Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
SpaceSense: representing geographical information to visually impaired people using spatial tactile feedback

Learning an environment can be challenging for people with visual impairments. Braille maps allow their users to understand the spatial relationship between a set of places. However, physical Braille maps are often costly, may not always cover an area of interest with sufficient detail, and might not present up-to-date information. We built a handheld system for representing geographical information called SpaceSense, which includes custom spatial tactile feedback hardware-multiple vibration motors attached to different locations on a mobile touch-screen device. It offers high-level information about the distance and direction towards a destination and bookmarked places through vibrotactile feedback to help the user maintain the spatial relationships between these points. SpaceSense also adapts a summarization technique for online user reviews of public and commercial venues. Our user study shows that participants could build and maintain the spatial relationships between places on a map more accurately with SpaceSense compared to a system without spatial tactile feedback. They pointed specifically to having spatial tactile feedback as the contributing factor in successfully building and maintaining their mental map.
Catheter ablation of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation using a 3D mapping system.

BACKGROUND We treated paroxysmal recurrent atrial fibrillation (AF) with radiofrequency (RF) catheter ablation by creating long linear lesions in the atria. To achieve line continuity, a 3D electroanatomic nonfluoroscopic mapping system was used. METHODS AND RESULTS In 27 patients with recurrent AF, a catheter incorporating a passive magnetic field sensor was navigated in both atria to construct a 3D activation map. RF energy was delivered to create continuous linear lesions: 3 lines (intercaval, isthmic, and anteroseptal) in the right atrium and a long line encircling the pulmonary veins in the left atrium. After RF application, the atria were remapped to validate completeness of the block lines, demonstrated by late activation of the areas circumscribed by the lines. The mean procedure duration was 312+/-103 minutes (range, 187 to 495), with mean fluoroscopy time of 107+/-44 minutes (range, 32 to 185 minutes). No acute complications occurred, but 1 patient experienced early prolonged sinus pauses and received a pacemaker. During the first day, 17 patients (63%) had AF episodes, but at discharge, 25 patients were in sinus rhythm. After a follow-up of 6. 0 to 15.3 months (average, 10.5+/-3.0 months), 16 patients are asymptomatic, 3 have an almost complete disappearance of symptoms, 1 patient is improved, and 7 patients have their AF attacks unchanged. CONCLUSIONS Paroxysmal recurrent drug-refractory AF can be treated by RF catheter ablation. Creation of long continuous linear lesions necessary to compartmentalize the atria is facilitated by a nonfluoroscopic electroanatomic mapping system.
Anti-metabolic syndrome effects of adenosine ingestion in stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rats fed a high-fat diet

We have demonstrated previously that both acute and chronic oral administration of adenosine have novel functions such as anti-hypertensive effects and improved hyperlipidaemia in stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRSP) fed a normal diet. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of adenosine administration on metabolic syndrome-related parameters in SHRSP fed a high-fat diet. Six-week-old rats were divided into three groups, and were administered either water (control) or adenosine (10 or 100 mg/l) for 8 weeks. During this period, the rats had free access to a high-fat diet based on AIN-93M. The results showed that hypertension, plasma lipid, NO, insulin, glucose and urinary 8-hydroxy-2′-deoxyguanosine levels improved significantly in both adenosine groups. The mRNA expression levels of genes involved in anti-oxidative activity and adenosine receptors were also altered in the adenosine groups. Administration of adenosine also increased plasma adiponectin levels, accompanied by upregulation of mRNA expression level of adiponectin and adiponectin receptor 1 in perirenal fat and adiponectin receptor 2 in the liver. In conclusion, oral administration of adenosine is effective for improving metabolic syndrome-related parameters in SHRSP, and accordingly it may prevent the progression of the metabolic syndrome.
Analyzing improvements for a mine maintenance system of connected equipment and machines the value and benefits of data sharing

