Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Separate physical tests of lower extremities and postural control are associated with cognitive impairment. Results from the general population study Good Aging in Skåne (GÅS-SNAC)

Purpose To investigate whether separate physical tests of the lower extremities, that assess movement speed and postural control, were associated with cognitive impairment in older community-dwelling subjects. Subjects and methods In this population-based, cross-sectional, cohort study, the following items were assessed: walking speed, walking 2 × 15 m, Timed Up and Go (TUG) at self-selected and fast speeds, one-leg standing, and performance in step- and five chair-stand tests. The study comprised 2115 subjects, aged 60–93 years, with values adjusted for demographics, health-related factors, and comorbidity. Global cognitive function was assessed using the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), and cognitive impairment was defined by the three-word delayed recall task of the MMSE. Subjects who scored 0/3 on the three-word delayed recall task were defined as cases (n = 328), those who scored 1/3 were defined as intermediates (n = 457), and the others as controls (n = 1330). Results Physical tests performed rapidly were significantly associated with cognitive impairment; this was the case in increased time of five chair stands (P = 0.009, odds ratio [OR] = 1.03), TUG (P < 0.001, OR = 1.11) and walking 2 × 15 m (P < 0.001, OR = 1.05). Inability to stand on one leg for 10 seconds was associated with increased risk of being a case (P < 0.001, OR = 1.78), compared to those able to stand for 30 seconds or longer. More steps during the step test (P < 0.001, OR = 0.95) and higher fast walking speed (P < 0.001, OR = 0.51) were associated with lower risk of being a case. Conclusion Slower movements and reduced postural control were related to an increased risk of being cognitively impaired. All tests that were performed rapidly were able to separate cases from controls. These findings suggest that physical tests that are related to lower extremity and postural control, emphasizing velocity, might be useful in investigating relationships between physical and cognitive function; furthermore, they can be used to complement cognitive impairment diagnoses.
Novel qualitative visual odometry for a ground: Vehicle based on funnel lane concept

Visual odometry is the process of estimating the position of a robot from visual information. Visual odometry methods are classified as: appearance-based methods which use the intensity information of the image and feature-based methods which use the image features information. Feature-based methods are more common in visual odometry. Visual odometry methods usually need calibration, essential matrix calculations and finding minimum argument solution. In this paper, we present qualitative visual odometry estimation for a ground vehicle. The method requires a camera with no calibration and there is no need for essential matrix or either any minimum argument calculations. The proposed method is based on funnel lane concept that was presented to control a robot to move from a current image to a destination image. A funnel lane is created based on features geometric information and the robot is controlled in such a way that does not go outside the funnel lane until reaching the destination image. The idea in this paper is to do a reverse thing and instead of creating a funnel lane to control the robot to reach an image destination, we suppose that the robot is moving straight until it is satisfying funnel lane constraints and a turning angle is calculated when the constraints are unsatisfied. We show that this approach is giving significant results in indoor and outdoor environments and it can be a simple way to visual odometry.
Collagen fabrics as biomaterials

Tissue‐engineered implants require appropriate biomaterials to serve the required physical function of the tissue being repaired or replaced while facilitating remodeling of the implant. We report on the development of implantable fabrics manufactured from continuous collagen threads. The collagen threads are formed by extrusion of native, acid‐extracted bovine colagen into a buffered solution of polyethylene glycol, followed by rinsing and air drying. The high manufacturing rate of such threads permits the production of colagen fabrics of various configurations. The fiber diameter can be controlled, and threads with dry diameters as low as 25 μm have been produced. Braids and bundles of collagen threads implanted as a replacement of the anterior cruciate ligament in a dog model were completely remodeled into host tissue by 12 weeks. Knitted collagen fabrics implanted in a rat abdominal repair model prevented herniation, and connective tissue ingrowth was observed within the fabric by 12 weeks.
Phenotypical Analysis of Atypical PKCs In Vivo Function Display a Compensatory System at Mouse Embryonic Day 7.5

Background The atypical protein kinases C (PKC) isoforms ι/λ and ζ play crucial roles in many cellular processes including development, cell proliferation, differentiation and cell survival. Possible redundancy between the two isoforms has always been an issue since most biochemical tools do not differentiate between the two proteins. Thus, much effort has been made during the last decades to characterize the functions of aPKCs using gene targeting approaches and depletion studies. However, little is known about the specific roles of each isoform in mouse development. Methodology/Principal Findings To evaluate the importance of PKCι in mouse development we designed PKCι deletion mutants using the gene targeting approach. We show that the deletion of PKCι, results in a reduced size of the amniotic cavity at E7.5 and impaired growth of the embryo at E8.5 with subsequent absorption of the embryo. Our data also indicate an impaired localization of ZO-1 and disorganized structure of the epithelial tissue in the embryo. Importantly, using electron microscopy, embryoid body formation and immunofluorescence analysis, we found, that in the absence of PKCι, tight junctions and apico-basal polarity were still established. Finally, our study points to a non-redundant PKCι function at E9.5, since expression of PKCζ is able to rescue the E7.5 phenotype, but could not prevent embryonic lethality at a later time-point (E9.5). Conclusion Our data show that PKCι is crucial for mouse embryogenesis but is dispensable for the establishment of polarity and tight junction formation. We present a compensatory function of PKCζ at E7.5, rescuing the phenotype. Furthermore, this study indicates at least one specific, yet unknown, PKCι function that cannot be compensated by the overexpression of PKCζ at E9.5.
Investigating How Smartphone Movement is Affected by Body Posture

