Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prevalence and Predictors of Paroxysmal Atrial Fibrillation on Holter Monitor in Patients With Stroke or Transient Ischemic Attack

Background and Purpose— Our aims were to quantify the yield of Holter monitor for detection of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (PAF) in patients with stroke and TIA, and to determine potential predictors of PAF to allow more focused testing. Methods— We reviewed records of 1128 consecutive patients attending a university stroke clinic from September 2005 to September 2006 and identified 426 patients with definite TIA or stroke. We abstracted clinical, cardiac imaging, and neuroimaging data. Logistic regression analysis was performed to determine independent predictors of PAF on Holter monitor. Results— Overall, 413 of 426 patients (65±15 years; male, 49.8%) with a definite TIA (53%) or stroke (47%) underwent Holter monitoring for a mean of 22.6 hours. PAF occurred in 39 patients (9.2%) all older than age 55 years. PAF lasting >30 seconds was evident in 11 patients (2.5%). The other 28 patients had PAF <30 seconds (6.5%). In multivariate analyses, number of acute (odds ratio [OR], 1.7 for each 1 lesion increase; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.2–2.6; P=0.0047) and chronic (OR, 1.6 for each 1 lesion increase; 95% CI, 1.2–2.3; P=0.0001) infarcts on brain CT, number of chronic infarcts on MRI (OR, 3.0 for each 1 lesion increase; 95% CI, 1.7–5.1; P<0.0001), and any acute cortical infarct on imaging (OR, 5.8; 95% CI, 1.9–17.8; P=0.0023) were associated with PAF. Conclusions— PAF is present in 9.2% of patients with definite stroke or TIA. Age older than 55 years and presence of acute or chronic brain infarcts on neuroimaging are strongly associated with PAF.
The diagnostic significance of the holter monitoring in the evaluation of palpitation.

PURPOSE To determine the diagnostic yield of the 24-hour Holter monitoring in the patients who were evaluated for palpitations. METHODS A prospective, single-centre study was performed to evaluate the diagnostic yield of the Holter monitoring. The inclusion criteria was age greater then 18 years with the symptom of unexplained recurrent palpitations. The exclusion criteria was patients with known medical causes of palpitation, a history of documented arrhythmias, or a history of or the current use of anti-arrhythmic drugs. The outcomes included a diagnostic Holter monitor recording. RESULTS The data analysis of the 335 patients who were studied, showed that there were 160 (47.8%) females and 175 (52.2%) males with a mean age of 55± 18.85 years (18 to 90 years). Ventricular ectopics as bigeminy in 36.7% patients and as couplets in 20% patients, were detected. Non-sustained VT was detected in 5.7% patients, VT was detected in 0.9% cases and SVT was detected in 12.5% cases. 3.58% cases had paraxosymal atrial flutter/fibrillation. The ST segment shift which is suggestive of silent ischaemia, was present in 17.6% of the study population. Second or higher degrees of AV blocks were noted in 2 cases, while one patient had the WPW syndrome. Ventricular bigeminy, couplets, VT,SVT and AF were statistically significant in the patients who were over the age of 50 years as compared to those who were less than 50 years. CONCLUSION In patients with non-specific symptoms, Holter monitoring has a significant role in the primary diagnosis of myocardial ischaemia or arrhythmia as a cause of such symptoms in the older age groups.
The Relationships Among Adaptive Behaviors of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder, Their Family Support Networks, Parental Stress, and Parental Coping

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the adaptive behaviors of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), their family support networks, parental stress, and parental coping and the relationships among these variables. Background: Autism is the fastest growing diagnosed developmental disorder. When parents receive a diagnosis of autism for their child, mothers and fathers are affected differently. The costs to families of children with autism are personal, social, and affect family finances and day to day living. Parents of a child with autism are at high risk for increased stress levels. The child’s socially unacceptable behaviors and communication problems contribute to parental stress. Available and accessible support services for children with autism, their caregivers, and families are often inadequate to address the increasing numbers of children being diagnosed with autism. Methods: A descriptive, correlational, cross-sectional study was conducted with a purposive sample of 75 parents/primary caregivers of children with ASD. Parents provided information about the adaptive behaviors of their child with autism, family support networks, parental stress, and parental coping. Pearson product-moment correlation was used to identify the relationships between the variables. Multiple regression analysis was performed to identify which of the independent variables better predicted parental coping patterns. Findings and Conclusion: The adaptive behaviors of children with autism were negatively correlated with parental behaviors which focused on continuing to seek and use social support, self-respect, and emotional strength. Parents’ views of the support their family received were positively correlated with parental behaviors that concentrated on family adjustment, teamwork, and a positive meaning of the situation. A trend toward significance was found between adaptive behaviors of the child with autism and paternal stress. These results bring new challenges and thoughts about how the children with autism and their families can be assisted. Parents who are coping with the added stresses in their lives need support that addresses the abilities of their child with autism, their own patterns of coping, and the resources available to their family.
Immigration and Crime: A Microeconometric Study

