Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Optimal dynamic spectrum access algorithm in bidirectional cognitive relay networks

In this paper, we study the optimal spectrum access in cognitive relay networks where multiple secondary users can access the unutilized idle spectrum of the primary users and conduct bidirectional communication. The spectrum access problem in the considered system model is defined as joint relay selection and discrete power control. Our goal is to maximize network utility function which takes the sum rate and the power consumption into account. We propose a decentralized synchronous update algorithm to obtain the optimal solution rather than the high complicated exhaustive search algorithm. In our proposed algorithm, we design a new objective function which consists of the network utility function and the penalty functions. Our designed objective function can guarantee the feasibility of the solution without knowing the infeasible strategy profiles in advance under mild conditions. It is proved that our proposed algorithm can converge to the optimal solution in finite steps. Simulation results verify our theoretic analysis.
Depth enhancement in spectral domain optical coherence tomography using bidirectional imaging modality with a single spectrometer

Abstract. A method for depth enhancement is presented using a bidirectional imaging modality for spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT). Two precisely aligned sample arms along with two reference arms were utilized in the optical configuration to scan the samples. Using exemplary images of the optical resolution target, Scotch tape, a silicon sheet with two needles, and a leaf, we demonstrated how the developed bidirectional SD-OCT imaging method increases the ability to characterize depth-enhanced images. The results of the developed system were validated by comparing the images with the standard OCT configuration (single-sample arm setup). Given the advantages of higher resolution and the ability to visualize deep morphological structures, this method can be utilized to increase the depth dependent fall-off in samples with limited thickness. Thus, the proposed bidirectional imaging modality is apt for cross-sectional imaging of entire samples, which has the potential capability to improve the diagnostic ability.
Characterization and In Vivo Functional Analysis of the Schizosaccharomyces pombe ICLN Gene

ABSTRACT During the early steps of snRNP biogenesis, the survival motor neuron (SMN) complex acts together with the methylosome, an entity formed by the pICln protein, WD45, and the PRMT5 methyltransferase. To expand our understanding of the functional relationship between pICln and SMN in vivo, we performed a genetic analysis of an uncharacterized Schizosaccharomyces pombe pICln homolog. Although not essential, the S. pombe ICln (SpICln) protein is important for optimal yeast cell growth. The human ICLN gene complements the Δicln slow-growth phenotype, demonstrating that the identified SpICln sequence is the bona fide human homolog. Consistent with the role of human pICln inferred from in vitro experiments, we found that the SpICln protein is required for optimal production of the spliceosomal snRNPs and for efficient splicing in vivo. Genetic interaction approaches further demonstrate that modulation of ICln activity is unable to compensate for growth defects of SMN-deficient cells. Using a genome-wide approach and reverse transcription (RT)-PCR validation tests, we also show that splicing is differentially altered in Δicln cells. Our data are consistent with the notion that splice site selection and spliceosome kinetics are highly dependent on the concentration of core spliceosomal components.
Uncovering useful patterns in shopping cart data

Understanding the shopping and purchasing behaviours of customers is an essential task for business and retail organizations. While customers look for useful information from retailers as they shop, businesses seek to collect increasing amounts of data in order to deliver added value to their customers. This requires an intensive analysis of sales data. Extracting shopping patterns across the many levels of information is a non-trivial task as datasets on sales transactions can contain many levels of information such as item category, brand name, colour, and price. This paper examines the use of multi-level association rules to uncover purchasing patterns at multiple levels of detail. It shows how different kinds of purchasing patterns can emerge at different association levels of analysis. This type of analysis is indeed helpful in assisting retailers to make wise decisions for their customers.
Barriers to Nurses’ Adherence to Central Venous Catheter Guidelines

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to explore nurses’ perceived barriers to adherence of standard central venous catheter (CVC) care practices. BACKGROUND: Although CVC care practices are evidence based, adherence to practices may not always occur, contributing to nosocomial infections. Previous practice adherence studies focused primarily on systems improvement or observational methods. This pilot study explored nurses’ perceptions of barriers to practice adherence. METHODS: A descriptive phenomenological method involving 10 participants was used. Data were collected through interviews and analyzed with Colaizzi’s method. RESULTS: Data were grouped into major themes: cognitive factors (active and passive thinking processes) and contextual factors (patient condition along with materials, processes, and culture of the organization). Three connecting subthemes were identified. CONCLUSION: Adherence barriers have potential to produce errors and may limit nurses from providing high-quality care. Interventions to reduce barriers are needed, particularly those focused on resource availability and designing more intuitive processes.
Influences of general computer experience and age on library database search performance

