Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Density and Shrinkage of Injection Molded Impact Polypropylene Copolymer/Coir Fiber Composites

Density and shrinkage of coir/impact polypropylene copolymer (IPC) composites were investigated. With the increase of the coir contents, density of the composites increased considerably and the shrinkage reduced visibly after injection molded. The shrinkage is due to difference of the density for the crystalline phase of IPC in the composites before and after freezing. This is radical reason that shrinkage of the composites specimens is lower than that of pure IPC resin. Models of phase structure for the shrinking were proposed to describe the shrinking mechanism of the IPC and the composites.
Clique Trip: feeling related in different cars

Contemporary car design must not only focus on technology supporting the driver and the driving task: it needs to create positive experiences for drivers and passengers alike. This case study, the Clique Trip, is an example of designing a positive social (i.e. relatedness) experience in the automotive context, addressing the analysis, the design, and the evaluation of the experience. The Clique Trip experience creates a feeling of closeness and relatedness among friends when being in a "motorcade". It is derived from experience reports, implemented in the car and evaluated on the road. Qualitative and quantitative results revealed its capability to create the targeted social experience.
Alastalo Microelectromechanical Resonator-Based Components for Wireless Communications Filters and Transmission Lines Starting in the early 1960 ' s

Starting in the early 1960’s, when the integrated-circuit (IC) technology was developed, micromachining and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) have grown into a broad research field with several commercial successes. Typical applications of MEMS are in physical, chemical and biochemical sensors, as well as in optical systems such as the digital micromirror device of Texas Instruments. From the 1990’s, the advances in the processing technologies and the tremendous growth of the wireless-communication market have drawn much interest into radio-frequency MEMS devices (RF MEMS) such as filters, oscillators, switches and tunable capacitors. These are now beginning to penetrate the market. This thesis considers electrostatically-actuated RF-MEMS filters and delay lines. For filters, the work concentrates on nonlinear distortion and filter design. The intermodulation properties of capacitively-coupled MEMS filters are analytically solved in closed form and the theory is verified in numerical simulations as well as in measurements with MEMS resonators. The analysis is more generally valid than the previously published results. The theory is utilized to formulate a design procedure for MEMS filters that, for the first time, takes systems speci-fications for tolerable intermodulation distortion and insertion-loss into account. For delay lines, capacitive actuation of bulk-acoustic waves in a solid rod is analyzed. In particular, challenges in impedance matching due to the weakness of the electrostatic coupling are quantified. Finally, a new kind of resonator-chain delay line for high-frequency (HF) signals is introduced. This delay line is characterized by extremely slow signal group velocity (∼ 10–100 m/s), narrowband response, and much lower characteristic impedance than found for the solid-rod waveguide enabling efficient signal coupling. Properties of the resonator-chain waveguide are theoretically analyzed and the results are verified in measurements of fabricated devices.
Impact of Electrophysiological and Clinical Variants, and Timing of Plasmapheresis on Outcome of Guillain-Barré Syndrome.

Introduction Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) is an autoimmune polyneuropathy causing acute flaccid paralysis and it is known to improve with plasmapheresis. Objective To study effects of electrophysiological type of GBS, clinical variant of GBS and time taken for initiation of plasmapheresis on outcome of disease. Methods 50 consecutive patients of GBS attending tertiary care hospital underwent clinical examination and electrophysiological studies. Disability grade was calculated and patients were observed for full functional recovery for 6 months. Results In this study, patients in whom plasmapheresis was started within 7 days (n=39) were observed to have significantly better improvement in terms of smaller peak disability and rapid functional recovery compared to those in whom plasmapheresis was started after 7 days (n=11). (p<0.002). Demyelinating pattern on electrophysiology was observed to have better outcome in terms of all parameters compared to axonal. AIDP variant was observed to have best outcome and AMSAN variant was associated with worst outcome. Conclusions Rapid institution of plasmapheresis is the most important outcome determining factor. Irrespective of the variant specific comorbidity, early plasmapheresis improves outcome in all parameters.
A clinical and family history study of Parkinson's disease in heterozygous glucocerebrosidase mutation carriers

