Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A hybrid data prefetching architecture for data-access efficiency

High-performance computing has crossed the Petaflop mark and has been moving forward to reach the Exaflop range. However, while computing resources are making rapid progress, there is a significant gap between processing capacity and data-access performance. Due to this gap, although processing resources are available, they have to stay idle waiting for data to arrive, which has a severe impact on the overall system performance. In the meantime, applications tend to be more and more data intensive. The data-access delay, not the processor speed, has become the bottleneck of computing, especially for high-performance and high-end computing where performance is keen. There is a great need for research in improving data-access performance. In this dissertation, we propose to improve data-access efficiency with a Hybrid Adaptive Prefetching architecture and associated innovative data prefetching techniques. The Hybrid Adaptive Prefetching architecture is built upon the memory hierarchy model, the for see engineering choice for masking the gap between computing and data-access speed, and enhances it with a hierarchical prefetching model to further mitigate the performance disparity and improve data-access speed. The fundamental idea behind the proposed solution is utilizing the excessive transistors on chip and available computing capability to build up specialized hardware and software approaches to accelerating data accesses, and thus to achieve a high sustained performance instead of a high peak performance. The Hybrid Adaptive Prefetching architecture reduces data-access latency via two stages, cache-memory stage by leveraging specialized hardware solutions and memory-disk stage by exploiting innovative software solutions. It improves data-access efficiency by harvesting the benefits of comprehensive, aggressive and adaptive prefetching strategies. The goal of this dissertation is to exploit hardware, compiler and system support to provide a systematic solution to boosting data-access performance for high-performance and high-end computing. Extensive experimental testing has been conducted to validate the design and verify the performance gain, and the results have demonstrated significant performance improvement. The Hybrid Adaptive Prefetching architecture can benefit a variety of applications such as scientific simulation, data mining, geographical information system, multimedia and visualization applications, etc. It will have a broad impact on improving data-access efficiency for high-performance and high-end computing.
The potential for non-invasive brain stimulation to improve function after amputation

AbstractPurpose: Lower limb amputee rehabilitation has traditionally focussed on restoration of gait and balance through use of prosthetic limbs and mobility aids. Despite these efforts, some amputees continue to experience difficulties with mastering prosthetic mobility. Emerging techniques in rehabilitation, such as non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS), may be an appropriate tool to enhance prosthetic rehabilitation outcomes by promoting “normal” brain reorganisation and function. The purpose of this review is to highlight the potential of NIBS to improve functional outcomes for lower limb amputees. Methods: To demonstrate the rationale for applying NIBS to amputees, this study will first review literature regarding human motor control of gait, followed by neurophysiological reorganisation of the motor system after amputation and the relationship between brain reorganisation and gait function. We will conclude by reviewing literature demonstrating application of NIBS to lower limb muscle representation.
Long-Term Survival of Stanmore Total Hip Replacements Inserted with Radiolucent Bone Cement

Radio-opacifiers in bone cements are an accepted part of every-day practice. They have, however, been shown to be a potential cause of an increase in third body wear and to excite bone resorption in in vitro and in vivo studies. We reviewed the results of 228 consecutive Stanmore total hip replacements performed between 1981 and 1985 in 211 patients. All were inserted with radiolucent bone cement. Information regarding whether the prosthesis had been revised was available for all patients. Seventy-three patients (83 hips) were still alive and 41 patients (44 hips) were sufficiently healthy to attend clinic. Information regarding pain level was obtained from the remaining 32 patients. When revision of the implant was taken as the end-point, there was 95% ten-year survival, 91% fifteen-year survival and 75% eighteen-year survival. These long-term results of Stanmore THRs, performed in a district general hospital, with radiolucent bone cement, compare favourably with the other published series for this implant. We did not find the inability to see the bone cement a particular disadvantage when reviewing radiographs for signs of loosening.
A Mathematical Programming Approach to Editing of Continuous Survey Data

Since data from surveys often contain errors, it is desirable to attempt to detect these errors. Clearly, not all errors can be detected: What can be attempted is to detect those errors that result in inconsistencies. The detection process is referred to as editing of the answer fields of the survey record. In this paper, we present a mathematical programming approach to data editing whose objective is to minimize the weighted number of answer fields that are suggested to be in error relative to a set of internal consistency conditions. This procedure is then applied to test data from the Annual Survey of Manufacturers and computational results are presented.
Testing of Electromagnetic Compatibility of PLC Modems

The effect of electromagnetic field radiation from an electrical network is experimentally investigated. Several measurements were conducted, in an anechoic chamber and in an ideal open environment, by injecting different levels of Power Spectral Density (PSD) on different types of electrical cables. The network topology plays an important role on the measured radiated power, leading to different frequency peaks according to the network resonance frequency. Keywords—Electromagnetic field radiation, power line communication, power spectral density, radiation limit.
Representation and processing of derived words

