Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Voice-based Mobile Prescription Application for Healthcare Services ( VBMOPA )

Adverse drug effects are a major cause of death in the world with tens of thousand deaths occurring across the world each year because of medication or prescription errors. Many of such errors involve the administration of the wrong drug or dosage by care givers to patients due to indecipherable handwritings, drug interactions, confusing drug names etc. The adoption of voice-based mobile applications could eliminate some of these errors because they allow prescription information to be captured and heard through voice response rather than in the physician’s handwriting. This paper presents a design and implementation of a Voice-based Mobile Prescription Application (vbmopa) to improve health care services. The application can be accessed through a mobile phone by dialing an appropriate number. This system could lead to costs and life savings in healthcare centres across the world especially in developing countries where treatment processes are usually cumbersome and paper based. Index Term-Dosage, Drug, Healthcare, Mobile, Pharmacy, VoiceXML, VUI and UML
Recycling BiCG with an Application to Model Reduction

Science and engineering problems frequently require solving a sequence of dual linear systems. Besides having to store only a few Lanczos vectors, using the biconjugate gradient method (BiCG) to solve dual linear systems has advantages for specific applications. For example, using BiCG to solve the dual linear systems arising in interpolatory model reduction provides a backward error formulation in the model reduction framework. Using BiCG to evaluate bilinear forms---for example, in quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) methods for electronic structure calculations---leads to a quadratic error bound. Since our focus is on sequences of dual linear systems, we introduce recycling BiCG, a BiCG method that recycles two Krylov subspaces from one pair of dual linear systems to the next pair. The derivation of recycling BiCG also builds the foundation for developing recycling variants of other bi-Lanczos based methods, such as CGS, BiCGSTAB, QMR, and TFQMR. We develop an augmented bi-Lanczos algorithm and a modified two-te.
Understanding Deliberation

Participation in a deliberative forum has received relatively little scrutiny as opposed to more traditional forms of participation. This study examines direct and indirect effects of discussion network characteristics on willingness to participate in a deliberative forum. Using data collected in a telephone survey of 416 respondents in Madison, Wisconsin, in the fall of 1997, the authors employ structural equation modeling techniques to explore the roles that local media use, interpersonal discussion of local politics, and reflection of information play in mediating the relationship between discussion networks and participation in public forums. Findings show that network heterogeneity directly influences forum participation, suggesting that membership in heterogeneous networks ensures greater nontraditional participation. Also, having more discussion partners makes frequent discussion of issues and higher levels of local public affairs media use more likely. Communication processes lead to reflection about local issues, which enhances forum participation. Finally, normative implications are addressed.
Post-Translational Modification of Human Histone by Wide Tolerance of Acetylation

Histone acetylation adds an acetyl group on the lysine residue commonly found within the N-terminal tail protruding from the histone core of the nucleosome, and is important for chromosome structure and function in gene transcription and chromatin remodeling. Acetylation may also occur on other residues additional to lysine, but have not been thoroughly investigated at the proteomics level. Here we report a wide tolerance acetylation study mimicking the addition of 42 ± 0.5 Da delta mass modification on undefined amino acid residues of histones by shotgun proteomics using liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry. A multi-blind spectral alignment algorithm with a wide peptide tolerance revealed frequent occurrence of 42 ± 0.5 Da modifications at lysine (K), serine (S) and threonine (T) residues in human histones from kidney tissues. Precision delta mass analysis identified acetylation (42.011 ± 0.004 Da) and trimethylation (42.047 ± 0.002 Da) modifications within the delta mass range. A specific antibody was produced to validate the acetylated T22 of human histone H3 (H3T22ac) by immune assays. Thus, we demonstrated that the wide tolerance acetylation approach identified histone acetylation as well as modification variants commonly associated with acetylation at undefined residues additional to lysine.
Genetic characterization of a highly efficient alternate pathway of serine biosynthesis in Escherichia coli

There exists in Escherichia coli a known set of enzymes that were shown to function in an efficient and concerted way to convert threonine to serine. The sequence of reactions catalyzed by these enzymes is designated the Tut cycle (threonine utilization). To demonstrate that the relevant genes and their protein products play essential roles in serine biosynthesis, a number of mutants were analyzed. Strains of E. coli with lesions in serA, serB, serC, or glyA grew readily on minimal medium supplemented with elevated levels of leucine, arginine, lysine, threonine, and methionine. No growth on this medium was observed upon testing double mutants with lesions in one of the known ser genes plus a second lesion in glyA (serine hydroxymethyltransferase), gcv (the glycine cleavage system), or tdh (threonine dehydrogenase). Pseudorevertants of ser mutants capable of growth on either unsupplemented minimal medium or medium supplemented with low levels of leucine, arginine, lysine, threonine, and methionine were isolated. At least two unlinked mutations were associated with such phenotypes.
Morphological awareness in biliteracy acquisition: A study of young Chinese EFL readers

