Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Gastroesophageal reflux disease and Barrett's oesophagus: an overview of evidence-based guidelines.

Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is an extremely common condition worldwide with prevalence varying from 2.5% in China to 51.2% in Greece. The economic and morbidity burden of it is vast and optimising care for this condition carries huge financial and patient related benefits. GERD can be complicated by progressing to Barretts Esophagus (BE) a precancerous condition which affects approximately 2% of the population and remains undiagnosed in many. The National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) has produced guidelines to cost-effectively manage GERD in patients in the UK and the Benign Barrett's and cancer task force (BoBCAT) consensus was the largest international review of evidence known into management of benign BE complications. This paper is a review of these guidelines with updates in new evidence. Areas for future development involve risk stratifying patients to surveillance, chemoprevention agents and genetic biomarkers to help decide who will be at highest risk of malignant progression. Evidence supports the safety of proton pump inhibitors for symptom control medium term (i.e. 9 years) and reducing the risk of progression of BE whilst surgical options are cost effective treatments for certain patients. BE surveillance should be directed towards high risk groups while those at lower risk may benefit for chemoprevention strategies.
Have External Shocks Become More Important for Output Fluctuations in African Countries ? *

This paper quantifies and compares the role of external and internal shocks as sources of macroeconomic fluctuations in a sample of 38 African countries during 1963-1989 and 19902003. It documents that the relative importance of external shocks as sources of output instability in African countries has increased in the last 15 years, and that this increase is the result of two forces: (i) a decline in the variance of internal shocks, and (ii) an increase in the vulnerability of output to external shocks. Contrarily to the importance attributed to oil prices in policy circles, this paper finds that oil price shocks are not particularly important for output volatility in the typical African country, but only among those countries that are net oil exporters. * I am grateful to Jan Dehn for generously sharing his data, and to Alexandra Tabova for updating the Deaton-Miller terms of trade index, and to John Page, Delfin Sia-Go, and participants at the chief economist seminar of the Africa region for many useful comments. The views presented in this paper are the author’s only and do not necessarily represent those of the World Bank, its executive directors, or the countries they represent.
A −68 dB THD, 0.6 mm2 Active Area Biosignal Acquisition System With a 40–320 Hz Duty-Cycle Controlled Filter

This paper presents a reconfigurable front-end (FE) circuit for acquiring various low-frequency biomedical signals. An energy and area-efficient tunable filter is proposed for adapting the FE bandwidth to the signal of interest. The filter is designed using a switched-R-MOSFET-C (SRMC) technique to realize the needed ultra-low cutoff frequency. An 8-bit SAR ADC, following the filter, quantizes the signal, while the SAR control logic is re-used to accurately program the filter bandwidth from 40 Hz to 320 Hz with a 40 Hz step. The prototype chip includes the complete FE system, formed of an instrumentation amplifier (IA), a programmable-gain amplifier (PGA), and the proposed tunable filter followed by the SAR ADC. Implemented in 0.13 <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mu \text{m}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> CMOS technology, the IC occupies a 0.6 mm<sup>2</sup> active area while consuming 6.3 <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mu \text{W}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> dc power from a 2-V supply. Measurement results show a FE gain range of 43–55 dB with an integrated input-referred noise (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${V_{\text {IRN}}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) of 3.45 <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mu V_{\text {rms}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>, a 66 dB dynamic range (DR), and a total-harmonic distortion (THD) of −68 dB at an input amplitude of 6 <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\text{m}V_{PP}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>. The effective number of bits (ENOB) for the ADC is 7.921 bits at 1-kS/s. In real-time Electrocardiogram (ECG), Electromyography (EMG), and Electroencephalography (EEG) measurements, high-fidelity waveforms are acquired using the proposed FE IC, validating the system’s reconfigurability and high-linearity.
Assessment of digital predistortion methods for DFB‐SSMF radio‐over‐fiber links linearization

This letter presents a comparative evaluation between three different behavioral models to perform digital predistortion (DPD) that enhances the linearity of radio‐over‐fiber (RoF)‐based front haul links for the mobile network. In particular, the intention is to jump out of the volterra box and propose models based on segmentation approach. Especially the decomposed vector rotation (DVR) model is compared to volterra polynomials such as memory and generalized memory polynomial (GMP) architectures. DPD is employed to RoF links that are based on distributed feedback laser emitting at 1310 nm, and standard single‐mode fiber for long‐term evolution 20‐MHz signal with 256‐QAM modulation format. The effectiveness of the digital predistortion methodology is investigated for varying input powers in terms of normalized mean square error, adjacent channel power ratio, and error vector magnitude. The experimental results demonstrate that DVR achieves elevated linearization when compared to memory polynomial and GMP models.
The effect of turbulence on NLOS underwater wireless optical communication channels [Invited]