Although the relationship between immigration and crime has been a very controversial subject in the UK, the empirical evidence is limited. This thesis intends to narrow this gap by providing a comprehensive investigation for England and Wales of immigrants’ both active and passive involvement in criminal activities. Before exploring the aforementioned relationship, Chapter 1 discusses and provides solutions to an identification issue that afflicts leading models for under-reported count data. It also provides some tips for practitioners who intend to use these models in applied research. These findings are important for this thesis, since estimators that deal with under-reporting are considered in Chapter 2. Chapter 2 studies the individual-level relationship between immigration and crime using self-reported crime data. Although this work focuses on property crime, violent crime is also considered. Both binary and count data models that account for under-reporting are used, since under-reporting is a concern in crime self-reports. Our findings suggest that, if anything, immigrants under-report by less than natives. Most importantly, these models predict that after controlling for under-reporting and basic demographics, immigrants are less involved in criminal activities, but the estimated difference is statistically insignificant. Nevertheless, an extensive sensitivity analysis indicates that this estimate is very robust, suggesting that this relationship exists, but data limitations and complexities of the considered models reduce the precision of the estimated coefficient. Finally, Chapter 3 comprehensively examines whether victimization experiences are different between immigrants and natives. Very interestingly, although observed demographic differences can explain the positive property crime victimization-immigration differentials, unobserved factors give rise to a negative association between immigration and violent victimization. All results suggest that this is due to immigrants’ lifestyle choices associated with lower victimization risks. As will be explained throughout Chapter 3, this finding is consistent with the findings of Chapter 2.
Ieee Computer Graphics and Applications Surface Capture Studio Calibration Surface Capture for Performance-based Animation

21 3D Cinema C reating realistic animated models of people is a central task in digital content production. Traditionally, highly skilled artists and animators construct shape and appearance models for a digital character. They then define the character's motion at each time frame or specific key-frames in a motion sequence to create a digital performance. Increasingly, producers are using motion capture technology to record animations from an actor's performance. This technology reduces animation production time and captures natural movements to create a more believable production. However, motion capture requires the use of specialist suits and markers and only records skeletal motion. It lacks the detailed secondary surface dynamics of cloth and hair that provide the visual realism of a live performance. Over the last decade, we've investigated studio capture technology with the objective of creating models of real people that accurately reflect the time-varying shape and appearance of the whole body with clothing. 1 We've developed a system for surface motion capture that unifies the acquisition of shape, appearance , and motion of the human body from multiple-view video (see also the " Related Work " sidebar on page 22). It captures a shape and appearance model for the performer in full wardrobe as well as the model animation and surface dynamics to create highly realistic digital content from the performance, unencumbered by a specialist suit. Our system solves two key problems in performance capture: scene capture from a limited number of camera views and efficient scene representation for visualiza-tion. The multiple-view video and scene reconstruction in this work is available at We record an actor's performance in a dedicated multiple-camera studio with controlled lighting and a chroma-key background. Because of cost, rather than use professional cameras such systems typically use machine vision cameras, which don't give the color quality required for production work in broadcast or film. Our work aims to demonstrate our surface capture tech-nology's potential for high-quality entertainment content. We therefore developed a studio system using a limited number of professional film-quality high-definition (HD) cameras. In our studio, we spaced eight HD cameras equally around a circle of 8 meters in diameter about 2 meters above the studio floor (see Figure 1). This gives a performance volume of 4 ´ 4 ´ 2 meters with a wide-base-line 45-degree angle between adjacent camera views. We capture performances using Thomson Viper cameras in High-Definition Serial Digital Interface (HD-SDI) 20-bit …
Enhanced Spectral Viscosity Approximations for Conservation LawsyAnne

