Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An efficient offline grouping proof protocol using multiple types of tags

An offline grouping proof shows that multiple Radio Frequency Identification tags are scanned simultaneously, regardless of a reader device's network connectivity. However, the previous offline grouping proof schemes are unsuitable for passive tags, and do not handle errors that cause performance degradation, such as transmission loss or synchronization failure of shared values between tags and a back-end database. In this paper, we propose an efficient offline grouping proof scheme using multiple types of tags. It makes use of an agent tag which does computing operations instead of the passive tags to reduce the computational cost of them, thus it eventually shortens the time for generating a grouping proof. We show that the number of modules and operations of the passive tags in our scheme are less than half of the previous schemes while it achieves the enhanced security and scalability.
Interrogating Inclusion: Critical Research with Disabled Youth who use Augmentative and Alternative Communication

This dissertation provides a critical exploration of the notion of inclusion, applied to the ‘case’ of disabled youth who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). Oriented by Bourdieu’s theory of practice, this study examined the lives and practices of youth who use AAC to better understand how they make ‘practical sense’ of inclusion and locate their place in the world. The objective was to illuminate the extent to which the constraints of social arrangements and conditions delimited the social interactions of youth who use AAC and shaped their understandings of inclusion. Using a novel critical dialogical methodology developed for the study, data were generated with 13 Canadian youth who use AAC by combining participantgenerated photographs and a graphic elicitation technique termed Belonging Circles with interviews and observations. The study results make three substantive contributions to existing research on disabled children’s lives and children’s rehabilitation. First, the participants’ narratives reflected habitus socially constituted sets of dispositions that predisposed them to accommodate the devalued social positions and constricted conditions of existence imposed on them. From the points of view made possible to them, the youths’ practices represent logical and practical strategies for claiming inclusion that, paradoxically, reproduce and resist the systems of
A Porcine Pneumothorax Model for Teaching Ultrasound Diagnostics

Objectives: Ultrasound (US) is a sensitive diagnostic tool for detecting pneumothorax (PTX), but methods are needed to optimally teach this technique outside of direct patient care. In training and research settings, porcine PTX models are sometimes used, but the description of the PTX topography in these models is lacking. The study purpose was to define the distribution of air using the reference imaging standard computed tomography (CT), to see if pleural insufflation of air into a live anaesthetized pig truly imitates a PTX in an injured patient. Methods: A unilateral catheter was inserted into one pleural cavity of each of 20 pigs, and 500 mL of air was insufflated. After a complete thoracic CT scan, the anterior, lateral, medial, basal, apical, and posterior components of the PTXs were compared. The amount of air in each location was quantified by measuring the distance from the lung edge to the chest wall (LE-CW). A supine anteroposterior chest radiograph (CXR) was taken from each model and interpreted by a senior radiologist, and the image results were compared to CT. Results: All 20 hemithoraces with PTX were correctly identified by CT, while six remained occult after interpreting the CXRs. The PTXs were anterior (100%), lateral (95%), medial (80%), basal (60%), apical (45%), and posterior (15%). The major proportion of the insufflated 500-mL volume was found in the anterior, medial, and basal recesses. Conclusions: The authors found the distribution of the intrathoracic air to be similar between a porcine model and that to be expected in human trauma patients, all having predominantly anterior PTX topographies. In a training facility, the model is easy to set up and can be scanned by the participants multiple times. To acquire the necessary skills to perform thoracic US examinations for PTX, the porcine models could be useful.
Asymptotic variation of L functions of one-variable exponential sums

Let d>2 and let p be a prime coprime to d. Let Z_pbar be the ring of integers of Q_pbar. Suppose f(x) is a degree-d polynomial over Qbar and Z_pbar. Let P be a prime ideal over p in the ring of integers of Q(f), where Q(f) is the number field generated by coefficients of f in Qbar. Let A^d be the dimension-d affine space over Qbar, identified with the space of coefficients of degree-d monic polynomials. Let NP(f mod P) denote the p-adic Newton polygon of L(f mod P;T). Let HP(A^d) denote the p-adic Hodge polygon of A^d. We prove that there is a Zariski dense open subset U defined over Q in A^d such that for every geometric point f(x) in U(Qbar) we have lim_{p-->oo} NP(f mod P) = HP(A^d), where P is any prime ideal in the ring of integers of Q(f) lying over p. This proves a conjecture of Daqing Wan.
Obstructive lung disease among the urban homeless.

