Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Typing of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus in a University Hospital Setting by Using Novel Software for spa Repeat Determination and Database Management

ABSTRACT The spa gene of Staphylococcus aureus encodes protein A and is used for typing of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). We used sequence typing of the spa gene repeat region to study the epidemiology of MRSA at a German university hospital. One hundred seven and 84 strains were studied during two periods of 10 and 4 months, respectively. Repeats and spa types were determined by Ridom StaphType, a novel software tool allowing rapid repeat determination, data management and retrieval, and Internet-based assignment of new spa types following automatic quality control of DNA sequence chromatograms. Isolates representative of the most abundant spa types were subjected to multilocus sequence typing and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis. One of two predominant spa types was replaced by a clonally related variant in the second study period. Ten unique spa types, which were equally distributed in both study periods, were recovered. The data show a rapid dynamics of clone circulation in a university hospital setting. spa typing was valuable for tracking of epidemic isolates. The data show that disproval of epidemiologically suggested transmissions of MRSA is one of the main objectives of spa typing in departments with a high incidence of MRSA.
Implementation of Biodiversity Centre In Improving Naturalistic Intelligence of Children in 5-6 Years Old at PAUD An Najah, Jatinom Subdistrict, Klaten Regency

The purpose of the study was to find out the implementation of biodiversity centre in improving naturalistic intelligence of children in 5-6 years old. The study was conducted in PAUD An Najah, Jatinom Subdistrict, Klaten Regency. The study used 30 children as the samples of the study. The study used one group pretest-posttest design as its experimental design. Data collecting utilized the purposive sampling. The result showed the naturalistic intelligences improvement of children in 5-6 years old. Based on the t value measurement, the study found –ttable > tcount > t table included (2.04 > - 28.25 or 28.25 > 2.04), with sig = 0.000, so Ho was declined and Ha was accepted. It explained that there was significant difference of the naturalistic intelligences of children in 5-6 years old after using biodiversity centre implementation.
A Trellis-Coded Modulation Scheme with a Novel Expanded 16-Dimensional Constant Envelope Q2PSK Constellation

This paper presents a TCM scheme that uses a new expanded 16-Dimensional Constant Envelope Q2PSK constellation along with a simple convolutional encoder of rate 2/3. An effective gain of 2.67 dB over uncoded CEQ2PSK is achievable with low complexity, and without suffering from constellation expansion penalty. Larger coding gains are easily achieved with encoders of higher rates. In addition, an optimal hardware implementation of the required decoders is described.
Thermal time constant: optimising the skin temperature predictive modelling in lower limb prostheses using Gaussian processes

Elevated skin temperature at the body/device interface of lower-limb prostheses is one of the major factors that affect tissue health. The heat dissipation in prosthetic sockets is greatly influenced by the thermal conductive properties of the hard socket and liner material employed. However, monitoring of the interface temperature at skin level in lower-limb prosthesis is notoriously complicated. This is due to the flexible nature of the interface liners used which requires consistent positioning of sensors during donning and doffing. Predicting the residual limb temperature by monitoring the temperature between socket and liner rather than skin and liner could be an important step in alleviating complaints on increased temperature and perspiration in prosthetic sockets. To predict the residual limb temperature, a machine learning algorithm – Gaussian processes is employed, which utilizes the thermal time constant values of commonly used socket and liner materials. This Letter highlights the relevance of thermal time constant of prosthetic materials in Gaussian processes technique which would be useful in addressing the challenge of non-invasively monitoring the residual limb skin temperature. With the introduction of thermal time constant, the model can be optimised and generalised for a given prosthetic setup, thereby making the predictions more reliable.
A statistical approach of multiple resolution levels for canny edge detection

Vision processing needs effective feature detectors to estimate the structure and properties of objects in an image. The best known is Canny edge detection that combine a Gaussian low pass filter for noise reduction and non-maximal suppression and hysteresis threshold for edge localization. A possible problem of this approach is that the threshold values. Applying a single fixed threshold to gradient maxima is not an optimal choice. Thus, Canny uses two thresholds values namely Tlow and Thigh to reduce the number of false positive of pixels that represent significant contours in the image. However, by introducing two fixed threshold values are also not an optimal choice due to high variations in images. In this paper we introduce a method that computes the threshold values from the foreground and background image pixels. According to this method, an image is divided into several blocks using at multiple resolution levels. After that, a sampling approach is used on global and local regions to get the optimal thresholds by selecting the highest between class variance values. We have performed experiments on 200 images from the Berkeley dataset. The results show that the proposed method outperforms Canny that uses two fixed threshold values.
The ‘natures’ of planning: evolving conceptualizations of nature as expressed in urban planning theory and practice

