Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Passivity-based control of a hybrid asymmetric nine-level inverter

In this paper the problem of achieving a low current Total Harmonic Distortion for a low voltage single phase non-linear load, using the Passivity Based Control applied to a hybrid asymmetric nine-level inverter is shown. The controller was designed taking account of the passivity properties of the averaged state model. A simulation study was carried out in order to evaluate the performance of the control designed by the passivity approach. The simulation results show the low current THD reached in the current injected to the electrical system when the inverter is used to compensate the current harmonics of the non-linear devices. The main contribution of this paper is the calculation of two laws that allow to control two converters at different switching frequencies.
Priority Assignment in Waiting Line Problems

There are several commonly occurring situations in which the position of a unit or member of a waiting line is determined by a priority assigned to the unit rather than by its time of arrival in the line. An example is the line formed by messages awaiting transmission over a crowded communication channel in which urgent messages may take precedence over routine ones. With the passage of time a given unit may move forward in the line owing to the servicing of units at the front of the line or may move back owing to the arrival of units holding higher priorities. Though it does not provide a complete description of this process, the average elapsed time between the arrival in the line of a unit of a given priority and its admission to the facility for servicing is useful in evaluating the procedure by which priority assignments are made. Expressions for this quantity are derived for two cases—the single-channel system in which the unit servicing times are arbitrarily distributed (Eq. 3) and the multiple-cha.
Neonatal mass screening for 21-hydroxylase deficiency

Abstract. Congenital adrenal hyperplasia(CAH)due to 21-hydroxylase deficiency (21-OHD) is an inherited autosomal recessive disorder. Its incidence is 1 in 10,000 to 20,000 worldwide. This disease shows phenotypic differences, and it is divided into three forms i.e., the salt wasting (SW), simple virilizing (SV), and nonclassic (NC) forms. The most severe form of SW manifests in the first months of life with life-threatening adrenal insufficiency, leading to death. To prevent death by adrenal insufficiency in neonates with the SW form and wrong gender assignment of 46,XX female patients with SW and SV, neonatal mass screening of 21-OHD is performed in several countries including Japan. However, the positive predictive value (PPV) remains low, especially in preterm infants. To reduce the false positive rate and increase the PPV, liquid chromatography followed by tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) as a second-tier test may be useful. In this review, the current knowledge on neonatal mass screening of 21-OHD is summarized.
Sport-based physical activity intervention on body weight in children and adolescents: a meta-analysis

ABSTRACT Controversial results reported in past research pertaining to the effectiveness of sport-based physical activity interventions on weight loss. The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of sport-based physical activity intervention on body weight in children and adolescents using a meta-analysis. Academic Search Complete, Education Source, ERIC, Medline, ProQuest, PsycINFO and SportDiscus databases were searched from January 2000 to April 2015. Eighteen studies met following inclusion criteria: sport-based intervention studies; subjects aged 6–18 years; reported body weight; published in peer-reviewed journals written in English. The mean intervention duration was 17.72 weeks. The overall effect size (ES) was 0.52 (Cohen’s d (ES) = 0.52, 95% CI = 0.08, 0.95, P = 0.021), using a random effects model. Moderator analyses results showed that the Q statistic for the sport type (individual sport or team sport, Qbetween (Qb) = 14.52, df = 1, P = 0.001) and diet control (Qbetween (Qb) = 8.85, df = 1, P = 0.001), explained the heterogeneity of ESs. Our study showed that there was a moderate overall effect of sport-based physical activity intervention on body weight reduction. The team sport type (ES = 1.05, 95% CI = 0.44, 1.66) and diet control group (ES = 0.84, 95% CI = 0.26, 1.41) appeared to be more effective in reducing body weight.
An Evolutionary Ensemble Approach for Distributed Intrusion Detection