STUDY OBJECTIVES Homelessness is a growing problem in the United States that may significantly impair physical health. The homeless have a high prevalence of cigarette smoking, poor nutrition, and adverse environmental exposures, which could contribute to obstructive lung disease (OLD). Despite this risk, the prevalence of OLD among the homeless remains unknown. We aimed to systematically assess the prevalence of OLD among the urban homeless. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS We conducted a cross-sectional study of the prevalence of OLD among homeless individuals in San Francisco. By random sampling, we recruited 68 adults living in one homeless shelter to participate in a structured interview survey and spirometry assessment. We used a multifaceted approach to assess OLD, including respiratory symptoms, self-reported physician diagnosis of asthma, chronic bronchitis, emphysema, or COPD, and spirometry (defined as FEV1 < 80% predicted and FEV1/FVC ratio < 0.70). RESULTS Sixty-eight adults completed the survey, and 67 adults completed the spirometry. Homeless adults were likely to be homeless < 1 year and homeless for the first time. There was a high prevalence of cigarette smoking (75% ever smokers, 68% current smokers). The prevalence of symptoms suggestive of OLD was high, including cough (29%), wheezing (40%), chronic bronchitis symptoms (21%), and dyspnea on exertion (29%). A substantial proportion of homeless subjects indicated a prior diagnosis of asthma (24%), chronic bronchitis (19%), and COPD (4%). Based on spirometry, the prevalence of OLD was 15% (95% confidence interval, 8 to 26%), which was more than double the expected prevalence in the general US population. CONCLUSIONS As OLD is a leading cause of death in the United States, it is important to identify it early for treatment. Homeless individuals have a higher-than-expected prevalence of OLD. Public health interventions should target the homeless population for prevention and treatment of OLD.
Innovation and Performance: Benchmarking Australian Firms

This article empirically analyses the link between innovation and performance using a sample of large Australian firms, with a specific aim of developing benchmarking tools. Innovation is measured by firms' investment in R&D and applications for patents, trademarks and designs. An innovation index is constructed to provide one method of benchmarking. The index incorporates a firm's innovative activities into a single figure after accounting for firm size. The index provides a ranking of the most innovative firms in Australia. A second method of benchmarking uses a stochastic production frontier. This type of analysis identifies the firms which are located closest to a ‘best practice innovation frontier’.
A New Approach for Removing Haze from Images

The presence of suspended particles like haze, fog, mist, smoke and dust in the atmosphere deteriorates quality of captured image. It is of paramount importance to reduce these deteriorating effects from the image for various image based applications; viz. ADAS, CCTV surveillance, etc. In this paper, this interesting problem of enhancing the perceptual visibility of an image that is degraded by atmospheric haze is addressed. An efficient way of estimating the transmission map and the atmospheric light is proposed, which is further used in reducing effects of haze from the image. The underlying idea is to restore the true color of each pixel by using our proposed method that minimizes the lowest of RGB values per pixel. This is accomplished using the HSV color space and the haze image model. In comparison with the other state of the art methods that are available in literature, the proposed method is shown to be capable of recovering better haze-free images both in terms of visual perception and quantitative evaluation.
Genetic Dissection of Organellar-Translation-Dependent Retrograde Signalling in Arabidopsis

" Do you know the difference between an error and a mistake? […] Anyone can make an error. But that error does not become a mistake until you refuse to correct it " (Timothy Zahn) Summary/Zusammenfassung I Summary Retrograde mechanisms have evolved to communicate the functional and developmental state of the organelles to the nucleus, which in turn modulates anterograde control and cellular metabolism accordingly. Previous works showed that simultaneous impairment in the organelle translational machinery, due to a mutation in the prolyl-tRNA synthetase PRORS1, targeted to both chloroplasts and mitochondria, induces a specific downregulation of nuclear photosynthetic genes. However, this downregulation of nuclear photosynthetic genes was not observed in mrpl11-1 and prpl11-1 mutants, impaired in the mitochondrial and plastid ribosome function, respectively, but only in the mrpl11-1prpl11-1 double mutant, indicating that the translation rate in both chloroplasts and mitochondria contributes synergistically to the regulation of nuclear gene expression. Despite these findings, primary nuclear target genes of retrograde signalling, are still not characterised. In this thesis it was shown that an inducible expression system, used in combination with transcriptomics, might represent a powerful tool to investigate and to identify possible candidate regulatory proteins, involved in the translation-dependent-retrograde signalling. MRPL11, PRPL11 and PRORS1 were cloned under the control of an ethanol inducible promoter, pAlcA, and mrpl11-1, prpl11-1 and prors1-2 mutants were transformed, generating Arabidopsis overexpressing transgenic lines. The ethanol induction system in both in vitro and on soil conditions was established, and it was shown that the system did not influence per se photosynthetic performances and did not interfere with the expression of photosynthetic marker genes. Upon induction, pAlc::MRPL11 mrpl11 and pAlc::PRPL11 prpl11 lines showed the complete or partial recovery from the mutant phenotype and this seemed to be directly correlated to the amount of the transcript level of the transgenes. By contrast, although phenotype complementation also occurred in pAlc::PRORS1 prors1.2 plants exposed to ethanol vapour, the detected transcript level of PRORS1 did not directly correlate with the complementation dose, and therefore the employment of this system seemed to be critical for this genotype. Because of its phenotypic characteristics, prpl11-1 was chosen to perform expression profiling with Affymetrix ATH1 microarrays: 30% of the products of the significantly differentially expressed genes were located in the chloroplast and, among them, the expression of 18 genes, whose products are related to photosynthesis or chloroplast activities, was upregulated. On the basis of their localisation and …
Modeling of stress dependent hysteresis nonlinearity based on fuzzy tree for GMA

