Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of an Innovative Telerehabilitation Intervention for People With Parkinson's Disease on Quality of Life, Motor, and Non-motor Abilities

Parkinson's disease (PD) often leads to multifactorial motor and non-motor disabilities with resultant social restrictions. Continuity of care in this pathology, including a tailored home rehabilitation, is crucial to improve or maintain the quality of life for patients. The aim of this multicenter study was to test in a pilot sample of PD patients the efficiency and efficacy of the Human Empowerment Aging and Disability (HEAD) program. The virtual reality HEAD program was administered in two consecutive phases: (1) in clinic (ClinicHEAD, 12 45-minutes sessions, 3 sessions/week); (2) at home (HomeHEAD, 60 45-minutes sessions, 5 sessions/week). Thirty-one PD outpatients were enrolled [mean age (SD) = 66.84 (9.13)]. All patients performed ClinicHEAD, and after allocation (ratio 1:2) were assigned to the HomeHEAD or the Usual Care (UC) group. Motor, cognitive and behavioral outcome measures were assessed at enrollment (T0), at hospital discharge (T1), at 4 (T2) and 7 (T3) months after baseline. After ClinicHEAD (T1 vs. T0 comparison) a significant (p < 0.05) improvement in functional mobility, balance, upper limb mobility, global cognitive function, memory, quality of life and psychological well-being was observed. After the HomeHEAD intervention there was an additional enhancement for upper limb mobility. At T3 follow-up, the UC group that did not continue the HEAD program at home showed a worsening with respect to the HomeHEAD group in balance and functional mobility. Furthermore, in the HomeHEAD group, a positive association was observed between adherence, mental and physical health (SF-12). A trend was also registered between adherence and positive affect. The digital health patient-tailored rehabilitation program resulted in improving motor and non-motor abilities and quality of life in clinical setting, enhancing the motor function in telerehabilitation at home, and maintaining the non-motor abilities and quality of life at follow-up. In the near future, people with PD can be supported also at home with individualized rehabilitation strategies for a better quality of life and wellbeing along with lower costs for society.
Massive Nitrogen Loss Over the Western Indian Continental Shelf During Seasonal Anoxia: Evidence From Isotope Pairing Technique

The western Indian continental shelf houses the world’s largest naturally formed coastal low-oxygen zone that develops seasonally during the summer monsoon. We investigated multiple reductive nitrogen transformation pathways and quantified their rates in this system through anaerobic incubations with additions of 15N-labeled substrates during the anoxic period for three consecutive years (2008–2010). Addition of 15N labeled ammonium (15NH4+) resulted in low to moderate anaerobic ammonia oxidation (Anammox) rates in about half of our incubations from the oxygen depleted waters. In contrast, incubations with labeled nitrite (15NO2–) led to large production of 30N2 over 29N2 in all incubation experiments, indicating denitrification to be the dominant N-loss pathway. Rates of dissimilatory nitrate/nitrite reduction to ammonium (DNRA) were found to be highly variable and were lower by an order of magnitude than the denitrification rates. Extrapolation of average rates over the sampling periods and volume of anoxic waters showed large nitrogen removal (3.70–11.1 Tg year–1) which is about three times as high as the previously reported estimate (1.3–3.8 Tg year–1). Despite the small area it occupies, this shallow seasonal anoxic zone may account for as much as 20–60% the of the total annual fixed nitrogen loss in the perennial oxygen minimum zone of the Arabian Sea.
Returning a Puppy for Dog Guide Training: Factors That Affect Grief in Puppy Raisers and the Decision to Foster Again

