Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Predictive Role of ADA in Bronchoalveolar Lavage Fluid in Making the Diagnosis of Pulmonary Tuberculosis

Current diagnostic tests for tuberculosis (TB) are time-consuming. The aim of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic usefulness of ADA in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid in patients with pulmonary TB. A cross-sectional study was performed in Yazd, Iran, between 2009 and 2010. Patients suspected of pulmonary TB with negative sputum smear for AFB were included in the study. Mean ADA levels in BAL fluids were measured and compared between study groups. Sixty-three patients were enrolled in the study among which 15 cases had pulmonary TB, 33 had pulmonary diseases other than TB, and 15 subjects with normal bronchoscopy results were considered as controls. Mean ADA levels in BAL fluid were 4.13 ± 2.55, 2.42 ± 1.06, and 1.93 ± 0.88, respectively. This rate was significantly higher in the pulmonary TB group compared to the other two groups (P = 0.001). Using ROC curve with a cut-off value of 3.5 IU/L, the highest sensitivity (57%) and specificity (84%) were obtained in diagnosis of TB. The results showed that although ADA activity in BAL fluid of pulmonary TB patients was higher than those seen in other diseases, a negative test does not rule out pulmonary TB.
Ferritin and Transferrin Are Associated With Metabolic Syndrome Abnormalities and Their Change Over Time in a General Population

OBJECTIVE—The aim of this work was to study cross-sectional and longitudinal relations between iron stocks (ferritin) and the iron transport protein (transferrin) with the metabolic syndrome and its abnormalities. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS—A total of 469 men and 278 premenopausal and 197 postmenopausal women from the French Data from an Epidemiological Study on the Insulin Resistance Syndrome (DESIR) cohort, aged 30–65 years, were followed over 6 years. RESULTS—Higher concentrations of both ferritin and transferrin were associated with the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) and the National Cholesterol Education Program Expert Panel on Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Cholesterol in Adults Adult Treatment Panel III original and revised definitions of the metabolic syndrome at baseline: for the IDF definition of the metabolic syndrome, the standardized, age-adjusted odds ratios (95% CI) for log(ferritin) were 1.49 (1.14–1.94) for men, 2.10 (1.27–3.48) for premenopausal women, and 1.80 (1.21–2.68) for postmenopausal women; for transferrin they were, respectively, 1.94 (1.53–2.47), 2.22 (1.32–3.75), and 2.14 (1.47–3.10). After 6 years of follow-up, the change in the presence of the metabolic syndrome was associated with higher baseline values in all three groups: log(ferritin), 1.46 (1.13–1.89), 1.28 (0.85–1.94), and 1.62 (1.10–2.38); and transferrin, 1.41 (1.10–1.81), 1.63 (1.05–2.52), and 1.51 (1.02–2.22). Among syndrome components, hypertriglyceridemia at 6 years was the component most strongly associated with baseline ferritin and transferrin. The odds of an incident IDF-defined metabolic syndrome after 6 years was more than fourfold higher when ferritin and transferrin values were both above the group-specific top tertile, in comparison with participants with both parameters below these thresholds. CONCLUSIONS—This is the first prospective study associating ferritin and transferrin with the metabolic syndrome and its components. When both markers of the iron metabolism are elevated, the incidence of the metabolic syndrome is increased in men and both pre- and postmenopausal women.
A two-phase Sampling based Algorithm for Social Networks

in recent years, the data used for analysis of social networks become very huge and restrictive so that it can be used an appropriate and small sampled network of original network for analysis goals. Sampling social network is referred to collect a small subgraph of original network with high property similarities between them. Due to important impact of sampling on the social network analyses, many algorithms have been proposed in the field of network sampling. In this paper, we propose a two-phase algorithm for sampling online social networks. At first phase, our algorithm iteratively constructs several set of minimum spanning tree (MST) of network. In the second phase, the proposed algorithm sorts vertices of MSTs and merge them to form a sampled network. Several simulation experiments are conducted to examine the performance of the proposed algorithm on different networks. The obtained results are compared with counterpart algorithms in terms of KS-test and ND-test. From the results, it can be observed that the proposed algorithm outperforms the existing algorithms. Keywords—online social networks; social network analysis; network sampling; spanning tree
PERFORMANCE INVESTIGATION OF ROUTING PROTOCOLS FOR DATABASE AND VOICE DATA IN MANETS

: MANET is Mobile Ad-Hoc Network which has been self-configured and infrastructure less using dynamically nature. MANET consists of mobiles nodes that are routers with host nodes and wireless communication devices. In the MANET, the transmitter and receiver nodes communicate using antennas which may be omnidirectional for broadcast purpose. In this paper, we compare the performance of routing protocols are - Geographical Routing Protocol (GRP) and Temporally-Ordered Routing Algorithm (TORA) Routing Protocol. The performance is evaluated by using “OPNET MODELER 14.5” Simulator. The simulation performance parameters are – Traffic Received, Traffic Sent, Jitler, Voice MOS Value, Packet Delay Variation, Data Dropped, Network Load and Throughput for comparing protocols.
The Theory of Conceptual Fields

