Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Multidimensional Emotional Disorder Inventory (MEDI): Assessing Transdiagnostic Dimensions to Validate a Profile Approach to Emotional Disorder Classification

There has been limited progress evaluating the validity of dimensional approaches to emotional disorder classification. This has occurred in part because of a lack of standardized assessment tools developed with the specific intent of studying dimensional classification. The goal of the current study was to develop and validate the Multidimensional Emotional Disorder Inventory (MEDI) to efficiently assess nine empirically supported transdiagnostic dimensions proposed in the Brown and Barlow (2009) profile approach to emotional disorder classification: neurotic temperament, positive temperament, depression, autonomic arousal, somatic anxiety, social anxiety, intrusive cognitions, traumatic reexperiencing, and avoidance. The MEDI factor structure, reliability, and convergent/discriminant validity was evaluated in outpatients with emotional disorders (pilot sample = 227; validation sample = 780). The final 9-factor solution fit the data well. Intercorrelations among MEDI factors were consistent with previous research, and all MEDI dimensions had acceptable reliability. Correlations with common self-report questionnaires and DSM–5 diagnoses supported the convergent/discriminant validity of all nine MEDI dimensions. Collectively, these results support the use of 49-item MEDI in clinical research samples. The MEDI should be used in future research to evaluate the validity of the Brown and Barlow (2009) approach to emotional disorder classification. Because it provides an efficient assessment of several well-established emotional disorder traits and phenotypes, the MEDI also may have utility for general research or clinical purposes.
Predictive value of the urinary dipstick test in the management of patients with urinary tract infection-associated symptoms in primary care in Indonesia: a cross-sectional study

Objective To assess the test characteristics of a urine dipstick test in predicting a positive urine culture in an outpatient setting in Indonesia. Design Cross-sectional study. Setting Two outpatient clinics in Medan, Indonesia. Participants 616 consecutively enrolled participants suspected of having a urinary tract infection. Outcome measures The primary outcome is the estimates of accuracy (sensitivity, specificity, predictive values) where urine culture is the reference test. The secondary outcome is the post-test probability of a positive urine culture. Results The optimal test characteristics were obtained when index test positivity was defined as any leucocyte esterase reaction and/or a nitrite reaction and reference test positivity was defined as a urine culture with a growth of at least 103 colony-forming units/mL (sensitivity: 88.2% (95% CI 81.6 to 93.1), negative predictive value: 93.0% (95% CI 88.9 to 95.9)). The post-test probability of a positive urine culture after a negative urinary dipstick test was 7% in the obstetric/gynaecology clinic and 8% in the internal medicine clinic. Conclusion The use of a urine dipstick test in a rule-out strategy can reduce the need for urine culture and avoid the prescription of (ineffective) antibiotics in a non-urology outpatient setting.
Automatic Quality Assessment of Smart Device Microphone Spirometry

Lung function tests are critical for diagnosis and monitoring of asthma and other respiratory diseases. Monitoring of lung function, in the absence of a healthcare professional, is very challenging but may be obtained through Smart Devices if automated quality assessment systems guarantee the proper technique during the forced expiratory manoeuvre. This paper describes the evaluation of one such system that uses the microphone of smart devices, regarding the initial effort of forced expiratory manoeuvres using the Back Extrapolated Volume. A health professional recorded microphone spirometry in 55 children (5-10 years), using a mobile game engineered for the purpose, and registered its quality. At least one acceptable manoeuvre was achieved for 96% of the children using a featured threshold. Using a stricter threshold of 5% of forced vital capacity, it was possible to ensure at least one acceptable manoeuvre for 69%. While the obtained results are comparable to findings in literature for regular spirometry in this age group, further work is required before we can determine whether the proposed algorithm is effective in real life.
BinaryEye: A 20 kfps Streaming Camera System on FPGA with Real-Time On-Device Image Recognition Using Binary Neural Networks

Streaming high-speed cameras pose a major challenge to distributed cyber-physical and IoT systems, because large data volumes need to be transferred under stringent realtime constraints. Edge processing can mitigate the data deluge by extracting relevant information from image data on-device with low latency. This work presents an FPGA-based 20 kfps streaming camera system, which can classify regions of interest (ROI) within a frame with a binarized neural network (BNN) in realtime streaming mode, achieving massive data reduction. BNNs have the potential to enable energy-efficient image classifications for on-device processing. We demonstrate our system in a case study with a simple real-time BNN classifier achieving 19.28 us latency at 0.52 W power consumption and resulting in a 980x data reduction. We compare external image processing with this result, showing 3x energy savings, and discuss the used HDL/HLS design flow for BNN implementation.
Design and Application of a Low pH Upflow Biofilm Sulfidogenic Bioreactor for Recovering Transition Metals From Synthetic Waste Water at a Brazilian Copper Mine