Introduction: Guiding Eyes for the Blind (GEB) breeds, raises, and trains dogs to serve as guides for people with visual impairments (i.e., those who are blind or have low vision). Their puppy raising program enlists volunteers to foster puppies for a year or more, providing socialization, basic skills training, and comfort, so they will grow into confident dogs. The volunteers must ultimately return these dogs to Yorktown Heights, New York, to begin training. For raisers, the emotional toll of this parting can be great. Methods: Utilizing the 2017 GEB Puppy Raiser Survey data, this study analyzed factors that might affect emotional grief and the decision to continue to raise puppies. Cross-tabulation and ordinal regression analyses examined the associations of puppy raiser demographics (i.e., gender, age, marital status, and employment), organizational integration (i.e., number of dogs raised for GEB, perceptions on how well GEB supports raisers in returning a dog, belief that they are part of the GEB community, and formation of friendships), and goal attainment (perceptions on how well GEB communicated progress in training, whether they raised a dog accepted for guide training, and whether they attended a graduation ceremony) with self-reported emotional difficulty, recovery time, and likelihood of raising another puppy. Results: Although the demographics of the raiser had minimal effect on emotional difficulty, recovery time, and likelihood of raising again, factors that measured organization integration and goal attainment were associated with grief and continued participation. Discussion: Raiser demographics are not strong predictors of grief and continued raising; however, a welcoming organization that communicates effectively will inspire volunteers’ commitment. Implications: With a growing need for assistance dogs and puppy raisers, identifying and addressing the challenges that these volunteers face is critical if skilled and dedicated raisers are to be recruited and retained.
Investigating the effect of immersive virtual reality and planning on the outcomes of simulation-based learning: A media and method experiment

The application of the immersive virtual reality (VR) has injected new vitality into educational innovation, but there are also some voices of doubt on its practical learning effects. Considering two aspects of media and instructional methods, the study investigated the effect of immersive virtual reality and planning strategy on simulation-based learning by a $2\times 2$ experimental cross - panel design. The results showed that both of them had a significant main effect, indicating that the immersive VR and planning led to better behavioral transfer performance and immersive VR increased sense of presence and self-efficacy as well. No interaction effect between media and method was found.
Shared Memory Consistency Models: A Tutorial

The memory consistency model of a system affects performance, programmability, and portability. We aim to describe memory consistency models in a way that most computer professionals would understand. This is important if the performance-enhancing features being incorporated by system designers are to be correctly and widely used by programmers. Our focus is consistency models proposed for hardware-based shared memory systems. Most of these models emphasize the system optimizations they support, and we retain this system-centric emphasis. We also describe an alternative, programmer-centric view of relaxed consistency models that describes them in terms of program behavior, not system optimizations.
Language-Agnostic Generation of Compilable Test Programs

Testing is an integral part of the development of compilers and other language processors. To automatically create large sets of test programs, random program generators, or fuzzers, have emerged. Unfortunately, existing approaches are either language-specific (and thus require a rewrite for each language) or may generate programs that violate rules of the respective programming language (which limits their usefulness). This work introduces *Smith, a language-agnostic framework for the generation of valid, compilable test programs. It takes as input an abstract attribute grammar that specifies the syntactic and semantic rules of a programming language. It then creates test programs that satisfy all these rules. By aggressively pruning the search space and keeping the construction as local as possible, *Smith can generate huge, complex test programs in short time. We present four case studies covering four real-world programming languages (C, Lua, SQL, and SMT-LIB 2) to show that *Smith is both efficient and effective, while being flexible enough to support programming languages that differ considerably. We found bugs in all four case studies. For example, *Smith detected 165 different crashes in older versions of GCC and LLVM. *Smith and the language grammars are available online.
Activity of Male Internal Genitalia and Breeding Season in the Lesser Japanese Mole, Mogera imaizumii, Inferred from Morphometric and Histological Analyses

Abstract. We researched seasonal reproductive activity in the lesser Japanese mole, Mogera imaizumii, by morphometrical and histological methods for male internal genitalia using samples from Kanagawa Pref. , central Honshu, Japan. On the basis of the weights of testis and the epididymis, we determined that their weights become higher during February–April. On the other hand, the histological profiles of seminiferous tubules showed variable states annually. In the late winter, a seminiferous tubule profile was mainly occupied with spermatocytes. In addition, in the spring, the profile was also occupied with spermatids increased in the profile. Moreover, from the early summer to the early winter, spermatogonia occupied and this status indicates lower reproductive activity. Accordingly, current results indicated that breeding behavior would be active during the late winter through spring in our research locality.
Evaluation of piglet mortality in 28 two-breed crosses among eight breeds of pig