The theory of conceptual fields is a developmental theory. It has two aims: (1) to describe and analyse the progressive complexity, on a long- and medium-term basis, of the mathematical competences that students develop inside and outside school, and (2) to establish better connections between the operational form of knowledge, which consists in action in the physical and social world, and the predicative form of knowledge, which consists in the linguistic and symbolic expressions of this knowledge. As it deals with the progressive complexity of knowledge, the conceptual field framework is also useful to help teachers organize didactic situations and interventions, depending on both the epistemology of mathematics and a better understanding of the conceptualizing process of students.
RATE OF CONVERGENCE FOR LOGSPLINE SPECTRAL DENSITY ESTIMATION

The logarithm of the spectral density function for a stationary process is approximated by polynomial splines. The approximation is chosen to maximize the expected log-likelihood based on the asymptotic properties of the periodogram. Estimates of this approximation are shown to possess the usual nonparametric rate of convergence when the number of knots suitably increases to infinity.
Evolving Neural Fuzzy Network with Adaptive Feature Selection

This paper introduces a neural fuzzy network approach for evolving system modeling. The approach uses neofuzzy neurons and a neural fuzzy structure monished with an incremental learning algorithm that includes adaptive feature selection. The feature selection mechanism starts considering one or more input variables from a given set of variables, and decides if a new variable should be added, or if an existing variable should be excluded or kept as an input. The decision process uses statistical tests and information about the current model performance. The incremental learning scheme simultaneously selects the input variables and updates the neural network weights. The weights are adjusted using a gradient-based scheme with optimal learning rate. The performance of the models obtained with the neural fuzzy modeling approach is evaluated considering weather temperature forecasting problems. Computational results show that the approach is competitive with alternatives reported in the literature, especially in on-line modeling situations where processing time and learning are critical.
Non-local extremum seeking control for active braking control systems

A non-local extremum seeking control approach for active braking control systems is proposed. The typical design objective in electronic Anti-lock Braking Systems is to regulate the wheel slip as close as possible to the peak of the friction curve in any road condition. Accordingly, this control problem naturally fits the extremum seeking framework, as the output-to-reference map exhibits a global maximum and the control purpose is to select the set-point value so as to keep the output as the extremum value. To fulfill the requirements for an extremum seeking control scheme a parametric stabilizing feedback control law is devised via Lyapunov-based methods. A discussion on parameters' tuning is provided, which highlights the trade-offs in designing an extremum seeking controller. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is assessed via simulations.
Impact of Radio Irregularities on Topology Tradeoffs of WSNs

The radio model usually used in most of studies on wireless sensor networks is spherical. This means that the received power at a certain distance is the same in all directions. Every radio engineer knows that this is not the case encountered in real hardware. Here, we show that the analysis of such a network by simulation is not trivial when one uses more realistic radio models. We emphasis this problem by comparing the impact of realistic simulations on the study of the infrastructure trade-offs of sensors networks. As expected, simulations confirm that more advanced simulation techniques are required in order to take into account wireless channel models and to bound the simulation time as well
Constructing spanning trees for efficient multi-robot coverage

This paper discusses the problem of building efficient coverage paths for a team of robots. An efficient multirobot coverage algorithm should result in a coverage path for every robot, such that the union of all paths generates a full coverage of the terrain and the total coverage time is minimized. A method, underlying several coverage algorithms, suggests the use of spanning trees as base for creating coverage paths. Current studies assume that the spanning tree is given, and try to make the most out of the given configuration. However, overall performance of the coverage is heavily dependent on the given spanning tree. This paper tackles the open challenge of constructing a coverage spanning tree that minimizes the time to complete coverage. We argue that the choice of the initial spanning tree has far reaching consequences concerning the coverage time, and if the tree is constructed appropriately, it could considerably reduce the coverage time of the terrain. Therefore the problem studied here is finding spanning trees that would decrease the coverage time of the terrain when used as base for multi-robot coverage algorithms. The main contributions of this paper are twofold. First, it provides initial sound discussion and results concerning the construction of the tree as a crucial base for any efficient coverage algorithm. Second, it describes a polynomial-time tree construction algorithm that, as shown in extensive simulations, dramatically improves the coverage time even when used as a basis for a simple, inefficient, coverage algorithm
Full Connectivity and Percolation in Large Cooperative Wireless Networks

