Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Group B streptococcus carriers among HIV-1-infected pregnant women according to gestational age and regional site of colonization: rate of recovery from various sites.

To the Editor: Today, women represent the population segment with the greatest increase in HIV infection. No data are available regarding rate and regional site of colonization by Streptococcus agalactiae in HIV-1–infected pregnant women at different periods during gestation. This study was conducted on 101 HIV-1–infected women selected prospectively at the Service of Infectious-Contagious Diseases in Obstetrics, School of Medicine of Ribeirão Preto, University of São Paulo. The samples for group B Streptococcus (GBS) analysis were obtained by double collection (a vaginal swab and an anal swab). The collections were performed between the 24th and 28th weeks and between the 35th and 37th weeks of pregnancy. The collected swabs were immersed in 2-mL tubes containing Todd Hewitt Broth, an enriched medium, to which 8 mg/mL of gentamicin and 15 mg/ mL of nalidixic acid were added. The swabs were later sent to the microbiology section where 250 mcl sheep blood were added to each tube. The content was homogenized and left to stand at 35(C for 18 h. After this time, the samples were seeded onto blood-agar plates containing gentamicin and nalidixic acid at the concentrations specified above, incubated in an over at 35(C for 48 h and then analyzed for bacterial growth. When the growth of bacteria with a b-hemolytic pattern was detected, the samples were analyzed and the results were confirmed by latex agglutination using the Streptex typing kit. This study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the institution, and the women willing to participate in the study signed an informed consent form. The prevalence of GBS colonization observed between 24 and 28 weeks (16.8%) and between 35 and 37 weeks (19.8%) demonstrates that gestational age did not lead to higher rates of GBS colonization (x = 0.30, P = 0.58). We observed that only 29% of HIV-1–infected patients colonized between 24 and 28 weeks continued to be colonized between 35 and 37 weeks. Regional positivity was significantly higher for the anal site, with a mean 40% increase in the diagnosis of GBS colonization when the anal site was added to the vaginal site (Fisher test:P = 0.037). In the present study, gestational age did not influence the rates of maternal colonization with GBS among HIV-1–infected women. The distribution of sites with positive cultures for GBS demonstrates that regional positivity was significantly higher for the anal site compared with the vaginal site. The study data do not enable us to select a small group of women with a high probability of colonization. These results highlight the need for routine anal screening for GBS colonization between 35 and 37 weeks in HIV-infected pregnant women.
Facial Stereotype Visualization Through Image Averaging

Facial stereotypes are cognitive representations of the facial characteristics of members of social groups. In this study, we examined the extent to which facial stereotypes for occupational groups were based on physiognomic cues to stereotypical social characteristics. In Experiment 1, participants rated the occupational stereotypicality of naturalistic face images. These ratings were then regressed onto independent ratings of the faces on 16 separate traits. These traits, particularly those relevant to the occupational stereotype, explained the majority of variance in occupational stereotypicality ratings. In Experiments 2 and 3, we used trait ratings to reconstruct stereotypical occupation faces from a separate set of images, using face averaging techniques. These reconstructed facial stereotypes were validated by separate groups of participants as conforming to the occupational stereotype. These results indicate that facial cues and group stereotypes are integrated through shared semantic content in the cognitive representations of groups.
WHEN USERS MEET TECHNOLOGY: THE MEETING BROWSER DEVELOPMENT HELIX

This paper shows how the task of assistance to fact-finding has gradually become central to the field of meeting browsing. Requirements elicitation studies could not lead alone to a precise specification, because they depend on the preliminary assumptions of each study. Therefore, user studies were gradually focused towards the most promising task, namely fact finding or verification in multimedia meeting recordings. This task answers significant user needs, has enough theoretical interest, and is within reach of current technology, as illustrated by a variety of meeting browsers, including end-user products for conference recording and browsing. Assistance to fact-finding has been evaluated using the Browser Evaluation Test, and a set of reference scores are now available. The analysis of these findings departs from the view that a system’s lifecycle forms a closed loop, alternating requirements elicitation with design, implementation, and evaluation. Instead, the paper proposes a helix model that moves forward towards more and more refined systems, sometimes branching out to a new task.
Line and Point Tunneling in Scaled Si/SiGe Heterostructure TFETs

In this letter, we systematically investigate the impact of gate length and channel orientation on the electrical performance of tunneling field-effect transistors (TFETs). We fabricate and characterize Si/SiGe heterostructure TFETs with p-doped compressively strained Si0.5Ge0. 5 source, intrinsic Si channel, and n-doped Si drain. We observe a linear relation of gate length, Lg, and ON-current, ION, which is the first experimental proof of line tunneling occurring in a TFET. TCAD simulations support our observations. After forming gas annealing, short-channel TFETs exhibit different I-V characteristics compared with long-channel devices due to better passivation.
Stain Detection in Video with Background Restructured

