Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Six-month effects of early or delayed provision of an ankle-foot orthosis in patients with (sub)acute stroke: a randomized controlled trial

Objective: To study the six-month clinical effects of providing ankle-foot orthoses at different moments (early or delayed) in (sub)acute stroke; this is a follow-up to a published trial. Design: Randomized controlled trial. Setting: Rehabilitation centre. Subjects: Unilateral hemiparetic stroke subjects maximal six weeks post-stroke with indication for ankle-foot orthosis use. Interventions: Subjects were randomly assigned to early (at inclusion; week 1) or delayed provision (eight weeks later; week 9). Outcome measures: Functional tests assessing balance and mobility were performed bi-weekly for 17 weeks and at week 26. Results: In all, 33 subjects were randomized. No differences at week 26 were found between both groups for any of the outcome measures. However, results suggest that early provision leads to better outcomes in the first 11–13 weeks. Berg Balance Scale (P = 0.006), Functional Ambulation Categories (P = 0.033) and 6-minute walk test (P < 0.001) showed significantly different patterns over time. Clinically relevant but statistically non-significant differences of 4–10 weeks in reaching independent walking with higher balance levels were found, favouring early provision. Conclusion: No six-month differences in functional outcomes of providing ankle-foot orthoses at different moments in the early rehabilitation after stroke were found. Results suggest that there is a period of 11–13 weeks in which early provision may be beneficial, possibly resulting in early independent and safe walking. However, our study was underpowered. Further research including larger numbers of subjects is warranted.
In vivo circumvention of P-glycoprotein-mediated multidrug resistance of tumor cells with SDZ PSC 833.

The new nonimmunosuppressive cyclosporin analogue, SDZ PSC 833, is a very potent multidrug-resistance modifier. In vitro, it was shown to be at least 10-fold more active than cyclosporin A (Sandimmune), itself more active than verapamil, on most P-glycoprotein-expressing multidrug-resistant (MDR) tumor cell lines. In vivo, SDZ PSC 833 was tested in a few protocols of combined therapy with either Vinca alkaloids or doxorubicin as anticancer drugs, using the homologous tumor-host system (P388 cells of DBA/2 origin grafted into DBA/2 or B6D2F1 mice). Although these MDR-P388 tumor cells belong to a highly resistant variant that in vitro required about 150-fold more anticancer drug for 50% cell growth inhibition than the parental P388 cells, significant prolongation of survival times of the MDR-P388 tumor-bearing mice was obtained when treated with a combination of SDZ PSC 833 p.o. were otherwise ineffective doses of anticancer drugs given i.p. This chemosensitizing effect of SDZ PSC 833 was dose-dependent and was most effective in a protocol combining administration of SDZ PSC 833 p.o. 4 h before a doxorubicin i.p. injection: in comparison with the survival of MDR-P388 tumor-bearing mice treated with the anticancer drug alone, the pretreatment with SDZ PSC 833 at 25 and 50 mg/kg gave 2- to 3-fold increases of survival times. Since the MDR-P388 tumor cells used in our studies belong to a highly resistant variant, with a much higher degree of drug resistance than the one known to occur in cancer patients, SDZ PSC 833 appears to be a very promising chemosensitizer.
Abnormal Traffic Detection Model Based on GAN for Information Security in Smart Grid

Network traffic detection systems play a critical role in the security of smart grid networks, as they are responsible for detecting and defending against various external attacks. Accurate network traffic anomaly detection is essential to ensure secure communication between power devices. However, traditional abnormal detection models often suffer from high false positive rates and inadequate detection performance. To address these issues, we propose an enhanced Bi-directional Generative Adversarial Network (BGAN) for network traffic anomaly detection. The BGAN model leverages the foundational framework of GAN to learn the distribution of complex traffic data. In this model, the discriminator incorporates a Bidirectional Gated Recurrent Unit (BiGRU) network to capture the temporal correlations of sequential distributions. Additionally, we introduce an attention mechanism to enhance the model's ability to identify relevant information between input data and current output data, thereby improving overall detection performance. To evaluate the effectiveness of our proposed method, we conducted experiments using multiple datasets. The results demonstrate that our approach surpasses the performance of other compared traffic abnormal detection methods.
Perdón y satisfacción marital: Una mirada desde lo sistémico

