Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cooperative transit tracking using smart-phones

Real-time transit tracking is gaining popularity as a means for transit agencies to improve the rider experience. However, many transit agencies lack either the funding or initiative to provide such tracking services. In this paper, we describe a crowd-sourced alternative to official transit tracking, which we call cooperative transit tracking. Participating users install an application on their smart-phone. With the help of built-in sensors, such as GPS, WiFi, and accelerometer, the application automatically detects when the user is riding in a transit vehicle. On these occasions (and only these), it sends periodic, anonymized, location updates to a central tracking server. Our technical contributions include (a) an accelerometer-based activity classification algorithm for determining whether or not the user is riding in a vehicle, (b) a memory and time-efficient route matching algorithm for determining whether the user is in a bus vs. another vehicle, (c) a method for tracking underground vehicles, and an evaluation of the above on real-world data. By simulating the Chicago transit network, we find that the proposed system would shorten expected wait times by 2 minutes with only 5% of transit riders using the system. At a 20% penetration level, the mean wait time is reduced from 9 to 3 minutes.
A High Accuracy Volume Renderer for Unstructured Data

This paper describes a volume rendering system for unstructured data, especially finite element data, that creates images with very high accuracy. The system will currently handle meshes whose cells are either linear or quadratic tetrahedra. Compromises or approximations are not introduced for the sake of efficiency. Whenever possible, exact mathematical solutions for the radiance integrals involved and for interpolation are used. The system will also handle meshes with mixed cell types: tetrahedra, bricks, prisms, wedges, and pyramids, but not with high accuracy. Accurate semi-transparent shaded isosurfaces may be embedded in the volume rendering. For very small cells, subpixel accumulation by splatting is used to avoid sampling error. A revision to an existing accurate visibility ordering algorithm is described, which includes a correction and a method for dramatically increasing its efficiency. Finally, hardware assisted projection and compositing are extended from tetrahedra to arbitrary convex polyhedra.
Modeling pathological speech perception from data with similarity labels

The current state of the art in judging pathological speech intelligibility is subjective assessment performed by trained speech pathologists (SLP). These tests, however, are inconsistent, costly and, oftentimes suffer from poor intra- and inter-judge reliability. As such, consistent, reliable, and perceptually-relevant objective evaluations of pathological speech are critical. Here, we propose a data-driven approach to this problem. We propose new cost functions for examining data from a series of experiments, whereby we ask certified SLPs to rate pathological speech along the perceptual dimensions that contribute to decreased intelligibility. We consider qualitative feedback from SLPs in the form of comparisons similar to statements “Is Speaker A's rhythm more similar to Speaker B or Speaker C? ” Data of this form is common in behavioral research, but is different from the traditional data structures expected in supervised (data matrix + class labels) or unsupervised (data matrix) machine learning. The proposed method identifies relevant acoustic features that correlate with the ordinal data collected during the experiment. Using these features, we show that we are able to develop objective measures of the speech signal degradation that correlate well with SLP responses.
Predictors of Diabetes in Older People in Urban China

Background China has the largest number of people with diabetes in the world. Over the last 30 years China has experienced rapid economic growth and a growing income gap between rich and poor. The population is ageing, however diabetes in older people has not been well studied to date. In this study we determined incidence and predictors of diabetes in older Chinese people. Methods During 2001, using a standard interview method, we examined 1,317 adults aged ≥65 years who did not have diabetes in the city of Hefei, and characterized baseline risk factors. Over 7.5 years of follow up, we documented incident diabetes using self-reported doctor diagnosis and the cause of death in the whole cohort, and HbA1C ≥48 mmol/mol in a nested case-control sample. A multivariate Cox regression model was employed to investigate risk of diabetes in relation to baseline risk factors. Results During follow up, 119 persons had newly diagnosed diabetes. World age-standardised incidence of diabetes was 24.5 (95% CI 19.5–29.5) per 1,000 person-years. Risk of diabetes was significantly and positively associated with income, waist circumference and body mass index, smoking and uncontrolled hypertension, but negatively associated with having a hobby of walking and frequency of visiting children/other relatives and contacting neighbours/friends. Higher income was significantly associated with increased diabetes risk regardless of cardiovascular and psychosocial risk factors. Compared to those with middle income and no psychosocial risk factors, the hazard ratio for incident diabetes among participants with high income and psychosocial risk was 2.13 (95% CI 1.02–4.45). Conclusions Increasing incidence of diabetes in relation to high income has become an important public health issue in China. Maintaining social networks and gentle physical activities and reducing psychosocial factors may be integrated into current multi-faceted preventive strategies for curbing the epidemic of diabetes in the older population.
Impact of a scientific presentation on community treatment patterns for primary breast cancer.