A modern mine involves increasingly smart and connected products that are integrated in a mine automation system. Integration enable many possible applications that could substantially aid in achieving the goals of increased safety and productivity of the mine operation including the machine maintenance process. What data will be shared by the involved organizations and products, heavily affects how successful improvements of operation can be accommodated. We have devised a method to map out and evaluate envisioned new collaborative functions for a complex System-of-systems such as the mine maintenance operation. The proposed method map user stories for the involved stakeholders and estimate the value of fulfillment based on different candidates of data sharing architectures. The method is explained and exemplified by a realistic example based the real case. There seems to be a need for a method such as the presented one just to map out what new applications are really feasible. By estimating value in terms of stakeholder benefits and identifying possible showstoppers in terms of protected data, the method seems to help reveal what improvements in the mine operation is in fact possible. Deciding on a data-sharing architecture for a collaborative mine seems to provide useful design prerequisites to a developing organization improving their smart connected products.
Accurate and reliable diagnosis and classification using probabilistic ensemble simplified fuzzy ARTMAP

In this paper, an accurate and effective probabilistic plurality voting method to combine outputs from multiple simplified fuzzy ARTMAP (SFAM) classifiers is presented. Five ELENA benchmark problems and five medical benchmark data sets have been used to evaluate the applicability and performance of the proposed probabilistic ensemble simplified fuzzy ARTMAP (PESFAM) network. Among the five benchmark problems in ELENA project, PESFAM outperforms the SFAM and multi-layer perceptron (MLP) classifier. In addition, the effectiveness of the proposed PESFAM is delineated in medical diagnosis applications. For the medical diagnosis and classification problems, PESFAM achieves 100 percent in accuracy, specificity, and sensitivity based on the 10-fold crossvalidation and these results are superior to those from other classification algorithms. In addition, a posteri probability of the predicted class can be used to measure the prediction reliability of PESFAM. The experiments demonstrate the potential of the proposed multiple SFAM classifiers in offering an optimal solution to the data-ordering problem of SFAM implementation and also as an intelligent medical diagnosis tool.
Contemporary institutional solid waste management practices of Haramaya University, Eastern Ethiopia

Even though waste products arise from our ways of life and are generated at every stage of the process of production and development, the type of decision making that leads to adequate solid waste management requires a sound understanding of the composition and processes that determine the generation of waste. So, to be successful, the first step is to carry out solid waste characterization studies. The aim of this paper is twofold. First, it investigates the generation rate and physical composition of solid waste. Second, it examines the existing status and spatial coverage of institutional solid waste management practices of Haramaya University (HU). The sampling methods employed to select the study units include stratified sampling, systematic random sampling and purposive sampling. Questionnaires, field observations, field measurement and semi-structured interviews were employed to assess the soundness of waste management practices. The wastes generated on HU main campus can be estimated to be 3,509,077.15 kg/year (9483.99 m3) and 2788.68 kg/day (7.537 m3). The per capita generation of solid waste was highest (0.288 kg/person/day) at household residential buildings followed by 0.079 kg/person/day at administrative and academic staff buildings and 0.052 kg/person/day at the students’ dormitory. Manual segregation of the collected wastes comprised both biodegradable (89.21%) and non-biodegradable waste (10.79%) materials. This indicates that waste reduction through composting is a potential alternative if the biodegradable waste can be successfully separated at the source. Moreover, the current waste management system at the university is already overtaxed due to lack of institutional coordination and insufficient and skilled manpower resources. Evidences to this fact are low collection rates and lack of proper scientific disposal mechanisms. Based on the findings, the formulation and implementation of integrated solid waste management strategy are suggested.
The CoNLL-2010 Shared Task: Learning to Detect Hedges and their Scope in Natural Language Text

The CoNLL-2010 Shared Task was dedicated to the detection of uncertainty cues and their linguistic scope in natural language texts. The motivation behind this task was that distinguishing factual and uncertain information in texts is of essential importance in information extraction. This paper provides a general overview of the shared task, including the annotation protocols of the training and evaluation datasets, the exact task definitions, the evaluation metrics employed and the overall results. The paper concludes with an analysis of the prominent approaches and an overview of the systems submitted to the shared task.
Support of path changes with resource reservations for mobile hosts in IP-based access networks

