Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Language therapy of aphasia supported by augmented reality applications

In Europe there are more than 580 000 people who suffer from aphasia - an acquired speech and language disorder that occurs because of brain damage, primarily as a result of a stroke. Especially with regards to demographic change, health care systems have to face present and future challenges to improve aphasia therapy. Thereby, immediate therapeutic measures are decisive for best possible and long-term success in language therapy. Regarding essential requirements, on the one hand, therapy intensity and frequency have to be increased significantly while on the other hand, measures need to be adjusted along everyday activities. A very promising approach to meet this requirements are augmented reality applications. They can be used to create a highly natural exercise situation, in which patients interact and practice with their personal possessions at home. This facilitates the successful and continuous transfer of learnings for the patient, contrary to being solely dependent on clinical therapy units. This paper gives an overview of the concept of a real-time software providing augmented and dynamic language therapy, which is interactive and utilizes simple user interface design, for home-based training.
A characterization of finite abelian groups via sets of lengths in transfer Krull monoids

ABSTRACT Let H be a transfer Krull monoid over a finite abelian group G (for example, rings of integers, holomorphy rings in algebraic function fields, and regular congruence monoids in these domains). Then each nonunit a∈H can be written as a product of irreducible elements, say , and the number of factors k is called the length of the factorization. The set L(a) of all possible factorization lengths is the set of lengths of a. It is classical that the system ℒ(H) = {L(a)∣a∈H} of all sets of lengths depends only on the group G, and a standing conjecture states that conversely the system ℒ(H) is characteristic for the group G. Let H′ be a further transfer Krull monoid over a finite abelian group G′ and suppose that ℒ(H) = ℒ(H′). We prove that, if with r≤n−3 or (r≥n−1≥2 and n is a prime power), then G and G′ are isomorphic.
Visuospatial Dysfunction May Be a Key in the Differentiation between Alzheimer’s Disease and Subcortical Cognitive Impairment in Moderate to Severe Stages

Aims: Recent studies have suggested that subcortical cognitive impairment (SubCI) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) can be differentiated by visuospatial tasks. We addressed at what severity stage these differences become apparent and what components in visuospatial processes are subject to impairment. Methods: Sixty patients with AD, 22 with vascular cognitive impairment and 63 with extrapyramidal diseases with cognitive impairment were assessed using the revised Hasegawa Dementia Scale (HDSR), clock drawing/reading/matching tests (CDT, CRT, CMT), figure copying (FIG) and Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB). Patients were categorized according to the HDSR scores in order to control for the severity of global cognitive impairment. Raw scores were converted to Z-scores for comparisons. Results: In the mild stage, results of all measures were comparable between AD and SubCI. In the moderate-severe stage, scores of CDT, CRT, CMT, FIG and FAB were significantly lower in SubCI. The results suggest that (given that global cognition is controlled for) visuo-perception, visuo-construction and semantic-numerical analyses of visual information may be more impaired in SubCI than AD. Conclusions: AD and SubCI may be difficult to be differentiated in the mild stages, and the visuospatial cognitive system may be extensively defective in SubCI.
Biodegradable Polymer Grafts for Surgical Repair of the Injured Spinal Cord

PURPOSE Biodegradable polymers have been used in the surgical repair of peripheral nerves, but their potential for use in the central nervous system has not been exploited adequately. This article discusses concepts related to the engineering of a biodegradable polymer graft for surgical repair of the injured spinal cord and explores the potential means by which such a device might promote axon regeneration and functional recovery after spinal cord injury. CONCEPT A biodegradable polymer implant with controlled microarchitecture can be engineered, and its composition can be optimized for implantation in the spinal cord. RATIONALE The use of a biodegradable polymer implant has the dual advantages of providing a structural scaffold for axon growth and a conduit for sustained-release delivery of therapeutic agents. As a scaffold, the microarchitecture of the implant can be engineered for optimal axon growth and transplantation of permissive cell types. As a conduit for the delivery of therapeutic agents that may promote axon regeneration, the biodegradable polymer offers an elegant solution to the problems of local delivery and controlled release over time. Thus, a biodegradable polymer graft would theoretically provide an optimal structural, cellular, and molecular framework for the regrowth of axons across a spinal cord lesion and, ultimately, neurological recovery. CONCLUSION Biodegradable polymer grafts may have significant therapeutic potential in the surgical repair of the injured spinal cord. Further research should be focused on the bioengineering, characterization, and experimental application of these devices.
Introduction: Rewiring the "Nation": The Place of Technology in American Studies