An architecture for a distributed intrusion detection system is proposed, and a genetic programming algorithm, extended with the ensemble paradigm, to classify malicious or unauthorized network activity is presented. The architecture is based on a distributed hybrid multiisland model that combines the two well known approaches adopted to parallelize genetic programming: the cellular and the island models. Each island contains a subpopulation and a cellular genetic program enhanced with the boosting technique, that generates a decision-tree predictor trained on the local data stored in the island, and cooperates with the others by exchanging the outermost individuals of the population. After the classifiers are computed, they are collected to form the GP ensemble. Experiments on the KDD Cup 1999 Data shows the proposed method obtains accuracy comparable to other approaches proposed for this kind of problem.
Peer Review History

BMJ Open publishes all reviews undertaken for accepted manuscripts. Reviewers are asked to complete a checklist review form are provided with free text boxes to elaborate on their assessment. These free text comments are reproduced below. This paper was submitted to the JAMIA but declined for publication following peer review. The authors addressed the reviewers' comments and submitted the revised paper to BMJ Open where it was re-reviewed and accepted. GENERAL COMMENTS This paper describes a study of how healthcare consumers feel about personal health records and why. As the background states, there is already a lot of work in this area. Please clarify in the background section what is the new contribution of this paper. There probably should be one focused hypothesis with several secondary hypotheses. Is the main focus to test the proposed theoretical model? Even the discussion states that your results confirm something already known by an "overwhelming" body of research. The methodology is a bit underspecified for this paper to be properly peer reviewed. To accomodate a better description of the model and methods, you can cut the long introduction about self management, which seems marginally relevant. I think the follow questions/issues should be addressed: 1. How was "chronic illness" defined by the market research company for the involved consumers, and what was the threshold for ill versus not ill? 2. The criteria for including and excluding surveys should be stated clearly in the methods section, not the results. 3. Explain in detail how each of the variables (e.g, perceived usefulness, computer anxiety) was measured and provide information about the validation how each is measured. You state that MOST of the questions in the survey were adapted from previously validated instruments, so it is not clear that any of the variables are being measured by validated instruments. 4. Describe how the sample size was chosen and explicitly discuss the number chosen relatively to how many of the hypotheses would be tested and the size needed to show one or more significant results. 5. The complex statistical analysis probably warrants some
Six Weeks of Massage Therapy Produces Changes in Balance, Neurological and Cardiovascular Measures in Older Persons

Objectives: Falls in older adults represent a primary cause of decreased mobility and independence, increased morbidity, and accidental death. Research and clinical reports indicate that therapeutic massage (TM) may positively influence suggested causative factors. The second in a two-part study, this project assessed the effects of six weeks of TM treatment on balance, nervous system, and cardiovascular measures in older adults. Design: A randomized controlled trial assessed the effects of six weekly 60-minute sessions of TM on balance, cardiovascular, and nervous system measures. Thirty-five volunteers (19 male and 16 female; ages 62.9 ± 4.6) were randomly assigned to relaxation control or TM groups. A 2 × 4 [treatment condition X time (week 1 and 6)] mixed factorial experimental design was utilized for cardiovascular/balance variables assessed at pretreatment baseline, immediate post-treatment, and 20- and 60-minutes post-treatment; nervous system measures were assessed only at pretreatment and at 60-minute follow-up (2 × 2 mixed design). Long-term benefits were assessed by comparing the TM and control groups on pretreatment baseline measures at week six and a follow-up assessment at week seven (2 × 3 mixed design). Setting: Laboratory Intervention: Six weekly 60-minute, full-body TM. Outcome Measures: Postural control/cardiovascular measures were assessed weeks one, six, and seven; pretreatment and immediate, 20- and 60-minutes post-treatment. Motoneuron pool excitability was assessed pretreatment and 60 minutes post-treatment. Results: The TM group showed significant differences relative to controls in cardiovascular and displacement area/velocity after the week six session, with decreasing blood pressure and increasing stability over time from immediate post-TM to 60 minutes post-TM. The TM group revealed lower H-max/M-max ratios 60-minutes post-treatment. Long-term differences between the groups were detected at week seven in displacement area/velocity and systolic blood pressure. Conclusions: Results suggest six weeks of TM resulted in immediate and long-term improvements in postural stability and blood pressure, compared to a controlled condition.
Faster Gaussian Summation: Theory and Experiment

