Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fuzzy knowledge representation in cognitive cities

This paper gives an insight into cognitive computing for smart cities, resulting in cognitive cities. Cognitive cities and cognitive computing research with the underlying concepts of knowledge graphs and fuzzy cognitive maps are presented and supported by existing tools (i.e., IBM Watson and Google Now) and intended tools (meta-app). The paper illustrates FCM as a suiting instrument to represent information/knowledge in a city environment driven by human-technology interaction, enforcing the concept of cognitive cities. A proposed paper prototype combines the findings of the paper and shows the next step in the implementation of the proposed meta-app.
Improving medication understanding among Latinos through illustrated medication lists.

OBJECTIVES Strategies are needed to improve medication management among vulnerable populations. We tested the effect of providing illustrated, plain-language medication lists on medication understanding, adherence, and satisfaction among Latino patients with diabetes in a safety net clinic. STUDY DESIGN Randomized controlled trial. METHODS Intervention patients received a PictureRx illustrated medication list that depicted the medication, indication, and dosing instructions, accompanied by plain language bilingual text. Usual care patients received a written list of their medications in their preferred language, with indication but no images. Outcomes were assessed by telephone approximately 1 week later. The Medication Understanding Questionnaire measured patients' ability to report the indication, strength, dosing, and frequency for their medication regimen. Self-reported adherence and satisfaction were secondary outcomes. Analysis was performed by intention to treat. RESULTS Of 200 enrolled participants, 197 (98.5%) completed follow-up. Most (71%) had not graduated high school, and 59% had low health literacy. Patients randomized to illustrated medication instructions had better overall understanding of their medications (P<.001), including greater ability to report the drug indication (P<.01), strength (P<.05), dosing (P<.01), and frequency of administration (P<.001). Self-reported adherence did not differ significantly between study groups. Patients who received illustrated medication lists were very satisfied with them. CONCLUSIONS In this randomized controlled trial, patients who received illustrated, plain-language medication lists demonstrated significantly greater understanding of their medication regimen. Such tools have the potential to improve medication use and chronic disease control, as well as reduce health disparities-although this requires further study.
Retrograde aortic valve crossing of the corevalve prosthesis using the buddy balloon technique

In rare cases, retrograde aortic valve crossing during transcatheter aortic valve implantation may be challenging despite improvements in delivery catheter profile, size, and steerability compared with the first generation devices. Herein, we report a case of challenging transfemoral Medtronic CoreValve placement that was possible, thanks to the buddy balloon technique, using a peripheral 6‐F compatible balloon. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Policy-Making Mobilizing Bias in Europe : Lobbies , Democracy and EU Health

What effects do interest groups have on the democratization and legitimacy of the European Union (EU)? Interest groups can democratize the EU only to the extent that they do not replicate inequalities. We use a newly constructed database to look for inequalities: Are the big organizations in Brussels the same as the ones in the EU member states? Are some member states’ lobbies more active than others? And does the structure of EU lobbying create insiders and outsiders itself? We find representative biases in favor of powerful incumbents, groups from some member states and well-
Coordinated coalition formation in throughput-efficient cognitive radio networks

In this paper, we consider the problem of joint coalition formation CF and bandwidth allocation in cognitive radio networks. We assume that the secondary links will be partitioned into disjoint coalitions, by which the available spectrum will be reused. On the other hand, we assume that the members of each coalition will transmit over orthogonal sub-bands with the available spectrum being optimally allocated among them. We formulate the problem as a coordinated CF game, where the optimization is held at a secondary coordinator that has all the required channel information. Given these assumptions, we derive a closed-form expression of the optimal bandwidth allocation for any given network partition, and we propose an efficient algorithm to reach a Nash-stable partition coalition structure, with the objective of improving the network throughput. Furthermore, we provide a probabilistic analysis of the stability of a grand structure and a singleton structure, and we employ this to obtain a lower bound on the stability of a general coalition structure other than grand and singleton. Performance analysis shows that the proposed CF algorithm with optimal bandwidth allocation provides a substantial gain in the network throughput over existing CF techniques as well as the simple cases of singleton and grand coalitions. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Reduction in the appearance of facial hyperpigmentation by topical N‐undecyl‐10‐enoyl‐l‐phenylalanine and its combination with niacinamide