Abstract Two visual, lexical decision experiments with Italian derived words are reported. The issue addressed was whether or not derived words with highly productive derivational suffixes (-zione, -mento, -tore, etc.) that do not alter the orthographic/phonological characteristics of the base form, are processed/represented in a morphologically decomposed form. Experimentally, the issue investigated was whether it is the frequency of the root-morpheme of the word, the frequency of the whole word, or both that determines decision latencies and errors. Results indicate that there is an effect of both root frequency and whole-word frequency on lexical decision performance and errors to derived words. This result is interpreted within the framework of the Augmented Addressed Morphology Model of lexical access.
[Adherence to the Mediterranean diet in rural and urban adolescents of southern Spain, life satisfaction, anthropometry, and physical and sedentary activities].

BACKGROUND The Mediterranean diet is one of the healthier diet models. Mediterranean food patterns are suffering a deterioration that can especially affect children and adolescents. OBJECTIVE Determine adherence to the Mediterranean diet in adolescents of southern Spain and its relationship with the residence area, sex, age, life satisfaction, anthropometry, and habits of physical activity and sedentary activities. METHODOLOGY A total of 1973 adolescents (11-18 years) of southern Spain participated in this descriptive cross-sectional study. Cut-off value between rural and urban locations was 10000 inhabitants. Adherence to the Mediterranean diet was calculated from the KIDMED questionnaire. Life satisfaction, physical activity, and sedentary activities also were measured through valid and reliable questionnaires. Body mass index and % body fat were measured using the TANITA BC-420-S body analyzer. RESULTS 30.9% of the adolescents reported an optimal quality diet, percent higher in rural locations (P < 0.05). Adherence was lower in older adolescents (P < 0.001), it was not different between sexes or according to anthropometric variables. Adolescents more satisfied with their lives (P < 0.001), more active (P < 0.001), more studious (P < 0.001), and less sedentary in front of a screen (P < 0.001) showed greater adherence to the Mediterranean food pattern. CONCLUSION The majority of adolescents need to improve their nutritional quality. Compared with these subjects, the adolescents most adherent to the Mediterranean diet had a healthier lifestyle and they showed greater life satisfaction.
The effect of clinical severity and eyelid rash on ocular involvement in primary varicella infection

Purpose To describe ocular manifestations in primary varicella infection and their relationship to systemic severity and the associated eyelid rash. Methods One hundred consecutive children with primary varicella were examined prospectively. The cases were classified as mild, moderate, and severe according to the severity of clinical presentation. Excluding the presence of eyelid rash, children with ocular findings were assigned to group 1 (G1), and those without ocular findings were assigned to group 2 (G2). Patients in G1 were also evaluated according to the nature of ocular manifestations and the course of uveitis. Results Twenty-one percent of patients had ocular involvement (G1) and 79% had no ocular involvement (G2). While chickenpox had a mild course in 85.7% of patients in G1 and 88.6% of patients in G2, all others had a moderate course. None of the children had a severe course. A varicella eyelid rash was present in 28.6% of patients in G1 and 13.9% in G2. Among ocular findings, 38.1% of patients had conjunctivitis, 57.1% had anterior uveitis, and 4.8% had disciform keratouveitis. There was no significant association between severity of chickenpox and severity of ocular involvement (p=0.712). There was also no relationship between eyelid rash and ocular involvement (p=0.787). Conclusions There is neither an association between the severity of chickenpox and the severity of ocular involvement nor an association between the presence of a varicella eyelid rash and the development of uveitis. As the prognosis regarding sequelae of ocular involvement in varicella infection is good, only those patients with ocular signs and symptoms need be referred by pediatricians for an ophthalmologic examination.
Management of Unilateral Limbal Stem Cell Deficiency by Simple Limbal Epithelial Transplantation - Our Experience

Purpose: To report outcomes of simple limbal epithelial transplantation SLET for treatment of unilateral ocular surface burns. Methods: Retrospective, single-centre, interventional case series done for the first 9 patients of unilateral limbal stem cell deficiency secondary to ocular surface injuries who underwent limbal epithelial transplantation using the SLET method between September 2012 and August 2013. Success was termed complete when a completely epithelialized, avascular and stable corneal surface was seen and partial when recurrence of limbal stem cell deficiency (LSCD) did not involve the visual axis. Outcome was a failure when an unstable ocular surface with recurrent and persistent epithelial defects was seen or LSCD recurred involving the visual axis. Results: Mean age of patients was 17.4+11.9 years. M:F was 8:1. All patients sustained alkali injuries and mean duration after which the surgery was done was 13 months. Pre-operative BCVA was 20/200 or worse in 8/9 eyes. At a mean follow-up of 6.2+3.8 months, outcome was complete success in 5/9 eyes and partial success in 1/9 eye. Three patients had failure of outcome. BCVA improved to 20/40 or better in 3/9 (33.3%) eyes. It did not improve in others due to amblyopia, corneal scarring or recurrence of LSCD. None of the donor eyes showed a decrease in BCVA or any sign of donor site deficiency.
Enquête épidémiologique rétrospective sur les parasitoses intestinales au Centre hospitalier provincial El Idrissi (Kénitra, Maroc) : bilan de 10 ans (1996-2005)

