Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Automatic Identification and Removal of Ocular Artifacts in EEG—Improved Adaptive Predictor Filtering for Portable Applications

Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals have a long history of use as a noninvasive approach to measure brain function. An essential component in EEG-based applications is the removal of Ocular Artifacts (OA) from the EEG signals. In this paper we propose a hybrid de-noising method combining Discrete Wavelet Transformation (DWT) and an Adaptive Predictor Filter (APF). A particularly novel feature of the proposed method is the use of the APF based on an adaptive autoregressive model for prediction of the waveform of signals in the ocular artifact zones. In our test, based on simulated data, the accuracy of noise removal in the proposed model was significantly increased when compared to existing methods including: Wavelet Packet Transform (WPT) and Independent Component Analysis (ICA), Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) and Adaptive Noise Cancellation (ANC). The results demonstrate that the proposed method achieved a lower mean square error and higher correlation between the original and corrected EEG. The proposed method has also been evaluated using data from calibration trials for the Online Predictive Tools for Intervention in Mental Illness (OPTIMI) project. The results of this evaluation indicate an improvement in performance in terms of the recovery of true EEG signals with EEG tracking and computational speed in the analysis. The proposed method is well suited to applications in portable environments where the constraints with respect to acceptable wearable sensor attachments usually dictate single channel devices.
novel cross-frequency coupling detection method using the eneralized Morse wavelets

Program in Neuroscience, 1101 E. 10th St., Bloomington, IN 47405, United States Cognitive Science Program, 1900 E. 10th St., Bloomington, IN 47405, United States Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics, 1156 High St., Santa Cruz, CA 95064, United States Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, 1101 E. 10th St., Bloomington, IN 47405, United States Department of Physics, 727 E. 3rd St., Bloomington, IN 47405, United States Indiana University, Bloomington, United States University of California, Santa Cruz, United States
A mathematical model of chemoreception for odours and taste.

We propose a mathematical model based on the occupation theory and on the hypothesis that, for a given stimulus, there exist two kinds of receptors. The receptors of the first kind react by a two-step process, first forming an intermediate inactive compound which is then changed into an active depolarizing form (this scheme was already used by Del Castillo & Katz, 1957). In the same way, the receptors of the second kind react by a two-step process, first forming an intermediate inactive compound which is then changed into an active hyperpolarizing form. The response is assumed to be proportional to the difference between the fraction of the active depolarizing compound and that of the active hyperpolarizing compound. The present paper deals only with the time course of the intensity of the response: in the first part, when a continuous flow of stimulus is applied and in the second part, when this continuous flow is removed. It does not deal with the quality and the discrimination of odours. The proposed mathematical model accounts for the depolarizing responses (which are the most frequent ones), the hyperpolarizing responses, the mixed responses reported by Patte et al. (1989), the off-responses reported by Takagi & Shibuya (1959) and for their variability, and the latent period in the olfactory response (Ottoson, 1974).
Ideology and identity debate of English in China: past, present and future

Abstract The sociocultural and sociopolitical aspects of English language teaching (ELT) have become fundamental because language does not exist in a vacuum, especially when English is used today as a global language. This needs an understanding of English in relation to ideology and identity debate in different contexts. From the paradigm of global Englishes, this paper first presents the history of English in China and addresses the China English debate. The paper then moves to the ideology and identity debate of the English language on the Chinese language and culture and English as a medium of instruction as an example of language policy. From students’ interview data, this paper argues for the importance of viewing ELT from the multilingual perspective. It concludes that ELT should be equipped with a critical understanding of English as a global language and reconsidering the negotiation of local languages and English from a sociocultural and sociopolitical perspective.
Design, Construction, and Characterization of a Dual-Promoter Multigenic DNA Vaccine Directed Against an HIV-1 Subtype C/B′ Recombinant

