Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Xplor Everywhere — The competitive intelligence system for mobile

Competitive intelligence (CI) is the set of coordinated researches, treatments and distribution of useful information to stakeholder to-wards action and decision making. In order to enable users to search, monitor, validate and rebroadcast strategic information, we provide our new tools (Xplor EveryWhere), which can be helpful for them in their executive travels. In this paper, we focus on the architecture, multilayer model and service of the CI system — XEW to describe our approach to treat different data-sources (Patents, Paper, etc.). Based on, coupling of environmental scanning and knowledge discovery in text.
Structural ignorance of Christian privilege

Abstract Despite claims of a so-called war on Christmas, Christmas in the United States is still celebrated widely in public spaces. The question is why some people ignore, what some scholars call, their Christian privilege? In this paper, we explore the ignoring of Christian privilege in one public space: USA elementary schools. Using 27 interviews, we show that most of the teachers/administrators adopted what we are calling Christian ignorance –– a structural ignorance rooted in normative cognitive schemas that creates and maintains Christian privilege.
Relaxing and virializing a dark matter halo

Navarro, Frenk & White have suggested that the density profiles of simulated dark matter haloes have a `universal' shape, so that a given halo can be characterized by a single free parameter which fixes its mass. In this paper we revisit the spherical infall model in the hope of recognizing in detail the existence and origin of any such universality. A system of particles is followed from linear perturbation, through first shell crossing, then through an accretion or infall phase, and finally to virialization. During the accretion phase, the system relaxes through a combination of phase mixing, phase-space instability, and moderate violent relaxation. It is driven quickly, by the flow of mass through its surface, toward self-similar evolution. The self-similar solution plays its usual role of intermediate attractor, and can be recognized from a virial-type theorem in scaled variables and from our numerical simulations. The transition to final equilibrium state once infall has ceased is relatively gentle, an observation which leads to an approximate form for the distribution function of the final object. The infall phase fixes the density profile in intermediate regions of the halo to be close to r-2. We make contact with the standard hierarchical clustering scenario and explain how modifications of the self-similar infall model might lead to density profiles in agreement with those found in cosmological simulations.
Sci-Thur AM: YIS - 11: Estimation of Bladder-Wall Cumulative Dose in Multi-Fraction Image-Based Gynaecological Brachytherapy Using Deformable Point Set Registration

Dosimetric parameters based on dose-volume histograms (DVH) of contoured structures are routinely used to evaluate dose delivered to target structures and organs at risk. However, the DVH provides no information on the spatial distribution of the dose in situations of repeated fractions with changes in organ shape or size. The aim of this research was to develop methods to more accurately determine geometrically localized, cumulative dose to the bladder wall in intracavitary brachytherapy for cervical cancer. The CT scans and treatment plans of 20 cervical cancer patients were used. Each patient was treated with five high-dose-rate (HDR) brachytherapy fractions of 600cGy prescribed dose. The bladder inner and outer surfaces were delineated using MIM Maestro software (MIM Software Inc.) and were imported into MATLAB (MathWorks) as 3-dimensional point clouds constituting the “bladder wall”. A point-set registration toolbox for MATLAB, Coherent Point Drift (CPD), was used to non-rigidly transform the bladder-wall points from four of the fractions to the coordinate system of the remaining (reference) fraction, which was chosen to be the emptiest bladder for each patient. The doses were accumulated on the reference fraction and new cumulative dosimetric parameters were calculated. The LENT-SOMA toxicity scores of these patients were studied against the cumulative dose parameters. Based on this study, there was no significant correlation between the toxicity scores and the determined cumulative dose parameters.
Efficient force exertion for aerial robotic manipulation: Exploiting the thrust-vectoring authority of a tri-tiltrotor UAV

