Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of Progressive Body Weight Support Treadmill Forward and Backward Walking Training on Stroke Patients’ Affected Side Lower Extremity’s Walking Ability

[Purpose] The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of progressive body weight supported treadmill forward and backward walking training (PBWSTFBWT), progressive body weight supported treadmill forward walking training (PBWSTFWT), progressive body weight supported treadmill backward walking training (PBWSTBWT), on stroke patients’ affected side lower extremity’s walking ability. [Subjects and Methods] A total of 36 chronic stroke patients were divided into three groups with 12 subjects in each group. Each of the groups performed one of the progressive body weight supported treadmill training methods for 30 minute, six times per week for three weeks, and then received general physical therapy without any other intervention until the follow-up tests. For the assessment of the affected side lower extremity’s walking ability, step length of the affected side, stance phase of the affected side, swing phase of the affected side, single support of the affected side, and step time of the affected side were measured using optogait and the symmetry index. [Results] In the within group comparisons, all the three groups showed significant differences between before and after the intervention and in the comparison of the three groups, the PBWSTFBWT group showed more significant differences in all of the assessed items than the other two groups. [Conclusion] In the present study progressive body weight supported treadmill training was performed in an environment in which the subjects were actually walked, and PBWSTFBWT was more effective at efficiently training stroke patients’ affected side lower extremity’s walking ability.
Autonomous Science during Kilometer-Scale Robotic Survey

In general today’s planetary exploration robots do not travel beyond the previous day’s imagery. However, advances in autonomous mobility will soon permit single-command site surveys of multiple kilometers. Robots will allocate time and energy resources to characterize large areas from scientific observations. They must navigate and collect data autonomously since scientists cannot see the explored terrain in advance. Advances in pattern recognition, learning and planning can improve these site surveys through onboard science data understanding. We report on field experiments near Amboy Crater, California that demonstrate fundamental capabilities for autonomous surficial mapping of geologic phenomena with a visible near-infrareed spectrometer. We develop an approach to “science on the fly” that dynamically adapts the robot’s exploration decisions based on collected science data. We demonstrate feature detection and visual servoing to permit autonomous data collection from dozens of targets without human intervention. The rover can interpret collected measurements by learning onboard spatial models of science phenomena that guide it toward informative areas. It discovers spatial structure (similarities from one locale to the next) and cross-sensor structure (correlations between different sensing scales). The rover reinterprets remote sensing data in light of the surface materials it discovers on the site and leverages the result to improve exploration efficiency. The Amboy experiments demonstrate that onboard data understanding can facilitate remote site survey on kilometer scales.
The affective life of austerity: uncanny atmospheres and paranoid temporalities

ABSTRACT This paper moves beyond conceptualisations of austerity as a fiscal policy towards understanding austerity as lived and felt in everyday life, with a particular focus on its affective life. Through an ethnographic focus on public libraries, this paper argues that austerity can take the form of an affective atmosphere. Bringing together psychoanalytic and Spinozist-Deleuzian accounts of affect this paper explores austerity as an uncanny atmosphere, in which austerity is lived through a series of unknowns that re-emerge throughout the library space. Paranoia subsequently emerges as a way in which to live with uncanny austerity – to make known the unknowns generated by austerity. This paranoia cannot be attributed to ‘paranoid individuals’, but to practices that become paranoid due to the blurring of reality and fiction that uncanny austerity generates. As austerity continues year after year, the uncertainties that emerge as a result of continual budget reductions are at the same time felt as something already known. In other words, there is a felt sense that austerity will inevitably lead to the contraction of the library service. Lived austerity, therefore, now carries such weight and has a particular depth of experience due to the innumerable previous years of, and encounters with, austerity.
Serial PIB and MRI in normal, mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease: implications for sequence of pathological events in Alzheimer's disease