BACKGROUND The publication of results from randomized clinical trials can have a dramatic effect on treatment patterns, but the impact of oral presentations at national scientific meetings is unknown. We investigated the temporal association between the oral presentation of the results from the Cancer and Leukemia Group B (CALGB) Study 9344 at the May 1998 meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, which showed that paclitaxel improves survival of women with lymph node-positive breast cancer, and use of taxane chemotherapy for breast cancer. METHODS We studied chemotherapy use in 3341 women identified through the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results-Medicare database who were diagnosed with stage I-III breast cancer in 1994-1999 at age 65 years or older and received adjuvant chemotherapy, as identified through claims data, within 1 year of diagnosis. We assessed the temporal association between the CALBG presentation and taxane use with piecewise regression analysis. Multivariable logistic regression analysis was used to determine which patient characteristics were associated with taxane use. RESULTS The use of taxanes increased substantially after the CALGB presentation, with absolute rates of taxane use of 5.2% before May 1998 and 23.6% in May 1998 and later. Initially, this increase was confined to patients with lymph node-positive disease (40% of whom were receiving taxanes by the end of 1999), but over time it extended to patients with lymph node-negative disease (15% of whom were receiving taxanes by the end of 1999). In multivariable analysis, patients who were treated in May 1998 or later were statistically significantly more likely to have received a taxane than patients treated before this date (estimated relative risk = 6.84, 95% confidence interval = 5.71 to 8.07). Younger patient age, larger number of lymph nodes involved, higher tumor grade, and larger tumor size were also independently associated with adjuvant taxane use. CONCLUSIONS The oral presentation of a single study at a national conference was temporally associated with an increase in the use of taxanes for primary breast cancer, even before study publication or Food and Drug Administration approval.
From Noise Modeling to Blind Image Denoising

Traditional image denoising algorithms always assume the noise to be homogeneous white Gaussian distributed. However, the noise on real images can be much more complex empirically. This paper addresses this problem and proposes a novel blind image denoising algorithm which can cope with real-world noisy images even when the noise model is not provided. It is realized by modeling image noise with mixture of Gaussian distribution (MoG) which can approximate large varieties of continuous distributions. As the number of components for MoG is unknown practically, this work adopts Bayesian nonparametric technique and proposes a novel Low-rank MoG filter (LR-MoG) to recover clean signals (patches) from noisy ones contaminated by MoG noise. Based on LR-MoG, a novel blind image denoising approach is developed. To test the proposed method, this study conducts extensive experiments on synthesis and real images. Our method achieves the state-of the-art performance consistently.
Absence of Macrophage-Inflammatory Protein-1α Delays Central Nervous System Demyelination in the Presence of an Intact Blood-Brain Barrier1

Chemokines are small chemotactic cytokines that modulate leukocyte recruitment and activation during inflammation. Here, we describe the role of macrophage inflammatory protein-1α (MIP-1α) during cuprizone intoxication, a model where demyelination of the CNS features a large accumulation of microglia/macrophage without T cell involvement or blood-brain barrier disruption. RNase protection assays showed that mRNA for numerous chemokines were up-regulated during cuprizone treatment in wild-type, C57BL/6 mice. RANTES, inflammatory protein-10, and monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 showed greatest expression with initiation of insult at 1–2 wk of treatment, whereas MIP-1α and β increased later at 4–5 wk, coincident with peak demyelination and cellular accumulation. The function of MIP-1α during demyelination was tested in vivo by exposing MIP-1α knockout mice (MIP-1α−/−) to cuprizone and comparing pathology to wild-type mice. Demyelination at 3.5 wk of treatment was significantly decreased in MIP-1α−/− mice (∼36% reduction), a result confirmed by morphology at the electron microscopic level. The delay in demyelination was correlated to apparent decreases in microglia/macrophage and astrocyte accumulation and in TNF-α protein levels. It was possible that larger effects of the MIP-1α deficiency were being masked by other redundant chemokines. Indeed, RNase protection assays revealed increased expression of several chemokine transcripts in both untreated and cuprizone-treated MIP-1α−/− mice. Nonetheless, despite this possible compensation, our studies show the importance of MIP-1α in demyelination in the CNS and highlight its effect, particularly on cellular recruitment and cytokine regulation.
Differential Contributions of Alcohol and Nicotine-Derived Nitrosamine Ketone (NNK) to White Matter Pathology in the Adolescent Rat Brain.