Este estudio tuvo como objetivo evaluar el efecto del perdon sobre la satisfaccion marital en una muestra de 96 parejas heterosexuales, incorporando una perspectiva sistemica. Para ello, se realizo un estudio transversal, con un diseno no experimental, en el que ambos miembros de la diada completaron el Transgression-Related Interpersonal Motivations Inventory (McCullough et al., 1998) y la Marital Satisfaction Scale (Roach et al., 1981). Los resultados permiten concluir que la tendencia a la evitacion y los pensamientos de venganza predicen menor satisfaccion marital en hombres y mujeres. Asimismo, se observo que existe asociacion directa entre las conductas de evitacion y venganza desarrolladas por uno de los miembros de la pareja y el mismo tipo de conductas en el otro. Adicionalmente, se identifico que es la evitacion de los hombres y la venganza de las mujeres la que tiene un efecto negativo sobre la satisfaccion del companero/a romantico. The objective of this study is to evaluate from a systematic perspective the effect of forgiveness on marital satisfaction in a sample of 96 Chilean heterosexual couples. A cross-sectional study with a non-experimental design was conducted. Both members of the dyad completed the Transgression-Related Interpersonal Motivations Inventory (McCullough et al., 1998) and the Marital Satisfaction Scale (Roach et al., 1981). The results lead to the conclusion that the tendency to avoid the partner and thoughts of revenge predict lower marital satisfaction both in men and women. It was also noted that there is a direct association between avoidance and revenge carried out by one of the partners and the same type of behavior carried out by the other. Moreover, it was found that avoidance conduct by men and revenge on the part of women have a negative effect on companionship/romantic satisfaction.
Halting the Summer Achievement Slide: A Randomized Field Trial of the KindergARTen Summer Camp

In this randomized field trial of KindergARTen Camp, a 6-week summer enrichment program in literacy and the fine arts, we analyzed the summer learning outcomes of 93 treatment and 35 control students from high-poverty schools in Baltimore, Maryland. This experiment offers evidence concerning the causal effect of the program on 5 measures of students' literacy achievement. We found treatment effects during the summer months that were of both practical and statistical significance on the Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA) and the Word List A assessments. In addition, results from surveys of KindergARTen Camp students, parents, and teachers revealed strong satisfaction with the program. We conclude by discussing the contextual factors that may have contributed to these results.
Marginal zone macrophages in the mouse spleen identified by a monoclonal antibody. Anatomical correlation with a B cell subpopulation.

The reactivity of a monoclonal antibody, ER-TR9, that demonstrates heterogeneity among mononuclear phagocytes is described. In the spleen, ER-TR9 exclusively reacts with a population of macrophages located in the marginal zone. ER-TR9 does not react with macrophage antigen 1-positive red pulp macrophages or any other types of splenic stromal cells. ER-TR9+ ve cells localize in anatomical proximity of a subpopulation of B cells, i.e., B cells that are immunoglobulin M positive and weakly positive to negative for immunoglobulin D. The possible significance of this particular interaction between both cell types during the immune response is discussed.
Prostaglandin E2 suppresses polyinosine–polycytidylic acid (polyI:C)-stimulated cytokine production via prostaglandin E2 receptor (EP) 2 and 3 in human conjunctival epithelial cells

