Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Methodology for co-design based on a healthcare case study

Systems upon which a high degree of reliance can be asserted form the class of dependable systems. We present here a development method for a subclass of dependable systems, safety-critical control systems. This method supports simultaneous design of both hardware and software in a system where failures would cause significant losses. The method is based on using mathematically solid techniques that allow us to address safety and reliability issues early in the development cycle. We start with an abstract specification of the system and subsequently add details concerning functionality, safety and reliability in a stepwise manner. From the obtained specification we can deduce which parts of the system are implemented using software and which using hardware. We then decompose the specification into controller, sensors, actuators and plant. We use the formal development method B-action systems for our development process. The method has a good mechanised support via the tools associated with the B Method. We illustrate the development process on a medical laboratory device, i.e. a control oriented case study that is part of a healthcare system. The work has been done within the EU-project MATISSE Methodologies and Technologies for Industrial Strength Systems Engineering (IST-199911435, http://www.matisse.qinetiq.com/).
Developing strategies to prevent inhospital cardiac arrest: Analyzing responses of physicians and nurses in the hours before the event

ObjectivesTo determine: a) the frequency of premonitory signs and symptoms before cardiac arrest in patients on the general medical wards of a hospital; b) any characteristic patterns in nurse and physician responses to these signs and symptoms; and c) whether cardiac arrests on the ward occur more frequently in patients discharged from the medical intensive care unit (ICU) than in other patients. DesignCase series of consecutive patients who had an inhospital cardiac arrest over a 20-month period. SettingGeneral medical wards of a 1,000-bed urban public hospital. PatientsThere were 21,505 total admissions to the medical service in this period. Patients whose cardiac arrests occurred in the Emergency Room and ICU and patients with do-not-resuscitate orders were excluded from the study. InterventionsNone. Measurements and Main ResultsThere were a total of 150 cardiac arrests on the medical wards (cardiac arrest rate: 7.0/1,000 patients) with a hospital mortality rate of 91%. In 99 of 150 cases, a nurse or physician documented deterioration in the patient's condition within 6 hrs of cardiac arrest. Common findings included: a) failure of the nurse to notify a physician of a deterioration in the patient's mental status; b) failure of the physician to obtain or interpret an arterial blood gas measurement in the setting of respiratory distress; and c) failure of the ICU triage physician to stabilize the patient's condition before transferring the patient to the ICU. Former ICU patients (cardiac arrest rate: 14.7/1,000 patients) were more likely to suffer cardiac arrest than other patients (cardiac arrest rate: 6.8/1,000 patients) (p = .004). ConclusionsCardiac arrests on the general wards of the hospital are commonly preceded by premonitory signs and symptoms. Strategies to prevent cardiac arrest should include training for nurses and physicians that concentrates on cardiopulmonary stabilization and how to respond to neurologic and respiratory deterioration. Special attention should also be devoted to patients who have been discharged from the ICU who are at greater risk for cardiac arrest after ICU discharge than are other medical patients. (Crit Care Med 1994; 22:244–247)
Price Discrimination and Copyright Law: Evidence from the Introduction of Dvds

This paper examines the welfare effects of intellectual property protection, accounting for firms’ optimal responses to legal environments. I examine firms’ use of indirect price discrimination in response to U. S. copyright law preventing direct price discrimination. Using data covering VHS and DVD movie distribution, I explain studios’ optimal pricing strategies under U. S. copyright law, and determine optimal pricing strategies under E. U. copyright law, which allows for direct price discrimination. I find that studios’ use of indirect price discrimination benefits consumers and harms retailers. Optimal pricing under E. U. copyright law further benefits studios and consumers. I also reanalyze these issues assuming continued DVD adoption.
C reactive protein and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: a Mendelian randomisation approach