AIM Epidemiologic studies have demonstrated high rates of smoking among alcoholics, and neuroimaging studies have detected white matter atrophy and degeneration in both smokers and individuals with alcohol-related brain disease (ARBD). These findings suggest that tobacco smoke exposure may be a co-factor in ARBD. The present study examines the differential and additive effects of tobacco-specific nitrosamine (NNK) and ethanol exposures on the structural and functional integrity of white matter in an experimental model. METHODS Adolescent Long Evans rats were fed liquid diets containing 0 or 26% ethanol for 8 weeks. In weeks 3-8, rats were treated with nicotine-derived nitrosamine ketone (NNK) (2 mg/kg, 3×/week) or saline by i.p. injection. In weeks 7-8, the ethanol group was binge-administered ethanol (2 g/kg; 3×/week). RESULTS Ethanol, NNK and ethanol + NNK caused striking degenerative abnormalities in white matter myelin and axons, with accompanying reductions in myelin-associated glycoprotein expression. Quantitative RT-PCR targeted array and heatmap analyses demonstrated that ethanol modestly increased, whereas ethanol + NNK sharply increased expression of immature and mature oligodendroglial genes, and that NNK increased immature but inhibited mature oligodendroglial genes. In addition, NNK modulated expression of neuroglial genes in favor of growth cone collapse and synaptic disconnection. Ethanol- and NNK-associated increases in FOXO1, FOXO4 and NKX2-2 transcription factor gene expression could reflect compensatory responses to brain insulin resistance in this model. CONCLUSION Alcohol and tobacco exposures promote ARBD by impairing myelin synthesis, maturation and integrity via distinct but overlapping mechanisms. Public health measures to reduce ARBD should target both alcohol and tobacco abuses.
Post-bleaching application of an antioxidant on dentin bond strength of three dental adhesives

Background: Antioxidizing agents have recently been suggested to compensate decreased bond strength of resin materials to bleached tooth tissues. This study compared the shear bond strength (SBS) of three different adhesives on bleached dentin immediately after bleaching, bleached/delayed for 1 week, and bleached/applied antioxidizing agent. Materials and Methods: The dentinal surfaces of 132 intact extracted molars were prepared and divided into 12 groups. The following adhesives were investigated: Optibond FL (OFL) (three-step etch-and-rinse), Optibond Solo Plus (two-step etch-and-rinse), and Optibond all-in-one (OA) (one-step self-etch) (Kerr, Orange, USA). Unbleached dentin groups (groups 1-3) were prepared as negative controls (NC). The remainder surfaces (groups 4-12) were bleached with 20% Opalescent PF (Ultradent, USA). Specimens were bonded immediately after bleaching (groups 4-6), after 1 week (groups 7-9), or after using 10% sodium ascorbate (SA) gel (groups 10-12). Subsequent to bonding of composite resin, the samples were tested for SBS and analyzed using Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests (α=0.05). Results: Regarding control groups, OA showed the highest SBS among the studied adhesives (P<0.05). The SBS decreased for the adhesives after bleaching except for OFL. No statistically significant difference in SBS were noted when the SA and delayed bonding groups were compared with their similar NC groups (P>0.05) except the of delay bonding with OA. Conclusions: The findings suggest that bond strength of resin to bleached dentin may be affected with the adhesive system. Reduced SBS to bleached dentin can be amended by the use of SA as an antioxidizing agent. However, the amount of reversed bond strength subsequent to applying antioxidant might be related to the kind of dental adhesive.
A New Remote-controlled Animal Robot Training System