Background Prostaglandin (PG) E2 is produced during inflammatory responses and suppresses the production of cytokines induced by lipopolysaccharide stimulation in macrophages and dendritic cells. In this study, we examined the expression of PGE2 receptors in human conjunctival epithelial cells and investigated whether PGE2 downregulates polyinosine–polycytidylic acid (polyI:C)-induced cytokine production. Methods ELISA and quantitative reverse transcription (RT)-PCR were used to examine the effects of PGE2 on the polyI:C-induced cytokine expressions by primary human conjunctival epithelial cells (PHCjEC). Reverse transcription-PCR was performed to examine the mRNA expression of the PGE2 receptors EP1, -2, -3 and -4. Results PGE2 significantly attenuated the expressions of chemokine (C-C) motif ligand (CCL) 5, chemokine (C-X-C motif) ligand (CXCL) 10, CXCL11 and interleukin (IL) 6 in PHCjECs. Human conjunctival epithelial cells exhibited expression of EP2, -3 and -4, but not of EP1. EP2 agonist significantly suppressed the polyI:C-induced the expressions of CCL5, CXCL10 and CXCL11 but not of IL-6. EP3 agonist significantly suppressed the expressions of CCL5, CXCL10, CXCL11 and IL-6. On the other hand, EP4 agonist failed to suppress the cytokine production induced by polyI:C stimulation. Conclusion Our results show that PGE2 attenuated the expression of CCL5, CXCL10 and CXCL11 via both EP2 and EP3, and that the expression of IL-6 was attenuated only by EP3.
Low-Rank Representation with Graph Constraints for Robust Visual Tracking

SUMMARY Subspace representation model is an important subset of visual tracking algorithms. Compared with models performed on the original data space, subspace representation model can e ﬀ ectively reduce the computational complexity, and ﬁlter out high dimensional noises. However, for some complicated situations, e.g., dramatic illumination changing, large area of occlusion and abrupt object drifting, traditional subspace representation models may fail to handle the visual tracking task. In this paper, we propose a novel subspace representation algorithm for robust visual tracking by using low-rank representation with graph constraints (LRGC). Low-rank representation has been well-known for its superiority of handling corrupted samples, and graph constraint is ﬂexible to characterize sample relationship. In this paper, we aim to exploit beneﬁts from both low-rank representation and graph constraint, and deploy it to handle challenging visual tracking problems. Speciﬁcally, we ﬁrst propose a novel graph structure to characterize the relationship of target object in di ﬀ erent observation states. Then we learn a subspace by jointly optimizing low-rank representation and graph embedding in a uniﬁed framework. Finally, the learned subspace is embedded into a Bayesian inference framework by using the dynamical model and the observation model. Experiments on several video benchmarks demonstrate that our algorithm performs better than traditional ones, especially in dynamically changing and drifting situations.
Intrinsic dimensionality of extracellular action potentials

Linear approaches to low-dimensional feature extraction may not be appropriate when statistical data are generated by a nonlinear interaction of parameters. Equally inadequate are linear methods for determining the dimension of the feature space. This article estimates the intrinsic dimension of extracellular action potentials (EAPs), which can be viewed as the minimum number of nonlinearly interacting parameters sufficient to describe the data. When combined with nonlinear feature extraction methods, this information may lead to a more faithful, low-dimensional EAP representation. These points are demonstrated using EAPs recorded experimentally by a multisensor electrode.
Preparation of COTS TMS570 MCU for use in ionizing radiation environments

This paper deals with development and irradiation test of a dynamic memory scrubbing routine for the CPU-coupled, SRAM-based memory of the commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) TMS570LS3137 microcontroller. The techniques combine hardware/software co-design concepts, resulting in low design complexity, high performance and high reliability at the same time. The algorithm uses the CPU-coupled ECC Error Correction Code (ECC) mechanism to correct Single Bit Upsets (SBU). It has been developed with the objective of using the COTS microcontroller with dual-CPUs in lockstep as part of a particle accelerator Detector Control System (DCS). The major objective of this paper is to present the on-chip dynamic memory scrubbing mechanism, which prevents SBU error accumulation in the SRAM cells, and provide irradiation test results to proof correct functioning. The current implementation successfully corrects SBUs with a mean time of 5.5 milliseconds as concluded from the tests.
Quality-Based Pricing for Crowdsourced Workers