Background It is unclear whether elevated plasma C reactive protein (CRP) is causally related to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The authors tested the hypothesis that genetically elevated plasma CRP causes COPD using a Mendelian randomisation design. Methods The authors measured high-sensitivity CRP in plasma, genotyped for four single nucleotide polymorphisms in the CRP gene, and screened for spirometry-defined COPD and hospitalisation due to COPD in 7974 individuals from the Copenhagen City Heart Study and in 32 652 individuals from the Copenhagen General Population Study. Results Elevated plasma CRP >3 mg/l compared with <1 mg/l was associated with risk estimates of 1.8 and 2.8 for spirometry-based COPD and of 1.6 and 1.8 for hospitalisation due to COPD in the Copenhagen City Heart Study and the Copenhagen General Population Study, respectively. Genotype combinations of the four CRP polymorphisms were associated with up to a 62% increase in plasma CRP. However, these genotype combinations did not associate with increased risk of COPD or hospitalisation due to COPD in either cohort or in the two cohorts combined. On instrumental variable analysis, a doubling of plasma CRP versus a doubling of genetically elevated CRP resulted in ORs for COPD of 1.27 (95% CI 1.25 to 1.30) versus 1.01 (0.81 to 1.26) and for COPD hospitalisation of 1.47 (1.43 to 1.51) versus 0.82(0.59 to 1.13). Conclusion Although elevated CRP is related to both a diagnosis of COPD and subsequent hospital admission, genetically elevated plasma CRP is not associated with an increased risk of clinical COPD. This suggests that the association between CRP levels and COPD is not causal.
Study on selection of SFCL's impedance for protection coordination with overcurrent relay in a distribution system

The continuous increase of power demand has resulted in an excess of the rated capacity of the distributed power transformer and the replacement with the larger power transformer is under consideration. However, the larger power transformer has lower impedance, which increases the short-circuit current and exceeds the cut-off-ratings of the circuit breaker in a distribution system. The superconducting fault current limiter (SFCL) has been noticed as the promising method to decrease the short-circuit current in a power system, because it has no power loss in a normal time and can limit the fault current rapidly without additional device to detect the fault current. These merits of the SFCL have made many researchers to adopt the SFCL as one of better solutions to decrease the short-circuit current effectively due to the replacement of the larger power transformer with its lower impedance. However, the protection coordination of the protection devices such as the over-current relay (OCR) and the recloser in a distribution system gets out of the original setting rule due to the introduction of the SFCL. In this paper, we studied on the impedance of the SFCL for the protection coordination with the protection devices in a distribution system. Through the analysis using PSCAD/EMTDC, it was obtained that the range of the impedance of SFCL would be drawn to keep the protection coordination.
Threshold-Based Time-of-Arrival Estimators in UWB Dense Multipath Channels

In this paper we put forth a simple threshold-based time-of-arrival (ToA) estimator and analyze its performance in ultra-wide bandwidth (UWB) dense multipath channels. Closed-from expressions for the estimator bias and mean square error are derived as a function of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), overcoming the limitation of conventional asymptotic analysis valid only for high SNR. A comparison with results based on Monte Carlo simulation as well as those based on experimental measurements in an office environment confirms the validity of our analytical approach. Our analysis enables us to determine the threshold value that minimizes the mean-square error, critical parameter for optimal estimator design. It is shown that the estimation accuracy mainly depends on large estimation errors due to peak ambiguities at the output of the correlator and on the fading statistics of the first path.
Dual Regulation of TRPV1 by Phosphoinositides