Cette enquete retrospective fait le bilan epidemiologique des parasitoses intestinales au Centre hospitalier provincial El Idrissi de Kenitra entre 1996 et 2005. Le nombre d’examens effectues a decru entre 1996 et 2005. Une correlation entre le nombre d’examens pratiques et les annees de la periode d’etude a ete observee (p < 0,001). Sur les 4 285 examens parasitologiques des selles (EPS) pratiques, 606 etaient positifs soit un indice parasitaire de 14,15 %. Les amibes representent a elles seules 47,04 % des parasites rencontres et Entamoeba histolytica est le parasite le plus repandu avec 23,74 %, suivi des flagelles (28,79 %) representes par : Giardia intestinalis (22,71 %), Trichomonas intestinalis (5,49 %) et Chilomastix mesnilii (0,60 %). Parmi les helminthes, Ascaris lumbricoides represente 11,87 % des parasites rencontres, suivi par Trichuris trichiura (5,64 %), Hymenolepis nana (2,68 %), Enterobius vermicularis (2,08 %), Taenia saginata (0,75 %) et Strongyloides stercoralis (0,45 %). La symptomatologie clinique a ete observee chez 110 sujets parasites (110/606 soit 18,15 %) marquee par des douleurs abdominales (75 cas) et d’association diarrhees plus douleurs abdominales (35 cas). Les relations entre les indices parasitaires calcules, sexe, âge, evolution annuelle et saisonniere, polyparasitisme et parasitoses intestinales, sont discutees.
Investigating m-Health Acceptance from a Protection Motivation Theory Perspective: Gender and Age Differences.

BACKGROUND Mobile health (m-health) services are becoming increasingly important and widely accepted. However, empirical studies on potential users' m-health acceptance behavior remain underexplored. Indeed, m-health adoption is not only a technology acceptance behavior, but also a health-related behavior. MATERIALS AND METHODS Based on the Protection Motivation Theory, this article explores users' m-health adoption behavior from the perspectives of threat appraisal and coping appraisal, and also examines the moderating role of gender and age through a survey of potential users. The survey was conducted among 500 potential m-health service participants. RESULTS Our results show that threat appraisal and coping appraisal factors influence adoption intention through attitude. It is also found that gender and age play different moderating roles with threat appraisal and coping appraisal factors. CONCLUSIONS Gender and age play different roles between threat appraisal and coping appraisal factors in the acceptance of m-health. Implications for research and practice are discussed.
New approaches for heterogeneous transfer learning

In many real-world problems, it is often time-consuming and expensive to collect labeled data. To alleviate this challenge, transfer learning (TL) techniques that adapt a model from a related task with ample labeled data to a task of interest with little or no additional human supervision have been proposed in recent years. Most TL methods assume that the data come from different domains having the same feature space and dimensionality. However, the assumptions may also be violated in some real world applications such as text-based image classification, cross-language document classification, and cross system recommendation. To handle situations when the assumptions do not hold, new TL approaches that utilize heterogeneous feature spaces are needed to solve the heterogeneous transfer learning (HTL) problem. In this thesis, three novel HTL approaches are proposed to handle issues related to different settings: (i) Sparse Heterogeneous Feature Representation (SHFR) is developed to address the sparsity issue as well as the HTL multi-class classification problem. Formulating the feature transformation matrix learning problem as a compressed sensing problem, we propose a solution to learn a sparse feature transformation matrix to map each feature from one domain to another one. Moreover, a generalized HTL error bound is derived under the multi-class setting. Specifically, in order to guarantee the reconstruction performance and enhance the prediction accuracy, we can construct a sufficient number of binary classifiers based on the error correcting output correcting (ECOC) scheme. To further speed up the estimation of the transformation matrix, we also present a very efficient batch-mode algorithm to solve the corresponding non-negative sparse recovery problem.
Alterations in Heart Rate Responses and the Effect of Supine and Sitting Recovery Positions on Heart Rate Recovery and Rate Pressure Product Following Submaximal Exercise Test in Patients Undergoing Coronary Artery Bypass Graft Surgery