A sulfidogenic bioreactor, operated at low pH (4–5), was set up and used to remove transition metals (copper, nickel, cobalt, and zinc) from a synthetic mine water, based on the chemistry of a moderately acidic (pH 5) drainage stream at an operating copper mine in Brazil. The module was constructed as an upflow biofilm reactor, with microorganisms immobilized on porous glass beads, and was operated continuously for 462 days, during which time the 2 L bioreactor processed >2,000 L of synthetic mine water. The initial treatment involved removing copper (the most abundant metal present) off-line in a stream of H2S-containing gas generated by the bioreactor, which caused the synthetic mine water pH to fall to 2.1. The copper-free water was then amended with glycerol (the principal electron donor), yeast extract and basal salts, and pumped directly into the bioreactor where the other three transition metals were precipitated (also as sulfides), concurrent with increased solution pH. Although some acetate was generated, most of the glycerol fed to the bioreactor was oxidized to carbon dioxide, and was coupled to the reduction of sulfate to hydrogen sulfide. No archaea or eukaryotes were detected in the bioreactor microbial community, which was dominated by acidophilic sulfate-reducing Firmicutes (Peptococcaceae strain CEB3 and Desulfosporosinus acididurans); facultatively anaerobic non-sulfidogens (Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans and Actinobacterium strain AR3) were also found in small relative abundance. This work demonstrated how a single low pH sulfidogenic bioreactor can be used to remediate a metal-rich mine water, and to facilitate the recovery (and therefore recycling) of target metals. The system was robust, and was operated empirically by means of pH control. Comparison of costs of the main consumables (glycerol and yeast extract) and the values of the metals recovered showed a major excess of the latter, supporting the view that sulfidogenic biotechnology can have significant economic as well as environmental advantages over current approaches used to remediate mine waters which produce secondary toxic wastes and fail to recover valuable metals.
Improving Reliability of Emergency Data Frame Transmission in IEEE 802.15.6 Wireless Body Area Networks

Wireless body area networks (WBANs) are formed by tiny and intelligent sensor devices that are implanted within the tissue or attached on the surface of the human body to acquire both periodic as well as emergency physiological data. WBANs should be capable of reporting physiological emergency events to the doctors and care-givers reliably and as quickly as possible. In this paper, we propose and analyze an efficient channel access scheme for nodes carrying emergency data frames so as to improve the reliability of emergency data frame transmission. We also present an analytical model to compute the average delay and reliability experienced by emergency data frames, under the proposed scheme. Extensive analytical and simulation results are presented to establish that the proposed emergency handling scheme leads to significant improvement in reliability over the default scheme specified by IEEE 802.15. 6.
High-resolution repertoire analysis reveals a major bystander activation of Tfh and Tfr cells

Significance T follicular helper (Tfh) cells promote high-affinity antibody production by B cells, while T follicular regulatory (Tfr) cells repress it. Deciphering Tfh and Tfr cell specificity should illuminate the understanding of how antibody responses are regulated. We analyzed the T cell receptor repertoire of Tfh and Tfr cells from wild-type mice, immunized or not. This showed that Tfr cells respond to self-antigens, while Tfh cells respond to foreign antigens. Importantly, these specific responses were obscured by an important bystander activation of follicular T cells. We think and discuss that this bystander activation has a general significance for immune responses and possibly for immunopathologies. T follicular helper (Tfh) and regulatory (Tfr) cells are terminally differentiated cells found in germinal centers (GCs), specialized secondary lymphoid organ structures dedicated to antibody production. As such, follicular T (Tfol) cells are supposed to be specific for immunizing antigens, which has been reported for Tfh cells but is debated for Tfr cells. Here, we used high-throughput T cell receptor (TCR) sequencing to analyze the repertoires of Tfh and Tfr cells, at homeostasis and after immunization with self- or foreign antigens. We observed that, whatever the conditions, Tfh and Tfr cell repertoires are less diverse than those of effector T cells and Treg cells of the same tissues; surprisingly, these repertoires still represent thousands of different sequences, even after immunization with a single antigen that induces a 10-fold increase in Tfol cell numbers. Thorough analysis of the sharing and network of TCR sequences revealed that a specific response to the immunizing antigen can only, but hardly, be detected in Tfh cells immunized with a foreign antigen and Tfr cells immunized with a self-antigen. These antigen-specific responses are obscured by a global stimulation of Tfh and Tfr cells that appears to be antigen-independent. Altogether, our results suggest a major bystander Tfol cell activation during the immune response in the GCs.
A Survey on Anonymity and Privacy in Bitcoin-Like Digital Cash Systems