The membrane phospholipid phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate [PtdIns(4,5)P2 or PIP2] regulates many ion channels. There are conflicting reports on the effect of PtdIns(4,5)P2 on transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 (TRPV1) channels. We show that in excised patches PtdIns(4,5)P2 and other phosphoinositides activate and the PIP2 scavenger poly-Lys inhibits TRPV1. TRPV1 currents undergo desensitization on exposure to high concentrations of capsaicin in the presence of extracellular Ca2+. We show that in the presence of extracellular Ca2+, capsaicin activates phospholipase C (PLC) in TRPV1-expressing cells, inducing depletion of both PtdIns(4,5)P2 and its precursor PtdIns(4)P (PIP). The PLC inhibitor U73122 and dialysis of PtdIns(4,5)P2 or PtdIns(4)P through the patch pipette inhibited desensitization of TRPV1, indicating that Ca2+-induced activation of PLC contributes to desensitization of TRPV1 by depletion of PtdIns(4,5)P2 and PtdIns(4)P. Selective conversion of PtdIns(4,5)P2 to PtdIns(4)P by a rapamycin-inducible PIP2 5-phosphatase did not inhibit TRPV1 at high capsaicin concentrations, suggesting a significant role for PtdIns(4)P in maintaining channel activity. Currents induced by low concentrations of capsaicin and moderate heat, however, were potentiated by conversion of PtdIns(4,5)P2 to PtdIns(4)P. Increasing PtdIns(4,5)P2 levels by coexpressing phosphatidylinositol-4-phosphate 5-kinase inhibited TRPV1 at low but not at saturating capsaicin concentrations. These data show that at low capsaicin concentrations and other moderate stimuli, PtdIns(4,5)P2 partially inhibits TRPV1 in a cellular context, but this effect is likely to be indirect, because it is not detectable in excised patches. We conclude that phosphoinositides have both inhibitory and activating effects on TRPV1, resulting in complex and distinct regulation at various stimulation levels.
BACH 2 : Bounded reachability checker for compositional linear hybrid systems

Existing reachability analysis techniques are easy to fail when applied to large compositional linear hybrid systems, since their memory usages rise up quickly with the increase of systems' size. To address this problem, we propose a tool BACH 2 that adopts a path-oriented method for bounded reachability analysis of compositional linear hybrid systems. For each component, a path is selected and all selected paths compose a path set for reachability analysis. Each path is independently encoded to a set of constraints while synchronization controls are encoded as a set of constraints too. By merging all the constraints into one set, the path-oriented reachability problem of a path set can be transformed to the feasibility problem of this resulting linear constraint set, which can be solved by linear programming efficiently. Based on this path-oriented method, BACH 2 adopts a shared label sequence guided depth first search (SLS-DFS) method to perform bounded reachability analysis of compositional linear hybrid system, where all potential path sets within the bound limit are identified and verified one by one. By this means, since only the structure of a system and the recently visited one path in each component need to be stored in memory, memory consumption of BACH 2 is very small at runtime. As a result, BACH 2 enables the verification of extremely large systems, as is demonstrated in our experiments.
Back to the Basics: How Attention Monitoring and Acceptance Stimulate Positive Growth

Mindfulness-to-meaning theory moves beyond asking how mindfulness reduces negative affective states (a dominant theme in the mindfulness literature) to a focus on how mindfulness might foster positive psychological processes and outcomes. Specifically, how might mindfulness cultivate personal growth and flourishing? Mindfulness is a practice of monitoring present-moment experiences with an orientation of acceptance, regardless of the content or affective tone of those experiences. But when we return to our daily lives, where the content of our thoughts and feelings does have self-relevant meaning and implications, how does mindfulness integrate with these evaluative processes to initiate a chain of positive growth? The target article by Garland, Farb, Goldin, and Fredrickson (this issue) addresses these questions by describing how mindfulness engenders positive reappraisal and savoring, and through multiple iterations of decentering and metacognitive awareness, a cascade of positive growth and meaning making is posited. Despite a tremendous surge of empirical work on mindfulness and mindfulness training interventions over the last 15 years (Brown, Ryan, & Creswell, 2007; Creswell & Lindsay, 2014), there have been few organizing conceptual or theoretical models offered in the mindfulness literature (Brown, Creswell, & Ryan, 2015). Mindfulness-to-meaning theory offers a new conceptual lens that attempts to bridge mindfulness research with theoretical perspectives in positive psychology and affective science, and we welcome this important contribution to the literature. In our commentary, we first offer some questions raised by the mindfulness-to-meaning theoretical account and then turn to some considerations of what specific mechanisms of mindfulness may be important for triggering and propagating positive growth and meaning-making processes.
Wiring layer assignments with consistent stage delays

