Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A matched-group study protocol to evaluate the implementation of an Integrated Care Pathway programme for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in Singapore

Introduction The treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) involves different care providers across care sites. This fragmentation of care increases the morbidity and mortality burden, as well as acute health services use. The COPD-Integrated Care Pathway (ICP) was designed and implemented to integrate the care across different sites from primary care to acute hospital and home. It aims to reduce the prevalence of COPD among the population in the catchment, reduce risk of hospital admissions, delay or prevent the progression of the disease and reduce mortality rate by adopting a coordinated and multidisciplinary approach to the management of the patients’ medical conditions. This study on the COPD-ICP programme is undertaken to determine the impact on processes of care, clinical outcomes and acute care utilisation. Methods and analysis This will be a retrospective, pre-post, matched-groups study to evaluate the effectiveness of the COPD-ICP programme in improving clinical outcomes and reducing healthcare costs. Programme enrolees (intervention group) and non-enrolees (comparator group) will be matched using propensity scores. Administratively, we set 30% as our target for proportion admission difference between programme and non-programme patients. A sample size of 62 patients in each group will be needed for statistical comparisons to be made at 90% power. Adherence with recommended care elements will be measured at baseline and quarterly during 1-year follow-up. Risk of COPD-related hospitalisations as primary outcome, healthcare costs, disease progression and 1-year mortality during 1-year follow-up will be compared between the groups using generalised linear regression models. Ethics and dissemination This protocol describes the implementation and proposed evaluation of the COPD-ICP programme. The described study has received ethical approval from the NHG Domain Specific Review Board (DSRB Ref: 2013/01200). Results of the study will be reported through peer-review publications and presentations at healthcare conferences.
Structural Insights into Omega-Class Glutathione Transferases: A Snapshot of Enzyme Reduction and Identification of a Non-Catalytic Ligandin Site

Glutathione transferases (GSTs) are dimeric enzymes containing one active-site per monomer. The omega-class GSTs (hGSTO1-1 and hGSTO2-2 in humans) are homodimeric and carry out a range of reactions including the glutathione-dependant reduction of a range of compounds and the reduction of S-(phenacyl)glutathiones to acetophenones. Both types of reaction result in the formation of a mixed-disulfide of the enzyme with glutathione through the catalytic cysteine (C32). Recycling of the enzyme utilizes a second glutathione molecule and results in oxidized glutathione (GSSG) release. The crystal structure of an active-site mutant (C32A) of the hGSTO1-1 isozyme in complex with GSSG provides a snapshot of the enzyme in the process of regeneration. GSSG occupies both the G (GSH-binding) and H (hydrophobic-binding) sites and causes re-arrangement of some H-site residues. In the same structure we demonstrate the existence of a novel “ligandin” binding site deep within in the dimer interface of this enzyme, containing S-(4-nitrophenacyl)glutathione, an isozyme-specific substrate for hGSTO1-1. The ligandin site, conserved in Omega class GSTs from a range of species, is hydrophobic in nature and may represent the binding location for tocopherol esters that are uncompetitive hGSTO1-1 inhibitors.
Optimized Controller Design for  $LCL$-Type Grid-Connected Inverter to Achieve High Robustness Against Grid-Impedance Variation

Capacitor-current-feedback active damping is an effective method to suppress the LCL-filter resonance in grid-connected inverters. However, due to the variation of grid impedance, the LCL-filter resonance frequency will vary in a wide range, which challenges the design of the capacitor-current-feedback coefficient. Moreover, if the resonance frequency is equal to one-sixth of the sampling frequency (fs/6), the digitally controlled LCL-type grid-connected inverter can be hardly stable no matter how much the capacitor-current-feedback coefficient is. In this paper, the optimal design of the capacitor-current-feedback coefficient is presented to deal with the wide-range variation of grid impedance. First, the gain margin requirements for system stability are derived under various resonance frequencies. By evaluating the effect of grid impedance on gain margins, an optimal capacitor-current-feedback coefficient is obtained. With this feedback coefficient, stable operations will be retained for all resonance frequencies except (fs/6). Second, in order to improve system stability for a resonance frequency of (fs/6), a phase-lag compensation for the loop gain is proposed. Finally, a 6-kW prototype is tested to verify the proposed design procedure.
Tamil POS Tagging using Linear Programming