Records of piglet mortality were taken on 775 first and 657 second litters farrowed at four locations and representing 28 combinations of two-breed crosses involving eight breeds. All the sows were mated to Poland China boars. Overall mortality was 18% of which 4·2% occurred at birth, 13·2% between birth and 21 days and 1·2% from 21 to 42 days. Landrace x Yorkshire dams had the lowest mortality rate (10·4%) followed by Duroc x Lacombe (12·3%) whereas the highest rate was found in the Hampshire x Lacombe sows (21·6%). Piglets with Tamworth and Yorkshire ancestry had the lowest mortality (16·2 and 16·7%) while those with Berkshire ancestry had the highest (20·0%). Mortality rate was slightly (2%) higher in first than in second parity litters, and highest in summer and similar in the three other seasons. Mortality rate was highest in very small and very large litters and among the lightest and the heaviest piglets. The results showed a linear relationship between mortality rate and homogeneity of piglet weights at birth within litter, mortality rising with the increase in intra-litter variation. The effect of sires on piglet mortality was significant in one, and non-significant in the three other locations.
Revised circumscriptions and subgeneric taxonomies of Calandrinia and Montiopsis (Portulacaceae) with notes on phylogeny of the portulacaceous alliance

Cladistic analysis of Portulacaceae supports a revised taxonomy of Calandrinia sensu lato. Calandrinia, as here circumscribed, comprises ca. 14 western American species in three sections: Calandrinia, Acaules, and Monocosmia. Previous taxonomies classified over 100 species in Calandrinia but recognized Monocosmia as a distinct genus. Calandrinia sects. Calandrinia and Monocosmia are probably cladistically nested in section Acaules and are not sister groups of either Rumicastrum or Montia, as proposed in a previous cladistic analysis. Montiopsis Kuntze, traditionally included in Calandrinia, comprises ca. 15 western South American species in two subgenera, Montiopsis and Dianthoideae (.)
Strategies for Converting Tall Fescue to Warm-season Turf in a Mediterranean Climate

Replacing cool-season turf with more drought and heat tolerant warmseason turfgrass species is a viable water conservation strategy in climates where water resources and precipitation are limited. Field studies were conducted in Riverside and Irvine, CA, to investigate three methods (scalping, eradication with a nonselective herbicide, planting into existing turf) of converting an existing tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea) sward to warm-season turf. Cultivars established vegetatively by plugging were ‘De Anza’ hybrid zoysiagrass [Zoysia matrella · (Z. japonica · Z. tenuifolia)], ‘Palmetto’ st. augustinegrass (Stenotaphrum secundatum), ‘Tifsport’ hybrid bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon · C. transvaalensis), ‘Sea Spray’ seashore paspalum (Paspalum vaginatum), and ‘UC Verde’ buffalograss (Buchloe dactyloides). Cultivars established from seeds were ‘Princess-77’ bermudagrass (C. dactylon) and ‘Sea Spray’ seashore paspalum. Neither scalping nor planting into existing tall fescue were effective conversion strategies, as none of the warm-season turfgrasses reached 50% groundcover within 1 year of planting. All of the species except for st. augustinegrass reached a higher percentage of groundcover at the end of the study when glyphosate herbicide was applied to tall fescue before propagation compared with the other conversion strategies. Bermudagrass and seashore paspalum established from seeds and hybrid bermudagrass from plugs provided the best overall establishment with 97%, 93%, and 85% groundcover, respectively, when glyphosate was used before establishment. Quality of seeded cultivars matched or exceeded that of cultivars established vegetatively by plugging. These results suggest that eradication of tall fescue turf followed by establishment of warm-season turf from seeds is the best and easiest turf conversion strategy.
Estimation of breeding value for milk production traits in a Holstein herd [Bos taurus] with incomplete relationships

血縁情報が不完全である場合,アニマルモデルを用いても育種価の推定に偏りが生じると考えられる. 北海道農業試験場牛群における223頭527記録を用い,種雄牛の血縁情報が不完全であるときの育種価の推定値の偏りについて検討した. 多形質のアニマルモデルの制限付き最尤法を用いて,乳量,乳脂量,乳脂率,乳タンパク質量,乳タンパク質率の5形質の遺伝率,遺伝相関,分娩年次•産次効果および個体の育種価を求めた. 推定には分娩年次を1年毎に分けた(1)式と,分娩年次を3年毎に分けた(2)式を用いた. (1)式では,乳量,乳脂量,乳タンパク質量の育種価が1980年以降生まれの種雄牛で過小評価された. これは,血縁情報が不完全であるために,種雄牛の遺伝的変異が考慮できなかったことによると考えられた. 乳脂率,乳タンパク質率でこのような偏りが見られなかったのは,種雄牛に遺伝的変異がなかったためと考えられた. (2)式で乳量,乳脂量,乳タンパク質量に(1)式のような偏りが見られなかったのは,血縁情報が不完全であっても,同一の分娩年次•産次グループ内の個体数を増やすことで,より適切に種雄牛の遺伝的能力が推定できたためと考えられた.
A Phylogeny of Some Taxa of Masked Shrews (Sorex cinereus) Based on Mitochondrial-DNA, D-Loop Sequences