The increasing use of wireless networks and the popularity of multimedia applications, leads to the need of QoS (quality of service) support in a mobile IP-based environment. This paper considers the reservation of resources in the micromobility scenario. The reasons for path changes in the access network are investigated. Based upon this, we present the functionality that should be present in the different access network elements to support path changes regardless their cause and to avoid router inconsistencies. For the simulations we added this functionality to our previously developed Q-MEHROM handoff scheme (L. Peters et al., 2005). However, the ideas and results presented in this paper are not restricted to this micromobility protocol
Orientation reversal of manifolds

We call a closed, connected, orientable manifold in one of the categories TOP, PL or DIFF chiral if it does not admit an orientation-reversing automorphism and amphicheiral otherwise. Moreover, we call a manifold strongly chiral if it does not admit a self-map of degree −1. We prove that there are strongly chiral, smooth manifolds in every oriented bordism class in every dimension ≥ 3. We also produce simply-connected, strongly chiral manifolds in every dimension ≥ 7. For every k ≥ 1, we exhibit lens spaces with an orientation-reversing selfdiffeomorphism of order 2 but no self-map of degree −1 of smaller order.
Noncommutative symmetric functions III: Deformations of Cauchy and convolution algebras

This paper discusses various deformations of free associative algebras and of their convolution algebras. Our main examples are deformations of noncommutative symmetric functions related to families of idempotents in descent algebras, and a simple q -analogue of the shuffle product, which has unexpected connections with quantum groups, hyperplane arrangements, and certain questions in mathematical physics (the quon algebra, generalized Brownian motion).
Transcriptome analysis of the Populus trichocarpa–Rhizophagus irregularis Mycorrhizal Symbiosis: Regulation of Plant and Fungal Transportomes under Nitrogen Starvation

Nutrient transfer is a key feature of the arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) symbiosis. Valuable mineral nutrients are transferred from the AM fungus to the plant, increasing its fitness and productivity, and, in exchange, the AM fungus receives carbohydrates as an energy source from the plant. Here, we analyzed the transcriptome of the Populus trichocarpa-Rhizophagus irregularis symbiosis using RNA-sequencing of non-mycorrhizal or mycorrhizal fine roots, with a focus on the effect of nitrogen (N) starvation. In R. irregularis, we identified 1,015 differentially expressed genes, whereby N starvation led to a general induction of gene expression. Genes of the functional classes of cell growth, membrane biogenesis and cell structural components were highly abundant. Interestingly, N starvation also led to a general induction of fungal transporters, indicating increased nutrient demand upon N starvation. In non-mycorrhizal P. trichocarpa roots, 1,341 genes were differentially expressed under N starvation. Among the 953 down-regulated genes in N starvation, most were involved in metabolic processes including amino acids, carbohydrate and inorganic ion transport, while the 342 up-regulated genes included many defense-related genes. Mycorrhization led to the up-regulation of 549 genes mainly involved in secondary metabolite biosynthesis and transport; only 24 genes were down-regulated. Mycorrhization specifically induced expression of three ammonium transporters and one phosphate transporter, independently of the N conditions, corroborating the hypothesis that these transporters are important for symbiotic nutrient exchange. In conclusion, our data establish a framework of gene expression in the two symbiotic partners under high-N and low-N conditions.
Mixed Convex/Non-Convex Distributed Localization Algorithm for the Deployment of Indoor Positioning Services

In this paper a fully decentralized algorithm for indoor wireless localization is presented. The algorithm combines the use of convex and non-convex optimization procedures, nested to achieve better converge towards the best positioning of a multitude of blind wireless nodes. The algorithm proceeds locally on each node, based on the sole knowledge of the measured distances from, and estimated positions of, the connected nodes only. Repeated asynchronous application on each node of the local procedure guarantees hierarchical convergence of the algorithm to the positioning of the whole network, even in presence of a limited number of peripheral anchors. No global information is required for the proper functioning of the algorithm. From the theoretical standpoint, the paper introduces the geometrical definition of regular and irregular nodes, which is shown to be a useful concept, given a network topology, for the characterization of the convergence properties of the localization problem.
Selection of an Antibody Library Identifies a Pathway to Induce Immunity by Targeting CD36 on Steady-State CD8α+ Dendritic Cells1