The issue of efficient large force and moment exertion with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is the subject of this paper. Inspiration is drawn from the vision of UAVs that are capable of autonomously executing industrial activities, or effectively reconfiguring their environment via forceful interaction. Therein, the technical shortcomings of the potential utilization of conventional underactuated UAV platform designs are examined, in terms of operational effectiveness-versus-safety. The innovative implementation of the direct thrust-vectoring authority of tiltrotor UAV types for forceful interaction is proposed, and its associated technical contributions are analyzed. A methodology is developed for controlled forward thrust force and rotating moment exertion, while ensuring safe operation near the hovering attitude pose. A large force-requiring scenario is assembled, consisting of a realistically-sized object laid on solid ground, regarded as a path-hindering obstacle to be forcefully removed by the UAV via pushing manipulation. To this purpose, a high-end autonomous tiltrotor UAV is employed in order to achieve this environment modification task, relying on a properly synthesized control structure.
GPS Multipath Mitigation for Urban Area Using Omnidirectional Infrared Camera

This paper describes a precision positioning technique that can be applied to vehicles in urban areas. The proposed technique mitigates Global Positioning System (GPS) multipath by means of an omnidirectional infrared (IR) camera that can eliminate the need for invisible satellites [a satellite detected by the receiver but without line of sight (LOS)] by using IR images. Some simple GPS multipath mitigation techniques, such as the installation of antennas away from buildings and using choke ring antennas, are well known. Further, various correlator techniques can also be employed. However, when a direct signal cannot be received by the antenna, these techniques do not provide satisfactory results because they presume that the antenna chiefly receives direct signals. On the other hand, the proposed technique can mitigate GPS multipath, even if a direct signal cannot be received because it can recognize the surrounding environment by means of an omnidirectional IR camera. With the IR camera, the sky appears distinctively dark; this facilitates the detection of the borderline between the sky and the surrounding buildings, which are captured in white, due to the difference in the atmospheric transmittance rate between visible light and IR rays. Positioning is performed only with visible satellites having fewer multipath errors and without using invisible satellites. With the proposed system, static and kinematic evaluations in which invisible satellites are discriminated through observation using an omnidirectional IR camera are conducted. Hence, signals are received even if satellites are hidden behind buildings; furthermore, the exclusion of satellites having large errors from the positioning computation becomes possible. The evaluation results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed technique and the feasibility of highly accurate positioning.
Multiple catastrophic fault diagnosis of linear circuits considering the component tolerances

The paper deals with the diagnosis of multiple catastrophic faults, being either cuts of some connecting paths or short-circuits of some points, in analogue linear circuits using AC analysis. A method enabling us to detect and identify the faults, taking into account deviations of the circuit parameters within their tolerance ranges, is developed. The method exploits an appropriate fault dictionary, constructed using an efficient approach proposed in this paper. The fault dictionary is used only for preliminary identification of the faults, because it is based on the analysis of the circuit with nominal parameters. The crucial point of the method is a verification procedure, developed in this paper, based on the linear programming approach. It leads to the results considering the component variations within their tolerance ranges. A numerical example illustrates the proposed method and shows its efficiency.
Multiresolution Approximation for Classiﬁcation

We consider the classiﬁcation problem as a problem of approximating a given training set. This approximation is constructed as a multi-resolution sparse grid, and organized in a tree-structure. It allows efﬁcient training and query, both in constant time per training point, for low-dimensional classiﬁcation problems ( D . 10 ) with large data sets. The memory required for such problems is usually substantially smaller than the size of the training set.
Compiling collection-oriented languages onto massively parallel computers