An effective vaccine against HIV-1 is generally considered the best hope for controlling the raging AIDS pandemic. As a part of our AIDS vaccine development effort, we constructed a dual-promoter plasmid capable of high-level expression of 2 independent transgenes. HIV-1 gag, pol, env, nef, and tat from a primary subtype C/B′ CCR5-tropic HIV-1 were “codon” optimized, modified to eliminate known functional activity, and assembled using an overlapping polymerase chain reaction into 2 plasmids: ADVAX-I (containing env and gag) and ADVAX-II (containing pol and nef-tat). These 2 dual-promoter candidate vaccines showed levels of HIV-1 gene expression comparable to those observed with single-gene plasmids in vitro. Importantly, immunization of mice with these vaccine constructs resulted in dose-dependent multigenic CD4 and CD8 T-cell responses equivalent to those provided by vaccination with single-gene plasmids. With input from the US Food and Drug Administration, ADVAX-I and ADVAX-II have since been combined as a single candidate DNA vaccine, ADVAX. A phase 1 clinical trial of this product has been successfully completed, and its use in prime-boost studies is now underway.
Short- and long-term antihypertensive effect of egg protein-derived peptide QIGLF.

BACKGROUND The present study aimed to investigate the in vivo antihypertensive effect on spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRs) induced by egg protein-derived peptide QIGLF, which has been previously characterized in vitro as a potent angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor. RESULTS In vivo antihypertensive effect of QIGLF orally administered was evaluated by the tail-cuff method. The systolic blood pressure and the diastolic blood pressure of rats were measured 0, 5, 10, 15 and 20 h after administration every day. Subsequently, the effect of QIGLF on angiotensin-converting enzyme mRNA expression in the kidney of SHRs was evaluated by a polymerase chain reaction. Systolic blood pressure was found to be reduced markedly in the SHRs after a single oral administration. CONCLUSION The results show that the effect of QIGLF (50 mg kg-1 body weight) was similar to that of captopril (10 mg kg-1 body weight) with respect to lowering systolic blood pressure in SHRs. Therefore, egg white protein-derived peptide QIGLF may be useful in the prevention or treatment of hypertension. © 2016 Society of Chemical Industry.
Billing for physician services: a comparison of actual billing with CPT codes assigned by direct observation.

BACKGROUND Little is known about the accuracy of family physicians' use of the Current procedural Terminology (CPT) coding scheme for office visits, despite increased administrative oversight of Medicare billing practices. In addition, the patient and visit characteristics that are associated with over- and undercoding are not well understood. METHODS This study compared coding for evaluation and management (E&M) services billed for 3791 visits to 138 family physicians with the codes assigned by trained research nurses using direct observation. We calculated the degree to which the codes for E&M were concordant with the observer-assigned codes. Analysis of variance and logistic regression were used to examine the association of visit and patient characteristics with discordance between billed and observer-assigned CPT codes. RESULTS Billing codes were concordant for 55% of encounters. Discordance was evenly distributed between under- and overcoding. Concordance of billed and observed codes was greatest for patients with indemnity insurance. Undercoding increased with longer visit length and a smaller percentage of the visit spent planning treatment. Overcoding was more common during visits with a greater percentage of time spent chatting, planning treatment, and delivering preventive services. CONCLUSIONS Family physicians are generally accurate in their billing procedures. The findings on patient and visit characteristics associated with over- or undercoding may be used by practicing clinicians to enhance the accuracy of their coding and billing procedures.
A Blinded, Randomized Comparison of a Novel, Low-Dose, Triple Regimen with Fleet Phospho-Soda: A Study of Colon Cleanliness, Speed and Success of Colonoscopy