The emergence of online paid crowdsourcing platforms, such as Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT), presents us huge opportunities to distribute tasks to human workers around the world, on-demand and at scale. In such settings, online workers can come and complete tasks posted by a company, and work for as long or as little as they wish. Given the absolute freedom of choice, crowdsourcing eliminates the overhead of the hiring (and dismissal) process. However, this exibility introduces a di erent set of ine ciencies: verifying the quality of every submitted piece of work is an expensive operation, which often requires the same level of e ort as performing the task itself. There are many research challenges that emerge in this paid-crowdsourcing setting. How can we ensure that the submitted work is accurate? How can we estimate the quality of the workers, and the quality of the submitted results? How should we pay online workers that have imperfect quality? We present a comprehensive scheme for managing quality of crowdsourcing processes: First, we present an algorithm for estimating the quality of the participating workers and, by extension, of the generated data. We show how we can separate systematic worker biases from unrecoverable errors and how to generate an unbiased "worker quality" measurement that can be used to objectively rank workers according to their performance. Next, we describe a pricing scheme that identi es the fair payment level for a worker, adjusting the payment level according to the contributed information by each worker. Our pricing policy, which pays workers based on their expected quality, reservation wage, and expected lifetime, estimates not only 1 the payment level but also accommodates measurement uncertainties and allows the workers to receive a fair wage, even in the presence of temporary incorrect estimations of quality. Our experimental results demonstrate that the proposed pricing strategy performs better than the commonly adopted uniform-pricing strategy. We conclude the paper by describing strategies that build on our quality control and pricing framework, to build crowdsourced tasks of increasingly higher complexity, while still maintaining a tight quality control of the process, even if we allow participants of unknown quality to join the process.
Nerve Repair by Means of Tubulization: Past, Present, Future

Abstract Peripheral nerve injury may result in injury without gaps or injury with gaps between nerve stumps. In the presence of a nerve defect, the placement of an autologous nerve graft is the current gold standard for nerve restoration. The clinical employment of tubes as an alternative to autogenous nerve grafts is mainly justified by the limited availability of donor tissue for nerve autografts and their related morbidity. The purpose of this review is to present an overview of the literature on the applications of nerve conduits in peripheral nerve repair. Moreover, the different steps that are involved in the design of an ideal nerve conduit for peripheral nerve repair, including the choice of biomaterial, fabrication technique, and the various potential modifications to the common hollow nerve tube, are also discussed.
Empirical Data Modeling in Software Engineering Using Radical Basis Functions

Many empirical studies in software engineering involve relationships between various process and product characteristics derived via linear regression analysis. We propose an alternative modeling approach using radial basis functions (RBFs) which provide a flexible way to generalize linear regression function. Further, RBF models possess strong mathematical properties of universal and best approximation. We present an objective modeling methodology for determining model parameters using our recent SG algorithm, followed by a model selection procedure based on generalization ability. Finally, we describe a detailed RBF modeling study for software effort estimation using a well-known NASA dataset.
Granulocyte Colony-Stimulating Factor Mobilizes Functional Endothelial Progenitor Cells in Patients With Coronary Artery Disease

Objective— Endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) that may repair vascular injury are reduced in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD). We reasoned that EPC number and function may be increased by granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) used to mobilize hematopoietic progenitor cells in healthy donors. Methods and Results— Sixteen CAD patients had reduced CD34+/CD133+ (0.0224±0.0063% versus 0.121±0.038% mononuclear cells [MNCs], P<0.01) and CD133+/VEGFR-2+ cells, consistent with EPC phenotype (0.00033±0.00015% versus 0.0017±0.0006% MNCs, P<0.01), compared with 7 healthy controls. Patients also had fewer clusters of cells in culture, with out-growth consistent with mature endothelial phenotype (2±1/well) compared with 16 healthy subjects at high risk (13±4/well, P<0.05) or 14 at low risk (22±3/well, P<0.001) for CAD. G-CSF 10 &mgr;g/kg per day for 5 days increased CD34+/CD133+ cells from 0.5±0.2/&mgr;L to 59.5±10.6/&mgr;L and CD133+/ VEGFR-2+ cells from 0.007±0.004/&mgr;L to 1.9±0.6/&mgr;L (both P<0.001). Also increased were CD133+ cells that coexpressed the homing receptor CXCR4 (30.4±8.3/&mgr;L, P<0.05). Endothelial cell-forming clusters in 10 patients increased to 27±9/well after treatment (P<0.05), with a decline to 9±4/well at 2 weeks (P=0.06). Conclusions— Despite reduced EPCs compared with healthy controls, patients with CAD respond to G-CSF with increases in EPC number and homing receptor expression in the circulation and endothelial out-growth in culture.
Development of a general solution to the problem of validity generalization.

