Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Knee Joint Laxity and Neuromuscular Characteristics of Male and Female Soccer and Basketball Players

Anterior cruciate ligament injuries are occurring at a higher rate in female athletes compared with their male counterparts. Research in the area of anterior cruciate ligament injury has increasingly focused on the role of joint proprioception and muscle activity in promoting knee joint stability. We measured knee joint laxity, joint kinesthesia, lower extremity balance, the amount of time required to generate peak torque of the knee flexor and extensor musculature, and electromyographically assessed muscle activity in 34 healthy, collegiate-level athletes (average age, 19.6 1.5 years) who played soccer or basketball or both. Independent t-tests were used to determine significant sex differences. Results revealed that women inherently possess significantly greater knee joint laxity values, demonstrate a significantly longer time to detect the knee joint motion moving into extension, possess significantly superior single-legged balance ability, and produce significantly greater electromyographic peak amplitude and area of the lateral hamstring muscle subsequent to landing a jump. The excessive joint laxity of women appears to contribute to diminished joint proprioception, rendering the knee less sensitive to potentially damaging forces and possibly at risk for injury. Unable to rely on ligamentous structures, healthy female athletes appear to have adopted compensatory mechanisms of increased hamstring activity to achieve functional joint stabilization.
Analysis of OLSR Routing Protocol Performance Based on Gauss-Markov Mobility and Random Walk in Mobile Ad-Hoc Network (MANET)

MANET is included in the network without infrastructure from a collection of nodes that are interconnected to communicate. Routing protocol performance is a measure of the performance of how the ability of the routing protocol works. A routing protocol is needed where the routing table information must be kept up to date at regular intervals such as Optimized Link State Routing (OLSR). MANET is dynamic, so node mobility increases the risk of node failure. Gauss-Markov and random walk are mobility that has a significant impact on the performance of the routing protocol. This study analyzes the effect of mobility on the OLSR protocol in MANET topology using Network Simulator 3.25 with packet delivery ratio (PDR) parameters, end to end delay and routing overhead. The test scenario is done by varying the number of nodes as many as 20, 40, 60, and 80 nodes as well as the minimum and maximum speed of nodes 0-5 m/s, 5-10 m / s, 10-15 m/s, and 15-20 m/s. PDR results show the highest value on Gauss-Markov with 80 nodes and a minimum and maximum speed of 10-15 m/s of 69.36%. The best end to end delay results is seen in Gauss-Markov with 20 nodes and a minimum and maximum speed of 15-20 m/s of 10.22 ms. The routing overhead results display the best value on a random walk with 20 nodes and a minimum and maximum speed of 0-5 m/s of 8100 packets.
Efficient Estimation and Inferences for Varying-Coefficient Models

Abstract This article deals with statistical inferences based on the varying-coefficient models proposed by Hastie and Tibshirani. Local polynomial regression techniques are used to estimate coefficient functions, and the asymptotic normality of the resulting estimators is established. The standard error formulas for estimated coefficients are derived and are empirically tested. A goodness-of-fit test technique, based on a nonparametric maximum likelihood ratio type of test, is also proposed to detect whether certain coefficient functions in a varying-coefficient model are constant or whether any covariates are statistically significant in the model. The null distribution of the test is estimated by a conditional bootstrap method. Our estimation techniques involve solving hundreds of local likelihood equations. To reduce the computational burden, a one-step Newton-Raphson estimator is proposed and implemented. The resulting one-step procedure is shown to save computational cost on an order of tens with no deterioration in performance, both asymptotically and empirically. Both simulated and real data examples are used to illustrate our proposed methodology.
Floodplain aggradation in a semi-arid endorheic basin setting, Altiplano, Bolivia

