Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Easy Screening for Mild Alzheimer's Disease and Mild Cognitive Impairment from Elderly Speech.

OBJECTIVE This study presents a novel approach for early detection of cognitive impairment in the elderly. The approach incorporates the use of speech sound analysis, multivariate statistics, and data-mining techniques. We have developed a speech prosody-based cognitive impairment rating (SPCIR) that can distinguish between cognitively normal controls and elderly people with mild Alzheimer's disease (mAD) or mild cognitive impairment (MCI) using prosodic signals extracted from elderly speech while administering a questionnaire. Two hundred and seventy-three Japanese subjects (73 males and 200 females between the ages of 65 and 96) participated in this study. The authors collected speech sounds from segments of dialogue during a revised Hasegawa's dementia scale (HDS-R) examination and talking about topics related to hometown, childhood, and school. The segments correspond to speech sounds from answers to questions regarding birthdate (T1), the name of the subject's elementary school (T2), time orientation (Q2), and repetition of three-digit numbers backward (Q6). As many prosodic features as possible were extracted from each of the speech sounds, including fundamental frequency, formant, and intensity features and mel-frequency cepstral coefficients. They were refined using principal component analysis and/or feature selection. The authors calculated an SPCIR using multiple linear regression analysis. CONCLUSION In addition, this study proposes a binary discrimination model of SPCIR using multivariate logistic regression and model selection with receiver operating characteristic curve analysis and reports on the sensitivity and specificity of SPCIR for diagnosis (control vs. MCI/mAD). The study also reports discriminative performances well, thereby suggesting that the proposed approach might be an effective tool for screening the elderly for mAD and MCI.
The Potential of Agro-Ecosystems Payments for Ecosystem Services to Provide Ecosystem Services and Poverty Reduction in Developing Countries: A Case Study of the EPWS Program in Tanzania

This thesis investigates the effectiveness of agro-ecosystem based PES programs to provide ecosystem services and achieve poverty reduction. A case study from Tanzania known as the “equitable payments for watershed services (EPWS) program” piloted between 2008 and 2012 in Morogoro region has been used as the basis for an in-depth empirical study of an agro-ecosystem based PES program. The case-study approach has combined mixed methods quasi experimental research design and propensity score matching technique to prioritise attribution of the livelihood and environmental outcomes of the intervention, which remain under-utilized in evaluation of conservation interventions. The thesis findings provide insights that while the poor can participate in agro-ecosystem PES programs, their participation can be hindered by initial investment costs of inputs such as on manure, improved seeds, hoes and spades. Farm size, farmers’ access to information, participation in the design phase, and the change in farm management required by the program are significant determinants of program participation. Also, while PES payments contribute to local livelihoods, the indirect financial and non-financial benefits provide greatest contributions to livelihoods. In relation to additionality impact, program participation increases the number of sustainable land management practices and land under agro-forestry and reforestation amongst program participants. Furthermore, expected benefits such as crop yields from constructed terraces and manure, fire wood and timber products from agro-forestry and afforestation interventions are likely to increase the life span of the practices. The design of agro-ecosystem PES programs should include upfront payments in addition to other incentives which should be made timely in phases to ensure compliance. Local training and paraprofessional, external training and both enhancement of local formal and informal rules are essential to enhance the adoption of practices and to stop illegal activities such as forest reserve encroachment, illegal logging and fire.
Participation of Sodium Currents in Burst Generation and Control of Membrane Excitability in Mesencephalic Trigeminal Neurons

Subthreshold sodium currents are important in sculpting neuronal discharge and have been implicated in production and/or maintenance of subthreshold membrane oscillations and burst generation in mesencephalic trigeminal neurons (Mes V). Moreover, recent data suggest that, in some CNS neurons, resurgent sodium currents contribute to production of high-frequency burst discharge. In the present study, we sought to determine more directly the participation of these currents during Mes V electrogenesis using the action potential-clamp method. In postnatal day 8–14 rats, the whole-cell patch-clamp method was used to record sodium currents by subtraction in response to application of TTX in voltage-clamp mode using the action potential waveform as the command protocol. We found that TTX-sensitive sodium current is the main inward current flowing during the interspike interval, compared with the h-current (Ih) and calcium currents. Furthermore, in addition to the transient sodium current that flows during the upstroke of action potential, we show that resurgent sodium current flows at the peak of afterhyperpolarization and persistent sodium current flows in the middle of the interspike interval to drive high-frequency firing. Additionally, transient, resurgent, and persistent sodium current components showed voltage- and time-dependent slow inactivation, suggesting that slow inactivation of these currents can contribute to burst termination. The data suggest an important role for these components of the sodium current in Mes V neuron electrogenesis.
Design of a dual-stator superconducting permanent magnet wind power generator with different rotor configuration