Improvement of the strategy to target tumor Ags to dendritic cells (DCs) for immunotherapy requires the identification of the most appropriate ligand/receptor pairing. We screened a library of Ab fragments on mouse DCs to isolate new potential Abs capable of inducing protective immune responses. The screening identified a high-affinity Ab against CD36, a multi-ligand scavenger receptor primarily expressed by the CD8α+ subset of conventional DCs. The Ab variable regions were genetically linked to the model Ag OVA and tested in Ag presentation assays in vitro and in vivo. Anti-CD36-OVA was capable of delivering exogenous Ags to the MHC class I and MHC class II processing pathways. In vivo, immunization with anti-CD36-OVA induced robust activation of naive CD4+ and CD8+ Ag-specific T lymphocytes and the differentiation of primed CD8+ T cells into long-term effector CTLs. Vaccination with anti-CD36-OVA elicited humoral and cell-mediated protection from the growth of an Ag-specific tumor. Notably, the relative efficacy of targeting CD11c/CD8α+ via CD36 or DEC205 was qualitatively different. Anti-DEC205-OVA was more efficient than anti-CD36-OVA in inducing early events of naive CD8+ T cell activation. In contrast, long-term persistence of effector CTLs was stronger following immunization with anti-CD36-OVA and did not require the addition of exogenous maturation stimuli. The results identify CD36 as a novel potential target for immunotherapy and indicate that the outcome of the immune responses vary by targeting different receptors on CD8α+ DCs.
Increased risk of cognitive impairment in patients with components of metabolic syndrome

AbstractThe number of old adults with cognitive impairment or dementia is anticipated to increase rapidly due to the aging population, especially the number of patients with multiple chronic conditions or metabolic perturbation. Metabolic syndrome (Mets) is among the most hazardous risk factors for cardiovascular disease and is linked to a chronic inflammatory disease. We investigated the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) database for the years 1999 to 2002 to explore the connection between Mets and cognitive decline.A total of 2252 NHANES (1999–2002)-registered individuals who were stroke-free and aged ≧60 years were enrolled in this study. This study surveyed the effects of the existence of diverse characteristics of Mets on the individuals’ cognitive performances as measured with the digit symbol substitution test (DSST). The individuals with more features of Mets achieved lower DSST scores than those with fewer constituents of Mets (P < 0.001 for the trend) after adjustments for covariates. The &bgr; coefficients for the DSST scores of the participants with 1, 2, 3, and ≥4 features of Mets were −1.545, −3.866, −4.763, and −5.263, respectively. Cognitive decline was correlated with each of the constituents of Mets, which included high plasma glucose, elevated blood pressure, abdominal obesity, and decreased high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (P < 0.05 for the above factors), with the exception of high triglyceride levels (P > 0.05). Mets was positively associated with cognitive decline in individuals aged ≧60 years. The characteristics of Mets that were most strongly associated with cognitive decline were high plasma glucose and elevated blood pressure.
Cellular glutathione content in the organ of Corti and its role during ototoxicity