ABSTRACT Over the course of the past century, the idea of nature in the city has become increasingly intricate, evolving from being viewed as a refuge separate from the city to being understood as an essential component of dynamic urban systems. As such, attempts are currently being made to ‘re-nature’ cities to support local and global ecosystems, increase human well-being and address environmental issues such as climate change. While the literature has examined changing assumptions about society–nature relationships in planning, a dearth of knowledge exists relating to the changing conceptualization of nature’s relationship with the ‘city’ and how this has influenced how urban planning with respect to ‘nature’ has evolved in both theory ‘and’ practice. In this paper, we address this lacuna by tracing the history of the entwined relationship between nature and city planning. The conceptual framework developed from this review is subsequently employed as an analytical lens through which to investigate an illustrative case study of planning for nature in Dublin City, Ireland. The paper concludes by reflecting on how exploring the natures of planning provides scope for greater critical attention to what we do as planners when we seek to address the challenge of safeguarding nature through policy.
On Measuring One-Way Path Metrics from a Web Server

Measuring one-way path metrics can facilitate adaptive online services (e.g., Video streaming and CDN) tuning to improve quality of experience (QoE) of their clients. However, existing server-side measurement systems suffer from (i) measuring only few one-way path metrics, (ii) limited client-side support, and (iii) heavy overheads. In this paper, we propose and implement OWPScope, a novel system that can be deployed to any web server to measure four important one-way path metrics-packet loss, packet reordering, jitter, and capacity-without requiring software or plug in installation at their web clients. Moreover, OWPScope performs representative measurement by correlating only information gleaned from standard features in HTML5 (e.g., Navigation timing, resource timing), HTTP, and TCP. Our extensive evaluations in both a test bed and the Internet show that OWPScope can effectively measure one-way path metrics with low overhead.
Motion estimation and compensation for fisheye warped video

Video captured through fisheye lens is becoming very prevalent due to applications such as surveillance, automotive driver assistance systems, and recreational sports. Virtual reality applications such as 360 degrees video also use fish-eye lens video cameras to capture the 360 degree view. The main advantage of fisheye lenses is that they increases the field of view, however they also introduce warping distortion in the captured video. Due to the warping, the motion in the video is typically non-translational and traditional block motion compensation techniques are not fully effective for such video. This paper presents a warping motion compensation technique that models the fish-eye lens distortion to efficiently code warped video. Given the fisheye lens parameters (e.g., transmitted at a video sequence level), the warping model is implicitly derived in both the encoder and decoder and no block-level warping parameters are transmitted. The proposed approach was integrated into HEVC HM-14.0 and initial results on simulated fish-eye lens distorted video show promise especially when the global motion in the video is fast.
Establishing authenticated pairwise key using Pairing-based Cryptography for sensor networks

In this paper, we propose a novel authenticated key agreement scheme using Pairing-based Cryptography, named IBAKA, to address the problems of high memory occupation, low key connectivity and poor resiliency against node capture attacks existed in the traditional key management protocols of large scale sensor networks. Our proposal, which works based on the elliptic curve Diffie-Hellman (ECDH) exchange and identity-based cryptography, can effectively resist man-in-the-middle attacks and node-capture attacks through encrypting the exchanged parameters using identity-based encryption. Theoretical analysis indicates that compare with the typical random key pre-distribution approaches; IBAKA achieves significant improvements in terms of security strength, key connectivity, scalability, communication and storage overhead, and enables efficient secure rekeying. Furthermore, we implement IBAKA for TinyOS-2.1 based on the MICA2 motes. The experiment results demonstrate that IBAKA is feasible for infrequent key distribution and rekeying in large scale sensor networks.
Representing business contracts in RuleML

This paper presents an approach for the specification and implementation of translating contracts from a human-oriented form into an executable representation for monitoring. This will be done in the setting of RuleML. The task of monitoring contract execution and performance requires a logical account of deontic and defeasible aspects of legal language; currently such aspects are not covered by RuleML; accordingly we show how to extend it to cover such notions. From its logical form, the contract will thus be transformed into a machine readable rule notation and eventually implemented as executable semantics via any mark-up languages depending on the client's preference, for contract monitoring purposes.
Investigating the Effects of Commonly Implemented School Safety Strategies on School Social Work Practitioners in the United States