This special issue of American Quarterly asks powerful and poignant questions about technology and its effects on our bodies, minds, families, economies, armies, and academies. Technology is an entry point for American studies scholars to find new and creative ways to think through social and cultural problems. The essays in this collection provide an interdisciplinary exploration of the ways scholars of culture use the study of technology to examine the flows, conflicts, tensions, and hazards of American culture. Re-reading the narrative of U.S. technology, the contributors move beyond celebrations of exceptional tinkerers and a deterministic machine-driven sense of progress and form a more comprehensive understanding of opportunities and responsibilities that befall a nation that interweaves its identities, labors, and creative cultures with its machines. Discussing technologies of transcendence; the cultural work of technological systems; technology and knowledge systems; and technology, mobility, and the body; they consider the place of American technologies in an increasingly globalized, multi-polar, high-tech world and illuminate the relationship between technological positivism and the dynamics of imperialism and war.
Elastase secretion by peritoneal exudative and alveolar macrophages

Mouse alveolar macrophages (AM) cultured in the absence of serum secrete an elastolytic enzyme. The elastase from AM resembles the previously described elastase from peritoneal macrophages (PM) in pH optimum and inhibition profile. The macrophage enzymes do not appear to be stored, and with periodic changes in the culture medium, accumulate extracellularly for up to 10 days. Resident PM produce barely detectable levels of extracellular elastase unless given a phagocytic load. Thioglycollate-stimulated peritoneal exudative macrophages (PEM), however, secret easily detectable levels of elastase, which can be further increased with a phagocytic load. Without any additional stimulation, AM secret an elastolytic activity comparable to that of the PEM receiving a phagocytic load, but unlike PM they do not increase elastase secretion after phagocytosis.
Disability Politics: Understanding Our Past, Changing Our Future

Foreward by Dr. Colin Barnes, Introduction, Chapter 1. Setting the Scene, Chapter 2. Politics, Policy and Disability, Chapter 3. Disability Organisations and the Political Process, Chapter 4. The Rise of the Disability Movement, Chapter 5. Organising Disabled People, Chapter 6. Disability Conscious, Chapter 7. Making Connections Through Rights and Empowerment, Chapter 8. New Visions or the Existing Order, Chapter 9. The Disability Movement - is it a New Social Movement? , Chapter 10. Interviews with Mike Oliver and Jane Campbell
Adjusted Spaced Retrieval Training

Abstract Long-term memory in people with memory impairment is facilitated when correct recall is followed by longer delays than incorrect recall (adjusted spaced retrieval training). Participants with Alzheimer's disease or alcohol-induced memory impairment practiced free recall of one pill name with adjusted spaced retrieval training and one with uniform short delays between practice trials (uniform retrieval training). No participant learned with uniform retrieval training. Most learned with adjusted spaced retrieval training despite leading to more errors during training than uniform retrieval training. This is the first demonstration that adjusted spaced retrieval training is effective for people with alcohol-induced memory impairment. In addition, the findings question the hypothesis that adjusted spaced retrieval training is effective because it limits errors during training.
CPGL: A classification method combining PCA and the Group Lasso method

Sparse representation based optimization has emerged as a new paradigm for solving classification problems and has achieved satisfactory performances. Recent research, however, has revealed its noteworthy limitation in handling samples with high intra-class pair-wise correlations. In this paper, we study this problem from a novel perspective of de-correlating the input data. A new method is proposed by combining Principle Component Analysis (PCA) and the Group Lasso method. The highly correlated training samples are first orthogonalized using PCA, and then the Group Lasso algorithm is adopted for performing the classification. Experimental results show that our proposed method over-performs the Group Lasso method in the face recognition application on two public databases.
Automated OWL Annotation Assisted by a Large Knowledge Base