Objectives N‐undecyl‐10‐enoyl‐l‐phenylalanine (Sepiwhite®, N‐undecylenoyl phenylalanine), a reported alpha‐melanocyte‐stimulating hormone (MSH) receptor antagonist, has been observed to reduce melanin production in cultured melanocytes. In other testing, niacinamide has been found to inhibit melanosome transfer in cultured cells and to reduce the appearance of hyperpigmented spots in clinical studies. Since these two agents function by different mechanisms, we conducted two studies to determine if their combination is more effective than niacinamide alone in reducing facial hyperpigmentation.
MAT Reliability and Validity

findings from these two studies suggest the consistency of both MAT scores and previously-earned grade point averages in predicting subsequent performance measured by first-year grade point averages. Whether based on the old raw scores obtained exclusively from paper-and-pencil administrations or on more recently-reported scaled scores obtained primarily from computer-based administrations, correlations between MAT scores and first-year graduate school performance have remained moderately positive.
Optimization Design of Fuzzy Controller Based on Improved Ant Colony Algorithm

In this paper, a fuzzy controller is designed for nonlinear time delay system. Because of the selection of membership functions and fuzzy rules of the fuzzy controllers depends mainly on the experience of experts and the control effects are not good owing to the randomicity and subjectivity of the experience, a method of multi-colony evolvement ant colony algorithm based on idle ant colony system is proposed. This algorithm adopts multi-colony parallel optimize based on improved ACO algorithm, the ACO implementation including data initialization, solution construction and pheromone update are improved. It can optimize the membership functions and fuzzy rules synchronously. Simulation result shows that this algorithm is feasible and effective.
Usage Guidelines for CIECAM97s

Color appearance models provide a powerful tool for achieving a viewing condition independent color representation. However, current color appearance models such as CIECAM97s and CAM97s2 are more complex than previous CIE device independent color spaces, such as CIELAB and CIELUV. Therefore it is important to understand how to correctly measure and set the input parameters. This paper provides details about how to set the luminance of the adapting field, the surround, the luminance of the background, and the white point. There is also discussion of the format of the input perceptual attributes, the output perceptual attributes and example parameter settings for a range of viewing conditions.
Collaborative Prototyping and the Pricing of Custom - Designed Products

A major challenge in the creation of custom-designed products lies in the elicitation of customer needs. As customers are frequently unable to accurately articulate their needs, designers typically create one or several prototypes, which they then present to the customer. This process, which we call collaborative prototyping , allows both parties to anticipate the outcome of the design process. Prototypes have two advantages: They help the customer to evaluate the unknown customized product, and they guide both parties in the search for the ideal product specification. Collaborative prototyping involves two economic agents, with different information structures and different-and potentially conflicting-objective functions. This raises several interesting questions: how many prototypes should be built, who should pay for them, and how should they and the customized product be priced. We show that, depending on the design problem and the market characteristics, the designer should offer prototypes at a profit, at cost, or even for free.
Productrank: A Random Walk Model for E-Commerce Recommendations

Electronic Commerce has offered a convenient way for people to go shopping on the Internet. However, it is difficult for Internet customers to select a valuable item from the great number of various products available on line. When we use a keyword and search in a EC website, the ranking algorithm of products is usually based on statistics or simply the shop manager's preference, which does not fully exploit the knowledge and experiences hidden in the prior daily transaction records in the database. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to extract the purchasing behaviour of customers who purchase the same kind of goods, and with which we rank the products for user personally by comparing their behaviour. We introduce our evaluation metrics to assess the prediction accuracy of the proposed recommendation algorithm using transaction records of an online wine shop, the experiment results show that our algorithm is able to produce valuable recommendations.
User Experience Evaluation Methods in Games for Children with Cognitive Disabilities : A Systematic Review [ !

Background: In recent years, the interest in the field of the User Experience methods for assessing technology solutions has increased. Objective: Conduct a Systematic Review to analyze the existing evidence in the field of user experience methods used in games for children with special needs. Methods: The systematic review was a three-stage process. The first two stages were based on the Kitchenham's guidelines for Systematic Reviews in Software Engineering; as for the third stage, the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Metaanalyses statement used in healthcare was adapted to report the systematic review transparently. Results: This review identified 143 papers, 10 of them meeting the eligibility criteria. Main findings include the identification of the most used evaluation methods in user experience, the detection of the research outcomes from each study and finding the main characteristics of the population of the studies. Quality of Experience methods for the addressed topic, were not found. Conclusions: There is no consensus as how the methods should be applied in the evaluation of the user experience or quality of experience. This systematic review specifies the research gaps identified for future research
Modeling of the radiative process in an atmospheric general circulation model.