Conventional line-of-sight underwater wireless optical communication (UWOC) links suffer from huge signal fading in the presence of oceanic turbulence due to misalignment, which is caused by variations in the refractive index in the water. Non-line-of-sight (NLOS) communication, a novel underwater communication configuration, which has eased the requirements on the alignment, is supposed to enhance the robustness of the UWOC links in the presence of such turbulence. This Letter experimentally and statistically studies the impact of turbulence that arises from temperature gradient variations and the presence of different air bubble populations on NLOS optical channels. The results suggest that temperature gradient-induced turbulence causes negligible signal fading to the NLOS link. Furthermore, the presence of air bubbles with different populations and sizes can enhance the received signal power by seizing the scattering phenomena from an ultraviolet 377 nm laser diode.
Estimation Modal Parameter Variation with Respect to Internal Energy Variation Based on the Iwan Model

Typical factors that cause nonlinear behavior in structures are geometric nonlinearity, force and displacement boundary condition nonlinearities, and material nonlinearity. The nonlinearity caused by an increase of the internal energy in built-up structures is mostly due to the displacement boundary condition induced by the contact interface region. This study proposes an experimental mode analysis technique that predicts changes in natural frequencies and damping ratios when the external excitation force increases in a structure’s contact surfaces. Specifically, the nonlinearity of the dynamic characteristics induced by the contact region is described by the constitutive Iwan model. Next, an estimation method was developed for two parameters among the four of the Iwan model. This study used a modal analysis method. As an extension of a previous study, the approximate form of the harmonic excitation-induced force was determined in closed form. The configuration of the numerical model for the full structure was introduced from this resultant form. By using these numerical results, responses in the full structure, according to the harmonic excitation, have been represented in mode summation form. This research proposes an estimation method for two parameters among the four of the constitutive model. The proposed method was verified by simulations conducted with the lumped model and by experiments conducted on a partially connected double beam.
Fixed and flexible shape facility layout problems using biogeography-based optimisation algorithm

: For any manufacturing and production industry to be efficient in terms of revenue, the layout of the industry must be arranged to minimise the total material handling and transporting cost of that industry. All the facilities, machines, storage, etc. are allocated in the layout in an optimum manner. While designing a layout, the planner has to allocate equal or unequal shape facilities on the available layout space to minimise the distance between the facilities which are having maximum material flow. The problem concerned with assigning facilities to the floor is mentioned as facility layout problem (FLP). This paper focuses on unequal area FLPs with fixed shape and flexible shape facilities. Biogeography-based optimisation (BBO) algorithm is one of the metaheuristic methods emerged in recent times to cope with various optimisation problems. Therefore, BBO is considered to solve unequal are FLPs. The results obtained using BBO algorithm are compared and found better than previous known results.
Privacy-Preserving Power System Obfuscation: A Bilevel Optimization Approach

This paper considers the problem of releasing optimal power flow (OPF) test cases that preserve the privacy of customers (loads) using the notion of Differential Privacy. It is motivated by the observation that traditional differential privacy algorithms are not suitable for releasing privacy preserving OPF test cases: The added noise fundamentally changes the nature of the underlying optimization and often leads to test cases with no solutions. To remedy this limitation, the paper introduces the OPF Load Indistinguishability (OLI) problem, which guarantees load privacy while satisfying the OPF constraints and remaining close to the optimal dispatch cost. The paper introduces an exact mechanism, based on bilevel optimization, as well as three mechanisms that approximate the OLI problem accurately. These mechanisms enjoy desirable theoretical properties, and the computational experiments show that they produce orders of magnitude improvements over standard approaches on an extensive collection of test cases.
Numerical Analysis of Mechanical Energy Dissipation for an Axial-Flow Pump Based on Entropy Generation Theory