This study examined contribution of morphological awareness to reading comprehension in two typologically diverse languages, focusing on young Chinese EFL (English as a Foreign Language) readers in China. It was particularly interested in how cross-linguistic similarities and variations in morphological awareness affected its transfer in Chinese–English biliteracy acquisition. Grades 5 and 6 children were measured in compound awareness and reading comprehension in English, and compound awareness, radical awareness, and reading comprehension in Chinese. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that compound awareness contributed to reading comprehension within both Chinese and English. In addition, over and above English compound awareness and Chinese reading comprehension, Chinese compound awareness, but not radical awareness, explained a unique amount of variance in English reading comprehension. After Chinese compound awareness was controlled for, English compound awareness, however, did not make a significant contribution to Chinese reading comprehension. These findings were discussed in light of the common and language/script-dependent aspects of morphological awareness in Chinese and English and the context of biliteracy acquisition.
Automated Decomposition of Build Targets

A (build) target specifies the information that is needed to automatically build a software artifact. This paper focuses on underutilized targets - an important dependency problem that we identified at Google. An underutilized target is one with files not needed by some of its dependents. Underutilized targets result in less modular code, overly large artifacts, slow builds, and unnecessary build and test triggers. To mitigate these problems, programmers decompose underutilized targets into smaller targets. However, manually decomposing a target is tedious and error-prone. Although we prove that finding the best target decomposition is NP-hard, we introduce a greedy algorithm that proposes a decomposition through iterative unification of the strongly connected components of the target. Our tool found that 19,994 of 40,000 Java library targets at Google can be decomposed to at least two targets. The results show that our tool is (1) efficient because it analyzes a target in two minutes on average and (2) effective because for each of 1,010 targets, it would save at least 50% of the total execution time of the tests triggered by the target.
A multilevel integration of personality, climate, self-regulation, and performance.

The purpose of this multilevel study was to test whether regulatory focus mechanisms (promotion focus and prevention focus; Higgins, 1997, American Psychologist, 52, 1280–1300; Higgins, 2000, American Psychologist, 55, 1217–1230) can help explain how group safety climate and individual differences in Conscientiousness relate to individual productivity and safety performance. Results, based on a sample of 254 employees from 50 work groups, showed that safety climate and conscientiousness predicted promotion and prevention regulatory focus, which in turn mediated the relationships of safety climate and Conscientiousness with supervisor ratings of productivity and safety performance. Implications for theory and research on climate, motivation, and performance and avenues for future research are discussed.
Fixed-order LPV Controller Design for LPV Systems by Convex Optimization1 1This research work is financially supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation under Grant No. 200021-121749.

In this paper a new method for fixed-order output-feedback Linear Parameter Varying (LPV) controller design is presented. First, a set of stabilizing LPV controllers is given as an inner convex approximation of the non-convex set of all stabilizing LPV controllers with the same order. This characterization is based on the decoupling of the state and Lyapunov matrices appearing together in the derivative of the Lyapunov function. As a measure of performance the decay-rate related to exponential stability is considered. The efficiency of the proposed method is illustrated on an appropriate simulation example.
Multicore thermal management with model predictive control

The goal of thermal management is to meet maximum operating temperature constraints, while at the same time tracking time-varying performance requirements. Current approaches avoid thermal violations by forcing abrupt operating points changes (e.g. processor shutdown), which cause sharp performance degradation. In this paper we aim at achieving a smooth thermal control action, that minimizes the variance of performance tracking error. We formulate this problem as a discrete-time optimal control problem, which can be solved using the theory and computational tools developed in the field of model-predictive control. Our optimization process considers the thermal profile of the system, its evolution over time, and time-varying workload requirements. Experimental results show that the proposed approach offers significant thermal balancing improvements over previous methods.
PM2.5 and Cardiovascular Diseases in the Elderly: An Overview