This paper presents the electromagnetic design of a direct-driven dual-stator superconducting permanent magnet wind power generator of several megawatts. Considering the severe demagnetization in PM materials caused by the huge current in the superconducting armature windings, several new configurations of rotor poles are presented. The features of each configuration are discussed and the FEM results show that the output power capacity of the proposed generator is raised by 7%.
The Role of Search Result Position and Source Trustworthiness in the Selection of Web Search Results When Using a List or a Grid Interface

Previous research indicates that web users rely to a great extent on the ranking provided by the search engine and predominantly access the first few web pages presented. In case that the information sources presented in the top of the search engine results page (SERP) are of rather low trustworthiness, this might lead to a biased or incomplete view of the topic—especially when dealing with controversial issues. Study 1, thus, systematically investigated whether participants who were asked to search for an unfamiliar and controversial medical issue accessed fewer trustworthy information sources and consequently included less information from trustworthy pages in their argumentation when the search results were ranked from least to most trustworthy on a Google-like SERP than when they were ranked from most to least trustworthy. Results from Study 1 confirmed these assumptions. Furthermore, Study 2 showed that when the same materials were presented in a grid interface, the impact of the position of the search results on their selection was substantially reduced. Irrespective of whether the most trustworthy search results were presented in the top or the bottom row of the grid interface, users predominantly selected the most trustworthy search results from the SERP and included the same amount of information from trustworthy pages in their argumentation.
Alliance success factors and performance in social economy enterprises

Purpose Establishing alliances between social economy enterprises (SEEs) is considered to be a solution to the problem of providing enough resources and knowledge to compete in the global market and, at the same time, to maintain identity and ownership. Nevertheless, an important number of alliances breaks up after several years. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to study the key factors that affect alliances’ development and outcome. In this study, the success factors that have been extensively tested in investor-owned companies are assessed in SEEs, which present important differences in organizational issues and corporate principles and values. Design/methodology/approach This study defines a scale that includes the most important factors that might be controlled by SEE managers to develop successful alliances. These factors are grouped into three categories: relational capital, relationship governance and the partner selection process. The study also assesses the impact of these factors on alliance performance. Findings Statistical analysis through structural equation modelling shows that relationship governance and the partner selection process have a significant impact on performance. Therefore, they can be considered success factors in alliances among SEEs. Originality/value Taking into account the relevant contribution of the SEEs to the European economy, and having noted the scarce number of studies about alliances success factors in the social economy sector, this study offers a significant contribution to this research field. Moreover, findings will be also interesting for SEE managers and social economy authorities when designing programmes to empower and support alliances.
The impact of service innovation on business performance: Evidence from firm-level data in Chinese tourism sector

This study examines the impact of service innovation on business performance in service firms in China. Based on RBV and innovation theories, we construct an integrative model which links service innovation, service quality and business performance together. 277 valid samples were gathered through survey questionnaire in China's tourism sector and structural equation modeling (SEM) approach was employed. The findings are as follows. First, service innovation would affect firm performance through direct and indirect paths in which service quality plays a positive mediating role. Second, the direct impact of innovation on performance is larger than that of indirect one. Third, the innovation mode adopted by China's tourism firms is a type of cost-reduction one which focuses on eliminating firms' internal cost of operation. Our findings provide a number of valuable insights for managers.
Influence of Video Quality on Multi-view Activity Recognition

This paper presents a study that evaluates the performance of multi-view human activity recognition with videos having degraded quality. For the activity recognition models, a support vector machine-based approach using spatiotemporal features and a deep learning-based approach using convolutional and recurrent layers are built. We investigate the recognition performance of the two models with respect to the bitrate of the compressed videos and the peak signal-to-noise ratio of the videos corrupted by additive Gaussian random noise. We analyze the robustness of the models for the degraded videos.
Application research of supplier evaluation based on random forest

In this paper, the random forest (RF) is introduced into the supplier evaluation. On the basis of constructing the comprehensive evaluation index system of supplier, the sample data of the suppliers is combined to train and learn the evaluation model, and it can be flexible to achieve the single-objective, multi-objective or overall ability evaluation. And then, the main index that affects the evaluation results, the weight of indices and the evaluation model that matches the main index are obtained. Moreover, the evaluation procedure of supplier is designed and developed based on RF, and its effectiveness is validated. The research result show that RF has applicability and reliability on solution of supplier evaluation, and the evaluation process has some advantages, such as low subjectivity, high flexibility, strong versatility, and so on. CCS Concepts • Applied computing → Supply chain management.
Towards a model transformation tool on the top of the OpenCL framework