Widespread adoption of the semantic web depends critically on lowering the “barriers to entry” facing document producers. We describe a system that applies automatic partial parsing of web pages into the representations of the large ResearchCyc ontology, combines this with convenient mixed initiative knowledge capture, and produces an OWL annotated document as output. Semantic web publishers can then use this document as a starting point for more elaborate, manual annotation.
Long-term outcome and sex distribution across ages of left ventricular apical ballooning syndrome

Objective Apical ballooning syndrome is a rare clinical entity that predominantly involves elderly women and is considered to be benign. We report our experience regarding this syndrome in terms of sex distribution and long-term outcome. Methods Between 1999 and 2006, we identified 28 consecutive patients affected by the apical ballooning syndrome. Inclusion criteria were an onset of mimicking acute myocardial infarction, transient akinesia/dyskinesia of the mid-apical left ventricular segments and no significant obstructive coronary artery disease. Patients with a recent brain disease, pheocromocytoma, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and suspected myocarditis were excluded. Sex distribution was assessed across different ages according to quartiles: less than 61 years of age (group 1), 61–71 years (group 2), 72–77 years (group 3) and more than 77 years (group 4). In-hospital and follow-up events were observed. Results The apical ballooning syndrome represented 1.69% of ST-segment elevation acute coronary syndromes. There were more women than men in groups 2 (85.7 vs. 14.3%), 3 (85.7 vs. 14.3%) and 4 (100 vs. 0%), but there were fewer women than men in group 1 (42.9 vs. 57.1%), with an overall supremacy of women (78.6 vs. 21.4%) (P = 0.02). In-hospital events were one (3.6%) cardiac death and five (17.9%) nonfatal events. At the median follow-up of 24 months, one patient was lost and two (7.7%) died of cardiac causes, thus, the total cardiac mortality was 10.7% (3/28 patients); no recurrence occurred and left ventricular ejection fraction increased from 40.4 to 58.6% (P < 0.01). Conclusion In our population, left ventricular apical ballooning syndrome included several typical features. However, a peculiar sex tendency across various age groups was observed and, although older women predominated, men seemed to be more affected than women at a younger age. The long-term prognosis seems to be favourable.
Immunogenetic influence of Igh-1 phenotype on experimental herpes simplex virus type-1 corneal infection.

Patterns of herpes simplex virus type-1 (HSV-1) infection were studied in BALB/c congenic, Igh-1 disparate murine strains to establish the influence of Igh-1 phenotype on the development of keratopathy, trigeminal ganglionic latency and keratocyte permissivity. Eighty-two percent of C.AL-20 (Igh-1d) mice, 40% of BALB/cByJ (Igh-1a) mice and 12% of the C.B-17 (Igh-1b) mice developed herpes simplex keratitis (HSK) following corneal challenge with 2.5 X 10(4) PFU HSV-1 strain KOS. While disease frequency was directly proportional to HSV-1 challenge dose, relative resistance and susceptibility patterns in the congenic mice were constant and highly significant. F1 progeny from C.AL-20 X C.B-17 matings demonstrated the HSK pattern of the C.B-17 parent suggesting that Igh-1 linked resistance to HSK is dominantly inherited. Equivalent trigeminal ganglionic latency was established following ocular HSV-1 inoculation in the three congenic Igh-1 disparate murine strains. Cultured keratocytes from the three Igh-1 disparate murine strains demonstrated equivalent in vitro permissivity to HSV-1 replication. These data illustrate a strong correlation between Igh-1 phenotype and the development of a HSK in congenic mice. The susceptibility/resistance to HSK in these mice is unrelated to trigeminal ganglionic latency or keratocyte permissivity.
Mechanical thrombectomy with Solitaire AB stents for the treatment of intracranial venous sinus thrombosis