Objectives: The aim of the study was to determine a) Whether there is any change in heart rate responses following submaximal exercise test in patients undergoing CABG b) Is there any effect of recovery position on heart rate recovery and myocardial oxygen consumption following submaximal exercise test in patients undergoing CABG surgery? Background: The imbalance in the autonomic cardiovascular control has been shown to increase the risk for adverse cardiac events and sudden cardiac death, which has been observed following CABG. Thus, it is important to clinically assess the status of the autonomic nervous system which is a major determinant of cardiovascular health and prognosis. Interventions: The patients were randomly assigned to the two groups: group A and group B. Two six minute walk tests were performed each on the day at 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. ; before surgery and following CABG on fourth and seventh postoperative day and the dependent variables were measured. Results: The Peak Heart Rate improved highly significantly from 93.65 + 8.78 per minute on day 0 to 128.24 + 11.94 per minute on day 7 (p<0.0001). The Chronotropic Response Index improved significantly (p<0.0001) from 0.24 + 0.07 to 0.53 + 0.15 from day 0 to day 7. The Six Minute Walk Distance also improved significantly from day 0 to day 7 (p=0.000) from 299.93 + 66.63 m to 380.65 + 109.68 m. The results showed that the HRR increased from 23.06 + 10.43 per minute at first minute to 29.00 + 12.19 per minute at fifth minute, while RPP reduced significantly (p=0.000) from 12005.31 + 2681.83 mmHg/min at first minute to 10232.19 + 1783.22 mmHg/min at fifth minute of recovery. The results show the moderately significant (p=0.00) correlation between the HRR and the peak heart rate, and the HRR, chronotropic response index. Conclusion: The study concluded that there is improvement in the heart rate measures and functional capacity following CABG. The heart rate recovery was also found to vary with different recovery positions and was better in the supine lying position, when compared to sitting position.
The Influence of Computer Applied Learning Environment on EFL or ESL Education

Due to the impact and influence of information technology on society and education, more and more colleges or universities start to employ computers for foreign language teaching and learning. Computer applied learning environment has been taken as an ideal way to facilitate second language acquisition in recent years This thesis investigates the effects of a computer-assisted “Fundamental English” course teaching program on the development of English-majors’ motivation, learner autonomy, learning strategies and interactive & cooperative learning in a Chinese context. The roles of teacher in autonomous learning are still under research; as a result, the situation in college English teaching now is a little confusing. On the basis of language output and language test techniques, teachers are playing a more important role in the relation between class-room teaching and autonomous learning-homework-design, and it also proposes some possible teaching techniques and methods, and reveals some significance for effective application of the technology in the Chinese context and points out some limitations of this study.
Role of clinical decision support systems in improving clinical practice

This paper examines the role of clinical decision support systems (CDSS) as a critical and increasingly prevalent tool in improving clinical practice. Using findings from previously published reference papers, books and other related studies, the paper demonstrates how clinical decision support systems are repeatedly being used in clinical practice to enhance quality of care, improve safety, reduce healthcare costs and heighten efficiency. Although findings from the reference papers, books and studies vary in how clinical decision support systems can advance clinical practice, they strongly identify improvements made in clinical practice as they relate to patient safety, medication errors, clinical workflows and processes, diagnostic processes, compliance with regulatory guidelines, disease management, patient outcomes, genomic and personalized medicine and cost of care.
Relationship between serum phosphorus and the progression of advanced chronic kidney disease.

INTRODUCTION High serum phosphorus (P) has been shown to be associated with a more rapid decline of renal function in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to determine whether time-averaged serum P levels are associated with the progression of renal failure adjusted for other potential confounders. PATIENTS AND METHODS A prospective observational study of 184 patients with pre-dialysis CKD, stages 3, 4 and 5 (mean GFR=15.2±5.6 ml/min/1.73 m2). The rate of decline in renal function was calculated as the slope of GFR. Median follow-up time was 303 days. Biochemical parameters were analysed as time-averaged concentrations. Multivariate linear regression analysis was used to assess the best determinants of serum P levels, and the relationship between the rate of decline of renal function and the study covariates. RESULTS The best determinants of serum P levels were: GFR (beta = 0.477), female sex (beta = 0.106), serum calcium (beta = -0.274), serum albumin (beta = -0.112), serum bicarbonate (beta = -0.182), protein catabolic rate (beta = 0.144), and use of diuretics (beta = 0.180). The mean ± standard deviation (SD) slope of GFR was -0.198±0.376 ml/min/month. The best determinants of the slope of GFR were: proteinuria (beta = -0.462), serum P (beta = -0.440), and basal GFR (beta = -0.404). Total urinary P excretion was not significantly associated with the rate of decline of renal function. CONCLUSION High serum P levels are strongly and independently associated with a more rapid decline of renal function in patients with advanced CKD.