Nowadays, applications must often handle a large amount of data and apply complex algorithms on it. It is a promising and popular way to apply the computation in parallel in order to meet the performance requirements. Since GPUs are designed to apply highly parallel computations efficiently, using CPU+GPU heterogeneous architecture have gained an increasing popularity in computation intensive applications. Model-driven development (MDE) is a widely used software development methodology in the software industry. MDE is heavily building on model transformations in converting and processing the models. Graph transformation-based model transformation is a popular technique in this field. It is based on isomorphic subgraphs matching, which often require serious computing power. Currently, model transformation tools are not capable of using the computation power of the GPUs. Our research goal is to create a general model matching and later a model transformation solution, which can take the advantages of the computation power of the GPUs. We are now focusing on pattern matching of the transformations. We would like to create a general solution which is independent of the hardware vendor; therefore, our method is based on the OpenCL framework. The novelty of this paper is a GPGPU-based pattern matching tool and some accelerating techniques to achieve faster computation. In this paper we present an overview of the solution and test results based on one of the biggest freely available movie database (IMDb). The main properties such as the performance and the scalability are discussed. The applied architecture and the steps towards the final solution are also included in the paper.
Autonomous DC Voltage Control of a DC Microgrid With Multiple Slack Terminals

Autonomous DC voltage control for a DC microgrid with multiple power and slack terminals is studied in this paper. Slack terminals respond to the generation variation and load step within a DC microgrid to maintain the DC voltage. The slack terminals considered here are grid connected VSC and energy storage systems. A voltage droop based power sharing and coordination strategy among the slack terminals is proposed for power smoothing during grid-connected condition and normal operation during islanding condition. A prototype microgrid with two power and two slack terminals is established to demonstrate the excellent operation performance of the proposed control system during various operating conditions such as power variation, islanding, and grid reconnection.
Exploiting Polarization for System Capacity Maximization in Ultra-Dense Small Cell Networks

Ultra-dense deployment of small cell networks is widely regarded as a key role to meet the increasing demand for huge capacity of wireless communication systems. Meanwhile, network densification will result in severe inter-cell interference and thus impair system performance. Traditional radio resource management schemes pay attention to interference mitigation through resource allocation in time, frequency, space, and power domains, or a mix of them. In this paper, polarization, an important and underutilized property of electromagnetic waves, is exploited as a novel means to enhance system capacity. We propose a multicell joint polarization, power and subcarrier allocation (MC-JPPSA) scheme to maximize system capacity through joint optimization of transmitting polarization states, power, and subcarriers with an iterative approach. Though the iterative solution is suboptimal, simulation results demonstrate that MC-JPPSA scheme can strike a balance between performance and complexity compared with the optimal exhaustive search. Furthermore, the proposed scheme outperforms traditional joint power and subcarrier allocation schemes by means of exploiting polarization in ultra-dense small cell networks.
Rain, Riches, and Empire: The Relationship between Nations Ruling Distant Lands, Nations of Great Wealth, and Regions of Regular Moderate Atmospheric Precipitation

AbstractTwo of the great questions of human history and economics are why some nations held far-flung empires and why some presently enjoy great wealth. One factor that should be included in the inevitably multifactorial answer to these questions is regular moderate precipitation (precipitation with an average rate between 30 and 120 mm for each month). Only a small proportion of Earth’s surface has regular moderate precipitation, and most of that area is in Europe and eastern North America. Strikingly, of the 13 nations that held geographically discontinuous multicontinental transoceanic empires, 12 overlap with regions of regular moderate precipitation. Similarly, of the 20 nations with the greatest per capita GDP in 2015, 16 coincide with regions of regular moderate precipitation. These relationships are presumably rooted in the greater success, or lesser inhibition, of human construction of infrastructure, husbandry of livestock, and cultivation of crops, some combination of which likely allowed indus.
Association of peripheral multifocal choroiditis with sarcoidosis: a study of thirty-seven patients.