Part of speech (POS) tagging is the process of annotating syntactic categories for each word in a corpus. This paper presents an SVM methodology based on Linear Programming for implementing automatic Tamil POS tagger. We have designed our own tagset consisting of 32 tags for preparing the annotated corpus for Tamil. The features are extracted from a corpus of twenty five thousand sentences and trained with linear programming based SVM. This method, when tested with 10,000 sentences, gave an overall accuracy of 95.63%. Index Terms— Annotated corpus, tokenization, tagging, machine learning.
Using Hidden Markov Models for Iterative Non-intrusive Appliance Monitoring

Non-intrusive appliance load monitoring is the process of breaking down a household’s total electricity consumption into its contributing appliances. In this paper we propose an approach by which individual appliances are iteratively separated from the aggregate load. Our approach does not require training data to be collected by sub-metering individual appliances. Instead, prior models of general appliance types are tuned to specific appliance instances using only signatures extracted from the aggregate load. The tuned appliance models are used to estimate each appliance’s load, which is subsequently subtracted from the aggregate load. We evaluate our approach using the REDD data set, and show that it can disaggregate 35% of a typical household’s total energy consumption to an accuracy of 83% by only disaggregating three of its highest energy consuming appliances.
Linking Topography to Tonotopy in the Mouse Auditory Thalamocortical Circuit

The mouse sensory neocortex is reported to lack several hallmark features of topographic organization such as ocular dominance and orientation columns in primary visual cortex or fine-scale tonotopy in primary auditory cortex (AI). Here, we re-examined the question of auditory functional topography by aligning ultra-dense receptive field maps from the auditory cortex and thalamus of the mouse in vivo with the neural circuitry contained in the auditory thalamocortical slice in vitro. We observed precisely organized tonotopic maps of best frequency (BF) in the middle layers of AI and the anterior auditory field as well as in the ventral and medial divisions of the medial geniculate body (MGBv and MGBm, respectively). Tracer injections into distinct zones of the BF map in AI retrogradely labeled topographically organized MGBv projections and weaker, mixed projections from MGBm. Stimulating MGBv along the tonotopic axis in the slice produced an orderly shift of voltage-sensitive dye (VSD) signals along the AI tonotopic axis, demonstrating topography in the mouse thalamocortical circuit that is preserved in the slice. However, compared with BF maps of neuronal spiking activity, the topographic order of subthreshold VSD maps was reduced in layer IV and even further degraded in layer II/III. Therefore, the precision of AI topography varies according to the source and layer of the mapping signal. Our findings further bridge the gap between in vivo and in vitro approaches for the detailed cellular study of auditory thalamocortical circuit organization and plasticity in the genetically tractable mouse model.
Modeling the thermodynamics of a sea ice thickness distribution: 2. Sea ice/ocean interactions

In this paper we examine the coupling of an ice thickness distribution model with an ocean mixed layer model. The annual cycle of the modeled mixed layer temperature, salinity, and depth are compared to observations from the drifting ice stations of the Arctic Ice Dynamics Joint Experiment (AIDJEX). The role of the ice thickness distribution in determining the ice/ocean coupling is examined. We find that the ice thickness distribution is important for the exchange of heat, salt, and fresh water between the ice and the ocean, especially with regard to the effects of thin, first-year ice. Several different parameterizations of the ice/ocean turbulent heat exchange are compared. The results indicate that the storage of heat in the ocean mixed layer is an important physical process for determining the annual average ice thickness. Double diffusion and the stabilizing effects of meltwater also impact the exchange of heat between the ocean and ice cover. Questions remain as to the relative importance of these processes and their accurate parameterization in ice/ocean coupled models.
How does the Alpine belt end between Spain and Morocco