Due to high output force and great displacement, giant magnetostrictive actuator (GMA) has a wide application including microposition and active vibration control. However, the inherent hysteresis nonlinearity of GMA impacts severely the stability and precision of the system; especially the complex hysteresis nonlinearity is stress-dependent. Based on the modified Prandtl-Ishlinskii (MPI) model and identifying the weight parameters by fuzzy tree, a method of modeling stress-dependent hysteresis nonlinearity for GMA is proposed in this paper. Simulation results show that there are good agreements between modeling results and experimental results.
The Impact and Challenges of Cloud Computing Adoption on Public Universities in Southwestern Nigeria

This study investigates the impact and challenges of the adoption of cloud computing by public universities in the Southwestern part of Nigeria. A sample size of 100 IT staff, 50 para-IT staff and 50 students were selected in each university using stratified sampling techniques with the aid of well-structured questionnaires. Microsoft excel was used to capture the data while frequency and percentage distributions were used to analyze it. In all, 2, 000 copies of the questionnaire were administered to the ten (10) public universities in the southwestern part of Nigeria while 1742 copies were returned which represents a respondent rate of 87.1%. The result of the findings revealed that the adoption of cloud computing has a significant impact on cost effectiveness, enhanced availability, low environmental impact, reduced IT complexities, mobility, scalability, increased operability and reduced investment in physical asset However, the major challenges confronting the adoption of cloud are data insecurity, regulatory compliance concerns, lock-in and privacy concerns. This paper concludes by recommending strategies to manage the identified challenges in the study area.
Enzymatically Degradable Mussel-Inspired Adhesive Hydrogel

Mussel-inspired adhesive hydrogels represent innovative candidate medical sealants or glues. In the present work, we describe an enzyme-degradable mussel-inspired adhesive hydrogel formulation, achieved by incorporating minimal elastase substrate peptide Ala-Ala into the branched poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) macromonomer structure. The system takes advantage of neutrophil elastase expression upregulation and secretion from neutrophils upon recruitment to wounded or inflamed tissue. By integrating adhesive degradation behaviors that respond to cellular cues, we expand the functional range of our mussel-inspired adhesive hydrogel platforms. Rapid (<1 min) and simultaneous gelation and adhesion of the proteolytically active, catechol-terminated precursor macromonomer was achieved by addition of sodium periodate oxidant. Rheological analysis and equilibrium swelling studies demonstrated that the hydrogel is appropriate for soft tissue-contacting applications. Notably, hydrogel storage modulus (G′) achieved values on the order of 10 kPa, and strain at failure exceeded 200% strain. Lap shear testing confirmed the material’s adhesive behavior (shear strength: 30.4 ± 3.39 kPa). Although adhesive hydrogel degradation was not observed during short-term (27 h) in vitro treatment with neutrophil elastase, in vivo degradation proceeded over several months following dorsal subcutaneous implantation in mice. This work represents the first example of an enzymatically degradable mussel-inspired adhesive and expands the potential biomedical applications of this family of materials.
Why are Educated and Risk-Loving Persons More Mobile Across Regions?