Background: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of mortality and morbidity in the elderly and the ambient concentration of PM2.5 has been associated with several cardiovascular diseases. Methods: We describe the present state of planetary air pollution, analyze epidemiological studies linking PM2.5 and CVD, and discuss multiple pathophysiological mechanisms linking PM2.5 and CVD. Results: A few epidemiological studies show that the elderly appear specifically susceptible to adverse cardiovascular effects triggered by PM2.5 exposure. Plausible pathophysiological mechanisms include inflammatory dysfunction, oxidative stress, abnormal activation of the hemostatic system and disturbance of the autonomic nervous system. Conclusions: An in-depth knowledge of the chemical compounds, pathophysiological mechanisms, and epidemiological studies of PM2.5 are recommended to understand this important and modifiable factor contributing to geriatric CVD burden. We offer public health recommendations to reduce this preventable cause of disease and death.
Architectural selection of A/D converters

A method for the architectural selection of analog to digital (A/D) converters based on a generic figure of merit is described. First a figure of merit for the power consumption is introduced. This figure of merit includes both target specifications and technology data and has five generic parameters. The values of these generic parameters can be estimated by analyzing the different converter structures or by means of a fitting procedure using data from published designs. It is shown that the generic parameters have different values for different types of converters. Therefore the tradeoff between speed, resolution, power dissipation and technology parameters depends on the type of converter. It is shown that the calculated figures of merit of the published designs, together with the calculated global trade-off comprise a surface in the (5 dimensional) design space. This surface makes it possible to accurately predict the power consumption and select the best converter solution for a certain target application. This can then serve as a first step in data converter synthesis or as a power estimator during high-level system design exploration.
Predictability and the Dynamics of Position Processing in the Flash-Lag Effect

Several models have been proposed to account for the flash-lag effect. One criterion for evaluating alternative models is to consider the separate effects of motion predictability and flash predictability. We first established that flash predictability has an impact on the size of the perceived spatial offset in the flash-lag illusion. We then examined motion predictability by varying the consistency of the motion trajectory. Both manipulations affected the magnitude of the flash-lag illusion. These outcomes suggest that the perception of position is a dynamic process that can be modulated by explicit cues in advance of the flash and by the temporal integration of position information over a consistent motion trajectory. A complete explanation of the flash-lag effect must specify how flash predictability and motion predictability modulate position-processing mechanisms.
Portability, predictability and performance for parallel computing: BSP in practice

We report on practical experience using the Oxford BSP Library to parallelize a large electromagnetic code, the British Aerospace finite-difference time-domain code EMMA T:FD3D. The Oxford BS Library is one of the first realizations of the Bulk Synchronous Parallel computational model to be targeted at numerically intensive scientific (typically Fortran) computing. The BAe EMMA code is one of the first large-scale applications to be parallelized using this library, and it is an important demonstration of the cost effectiveness of the BSP approach. We illustrate how BSP cost-modelling techniques can be used to predict and optimize performance for single-source programs across different parallel platforms. We provide predicted and observed performance figures for an industrial-strength, single-source parallel code for a variety of real parallel architectures: shared memory multiprocessors, workstation clusters and massively parallel platforms.
Management vs symbolic leadership and hospitals in transition—a Swedish example

Aim To describe, analyse and interpret symbolic leadership in Swedish public hospitals. Background Swedish hospitals are undergoing major structural changes. Hospitals are amalgamated in order to increase productivity and accessibility and reduce health care costs. Method In-depth interviews have been performed with 54 politicians, senior civil servants, medical directors and trade union representatives at nine hospitals. The interviews have been analysed and interpreted following a grounded theory approach. Findings The results show that leadership is manifested in two dimensions—management and symbolic leadership. The management dimension comprises general leadership aspects like planning, regulation and control. In the symbolic leadership dimension, the leader acts as a guide, inspirer and visionary. Leaders consider they are acting in two large arenas: a public arena and a hospital arena. In the public arena their professional competence is thought to be most important and in the hospital arena their social competence. Conclusions Structural changes in Swedish hospitals have forced the actors to come out into the public arena, where they increasingly meet the media and have to defend budget cut-backs. This reduces their manoeuvring space in the hospital arena. When leaders work as a team, and make full use of their symbolic role, this helps to promote the process of transition. Symbolic leadership has a potential to increase the role repertory for not least the head nurse.
Local pursuit strategy-inspired cooperative trajectory planning algorithm for a class of nonlinear constrained dynamical systems