The Betic-Rif arcuate mountain belt (southern Spain, northern Morocco) has been interpreted as a symmetrical collisional orogen, partly collapsed through convective removal of its lithospheric mantle root, or else as resulting of the African plate subduction beneath Iberia, with further extension due either to slab break-off or to slab retreat. In both cases, the Betic-Rif orogen would show little continuity with the western Alps. However, it can be recognized in this belt a composite orocline which includes a deformed, exotic terrane, i.e. the Alboran Terrane, thrust through oceanic/transitional crust-floored units onto two distinct plates, i.e. the Iberian and African plates. During the Jurassic-Early Cretaceous, the yet undeformed Alboran Terrane was part of a larger, Alkapeca microcontinent bounded by two arms of the Tethyan-African oceanic domain, alike the Sesia-Margna Austroalpine block further to the northeast. Blueschist- and eclogite-facies metamorphism affected the Alkapeka northern margin and adjacent oceanic crust during the Late Cretaceous-Eocene interval. This testifies the occurrence of a SE-dipping subduction zone which is regarded as the SW projection of the western Alps subduction zone. During the late Eocene-Oligocene, the Alkapeca-Iberia collision triggered back-thrust tectonics, then NW-dipping subduction of the African margin beneath the Alboran Terrane. This Maghrebian-Apenninic subduction resulted in the Mediterranean basin opening, and drifting of the deformed Alkapeca fragments through slab roll back process and back-arc extension, as reported in several publications. In the Gibraltar area, the western tip of the Apenninic-Maghrebian subduction merges with that of the Alpine-Betic subduction zone, and their Neogene roll back resulted in the Alboran Terrane collage astride the Azores-Gibraltar transpressive plate boundary. Therefore, the Betic-Rif belt appears as an asymmetrical, subduction/collision orogen formed through a protracted evolution straightfully related to the Alpine-Apenninic mountain building.
FeCo/Graphite Nanocrystals for Multi-Modality Imaging of Experimental Vascular Inflammation

Background FeCo/graphitic-carbon nanocrystals (FeCo/GC) are biocompatible, high-relaxivity, multi-functional nanoparticles. Macrophages represent important cellular imaging targets for assessing vascular inflammation. We evaluated FeCo/GC for vascular macrophage uptake and imaging in vivo using fluorescence and MRI. Methods and Results Hyperlipidemic and diabetic mice underwent carotid ligation to produce a macrophage-rich vascular lesion. In situ and ex vivo fluorescence imaging were performed at 48 hours after intravenous injection of FeCo/GC conjugated to Cy5.5 (n = 8, 8 nmol of Cy5.5/mouse). Significant fluorescence signal from FeCo/GC-Cy5.5 was present in the ligated left carotid arteries, but not in the control (non-ligated) right carotid arteries or sham-operated carotid arteries (p = 0.03 for ligated vs. non-ligated). Serial in vivo 3T MRI was performed at 48 and 72 hours after intravenous FeCo/GC (n = 6, 270 µg Fe/mouse). Significant T2* signal loss from FeCo/GC was seen in ligated left carotid arteries, not in non-ligated controls (p = 0.03). Immunofluorescence staining showed colocalization of FeCo/GC and macrophages in ligated carotid arteries. Conclusions FeCo/GC accumulates in vascular macrophages in vivo, allowing fluorescence and MR imaging. This multi-functional high-relaxivity nanoparticle platform provides a promising approach for cellular imaging of vascular inflammation.
On the Nonlinear Prediction for Blind Equalization: Is that a Good Choice?

