 $\times$ 10 -4 are heated to a maximum temperature of ~50 K downstream of the reverse shock corresponding to velocities of about 50 $\rm km\,s^{-1}$. A maximum dust mass <0.16 $M_{\odot}$ is calculated.
CARE - A Constraint-Based Approach for Re-Establishing Conformance-Relationships

In Model-Driven Engineering, models have to conform to their associated linguistic and ontological metamodels. While linguistic metamodels are usually not subject to frequent changes, ontological metamodels are. Thus, ontological conformance may be easily corrupted by changes on the metamodel or by the incautious modification of models. Current approaches for re-establishing conformance relationships are often (i) deeply woven into specific tools to record changes and to derive resolutions, or (ii) require extensive user effort to guide the resolution process, and (iii) the output of these approaches usually is one single solution, whereas alternative solutions remain unexplored. To allow for exploring a broader solution space independent of specific tools and to avoid extensive user involvement by utilizing predefined repair actions, we propose a logic programming approach called CARE, for accomplishing multiple solutions. In particular, CARE is based on a formalization of the ontological conformance relationship as constraints, accompanying repair actions for counter-acting constraint violations, as well as quality criteria for ranking the solutions. This paper reports on the realization of CARE based on Answer Set Programming and summarizes lessons learned from applying the approach in several experiments.
Good Governance: developing effective board-management relations in public and voluntary organizations

The research suggests that boards do make a number of important contributions to the organisations they serve. The nature of these contributions caries and is influenced by a variety of factors: for example the way the organisation is regulated; the history and culture of the organisation; the way board members are chosen; board member's skills and experience; the relationship with senior managers; and the way the governance function is managed.
Code Defenders: A Mutation Testing Game

Mutation testing is endorsed by software testing researchers for its unique capability of providing pragmatic estimates of a test suite's fault detection capability, and for guiding testers in improving their test suites. In practice, however, wide-spread adoption of mutation testing is hampered because any non-trivial program results in huge numbers of mutants, many of which are either trivial or equivalent, and thus useless. Trivial mutants reduce the motivation of developers in trusting and using the technique, while equivalent mutants are frustratingly difficult to handle. These problems are exacerbated by insufficient education on testing, which often means that mutation testing is not well understood in practice. These are examples of the types of problems that gamification aims to overcome by making such tedious activities competitive and entertaining. In this paper, we introduce the first steps towards building Code Defenders, a mutation testing game where players take the role of an attacker, who aims to create the most subtle non-equivalent mutants, or a defender, who aims to create strong tests to kill these mutants. The benefits of such an approach are manifold: The game can serve an educational role by engaging learners in mutation testing activities in a fun way. Experienced players will produce strong test suites, capable of detecting even the most subtle bugs that other players can conceive. Equivalent mutants are handled by making them a special part of the gameplay, where points are at stake in duels between attackers and defenders.
LLBT: an LLVM-based static binary translator

Lack of applications has always been a serious concern for designing machines with a new but incompatible ISA. To address this concern, binary translation is one common technique to migrate applications from one legacy ISA to new ones. In the past, dynamic binary translation (DBT) has been more widely adopted for migrating applications since it avoids some challenging problems for binary translation such as code discovery for variable length ISA and code location issues for handling indirect branches. Static binary translation (SBT) is usually regarded as a less general solution and has not been actively researched on. However, SBT has advantages of performing more aggressive optimizations, which could yield more compact code and greater code quality. In general, SBT translated applications are likely to consume less memory, processor cycles and power, and can be started more quickly. All the above advantages are more critical for embedded systems than for general systems. Therefore, we believe that even though SBT is not as general as DBT, it has a unique role to play for migrating applications in embedded systems. In this paper, we designed and implemented a new portable SBT tool, called LLBT, which translates source binary into LLVM IR and then retargets the LLVM IR to various ISAs by using the LLVM compiler infrastructure. Using the LLVM compiler infrastructure, LLBT successfully leverages two important functionalities from LLVM: the comprehensive optimizations and the retargetability. For example, most DBTs map guest architecture states into the host registers to minimize accessing guest architecture states with memory operations, but must deal with guest architecture state saving/reloading at trace/block entry/exit points. LLBT can treat the complete application binary as a single function and uses the global register allocation optimization in LLVM to consistently map guest architecture states in host registers so as to avoid the costly state saving and reloading at trace/block exits. In this paper, we have shown our ARM-based LLBT can effectively migrate EEMBC benchmark Suite from ARMv5 to Intel IA32, Intel x64, MIPS, and other ARMs such as ARMv7. On the Intel i7 based host systems, the LLBT generated code can run 3 to 64 times faster than emulating with QEMU, which uses the DBT technique.
Calibrating Volatility Surfaces Via Relative-Entropy Minimization

A framework for calibrating a pricing model to a prescribed set of options prices quoted in the market is presented. Our algorithm yields an arbitrage-free diffusion process that minimizes the Kullback-Leibler relative entropy distance to a prior diffusion. It consists in solving a constrained (minimax) optimal control problem using a finite-difference scheme for a Bellman parabolic equation combined with a gradient-based optimization routine. The number of unknowns to be solved for in the optimization step is equal to the number of option prices that need to be calibrated, and is independent of the mesh-size used for the scheme. This results in an efficient, non-parametric calibration method that can match an arbitrary number of option prices to any desired degree of accuracy. The algorithm can be used to interpolate, both in strike and expiration date, between implied volatilities of traded options and to price exotics. The stability and qualitative properties of the computed volatility surface are discussed, including the effect of the Bayesian prior on the shape of the surface and on the implied volatility smile/skew. The method is illustrated by calibrating to market prices of Dollar-Deutschmark over-the-counter options and computing interpolated implied-volatility curves.