We provide faster algorithms for the problem of Gaussian summation, which occurs in many machine learning methods. We develop two new extensions - an O(Dp) Taylor expansion for the Gaussian kernel with rigorous error bounds and a new error control scheme integrating any arbitrary approximation method - within the best discretealgorithmic framework using adaptive hierarchical data structures. We rigorously evaluate these techniques empirically in the context of optimal bandwidth selection in kernel density estimation, revealing the strengths and weaknesses of current state-of-the-art approaches for the first time. Our results demonstrate that the new error control scheme yields improved performance, whereas the series expansion approach is only effective in low dimensions (five or less).
Research of Canny edge detection algorithm on embedded CPU and GPU heterogeneous systems

Canny algorithm is one of the most popular edge detection algorithms which are used to extract edge features in images. But because of its complicated calculation, using Canny algorithm to detect edges in real-time on traditional embedded systems becomes a difficult problem. However, current high-end embedded processors which integrate GPGPUs (General Purpose Graphics Processing Units) can provide more computing power for embedded systems. This paper proposed a parallel Canny algorithm on the embedded CPU and GPU heterogeneous and collaborative computing system. Experimental results showed that the proposed parallel Canny algorithm brought nearly 50 times speedup on the heterogeneous embedded systems and it fully met the needs of real-time.
Long-term outcome of adolescent depression initially resistant to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor treatment: a follow-up study of the TORDIA sample.

BACKGROUND We examined the long-term outcome of participants in the Treatment of SSRI-Resistant Depression in Adolescents (TORDIA) study, a randomized trial of 334 adolescents (aged 12-18 years) with DSM-IV-defined major depressive disorder initially resistant to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) treatment who were subsequently treated for 12 weeks with another SSRI, venlafaxine, another SSRI + cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), or venlafaxine + CBT. Responders then continued with the same treatment through week 24, while nonresponders were given open treatment. METHOD For the current study, patients were reassessed 48 (n = 116) and 72 (n = 130) weeks from intake. Data were gathered from February 2001 to February 2007. Standardized diagnostic interviews and measures of depression, suicidal ideation, related psychopathology, and level of functioning were periodically administered. Remission was defined as ≥ 3 weeks with ≤ 1 clinically significant symptom and no associated functional impairment (score of 1 on the adolescent version of the Longitudinal Interval Follow-Up Evaluation [A-LIFE]), and relapse, as ≥ 2 weeks with probable or definite depressive disorder (score of 3 or 4 on the A-LIFE). Mixed-effects regression models were applied to estimate remission, relapse, and functional recovery. RESULTS By 72 weeks, an estimated 61.1% of the randomized youths had reached remission. Randomly assigned treatment (first 12 weeks) did not influence remission rate or time to remission, but the group assigned to SSRIs had a more rapid decline in self-reported depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation than those assigned to venlafaxine (P < .03). Participants with more severe depression, greater dysfunction, and alcohol or drug use at baseline were less likely to remit. The depressive symptom trajectory of the remitters diverged from that of nonremitters by the first 6 weeks of treatment (P < .001). Of the 130 participants in remission at week 24, 25.4% relapsed in the subsequent year. CONCLUSIONS While most adolescents achieved remission, more than one-third did not, and one-fourth of remitted patients experienced a relapse. More effective interventions are needed for patients who do not show robust improvement early in treatment. TRIAL REGISTRATION clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00018902.
Prevalence and Socio-demographic Factors of Aggression among Medical College Students