OBJECTIVE To assess the clinical spectrum of peripheral multifocal choroiditis (PMC) and its association with sarcoidosis. METHODS Thirty-seven patients examined between November 1997 and November 2001 who met all diagnostic criteria for PMC were included in this retrospective study. Patients were assessed for the following signs of sarcoidosis: typical changes on chest radiography or computed tomography; predominantly CD4 lymphocytosis in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid; elevated serum angiotensin-converting enzyme levels; elevated gallium uptake; and noncaseating granuloma on biopsy. RESULTS Most of the patients were female (30 of 37; 81%) and white (30 of 37; 81%). Mean +/- SD age at onset was 57.5 +/- 18.7 years. Seven (19%) of the 37 patients had biopsy-proven sarcoidosis and 18 patients (49%) with presumed sarcoidosis met at least 2 of the above-mentioned criteria for sarcoidosis but had normal biopsy results. Twelve patients (32%) had an indeterminate diagnosis. Patients with presumed sarcoidosis did not differ from those with proven sarcoidosis as regards the above-mentioned criteria, except for noncaseating granuloma, implying that more than two-thirds of patients (predominantly whites) had underlying sarcoidosis. Most patients with positive gallium scintigraphy had increased mediastinal uptake, as described in sarcoidosis. Patients with underlying sarcoidosis had more severe visual impairment due to cystoid macular edema (CME). Weekly methotrexate (0.3 mg/kg) seemed to control CME. CONCLUSION White patients with PMC should be considered to have sarcoidosis. The identification of sarcoidosis in patients with severe ocular disease can help with therapeutic choices.
Accelerated Neutrino Oscillation Probability Calculations and Reweighting on GPUs

Neutrino oscillation experiments are reaching high levels of precision in measurements, which are critical for the search for CP violation in the neutrino sector. Inclusion of matter effects increases the computational burden of oscillation probability calculations. The independency of reweighting individual events in a Monte Carlo sample lends itself to parallel implementation on a Graphics Processing Unit. The library Prob3++ was ported to the GPU using the CUDA C API, allowing for large scale parallelized calculations of neutrino oscillation probabilities through matter of constant density, decreasing the execution time of the oscillation probability calculations by 2 orders of magnitude, when compared to performance on a single CPU core. Additionally, benefit can be realized by porting some systematic uncertainty calculations to GPU, especially non-linear uncertainties evaluated with response functions. The implementation of a fast, parallel cubic spline evaluation on a GPU is discussed. The speed improvement achieved by using the GPU calculations with the T2K oscillation analysis is also noted.
Purification and Characterization of OleA from Xanthomonas campestris and Demonstration of a Non-decarboxylative Claisen Condensation Reaction*

OleA catalyzes the condensation of fatty acyl groups in the first step of bacterial long-chain olefin biosynthesis, but the mechanism of the condensation reaction is controversial. In this study, OleA from Xanthomonas campestris was expressed in Escherichia coli and purified to homogeneity. The purified protein was shown to be active with fatty acyl-CoA substrates that ranged from C8 to C16 in length. With limiting myristoyl-CoA (C14), 1 mol of the free coenzyme A was released/mol of myristoyl-CoA consumed. Using [14C]myristoyl-CoA, the other products were identified as myristic acid, 2-myristoylmyristic acid, and 14-heptacosanone. 2-Myristoylmyristic acid was indicated to be the physiologically relevant product of OleA in several ways. First, 2-myristoylmyristic acid was the major condensed product in short incubations, but over time, it decreased with the concomitant increase of 14-heptacosanone. Second, synthetic 2-myristoylmyristic acid showed similar decarboxylation kinetics in the absence of OleA. Third, 2-myristoylmyristic acid was shown to be reactive with purified OleC and OleD to generate the olefin 14-heptacosene, a product seen in previous in vivo studies. The decarboxylation product, 14-heptacosanone, did not react with OleC and OleD to produce any demonstrable product. Substantial hydrolysis of fatty acyl-CoA substrates to the corresponding fatty acids was observed, but it is currently unclear if this occurs in vivo. In total, these data are consistent with OleA catalyzing a non-decarboxylative Claisen condensation reaction in the first step of the olefin biosynthetic pathway previously found to be present in at least 70 different bacterial strains.
Existence of hybrid limit cycles and Zhukovskii stability in hybrid systems

This work pertains to the study of the existence of hybrid limit cycles for a class of hybrid systems. Necessary conditions, particularly, a condition using a forward invariance notion, for existence of hybrid limit cycles are first presented. Due to its usefulness in continuous-time systems with limit cycles, the notion of Zhukovskii stability, typically stated for continuous-time systems, is extended to hybrid systems given by the combination of continuous dynamics on a flow set and discrete dynamics on a jump set. A sufficient condition using incremental graphical stability is proposed for Zhukovskii stability. Examples illustrate the results and provide insight about the existence (or lack of) of hybrid limit cycles when Zhukovskii stability and incremental graphical stability hold.
Synergy of Two Reference Genomes for the Grass Family1

If one considers the Gordon Conference in Plant Genetics in 1997 as the origin of the international effort to sequence the rice ( Oryza sativa ) genome and the publication of the data in 2005 as the completion of production and analysis, it took about 8 years and 14 major laboratories from nine