Bitcoin is the most widely known distributed, peer-to-peer payment network without existence of a central authority. In Bitcoin, users do not use real names; instead, pseudonyms are used. Managing and verifying transactions and issuing of bitcoins are performed collectively by peers in the network. Since pseudonyms are used without providing any identity, it is perceived that Bitcoin provides anonymity. However, it is one of the most transparent payment networks since all transactions are publicly announced. Blockchain, which is the public ledger of Bitcoin, includes all transactions to prevent double-spending and to provide integrity. By using data in the blockchain, flow of bitcoins between transactions can be observed and activities of the users can be traced. When the implications obtained from the blockchain are combined with external data, identity and profile of a user can be revealed. This possibility has undesirable effects such as spending history of a user becomes accessible to other people, or cash flow of a merchant becomes exposed to competitors. There are several proposals as extensions or alternatives to Bitcoin, which improve anonymity and privacy. This survey presents an overview and detailed investigation of anonymity and privacy in Bitcoin-like digital cash systems. We examine the studies in the literature/Web in two major categories: 1) analyses of anonymity and privacy in Bitcoin and 2) extensions and alternatives to Bitcoin, which improve anonymity and privacy. We list and describe methods and outcomes for both categories and group studies according to these methods and outcomes. We also present relationships between outcomes of analyses and the improvement methods. We compare performances of the methods and show relationships between the proposals. Moreover, we present guidelines for designing an anonymity/privacy improvement and discuss future research directions.
Ester-Based Dielectric Liquids for Grid Resilience and EHV Mobile Transformers

Ester-based dielectric liquids have now been on the market for several decades, providing fire safe and environmentally friendly alternatives to mineral oil which has traditionally been used in transformers and other electrical equipment. Historically, the use of esters was primarily driven by the need for improved fire safety, with the added benefit of lower environmental impact if spills or leaks occurred. The use of a liquid with a high fire point also allowed more compact, lighter designs which can provide higher power output for a given weight. This principle has been used for many years in applications such as rolling stock and wind turbines, where synthetic esters now dominate. At higher voltages, above 100kV, the use of ester-based insulating liquids has increased substantially in the last 20 years. It is now the case that large power transformers used for transmission and generation projects at 400kV plus can be successfully designed, built and filled with esters. This opens the door to innovation in mobile transformers at ever higher voltage levels, where the ability to gain greater power from a smaller footprint is vital. Coupled with high temperature solid insulation, ester liquids offer an excellent solution for large transformers which can be built within road haulage weight limits.
Tracking by Recognition Using Neural Network

Vision-based object tracking is a challenging problem. In the tracking process, the object is usually first recognized in a given image. Then a bounding box is used to describe the position of the target object. Normally, a vector [x, y, width, height] is adopted to represent the bounding box. Under this viewpoint, the tracking problem can be treated as a regression problem if we handle the image sequence frame by frame. Due to the recent advancement in machine learning, many researchers apply neural networks to solve the visual tracking problem. This greatly improves the accuracy of bounding box prediction. Actually, the neural network based approaches are more suitable for end-to-end systems. In this paper, we propose to train and use a single neural network to tackle the tracking task. With the cropped candidate image patch as the input to the network, the output is the bounding box that indicates the target position. In our network, we first have a mask map to identify the target. It is a binary image and is divided into two classes. The positive class denotes the foreground while the negative class denotes the background. The mask map is then used for the estimation of the bounding box vector. The task now becomes an image mapping problem. We have achieved a good balance between accuracy and computational efficiency. Our tracker can reach an average speed of 178 frames per second(fps) and a maximum of 334 fps in the OTB benchmark.
A Robust Optimization Approach for Active and Reactive Power Management in Smart Distribution Networks Using Electric Vehicles

This paper presents a robust framework for active and reactive power management in distribution networks using electric vehicles (EVs). The method simultaneously minimizes the energy cost and the voltage deviation subject to network and EVs constraints. The uncertainties related to active and reactive loads, required energy to charge EV batteries, charge rate of batteries and charger capacity of EVs are modeled using deterministic uncertainty sets. First, based on duality theory, the max min form of the model is converted to a max form. Second, Benders decomposition is employed to solve the problem. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated with a 33-bus distribution network.
A Hybrid Bat Algorithm for Economic Dispatch With Random Wind Power