Parsimony analysis of sequence variation in the mitochondrial (mt) DNA, D-loop region indicated that the masked shrew ( Sorex cinereus ) and the prairie shrew ( S. haydeni ) are monophyletic taxa, but mtDNA from S. cinereus has introgressed into S. haydeni . Within S. cinereus there was a lack of concordance between mtDNA clades and currently accepted subspecific designations. The taxonomic designation S. c. acadicus corresponded to a mtDNA clade composed of specimens found predominantly in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. This clade shared a more recent ancestor with a lineage common to Ontario and Quebec than it did with mtDNA haplotypes from specimens sampled in Michigan and Alberta. S. c. cinereus is, therefore, a paraphyletic assemblage based on mtDNA haplotypes. Little support for currently recognized subspecific designations was found from an analysis of molecular variance among the populations of S. c. cinereus . The mtDNA clades fit a biogeographic hypothesis in which populations of shrews were isolated by factors associated with the Wisconsinan, glaciation and then reinvaded Canada from coastal and southern continental refugia. However, divergence times preceding the recent Wisconsinan glaciation are indicated by applying a molecular clock calibrated for shrews to observed genetic-distance values.
Alighting of Aphids on Colored Cards m a Flight Chamber

Color preferences of the cabbage aphid, Brevicoryne brassicae (L.); the green peach aphid, Myzus perslcae (Sulzer); and the garden nasturtium aphid, Aphis Sp. , were observed under controlled conditions in a flight chamber. The aphids were tested with colored 15.2 × 22.9. cm paper cards. In replicated tests the flying insects were presented with a horizontal row of 3 or 5 colored cards. In each replicate the position of the cards in the row was changed. The 3 species of aphids alighted more frequently on yellow cards than on those where yellow was mixed with orange or green. Orange or green hues presented alone were unattractive. All other hues tested were unattractive as were several shades of gray. Some tints were as attractive or more attractive to the garden nasturtium aphid than their hue or base colors. The possible relationship of the responses observed to color vision of the aphid and to the buildup of aphids following use of some pesticides is discussed.
Properties and generic composition of phosphatase-producing bacteria in coastal and oceanic seawater.

A total of 319 heterotrophic bacteria were isolated from seawater samples of Tokyo, Sagami and Suruga Bays, and the north Pacific Ocean, and their phosphatase production was tested. The ratio of phosphatase producers increased with the distance from the coast; that is, the proportions were 11% in Tokyo Bay, 48% and 55% in Sagami and Suruga Bays, respectively, and 63% in the Pacific Ocean. The constitutive phosphatase producers accounted for 75% of phosphatase-producing bacteria in oceanic regions, whereas they accounted for only 25% in coastal regions. The dominant genera of phosphatase producers in each region were Vibrio in Tokyo Bay, Vibrio and Pseudomonas is Sagami and Suruga Bays, and Pseudomonas in the Pacific Ocean. The proportion of phosphatase producers in the Pseudomonas group increased with distance from the coast.
Analysis of rhizosphere microbial community structure of weak and strong allelopathic rice varieties under dry paddy field