The importance of gas as a driver of security of energy supply and the influence of the role it currently has and will continue having in the energy transition has stimulated the development of further research studies in unconventional sources of natural gas. Mature gas fields of coarse-grained fluvial reservoirs have already reached their production plateau and are in a production decline with high-water cuts. The northwest gas province of the Netherlands contains low-permeable fine-grained fluvial deposits of which the reservoir architecture and connectivity have not yet been widely studied using the standard industry techniques. For this reason, the geomorphological and sedimentological characteristics of the Rio Colorado fluvial system were used as a modern analogue to determine how the river avulsion process has generated the current fluvial topography and why its repetition has developed a vertical stacking pattern of thin but laterally extensive layers. Differential Global Positioning System data, Google Earth Pro Imagery, and previous studies focused on the evolution analysis of river positions in this region, allowed the observation of multiple repetitions of avulsion river in an area of approximately 400 km2, describing the fluvial sediments on top of the lacustrine deposits and representing alluvial ridges with an average width of 1500 m. Moreover, a thickness variation between the fluvial and lacustrine deposits up to 2 meters was recognised over 25 km, and a very gentle gradient slope, from 0.02° at the apex of the fluvial fan to 0.0022° in the flattened section towards the Salar de Uyuni. Borehole data from the West Netherlands Basin and surface data from the Rio Colorado were integrated to construct a three-dimensional model that represents the characteristics of the fluvial deposits regarding geobody size, geometry, and potential connectivity. With this, and the distribution of porosity and permeability as a function of channel belt and alluvial ridge width resulted in reservoir volumes up to 2×〖10〗^9 sm^3. Six wells were simulated to understand the production behaviour in channel belts, alluvial ridges, and floodplain sediments. Water saturation, pressure and streamline maps differ from well to well, and the model contributed to quantify the most efficient production rates per well location in the fluvial fan system. The results allowed to predict the communication between facies and how that connectivity reflected the resultant flow rates and recovery factors, showing the tough gas as potential secondary targets and prolonging the production stages of mature oil fields.
Floating point HOG implementation for real-time multiple object detection

Object detection and localization in a video stream is an important requirement for almost all vision systems. In the article a design embedded into a reconfigurable device which is using the Histogram of Oriented Gradients for feature extraction and SVM classification for detecting multiple objects is presented. Superior accuracy is achieved by making all computations using single precision 32-bit floating point values in all stages of image processing. The resulting implementation is fully pipelined and there is no need for external memory. Finally a working system able to detect and localize three different classes of objects in color images with resolution 640×480 @ 60fps is presented with a computational performance above 9 GFLOPS.
Unsupervised Similarity Learning through Cartesian Product of Ranking References for Image Retrieval Tasks

Despite the consistent advances in visual features and other Content-Based Image Retrieval techniques, measuring the similarity among images is still a challenging task for effective image retrieval. In this scenario, similarity learning approaches capable of improving the effectiveness of retrieval in an unsupervised way are indispensable. A novel method, called Cartesian Product of Ranking References (CPRR), is proposed with this objective in this paper. The proposed method uses Cartesian product operations based on rank information for exploiting the underlying structure of datasets. Only subsets of ranked lists are required, demanding low computational efforts. An extensive experimental evaluation was conducted considering various aspects, four public datasets and several image features. Besides effectiveness, experiments were also conducted to assess the efficiency of the method, considering parallel and heterogeneous computing on CPU and GPU devices. The proposed method achieved significant effectiveness gains, including competitive state-of-the-art results on popular benchmarks.
Augmented Reeb graphs for content-based retrieval of 3D mesh models

This work presents an improved method of 3D mesh models indexing for content-based retrieval in database with shape similarity and appearance queries. The approach is based on the multiresolutional Reeb graph matching presented by Hilaga et al. (2001). The original method only takes into account topological information what is often not sufficient for effective matchings. Therefore we proposed to augment this graph with geometrical attributes. We also provide a new topological coherence condition to improve the graph matching. Moreover 2D appearance attributes and 3D features are extracted and merged to improve the estimation of the similarity between models. Besides, all these new attributes are user-dependent as they can be weighted by variable terms. We obtain a flexible multiresolutional and multicriteria representation called augmented Reeb graph (ARG). Good preliminary results have been obtained in a shape-based matching framework compared to existing methods based only on statistical measures. In addition, our study lead us to an innovative part matching scheme based on the same approach as our augmented Reeb graph matching.
Power-efficient power-management logic