Wire sizing, repeater insertion and repeater sizing are necessary to limit delay in on-chip interconnections. When these techniques are applied to nets that are already routed, the results heavily depend on the routing layer chosen for the wire. In this paper, we present a layer assignment method that assigns wires to the layer that is best t. The method is based on a consistent target delay constraint and uses wire sizing and repeater insertion and sizing. It also considers a repeater area constraint and takes the impact of vias into account. A greedy optimization approach is used with the number of layers needed for the wiring as its cost function. Our layer assignment method can be used in conjunction with a priori wirelength estimation models so that it applies both as a guide for the router as well as for placement tools. Our model suggests that vias can severely impact the solution when tight delay constraints are applied, and that this actually sets an upper bound to the number of wires that can be accommodated in any layer stack. Empirical results provide some answers as to the best form of the layer stack. Layer stacks with monotonically increasing wire height on the layers are optimal for tight delay constraints. If longer delays are allowed, the addition of a low-level layer on top of the layer stack might be bene cial.
Non-functional Requirement Analysis and Recommendation for Software Services

Non-Functional (NF) requirement is very important for the success of a software service. Considering that there could be multiple services implementing a same function, it is crucial for software providers to understand the real NF demands from consumers so that they can meet these demands and attract users. It is also crucial for consumers to know what is being offered so that they can pose realistic NF requests. We address both issues here by proposing a NF requirement analysis and recommendation system which works for both providers and consumers. NF requirements from various sources are first collected, and then we apply the factor analysis technique to identify those independent latent factors which contribute to those observable NF values. Finally we use cluster analysis to summarize the popular NF demands. Our experiment result shows the effectiveness of this approach.
Truthful Mechanisms for Competitive Reward-Based Scheduling

We consider a competitive environment for reward-based scheduling of periodic tasks, where the execution of each task consists of a mandatory and an optional part. Each task obtains a value if the processor successfully schedules all its mandatory part, and also an additional reward value if the processor successfully schedules a part of its optional execution. Each task is owned by a self-interested agent who has multiple choices for its requests based on its optional part. We model the reward-based scheduling problem by considering such multi-minded agents. However, the agent may try to manipulate the system to obtain an unfair optional allocation. We address this challenge by designing novel truthful mechanisms in which it is always in the agent's best interest to report their true task characteristics. We propose two truthful mechanisms (an exact and approximate) for selecting a feasible subset of agents and an allocation of optional execution that maximizes the total reward obtained by the selected tasks. To address the pseudo-polynomial complexity of the exact mechanism, we show that our proposed approximate mechanism is a polynomial-time approximation scheme (PTAS). Our extensive experiments show that our proposed approximation mechanism is capable of finding near-optimal solutions efficiently while guaranteeing truthfulness.
Toxicity of Nitro-Heterocyclic and Nitroaromatic Energetic Materials to Enchytraeid Worm.Enchytraeus Crypticus in a Natural Sandy Loam Soil

Abstract : U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is developing Ecological Soil Screening Level (Eco-SSL) values for ecological risk assessment of contaminants at Superfind sites. Insufficient information for RDX, HMX, 2,4-DNT, 2,6-DNT, and TNB to generate Eco-SSLs necessitated standardized toxicity testing to fill the data gaps. The Enchytraeid Reproduction Test (ISO/16387:2001) was adapted using Enchytraeus crypticus in these studies. Tests were conducted in Sassafras sandy loam soil, which supports relatively high bioavailability of energetic materials. Weathering/aging procedures for amended soil were incorporated in the study to better reflect the exposure conditions in the field soils. Definitive toxicity tests conducted with both freshly amended and weathered/aged amended soils showed that EM toxicity order based on EC(sub 20) values for juvenile production in tests with E. crypticus was TNB > 2,4-DNT > 2,6-DNT > RDX with EC(sub 20) values of 45, 116, 194, and 585 mg kg(exp -1), respectively. The octahydro-1, 3, 5, 7 - tetranitrol, 3, 5, 7 - tetrazocine (HMX) did not adversely affect adult survival or juvenile production up to 21750 mg kg(exp -1) treatment. These study results will be provided to the Eco-SSL workgroup for review and inclusion in the Eco-SSL database, and for developing Eco-SSLs for RDX, HMX, 2,4-DNT, 2,6-DNT, and TNB.
New plasma processes for antireflective structures on plastics