Some issues and techniques are discussed for compiling collection-oriented languages for use on parallel and vector machines. Techniques for translating nested parallelism into flat parallelism are described. A compiler that translates a subset of Paralation Lisp into the instruction set of a virtual machine is discussed. The instructions of the virtual machine are simple vector instructions which could be further translated to a broad class of architectures including vector machines, single-instruction parallel machines, and multiple-instruction parallel machines. Another translator is also implemented that translates the virtual machine instructions into instructions for the Connection Machine (CM-2). The quicksort example in this paper is executed on the CM-2. Since actual parallel hardware is usually flat in nature, these techniques are useful to implementors of high-level collection-oriented languages. These languages express parallelism in a natural way that at first does not appear to be supportable by massively parallel machines. These techniques form a bridge from the convenience and power of nested collections and operations to the speed and simplicity of machines like the CM-2. <<ETX>>
The Relationship between Interleukin-18 Polymorphisms and Allergic Disease: A Meta-Analysis

Recent studies have suggested that IL-18 −607C/A and −137G/C polymorphisms may be associated with the risk of allergic disease; however, individually published results are inconclusive. Therefore, we performed a meta-analysis to clarify whether IL-18 −607C/A and −137G/C polymorphisms were associated with the risk of allergic disease. A total of 21 studies including 5,331 cases and 9,658 controls were involved in this meta-analysis. In the overall analysis and the subgroup analysis according to ethnicity, we did not find significant association between IL-18 −607C/A or −137G/C polymorphism and the risk of allergic disease (all P > 0.05). However, in a stratified analysis by type of allergic disease, our results indicated that IL-18 −607C/A polymorphism was associated with a significantly decreased risk of allergic asthma in heterozygous comparison and IL-18 −137G/C was associated with a significantly decreased risk of allergic dermatitis in recessive model and homozygous comparison. In the stratified analysis by source of control, IL-18−607C/A showed significantly reduced risk in population-based subgroup, and for IL-18 −137G/C only significantly decreased risk was found in the hospital-based subgroup. Our meta-analysis suggests that IL-18 −607C/A and −137G/C polymorphisms may be protective factors for the risk of allergic asthma and allergic dermatitis, respectively.
Analytical Extraction of Extrinsic and Intrinsic FET Parameters

The least squares solution for the entire small-signal equivalent circuit is itself a formidable task. In this paper, a systematic approach comprising the total and conventional least squares method in analytically obtaining the small-signal field-effect transistor (FET) parameters values is introduced. The proposed method eliminates the conventional ldquocold FETrdquo and ldquohot FETrdquo modeling constraints and allows an ease in inline process tracking.
Recognizing Text Through Sound Alone

This paper presents an acoustic sound recognizer to recognize what people are writing on a table or wall by utilizing the sound signal information generated from a key, pen, or fingernail moving along a textured surface. Sketching provides a natural modality to interact with text, and sound is an effective modality for distinguishing text. However, limited research has been conducted in this area. Our system uses a dynamic time- warping approach to recognize 26 hand-sketched characters (A-Z) solely through their acoustic signal. Our initial prototype system is user-dependent and relies on fixed stroke ordering. Our algorithm relied mainly on two features: mean amplitude and MFCCs (Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients). Our results showed over 80% recognition accuracy.
A wearable system for the evaluation of the human-horse interaction: A preliminary study

This study reports on a preliminary estimation of the human-horse interaction through the analysis of the heart rate variability (HRV) in both human and animal by using the dynamic time warping (DTW) algorithm. Here, we present a wearable system for HRV monitoring in horses. Specifically, we first present a validation of a wearable electrocardiographic (ECG) monitoring system for horses in terms of comfort and robustness, then we introduce a preliminary objective estimation of the human-horse interaction. The performance of the proposed wearable system for horses was compared with a standard system in terms of movement artifact (MA) percentage. Seven healthy horses were monitored without any movement constraints. As a result, the lower amount of MA% of the wearable system suggests that it could be profitably used for reliable measurement of physiological parameters related to the autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity in horses, such as the HRV. Human-horse interaction estimation was achieved through the analysis of their HRV time series. Specifically, DTW was applied to estimate dynamic coupling between human and horse in a group of fourteen human subjects and one horse. Moreover, a support vector machine (SVM) classifier was able to recognize the three classes of interaction with an accuracy greater than 78%. Preliminary significant results showed the discrimination of three distinct real human-animal interaction levels. These results open the measurement and characterization of the already empirically-proven relationship between human and horse.
Collision free force closure workspace determination of reconfigurable planar cable driven parallel robot