"Aggressive behavior in college students can be considered as an analyst for crime, drug abuse, depression and academic failure. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of and the factors related with aggression among a sample of Kermanshah medical college students. In this cross-sectional, showed in Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, in the western Iran, a total of 601 students were randomly selected to voluntarily participate in the study. Participants filled out a Buss-Perry aggression questionnaire. Data were analyzed by SPSS version 21 using logistic regression statistical tests at 95% significant level. Almost, 15.3% of the participants were aggressive. The mean score of aggression was 61.1 [95% CI: 59.6, 62.7], ranged from 29 to 140. Logistic regression showed that marital status and smoking were the most influential predictive factors on aggressive behaviour. Our findings showed a high level of aggressive behaviour among college students; it seems that a designing intervention to reduce aggressive behaviour and improve mental health program among college students is necessary. "
Shorter Waitlist Times and Improved Graft Survivals Are Observed in Patients Who Accept Hepatitis C Virus+ Renal Allografts

Background There is a paucity of data regarding long-term renal graft survival in hepatitis C virus positive (HCV+) patients. We analyzed our institution’s experience with HCV+ renal transplantation and factors contributing to subsequent renal graft failure. Methods We analyzed 1,679 adult, deceased donor, single-organ renal transplants occurring between 2000 and 2012. Recipient and donor demographics, HCV serostatus, and graft outcome and function were evaluated. Results Of 1,679 patients, 195 HCV+ recipients (R+) received renal transplants from HCV+ donors (D+), in contrast to 1,418 HCV negative (HCV−) recipients (R−) who received grafts from HCV− donors (D−), and 66 R+ patients who received D− kidneys. Death-censored graft survival in the R+/D+ population was better than graft survival for R+/D− patients, despite R+/D+ patients having higher rates of hypertension and African Americans. Waitlist times for patients accepting HCV+ grafts was 318 days (for R+/D+ patients) versus 613 days (R−/D−) or 570 days (R+/D−). On multivariate analysis, waitlist times were independently predictive of graft failure. Conclusion R+/D+ patients spent less time on the transplant waitlist, which contributed to improved death censored graft survival when compared with R+/D− patients.
D-branes, B fields and twisted K theory

In this note we propose that D-brane charges, in the presence of a topologically non-trivial B-field, are classified by the K-theory of an infinite dimensional C*-algebra. In the case of B-fields whose curvature is pure torsion our description is shown to coincide with that of Witten.
The use of RepGrids to gather interview data about information systems analysts

In view of suggestions for the application of more qualitative and interpretive approaches to information systems research, this article describes the use of RepGrids to gather interview data about information systems analysts. In the light of the objectives of a specific research project, various techniques are considered. Analysis of the techniques in relation to specific research project objectives leads to the adoption of a form of Kelly's RepGrid technique for the specific project described here. A detailed description is included about how RepGrids were applied in this instance. It is shown that RepGrids are appropriate for gathering qualitative interview data. The technique provides structure to a ‘one‐to‐one’ interview. But, at the same time, RepGrids allow sufficient flexibility for the research participants to be able to express their own interpretation about a particular topic. Further, because the content of the data is determined by the research participant researcher bias is reduced. The article concludes by suggesting that the RepGrid technique supports the generation of rich in‐depth data and is a reliable research technique for gathering qualitative data about information systems analysts.
EFFECT OF MOTORING VOLTAGE ON COMPRESSION RATIO OF A FREE-PISTON LINEAR GENERATOR ENGINE

The need for alternative power sources is crucial because of the increase in global energy demand and stringent emission regulations. The free-piston linear generator engine is one of the main alternatives thanks to its high efficiency, wide operating range and low emissions. However, low compression pressure which produces low power generation is an obstacle to its development. In order to increase compression pressure, further development of the motoring process is required. The study investigated the effect of motoring voltage in compression pressure and compression ratio. Motoring voltages varied from 36 V to 84 V. Higher motoring voltage increased piston speed up to 2 m/s which reduced the air leakage and thus produced a sharper p-V profile and higher compression pressure. An inverse relationship between the compression ratio and compression pressure during motoring was also observed.
Convective instability and transient growth in flow over a backward-facing step