Mechanical energy dissipation is a major problem affecting hydraulic machinery especially under partial-load conditions. Owing to limitations of traditional methods in evaluating mechanical energy dissipation, entropy generation theory is introduced to study mechanical energy dissipation with varying discharge and tip clearance intuitively through numerical simulations in an axial-flow pump. Results show that the impeller and diffuser are the main domains of mechanical energy dissipation, respectively accounting for 35.32%–55.51% and 32.61%–20.42% of mechanical energy dissipation throughout the flow passage. The mechanical energy dissipation of the impeller has a strong relation with the hump characteristic and becomes increasingly important with decreasing discharge. Areas of high turbulent dissipation in the impeller are mainly concentrated near the blades’ suction sides, and these regions, especially areas near the shroud, extend with decreasing discharge. When the pump enters the hump region, the distributions of turbulent dissipation near the shroud become disordered and expand towards the impeller’s inlet side. Unstable flows, like flow separation and vortices, near the blades’ suction sides lead to the high turbulent dissipation in the impeller and hump characteristic. Turbulent dissipation at the tip decreases from the blade leading edge to trailing edge, and regions of high dissipation distribute near the leading edge of the blade tip side. An increase in tip clearance for the same discharge mainly increases areas of high turbulent dissipation near the shroud and at the tip of the impeller, finally reducing pump performance.
Is there a European Medical Research Area?: Observatory on Health Research Systems

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Analytical and experimental studies on human body communication between wristwatch and handheld devices using muscle homogenous phantom at 10 MHz

Department of Human and Engineered Environmental Studies, Graduate School of Frontier Science, The University of Tokyo, 5-1-5 Kashiwano-ha, Kashiwa-shi, Chiba 277-8563 Japan 1Program in Electrical Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Kokushikan University, 4-28-1 Setagaya, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo 154-8515 Japan 2Department of Electrical Engineering, Graduate School of Science and Technology, Tokyo University of Science, 2641 Yamazaki, Noda-shi, Chiba 278-8510 Japan
Sensory Systems in Micro-Processor Controlled Prosthetic Leg: A Review

Micro-processor controlled prosthetic legs (MPCPL) offer better functionality than conventional prosthetic legs as they use actuators to replace missing joint function. This potentially reduces the user’s metabolic energy consumption and normal walking gait can be mimicked as closely as possible. However, MPCPL require a good control system to perform efficiently, and one of the essential components is the system of sensors. The sensory system must satisfy two important criteria; the practicality in donning and doffing the prosthesis, i.e. the process of putting on and taking off the prosthesis by the amputee user, and the quality in the information provided. In this paper, a comprehensive review was conducted on studies related to the state of the art of sensory system adopted in MPCPL. The publications were searched using four electronics databases within the last 13 years. A total of 31 papers were reviewed. The articles were classified into three main categories: prosthetic-device oriented, user’s-biological-input oriented and neuro-mechanical fusion sensory system. Types of sensors used and their application to the prosthetic system were analyzed. This review indicates that the sensors technology reported in the literature still does not fulfil the criteria of an efficient sensory system. Hence, a sensory system that eases the don and doff process of the prosthesis, yet informative in terms of providing enough useful data to effectively control the prosthesis, is needed for a successful MPCPL.
Video-Based Contactless Heart-Rate Detection and Counting via Joint Blind Source Separation with Adaptive Noise Canceller

Driver assistance systems are a major focus of the automotive industry. Although technological functions that help drivers are improving, the monitoring of driver state functions receives less attention. In this respect, the human heart rate (HR) is one of the most important bio-signals, and it can be detected remotely using consumer-grade cameras. Based on this, a video-based driver state monitoring system using HR signals is proposed in this paper. In a practical automotive environment, monitoring the HR is very challenging due to changes in illumination, vibrations, and human motion. In order to overcome these problems, source separation strategies were employed using joint blind source separation, and feature combination was adopted to maximize HR variation. Noise-assisted data analysis was then adopted using ensemble empirical mode decomposition to extract the pure HR. Finally, power spectral density analysis was conducted in the frequency domain, and a post-processing smoothing filter was applied. The performance of the proposed approach was tested based on commonly employed metrics using the MAHNOB-HCI public dataset and compared with recently proposed competing methods. The experimental results proved that our method is robust for a variety of driving conditions based on testing using a driving dataset and static indoor environments.
Finger systolic blood pressures after cold provocation in healthy males and females: effect of room temperature

Vibration-induced white finger (VWF) is the vascular component of the hand-arm vibration syndrome (HAVS). International Standard 14835-2:2005 defines how the measurement of finger systolic blood pressure, FSBP, after finger cooling can be used to assist the diagnosis of VWF, but it requires that room temperature is maintained at 21±1°C. This study investigates the effects of room temperature on finger systolic blood pressures after cold provocation. Twelve healthy males and twelve healthy females participated in two sessions with the room temperature at either 20 or 28°C. The FSBP after warming or cooling the fingers to 30, 15, and 10°C was measured in both sessions. There were significant reductions in FSBP at both 15 and 10°C compared with 30°C, and lower FSBPs with the room temperature at 20°C than at 28°C. The percentage reductions in FSBPs at 15 and 10°C from those at 30°C, corrected for any changes in blood pressure in the thumb, (i.e., %FSBP) did not differ between the two room temperatures. Females had lower FSBPs than males at 30, 15, and 10°C, but %FSBPs were similar in males and females. The study suggests that the calculation of percentage changes in finger systolic blood pressure reduces the effects of room temperature and gender, and that the test may be used in conditions where the ±1°C tolerance on room temperature cannot be achieved.
Learning Navigation Subroutines from Egocentric Videos

