Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Biochemical Characteristics and Risk Factors for Insulin Resistance at Different Levels of Obesity

OBJECTIVE: To establish the biochemical characteristics of nonobese, overweight, and obese children as well as to determine the risk factors associated with insulin resistance in nonobese children and with non–insulin resistance in obese children in the age strata of 6 to 11 years. METHODS: A total of 3512 healthy children were enrolled in a cross-sectional study. In the absence of obesity, fasting hyperinsulinemia and hypertriglyceridemia defined nonobese, insulin-resistant (NO-IR) children. In the absence of metabolic abnormalities of fasting insulin and triglycerides levels, obese children were defined as obese, not insulin-resistant (O-NIR) children. RESULTS: The gender- and age-adjusted prevalence of NO-IR and O-NIR was 6.6% and 21.3%, respectively. In the age-, gender-, and birth weight–adjusted analysis, family history of hypertension (FHH) in both maternal and paternal branches (odds ratio [OR]: 1.514; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.2–3.9; P = .04) was associated with NO-IR children. In the analysis adjusted by gender, age, waist circumference (WC), BMI, FHH, and family history of diabetes, high birth weight was associated with NO-IR children (OR: 1.319; 95% CI: 1.2–2.1; P = .04). Finally, in the gender-, age-, family history–, and birth weight–adjusted analysis, a WC lower than the 95th percentile was associated with a lower odds of insulin resistance among obese children (OR: 0.96; 95% CI: 0.91–0.98; P < .0005). CONCLUSIONS: FHH and high birth weight are associated with NO-IR children, and a low WC is associated with lower odds of O-IR children.
Thermal leakage detection on building facades using infrared textures generated by mobile mapping

Focus of the paper lies on automated texturing of 3d building models with images recorded with infrared (IR) cameras. Therefore, a data fusion of given 3d models and recorded IR image sequences is performed. A relative orientation of the images of the sequence is generated using Nistér's five-point algorithm and image triplets. This results in a point cloud of correspondence points and a relative camera path. The relative oriented image scene is then matched in two steps first to the recoded GPS camera path and then to the given building with least squares minimum distance. Textures are extracted for every image and its according camera position from all visible surfaces. Because one image does not show complete building facades, the extracted textures of the images are combined to create complete textures for the model surfaces. These textures can be used for feature extraction and object recognition for analyzing buildings and assigned 3d coordinates to found features and objects.
Needs of labor and delivery nurses caring for women undergoing pregnancy termination.

OBJECTIVE To explore the psychosocial, educational, and administrative support needs of labor and delivery (L&D) nurses who care for women undergoing pregnancy termination. DESIGN A qualitative, descriptive design. SETTING This study was conducted on a L&D unit at a large, university-affiliated hospital in Quebec, Canada. PARTICIPANTS A convenience sample of 10 L&D nurses participated in this study. Ages of participants ranged from 25 to 55 years, and experience on the unit ranged from 1 to 30 years. METHODS One-time, face-to-face interviews were conducted with each participant. Audio-recorded interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using inductive content analysis. RESULTS Participants valued interpersonal support from nurse colleagues and guidance from experienced nurses in managing the emotional aspect of this care. They raised concerns about the effect of nursing workload and patient-to-nurse ratios on patient care. Nurses noted a desire for knowledge and skill-building through access to evidence-based literature, continuing education sessions, and workshops. They also expressed a need for more information regarding the genetic counseling process and community resources available to women undergoing pregnancy termination. CONCLUSION Ensuring continuity of care through knowledge sharing related to genetic counseling and community resources creates the context for holistic patient care. Increased attention to the particular needs of L&D nurses providing care to women undergoing termination may enhance the quality and safety of care for this unique population.
Collective Intelligence support for data service exploration and retrieval

Agile design of data intensive web applications can rely on existing and well-tested third parties data services as components providing access methods to valuable data sources. Producers of real data services are more and more publishing their services in repositories according to light semantic profiles with simple tag-based descriptions. In this paper, we discuss techniques for data service exploration and retrieval that consider service co-usage in existing applications, patterns of tags co-usage, and ratings declared by developers who used a data service in their own development experiences.
A flexible framework for hypothesis testing in high dimensions