Two experiments examined the effects of general computer experience and age on library system search performance among novice library system users. Twenty younger adults (10 with high and 10 with low computer experience) and 20 older adults (10 with low and 10 with no computer experience) performed 10 search tasks of varying difficulty. Search success, syntax errors, database field specifications, keyword specifications, and use of Boolean operators were examined. Among younger novices, high computer experience was associated with slightly better performance than low computer experience. Among older novices, having some computer experience was associated with much better performance than no computer experience. Older computer users showed lower overall success rates, made more syntax and field specification errors, and demonstrated poorer understanding of Boolean logic and keyword matching algorithms than younger adults with similar computer experience. Implications for interface design and training interventions for novice on-line library system users are discussed.
Lightweight waveguide and antenna components using plating on plastics

We present three methods for producing lightweight waveguide- and antenna components by autocatalytic electroless copper plating on plastics. Waveguides for the Ku-band are manufactured through; 1) extrusion of ABS plastics; 2) 3D printing with Stereolithography (SLA) polymers and; 3) composite forming in Particle Pressure Chamber (PPC). The three methods covers applications from prototypes to mass production, from in house applications to space approved extremes. In previous autocatalytic methods it has been difficult to exceed 2 μm copper layer but in this work we utilize a method of autocatalytic electroless plating on plastics for unlimited thickness but here stopped at a 4-5 μm thick glossy copper layer. Measurements on conductivity and attenuation have shown that the performance is approaching that of standard aluminium waveguides with 0.0375 dB/cm loss, but with reduced weight and lower cost if made in series. Refined waveguide samples will be measured for the conference presentation.
Laryngotracheal trauma: its management and sequelae.

OBJECTIVE Laryngotracheal trauma is a rare but clinically important injury. Complications are frequent. Early recognition, accurate evaluation and proper treatment is vital. In order to learn from our past experience and refine our management, we reviewed our cases METHODS Fifteen patients with external laryngotracheal injuries were analyzed retrospectively. The outcome was assessed both in terms of voice and airway, on short term and long term basis. RESULTS Commonest cause of injury was cut throat injuries followed by road traffic accidents. The main presenting symptoms and signs were hoarseness, haemoptysis, odynophagia and stridor. Major laryngeal injuries (10 cases) outnumbered minor injuries (5 cases). A good association exists between the symptoms of haemoptysis and stridor at presentation and severity of the injury. Sites of laryngeal injury included; thyroid cartilage, mixed soft tissue and cartilaginous injuries, thyrohyoid membrane, aryepiglottic fold and cricothyroid membrane. Ten patients presented within 24 hours of the injury. Out come (airway and voice) was good in 12 patients whereas it was poor in 3 patients. Poor results were seen in patients who had delayed surgical intervention. CONCLUSION The presence of stridor and haemoptysis are suggestive of major injury. Early surgical intervention is recommended for all major injuries to ensure a good outcome.
NLPTEA 2017 Shared Task – Chinese Spelling Check

This paper provides an overview along with our findings of the Chinese Spelling Check shared task at NLPTEA 2017. The goal of this task is to develop a computer-assisted system to automatically diagnose typing errors in traditional Chinese sentences written by students. We defined six types of errors which belong to two categories. Given a sentence, the system should detect where the errors are, and for each detected error determine its type and provide correction suggestions. We designed, constructed, and released a benchmark dataset for this task.
Actuator and sensor fault detection and diagnosis of quadrotor based on Two-Stage Kalman Filter

This paper addresses the problem of sensor and actuator fault detection and diagnosis (FDD) of an unmanned quadrotor helicopter in the presence of the observation and process noises. To this end a Two-Stage Kalman Filter (TSKF) to detect, isolate and identify faults is used. Sensor faults are assumed to be bias faults and actuator faults are modeled as a loss of effectiveness in the propellers. Also a discrete-time Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) controller is used to make the system response to follow a desired trajectory.
Integrating the chronic-care model and the ACGME competencies: using shared medical appointments to focus on systems-based practice

There is an increasing need for physician trainees to learn management of chronic illness. Training in chronic illness management is complicated by the acute care orientation of most healthcare systems. Coming on top of the broadening range of competencies that reflect the changing needs of healthcare delivery is the shift in evaluation of physician trainees in several countries to competency-based methods.12 The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) has defined six core competencies: systems-based practice, practice-based learning and improvement, patient care, medical knowledge, interpersonal and communication skills and professionalism.3 Explicitly included now are two competencies essential for effective patient care and quality improvement—Systems Based Practice (SBP) and Practice Based Learning and Improvement (PBLI). Although all six competencies apply to management of chronic illness, these two have been the most difficult for residency programmes to address in any comprehensive manner.4–6 Training venues that mesh a systems approach to high-quality outpatient care for chronic illness with effective teaching are needed.7–10 Among the models proposed for healthcare system redesign is the chronic-care model (CCM) of Wagner et al . We suggest that this model with its six major elements (delivery system design, information systems, healthcare system, self-management, decision support, and community, italicised below for clarity) provides a conceptual framework around which education about chronic disease management can be organised.1112 We describe how we use a CCM-inspired outpatient clinic redesign, the diabetes shared medical appointment (SMA), to address the six core competencies. We illustrate how management in this setting of a paradigmatic chronic illness involves all six competencies and emphasise its utility, especially in SBP. We will discuss the six components of the CCM by heading and their application in our setting. ### Delivery system design SMAs, also called “cluster visits,” “group visits” or “chronic healthcare …
Effects of the phonological relevance in speaker verification