U. S. Civil Service Commission andGeorge Washington UniversityJohn E. HunterMichigan State UniversityPersonnel psychologists have traditionally believed that employment test valid-ities are situation specific. This study presents a Bayesian statistical modelwhich allows one to explore the alternate hypothesis that variation in validityoutcomes from study to study for similar jobs and tests is artifactual in nature.Certain outcomes using this model permit validity generalization to new settingswithout carrying out a validation study of any kind. Where such generalizationis not justified, the procedure provides an improved method of data analysisand decision making for the necessary situational validity study. Application tofour distributions of empirical validity coefficients demonstrated the power ofthe model.A recent study (Schmidt, Hunter, & Urry,1976) addressed the belief, dominant in per-sonnel psychology, that meaningful empiricalvalidation studies are possible for most, if notall, jobs in most organizations. This studyshowed that, because of range restriction andless than perfect criterion reliability, thesample sizes necessary to provide adequatestatistical power are usually much larger thanhas typically been assumed, This finding leadsto the conclusion that empirical validitystudies are "technically feasible" much lessfrequently than the profession has assumed.The present study is addressed to another ofthe orthodoxies of personnel psychology: thebelief that test validity is generally highlysituation specific. Considerable variabilityfrom study to study is observed in raw valida-tion results even when jobs and tests appearto be similar or essentially identical (Ghiselli,1966). The explanation usually advanced forthis phenomenon is that the factor structureof job performance is different from job tojob and that the human observer or job ana-lyst is simply too poor an information receiver
myHadoop-Hadoop-on-Demand on Traditional HPC Resources

Traditional High Performance Computing (HPC) resources, such as those available on the TeraGrid, support batch job submissions using Distributed Resource Management Systems (DRMS) like TORQUE or the Sun Grid Engine (SGE). For large-scale data intensive computing, programming paradigms such as MapReduce are becoming popular. A growing number of codes in scientific domains such as Bioinformatics and Geosciences are being written using open source MapReduce tools such as Apache Hadoop. It has proven to be a challenge for Hadoop to co-exist with existing HPC resource management systems, since both provide their own job submissions and management, and because each system is designed to have complete control over its resources. Furthermore, Hadoop uses a shared-nothing style architecture, whereas most HPC resources employ a shared-disk setup. In this paper, we describe myHadoop, a framework for configuring Hadoop on-demand on traditional HPC resources, using standard batch scheduling systems. With myHadoop, users can develop and run Hadoop codes on HPC resources, without requiring root-level privileges. Here, we describe the architecture of myHadoop, and evaluate its performance for a few sample, scientific use-case scenarios. myHadoop is open source, and available for download on SourceForge.
Fractal Shaped Multi-Layer Unit Cell Design With Tunable Polarization Conversion Performance

A fractal shaped multi-layer unit cell design is proposed in this article to conceive tunable polarization conversion performance over the X-band frequencies for practical use. The multi-layer Minkowski-shaped unit cell structure is designed with a varactor diode element incorporated in it, whose capacitance values can be changed to obtain tunable polarization conversion performance in real-time operation. The structure offers 95% to 99% polarization conversion efficiency over the band of interest and can be tuned over a range of frequency values with a stable and finite granularity feature, justifying its utility for real-time applications. It also retains its polarization conversion performance along with the tunability characteristics over an angular region of 20 degree, when the structure is tilted to 10 degrees on both sides of normal incidence, highlighting its stability of performance for oblique incidence conditions. Detailed simulation results are presented to describe the process of choosing the optimal position of the via components and their diameter values, which quantitatively determine and maintain the conversion characteristics.