Objective: Use of safety strategies is increasing in United States schools due to increased media attention to school violence and maladaptive student behavior. Yet, relationships between the use of school safety strategies and school social work practice have not been adequately researched. This study examines relationships between school-level characteristics and types of safety strategies in schools where social workers are employed and how these strategies influence school social work practice. Method: We used data from 229 school social workers to explore the extent to which school-level variables predict the implementation of authoritarian and educational/therapeutic school safety strategies and examine how these strategies affect practitioners. Results: School size and education level are positively associated with the use of authoritarian strategies, and urbanicity and percentage of socioeconomically disadvantaged students enrolled are negatively associated with the use of educational/therapeutic strategies. Findings suggest that school social workers are affected in their practice by the types of safety strategies their schools implement. Conclusions: Implications call for social work practitioners to assess their schools’ safety measures and their influence on students and school personnel when developing case conceptualizations. Practitioners should also evaluate the need for educational/therapeutic strategies and implement them accordingly, particularly in rural schools enrolling a greater percentage of socioeconomically disadvantaged students. Additional recommendations for school social work practice, education, and research are noted.
Inhibitive Effects of Mulberry Leaf-Related Extracts on Cell Adhesion and Inflammatory Response in Human Aortic Endothelial Cells

Effects of mulberry leaf-related extracts (MLREs) on hydrogen peroxide-induced DNA damage in human lymphocytes and on inflammatory signaling pathways in human aortic endothelial cells (HAECs) were studied. The tested MLREs were rich in flavonols, especially bombyx faces tea (BT) in quercetin and kaempferol. Polyphenols, flavonoids, and anthocyanidin also abounded in BT. The best trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity (TEAC) was generated from the acidic methanolic extracts of BT. Acidic methanolic and water extracts of mulberry leaf tea (MT), mulberry leaf (M), and BT significantly inhibited DNA oxidative damage to lymphocytes based on the comet assay as compared to the H2O2-treated group. TNF-α-induced monocyte-endothelial cell adhesion was significantly suppressed by MLREs. Additionally, nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) expression was significantly reduced by BT and MT. Significant reductions were also observed in both NF-κB and activator protein (AP)-1 DNA binding by MLREs. Significant increases in peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) α and γ DNA binding by MLREs were also detected in M and MT extracts, but no evidence for PPAR α DNA binding in 50 μg/mL MT extract was found. Apparently, MLREs can provide distinct cytoprotective mechanisms that may contribute to its putative beneficial effects on suppressing endothelial responses to cytokines during inflammation.
Automatic Security Bug Classification: A Compile-Time Approach

Program security bugs pose a great threat to users' privacy and security. A great deal of effort, e.g., runtime defense, dynamic detection, and static detection, has been conducted to attempt to be aware of the existence of security bugs. Most of the prior work focuses on detecting the security bugs. They report a mixed set of security bugs, regardless of whether the elements in the set are useful to the developers for the debugging. In this paper, we are instead devoted to automatically classifying the security bugs for the purpose of the productivity to the developers. Our insight is that the existing common security bugs can be featured by a simple rule that can be further simplified into a mathematical assertion problem. Based on this insight, we propose a Compile Time Error Segregator (CTES), which can automatically classify the security bugs into three categories, including deterministic bugs, internal indeterministic bugs, and external indeterministic bugs. The core idea of achieving the above includes three steps: 1) building a rule library according to the feature of each type of security bugs (e.g., buffer overflow, null-pointer dereference, and divide-by-zero), 2) obtaining the requisite information appearing in the rule, 3) verifying if the rule is established. If so, a deterministic bug is found, otherwise, a novel inverse taint analysis is further performed to distinguish the remaining two categories. We implement CTES on top of LLVM (3.5.0), running in parallel with normal compile procedure. Our experimental results on micro-benchmark and 14 real programs demonstrate the efficiency of CTES, and also show that CTES is able to precisely make the reported security bugs well-classified into three-categories.
On Stability and Radio Capacity in UMTS System

In this paper, we present new results regarding stability and radio capacity in UMTS system. We examine both uplink and downlink cases. We particularly give an upper bound of system stability in the uplink according to activity and inter-to-intracellular interference factors. We show that if the entire system is not very loaded and the activity is low, and if the SINR target is high, the probability that the uplink transmit power exceeds the maximum allowed value is around 5%. As for the downlink, we examine the impact of the users' distribution in the radio capacity as well as the system stability. Simulation results proved that the downlink radio capacity can be lessened by almost the third according to the users' distribution in the cell. More importantly, the system can reach the asymptotic capacity in 20% of the cases because of users' location in the cell.
An edge-based text region extraction algorithm for indoor mobile robot navigation

Scene text is an important feature to be extracted, especially in vision-based mobile robot navigation as many potential landmarks such as nameplates and information signs contain text. This paper proposes an edge-based text region extraction algorithm, which is robust with respect to font sizes, styles, color/intensity, orientations, effects of illumination, reflections, shadows, perspective distortion, and the complexity of image backgrounds. Performance of the proposed algorithm is compared against a number of widely used text localization algorithms and the results show that this method can quickly and effectively localize and extract text regions from real scenes and can be used in mobile robot navigation under an indoor environment to detect text based landmarks.
The 3+1 SysML View-Model in Model Integrated Mechatronics