Transient energy growths of two- and three-dimensional optimal linear perturbations to two-dimensional flow in a rectangular backward-facing-step geometry with expansion ratio two are presented. Reynolds numbers based on the step height and peak inflow speed are considered in the range 0–500, which is below the value for the onset of three-dimensional asymptotic instability. As is well known, the flow has a strong local convective instability, and the maximum linear transient energy growth values computed here are of order 80×103 at Re = 500. The critical Reynolds number below which there is no growth over any time interval is determined to be Re = 57.7 in the two-dimensional case. The centroidal location of the energy distribution for maximum transient growth is typically downstream of all the stagnation/reattachment points of the steady base flow. Sub-optimal transient modes are also computed and discussed. A direct study of weakly nonlinear effects demonstrates that nonlinearity is stablizing at Re = 500. The optimal three-dimensional disturbances have spanwise wavelength of order ten step heights. Though they have slightly larger growths than two-dimensional cases, they are broadly similar in character. When the inflow of the full nonlinear system is perturbed with white noise, narrowband random velocity perturbations are observed in the downstream channel at locations corresponding to maximum linear transient growth. The centre frequency of this response matches that computed from the streamwise wavelength and mean advection speed of the predicted optimal disturbance. Linkage between the response of the driven flow and the optimal disturbance is further demonstrated by a partition of response energy into velocity components.
Reducing excessive journaling overhead in mobile devices with small-sized NVRAM

The excessive journaling degrades the performance and shortens the lifetime of NAND flash storage in mobile devices. We propose a novel journaling scheme that resolves this problem by using small-sized NVRAM efficiently. Experimental results show that our proposed scheme outperforms EXT4 by up to 16.8 times for synthetic workloads. Also, for TPC-C SQLite benchmark, it enhances the transaction throughput by 20% and reduces the number of journal writes by 58% with only 16 MB NVRAM.
An Abstract Fault Model for NAND Flash Memory

We present an abstract fault model for NAND flash memory that describes precisely the effects of various faults during a flash operation. The abstract model is intended to be used to reason about fault-related correctness of key modules of flash memory management software such as a flash translation layer (FTL). We also introduce the concept of “SAO-compliance” to raise awareness about fault-related vulnerabilities of current flash memory management software and to promote much needed research to fix them.
Adaptive movement penalty method for the Newton optimal power

The authors address the determination of the set of active constraints in optimal power flows based on the Newton approach. An adaptive method for handling movement penalties is proposed. The method uses information about the size of the pivots in the factorization of the Hessian matrix to selectively introduce movement penalties whenever it is strictly necessary. Thus, because movement penalties are only used when required, the number of state variables whose movement is penalized is greatly reduced. The main advantage presented by the method is that it ensures positive definitiveness without negatively affecting the convergence characteristics. No tuning is necessary, which is convenient for real-time applications. Test results carried out on two network models of actual power systems (100 and 1650 buses) are reported. >
Understanding mobile Internet usage behavior

Exploring the semantic contents of mobile traffic has significant meaning for Telco operators to gain a better understanding of the traffic generated by their subscribers. The mobile traffic dynamics do not only provide guidance for operators in terms of network planning and resource management, they also help operators to innovate new business models by providing value-added services. The mobile traffic dynamics are not static features. They are developing with the evolution of radio access technologies, subscribers' adoption of mobile services, etc. In this paper, we analyze the mobile traffic from multiple dimensions based on a large-scale dataset collected by a major European mobile operator in 2012. Within this work, we investigate the traffic dynamics and the application features used by different mobile devices. Moreover, for the first time, we also present a methodology about how to link these metrics to the operating system of mobile devices. We observed a noticeable impact of the operating system on some of the evaluated features.