Cooperative trajectory planning is crucial for networked vehicles to respond rapidly in cluttered environments and has a significant impact on many applications such as air traffic or border security monitoring and assessment. One of the challenges in cooperative planning is to find a computationally efficient algorithm that can accommodate both the complexity of the environment and real hardware and configuration constraints of vehicles in the formation. Inspired by a local pursuit strategy observed in foraging ants, feasible and optimal trajectory planning algorithms are proposed in this paper for a class of nonlinear constrained cooperative vehicles in environments with densely populated obstacles. In an iterative hierarchical approach, the local behaviours, such as the formation stability, obstacle avoidance, and individual vehicle's constraints, are considered in each vehicle's (i.e. follower's) decentralised optimisation. The cooperative-level behaviours, such as the inter-vehicle collision avoidance, are considered in the virtual leader's centralised optimisation. Early termination conditions are derived to reduce the computational cost by not wasting time in the local-level optimisation if the virtual leader trajectory does not satisfy those conditions. The expected advantages of the proposed algorithms are (1) the formation can be globally asymptotically maintained in a decentralised manner; (2) each vehicle decides its local trajectory using only the virtual leader and its own information; (3) the formation convergence speed is controlled by one single parameter, which makes it attractive for many practical applications; (4) nonlinear dynamics and many realistic constraints, such as the speed limitation and obstacle avoidance, can be easily considered; (5) inter-vehicle collision avoidance can be guaranteed in both the formation transient stage and the formation steady stage; and (6) the computational cost in finding both the feasible and optimal solutions is low. In particular, the feasible solution can be computed in a very quick fashion. The minimum energy trajectory planning for a group of robots in an obstacle-laden environment is simulated to showcase the advantages of the proposed algorithms.
Genetic engineering: Risks and hazards as perceived by the German public

What do people associate with 'genetic engineering', and what are the resources they mobilize for gaining orientation and the ability to assess this new technology? These are the central questions discussed in this paper. The theses are based on 48 'Leitfadeninterviews', made between 1995 and 1997 and complemented by a representative survey carried out in Germany in 1997, which contains 1501 cases. Most findings of the qualitative study have been verified by the survey data, the latter, however, are not presented in this paper. Though the public is not well informed about genetic engineering, strong value judgements about genetic engineering are often pronounced. Attitudes and judgements are based on subjective heuristics of risk and embedded in arguments specific to their 'Lebenswelt'. As the terms relating to hazards have a value rational or aesthetic touch, they are not quantifiable and therefore are very difficult to be incorporated into a rational discourse on risk. The public's view of genetic engineering is shaped predominantly by two fields of application: 'genfood' and human genetics including prenatal, medical and pharmaceutical applications. In most cases, a rational weighing up of benefits and risks lacks knowledge. In the main, the attitudes are not technology related-they are embedded in a wider semantic space: the doubts of an abuse of genetic engineering processes within human genetics - keywords: cloning, eugenic - play an important role in the minds of the German public, as has been experienced historically. Furthermore, fear of an untenable manipulation of consumers by gradually introduced genetically engineered food, by uncontrolled leakage of pathogens during accidents in laboratories and experiments of deliberate release or the aversion of a society's subjugation to economic and technocratic imperatives are identified as serious hazards.
Prevention of Hypertension and Renal Dysfunction in Dahl Rats by &agr;‐Tocopherol

&NA; Although hypertension is a risk factor for the development of end‐stage renal disease, not all hypertensive patients progress to develop renal dysfunction. The mechanisms underlying hypertensive nephropathy are poorly understood. The authors have recently shown that the development of hypertension and renal dysfunction is accompanied by an accumulation of partially reduced oxygen and its derivatives, known collectively as reactive oxygen species. In the present study, the effect of a lipid‐soluble antioxidant on the development of salt‐dependent hypertensive nephropathy was evaluated in the Dahl rat. It was found that a high‐salt diet (8% NaCl) led to the development of hypertension, increased renal oxidative stress (superoxide production and 8‐epi‐prostaglandin F2&agr;), and decreased glomerular filtration rate and renal plasma flow in the Dahl salt‐sensitive (DSS) rat, and that these adverse effects of salt were prevented by supplementing the high‐salt diet with 1000 U/kg chow of &agr;‐tocopherol. It is well known that urinary cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP) levels are lower in hypertensive DSS rats than in Dahl salt‐resistant (DSR) rats on a high‐salt diet. Most surprisingly, when supplemented with &agr;‐tocopherol, DSS rats on an 8% NaCl diet were able to excrete as much cGMP as DSR rats. Taken together, these findings suggest that, in the DSS rat, salt‐dependent hypertensive nephropathy and decreased nitric oxide bioavailability are associated with increased oxidative stress, and that antioxidants can preclude these adverse effects of salt feeding, and consequently, prevent salt‐dependent hypertension and nephropathy.