Hypothesis testing in the linear regression model is a fundamental statistical problem. We consider linear regression in the high dimensional regime where the number of parameters exceeds the number of samples (p>n). To make informative inference, we assume that the model is approximately sparse, i.e. the effect of covariates on the response can be well approximated by conditioning on a relatively small number of covariates whose identities are unknown. We develop a framework for testing very general hypotheses regarding the model parameters. Our framework encompasses testing whether the parameter lies in a convex cone, testing the signal strength, and testing arbitrary functionals of the parameter. We show that the procedure proposed controls the type I error, and we also analyse the power of the procedure. Our numerical experiments confirm our theoretical findings and demonstrate that we control the false positive rate (type I error) near the nominal level and have high power. By duality between hypotheses testing and confidence intervals, the framework proposed can be used to obtain valid confidence intervals for various functionals of the model parameters. For linear functionals, the length of confidence intervals is shown to be minimax rate optimal.
Agmatine Attenuates Brain Edema and Apoptotic Cell Death after Traumatic Brain Injury

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is associated with poor neurological outcome, including necrosis and brain edema. In this study, we investigated whether agmatine treatment reduces edema and apoptotic cell death after TBI. TBI was produced by cold injury to the cerebral primary motor cortex of rats. Agmatine was administered 30 min after injury and once daily until the end of the experiment. Animals were sacrificed for analysis at 1, 2, or 7 days after the injury. Various neurological analyses were performed to investigate disruption of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and neurological dysfunction after TBI. To examine the extent of brain edema after TBI, the expression of aquaporins (AQPs), phosphorylation of mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs), and nuclear translocation of nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) were investigated. Our findings demonstrated that agmatine treatment significantly reduces brain edema after TBI by suppressing the expression of AQP1, 4, and 9. In addition, agmatine treatment significantly reduced apoptotic cell death by suppressing the phosphorylation of MAPKs and by increasing the nuclear translocation of NF-κB after TBI. These results suggest that agmatine treatment may have therapeutic potential for brain edema and neural cell death in various central nervous system diseases. Graphical Abstract
Cumulative Prospect Theory Meets Reinforcement Learning: Prediction and Control

Cumulative prospect theory (CPT) is known to model human decisions well, with substantial empirical evidence supporting this claim. CPT works by distorting probabilities and is more general than the classic expected utility and coherent risk measures. We bring this idea to a risk-sensitive reinforcement learning (RL) setting and design algorithms for both estimation and control. The RL setting presents two particular challenges when CPT is applied: estimating the CPT objective requires estimations of the entire distribution of the value function and finding a randomized optimal policy. The estimation scheme that we propose uses the empirical distribution to estimate the CPT-value of a random variable. We then use this scheme in the inner loop of a CPT-value optimization procedure that is based on the well-known simulation optimization idea of simultaneous perturbation stochastic approximation (SPSA). We provide theoretical convergence guarantees for all the proposed algorithms and also illustrate the usefulness of CPT-based criteria in a traffic signal control application.
Towards Reliable Trust Management based on Structural Trust Scopes of Distributed Roles

Role based trust management uses distributed role hierarchies (DRH) to provide flexible and scalable authorization in multi-domain environments, but DRH are inherently transitive and may easily lead to unexpected or even illegal authorization. In this paper, we propose TS-DRH, a generalized extension of DRH based on a novel trust scope model of distributed roles. TS-DRH introduces the notion of scoped roles with four kinds of structural trust scopes, and uses scoped roles to control the member scopes of senior roles and the permission scopes of junior roles, and thus helps to control the propagation of role memberships and permissions in DRH. This paper also designs rule based semantics and a compliance checking algorithm to compute authorization decisions for TS-DRH.
Immune Response and Plasma Alpha Tocopherol and Selenium Status of Male Buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) Calves Supplemented with Vitamin E and Selenium

An experiment was conducted using 20 male buffalo calves to study the effect of vitamin E and selenium supplementation on their immune response and plasma α-tocopherol and selenium status. These buffalo calves (10-12 months old, average body weight 75.30±2.20 kg) were randomly allotted to four treatments on the basis of their body weights and were fed on wheat straw and concentrate mixture to meet their nutrient requirements of 500 g/d body weight gain. The buffalo calves were fed either a control diet (neither supplemented with Se nor VE) or diets supplemented with Se at 0.3 ppm (+Se), DL-alpha tocopheryl acetate at 300 IU (+VE), and both DL-alpha tocopheryl acetate at 300 IU and Se at 0.3 ppm (+Se+VE). These experimental diets were fed for 180 days. Blood samples were collected at day 0 and subsequently at 45 day intervals up to 180 days of experimental feeding to monitor plasma α-tocopherol and Se concentrations. To assess humoral immune response, all calves were sensitized with formalin inactivated Pasteurella multocida antigen at 135 days of experimental feeding and blood was collected on 0, 7, 14, 21 and 28 days post vaccination (DPV) to measure antibody production using indirect ELISA. Cell mediated immune response of calves was assessed after 180 days of experimental feeding by in viva delayed type hypersensitivity (DTH) reaction using phytohaemaglutinin-P (PHA-P) as a mitogen. Results revealed that feeding of VE and Se improved the plasma levels of these nutrients. Plasma levels of Se were affected by supplementation of both VE (p<0.001) and Se (p<0.001); however, no interaction (SexVE) was observed. Supplementation of Se improved the humoral immune response (p<0.008), whereas, VE showed a tendency towards improvement in cell mediated immune response (p<0.064). It was concluded that vitamin E and Se supplementation improved the status of these micronutrients and humoral immune response in buffalo calves.
Electromechanical analysis of a piezoresistive pressure microsensor for low-pressure biomedical applications