BACKGROUND AND STUDY AIMS A clean colon is essential for an efficient examination. The aim of this study was to compare a novel low-dose, low volume triple regimen with Fleet Phospho-soda. METHODS A blinded, experienced colonoscopist examined 132 consecutive patients randomly allocated to receive either a triple regimen consisting of senna syrup (sennoside B), Picolax (sodium picosulphate), and Klean Prep (polyethylene glycol 3350), or Fleet Phospho-soda (sodium dihydrogen phosphate and disodium phosphate dodecahydrate). The colonoscopist recorded cleanliness according to a scoring system (1-very clean to 4-solid stools), and time taken to reach the caecum. RESULTS In the triple regimen group (n = 81), 73% scored 1 or 2 compared with 57% in the Fleet Phospho-soda group (n = 51, p = 0.037 Mann-Whitney U-test). Examination to caecum was achieved in 95% of the triple regimen group and 89% of the Fleet Phospho-soda group. Among those examined as far as the caecum, the time to reach the caecum was 11 minutes (range 5-50) in the triple regimen group compared with 16 minutes (range 5-65) in the Fleet Phospho-soda group (p = 0.08, Mann-Whitney U-test). Patient tolerability was not assessed in this study. CONCLUSIONS This novel triple regimen produces a cleaner colon than Fleet Phospho-soda, is associated with a trend towards a quicker and more efficient colonic examination, and is also 30% cheaper per patient.
Frailty and Postkidney Transplant Health-Related Quality of Life

Background Health-related quality of life (HRQOL) reflects a patient’s disease burden, treatment effectiveness, and health status and is summarized by physical, mental, and kidney disease-specific scales among end-stage renal disease patients. Although on average HRQOL improves postkidney transplant (KT), the degree of change depends on the ability of the patient to withstand the stressor of dialysis versus the ability to tolerate the intense physiologic changes of KT. Frail KT recipients may be extra vulnerable to either of these stressors, thus affecting change in HRQOL after KT. Methods We ascertained frailty, as well as physical, mental, and kidney disease-specific HRQOL in a multicenter prospective cohort of 443 KT recipients (May 2014 to May 2017) using Kidney Disease Quality of Life Instrument Short Form. We quantified the short-term (3 months) rate of post-KT HRQOL change by frailty status using adjusted mixed-effects linear regression models. Results Mean HRQOL scores at KT were 43.3 (SD, 9.6) for physical, 52.8 (SD, 8.9) for mental, and 72.6 (SD, 12.8) for kidney disease-specific HRQOL; frail recipients had worse physical (P < 0.001) and kidney disease-specific HRQOL (P = 0.001), but similar mental HRQOL (P = 0.43). Frail recipients experienced significantly greater rates of improvement in physical HRQOL (frail, 1.35 points/month; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.65-2.05; nonfrail, 0.34 points/month; 95% CI, −0.17-0.85; P = 0.02) and kidney disease-specific HRQOL (frail, 3.75 points/month; 95% CI, 2.89-4.60; nonfrail, 2.41 points/month; 95% CI, 1.78-3.04; P = 0.01), but no difference in mental HRQOL (frail, 0.54 points/month; 95% CI, −0.17-1.25; nonfrail, 0.46 points/month; 95% CI, −0.06-0.98; P = 0.85) post-KT. Conclusions Despite decreased physiologic reserve, frail recipients experience improvement in post-KT physical and kidney disease-specific HRQOL better than nonfrail recipients.
Exception beyond Exception: Crashing Android System by Trapping in "Uncaught Exception"

Android is characterized as a complicated open source software stack created for a wide array of devices with different form of factors, whose latest release has over one hundred million lines of code. Such code is mainly developed with the Java language, which builds complicated logic and brings implicit information flows among components and the inner framework. By studying the source code of system service interfaces, we discovered an unknown type of code flaw, which is named uncaughtException flaw, caused by un-well implemented exceptions that could crash the system and be further vulnerable to system level Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks. We found that exceptions are used to handle the errors and other exceptional events but sometimes they would kill some critical system services exceptionally. We designed and implemented ExHunter, a new tool for automatic detection of this uncaughtException flaw by dynamically reflecting service interfaces, continuously fuzzing parameters and verifying the running logs. On 11 new popular Android devices, ExHunter extracted 1045 system services, reflected 758 suspicious functions, discovered 132 uncaughtException flaws which are 0-day vulnerabilities that have never been known before and generated 275 system DoS attack exploitations. The results showed that: (1) almost every type of Android phone suffers from this flaw, (2) the flaws are different from phone by phone, and (3) all the vulnerabilities can be exploited by direct/indirect trapping. To mitigate uncaughtException flaws, we further developed ExCatcher to re-catch the exceptions. Finally, we informed four internationally renowned manufacturers and provided secure improvements in their commercial phones.
Phylogenetic divergence, morphological and physiological differences distinguish a new Neotyphodium endophyte species in the grass Bromus auleticus from South America