The purpose of this study was to use serial imaging to gain insight into the sequence of pathologic events in Alzheimer's disease, and the clinical features associated with this sequence. We measured change in amyloid deposition over time using serial 11C Pittsburgh compound B (PIB) positron emission tomography and progression of neurodegeneration using serial structural magnetic resonance imaging. We studied 21 healthy cognitively normal subjects, 32 with amnestic mild cognitive impairment and 8 with Alzheimer's disease. Subjects were drawn from two sources—ongoing longitudinal registries at Mayo Clinic, and the Alzheimer's disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI). All subjects underwent clinical assessments, MRI and PIB studies at two time points, approximately one year apart. PIB retention was quantified in global cortical to cerebellar ratio units and brain atrophy in units of cm3 by measuring ventricular expansion. The annual change in global PIB retention did not differ by clinical group (P = 0.90), and although small (median 0.042 ratio units/year overall) was greater than zero among all subjects (P < 0.001). Ventricular expansion rates differed by clinical group (P < 0.001) and increased in the following order: cognitively normal (1.3 cm3/year) < amnestic mild cognitive impairment (2.5 cm3/year) < Alzheimer's disease (7.7 cm3/year). Among all subjects there was no correlation between PIB change and concurrent change on CDR-SB (r = −0.01, P = 0.97) but some evidence of a weak correlation with MMSE (r =−0.22, P = 0.09). In contrast, greater rates of ventricular expansion were clearly correlated with worsening concurrent change on CDR-SB (r = 0.42, P < 0.01) and MMSE (r =−0.52, P < 0.01). Our data are consistent with a model of typical late onset Alzheimer's disease that has two main features: (i) dissociation between the rate of amyloid deposition and the rate of neurodegeneration late in life, with amyloid deposition proceeding at a constant slow rate while neurodegeneration accelerates and (ii) clinical symptoms are coupled to neurodegeneration not amyloid deposition. Significant plaque deposition occurs prior to clinical decline. The presence of brain amyloidosis alone is not sufficient to produce cognitive decline, rather, the neurodegenerative component of Alzheimer's disease pathology is the direct substrate of cognitive impairment and the rate of cognitive decline is driven by the rate of neurodegeneration. Neurodegeneration (atrophy on MRI) both precedes and parallels cognitive decline. This model implies a complimentary role for MRI and PIB imaging in Alzheimer's disease, with each reflecting one of the major pathologies, amyloid dysmetabolism and neurodegeneration.
MUC5AC Upstream Complex Repetitive Region Length Polymorphisms Are Associated with Susceptibility and Clinical Stage of Gastric Cancer

MUC5AC was deemed to be involved in gastric carcinogenesis since aberrant MUC5AC expression has been repeatedly detected in patients with gastric cancer (GC). In this study, length polymorphisms in a complicated repetitive region adjacent to MUC5AC promoter were assessed in 230 patients with GC and 328 cancer-free controls. Alleles of 1.4 and 1.8 kb were significantly more prevalent in GC group than in controls. In contrast, 2.3 and 2.8 kb alleles occurred at significantly lower frequencies in patients than in controls. Alleles were then classified into susceptible (S; 1.4 and 1.8 kb), protective (P; 2.3 and 2.8 kb) and null (N; all other alleles) categories with respect to their linkage with the susceptibility to GC. Individuals with genotype SS had a 2.7-fold increased risk of GC occurrence, but PN genotype was associated with a significantly reduced risk of this cancer. Moreover, homozygous or heterozygous individuals with one or two copies of 1.4 kb allele showed an earlier age of onset and more advanced metastasis stage compared with patients without this allele (Bonferroni corrected p = 1.35×10−4 and 6.60×10−4 accordingly), whereas homozygous patients with two copies of 1.8 kb allele were linked to less advanced GC TNM stage. Our results suggest that certain genetic variations in MUC5AC upstream repetitive region are associated with the susceptibility and progression of GC.
Special Purpose Vehicles and Securitization

This paper analyzes securitization and more generally "special purpose vehicles" (SPVs), which are now pervasive in corporate finance. The first part of the paper provides an overview of the institutional features of SPVs and securitization. The second part provides a model to analyze the motivations for using SPVs and the conditions under which SPVs are sustainable. We argue that a key source of value to using SPVs is that they help reduce bankruptcy costs. Off-balance sheet financing involves transferring assets to SPVs, which reduces the amount of assets that are subject to bankruptcy costs, since SPVs are carefully designed to avoid bankruptcy. Off-balance sheet financing is most advantageous for sponsoring firms that are risky or face large bankruptcy costs. SPVs become sustainable in a repeated SPV game, because firms can implicitly "commit" to subsidize or "bail out" their SPVs when the SPV would otherwise not honor its debt commitments, despite legal and accounting restrictions to the contrary. The third part of the paper tests two key implications of the model using unique data on credit card securitizations. First, riskier firms should securitize more, ceteris paribus. Second, since investors know that SPV sponsors can bail out their SPVs if there is a need, in pricing the debt of the SPV investors will care about the risk of the sponsor defaulting, above and beyond the risk of the SPVs assets. We find evidence consistent with these implications.
Genetic diversity analysis in disjunct populations of Rhododendron arboreum from the temperate and tropical forests of Indian subcontinent corroborate Satpura hypothesis of species migration