Glutathione (GSH) is the major scavenger of reactive oxygen species (ROS) inside cells. We used live confocal imaging in order to clarify the role of GSH in the biology of the organ of Corti, the sensory epithelium of the cochlea, before, during and after the onset of hearing and in ~1 year old mice. GSH content was measured using monochlorobimane (MCB), a non-fluorescent cell permeant bimane that reacts with GSH, forming a fluorescent adduct through a reaction catalyzed by glutathione-S-transferase. GSH content increased significantly in inner hair cells during maturation in young adult animals, whereas there was no significant change in the outer hair cells. However, the GSH content in inner hair cells was significantly reduced in ~1 year old mice. The GSH content of supporting cells was comparatively stable over these ages. To test whether the GSH content played a significant protective role during ototoxicity, GSH synthesis was inhibited by buthionine sulfoximine (BSO) in organotypic cochlear explant cultures from immature mice. BSO treatment alone, which reduced GSH by 65 and 85% in inner hair cells and outer hair cells respectively, did not cause any significant cell death. Surprisingly, GSH depletion had no significant effect on hair cell survival even during exposure to the ototoxic aminoglycoside neomycin. These data suggest that the involvement of ROS during aminoglycoside-induced hair cell death is less clear than previously thought and requires further investigation.
1980-based Nam-Powers occupational status scores.

Among the several indexes of occupational status found in the research literature the Nam-Powers index has been available for several decades. It was first developed in the late 1950s and [was] based on 1950 [U.S.] Census data. Subsequent revisions were made based on the 1960 and 1970 censuses. This paper presents the scores for occupations based on the 1980 Census. It describes the procedures used in calculating the scores and how these have changed with each revision. Moreover it informs users how to employ the scores in their own studies. (EXCERPT)
Spreaders in the Network SIR Model: An Empirical Study

We use the susceptible-infected-recovered (SIR) model for disease spread over a network, and empirically study how well various centrality measures perform at identifying which nodes in a network will be the best spreaders of disease on 10 real-world networks. We find that the relative performance of degree, shell number and other centrality measures can be sensitive to b , the probability that an infected node will transmit the disease to a susceptible node. We also find that eigenvector centrality performs very well in general for values of b above the epidemic threshold.
A controlled evaluation of the distress criterion for binge eating disorder.

OBJECTIVE Research has examined various aspects of the validity of the research criteria for binge eating disorder (BED) but has yet to evaluate the utility of Criterion C, "marked distress about binge eating. " This study examined the significance of the marked distress criterion for BED using 2 complementary comparison groups. METHOD A total of 1,075 community volunteers completed a battery of self-report instruments as part of an Internet study. Analyses compared body mass index (BMI), eating-disorder psychopathology, and depressive levels in 4 groups: 97 participants with BED except for the distress criterion (BED-ND), 221 participants with BED including the distress criterion (BED), 79 participants with bulimia nervosa (BN), and 489 obese participants without binge eating or purging (NBPO). Parallel analyses compared these study groups using the broadened frequency criterion (i.e., once weekly for binge/purge behaviors) proposed for the 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) and the 4th edition (DSM-IV) twice-weekly frequency criterion. RESULTS The BED group had significantly greater eating-disorder psychopathology and depressive levels than the BED-ND group. The BED group, but not the BED-ND group, had significantly greater eating-disorder psychopathology than the NBPO comparison group. The BN group had significantly greater eating-disorder psychopathology and depressive levels than all 3 other groups. The group differences in eating-disorder psychopathology existed even after controlling for depression levels, BMI, and demographic variables, although some differences between the BN and BED groups were attenuated when controlling for depression levels. CONCLUSIONS These findings provide support for the validity of the "marked distress" criterion for the diagnosis of BED.
Reconstitution of the In Vitro Immune Response of Congenitally Thymusless (Nude) Mice 1

Summary Spleen cell cultures from congenitally thymusless (nude) mice were found to be unresponsive to SE in vitro. The addition of 5.0 × 107 thymus cells from Balb/c or littermate animals to “nude” spleen cell cultures enabled these cultures to respond to SE. An in vitro response to SE could also be obtained by addition of normal spleen cells from Balb/c mice. As few as 2.4 × 105 Balb/c spleen cells established an immune response in nude spleen cell cultures. The reconstitution of nude spleen cell cultures with thymus cells indicates that while a deficiency of thymus-derived cells exists in nude mice, they have functional bone marrow-derived cells. We thank R. W. Dutton for instructing one of us (D.P.A.) in the use of the Mishell-Dutton Procedure, and R. C. Roberts and D. S. Falconer for providing the breeding nucleus of mice carrying nude.