Background Cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST) is a rare clinicopathological entity with substantial diagnostic and therapeutic dilemmas. The appropriate management of CVST remains to be defined. Purpose To evaluate the efficiency and safety of mechanical thrombectomy with Solitaire AB stents for the treatment of intracranial venous sinus thrombosis. Material and Methods Twenty-three consecutive patients with CVST who were treated with mechanical thrombectomy using Solitaire AB stents between January 2013 and October 2014 were retrospectively analyzed. The headache intensity was evaluated according to the visual analogue scale (VAS), and neurological function was assessed using the National Institute of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS). Follow-up data were available for all patients for 6–14 months. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and magnetic resonance venography (MRV) were performed at 3 and 6 months after neurointervention, and telephone interviews were performed monthly thereafter. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to compare the evaluation data (VAS and NIHSS) at admission and discharge. Results Twenty-six Solitaire AB stents were used. No neurointervention-related complications were noted. The symptoms were significantly improved after neurointervention in all patients. The comparisons between the VAS and NIHSS evaluations at admission and discharge were significantly different (P < 0.05). No recurrence was observed during the follow-up period. Conclusion Mechanical thrombectomy with Solitaire AB stents is safe and effective for the treatment of CVST and can significantly improve clinical symptoms. The occurrence of complications is low, and the prognosis is favorable.
A Study on the Generalization Capability of Acoustic Models for Robust Speech Recognition

In this paper, we explore the generalization capability of acoustic model for improving speech recognition robustness against noise distortions. While generalization in statistical learning theory originally refers to the model's ability to generalize well on unseen testing data drawn from the same distribution as that of the training data, we show that good generalization capability is also desirable for mismatched cases. One way to obtain such general models is to use margin-based model training method, e.g., soft-margin estimation (SME), to enable some tolerance to acoustic mismatches without a detailed knowledge about the distortion mechanisms through enhancing margins between competing models. Experimental results on the Aurora-2 and Aurora-3 connected digit string recognition tasks demonstrate that, by improving the model's generalization capability through SME training, speech recognition performance can be significantly improved in both matched and low to medium mismatched testing cases with no language model constraints. Recognition results show that SME indeed performs better with than without mean and variance normalization, and therefore provides a complimentary benefit to conventional feature normalization techniques such that they can be combined to further improve the system performance. Although this study is focused on noisy speech recognition, we believe the proposed margin-based learning framework can be extended to dealing with different types of distortions and robustness issues in other machine learning applications.
Reconfigurable UWB filtennas with sharp WLAN dual bandnotch

This paper presents the design and results of a reconfigurable ultra-wideband (UWB) 3.1-10.6 GHz filtenna with sharp dual bandnotch for WLAN 5.25 GHz and 5.8 GHz bands. A design for a bandstop filter is first proposed. Reconfigurability of the filter is achieved by the implementation of Graphene based switches and PIN diodes within the proposed filter. The filter was simulated, fabricated and measured for switch OFF and ON states. The simulated and measurement results are in good agreement with each other. The results for a switch OFF case show no bandnotch in the passband of the filter. While for a switch ON case, dual bandnotch have been obtained at a measured insertion loss rejection of 30 dB. The filter is then integrated with an UWB antenna. The resulting filtenna is simulated, fabricated and measured. Obtained simulation and measurements results of both switches in OFF and ON states have been presented to validate the accuracy of the proposed structures. On comparison, the obtained results of PIN diodes match those of the Graphene based switches. The results of the filtenna with both switches in OFF state show an entire bandpass response from 3.1-10.9 GHz with no bandnotch present. In ON state, the results show that sharp rejections at 5.3 GHz and 5.8 GHz are achieved at a measured return loss of 2.5 dB.
GPs role identifying young people who self-harm: a mixed methods study