Rhododendron arboreum of the family Ericaceae represents one of the ancient relict tree species of the genus showing extreme disjunction in the Indian subcontinent. It is represented by two sub-species viz., ssp. arboreum Smith in the forests of north-eastern India (temperate) and spp. nilagiricum (Zenker) Tagg distributed in the southern Western Ghats (tropical) of India with apparently no distribution in the intervening plains. 35 Samples corresponding to different locations in the tropical montane forests of Nilgiris and temperate forests of northeast India were analyzed for distribution of genetic variation using 25 random primers. Relatively high genetic diversity was measured in the temperate populations (Ht = 0.21; Nm = 1.13) than tropical Rhododendrons. The hierarchical analysis of molecular variance showed that among the total variance, 25% is residing within populations while 63% of variance is among regions apparently revealing that disjunct distribution has structured genetic differentiation pattern in this species. Grouping of samples was in conformity with their spatial distribution, which was confirmed by UPGMA cluster analysis and PCA scatter plot. The taxon with its unique distribution pattern and wide cross compatibility between sub-species is however threatened by low genetic variation and gene flow that catalyses it’s shifting towards genetic drift and hence long-term conservation strategies need to be formulated particularly for the tropical Rhododendron sub-species. Among the various hypotheses and theory proposed to explain the Malayan affinity in the flora and fauna of Western Ghats, Satpura hypothesis based on dispersal model of distribution largely explains the discontinues distribution of R. arboreum.
Cost-Effective Scalable and Anonymous Certificateless Remote Authentication Protocol

Existing anonymous remote authentication protocols to secure wireless body area networks (WBANs) raise challenges such as eliminating the need for distributing clients' account information to the application providers and achieving forward security. This paper efficiently addresses these challenges by devising a scalable certificateless remote authentication protocol with anonymity and forward security for WBANs. Different from the previous protocols in this field, our protocol not only provides mutual authentication, session key establishment, anonymity, unlinkability, and nonrepudiation, but also achieves forward security, key escrow resilience, and scalability. Performance evaluation demonstrates that compared with the most efficient ID-based remote anonymous authentication protocol, our protocol reduces at least 52.6% and 17.6% of the overall running time and communication overhead, respectively, and the reduction in the computation cost and communication overhead achieves at least 73.8% and 55.8%, respectively, compared with up-to-date certificateless remote authentication protocol with anonymity.
Teaching and Learning Sociolinguistic Competence: Teachers' Critical Perceptions

Sociolinguistic competence has been an integral part of communicative competence in that it includes learning pragmatic and sociolinguistic knowledge about how to use language linguistically and socially appropriately. However, a number of studies highlight the lack of such communicative skills among EFL learners regardless of their proficiency level of linguistic knowledge. More specially, learners may not be able to develop socio-pragmatic knowledge of language as much as grammatical knowledge of the language being learnt. Informed by this critical inconsistency and learning challenge, this study reports the perceptions of English teachers about the development of sociolinguistic competence in language classrooms. The purpose is to explore their perceptions about learners’ as well as the non-native EFL teachers’ knowledge of sociolinguistic competence along with any difficulty they may face with the integration of this particular competence in their classroom practice. Both native (n=35) and non-native (n=35) English teachers were administered a questionnaire and were asked to submit written reports revealing their perceptions underpinning the knowledge and practice of sociolinguistic competence as part of communicative competence. The results revealed that the development of sociolinguistic rules can guide learners in the choice of appropriate forms which should be closely integrated in language teaching and learning curricula
Toward probabilistic natural logic for syllogistic reasoning

Natural language contains an abundance of reasoning patterns. Historically, there have been many attempts to capture their rational usage in normative systems of logical rules. However, empirical studies have repeatedly shown that human inference differs from what is characterized by logical validity. In order to better characterize the patterns of human reasoning, psychologists have proposed a number of theories of reasoning. In this paper, we combine logical and psychological perspectives on human reasoning. We develop a framework integrating Natural Logic and Mental Logic traditions. We model inference as a stochastic process where the reasoner arrives at a conclusion following a sequence of applications of inference steps (both logical rules and heuristic guesses). We estimate our model (i.e. assign weights to all possible inference rules) on a dataset of human syllogistic inference while treating the derivations as latent variables in our model. The computational model is accurate in predicting human conclusions on unseen test data (95% correct predictions) and outperforms other previous theories. We further discuss the psychological plausibility of the model and the possibilities of extending the model to cover larger fragments of natural language.
Adherence to Tuberculosis Treatment, Sputum Smear Conversion and Mortality: A Retrospective Cohort Study in 48 Rwandan Clinics