This paper presents a new scatheless platform for training remote-controlled animal robot, which can be used to analyze the relations between electrical stimulation and animal behavior. It will not only provide a convenient platform and method to research the controllability of animal behavior and the possibility of training animal robots, but also open new possibilities for biomedical, artificial intelligence and cognitive science researches. This system consists of two parts: 1) multichannel remote-controlled stimulator backed by animal; 2) computer vision based animal motion-analysis system. The training results showed that the platform works accurately even under interference conditions.
A low-complexity lattice-based low-PAR transmission scheme for DSL channels

This paper presents a new low-complexity multicarrier modulation (MCM) technique based on lattices which achieves a peak-to-average power ratio (PAR) as low as three. The scheme can be viewed as a "drop in" replacement for the discrete multitone (DMT) modulation of an asymmetric digital subscriber line modem. We show that the lattice-MCM retains many of the attractive features of sinusoidal-MCM, and does so with lower implementation complexity, O(N), compared with DMT, which requires O(NlogN) operations. We also present techniques for narrowband interference rejection and power profiling. Simulation studies confirm that performance of the lattice-MCM is superior, even compared with recent techniques for PAR reduction in DMT.
Evaluation of the Somatotopic Organization of Corticospinal Tracts in the Internal Capsule and Cerebral Peduncle: Results of Diffusion-Tensor MR Tractography

Objective We have used diffusion tensor tractography (DTT) for the evaluation of the somatotopic organization of corticospinal tracts (CSTs) in the posterior limb of the internal capsule (PLIC) and cerebral peduncle (CP). Materials and Methods We imaged the brains of nine healthy right-handed subjects. We used a spin-echo echo-planar imaging (EPI) sequence with 12 diffusion-sensitized directions. DTT was calculated with an angular threshold of 35 degrees and a fractional anistropy (FA) threshold of 0.25. We determined the location of the CSTs by using two regions of interest (ROI) at expected areas of the pons and expected areas of the lateral half of the PLIC, in the left hemisphere of the brain. Fiber tracts crossing these two ROIs and the precentral gyrus (PCG) were defined as CSTs. Four new ROIs were then defined for the PCG, from the medial to lateral direction, as ROI 1 (medial) to ROI 4 (lateral). Finally, we defined each fiber tract of the CSTs between the pons and each ROI in the PCG by using two ROIs methods. Results In all subjects, the CSTs were organized along the long axis of the PLIC, and the hand fibers were located anterior to the foot fibers. The CSTs showed transverse orientation in the CP, and the hand fibers were located usually medial to the foot fibers. Conclusion Corticospinal tracts are organized along the long axis of the PLIC and the horizontal direction of the CP.
Frequency-domain single-carrier spread spectrum with joint FDE and spectrum combining

In this paper, a DFT-based frequency-domain spread spectrum (FDSS) technique for SC transmission is introduced. The transmitted data is initially transformed to frequency-domain signal by using DFT. Frequency-domain spreading can achieve large frequency diversity gain through joint frequency-domain equalization (FDE) and spectrum combining. Performance of the proposed FDSS is evaluated by computer simulation in aspects of bit-error rate (BER), peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR), and average throughput, and then compared to the conventional TDSS scheme with spreading sequence.
A SPICE Electrothermal Model of the Selected Class of Monolithic Switching Regulators

The problem of modeling the influence of self heating on the characteristics of monolithic switch-mode voltage regulators is considered in this letter. A new electrothermal model is proposed for a selected class of these regulators. The correctness of the new model and its usefulness in the SPICE analysis have been proved by comparing measurement results with simulation results for the boost converter including an LT1073 device, belonging to the considered class of regulators.
Randomized, Placebo-Controlled, Clinical Trial of Hyperimmunized Chicken Egg Yolk Immunoglobulin in Children With Rotavirus Diarrhea