Type I Gaucher disease (GD), the most common lysosomal storage disorder, is caused by recessive glucocerebrosidase mutations.1 Both patients with Type I GD and heterozygous glucocerebrosidase mutation carriers have increased Parkinson's disease (PD) risk.1 Non-motor symptoms (NMS) are more frequent in PD with heterozygous glucocerebrosidase mutations (PD-GBA). 2 We used the non-motor symptoms scale (NMSS) and Parkinson's disease questionairre (PDQ-39) to quantify NMS in PD-GBA.3 The age related PD risk in heterozygous glucocerebrosidase carriers has been reported in familial PD.4 Here, we calculate PD risk in obligate carrier relatives (parents) of Type I GD patients. ### Patients and methods PD-GBA patients were identified by Sanger sequencing of the glucocerebrosidase gene in 220 sporadic PD (PD-S) patients. The G2019S mutation in LRRK2 had previously been excluded. A control group of glucocerebrosidase mutation negative PD-S were selected from the same cohort. Each participant had the following administered: 40 item smell identification test (SIT), Montreal Cognitive assessment (MoCA), Parts I–IV of Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS), NMSS, PDQ-39 and Rapid Eye Movement (REM) Sleep Behaviour Disorder Questionnaire (RBDQ). Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS (version 17). The proportion of participants with a MoCA score 6/10 (signifying possible REM sleep behaviour disorder) was compared using the χ2 test.3 In parallel, family history data were obtained from 83 Type I GD patients, detailing age of onset of PD in their parents …
Computer vision based interfaces for computer games

Interacting with a computer game using only a simple web camera has seen a great deal of success in the computer games industry, as demonstrated by the numerous computer vision based games available for the Sony PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 game consoles. Computational efficiency is important for these human computer interaction applications, so for simple interactions a fast background subtraction approach is used that incorporates a new local descriptor which uses a novel temporal coding scheme that is much more robust to noise than the standard formulations. Results are presented that demonstrate the effect of using this method for code label stability. Detecting local image changes is sufficient for basic interactions, but exploiting high-level information about the player’s actions, such as detecting the location of the player’s head, the player’s body, or ideally the player’s pose, could be used as a cue to provide more complex interactions. Following an object detection approach to this problem, a combined detection and segmentation approach is explored that uses a face detection algorithm to initialise simple shape priors to demonstrate that good real-time performance can be achieved for face texture segmentation. Ultimately, knowing the player’s pose solves many of the problems encountered by simple local image feature based methods, but is a difficult and non-trivial problem. A detection approach is also taken to pose estimation: first as a binary class problem for human detection, and then as a multi-class problem for combined localisation and pose detection. For human detection, a novel formulation of the standard chamfer matching algorithm as an SVM classifier is proposed that allows shape template weights to be learnt automatically. This allows templates to be learnt directly from training data even in the presence of background and without the need to pre-process the images to extract their silhouettes. Good results are achieved when compared to a state of the art human detection classifier. For combined pose detection and localisation, a novel and scalable method of exploiting the edge distribution in aligned training images is presented to select the most potentially discriminative locations for local descriptors that allows a much higher space of descriptor configurations to be utilised efficiently. Results are presented that show competitive performance when compared to other combined localisation and pose detection methods. Dedicated to my parents and my family, to family Dahm, and to Susanne. In memory of Elke Dahm, and Winnie Smith.
Mining a Change-Based Software Repository

Although state-of-the-art software repositories based on versioning system information are useful to assess the evolution of a software system, the information they contain is limited in several ways. Versioning systems such as CVS or subversion store only snapshots of text files, leading to a loss of information: The exact sequence of changes between two versions is hard to recover. In this paper we present an alternative information repository which stores incremental changes to the system under study, retrieved from the IDE used to build the software. We then use this change-based model of system evolution to assess when refactorings happen in two case studies, and compare our findings with refactoring detection approaches on classical versioning system repositories.
The Effect of E. Coli Endotoxin on the Developing Rat Liver. II. Imunohistochemical Localization of Alphs-Fetoprotein in Rat Liver Multinucleated Giant Cells