We study how physical layer cooperation impacts the requirements for asymptotic connectivity of large wireless networks. Under a model where receivers in a connected cluster cooperate, as well as the assumed cooperation between transmitters, we present a complete characterization of the conditions under which the network is fully connected in terms of the path loss exponent and node density. We also present results on whether percolation occurs under various conditions. Finally, we have considered the case where receivers do not collaborate, where recent results of other researchers for such based on fluid approximations are erroneous. All of these results illustrate the significant positive impact that cooperation can have on the connectivity of large wireless networks.
An Ontology-Based Approach to Disambiguation of Semantic Relations

This paper describes experiments in using machine learning for relation disambiguation. There have been succesfuld experiments in combining machine learning and ontologies, or light-weight ontologies such as WordNet, for word sense disambiguation. However, what we are trying to do, is to disambiguate complex concepts consisting of two simpler concepts and the relation that holds between them. The motivation behind the approach is to expand existing methods for content based information retrieval. The experiments have been performed using an annotated extract of a corpus, consisting of prepositions surrounded by noun phrases, where the prepositions denote the relation we are trying disambiguate. The results show an unexploited opportunity of including prepositions and the relations they denote, e.g. in content based information retrieval.
Spatial working memory in Alzheimer’s disease: A study using the Corsi block-tapping test

The Corsi block-tapping test was developed as a non-verbal task to measure spatial memory. In this test, cubes are tapped by the examiner in novel sequences of increasing length after which participants are required to reproduce each sequence immediately. Objectives To evaluate spatial working memory in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients. Methods 30 elderly control subjects (21 women, 9 men) and 30 patients with probable Alzheimer’s disease (15 women and 15 men), with 8 or more years of schooling, were evaluated with the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), digit span and Corsi block-tapping test. Proportions were compared using Chi-Square, and continuous variables with the Mann-Whitney tests. Results AD patients were older than controls (p=0.014), but there were no differences regarding gender or educational level between these groups. The performance on the Corsi block-tapping test differed between AD and control individuals (p=0.010), and between patients with moderate dementia and controls (p=0.032), but not between control individuals and patients with mild dementia (p=0.090). Conclusions In the present study, AD patients with moderate dementia showed impairment in spatial working memory while those with mild dementia did not. This finding may be due to the relatively small sample size, but it is also possible that spatial memory may be normal in the initial (limbic) phase of AD.
3-D to 2-D recognition with regions

This paper presents a novel approach to parts-based object recognition in the presence of occlusion. We focus on the problem of determining the pose of a 3-D object from a single 2-D image when convex parts of the object have been matched to corresponding regions in the image. We consider three types of occlusions: self-occlusion, occlusions whose locus is identified in the image, and completely arbitrary occlusions. We derive efficient algorithms for the first two cases, and characterize their performance. For the last case, we prove that the problem of finding valid poses is computationally hard, but provide an efficient, approximate algorithm. This work generalizes our previous work on region-based object recognition, which focused on the case of planar models.
Maternal Behavior Modifications during Pretense and Their Long-Term Effects on Toddlers’ Understanding of Pretense

Recent studies indicate the need to investigate the sources of toddlers’ understanding of another person's pretense. The present study is a cultural and longitudinal extension of the work of Lillard and Witherington (2004), who claimed that mothers modify their behaviors during pretense and that the some of these behavior modifications help their toddlers understand maternal pretense. Experiment 1 investigated whether mothers would change their behaviors during pretense with a sample of 31 Japanese mother–infant pairs. Experiment 2, with a subsample of 20 mother–child pairs who had participated in Experiment 1, examined whether the maternal behavior modifications at 18 months predicted their toddlers’ understanding of pretense at 24 months. The results of Experiment 1 indicated that Japanese mothers smiled more frequently, gazed at their toddlers longer, used sound effects more frequently, and engaged in more frequent snack-related actions in a “pretense condition” than in a “real condition. ” In addition, some of these behaviors were significantly related to their toddlers’ apparent understanding of pretense. Experiment 2 showed that both the frequency of maternal smiles and the number of sound effects in the pretense condition at 18 months predicted toddlers’ understanding of the pretense enacted by a strange adult at 24 months. This research indicates the impact of maternal behavior modifications during pretense on the development of symbolic thought in the 2nd year of life.
Using the extension function of XSLT and DSL to secure XML documents

XSLT is a very popular and flexible language for transforming XML documents which provides a powerful implementation of a tree-oriented transformation language for transmuting instances of XML using a single vocabulary into a desired output. In this paper, we propose a processing model that enables the XSLT processor to encrypt and decrypt XML documents. Our model supports a more general encryption scope than previous models. The implementation and experimental results demonstrate the practicality of the proposed model.
On the evaluation of estimated impulse responses