We present a hybrid metaheuristic optimization algorithm for solving economic dispatch problems in power systems. The proposed algorithm, based on bat algorithm, combines chaotic map and random black hole model together. Chaotic map is used to prevent premature convergence, and the random black hole model is helpful not only in avoiding premature convergence, but also in increasing the global search ability, enlarging exploitation area and accelerating convergence speed. The pseudocode and related parameters of the proposed algorithm are also given in this paper. Different from other related works, the costs of conventional thermal generators and random wind power are both included in the cost function because of the increasing penetration of wind power. The proposed algorithm has no requirement on the convexity or continuous differentiability of the cost function, although the effect on fuel cost, caused by the underestimation and overestimation of wind power, is included. This makes it feasible to take more practical nonlinear constraints into account, such as prohibited operating zones and ramp rate limits. Three test cases are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Relationship between Problematic Internet Use, Sleep Problems, and Oral Health in Korean Adolescents: A National Survey

We examined the relationship between Problematic Internet Use (PIU), sleep (sleep satisfaction, sleep duration), and experience of oral disease symptoms in Korean adolescents by gender. This cross-sectional study utilized the 6th (2010) Korean Youth Risk Behavior Web-based Survey. Participants comprised 74,980 students from 400 middle schools and 400 high schools nationwide. Among these, 73,238 students from 799 schools (38,391 boys, 34,847 girls, aged 13–18 years) were included in the analysis (inclusion rate = 97.7%). Multiple logistic regression and analysis of moment structures (AMOS) analyses were performed to identify meaningful relationships between the three factors. The “high risk group” of problematic internet usage had increased experience of oral disease symptoms (boys: adjusted odds ratio (AOR) = 1.92, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.63–2.28, girls: AOR = 1.98, 95% CI = 1.50–2.63) compared to the general group. Boys who used the Internet for “5–6 h” had a higher risk of oral disease symptoms compared to those who used it for “less than 1 h” (OR = 1.24, 95% CI = 1.01–1.53); however, this difference was not significant in Models II and III. For girls, the risk of 5–6 h of use (Model I: OR = 1.69, 95% CI = 1.40–2.04) was higher than that of the boys. In addition, the difference was significant in Models II and III for girl students who used the Internet for 5–6 h. In subgroup analysis, the high-risk group had a higher odds ratio for mild symptoms of bad breath to severe symptoms such as sore and bleeding gums. In addition, in the path analysis, PIU affected sleep and indirectly affected oral health. Direct and indirect causal relationships between the three factors were confirmed. Therefore, it is important to recognize that PIU can have a detrimental effect on mental, physical, and oral health.
Potentially inappropriate prescribing in elderly: a comparison of Beers and STOPP criteria in tertiary care

Background: Prescribing in elderly is a challenging task as they have age related physiological changes, various co-morbidities, altered pharmacological properties and higher propensity for adverse events. They are often prescribed medications which are potentially inappropriate for them, sometimes may even be unnecessary. The medicines are considered as inappropriate if the risk associated with them outweighs benefits. The objective of this study is to assess the prevalence of potentially inappropriate medications (PIM) at a tertiary care teaching hospital according to the Beers updated 2015 criteria and STOPP criteria and to compare the two criteria in detection of PIMs.Methods: A prospective observational study involving 228 elderly patients (>65years) of medicine wards was conducted from October 2015 to March 2016. Relevant information was recorded in a predesigned proforma. The use of potentially inappropriate medications is assessed using Beers updated 2015 criteria and STOPP criteria using descriptive statistics.Results: The prevalence of PIM use in the sample was 26.31% according to the 2015 Beers criteria and 14.03% using the STOPP criteria. The most prevalent PIM according to the Beers criteria were sliding scale insulin (17.54%) and long acting benzodiazepines (5.26%); according to the STOPP criteria, they were aspirin in heart failure (5.26%) and chlorpheniramine (3.07%). Conclusions: The prevalence of PIM varied when different criteria were applied. The 2015 Beers criteria identified more PIM than the STOPP criteria.
Aflatoxins in maize harvested in the Republic of Serbia over the period 2012–2016

ABSTRACT Aflatoxins (AFs) are one of the most frequent contaminants in maize. The Republic of Serbia represents a leader in terms of maize production and exports in Europe. In recent years, Serbia faced climate changes. Therefore, the main objective of this study was to examine AF occurrence in 3000 maize samples collected during 2012–2016. In maize samples from 2012, 2013, 2015, and 2016, AFs were detected in 72.3%, 24.7%, 36.7%, and 5.0% of the samples, in concentration ranges of 1.0–111.2, 1.2–65.2, 1.1–76.2, and 1.3–6.9 µg kg−1, respectively. Contrary to this, in maize samples from 2014, no AFs were detected. Analysis of weather conditions indicates that 2012 was characterised by extreme drought conditions, 2013 and 2015 by lack of precipitation and high air temperatures, 2014 as the rainiest year in these years, while 2016 had moderate weather conditions.