Planning at a higher level of abstraction instead of low level torques improves the sample efficiency in reinforcement learning, and computational efficiency in classical planning. We propose a method to learn such hierarchical abstractions, or subroutines from egocentric video data of experts performing tasks. We learn a self-supervised inverse model on small amounts of random interaction data to pseudo-label the expert egocentric videos with agent actions. Visuomotor subroutines are acquired from these pseudo-labeled videos by learning a latent intent-conditioned policy that predicts the inferred pseudo-actions from the corresponding image observations. We demonstrate our proposed approach in context of navigation, and show that we can successfully learn consistent and diverse visuomotor subroutines from passive egocentric videos. We demonstrate the utility of our acquired visuomotor subroutines by using them as is for exploration, and as sub-policies in a hierarchical RL framework for reaching point goals and semantic goals. We also demonstrate behavior of our subroutines in the real world, by deploying them on a real robotic platform. Project website: this https URL.
Nurse’ knowledge of Patients’ Bill of Rights, level of Observation and determining effective factors on them from their Viewpoints in Kerman University Hospitals

Introduction: Respect of human rights and patients’ dignity are the most important aspects of nursing practice, and nurses are one of the best patients’ advocates in the hospitals. Growing knowledge of the people in our society caused patients to notice to their rights more precisely in the hospitals. Method: A descriptive- Analytic and cross sectional study performed to investigate the nurse’ knowledge of patients’ bill of rights, the level of observing these rights and determining effective factors from their viewpoints, in teaching hospitals of Kerman, Iran2012. Research samples were 282 nurses who were selected through Quota sampling. An investigator made questionnaire was used for data gathering. Results: Mean score of knowledge was (0.68± 0.19), and 67% of respondents gained knowledge score above the average. The mean score of observation part of questionnaire was (4.09± 0.65) and 45.8% of nurses assume that patients’ bill of rights is well observed. Correlation of nurses’ knowledge of patients’ rights and their viewpoints of observation of rights has positive statistical significant differences (ρ=0.000), the more knowledgeable the nurses, the more observing patients’ rights. Confounding variables such as: attending in ethics and patients’ bill of rights courses and request of managers for observing patients’ rights in nursing practice were positively correlate with observation of the rights (ρ≤0.05). Discussion: Nurses’ knowledge of patients’ bill of rights was more than average and observation of these rights from their viewpoints were also good, but nurses who were not aware of patients’ rights can deteriorate patients’ rights in hospitals and dissatisfied them from the healthcare system. The positive effect of attending in patient’s bill of rights courses on knowledge score and ethics education and request of the managers for observing patients’ rights on observation scores, can be effective on meeting these rights in the hospitals. Because this study was self-reporting, assessing the knowledge and the level of observation of patients’ rights from patients’ view and conducting the same studies on healthcare system consumers (patients) is obviously necessary.
Speed Adaptation in Learning from Demonstration through Latent Space Formulation

SUMMARY Performing actions in a timely manner is an indispensable aspect in everyday human activities. Accordingly, it has to be present in robotic systems if they are going to seamlessly interact with humans. The current work addresses the problem of learning both the spatial and temporal characteristics of human motions from observation. We formulate learning as a mapping between two worlds (the observed and the action ones). This mapping is realized via an abstract intermediate representation termed “Latent Space. ” Learned actions can be subsequently invoked in the context of more complex human–robot interaction (HRI) scenarios. Unlike previous learning from demonstration (LfD) methods that cope only with the spatial features of an action, the formulated scheme effectively encompasses spatial and temporal aspects. Learned actions are reproduced under the high-level control of a time-informed task planner. During the implementation of the studied scenarios, temporal and physical constraints may impose speed adaptations in the reproduced actions. The employed latent space representation readily supports such variations, giving rise to novel actions in the temporal domain. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme in the implementation of HRI scenarios. Finally, a set of well-defined evaluation metrics are introduced to assess the validity of the proposed approach considering the temporal and spatial consistency of the reproduced behaviors.