Summary: Immunoperoxidase histochemical staining techniques have been used previously to localize alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) in hepatocytes from rat and human liver tissues. In this study, we extended these observations by examining liver tissues from rat fetuses exposed to E. coli endotoxin in order to document the presence of AFP in hepatic multinucleated giant cells. Liver sections were examined under light microscopy after incubation with purified antibody-peroxidase conjugates and histochemical stains. These sections showed a positive reaction for AFP in giant cells and hepatocytes that appeared as granular, brown intracytoplasmic deposits in cells throughout the hepatic lobule. Furthermore, a direct correlation was found between the number of positively stained giant cells and the serum concentration of AFP. The findings demonstrated that AFP distribution in endotoxin- induced liver injury is confined to isolated hepatocytes and multinucleated giant cells. This observation provides evidence that the origin of the giant cell in toxin-exposed fetal rat liver may be the hepatocyte.
Effects of Individualized Centrifugation Training on Orthostatic Tolerance in Men and Women

Aims Exposure to artificial gravity (AG) at different G loads and durations on human centrifuges has been shown to improve orthostatic tolerance in men. However, the effects on women and of an individual-specific AG training protocol on tolerance are not known. Methods We examined the effects of 90 minutes of AG vs. 90 minutes of supine rest on the orthostatic tolerance limit (OTL), using head up tilt and lower body negative pressure until presyncope of 7 men and 5 women. Subjects were placed in the centrifuge nacelle while instrumented and after one-hour they underwent either: 1) AG exposure (90 minutes) in supine position [protocol 1, artificial gravity exposure], or 2) lay supine on the centrifuge for 90 minutes in supine position without AG exposure [protocol 2, control]. The AG training protocol was individualized, by first determining each subject’s maximum tolerable G load, and then exposing them to 45 minutes of ramp training at sub-presyncopal levels. Results Both sexes had improved OTL (14 minutes vs 11 minutes, p < 0.0019) following AG exposure. When cardiovascular (CV) variables at presyncope in the control test were compared with the CV variables at the same tilt-test time (isotime) during post-centrifuge, higher blood pressure, stroke volume and cardiac output and similar heart rates and peripheral resistance were found post-centrifuge. Conclusions These data suggest a better-maintained central circulating blood volume post-centrifugation across gender and provide an integrated insight into mechanisms of blood pressure regulation and the possible implementation of in-flight AG countermeasure profiles during spaceflights.
Bronchodilators use in patients with COPD

Background Bronchodilators are commonly used as maintenance and rescue therapy in patients with COPD. We aimed to examine the prescribing patterns of bronchodilators in clinical practice. Methods We identified patients with COPD who initiated oral or inhaled bronchodilators between 2001 and 2010 from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database. We followed the patients for 1 year. For bronchodilator prescriptions, we classified the treatments based on medication classes and regimens (oral bronchodilators alone, oral and inhaled bronchodilators in combination, or inhaled bronchodilators alone). For inhaled bronchodilator prescriptions, we further classified the treatments as short-acting bronchodilators alone, short-acting and long-acting bronchodilators in combination, and long-acting bronchodilators alone. We evaluated the prescribing patterns and the change with time, in different physician specialists, and in different hospital accreditation levels. Results Among a cohort of 4,387 study-eligible patients, we identified 21,235 bronchodilator prescriptions for the analysis. The majority of prescriptions were oral xanthines or beta-2 agonists (62.63% and 47.54%, respectively) rather than prescriptions for inhaled bronchodilators (less than 10%). Nearly 80% of prescriptions were oral bronchodilator alone regimens. Use of oral bronchodilators declined with time and varied with health care providers, which were most commonly prescribed by non-chest specialists and in primary care clinics. Despite limited use of inhaled bronchodilators, it was noted that short-acting bronchodilators alone regimens accounted for 60% of the inhaled bronchodilator prescriptions. Conclusion Excessive use of oral and short-acting bronchodilators is noted in general practice. Further research and education programs are warranted to decrease inadequate oral bronchodilators and optimize inhaled treatments in the management of patients with COPD.
Sublingual immunotherapy efficacy in patients with atopic dermatitis and house dust mites sensitivity: a prospective pilot study