A new radiation scheme has been developed for dynamic general-circulation modeling. An automatic determination of k-distribution parameters and a treatment of solar-terrestrial radiation interacting with gaseous and particulate matter are incorporated into the scheme by a technique that combines discrete ordinate and matrix operator methods. An accelerated scheme for cloud overlap is developed and tested. The resultant accuracy of the scheme is ? 0.5 K/day to a 70-km height in clear sky better than that of the line-by-line calculation method.
Angiotensin II activates Na+-H+ exchange and stimulates growth in cultured vascular smooth muscle cells

Angiotensin II (Ang II) stimulated the growth of cultured vascular smooth muscle cells in a dose-dependent manner; a small but significant increase being seen at 10-9 mol/l, whereas 10-5 mol/l produced a 166% increase compared with control cells. Saralasin blocked the Ang II-mediated increase in cell number. Amiloride-sensitive Na+-H+ exchange was characterized (Km - 18 mmol/l, Vmax = 0.27 pH units/30 s) in cell monolayers using the fluorescent probe biscarboxyethylcarboxy fluorescein. Angiotensin II (10-7 mol/l) produced a small overall net intracellular alkalinization. Raising intracellular pH via Na+-H+ activation might be one of the ways in which Ang II increases cell growth.
Synonymy between two spider mite species, Tetranychus kanzawai and T. hydrangeae (Acari: Tetranychidae), shown by ribosomal ITS2 sequences and cross-breeding experiments

Amplification of the second internal transcribed spacer (ITS2) of ribosomal DNA was used to compare seven samples of the Tetranychus kanzawai Kishida–T. hydrangeae Pritchard & Baker mite complex from five different countries: Australia, the Congo, Indonesia, Japan and the USA. No morphological differences were detected between these mites and their ITS2 sequences displayed strong similarity except for a small nucleotide divergence of 0.2% in specimens from Australia and Indonesia. Reciprocal crosses and backcrosses between mites assumed to be T. kanzawai and T. hydrangeae respectively showed reproductive compatibility. Fertile hybrid females were obtained in all cases, indicating conspecificity of the mites tested. It is concluded that T. hydrangeae is a synonym of T. kanzawai. The evidence suggests that T. kanzawai originated in South-east Asia and probably spread throughout the world on Hydrangea spp. cuttings.
Properties of ZnO:Fe nanostructured films grown by successive chemical synthesis

Rapid progress of nanotechnology in recent years and continuous minimization of portable devices created the necessity of multifunctional devices elaboration. In this work, the morphological, structural and sensing properties of ZnO : Fenanostructured films are presented, namelyultraviolet and ethanol gas sensing properties, demonstrating multifunctionality of the fabricated devicestructures. The Fedoped ZnO nanostructured films were synthesized by a simple and cost-efficient method from aqueous solutions at relatively low temperatures (<; 90 °C), which allowsFe-doping of ZnO nanostructures directly in a synthesis process. Presented results demonstrate the perspectives to integrate the ZnO : Fe nanostructured films into multifunctional devices.
SOC Strategies and Organizational Citizenship Behaviors toward the Benefits of Co-workers: A Multi-Source Study

Background: Individuals’ behavioral strategies like selection, optimization, and compensation (SOC) contribute to efficient use of available resources. In the work context, previous studies revealed positive associations between employees’ SOC use and favorable individual outcomes, like engagement and job performance. However, the social implications of self-directed behaviors like SOC that are favorable for the employee but may imply consequences for coworkers have not been investigated yet in an interpersonal work context. Objective: This study aimed to assess associations between employees’ use of SOC behaviors at work and their organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) toward the benefits of co-workers rated by their peers at work. We further sought to identify age-specific associations between SOC use and OCB. Design and Method: A cross-sectional design combining multi-source data was applied in primary school teachers (age range: 23–58 years) who frequently teach in dyads. N = 114 dyads were finally included. Teachers reported on their SOC strategies at work. Their peer colleagues evaluated teachers’ OCB. Control variables were gender, workload, working hours, and perceived proximity of relationship between the dyads. Results: We observed a positive effect of loss-based selection behaviors on peer-rated OCB. Moreover, there was a significant two-way interaction effect between the use of compensation strategies and age on OCB, such that there was a positive association for older employees and a negative association for younger employees. There were no significant main and age-related interaction effects of elective selection, optimization, and of overall SOC strategies on OCB. Conclusion: Our study suggests that high use of loss-based selection and high use of compensation strategies in older employees is positively related with OCB as perceived by their colleagues. However, high use of compensation strategies in younger employees is perceived negatively related with OCB. Our findings contribute to a better understanding of the age-differentiated interpersonal effects of successful aging strategies in terms of SOC in organizations.
A high gain step Up Z-Source DC-DC converter feeding a multilevel inverter