Why are better educated and more risk-friendly persons more mobile across regions? To answer this question, we use micro data on internal migrants from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) 2000-2006 and merge this information with a unique proxy for region-pair-specific cultural distances across German regions constructed from historical local dialect patterns. Our findings indicate that risk-loving and skilled people are more mobile over longer distances because they are more willing to cross cultural boundaries and move to regions that are culturally different from their homes. Other types of distance-related migration costs cannot explain the lower distance sensitivity of educated and risk-loving individuals.
The anatomy of clinical decision-making in multidisciplinary cancer meetings

AbstractIn the UK, treatment recommendations for patients with cancer are routinely made by multidisciplinary teams in weekly meetings. However, their performance is variable.The aim of this study was to explore the underlying structure of multidisciplinary decision-making process, and examine how it relates to team ability to reach a decision.This is a cross-sectional observational study consisting of 1045 patient reviews across 4 multidisciplinary cancer teams from teaching and community hospitals in London, UK, from 2010 to 2014. Meetings were chaired by surgeons.We used a validated observational instrument (Metric for the Observation of Decision-making in Cancer Multidisciplinary Meetings) consisting of 13 items to assess the decision-making process of each patient discussion. Rated on a 5-point scale, the items measured quality of presented patient information, and contributions to review by individual disciplines. A dichotomous outcome (yes/no) measured team ability to reach a decision. Ratings were submitted to Exploratory Factor Analysis and regression analysis.The exploratory factor analysis produced 4 factors, labeled “Holistic and Clinical inputs” (patient views, psychosocial aspects, patient history, comorbidities, oncologists’, nurses’, and surgeons’ inputs), “Radiology” (radiology results, radiologists’ inputs), “Pathology” (pathology results, pathologists’ inputs), and “Meeting Management” (meeting chairs’ and coordinators’ inputs). A negative cross-loading was observed from surgeons’ input on the fourth factor with a follow-up analysis showing negative correlation (r = −0.19, P < 0.001). In logistic regression, all 4 factors predicted team ability to reach a decision (P < 0.001). Hawthorne effect is the main limitation of the study.The decision-making process in cancer meetings is driven by 4 underlying factors representing the complete patient profile and contributions to case review by all core disciplines. Evidence of dual-task interference was observed in relation to the meeting chairs’ input and their corresponding surgical input into case reviews.
Learning to rank recommendations with the k-order statistic loss

Making recommendations by learning to rank is becoming an increasingly studied area. Approaches that use stochastic gradient descent scale well to large collaborative filtering datasets, and it has been shown how to approximately optimize the mean rank, or more recently the top of the ranked list. In this work we present a family of loss functions, the k-order statistic loss, that includes these previous approaches as special cases, and also derives new ones that we show to be useful. In particular, we present (i) a new variant that more accurately optimizes precision at k, and (ii) a novel procedure of optimizing the mean maximum rank, which we hypothesize is useful to more accurately cover all of the user's tastes. The general approach works by sampling N positive items, ordering them by the score assigned by the model, and then weighting the example as a function of this ordered set. Our approach is studied in two real-world systems, Google Music and YouTube video recommendations, where we obtain improvements for computable metrics, and in the YouTube case, increased user click through and watch duration when deployed live on www.youtube. com.
Prediction of sea surface temperature from the global historical climatology network data

This article describes a spatial prediction method that predicts the monthly sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly field from the land only data. The land data are from the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN). The prediction period is 1880–1999 and the prediction ocean domain extends from 60°S to 60°N with a spatial resolution 5°×5°. The prediction method is a regression over the basis of empirical orthogonal functions (EOFs). The EOFs are computed from the following data sets: (a) the Climate Prediction Center's optimally interpolated sea surface temperature (OI/SST) data (1982–1999); (b) the National Climatic Data Center's blended product of land‐surface air temperature (1992–1999) produced from combining the Special Satellite Microwave Imager and GHCN; and (c) the National Centers for Environmental Prediction/National Center for Atmospheric Research Reanalysis data (1982–1999). The optimal prediction method minimizes the first‐M‐mode mean square error between the true and predicted anomalies over both land and ocean. In the optimization process, the data errors of the GHCN boxes are used, and their contribution to the prediction error is taken into account. The area‐averaged root mean square error of prediction is calculated. Numerical experiments demonstrate that this EOF prediction method can accurately recover the global SST anomalies during some circulation patterns and add value to the SST bias correction in the early history of SST observations and the validation of general circulation models. Our results show that (i) the land only data can accurately predict the SST anomaly in the El Nino months when the temperature anomaly structure has very large correlation scales, and (ii) the predictions for La Nina, neutral, or transient months require more EOF modes because of the presence of the small scale structures in the anomaly field. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.