The fungi of genus Neotyphodium are systemic, constitutive, symbionts of grasses of subfamily Pooideae. In the southern hemisphere most of these asexual endophytes are the result of the hybridization between two sexual species, Epichloë festucae and E. typhina, from the northern hemisphere. However the ancestral sexual species have not been detected in this region. Several grasses from Argentina are infected by Neotyphodium species. These endophytes are in general very similar macro-and micromorphologically and phylogenetically conform to species N. tembladerae. However the Neotyphodium spp. endophytes of some hosts, Bromus auleticus and Poa spicifomis var. spiciformis, have not been included in this species. In this work we studied the incidence and characterized the diversity of Neotyphodium species in populations of the native grass Bromus auleticus from Argentina. The incidence of endophytes was 100% in all populations investigated. Two groups of endophytes were differentiated by their morphologies, growth rates, conidial ontogenies and by relative resistance to the fungicide benomyl. Phylogenetic trees inferred from tefA and tubB intron sequences indicated that both N. tembladerae and the novel morphotype were hybrids of E. festucae and E. typhina, but the ancestral E. typhina genotype distinguished them. Isolates from plants that inhabit coastal dunes, xerophytic forests, savannahs and hills were similar morphologically and phylogenetically to N. tembladerae, whereas the endophytes from the humid pampa plains conformed to the novel group. We propose the endophyte of Bromus auleticus from humid pampas as a new species, Neotyphodium pampeanum.
Discrete–element method simulations: from micro to macro scales

Many liquid systems encountered in environmental science are often complex mixtures of many components which place severe demands on traditional computational modelling techniques. A meso scale description is required to account adequately for their flow behaviour on the meso and macro scales. Traditional techniques of computational fluid dynamics and molecular simulation are not well suited to tackling these systems, and researchers are increasingly turning to a range of relatively new computational techniques that offer the prospect of addressing the factors relevant to multicomponent multiphase liquids on length– and time–scales between the molecular level and the macro scale. In this category, we discuss the off–lattice techniques of ‘smooth particle hydrodynamics’ (SPH) and ‘dissipative particle dynamics’ (DPD), and the grid–based techniques of ‘lattice gas’ and ‘lattice Boltzmann’ (LB). We highlight the main conceptual and technical features underpinning these methods, their strengths and weaknesses, and provide a few examples of the applications of these techniques that illustrate their utility.
The practical use of goal attainment scaling for people with acquired brain injury who receive cognitive rehabilitation

Objective: To examine the feasibility of and clinical experiences with goal attainment scaling when used for the evaluation of cognitive rehabilitation in people with acquired brain injury. Design: A prospective observational longitudinal study. Setting: A 21-week cognitive rehabilitation programme and a cognitive programme with varying length in two different Dutch rehabilitation centres. Subjects: Forty-eight consecutive patients with acquired brain injury enrolled during a 15-month period. Interventions: Cognitive rehabilitation programme. Main measure: Goal attainment scaling; the number of goals was counted; time to set goals was recorded; the number of different domains in which goals were set was counted; goal attainment scaling score was calculated at baseline, one week after the end of the cognitive rehabilitation programme and at six months follow-up; clinical experiences that could be useful for both clinical and research practice were recorded. Results: The mean (SD) age of the patients was 46.1 (10.7) years; 29 (60%) were male; 186 goals were set with a mean (SD) number of 4 (1) goals per patient. It was possible to set at least three realistic goals per patient within 30 minutes. Most goals were set in the cognitive domain (i.e. memory and attention), followed by the behavioural domain (i.e. fatigue and aggression). Conclusion: It proved possible to set three goals within an acceptable time-frame, to involve patients in the goal-setting procedure, to set realistic goals, and to set goals within relevant domains. Based on clinical experiences, goal attainment scaling is less feasible for research when patients lack insight, or suffer from comorbidity or mood problems.
The Oxford Handbook of European Legal History