In this paper we construct, analyze and implement a new procedure for the spectral approximations of nonlinear conservation laws. It is well known that using spectral methods for nonlinear conservation laws will result in the formation of the Gibbs phenomenon once spontaneous shock discontinuities appear in the solution. These spurious oscillations will in turn lead to loss of resolution and render the standard spectral approximations unstable. The Spectral Viscosity (SV-) method 24] was developed to stabilize the spectral method by adding a spectrally small amount of high-frequencies diiusion carried out in the dual space. The resulting SV-approximation is stable without sacriicing spectral accuracy. The SV-method recovers a spectrally accurate approximation to the projection of the entropy solution; the exact projection, however, is at best a rst order approximation to the exact solution as a result of the formation of the shock discontinuities. The issue of spectral resolution is addressed by post-processing the SV-solution to remove the spurious oscillations at the discontinuities, as well as increase the rst-order { O(1=N) accuracy away from the shock discontinuities. Successful post-processing methods have been developed to eliminate the Gibbs phenomenon and recover spectral accuracy for the SV-approximation. However, such reconstruction methods require apriori knowledge of the locations of the shock discontinuities. Therefore, the detection of these discontinuities is essential to obtain an overall spectrally accurate solution. To this end, we employ the recently constructed enhanced edge detectors based on appropriate concentration factors 8], 9]. Once the edges of these discontinuities are identiied, we can utilize a post-processing reconstruction method, and show that the post-processed SV-solution recovers the exact entropy solution with remarkably high-resolution. We apply our new numerical method, the Enhanced SV-method, to two numerical examples, the scalar periodic Burgers' equation and the one-dimensional system of Euler equations of gas dynamics. Both approximations exhibit high accuracy and resolution to the exact entropy solution.
Phytohaemagglutinin (PHA) response and bill-hue wavelength increase with carotenoid supplementation in Diamond Firetails (Stagonopleura guttata)

Abstract Carotenoids cannot be synthesised by vertebrates and must be derived from the diet. A growing amount of research has focussed on the role of carotenoids in immune function, as well as the signalling function of carotenoids in the colour of the integument (skin, bill and legs) and feathers. We used an experimental approach to examine the effects of experimental reduction and supplementation of dietary carotenoids on phytohaemagglutinin (PHA) response (as an estimate of cell-mediated immune response) and colour of the bill in the Diamond Firetail (Stagonopleura guttata). To demonstrate the biological relevance of our study, we first show that carotenoid concentrations of our captive experimental birds did not differ significantly from those of wild birds. We found that carotenoids circulating in the plasma of captive Diamond Firetails dropped to 50% of the original concentration in less than 5 days when on a carotenoid-free diet. The mean level of total carotenoids in the plasma stabilised at 6% of the original concentration after 26 days. Finally, Diamond Firetails showed a significant increase in PHA response and increased bill-hue wavelength while on either a lutein or a zeaxanthin supplemented diet. Our results show rapid signalling of carotenoid concentration in the integument (as measured here in the bill) that we suggest complements the longer term signalling potential of feathers.
Dynamic Extreme Learning Machine and Its Approximation Capability

Extreme learning machines (ELMs) have been proposed for generalized single-hidden-layer feedforward networks which need not be neuron alike and perform well in both regression and classification applications. The problem of determining the suitable network architectures is recognized to be crucial in the successful application of ELMs. This paper first proposes a dynamic ELM (D-ELM) where the hidden nodes can be recruited or deleted dynamically according to their significance to network performance, so that not only the parameters can be adjusted but also the architecture can be self-adapted simultaneously. Then, this paper proves in theory that such D-ELM using Lebesgue p-integrable hidden activation functions can approximate any Lebesgue p-integrable function on a compact input set. Simulation results obtained over various test problems demonstrate and verify that the proposed D-ELM does a good job reducing the network size while preserving good generalization performance.
A Practical Method for Fully Automatic Intrinsic Camera Calibration Using Directionally Encoded Light

Calibrating the intrinsic properties of a camera is one of the fundamental tasks required for a variety of computer vision and image processing tasks. The precise measurement of focal length, location of the principal point as well as distortion parameters of the lens is crucial, for example, for 3D reconstruction [27]. Although a variety of methods exist to achieve this goal, they are often cumbersome to carry out, require substantial manual interaction, expert knowledge, and a significant operating volume. We propose a novel calibration method based on the usage of directionally encoded light rays for estimating the intrinsic parameters. It enables a fully automatic calibration with a small device mounted close to the front lens element and still enables an accuracy comparable to standard methods even when the lens is focused up to infinity. Our method overcomes the mentioned limitations since it guarantees an accurate calibration without any human intervention while requiring only a limited amount of space. Besides that, the approach also allows to estimate the distance of the focal plane as well as the size of the aperture. We demonstrate the advantages of the proposed method by evaluating several camera/lens configurations using prototypical devices.
3D segmentation of the whole heart vasculature using improved multi-threshold Otsu and white top-hat scale space hessian based vessel filter

Quantification of vessel density helps to know the stage of the disease during diagnosis and patient's response to treatment. However, this requires presence of all vessels in the image. The available segmentation techniques that are manual based are prone to errors, tiresome and slow, while some that are automated do face difficulty in distinguishing the vessel tissue from the non-vessel tissue due to the presence of intensity inhomogeneity and noise in images. Therefore, there is need for improved segmentation methods that can extract all sizes of vessels for better quantification of the vessel density and improved decision making during diagnosis. In this paper, a 3D hybrid approach for segmentation has been developed, based on white top hat scale space hessian vessel enhancement filter and multi-threshold Otsu method. The hybrid method can address the intensity inhomogeneity, as a result, more vessels of different sizes are detected. The method is also robust and able to detect abnormalities in the vessels.
‘The Antithesis of Humankind’