Terminal restrain fragment length polymorphism(T-RFLP) technique was employed to investigate the microbial community structure and composition in the rhizosphere of weak and strong allelopathic rice varieties directly sowing on dry paddy field at 5-leaf stage and 7-leaf stage.The results showed that 9—87 TRFs and 15—89 TRFs were detected from the soil DNA digested with two restriction enzymes Hae Ⅲ and MspⅠ,respectively.The rank-abundance of TRFs from different samples showed extremely significant difference,indicating that relative abundance of rhizosphere bacteria was markedly different.The diversity indices including species abundance(S),Shannon-wiener diversity index(H),Pilow diversity index(D) and evenness index(E) were used to analyse the diversity of TRFs in 6 samples.The analysis of correlation coefficients among species indices showed that Shannon-wiener diversity index was the best one for the invesitigation of the species diversity.The Shannon-wiener diversity in the sample of PI7 was the highest compared with those in the others.The cluster analysis and principle analysis suggested the similarity among the 3 samples of 5-leaf stage was greater than that of 7-leaf stage.Especially,the three samples of 7-leaf stage were separated by not only principal component Ⅰbut also principal component Ⅱ,which implicated that the composition and structure of soil microorganism community could be regulated by both growth stage of rice and rice variety.The Shannon-wiener diversity index and species richness of PI7 were the highest in all samples,and 34 genera were special in PI7,in which 7 genera belonged to myxobacteria.Some sliding bacteria and N-fixing bacteria were also found in those special genera of PI7.Secondary metabolites of Myxobacteria might improve the allelopathic potential of allelopathic rice by inhibiting germination of weed seeds in soil seed bank and decreasing the density of weeds in the field of rice.
An Embedded CNN Implementation for On-Device ECG Analysis

IoT systems that employ AI and neural networks for processing sensor data are usually dependent on an active connection to the cloud, or restricted to simplified models and techniques. By employing a highly optimised Convolutional Neural Network that can be executed directly on our heterogeneous IoT device, we can address both these problems without sacrificing accuracy. Additionally, leveraging the cloud when unknown or uncertain samples are seen allows us to continuously improve the model. Capable of running a “normal” model trained using frameworks such as TensorFlow, we show that our system can achieve accuracy of up to 97% in medical applications such as ECGs. This is done using our device that uses less than 200mW but can locally process more than 300 heart beats per second.
Mass variation in breeding wood thrushes

Data from a 15-year study of breeding Wood Thrushes (Hylocichla mustelina) indicate that body mass varies with sex, year, time of day, and breeding stage. The pattern of mass variation with breeding stage differs for the two sexes. Mean female mass is low during the prebreeding stage (50.3 g), but increases rapidly, reaching its highest level in the laying stage (57.4 g). It is reduced during the incubation (54.2 g) and feeding stages (51.1 g), rises again in the break between broods (53.6 g), but declines in the postbreeding period (50.7 g). Male mass is lowest in the prebreeding stage (46.5 g), but slightly higher in the laying period (48.0 g). It increases in the incubation period (49.4 g), then declines in the feeding (48.3 g) and break stages (47.2 g), but reaches its greatest level in the postbreeding period (49.9 g). Both sexes may be physiologically stressed during the feeding stage, but male stress is probably greater in the prebreeding and break stages.
New Exact Algorithm for the Vehicle Routing Problem with Stochastic Demands

This paper considers the vehicle routing problem with stochastic demands under optimal restocking. We develop an exact algorithm that is effective for solving instances with many vehicles and few customers per route. In our experiments, we show that in these instances, solving the stochastic problem is most relevant (i.e., the potential gains over the deterministic equivalent solution are highest). The proposed branch-price-and-cut algorithm relies on an efficient labeling procedure, exact and heuristic dominance rules, and completion bounds to price profitable columns. Instances with up to 76 nodes could be solved in less than five hours, and instances with up to 148 nodes could be solved in long runs of the algorithm. The experiments also allowed new findings on the problem. The solution to the stochastic problem is up to 10% less costly than the deterministic equivalent solution. Opening new routes reduces restocking costs and in many cases results in solutions with less transportation costs. When the number of routes is not fixed, the optimal solutions under detour-to-depot and optimal restocking are nearly equivalent. However, when the number of routes is limited and the expected demand along a route is allowed to exceed the vehicle capacity, optimal restocking may be significantly more cost-effective than the detour-to-depot policy.
T-cache: Dependency-free Ternary Rule Cache for Policy-based Forwarding

Ternary Content Addressable Memory (TCAM) is widely used by modern routers and switches to support policy-based forwarding. However, the limited TCAM capacity does not scale with the ever-increasing rule table size. Using TCAM just as a rule cache is a plausible solution, but one must resolve several tricky issues including the rule dependency and the associated TCAM updates. In this paper, we propose a new approach which can generate dependency-free rules to cache. By removing the rule dependency, the TCAM update problem also disappears. We provide the complete T-cache system design including slow path processing and cache replacement. Evaluations based on real-world and synthesized rule tables and traces show that T-cache is efficient and robust for network traffic in various scenarios.