Background Adherence to treatment and sputum smear conversion after 2 months of treatment are thought to be important for successful outcome of tuberculosis (TB) treatment. Methods Retrospective cohort study of new adult TB patients diagnosed in the first quarter of 2007 at 48 clinics in Rwanda. Data were abstracted from TB registers and individual treatment charts. Logistic regression analysis was done to examine associations between baseline demographic and clinical factors and three outcomes adherence, sputum smear conversion at two months, and death. Results Out of 725 eligible patients the treatment chart was retrieved for 581 (80%). Fifty-six (10%) of these patients took <90% of doses (defined as poor adherence). Baseline demographic characteristics were not associated with adherence to TB treatment, but adherence was lower among HIV patients not taking antiretroviral therapy (ART); p = 0.03). Sputum smear results around 2 months after start of treatment were available for 220 of 311 initially sputum-smear-positive pulmonary TB (PTB+) patients (71%); 175 (80%) had achieved sputum smear conversion. In multivariable analysis, baseline sputum smear grade (odds ratio [OR] = 2.7, 95% Confidence interval [CI] 1.1–6.6 comparing smear 3+ against 1+) and HIV infection (OR 3.0, 95%CI 1.3–6.7) were independent predictors for non-conversion at 2 months. Sixty-nine of 574 patients (12%) with known TB treatment outcomes had died. Besides other known determinants, poor adherence had an independent, strong effect on mortality (OR 3.4, 95%CI 1.4–7.8). Conclusion HIV infection is an important independent predictor of failure of sputum smear conversion at 2 months among PTB+ patients. Poor adherence to TB treatment is an important independent determinant of mortality.
Recursive Wiener filter for motion parameter estimation in three-parameter motion model

Motion compensation is used to reduce the displaced frame difference (DFD) during video coding. To increase the accuracy of the point correspondence during the compensation, a three-parameter motion model is considered. The matching error can be significantly reduced as compared with that of the two-parameter block matching. To derive the parameters, a partial full search method is used. The full search is used when the zoom value is set at one. Otherwise, the gradient-based algorithm is used. Since the DFD is a nonlinear function of the image gradients and the motion parameters, a linearized model is considered. To eliminate the linearization error, Wiener filtering is used to smoothen the DFD to improve the convergence condition of the iterative gradient search. To make the gradient-based search more robust to the gradient variation, several gradient estimation methods are also compared.
Identification and functional clustering of global gene expression differences between human age-related cataract and clear lenses.

PURPOSE Age-related cataract is a multi-factorial disease with a poorly understood etiology. Numerous studies provide evidence that the human eye lens has evolved specific regulatory and protective systems to ameliorate lens damage associated with cataract. Other studies suggest that the presence of cataract is associated with the altered expression of specific genes including metallothionein IIa, osteonectin, transglutaminase 2, betaig-h3, multiple ribosomal proteins, ADAM9, and protein phosphatase 2A. Here, we sought to identify further gene expression changes that are associated with cataract and to cluster the identified genes into specific biological pathways. METHODS Oligonucleotide microarray hybridization was used to analyze the full complement of gene expression differences between lens epithelia isolated from human age-related cataract relative to clear lenses. The expression levels of a subset of the identified genes were further evaluated by semi-quantitative RT-PCR. The identified genes were functionally clustered into specific categories and the probability of over-representation of each category was determined using the computer program EASE. RESULTS 412 transcripts were observed to be increased and 919 transcripts were observed to be decreased by 2 fold or more in lens epithelia isolated from age-related cataract relative to clear lenses. Of these, 74 were increased and 241 were decreased at the 5 fold level or greater. Seventeen genes selected for further confirmation exhibited similar trends in expression when examined by RT-PCR using both the original and separately prepared clear and cataract RNA populations. Functional clustering of the identified genes using the EASE bioinformatics software package revealed that, among others, transcripts increased in cataract are associated with transcriptional control, chromosomal organization, ionic and cytoplasmic transport, and extracellular matrix components while transcripts decreased in cataract are associated with protein synthesis, defense against oxidative stress, heat-shock/chaperone activity, structural components of the lens, and cell cycle control. CONCLUSIONS These data suggest that cataract is associated with multiple previously identified and novel changes in lens epithelial gene expression and they point to numerous pathways likely to play important roles in lens protection, maintenance, and age-related cataract.
Escaping the Self: Identity, Group Identification and Violence

This article draws on the early work of Erich Fromm. In Escape from Freedom (1969) Fromm directly addressed the psychological mechanisms of escape modern individuals employ to protect themselves from feelings of ontological insecurity and existential estrangement. The article builds on Fromm’s analysis by discussing the significance of his escape mechanisms for understanding the dynamic psychological attractions of identifying with entitative groups. Fromm’s work will be discussed in relation to Hogg’s recent work on uncertainty-identity theory. The aim of the article is to examine the advantages of combining Fromm’s psychoanalytic analysis with Hogg’s uncertainty-identity theory and to highlight the potential this approach has for understanding why groups engage in violent and destructive behaviour.
Inserted-oxide FinFET (iFinFET) design to extend CMOS scaling

A novel stacked MOSFET structure (iFinFET) is proposed to facilitate gate-length scaling to below 10 nm while mitigating the need to form very-high-aspect-ratio (>10:1 height:width) fin structures as for a stacked nanowire gate-all-around (GAA) MOSFET structure. Due to its superior electrostatic integrity, the iFinFET provides for higher performance and is more scalable than a conventional bulk FinFET.