Since the power consumption has become the key aspect in almost every digital-system design, many advanced power-reduction techniques have been developed to minimize power. The most popular strategy to apply these techniques is adoption of so-called power management. The control signals for the power-management elements are generated by power-management logic. When centralized in one system block, it is referred to as power-management unit (PMU). PMU should also be targeted by power-efficient design techniques. This paper shows the value of power-management inside the PMU, reducing the overall system power consumption. We show that the power-state machines in the PMU can be designed in such a way that only necessary components stay active in the sleep mode. Experimental results illustrate that approximately 30% of power-state machines power can be saved.
Global warning reduces the consequences of snow-related hazards

Most recent publications dealing with consequences related to avalanches and slushflows state that their impact on mankind will increase. That is a highly debatable statement. Milder weather, shorter winters, less snow and rise of snowline will mainly shift their potential problem away from populated areas and infrastructure. It is unlikely that expansion of settlement and/or human activity into these areas will outweigh the hazard reduction, mainly because other types of rapid mass movements will increase in those areas and in general. Surely are part of the Arctic and parts of cold continental and mountainous regions, subject to more snow and rain in winter due to the climatic change, and consequently to larger and more frequent avalanches and slushflows. It is, however, unlikely that the consequences to future activity in remote areas will exceed the reduction in consequences in more densely populated areas. Global warming reduces the impact by snow-related hazards on mankind, but the general hazard potential worldwide will most likely increase.
Individual identity and movement networks for disease metapopulations

The theory of networks has had a huge impact in both the physical and life sciences, shaping our understanding of the interaction between multiple elements in complex systems. In particular, networks have been extensively used in predicting the spread of infectious diseases where individuals, or populations of individuals, interact with a limited set of others—defining the network through which the disease can spread. Here for such disease models we consider three assumptions for capturing the network of movements between populations, and focus on two applied problems supported by detailed data from Great Britain: the commuter movement of workers between local areas (wards) and the permanent movement of cattle between farms. For such metapopulation networks, we show that the identity of individuals responsible for making network connections can have a significant impact on the infection dynamics, with clear implications for detailed public health and veterinary applications.
A prospective study on quality of life in youths after pectus excavatum correction.

BACKGROUND The impact of correction of pectus excavatum (PE) on adolescents' health-related quality of life (HRQL) has only been investigated in prospective designs using disease-specific measures and without controls. The aim of this prospective study was to evaluate the HRQL before and after surgical correction of PE using a generic HRQL measure, and to compare the reported level of HRQL before surgery with an age-comparable control group. METHODS Patients (n=107) and one of their parents (n=106) completed the generic HRQL measure: the Child Health Questionnaire before, 3 months, and 6 months after correction for PE. A control group (n=183) consisting of school children comparable in age completed the same measure on one occasion. RESULTS The patients' level of HRQL before surgery was comparable to the level of the controls except for physical functioning; here boys reported impaired function compared to controls (P<0.0001, d=0.72). Both patients and parents reported improved emotional wellbeing and self-esteem, as well as an increase in physical and social activities from pre- to post-surgery. These improvements were statistically significant (P≤0.001-0.03) and yielded moderate to high effect sizes (ƞ2=0.04-0.22). CONCLUSIONS The improvement of physical and psychosocial HRQL reported by both patients and their parents as proxy indicates the psychological implications of the deformity. Patients reported impaired physical function compared to controls. Further, pre-surgery differences in HRQL between the patients and the controls were lacking. However, the improvement in the patients' HRQL following surgery may justify the correction of pectus excavatum. The effect of the deformity on patients wellbeing compared with controls' needs to be addressed in further studies.
Dispersion of carbon nanotubes in different solvents for thin films applications