Nowadays, multimedia, especially video, is used widely in many domains. But camera lens are easily stained because they are always outside, such as in traffic and monitoring. Admittedly, the video from these cameras is out of action because it cannot provide clear frames. In this paper, we provide a detecting method from video with background restructure. This method is presented to detect stains in video. Firstly, the first video frame is used as a pseudo-background because original cameras are clear with no stains. Then, background is constructed by the pseudo-background and the continuous frames which are from the video. Moreover, with training in the frames, we restructure background by dropped moving objects in it. Finally, after background restructured, we detect stains in camera lenses by the restructured background, and provide positions of stained area. Experimental results show its robustness and practicability
Mapping tree root systems with ground-penetrating radar.

A ground-penetrating radar (GPR) technique was used to study the three-dimensional distribution of root systems of large (DBH = 14 to 35 cm) oak trees (Quercus petraea (Mattusch.) Liebl. ) in relatively dry, luvisoil on loamy deluvium and weathered granodiorite. We used a pulse EKKO 1000 GPR system, a profile grid of 0.25 x 0.25 meters, at 0.05 m intervals, and a signal frequency of 450 MHz, to assure resolution of about 3 cm in both directions (further increases in resolution up to 1 cm are possible with the system). Coarse root density was 6.5 m m(-2) of stand area and 3.3 m m(-3) of soil volume. Maximum rooting depth of the experimental oaks was 2 m, and the root ground plan was significantly larger (about 1.5 times) than the crown ground plan. Based on earlier studies of Quercus robur L. from floodplain forests, where the extent of the root systems was much smaller (root ground plan:crown ground plan ratio of 0.6), we conclude that the high root ground plan:crown ground plan ratio indicates less favorable conditions of water supply at the experimental site than in the floodplain forest. The ground-penetrating radar system is noninvasive and allows relatively rapid and repeated measurements of the distribution of coarse root systems of trees.
Proposal : Periodic Homotopy Theory of Unstable Spheres

The unstable homotopy groups of spheres can be approached by the EHP spectral sequence. There are computations of the low dimensional portion of the EHP sequence by Toda [1, 2] for the 2,3-primary part, and Behrens [3], Harper [4] for the 5-primary part. There are certain stable phenomenon in the EHP sequence. In fact, there is one portion in the E1-term which are in the stable range, which means the input of the EHP spectral sequence is the stable homotopy groups. This portion is called the metastable range. There is the James-Hopf map mapping the (certain iterated loop space of) spheres to the infinite loop spaces of the infinite suspension of the real projective space (for the prime 2, and classifying space of the symmetric group Σp for odd prime p), respecting the unstable filtration on the sphere side and skeletal filtration on the projective space side. So we have a comparison map of the EHP spectral sequence and the AHSS of the projective space. Moreover, in the metastable range, this induce an isomorphism of the E1-term. So the differentials of the EHP spectral sequence in the metastable range are in fact stable, and we can apply stable techniques to compute them. For example, the behavior of the image of J is determined by Mahowald [5] and Gray [6]. Above the metastable range in the EHP spectral sequence, there is the portion which has input the metastable homotopy groups – the meta-metastable range, and we also have the meta-meta-metastable range whose input are the meta-metastable groups, and so on. In fact, these pieces can be spitted into separated spectral sequences, each of which is a stable AHSS. So the differentials inside each piece are all stable ones, and only the differentials between different pieces are actually unstable. This splitting is achieved by the technique of the Goodwillie calculus developed in [7]. Using this, any space is decomposed into the homogeneous parts, which are infinite loop spaces. The interrelation of the EHP sequence and the Goodwillie tower of the identity is studied by Behrens [8]. In particular, the EHP spectral sequence in each homogeneous part of the Goodwillie tower is a stable AHSS for certain spectra Ln(k). To study these sequences, and in particular to do actual computations, we will take the chromatic point of view. The rational part is the classical computations by Serre. The v1-periodic part is essentially the Image of J. So these are
Implementing Automatic Quality Verification of Requirements with XML and XSLT

It is widely acknowledged within the software community that requirements quality is one of the most important factors in the success of software projects. In this paper, we show how XML and XSLT can be used to implement requirements verification heuristics that can help to discover hidden conflicts and defects in natural language requirements. This approach is based on the representation of requirements in XML and in the usage of XSLT stylesheets not only to automatically generate requirements documents, but also to implement verification heuristics using some requirements–oriented metrics. These ideas have been implemented in REM, an experimental XML–based requirements management tool also described in this paper.
Subjective Quality Assessment of H.264/AVC Video Streaming with Packet Losses