A new technology based on plasma etching has been developed to produce antireflective surface structures. By choosing thin initial layers and variable plasma conditions, a broad range of nanostructures can be obtained on various polymers. A broadband antireflective effect can be achieved that is less sensitive to the incident angle of light compared to multilayer interference coatings. Thin layers of silica help in mechanical protection, especially if the structured surface is nearly enclosed by the protection layer. In addition, surfaces that show both antireflective properties and an antifogging effect have been prepared. Combinations of SiO2 and fluorine-containing layers were found to be useful in obtaining super-hydrophobic behavior. This advanced plasma etching is not limited to a special plasma source and the suitability of different plasma sources is discussed.
Increased alcohol consumption as a cause of alcoholism, without similar evidence for depression: a Mendelian randomization study.

BACKGROUND Increased alcohol consumption has been associated with depression and alcoholism, but whether these associations are causal remains unclear. We tested whether alcohol consumption is causally associated with depression and alcoholism. METHODS We included 78,154 men and women aged 20-100 years randomly selected in 1991-2010 from the general population of Copenhagen, Denmark, and genotyped 68,486 participants for two genetic variants in two alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) genes, ADH-1B (rs1229984) and ADH-1C (rs698). We performed observational and causal analyses using a Mendelian randomization design with antidepressant medication use and hospitalization/death, with depression and alcoholism as outcomes. RESULTS In prospective analyses, the multifactorially adjusted hazard ratio for participants reporting >6 drinks/day vs participants reporting 0.1-1 drinks/day was 1.28 (95% confidence interval, 1.00-1.65) for prescription antidepressant use, with a corresponding hazard ratio of 0.80 (0.45-1.45) for hospitalization/death with depression and of 11.7 (8.77-15.6) for hospitalization/death with alcoholism. For hospitalization/death with alcoholism, instrumental variable analysis yielded a causal odds ratio of 28.6 (95 % confidence interval 6.47-126) for an increase of 1 drink/day estimated from the combined genotype combination, whereas the corresponding multifactorially adjusted observational odds ratio was 1.28 (1.25-1.31). Corresponding odds ratios were 1.11 (0.67-1.83) causal and 1.04 (1.03-1.06) observational for prescription antidepressant use, and 4.52 (0.99-20.5) causal and 0.98 (0.94-1.03) observational for hospitalization/death with depression. CONCLUSIONS These data indicate that the association between increased alcohol consumption and alcoholism is causal, without similar strong evidence for depression.
Comparison of chondrogenesis in static and dynamic environments using a SFF designed and fabricated PCL-PEO scaffold

A tssue engineering approach combining the scaffold/cell/matrix aspires to be a suitable alternative for current cartilage injury treatment modalities to produce a functional cartilage graft. Scaffolds synthesised from elastomeric materials and fabricated by a rapid prototyping technique were tested and investigated as a potential candidate for cartilage tissue engineering. The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of scaffold internal architectures, matrix composition and dynamic environmental conditions on the final outcome of the scaffold-cell construct. PCL-PEO scaffolds were fabricated with 0°–90° and 0°–45° lay-down patterns with porosity values of 60% and 71% respectively. They were seeded with 500,000 porcine articular chondrocytes along with two different hydrogels, i.e. alginate and alginate/thrombin, and chondrocyte behaviour was studied. Furthermore, scaffold-cell constructs were cultured dynamically using the spinner flask method for 6 weeks. Porosity and surface-to-volume ratios were different for scaffolds with diverse geometry. The 0°–45° pattern scaffold showed significantly increased cell numbers and extracellular matrix proteins such as collagen-II compared to the 0°–90° scaffolds. The alginate/thrombin matrix encapsulated more chondrocytes compared to the alginate matrix alone. Cells were found to be viable and actively proliferating after 6 weeks of culture, maintaining the rounded chondrocyte phenotype in the matrix. Cell number, metabolic activity and extracellular matrix, such as collagen II, were produced significantly more in the dynamic environment compared to the static environment.