Conductive thin transparent films are widely used in many commercial products, such as touch screens, photovoltaic cells, flexible displays, and more. The ITO (Indium Tin Oxide) films, currently in use are unlikely to satisfy the future demand owing to the escalating cost of indium, which is in limited supply. This short communication describes an empirical study of a process of carbon nanotubes (CNT) dispersion under sonication insolvents and dispersants. The method described is simple and very fast (~10 minutes) compared with the other literature reports. HRSEM images and surface resistivity imply that the good CNT dispersion leads to a remarkable improvement in separation and dispersion of the CNT in the organic solvents, which otherwise would rapidly coagulate and settle. Cyclohexyl-2-pyrrolidone (CHP) was found as having the lowest surface resistivity and best adhesion to the substrate surface. The film's resistivity and light transparency decrease while haze increases as the film's thickness increases. Some films exhibited remarkable promising results: Less than 5% haze, surface resistivity of 1.6 kΩ and ~60% light transparency.
Investigation of simplification threshold and noise level of input data in numerical simplification of genetic programs

In tree based Genetic Programming (GP) there is a tendency for program sizes to increase as the run proceeds without a corresponding improvement in fitness. This increases resource usage, both memory and CPU time, and may result in over-fitting the training data. Numerical simplification is a method for removing redundant code from the program trees as the run proceeds. Compared with the canonical genetic programming method, numerical simplification can generate much smaller programs, use much shorter evolutionary training times and achieve comparable effectiveness performance. A key parameter of this method is the simplification threshold. This paper examines whether there exists any relationship between the noise level in the input data and the optimum value for the simplification threshold and, if it exists, what that relationship is. Our results suggest that there is a relationship between the optimum value of the simplification threshold and the level of noise in the input data and that a lower bound for the optimum simplification threshold is equal to the noise level and an upper bound is five times the noise level.
Model reference adaptive control of five-phase IPM Motors based on neural network

This paper presents a novel model reference adaptive control (MRAC) of five-phase interior permanent magnet (IPM) motor drives. The primary controller is designed based on artificial neural network (ANN) to simulate the nonlinear characteristics of the system without knowledge of accurate motor model or parameters. The proposed motor drive decouples the torque and flux components of five-phase IPM motors by applying multiple reference frame transformation. Therefore, the motor can be easily driven below the rated speed with the maximum torque per ampere (MTPA) operation or above the rated speed with the flux weakening operation. The ANN based primary controller consists of a radial basis function (RBF) network which is trained on-line to adapt system uncertainties. The complete IPM motor drive is simulated in Matlab/Simulink environment and implemented experimentally utilizing dSPACE DS1104 DSP board on a five-phase prototype IPM motor.
Plasma lathosterol as a screening test for bile acid malabsorption due to ileal resection: correlation with 75SeHCAT test and faecal bile acid excretion.