This paper analyze the effects of phonological relevance between the training and test utterances in speaker veriﬁcation, and presents experimental evaluations using short test utterances in 3, 5 and 10 seconds. We quantify the phonological relevance as the occurrence ratio of the subword units of the test utterance in the training utterance. It is found that a higher phonological relevance can make a large reduction of the miss detection error rate and does not increase the false acceptance error rate much in text-independent speaker veriﬁcation.
Effects of vibrotactile stimulation during virtual sandboarding

This poster details a within-subjects study (n=17) investigating the effects of vibrotactile stimulation on illusory self-motion, presence and perceived realism during an interactive sandboarding simulation. The study compared three conditions: no vibration, constant vibration and dynamic vibration. The results suggest that constant vibrotactile feedback led to significantly more compelling self-motion illusions and a higher degree of perceived realism.
Efficient big image data retrieval using clustering index and parallel computation

Image data has grown rapidly because of advances on photo capturing devices. In traditional, because the image data has not been huge, most past studies focused on the effectiveness improvement. However, accessing the images from a huge amount of image data needs a large cost. Hence, how to perform efficient image retrieval has been a hot topic in the last few decades. To this end, in this paper, we propose efficient big image data retrieval by using clustering index and parallel computation. In the offline stage, the images are grouped into a number of clusters. In the online stage, the relevant images to the query image are retrieved by a level-wise search. Our intent is to conduct a more efficient image retrieval method in comparison with traditional methods but keep the same effectiveness still. In the experiments, four types of retrieval are compared and our proposed parallelized image data retrieval is much faster than the other compared methods under the very close accuracies.
Labetalol Hypotensive Anesthetic Protocol Paves the Way to Safe Open Abdominal Myomectomy

Results: Operative blood loss and transfusion needs were significantly lower, but UOP was significantly higher in study than control patients. Oral labetalol significantly decreased preoperative HR and MAP of study patients compared to their baseline measures and to control patients. Oral labetalol significantly decreased HR and MAP elevations after induction and intubation compared to control patients. Labetolol infusion significantly decreased HR and MAP till stoppage of infusion compared to other measures and to control patients. Labetalol infusion allowed stability of HR and MAP with non-significant difference between measures till stoppage of infusion. Extubation significantly elevated HR and MAP in control patients, but non-significantly in study patients. Postoperative (PO), HR and MAP were significantly lower in study patients compared to baseline measures and to PO measures in control patients. PO hemoglobin concentration was significantly lower in all patients than preoperative concentrations, but concentration deficit was significantly lower in study than control patients.
Using netmeeting for remote configuration of the Otto Bock C-Leg: Technical considerations

Telehealth has the potential to be a valuable tool for technical and clinical support of computer controlled prosthetic devices. This pilot study examined the use of Internet-based, desktop video conferencing for remote configuration of the Otto Bock C-Leg. Laboratory tests involved connecting two computers running Microsoft NetMeeting over a local area network (IP protocol). Over 56Kbs−1, DSL/Cable, and 10Mbs−1 LAN speeds, a prosthetist remotely configured a user's C-Leg by using Application Sharing, Live Video, and Live Audio. A similar test between sites in Ottawa and Toronto, Canada was limited by the notebook computer's 28Kbs−1 modem. At the 28Kbs-1 Internet-connection speed, NetMeeting's application sharing feature was not able to update the remote Sliders window fast enough to display peak toe loads and peak knee angles. These results support the use of NetMeeting as an accessible and cost-effective tool for remote C-Leg configuration, provided that sufficient Internet data transfer speed is available.
Gaining weight after taking orlistat: A qualitative study of patients at 18-months follow-up

Orlistat is currently the only prescribed form of pharmacological management for obesity and functions by reducing the amount of fat absorbed from food eaten. Although frequently prescribed, there is marked variability in outcomes. A total of 10 participants’ experiences of gaining weight after taking orlistat were analysed using thematic analysis. Participants attributed their failed weight loss to mechanisms of the medication, emphasised a medical model of obesity with barriers to their weight loss and other weight-loss methods which had also failed. Overall, their weight gain was considered an inevitable part of their self-identity, reflecting their self-fulfilling prophecy of being a perpetual dieter.
What does the question sound like: Exploring wh- and yes/no interrogativeprosody in Yami