The Oxford Handbook of European Legal History charts the landscape of contemporary research and the shift from national legal histories to comparative methods, which have profoundly affected the way we understand legal transformation at the local, national, regional, European, and global level. The Handbook shows legal change in terms of continuous flow and exchange of influences, which take place within complicated combinations of cultural, political, and social networks. The present Handbook captures this revised conception of European legal history; it not only merely reflects the state of the discipline, but also aims to shape it. As the chapters of this Handbook show, ancient Roman law owed much to the Near Eastern legal orders. Later on, from the fifteenth century onwards, the major European legal orders gradually spread to all continents. Indeed, most of the globalization of law has taken place by way of European legal systems turning global.
Power Politics or Public Pandering? An Empirical Investigation of Economic Sanctions and Presidential Approval

ABSTRACT How do economic sanctions affect presidential approval? Competing claims have been made about the domestic political consequences of economic sanctions. One claim is that sanctions are unpopular because they have negative economic consequences; another claim is that sanctions are popular because they project an image of strength; and another claim is that sanctions are neither popular nor unpopular because the public is uninformed about international affairs. These arguments imply competing identification restrictions. I test these competing models using a Bayesian Structural Vector Autoregression (B-SVAR) model. The results show that sanctions have a moderate negative effect on presidential approval. I use these findings as a basis for a broader set of auxiliary analyses. Despite received wisdom, sanctions imposed for different reasons against different target states do not produce disparate effects on public opinion. These analyses resolve an important empirical dilemma that weighs on a range of theoretical perspectives in the sanctions literature and highlights fruitful avenues for future research.
Second-Order Statistics-Based Blind Synchronization Algorithm for Two Receive-Antenna Orthogonal STBC Systems

Blind estimation algorithms offer possibilities for improving the throughput of communications systems by reducing the overhead that would otherwise be required for the estimation of parameters needed for operations such as block timing and carrier frequency synchronization. Additionally, they are required by emerging cognitive radios to provide spectrum awareness functionality. When compared with the existing literature, in this letter we propose a blind block timing and carrier frequency synchronization algorithm applicable to orthogonal space-time block code systems. By exploiting the space-time redundancy of the received signal when two receive antennas are employed, this algorithm estimates the synchronization parameters using second-order statistics without requiring a priori knowledge of the channel coefficients or signal-to-noise ratio. Furthermore, it does not depend on accurate clock timing synchronization, which is confirmed by simulation experiments.
calderón encodes an organic cation transporter of the major facilitator superfamily required for cell growth and proliferation of Drosophila tissues

The adaptation of growth in response to dietary changes is essential for the normal development of all organisms. The insulin receptor (InR) signalling pathway controls growth and metabolism in response to nutrient availability. The elements of this pathway have been described, although little is known about the downstream elements regulated by this cascade. We identified calderón, a gene that encodes a protein with highest homology with organic cation transporters of the major facilitator superfamily, as a new transcriptional target of the InR pathway. These transporters are believed to function mainly in the uptake of sugars, as well as other organic metabolites. Genetic experiments demonstrate that calderón is required cell autonomously and downstream of the InR pathway for normal growth and proliferation of larval tissues. Our results indicate that growth of imaginal cells may be modulated by two distinct, but coordinated, nutrient-sensing mechanisms: one cell-autonomous and the other humoral.