El analisis electromecanico de un microsensor de presion piezoresistivo con un diafragma de seccion cuadrada para aplicaciones biomedicas de baja presion es presentado. Este analisis es desarrollado mediante un nuevo modelo polinomial y un modelo con el metodo elemento finito (FEM). Un microsensor con un diafragma de 1000 μm de longitud y tres diferentes espesores (10, 15 y 20 μm) es estudiado. La respuesta electrica de este microsensor es obtenida mediante un puente de Wheatstone con cuatro piezoresistores tipo p localizados sobre la superficie del diafragma. El diafragma con 10 μm de espesor presenta una deflexion maxima de 3.74 μm utilizando el modelo polinomial, el cual tiene una diferencia relativa de 5.14 and 0.92% con respecto al modelo de Timoshenko y al modelo FEM, respectivamente. La maxima sensibilidad y esfuerzo normal calculado con el modelo polinomial son 1.64 mV/V/kPa and 102.1 MPa, respectivamente. Los resultados del modelo polinomial concuerdan bien con el modelo de Timoshenko y el modelo FEM para pequenas deflexiones. Ademas, el modelo polinomial puede ser utilizado facilmente para predecir la deflexion, esfuerzo normal, respuesta electrica y sensibilidad de un microsensor de presion piezoresistivo con un diafragma de seccion cuadrada sujeto a pequenas deflexiones.
A Multi-Factor Security Protocol for Wireless Payment - Secure Web Authentication using Mobile Devices

Previous Web access authentication systems often use either the Web or the Mobile channel individually to confirm the claimed identity of the remote user. This paper proposes a new protocol using multifactor authentication system that is both secure and highly usable. It uses a novel approach based on Transaction Identification Code and SMS to enforce extra security level with the traditional Login/password system. The system provides a highly secure environment that is simple to use and deploy, that does not require any change in infrastructure or protocol of wireless networks. This Protocol for Wireless Payment is extended to provide two way authentications.
Cache-Oblivious Output-Sensitive Two-Dimensional Convex Hull

We consider the problem of two-dimensional outputsensitive convex hull in the cache-oblivious model. That is, we are interested in minimizing the number of cache faults caused when computing the convex hull of a set of N points on a plane. We are interested in the outputsensitive case where number of cache misses are analyzed in the worst case based on both the input size N and output size H (number of extreme points that lie on the flnal convex hull ). There is the lower bound of N B log M B H to match where M is the cache size and B is the block size. We present a simple algorithm which almost matches this lower bound. The number of cache misses our algorithm causes is
Mood symptoms contribute to working memory decrement in active-duty soldiers being treated for posttraumatic stress disorder

A significant proportion of military veterans of operations in Afghanistan and Iraq have been diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Growing evidence suggests that neuropsychological deficits are a symptom of PTSD. The current study investigated neurocognitive functioning among soldiers diagnosed with PTSD. Specifically, active‐duty soldiers with and without a diagnosis of PTSD were assessed for performance on tests of attention and working memory. In addition, factors such as combat experience, depression, anxiety, PTSD symptom severity, and alcohol consumption were explored as possible mediators of group differences in neurocognitive functioning. Twenty‐three active‐duty soldiers diagnosed with PTSD were matched with 23 healthy Soldier controls; all were administered the Attention Network Task (ANT), Backward Digit Span (BDS) task, Beck Depression Inventory, Beck Anxiety Inventory, PTSD Checklist—Military Version, Combat Exposure Scale, and Modified Drinking Behavior Questionnaire. Soldiers diagnosed with PTSD performed significantly worse on the working memory task (BDS) than healthy controls, and reported greater levels of PTSD symptoms, combat exposure, depression, and anxiety. However, after controlling for depression and anxiety symptoms, the relationship between PTSD and working memory was no longer present. The results indicate that PTSD is accompanied by deficits in working memory, which appear to be partially attributed to anxiety and depression symptoms.
Paleoarchean trace fossils in altered volcanic glass