Software is becoming the driving force in today’s mechatronic systems. It does not only realize a significant part of their functionality but it is also used to realize their most competitive advantages. However, the traditional development process is wholly inappropriate for the development of these systems that impose a tighter coupling of software with electronics and mechanics. In this paper, a synergistic integration of the constituent parts of mechatronic systems, i.e. mechanical, electronic and software is proposed though the 3+1 SysML view-model. SysML is used to specify the cen-tral view-model of the mechatronic system while the other three views are for the different disciplines involved. The widely used in software engineering V-model is extended to address the requirements set by the 3+1 SysML view-model and the Model Integrated Mechatronics (MIM) paradigm. A SysML profile is described to facilitate the application of the proposed view-model in the development of mechatronic systems.
S434F in NrdE Generates the Thermosensitive Phenotype of Corynebacterium ammoniagenes CH31 and Enhances Thermolability by Increasing the Surface Hydrophobicity of the NrdE(Ts) Protein

ABSTRACT The thermosensitive phenotype of strain CH31, a derivative of Corynebacterium ammoniagenes ATCC 6872, was allocated by cloning, sequencing, and genetic complementation to a single C→T exchange in the nrdE (nucleotide reduction) gene at nucleotide 1301. Protein modeling indicates the impaired surface hydrophobicity of NrdE(Ts) due to the S434F transition.
Associations between Proprioceptive Neural Pathway Structural Connectivity and Balance in People with Multiple Sclerosis

Mobility and balance impairments are a hallmark of multiple sclerosis (MS), affecting nearly half of patients at presentation and resulting in decreased activity and participation, falls, injuries, and reduced quality of life. A growing body of work suggests that balance impairments in people with mild MS are primarily the result of deficits in proprioception, the ability to determine body position in space in the absence of vision. A better understanding of the pathophysiology of balance disturbances in MS is needed to develop evidence-based rehabilitation approaches. The purpose of the current study was to (1) map the cortical proprioceptive pathway in vivo using diffusion-weighted imaging and (2) assess associations between proprioceptive pathway white matter microstructural integrity and performance on clinical and behavioral balance tasks. We hypothesized that people with MS (PwMS) would have reduced integrity of cerebral proprioceptive pathways, and that reduced white matter microstructure within these tracts would be strongly related to proprioceptive-based balance deficits. We found poorer balance control on proprioceptive-based tasks and reduced white matter microstructural integrity of the cortical proprioceptive tracts in PwMS compared with age-matched healthy controls (HC). Microstructural integrity of this pathway in the right hemisphere was also strongly associated with proprioceptive-based balance control in PwMS and controls. Conversely, while white matter integrity of the right hemisphere’s proprioceptive pathway was significantly correlated with overall balance performance in HC, there was no such relationship in PwMS. These results augment existing literature suggesting that balance control in PwMS may become more dependent upon (1) cerebellar-regulated proprioceptive control, (2) the vestibular system, and/or (3) the visual system.
Transcription alignment of Latin manuscripts using hidden Markov models

Transcriptions of historical documents are a valuable source for extracting labeled handwriting images that can be used for training recognition systems. In this paper, we introduce the Saint Gall database that includes images as well as the transcription of a Latin manuscript from the 9th century written in Carolingian script. Although the available transcription is of high quality for a human reader, the spelling of the words is not accurate when compared with the handwriting image. Hence, the transcription poses several challenges for alignment regarding, e.g., line breaks, abbreviations, and capitalization. We propose an alignment system based on character Hidden Markov Models that can cope with these challenges and efficiently aligns complete document pages. On the Saint Gall database, we demonstrate that a considerable alignment accuracy can be achieved, even with weakly trained character models.
Method Improving Reading Comprehension In Primary Education Program Students

This study aims to determine the influence of reading comprehension skills of English for PGSD students through the application of SQ3R learning method. The type of this research is Pre-Experimental research because it is not yet a real experiment, there are external variables that influence the formation of a dependent variable, this is because there is no control variable and the sample is not chosen randomly. The research design is used is one-group pretest-post-test design involving one group that is an experimental group. In this design, the observation is done twice before and after the experiment. Observations made before the experiment (O1) are called pretests and the post-experimental observation (O2) is called posttest. The difference between O1 and O2 ie O2 - O1 is the effect of the treatment. The results showed that there was an improvement in reading comprehension skills of PGSD students in Class M.4. 3 using SQ3R method, and better SQ3R enabling SQ3R to improve English comprehension skills.