This paper considers the problem of Collision Free Force Closure Workspace (CFFCW) determination for Reconfigurable Planar Cable-Driven Parallel Robots (RPCDPRs). The cluttered obstacles in environment and the radiate cable structure make this problem highly nontrivial. Firstly, the simplified model of general RPCDPR that with cluttered environment is proposed. Then, the critical support lines of obstacles together with the topological constraint of RPCDPRs are adopted to find the Collision-Free Area (CFA) from multi-obstacle environment. And inspired by grasps with friction, an algorithm that based on convexhull and convex hull mapping method is used to deal with the motion ranges of cable and CFFCW of RPCDPRs. Finally, the algorithm is demonstrated on several types of RPCDPRs and environments. The simulation results show that the proposed approach can effectively detect the CFFCW of RPCDPRs.
Competence-based cooperative framework for iterative decisions in the aircraft design process

The present paper proposes a new approach for developing a generic design process, taking the aircraft design as use case. Our solution extends the multi-agent approach into a competence-based human resources and agent allocation. The solution consists into an iterative design technique that considers the reality of the design process as an evolutional process, where the new constraints are determined and take shape at each step. Alongside with the high-level aircraft requirements, each step demands the compliance and the setting up of some specific aircraft characteristics, which our solution identifies with the competences required for the involved human resources and software agents. The eventual re-definition of the current step specification involves a resources re-allocation as well.
Investigating Self-Efficacy as a Mediator of Peer Violence and Dating Violence Perpetration Among High-Risk Adolescents

Background: Dating violence is a significant public health problem. This study explored the potential mediation of self-efficacy of nonviolent conflict negotiation in the association between peer violence and dating violence among youth in a high-risk community. Methods: This study used cross-sectional data from the Youth Violence Survey: Linkages among Different Forms of Violence study funded by CDC. Data were collected in in 2004 and analyzed in 2016. The sample comprised 4,131 public school students in the seventh, ninth, eleventh, and twelfth year in an urban school district with high crime and poverty rates who completed a self-report questionnaire following parental consent and student assent. The analytic sample was restricted to participants who dated in the past year (n= 2,888). A mediation analysis was conducted using both the Causal Steps method and the Sobel Test to determine if self-efficacy in nonviolent conflict negotiation partially mediated the association between peer violence perpetration and dating violence perpetration. Results: Results supported the study hypothesis that self-efficacy partially mediated the relationship between peer violence perpetration and dating violence perpetration. Even after controlling for dating violence victimization, peer violence victimization, and peer violence perpetration, self-efficacy contributed significantly to the model explaining dating violence perpetration and lowered the dating violence perpetration variation for which peer violence perpetration accounted (total effect: β= .930 and p<.001, direct effect: β= .841 and p<.001) . Self-efficacy decreased the odds by . 674 of participants who
Whey protein lowers blood pressure and improves endothelial function and lipid biomarkers in adults with prehypertension and mild hypertension: results from the chronic Whey2Go randomized controlled trial12