This paper explores two types of interrogative prosody in Yami, an Austronesian language spoken in Taiwan. (Semi-) spontaneous data collected through the Map Task technique [1] were used and acoustic parameters such as pitch accent shapes, boundary tones, pitch range, and speech rate were examined. The results show that all parameters were used to differentiate interrogative prosody in Yami. The majority of the wh-questions have a falling intonation pattern (H* H* L% or H* H+L* L%), while yes-no questions have a rising pattern (L+H* H% or L*+H H%). Additionally, the mean maximum F0 in wh-questions is significantly higher than that in yes-no questions. Speech rate also differs between whand yes-no questions, with the former being spoken significantly faster than the latter.
Conversion of Product Specificity of Archaebacterial Geranylgeranyl-diphosphate Synthase

Prenyltransferases catalyze the consecutive condensation of isopentenyl diphosphate with allylic diphosphates to produce prenyl diphosphates whose chain lengths are absolutely determined by each enzyme. To investigate the mechanism of the consecutive reaction and the determination of the ultimate chain length, a random mutational approach was planned. A geranylgeranyl-diphosphate synthase gene from Sulfolobus acidocaldarius was randomly mutagenized by NaNO2 treatment to construct a library of mutated geranylgeranyl-diphosphate synthase genes on a yeast expression vector. The library was screened for suppression of a pet phenotype of yeast C296-LH3, which is deficient in hexaprenyl-diphosphate synthase. Five mutants that could grow on a YEPG plate, which contained only glycerol as an energy source instead of glucose, were selected from ~1,400 mutants. All selected mutated enzymes catalyzed the formation of polyprenyl diphosphates with prenyl chains longer than geranylgeranyl diphosphate. Especially mutants 1, 3, and 5 showed the strongest elongation activity to produce large amounts of geranylfarnesyl diphosphate with a concomitant amount of hexaprenyl diphosphate. Sequence analysis revealed that each mutant contained a few amino acid substitutions and that the mutation of Phe-77, which is located on the fifth amino acid upstream from the first aspartate-rich consensus motif, is the most effective for elongating the ultimate product. Amino acid alignment of known prenyltransferases around this position and our previous observations on farnesyl-diphosphate synthase (Ohnuma, S.-i., Nakazawa, T., Hemmi, H., Hallberg, A.-M., Koyama, T., Ogura, K., and Nishino, T. (1996) J. Biol. Chem. 271, 10087-10095) clearly indicate that the amino acid at the position of all prenyltransferases must regulate the chain elongation.
Truth and Truth-Making: Truth-making and difference-making

and so on, for all the propositions there are. Not for all the "that"-clauses there are. Some "that"-clauses fail to name propositions: for instance because of ungroundedness, or because the embedded sentence is a mere expression of feeling in the syntactic guise of a declarative sentence. Further, some propositions cannot be named by "that"-clauses. First, because there is an uncountable infinity of propositions, whereas there are only countably many "that"-clauses. Second, because some of the propositions, in fact most of them, cannot be named by "that"-clauses of finite length. Third, because some propositions cannot be named at all, not even at infinite length, since we lack names for alien properties that are nowhere to be found in our
An Estimation of Missing Values by Modified Mixed Kernels

----In statistical practices, difficulties of missing data are universal. Several techniques are used to handle this dilemma of missing data. They include both old approaches, which require only a small amount of mathematical computations and new approaches, which require additional difficult computations that are ever easier for social work researchers to carry out the statistical programming softwares. In the existing system, there is a novel setting of missing data imputation, i.e. imputing in mixed-attribute data sets. This system offers two consistent estimators for discrete and continuously missing target values, correspondingly. After that a mixture-kernel based iterative estimator is offered to impute mixed-attribute data sets. In this method, the local kernel and global kernel are used and linear combination of these mixed kernels is used. Nevertheless, the accuracy of the system is decreased with the large number of data samples. Unquestionably it will degrade the performance of the system. To improve the performance and to increase the accuracy of the system we proposed three approaches. First we introduce the local kernal RBF using KL divergence, secondly we introduce the global kernal polynomial using probability distribution and finally mixed kernels in piece level combination instead of linear combination. From the experimental result we can obtain that the proposed system is much more effective than the existing system. The performance also is shown to have improved in this proposed system. Keywords----Missing data imputation, Kernel Function Selection, Linear Mixture Kernel Function, RBF kernel, Polynomial kernel and Statistical Imputation for Missing Data.