Significance The dawn of sustainable life on earth is preserved in the form of fossil or chemical evidence in ancient rock sequences, such as the Barberton Greenstone Belt in South Africa. Studies of sedimentary rocks offered a glimpse at life at the earth’s surface, and trace fossils in pillow lavas offered evidence for a potential deep biosphere back in time to the Paleoarchean. Recent data cast doubt on the biogenicity of these putative trace fossils, rejecting their potential in exploring a deep biosphere. We discuss biogenicity of Cenozoic and Archean examples of such putative biocorrosion textures and conclude that microbial origin remains the best explanation for the textures described previously in these Paleoarchean rocks (e.g., >3.4 Ga). Microbial corrosion textures in volcanic glass from Cenozoic seafloor basalts and the corresponding titanite replacement microtextures in metamorphosed Paleoarchean pillow lavas have been interpreted as evidence for a deep biosphere dating back in time through the earliest periods of preserved life on earth. This interpretation has been recently challenged for Paleoarchean titanite replacement textures based on textural and geochronological data from pillow lavas in the Hooggenoeg Complex of the Barberton Greenstone Belt in South Africa. We use this controversy to explore the strengths and weaknesses of arguments made in support or rejection of the biogenicity interpretation of bioalteration trace fossils in Cenozoic basalt glasses and their putative equivalents in Paleoarchean greenstones. Our analysis suggests that biogenicity cannot be taken for granted for all titanite-based textures in metamorphosed basalt glass, but a cautious and critical evaluation of evidence suggests that biogenicity remains the most likely interpretation for previously described titanite microtextures in Paleoarchean pillow lavas.
On distance and correlation measures of hesitant fuzzy information

A hesitant fuzzy set, allowing the membership of an element to be a set of several possible values, is very useful to express people's hesitancy in daily life. In this paper, we define the distance and correlation measures for hesitant fuzzy information and then discuss their properties in detail. These measures are all defined under the assumption that the values in all hesitant fuzzy elements (the fundamental units of hesitant fuzzy sets) are arranged in an increasing order and two hesitant fuzzy elements have the same length when we compare them. We can find that the results, by using the developed distance measures, are the smallest ones among those when the values in two hesitant fuzzy elements are arranged in any permutations. In addition, the derived correlation coefficients are based on different linear relationships and may have different results. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Increased tropical Atlantic wind shear in model projections of global warming

To help understand possible impacts of anthropogenic greenhouse warming on hurricane activity, we assess model‐projected changes in large‐scale environmental factors tied to variations in hurricane statistics. This study focuses on vertical wind shear (Vs) over the tropical Atlantic during hurricane season, the increase of which has been historically associated with diminished hurricane activity and intensity. A suite of state‐of‐the‐art global climate model experiments is used to project changes in Vs over the 21st century. Substantial increases in tropical Atlantic and East Pacific shear are robust features of these experiments, and are shown to be connected to the model‐projected decrease in the Pacific Walker circulation. The relative changes in shear are found to be comparable to those of other large‐scale environmental parameters associated with Atlantic hurricane activity. The influence of these Vs changes should be incorporated into projections of long‐term hurricane activity.
Know your limits: Embedding localiser performance models in teach and repeat maps

This paper is about building maps which not only contain the traditional information useful for localising - such as point features - but also embeds a spatial model of expected localiser performance. This often overlooked second-order information provides vital context when it comes to map use and planning. Our motivation here is to improve the performance of the popular Teach and Repeat paradigm [1] which has been shown to enable truly large-scale field operation. When using the taught route for localisation, it is often assumed the robot is following exactly, or is sufficiently close to, the original path, enabling successful localisation. However, what happens if it is not possible, or not desirable to exactly follow the mapped path? How far off the beaten track can the robot travel before it gets lost? We present an approach for assessing this localisation area around a taught route, which we refer to as the localisation envelope. Using a combination of physical sampling and a Gaussian Process model, we are able to accurately predict the localisation performance at unseen points.
Leadership style and culturally competent care: Nurse leaders’ views of their practice in the multicultural care settings of the United Arab Emirates

Abstract It is well recognized that nurse-leader-managers play an important role in facilitating the quality and nature of hospital care, the improvement of work performance and work satisfaction. In the United Arab Emirates they face the additional challenge of working within a context of significant linguistic and cultural diversity where leadership in the provision of culturally competent care is a major requirement. With this goal at the fore, a sample of 153 nurse- leader-managers, including matrons, nursing directors, supervisors, nurses-in-charge and in-service education staff from 4 private and 6 government hospitals completed the multifactor leadership questionnaire (Bass & Avolio, 2004). The survey also explored participants’ perceptions of the characteristics of good leaders and what they needed to do in their particular work place to enhance culturally competent care. The results showed nurse-leader-managers used both transformational and transactional leadership attributes but in different combinations across the two hospital types.