In this paper we investigate the conditions of applicability of a nonlinear predictor based on neural networks to perform blind equalization using only one input instead of several ones as usual in linear strategies. Linear and nonlinear prediction concepts are revisited in order to clarify some believes. A new self-organized learning algorithm is proposed in order to improve the performance of the nonlinear equalizer. Computational simulations illustrate and compare the performance of the proposed approach with classical structures for equalization.
A Gamete-specific, Sex-limited Homeodomain Protein in Chlamydomonas

During fertilization in Chlamydomonas, gametes of opposite mating types interact with each other through sex-specific adhesion molecules on their flagellar surfaces. Flagellar adhesion brings the cell bodies of the gametes into close contact and initiates a signal transduction pathway in preparation for cell–cell fusion. We have identified a cDNA, gsp1, whose transcript levels are upregulated during flagellar adhesion. The GSP1 polypeptide is a novel, gamete-specific homeodomain protein, the first to be identified in an alga. Its homeodomain shows significant identity with several higher plant homeodomain proteins. Although encoded by a single copy gene present in cells of both mating types, immunoblot analysis showed that GSP1 was expressed in mating type (mt)+ gametes, but was not detectable in mt− gametes or in vegetative cells of either mating type. Moreover, GSP1 appeared late during gametogenesis, suggesting that it may function during adhesion with mt− gametes or after zygote formation. GSP1 is expressed in imp11, mt− mutant gametes, which have a lesion in the mid gene involved in sex determination and exhibit many phenotypic characteristics of mt+ gametes. Thus, gsp1 is negatively regulated by mid and is the first molecule to be identified in Chlamydomonas that shows sex-limited expression.
Mass spectrometric analysis of synaptosomal membrane preparations for the determination of brain receptors, transporters and channels

The molecular composition of synaptic signal transduction machineries shapes synaptic neurotransmission. The repertoire of receptors, transporters and channels (RTCs) comprises major signaling events in the brain. RTCs are conventionally studied by candidate immunohistochemistry and biochemistry, which are low throughput with resolution greatly affected by available immunoreagents and membrane interference. Therefore, a comprehensive resource of synaptic brain RTCs is still lacking. In particular, studies on the detergent‐soluble synaptosomal fraction, known to contain transporters and channels, are limited. We, therefore, performed sub‐synaptosomal fractionation of rat cerebral cortex, followed by trypsin/chymotrypsin sequential digestion of a detergent‐soluble synaptosomal fraction and a postsynaptic density preparation, stable‐isotope tryptic peptide labeling and liquid chromatography mass spectrometry. Based on the current study, a total of 4784 synaptic proteins were submitted to the ProteomExchange database (PXD001948), including 274 receptors, 394 transporters/channels and 1377 transmembrane proteins. Function‐based classification assigned 1781 proteins as probable drug targets with 834 directly linked to brain disorders. The analytical approach identified 499 RTCs that are not listed in the largest, curated database for synaptosomal proteins (SynProt). This is a threefold RTC increase over all other data collected to date. Taken together, we present a protein discovery resource that can serve as a benchmark for future molecular interrogation of synaptic connectivity.
Lamb Wave AlN Micromechanical Filters Integrated With On-chip Capacitors for RF Front-End Architectures

This paper reports on the implementation of an ultraminiature 140 MHz narrowband filter based on aluminum nitride Lamb wave resonators. Monolithically integrated with a pair of on-chip capacitors and cascaded with a pair of inductors, the filter is well matched to 50 ohm, showing a remarkably high performance. A low pass-band insertion loss of 2.78 dB and steep filter skirts are achieved. The form factor of the monolithic microelectromechanical systems filter is more than ten times smaller than its surface acoustic wave counterpart in the intermediate frequency band and it involves much simpler matching circuits.
Feature Relations Graphs: A Visualisation Paradigm for Feature Constraints in Software Product Lines