ABSTRACT This article explores the political, economic, media and social reactions to the Sex Pistols' Anarchy Tour of December 1976. A critical reading of the sociological concept of ‘moral panic’ is used to examine the ways in which responses to the Sex Pistols were related to the notion of post-war decline, immorality, delinquent youth and the changing nature of the British working class. The responses to the Anarchy Tour constitute a further episode in the cycle of ‘moral panics' that emerged in British society in connection with the development of youth culture, juvenile delinquency and popular music. The exploration that follows posits the view that although ‘moral panic’ is useful for understanding particular aspects of popular music, it also conceals the complexity of the differing responses of political/social groups to the appearance of such phenomena. The article also forms a critique of recent revisionist characterizations of Britain in the 1970s. The ‘moral panic’ surrounding the Sex Pistols was in part ‘socially constructed’ by the media, yet reactions by trade unionists, students, feminists and socialists show that concerns about British society in 1976 were not confined to religious pressure groups, conservative media commentators and political elites.
A combined method for finding best starting points for optimisation in bernoulli mixture models

Mixture models are frequently used to classify data. They are likelihood based models, and the maximum likelihood estimates of parameters are often obtained using the expectation maximization (EM) algorithm. However, multimodality of the likelihood surface means that poorly chosen starting points for optimisation may lead to only a local maximum, not a global maximum. In this paper, different methods of choosing starting points will be evaluated and compared, mainly via simulated data and then we will introduce a procedure which will make intelligent choices of possible starting points and fast evaluations of their usefulness.
Near-capacity fixed-rate and rateless channel code constructions

Fixed-rate and rateless channel code constructions are designed for satisfying conflicting design tradeoffs, leading to codes that benefit from practical implementations, whilst offering a good bit error ratio (BER) and block error ratio (BLER) performance. More explicitly, two novel low-density parity-check code (LDPC) constructions are proposed; the first construction constitutes a family of quasi-cyclic protograph LDPC codes, which has a Vandermonde-like parity-check matrix (PCM). The second construction constitutes a specific class of protograph LDPC codes, which are termed as multilevel structured (MLS) LDPC codes. These codes possess a PCM construction that allows the coexistence of both pseudo-randomness as well as a structure requiring a reduced memory. More importantly, it is also demonstrated that these benefits accrue without any compromise in the attainable BER/BLER performance. We also present the novel concept of separating multiple users by means of user-specific channel codes, which is referred to as channel code division multiple access (CCDMA), and provide an example based on MLS LDPC codes. In particular, we circumvent the difficulty of having potentially high memory requirements, while ensuring that each user’s bits in the CCDMA system are equally protected. With regards to rateless channel coding, we propose a novel family of codes, which we refer to as reconfigurable rateless codes, that are capable of not only varying their code-rate but also to adaptively modify their encoding/decoding strategy according to the near-instantaneous channel conditions. We demonstrate that the proposed reconfigurable rateless codes are capable of shaping their own degree distribution according to the nearinstantaneous requirements imposed by the channel, but without any explicit channel knowledge at the transmitter. Additionally, a generalised transmit preprocessing aided closed-loop downlink multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system is presented, in which both the channel coding components as well as the linear transmit precoder exploit the knowledge of the channel state information (CSI). More explicitly, we embed a rateless code in a MIMO transmit preprocessing scheme, in order to attain near-capacity performance across a wide range of channel signal-to-ratios (SNRs), rather than only at a specific SNR. The performance of our scheme is further enhanced with the aid of a technique, referred to as pilot symbol assisted rateless (PSAR) coding, whereby a predetermined fraction of pilot bits is appropriately interspersed with the original information bits at the channel coding stage, instead of multiplexing pilots at the modulation stage, as in classic pilot symbol assisted modulation (PSAM). We subsequently demonstrate that the PSAR code-aided transmit preprocessing scheme succeeds in gleaning more information from the inserted pilots than the classic PSAM technique, because the pilot bits are not only useful for sounding the channel at the receiver but also beneficial for significantly reducing the computational complexity of the rateless channel decoder.
Ontology Enrichment for the Food Traceability Domain Using Romanian Lexico-syntactic Patterns

Ontologies are considered as the most important building blocks of semantic Web. Building such ontologies is a time consuming and difficult task, which requires a high degree of human intervention. In this paper we describe a method to facilitate the enrichment of Romanian language domain taxonomies by using a text-mining approach. We exploit Romania n domain specific texts in order to automatically ext rac terms and relationships among them. A shallow parse r is used to chunk texts on which we identify taxonom ic relations with the help of Romanian language lexico -