Background Hyperimmunized bovine colostrum containing antibodies has been shown to be effective in the treatment of rotavirus diarrhea. Antibodies derived from eggs of immunized hens may be a less expensive and more practical alternative. In this study, children with proven rotavirus diarrhea were treated with immunoglobulin extracted from eggs of chicken immunized with human rotavirus strains. Methods In a randomized, double-blind study, 79 children with known rotavirus diarrhea were assigned to receive either 10 g hyperimmune egg yolk (HEY) daily in four equally divided doses for 4 days (HEY group) or a similar preparation obtained from nonimmunized chicken (placebo group). The daily stool frequency and amount, oral rehydration solution (ORS) intake, and presence of rotavirus in the stool were monitored for 4 days. Results In the HEY-treated group. there was significant reduction in stool output (in grams per kilogram per day; HEY vs. placebo; 87 ± 59 vs. 120 ± 75, P = 0.03), and significant reduction of ORS intake (in milliliters per kilogram per day) (HEY vs. placebo; 84 ± 46 vs. 122 ± 72, P = 0.008) on day 1 and clearance of virus on day 4 (HEY vs. placebo; 73% vs. 46%, P = 0.02). There was, however, no difference in diarrheal duration between the groups. Conclusions Treatment with HEY against four human rotavirus strains resulted in modest improvement of diarrhea associated with earlier clearance of rotavirus from stools. These results indicate an encouraging role of HEY in the treatment of rotavirus-induced diarrhea in children. Further studies are needed to optimize the dose and neutralization titer and thus improve the efficacy of egg yolk immunoglobulin IgY derived from immunized hens.
KRÁTKÁ NEUROKOGNITIVNÍ BATERIE PRO SCREENING DEMENCE V KLINICKÉ PRAXI: SEDMIMINUTOVÝ SCREENINGOVÝ TEST

Uvod Kognitivni poruchy a demence představuji zavažný zdravotni problem starsi populace a pro vysoke naklady a socialni důsledky se stavaji i problemem celospolecenským. Jejich prevalence je ve staři vysoka (demence 5–10 %, mirna kognitivni porucha 17 %, benigni věkově podminěne změny asi 20 %) a s prodlužovanim středni delky života bude dale narůstat. Kognitivni poruchy jsou heterogenni skupinou, ktera je zapřiciněna řadou onemocněni (5, 16) (tabulka 1). V klinickem obraze dominuje kognitivni dysfunkce různeho rozsahu (izolovana porucha paměti, globalni porucha) i stupně (od lehke po velmi těžkou). Lisi se rychlosti progrese a prognostickou zavažnosti: trvale progredujici s omezenou životni perspektivou u Alzheimerovy demence, reverzibilni u farmakogenni poruchy, stacionarni u benignich věkově podminěných poruch. Maji vsak jeden spolecný rys a tim je nespravna a nedostatecna diagnoza (2). To se týka nejen pocinajicich forem demence, ale i znacně pokrocilých fazi nemoci, zaměny deliria za demenci, nerozpoznani nežadoucich ucinků leků. V dokumentaci pacienta informace o přitomnosti kognitivni poruchy zpravidla chybi a nase diagnosticke rozpaky se skrývaji pod typickou „kryci“ diagnozou atherosclerosis universalis precipue cerebri nebo cerebrovaskularni insuficience. Pro nemocneho se může stat osudnou i nespravna „nalepka“ demence u pacienta s hypotyreozou, deliriem v důsledku metabolicke poruchy nebo s depresi, neboť neni zahajena kauzalni lecba (15). Navic až donedavna doprovazel kognitivni poruchy i terapeutický nihilizmus vyjadřený jedinou větou „Neda se s tim nic dělat“, který byl akceptovan zdravotniky i pacienty.
Efficient implementation of Private Information Retrieval protocols

A vast amount of today’s Internet users’ on line activities consists of queries to various types of databases. From traditional search engines to modern cloud based services, a person’s everyday queries over a period of time on various data sources, will leave a trail visible to the query processor, which can reveal significant and possibly sensitive information about her. Private Information Retrieval (PIR) algorithms can be leveraged for providing perfect privacy to users’ queries, though at a restrictive computational cost. In this work, we consider today’s highly distributed computing environments, as well as certain securehardware devices, for optimizing existing PIR solutions. In particular, we initially employ available secure-hardware in a novel approach with the goal of providing faster and constant private query responses, by sacrificing some degree of privacy. Further on, we utilize the widely used Message Passing Interface (MPI) protocol for parallelizing well-known computationally secure PIR algorithms and provide a library which can be used in third party software for performing private queries.