A Z-source boost dc-dc converter along with a multilevel inverter is proposed. In this work, the modified converter with conventional Z-source network has high voltage gain compared to the traditional boost dc-dc converters. It gives a common ground between the dc supply source and load output. The impedance network acts as a bridge connecting the source and the converter. It does not require any other components and hence the cost and size of the modified converter is reduced. Since the voltage stress on the switches and diodes are less when compared to the traditional boost dc converters, the efficiency is improved. The multilevel inverter with a bidirectional switch and split DC link provides a multilevel output voltage. Sinusoidal based pulse width modulation (PWM) technique is used in the inverter.
Surgical Considerations in Tracheal and Carinal Resection

Surgical resection of the trachea and carina requires a highly specialized team of thoracic surgeons, anesthesiologists, and operative support staff because of the complex nature of these procedures. Improvements in the design and application of low-pressure cuffed endotracheal tubes and extensive experience in tracheal reconstruction have reduced ventilation associated airway injury and facilitated new techniques for repair. Even with these improvements, tracheal surgery for stenosis is still commonplace, as is the need for resection in cases of benign and malignant lesions of the airway. Surgical consideration of malignant lesions involving the carina remains a challenge for localized cancer and more commonly for tumors arising from the lung with radial involvement of the main bronchus and carina. These patients often require pneumonectomy during carinal resection with complicated reconstructive efforts to establish airway continuity. Careful patient selection, operative planning, and execution by both the thoracic surgery and anesthesia teams are required for optimal results.
A Helical Membrane‐Binding Domain Targets the Toxoplasma ROP2 Family to the Parasitophorous Vacuole

During invasion, the obligate intracellular pathogen, Toxoplasma gondii, secretes into its host cell a variety of effector molecules, several of which have been implicated in strain‐specific variation in disease. The largest family of these effectors, defined by the canonical member ROP2, quickly associates with the nascent parasitophorous vacuole membrane (PVM) after secretion. Here we demonstrate that the NH2‐terminal domain of the ROP2 family contains a series of amphipathic helices that are necessary and sufficient for membrane association. While each of the amphipathic helices is individually competent to bind cellular membranes, together they act to bind the PVM preferentially, possibly through sensing its strong negative curvature. This previously uncharacterized helical domain is an evolutionarily robust and energetically efficient design for membrane association.
Object Detection Using Geometrical Block Structures

We propose a novel method of object detection in unconstrained, clustered scenes. Our method strongly benefits from object representation using geometrical structure of image blocks. It comes from an intuition that object has strong relationships between some of its components. It effectively extends the features of local area to the global using a complete graph of blocks so as to achieve a perspective of features in geometrical structure of the object. AdaBoost is adopted to select those relations of block pairs which are able to distinguish object from the rest while designing classifier. This method gives a good result when we use face and human detection as testing cases.
Infection by Non Tuberculous Mycobacteria in Cystic Fibrosis

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a common autosomal recessive genetic condition affecting white population with an approximate incidence of 1 per 2500 live births (Davis et al., 1996), nearly 30,000 people in the USA (Olivier et al., 2003). Patients with this life-shortening disease have abnormally thickened secretions that facilitate chronic infection of the airways, bronchiectasis and early death. The respiratory pathogens most frequently isolated in these patients are Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
Topology Optimization Using An AdaptiveGenetic Algorithm And A New GeometricRepresentation

A new method for structural topology optimization using a genetic algorithm is proposed in this paper. This method uses a topology representation by Bézier curves with varying thickness material distribution in a finite element model. Two groups of variables are considered: control points of Bézier curves and thickness values for each curve. This new technique avoids the formation of disconnected elements and checkerboard patterns in optimal topology design. New adaptive strategies for crossover and mutation operators are also proposed. The numerical program has been developed in MATLAB and tested on a benchmark 2-D problem of topology optimization. The results obtained are compared with those obtained by the homogenization method and ANSYS code.