Research in the field of video quality assessment relies on the availability of subjective scores, collected by means of experiments in which groups of people are asked to rate the quality of video sequences. The availability of subjective scores is fundamental to enable validation and comparative benchmarking of the objective algorithms that try to predict human perception of video quality by automatically analyzing the video sequences, in a way to support reproducible and reliable research results. In this paper, a publicly available database of subjective quality scores and corrupted video sequences is described. The scores refer to 156 sequences at CIF and 4CIF spatial resolutions, encoded with H.264/AVC and corrupted by simulating the transmission over an error-prone network. The subjective evaluation has been performed by 40 subjects at the premises of two academic institutions, in standard-compliant controlled environments. In order to support reproducible research in the field of full-reference, reduced-reference, and no-reference video quality assessment algorithms, both the uncompressed files and the H.264/AVC bitstreams, as well as the packet loss patterns, have been made available to the research community.
Identification of the Magnetic Model of Permanent-Magnet Synchronous Machines Using DC-Biased Low-Frequency AC Signal Injection

This paper proposes a simple procedure for accurate identification of the magnetic model of permanent-magnet synchronous machines through inverter supply. The proposed method accounts for the magnetic saturation and the cross-saturation effects. The identification methods reported in the literature may require a servomotor to drive the motor under test at controlled constant speed or the motor itself must accelerate and decelerate. The technique proposed here can be applied at standstill with or without rotor locking and uses a dc+ac injection strategy to identify the machine inductances to construct its magnetic model. The direct current sets the operating point, whereas the superimposed ac component estimates the inductance at that particular point. Small ac signal is injected to ensure local linearity of the magnetic characteristic. Saturation effects are automatically accounted for by the dc bias level, and cross-saturation effects are quantified through maintaining a constant current along the cross-axis. The magnetic model thus obtained can be used for optimal control of the machine and for accurate torque estimation in vector-controlled drives.
Admission control for multihop wireless backhaul networks with QoS support

Despite improvements in wireless access technologies such as 3G or 802.11x, ubiquitous data access has remained a challenge, mainly due to the lack of inexpensive, pervasive backhaul connections from access points to the Internet. With the recent WiMAX standard for high-speed, non-line-of-sight fixed wireless links, multihop wireless backhauls might now overcome this bottleneck. However an important remaining challenge is to provide rate and delay guarantees for customer connections similar to wired backhauls. We provide several schemes for performing admission control for connections with QoS requirements over a multihop wireless backhaul. This is the first work to address both rate and delay requirements for connections. Our admission control algorithms first construct appropriate tree-based topologies connecting wireless backhaul nodes to a wired gateway and then admit the best subset of connections while respecting their rate and delay requirements. Alternately, we admit all the connections with appropriate degradation of their QoS requirements
The applicability of chimney grafts in the aortic arch.

AIM Proximal fixation is often limiting for thoracic endovascular aortic repair (TEVAR) and the stent graft may need to cover the origin of the arch branch vessels. Chimney grafts have been proposed to preserve flow into over stented branches during urgent TEVAR. The aim of this report is to share our initial experience of this technique. METHOD Eleven patients underwent urgent TEVAR combined with a chimney graft between January 2004 and April 2009. The indications included acute complicated type B dissection (N. = 2), ruptured aneurysms of the aortic arch (1) and descending aorta (2), traumatic aortic transaction (1), aortoesophageal fistula (1) and accidental over stenting of the left carotid artery during TEVAR (4). Chimney grafts were implanted into the innominate (N. = 3), left carotid (7) and left subclavian (1) arteries. Mean length of follow up was 20 months. RESULTS All chimney grafts were successfully implanted. Two patients developed a primary proximal type I endoleak: one leak was successfully coil embolized, the other awaits treatment. One paraplegia was reversed by spinal drainage but two months later, this patient presented with a contained rupture and underwent successful conversion to open repair. No other postoperative aneurysm expansion has occurred and the chimney grafts remain patent. The only aneurysm related death occurred in a patient with an unrecognized chronic occlusion of his right carotid artery who received a left carotid chimney graft and suffered from a lethal stroke. CONCLUSION Chimney grafts in the supra-aortic branches seem feasible and may facilitate urgent TEVAR in patients with an inadequate proximal neck.
Development of high-speed and real-time vision platform, H3 vision