ABSTRACT Background: Specific subcutaneous immunotherapy (SCIT) with house dust mite (HDM) preparation has recently been shown to improve eczema in patients with atopic dermatitis (AD). So far, there is less data regarding efficacy and safety of specific sublingual immunotherapy (SLIT) in patients with AD. Study aim: To evaluate in an open non-controlled, non-randomized pilot trial the effect of SLIT with HDM allergen extracts preparation (SLITone, ALK Abellò Italy) on SCORAD in adult patients with mild–moderate AD. Patients and methods: 86 Subjects (53 females and 33 males) between 3 and 60 years of age with AD and IgE-proved (Class > 2) HDM sensitization were enrolled after their informed consent in the trial. Exclusion criteria were severe asthma and treatment with systemic or high potent topical corticosteroids or immunosuppressant agents. Patients were treated with SLIT (Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus and Dermatophagoides farinae extracts: SLITone, ALK-Abellò) for at least 12 months. SCORAD was evaluated at baseline and after 12 months of treatment. Results: Baseline SCORAD value, mean ± SD, was 43.3 ± 13.7 (range 15–84). After 1 year of SLIT, mean ± SD, SCORAD value was reduced to 23.7 ± 13.3 (range: 0–65) (p = 0.0001; unpaired t-test vs. baseline). This was a 46% reduction in SCORAD in comparison with baseline value. A significant improvement, defined as a SCORAD reduction of > 30%, was observed in 51 out of 86 patients (59%). In 5 patients (5.8%) SCORAD values did not change at the end of the observation period. In 30 patients (35%) the SCORAD reduction after SIT was ≤ 30% in comparison with baseline. Total and specific IgE serum levels were significantly (p = 0.001) reduced after SLIT. No severe adverse events were observed during the trial. Conclusion: In this open non-controlled trial SLIT with HDM extracts in patients with mild to moderate AD was effective in reducing the SCORAD after 1 year of SLIT treatment. In addition the treatment was very well tolerated. Treatment with SLIT, furthermore, has allowed a gradual and relevant reduction of concomitant therapies with topical corticosteroids or immunosuppressants. Present results require further controlled trials in order to confirm the potential clinical benefit of SLIT in this clinical setting.
A Semidefinite Relaxation Procedure for Fault-Tolerant Observer Design

A fault-tolerant observer design methodology is proposed. The aim is to guarantee a minimum level of closed-loop performance under all possible sensor fault combinations while optimizing performance under the nominal, fault-free condition. A novel approach is proposed to tackle the combinatorial nature of the problem, which is computationally intractable even for a moderate number of sensors, by recasting the problem as a robust performance problem, where the uncertainty set is composed of all combinations of a set of binary variables. A procedure based on an elimination lemma and an extension of a semidefinite relaxation procedure for binary variables is then used to derive sufficient conditions (necessary and sufficient in the case of one binary variable) for the solution of the problem which significantly reduces the number of matrix inequalities needed to solve the problem. The procedure is illustrated by considering a fault-tolerant observer switching scheme in which the observer outputs track the actual sensor fault condition. A numerical example from an electric power application is presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the design.
Dense Stereo-Based Robust Vertical Road Profile Estimation Using Hough Transform and Dynamic Programming