Background: Self-harm is common among young people and is evident in increasingly younger age groups. Many young people who self-harm do visit their GP but do not access specialist support. GP’s can find it challenging to raise and discuss this sensitive subject with young people during short consultations. Objective: To explore GP’s capabilities, motivations and opportunities for discussing self-harm and to identify barriers to and enablers for proactively discussing self-harm with young people. Design and setting: An exploratory, mixed methods study was designed comprising an online survey and a qualitative interview study with GPs in the South West of England. Methods: An online survey was completed by 28 GPs. Ten GPs took part by telephone, in semi-structured interviews. Quantitative data was analysed using descriptive statistical techniques and thematic analysis was used to analyse the qualitative data. Findings from the quantitative and qualitative analysis are synthesized to illustrate GPs’ skills, knowledge and perceptions about young people who self-harm. Results: Experienced GPs may underestimate the prevalence of self-harm in young people, particularly in the 11–14 age range. While consultations with young people and their carers can be challenging, GPs acknowledge that it is their role to provide support for young people who self-harm. GPs would welcome training for themselves and other practice staff in talking to young people and practical information about self-harm. Conclusion: All primary care staff who provide frontline support to young people should receive education and practical training in talking about self-harm.
Análise do desempenho de crianças em risco ambiental na WPPSI-R ( Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence- Revised)

Regista-se, actualmente, um interesse crescente em relacao ao risco ambiental, isto e, em relacao a criancas em cuja historia pessoal e familiar se encontram ambientes familiares alteradas ou problemas saciais graves. Neste ambito, no presente trabaiho procede-se a caracterizagaa do desempenho na WPPSI-R de um grupo de criancas de idade pre-escolar em risco ambiental tomando cama camparacao um grupo de criancas provenientes de familias com estatuto sacio-economica identico. Analisam-se, ainda, as implicacoes decorrentes dos resultados obtidos ao nivel dos processos de despistagem au identificacao precoce.
Cognition and Culture in ICT Experience

Chinese and western have two totally different systems of thought, holistic and analytic, respectively. Rooted in national culture, system of thought forms different cognitive processes toward the performance of using the technology. In this study, we empirically investigate the cognitive pathways underneath the proposed acceptance model in the two cultures. The findings suggest that culturally patterned cognitive processes make people in China and Canada have two contrast preferences on the causal relationships in the model to decide use of information communication technologies.
Testing the status-legitimacy hypothesis: A multilevel modeling approach to the perception of legitimacy in income distribution in 36 nations

ABSTRACT The status-legitimacy hypothesis was tested by analyzing cross-national data about social inequality. Several indicators were used as indexes of social advantage: social class, personal income, and self-position in the social hierarchy. Moreover, inequality and freedom in nations, as indexed by Gini and by the human freedom index, were considered. Results from 36 nations worldwide showed no support for the status-legitimacy hypothesis. The perception that income distribution was fair tended to increase as social advantage increased. Moreover, national context increased the difference between advantaged and disadvantaged people in the perception of social fairness: Contrary to the status-legitimacy hypothesis, disadvantaged people were more likely than advantaged people to perceive income distribution as too large, and this difference increased in nations with greater freedom and equality. The implications for the status-legitimacy hypothesis are discussed.
Becoming an Ally: Breaking the Cycle of Oppression in People

* 1. Why Write a Book about Becoming an Ally? * 2. Step 1: Understanding Oppression - How did it come about? * 3. Step 1: Understanding Oppression - How is it held in Place? * 4. Step 1: Understanding Oppression - The Personal is Political * 5. Step 2: Understanding Different Oppressions * 6. Step 3: Consciousness and Healing 7. Step 4: Becoming a Worker in Your Own Liberation * 8. Step 5: Becoming an Ally * 9. Notes on Educating Allies * 10. Step 6: Maintaining Hope * Glossary
Sex, Money and Power: The Transformation of Collective Life

Acknowledgements. Introduction. Chapter One: Inside the Web. Chapter Two: Intimate Connections. Chapter Three: Sex and Self--Improvement. Chapter Four: The Nature of Change. Chapter Five: One the Move: Mobility as the Basis for Freedom. Chapter Six: Keep Out: Organizations, Boundaries and Exclusions. Chapter Seven: Organizations and Power. Chapter Eight: Power and World Poverty. Chapter Nine: Power, Passion and Loyalty. Chapter Ten: Connections and Conclusions. Notes. Index.