We discuss the philosophy of evaluating estimated impulse responses for applications in which the overall scaling or gain is irrelevant, as, for example, in blind channel identification. We argue that no matter how the estimate is obtained, the performance should be independently evaluated using an error measure that is appropriate for a problem of this class. Of several possible error measures, the normalized projection error, which is obtained by minimizing the l/sub 2/ norm over all possible gain values, seems to be the most natural and consistent. An example demonstrates that using an inappropriate error measure can produce misleading results.
Fault-Tolerant and 3-Dimensional Distributed Topology Control Algorithms in Wireless Multi-hop Networks

The topology of a multi-hop wireless network can be controlled by varying the transmission power at each node. The life-time of such networks depends on battery power at each node. This paper presents a distributed fault-tolerant topology control algorithm for minimum energy consumption in multi-hop wireless networks. This algorithm is an extension of cone-based topology control algorithm [19, 12]. The main advantage of this algorithm is that each node decides on its power based on local information about the relative angle of its neighbors and as a result of these local decisions, a fault-tolerant connected network is formed on the nodes. It is done by preserving the connectivity of a network upon failing of, at most, k nodes (k is a constant) and simultaneously minimize the transmission power at each node to some extent. In addition, simulations are studied to support the effectiveness of this algorithm. Finally, it is shown how to extend this algorithm to 3-dimensions.
Psychopathy and the Regulation of Interpersonal Distance

Psychopathic traits are often associated with interpersonal and affective deficits. This study examined the impact of psychopathy on judgments of comfortable egocentric interpersonal distance (Experiment 1) and exocentric interpersonal distance (Experiment 2). We selected a student sample and measured psychopathy via self-report. To study spatial behavior under highly controlled conditions, these participants were immersed in a virtual environment. In Experiment 1, they approached a virtual person with angry or happy facial expression until a comfortable distance for conversation was reached. In Experiment 2, participants adjusted a comfortable distance between two avatars. Our results suggest that psychopathy alters the regulation of interpersonal distance with respect to facial expression of the approached as well as between avatars of mixed sex.
Diversity Spectra of Spatial Multipath Fading Processes

We analyse the spatial diversity of a multipath fading process for a finite region or curve in the plane. By means of the Karhunen-Loeve (KL) expansion, this diversity can be characterised by the eigenvalue spectrum of the spatial autocorrelation kernel. This justifies to use the term diversity spectrum for it. We show how the diversity spectrum can be calculated for any such geometrical object and any fading statistics represented by the power azimuth spectrum (PAS). We give rigorous estimates for the accuracy of the numerically calculated eigenvalues. The numerically calculated diversity spectra provide useful hints for the optimisation of the geometry of an antenna array. Furthermore, for a channel coded system, they allow to evaluate the time interleaving depth that is necessary to exploit the diversity gain of the code.
Spectral Efficiency of MIMO Millimeter-Wave Links with Single-Carrier Modulation for 5G Networks

Future wireless networks will extensively rely upon bandwidths centered on carrier frequencies larger than 10GHz. Indeed, recent research has shown that, despite the large path-loss, millimeter wave (mmWave) frequencies can be successfully exploited to transmit very large data-rates over short distances to slowly moving users. Due to hardware complexity and cost constraints, single-carrier modulation schemes, as opposed to the popular multi-carrier schemes, are being considered for use at mmWave frequencies. This paper presents preliminary studies on the achievable spectral efficiency on a wireless MIMO link operating at mmWave in a typical 5G scenario. Two different single-carrier modem schemes are considered, i.e. a traditional modulation scheme with linear equalization at the receiver, and a single-carrier modulation with cyclic prefix, frequency-domain equalization and FFT-based processing at the receiver. Our results show that the former achieves a larger spectral efficiency than the latter. Results also confirm that the spectral efficiency increases with the dimension of the antenna array, as well as that performance gets severely degraded when the link length exceeds 100 meters and the transmit power falls below 0dBW. Nonetheless, mmWave appear to be very suited for providing very large data-rates over short distances.
Measuring Deprivation in Scotland: Developing a Long-Term Strategy

This is the final report from a project to produce a long-term strategy for measuring deprivation in Scotland. The project was commissioned by the Central Statistics Unit of the Scottish Executive with three main objectives: To provide a clear definition and conceptual basis for measuring deprivation. It will also clarify how the term relates to others used to refer to social needs such as poverty, social exclusion or social injustice. To set out a long-term strategy for measuring area deprivation building on the recently published Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation 2003. To explore approaches to measuring deprivation for individuals. In particular, it will recommend whether individual measures should be developed as replacements to area-based measures or as additional to them. Most importantly, the work was not to be limited by considerations of what data is currently available but was to work from the definition and conceptual framework to determine whether additional data should be collected. Measures were not being constructed for a single purpose or context. Rather, an important part of our remit was to provide measures of deprivation which were applicable across Scotland and suitable for a range of possible uses. At the same time, the work is intended to facilitate more specific, local analyses by ensuring that as wide a variety of information is made available in as flexible a way as possible.