This paper proposes a dense stereo-based robust vertical road profile estimation method. The vertical road profile is modeled by a cubic B-spline curve, which is known to be accurate and flexible but difficult to estimate under a large proportion of outliers. To robustly estimate a cubic B-spline curve, the proposed method utilizes a two-step strategy that initially estimates a piecewise linear function and then obtains a cubic B-spline curve based on the initial estimation result. A Hough transform and dynamic programming are utilized for estimating a piecewise linear function to achieve robustness against outliers and guarantee optimal parameters. In the experiment, a performance evaluation and comparison were conducted using three publicly available databases. The result shows that the proposed method outperforms three previous methods in all databases. In particular, its performance is superior to the others in the cases of a large proportion of outliers and road surfaces distant from the ego-vehicle.
Randomized Controlled Trial of Technology-Assisted Case Management in Low Income Adults with Type 2 Diabetes.

OBJECTIVE To assess the efficacy of technology-assisted case management (TACM) with medication titration by nurses using guideline-based algorithms, under physician supervision in improving glycemic control in low-income rural adults with poorly controlled type 2 diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Adults (aged ≥18 years) from the southeastern United States with hemoglobin A1c [HbA1c] ≥8% were randomized to TACM or usual care. Evidence-based guidelines were used to develop medication titration algorithms in conjunction with clinic physicians. Participants were given a telehealth device that uploaded blood glucose and blood pressure readings daily to a central server. A nurse case manager was trained on the algorithms and authorized to titrate medications every 2 weeks based on the algorithm under the supervision of an internist and an endocrinologist. Participants were assessed at baseline, 3 months, and 6 months. The primary outcome was HbA1c at 6-months postrandomization in the intent-to-treat (ITT) population. RESULTS One hundred thirteen participants were randomized to either TACM intervention or usual care. Based on ITT population after multiple imputation, the analysis of covariance with baseline HbA1c as covariate showed that HbA1c at 6 months for TACM was significantly lower compared to the usual care group (-0. 99, P = 0.024). Moreover, longitudinal mixed effects analysis suggested that the rate of decline in HbA1c over time for TACM was significantly faster compared to the usual care group (-0.16, P = 0.038). Results based on per-protocol population were similar. CONCLUSIONS Technology-assisted case management by a nurse with medication titration under physician supervision is efficacious in improving glycemic control in low-income rural adults with poorly controlled type 2 diabetes.
5-hydroxytryptophol as a marker for recent alcohol intake.

AIMS To review the mechanism behind the alcohol-induced shift in serotonin metabolism, and the use of urinary 5-hydroxytryptophol (5-HTOL) as a biochemical marker of acute alcohol consumption. BACKGROUND The serotonin metabolite 5-HTOL is a normal, minor constituent of urine and is excreted mainly in conjugated form with glucuronic acid. The formation of 5-HTOL increases dramatically after alcohol intake, due to a metabolic interaction, and the elevated urinary excretion remains for some time (>5-15 hours depending on dose) after ethanol has been eliminated. This biochemical effect can be used for detection of recent alcohol intake. RESULTS 5-HTOL is determined by the gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) or liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry (LC-MS) techniques. A new ELISA method for 5-HTOL glucuronide provides a promising clinical assay. The most robust way to use the marker is by measuring the ratio of 5-HTOL to 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid, because this compensates for urine dilution and dietary intake of serotonin. 5-HTOL is a very sensitive and specific indicator of recent alcohol consumption and, as such, a valuable complement to self-report. In clinical use, 5-HTOL is effective for monitoring lapses into drinking during out-patient treatment and for objective evaluation of treatment efforts. Other applications include detection of high-risk patients in elective surgery, monitoring of disulfiram treatment and a method to rule out artefactual ethanol formation in forensic toxicology. 5-HTOL can also be used as a sensitive reference method for validation of self-report data in clinical alcohol research. CONCLUSIONS An elevated urinary 5-HTOL level can serve as a sensitive and reliable marker for recent alcohol intake with a number of clinical and forensic applications.