1. Plasma lathosterol concentration, known to reflect cholesterol and bile acid synthesis, was evaluated as a screening test for bile acid malabsorption, comparing it with faecal bile acid measurements, SeHCAT test and Schilling test in 22 subjects of whom six were healthy controls and 16 had Crohn's disease with ileal resections of varying length. 2. Plasma lathosterols and other non-cholesterol sterols were determined by GLC. Faecal bile acids were measured by GLC, and SeHCAT retention times by gamma camera. The study subjects were divided into two groups according to the degree of bile acid malabsorption: controls (faecal bile acids < 10 mg day-1 kg-1, n = 9) and bile acid malabsorption (faecal bile acids > 10 mg day-1 kg-1, n = 13). 3. Faecal bile acid excretion was 5.9 +/- 1.0 mg day-1 kg-1 in control subjects and 45.7 +/- 6.1 mg day-1 kg-1 in the bile acid malabsorption group. The biological half-life of 75SeHCAT (T1/2) was 95.6 +/- 16.3 h and 14.1 +/- 4.1 h, respectively. Plasma lathosterol levels were significantly elevated in patients with bile acid malabsorption (742 +/- 84 micrograms/ml compared with 400 +/- 59 micrograms/ml in control subjects) and correlated closely with faecal bile acid levels (r = 0.779, P < 0.001), with 75SeHCAT T1/2 (r = -0.524, P < 0.05) and with Schilling test (r = -0.591, P < 0.05). Significant correlations were also obtained for delta 8-cholestenol with faecal bile acids (r = 0.784, P < 0.001) and 75SeHCAT (r = -0.505, P < 0.05). The biological half-life of SeHCAT correlated with faecal bile acid excretion (r = -0.702, P < 0.001). Using mean+2 SD of lathosterol (In micrograms/ml cholesterol) as a cut-off value and 10 mg day-1 kg-1 as the upper limit for faecal bile acid excretion, the test gives 100% sensitivity and 82% specificity for plasma lathosterol determination to detect bile acid malabsorption. 4. The results indicate that both the 75SeHCAT test and plasma lathosterol detect bile acid malabsorption in patients with ileal resections for Crohn's disease. However, plasma lathosterol is a simpler and less expensive method.
Understanding Public Sentiment Towards Crypto Assets

This study aims to examine the evolution of public sentiment towards crypto assets. The research approach involves sentiment analysis methodology utilizing the SentiStrength v2.3 software. The data utilized in this study is secondary and obtained from scholarly publications indexed in the Scopus database. A total of 112 scholarly publications related to the research topic were identified. The research findings indicate that positive sentiment accounts for 27%, negative sentiment for 34%, and neutral sentiment contributes 39%. Further analysis reveals that the year 2023 marked a period with the highest number of sentiments, with positive sentiment dominating with 23 sentiments. This sentiment analysis method provides an in-depth understanding of the dynamics of public perception towards crypto assets, and these findings can offer valuable insights into the trends and shifts in sentiment that occur over time. Sentiment analysis can offer deep insights into how cryptocurrencies are perceived by the public and how these perceptions evolve in line with changes in social and economic contexts.
GRACE-REC: a reconstruction of climate-driven water storage changes over the last century

Abstract. The amount of water stored on continents is an important constraint for water mass and energy exchanges in the Earth system and exhibits large inter-annual variability at both local and continental scales. From 2002 to 2017, the satellites of the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission have observed changes in terrestrial water storage (TWS) with an unprecedented level of accuracy. In this paper, we use a statistical model trained with GRACE observations to reconstruct past climate-driven changes in TWS from historical and near-real-time meteorological datasets at daily and monthly scales. Unlike most hydrological models which represent water reservoirs individually (e.g., snow, soil moisture) and usually provide a single model run, the presented approach directly reconstructs total TWS changes and includes hundreds of ensemble members which can be used to quantify predictive uncertainty. We compare these data-driven TWS estimates with other independent evaluation datasets such as the sea level budget, large-scale water balance from atmospheric reanalysis, and in situ streamflow measurements. We find that the presented approach performs overall as well or better than a set of state-of-the-art global hydrological models (Water Resources Reanalysis version 2). We provide reconstructed TWS anomalies at a spatial resolution of 0.5∘, at both daily and monthly scales over the period 1901 to present, based on two different GRACE products and three different meteorological forcing datasets, resulting in six reconstructed TWS datasets of 100 ensemble members each. Possible user groups and applications include hydrological modeling and model benchmarking, sea level budget studies, assessments of long-term changes in the frequency of droughts, the analysis of climate signals in geodetic time series, and the interpretation of the data gap between the GRACE and GRACE Follow-On missions. The presented dataset is published at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare. 7670849 (Humphrey and Gudmundsson, 2019) and updates will be published regularly.