In this paper, we introduce a high-speed vision platform, H3 (Hiroshima Hyper Human) Vision, which can simultaneously process a 1024× 1024 pixel image at 1000 fps and a 256× 256 pixel image at 10000 fps by implementing image processing algorithms as hardware logic on a dedicated FPGA board. Various types of algorithms are actually implemented to show that H3 Vision can work a high-speed image processing engine. Experimental results are shown for multi-target color tracking, feature point tracking, optical flow detection, and pattern recognition by using high-order local auto-correlation (HLAC) feature at a frame rate of 1000 fps or more.
PeerStore: better performance by relaxing in peer-to-peer backup

Backup is cumbersome. To be effective, backups have to be made at regular intervals, forcing users to organize and store a growing collection of backup media. In this paper we propose a novel peer-to-peer backup system, PeerStore, that allows the user to store his backups on other people's computers instead. PeerStore is an adaptive, cost-effective system suitable for all types of networks ranging from LAN, WAN to large unstable networks like the Internet. The system consists of two layers: metadata layer and symmetric trading layer. Locating blocks and duplicate checking is accomplished by the metadata layer while the actual data distribution is done between pairs of peers after they have established a symmetric data trade. By decoupling the metadata management from data storage, the system offers a significant reduction of the maintenance cost and preserves fairness among peers. Results show that PeerStore has a reduced maintenance cost comparing to pStore. PeerStore also realizes fairness because of the symmetric nature of the trades.
Developing a Mobility Protocol for Early Mobilization of Patients in a Surgical/Trauma ICU

As technology and medications have improved and increased, survival rates are also increasing in intensive care units (ICUs), so it is now important to focus on improving the patient outcomes and recovery. To do this, ICU patients need to be assessed and started on an early mobility program, if stable. While the early mobilization of the ICU patients is not without risk, the current literature has demonstrated that patients can be safely and feasibly mobilized, even while requiring mechanical ventilation. These patients are at a high risk for muscle deconditioning due to limited mobility from numerous monitoring equipment and multiple medical conditions. Frequently, a critically ill patient only receives movement from nurses; such as, being turned side to side, pulled up in bed, or transferred from bed to a stretcher for a test. The implementation of an early mobility protocol that can be used by critical care nurses is important for positive patient outcomes minimizing the functional decline due to an ICU stay. This paper describes a pilot study to evaluate an early mobilization protocol to test the safety and feasibility for mechanically ventilated patients in a surgical trauma ICU in conjunction with the current unit standards.
Selective Exposure and Dissonance after Decisions

Well-known literature reviews from the 1960s question whether cognitive dissonance underlies experimental participants' selective exposure of themselves to consonant messages and avoidance of dissonant ones. A meta-analytic review of 16 studies published from 1956 to 1996 and involving 1,922 total participants shows that experimental tests consistently support the supposition that dissonance is associated with selective exposure (r = .22, p < .001). Statistical power exceeded . 99. Advances in statistical methodology and increased attention to selecting appropriate tests of dissonance theory were essential to finally resolving this question.
Adaptive spectrum management in MIMO-OFDM cognitive radio: an exponential learning approach

In this paper, we examine cognitive radio systems that evolve dynamically over time as a function of changing user and environmental conditions. To take into account the advantages of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) and recent advances in multiple antenna (MIMO) technologies, we consider a full MIMO-OFDM Gaussian cognitive radio system where users with several antennas communicate over multiple non-interfering frequency bands. In this dynamic context, the objective of the network's secondary users (SUs) is to stay as close as possible to their optimum power allocation and signal covariance profile as it evolves over time, with only local channel state information at their disposal. To that end, we derive an adaptive spectrum management policy based on the method of matrix exponential learning, and we show that it leads to no regret (i.e. it performs asymptotically as well as any fixed signal distribution, no matter how the system evolves over time). As it turns out, this online learning policy is closely aligned to the direction of change of the users' data rate function, so the system's SUs are able to track their individual optimum signal profile even under rapidly changing conditions.
A Robust Reserve Scheduling Technique for Power Systems with High Wind Penetration

In this paper a novel algorithm to determine the minimum cost reserves for power systems with high wind penetration, is presented. We first determine the status and schedule of each generating unit by solving a deterministic unit commitment problem, where only the wind power forecast is taken into account. Having then computed the generation schedule, we formulate a linear stochastic program with chance constraints, whose solution provides the level of reserves to achieve production-demand balance with a certain probability. To solve the resulting optimization program, a Markov chainbased model for the wind power error is constructed, and the “scenario approach” is employed, leading to a tractable optimization problem with probabilistic performance guarantees. The efficiency of the proposed approach is compared with benchmark techniques via Monte Carlo simulations. Two different market implementations are considered; a day-ahead and an intra-day market. The improvement afforded by the additional information that the intra-day market provides, is quantified in terms of reserve cost, load shedding and wind generation spillage.