Software Product Line Engineering is a mature approach enabling the derivation of product variants by assembling reusable assets. In this context, domain experts widely use Feature Models as the most accepted formalism for capturing commonality and variability in terms of features. Feature Models also describe the constraints in feature combinations. In industrial settings, domain experts often deal with Software Product Lines with high numbers of features and constraints. Furthermore, the set of features are often regrouped in different subsets that are overseen by different stakeholders in the process. Consequently, the management of the complexity of large Feature Models becomes challenging. In this paper we propose a dedicated interactive visualisation paradigm to help domain experts and stakeholders to manage the challenges in maintaining the constraints among features. We build Feature Relations Graphs (Frogs) by mining existing product configurations. For each feature, we are able to display a Frog which shows the impact, in terms of constraints, of the considered feature on all the other features. The objective is to help domain experts to 1) obtain a better understanding of feature constraints, 2) potentially refine the existing feature model by uncovering and formalizing missing constraints and 3) serve as a recommendation system, during the configuration of a new product, based on the tendencies found in existing configurations. The paper illustrates the visualisation paradigm with the industrial case study of Renault's Electric Parking System Software Product Line.
Towards Probe-Less Augmented Reality - A Position Paper

: The main problem area for Augmented Reality is ensuring that the illumination of the virtual objects is continuously consistent with the illumination in the real scene. State of the art in the area typically requires the real scene illumination conditions to be captured as a High Dynamic Range environment map. The environment map is then used for shading and shadowing. Handling the real and the virtual shadows and their interaction is the single most difﬁcult aspect. This paper presents a completely different approach to determining the illumination conditions in the real scene. Based on an assumption that the scene is outdoor we automatically detect shadows in the image and use this information to determine the ratio of sky irradiance to sun irradiance. We then present how to convert this information into radiance levels for both the sky and the sun. When combined with a computation of the Sun’s position based on date, time and information about position on the Earth, we arrive at a full illumination model applicable for rendering virtual objects into real scenes.
Cepstrum-domain model combination based on decomposition of speech and noise for noisy speech recognition

We propose a cepstrum-domain model combination method for automatic speech recognition in noisy environments. The distinguishing aspect of the method is that noise-corrupted speech is decomposed into clean speech and noise components directly in the cepstrum domain without having to transform to the linear spectrum domain as is necessary for many existing model combination approaches. This is accomplished by exploiting the properties of the minimum mean squared error-log spectral amplitude (MMSE-LSA) based speech enhancement algorithm. As a result, a clean speech hidden Markov model (HMM) is easily compensated for a noise-corrupted domain by adding the means and covariance matrices of the clean speech HMM and those of an estimated noise model. The complexity of the proposed model combination procedure is significantly reduced with respect to conventional parallel model combination. The procedure was applied to a noisy connected digit recognition task. A 40% reduction in word error rate was achieved when it was combined with acoustic feature compensation techniques under mismatched environmental and channel conditions.
Phrase-Based Query Degradation Modeling for Vocabulary-Independent Ranked Utterance Retrieval

This paper introduces a new approach to ranking speech utterances by a system's confidence that they contain a spoken word. Multiple alternate pronunciations, or degradations, of a query word's phoneme sequence are hypothesized and incorporated into the ranking function. We consider two methods for hypothesizing these degradations, the best of which is constructed using factored phrase-based statistical machine translation. We show that this approach is able to significantly improve upon a state-of-the-art baseline technique in an evaluation on held-out speech. We evaluate our systems using three different methods for indexing the speech utterances (using phoneme, phoneme multigram, and word recognition), and find that degradation modeling shows particular promise for locating out-of-vocabulary words when the underlying indexing system is constructed with standard word-based speech recognition.
Perceptually weighted linear transformations for voice conversion

Voice conversion is a technique for modifying a source speaker’s speech to sound as if it was spoken by a target speaker. A popular approach to voice conversion is to apply a linear transformation to the spectral envelope. However, conventional parameter estimation based on least square error optimization does not necessarily lead to the best perceptual result. In this paper, a perceptually weighted linear transformation is presented which is based on the minimization of the perceptual spectral distance between the voices of the source and target speakers. The paper describes the new conversion algorithm and presents a preliminary evaluation of the performance of the method based on objective and subjective tests.