Background: Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the greatest cause of death globally, and their reduction is a key public-health target. High blood pressure (BP) affects 1 in 3 people in the United Kingdom, and previous studies have shown that milk consumption is associated with lower BP. Objective: We investigated whether intact milk proteins lower 24-h ambulatory blood pressure (AMBP) and other risk markers of CVD. Design: The trial was a double-blinded, randomized, 3-way–crossover, controlled intervention study. Forty-two participants were randomly assigned to consume 2 × 28 g whey protein/d, 2 × 28 g Ca caseinate/d, or 2 × 27 g maltodextrin (control)/d for 8 wk separated by a 4-wk washout. The effects of these interventions were examined with the use of a linear mixed-model ANOVA. Results: Thirty-eight participants completed the study. Significant reductions in 24-h BP [for systolic blood pressure (SBP): −3.9 mm Hg; for diastolic blood pressure (DBP): −2.5 mm Hg; P = 0.050 for both)] were observed after whey-protein consumption compared with control intake. After whey-protein supplementation compared with control intake, peripheral and central systolic pressures [−5.7 mm Hg (P = 0.007) and −5.4 mm Hg (P = 0.012), respectively] and mean pressures [−3.7 mm Hg (P = 0.025) and −4.0 mm Hg (P = 0.019), respectively] were also lowered. Flow-mediated dilation (FMD) increased significantly after both whey-protein and calcium-caseinate intakes compared with control intake [1.31% (P < 0.001) and 0.83% (P = 0.003), respectively]. Although both whey protein and calcium caseinate significantly lowered total cholesterol [−0.26 mmol/L (P = 0.013) and −0.20 mmol/L (P = 0.042), respectively], only whey protein decreased triacylglycerol (−0.23 mmol/L; P = 0.025) compared with the effect of the control. Soluble intercellular adhesion molecule 1 and soluble vascular cell adhesion molecule 1 were reduced after whey protein consumption (P = 0.011) and after calcium-caseinate consumption (P = 0.039), respectively, compared with after control intake. Conclusions: The consumption of unhydrolyzed milk proteins (56 g/d) for 8 wk improved vascular reactivity, biomarkers of endothelial function, and lipid risk factors. Whey-protein supplementation also lowered 24-h ambulatory SBP and DBP. These results may have important implications for public health. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT02090842.
Racial Differences in Selective Laser Trabeculoplasty Efficacy

ABSTRACT Aim Sub-Saharan Africa has a population of 1 billion, with one ophthalmologist per million people. Basic ophthalmic support services are virtually absent for all but a few urban populations. Minimally invasive laser treatment may help. This study reports our initial experience using selective laser trabeculoplasty (SLT) in a mixed-racial population of adult glaucoma patients in Durban, South Africa. Study design Institution Review Board approved the 5-year chart review. Materials and methods Consecutive glaucomatous adults underwent SLT (Lumenis Selecta) on one or both eyes applying 360° treatment of 120 to 140 closely spaced burns (400 urn spot size for 3 ns; range 1.1-1.4 mJ). Significance of change in intraocuar pressure (IOP) from baseline at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months was assessed by two-tailed paired t-test. Results Among 148 eyes of 84 patients (60 African, 21 Indian, 3 Caucasian), 69 had already undergone glaucoma therapy, and 15 untreated (de novo). Among all eyes, mean IOP was reduced by >32% with mean IOP < 15 mm Hg from baseline at all four study intervals (p < 0.0001). A 20% reduction in IOP was sustained at 12 months in 90% of African eyes but in only 50% of Indian eyes. Conclusion Selective laser trabeculoplasty was effective in producing clinically significant IOP reduction among South African adults with or without prior medical or surgical anti-glaucoma therapy. Socioeconomically comparable individuals of Indian ancestry showed good therapeutic responses, but significantly less efficacious than those observed among Black subjects. Programs to provide first-line SLT management of glaucoma in Africa, where 90% of patients are unable to sustain prescribed medical therapy, appear to be a very appropriate option. How to cite this article Goosen E, Coleman K, Visser L, Sponsel WE. Racial Differences in Selective Laser Trabeculoplasty Efficacy. J Curr Glaucoma Pract 2017;11(1):22-27.
Thesaurus Based Term Ranking for Keyword Extraction

In many cases keywords from a restricted set of possible keywords have to be assigned to texts. A common way to find the best keywords is to rank terms occurring in the text according to their tf.idf value. This requires a corpus of texts from which document frequencies can be derived. In this paper we show that we can obtain results of the same quality without the usage of a background corpus, using relations between terms provided in a thesaurus.