We present an investigation into how hand usage is affected by different body postures (Sitting at a table, Lying down and Standing) when interacting with smartphones. We theorize a list of factors (smartphone support, body support and muscle usage) and explore their influence the tilt and rotation of the smartphone. From this we draw a list of hypotheses that we investigate in a quantitative study. We varied the body postures and grips (Symmetric bimanual, Asymmetric bimanual finger, Asymmetric bimanual thumb and Single-handed) studying the effects through a dual pointing task. Our results showed that the body posture Lying down had the most movement, followed by Sitting at a table and finally Standing. We additionally generate reports of motions performed using different grips. Our work extends previous research conducted with multiple grips in a sitting position by including other body postures, it is anticipated that UI designers will use our results to inform the development of mobile user interfaces.
On‐Demand Laser Printing of Picoliter‐Sized, Highly Viscous, Adhesive Fluids: Beyond Inkjet Limitations

Novel printing methods represent a class of emerging technologies, with applications ranging from biomedical to energy devices, attracting significant attention because of their ability to handle new classes of materials. Typically, popular printing technologies, such as inkjet printing, deposit low‐viscosity inks (1–15 mPa s). In a broad range of emerging applications, alternative printing techniques will enable the handling of materials with much higher viscosities. Here, Laser‐induced forward transfer (LIFT) is employed as a direct, nozzleless printing method, enabling the processing of fluids with viscosities far beyond the inkjet printing regime. Specifically, exploiting the capability of LIFT being a high‐speed processing technique, maintaining at the same time high printing resolution, the printing of highly viscous cyanoacrylate adhesives (from 30 to 1700 mPa s) is demonstrated achieving printing resolution down to 30 µm. The volume of the LIFT‐ejected adhesive droplets lies in the picoliter scale. As a further advantage compared with inkjet techniques, the printing resolution can be tuned on demand by adjusting the laser fluence during the process. Finally, as an application example, the attachment of chemical indicator powders (i.e., dimethylglyoxime powder) on printed adhesives patterns is illustrated, creating heavy metal sensors with remarkable fabrication facility.
Tomographic phase imaging of RBCs in blood coagulation structures using digital holographic microscopy

Blood coagulation is an important role in hemostasis process. In microscopic observation, an aggregation structure of red blood cells (RBCs) indicates the degree of blood coagulation. In this study, we demonstrate a tomographic imaging of phase distributions of aggregation structures of RBCs in blood coagulation using digital holographic microscopy.
Developing an Activity-Based Costing Approach to Maximize the Efficiency of Customer Relationship Management Projects

In today's competitive environment, profitability analysis is not just about looking at the profit and loss statement. It is more about knowing which of your customers are making you money and which are losing you money. This paper considers how activity-based costing approach may complement a customer relationship management effort. The model presented in this paper combines the principles of activity-based costing with performance measurement. Applying this model helps managers understand the true costs of providing products and services, and the factors that drive these costs, while addressing other concerns such as customer satisfaction. This approach has the potential to integrate all business processes around the requirements of significant profitable customers, a fact that most of the previous researches fail to acknowledge.
Motor imagery BCI for upper limb stroke rehabilitation: An evaluation of the EEG recordings using coherence analysis

Brain-computer interface (BCI) technology has the potential as a post-stroke rehabilitation tool, and the efficacy of the technology is most often demonstrated through output peripherals such as robots, orthosis and computers. In this study, the EEG signals recorded during the course of upper limb stroke rehabilitaion using motor imagery BCI were analyzed to better understand the effect of BCI therapy for post-stroke rehabilitation. The stroke patients recruited underwent 10 sessions of 1-hour BCI with robotic feedback for 2 weeks, 5 times a week. The analysis was performed by computing the coherences of the EEG in the lesion and contralesion side of the hemisphere from each session, and the coherence index of the lesion hemisphere (0 ≤ CI ≤ 1) was computed. The coherence index represents the rate of activation of the lesion hemisphere, and the correlation with the Fugl-Meyer assessment (FMA) before and after the BCI therapy was investigated. Significant improvement in the FMA scores was reported for five of the six patients (p = 0.01). The analysis showed that the number of sessions with CI ≥ 0.5 correlated with the change in the FMA scores. This suggests that post-stroke motor recovery best results from the activation in the lesion hemisphere, which is in agreement with previous studies performed using multimodal imaging technologies.
Effects of autonomic blockade on self-similarity of blood pressure and heart rate time series

Little is known on the effects of autonomic alterations on the characteristics of self-similarity of cardiovascular time series. To clarify this issue, changes in scaling exponents for blood pressure and heart rate following sympathetic and parasympathetic blockades were studied. We recorded RR interval (RRI) and mean arterial pressure (MAP) beat by beat in 8 volunteers before and after administration of: propranolol, a non specific beta1 and beta2 cardiac and vascular antagonist; clonidine, an alpha2 agonist; and atropine, blocker of cardiac vagal activity. Self-similarity coefficients for RRI, HRRI , and MAP, HMAP, were estimated by detrended fluctuations analysis. Under baseline condition, HMAP was significantly greater than HRR. Sympathetic blockades reduced HRRI only, while vagal blockade increased both HRRI and HMAP. Results revealed differences in the scaling structures of MAP and RRI, and in the way their self-similarity is influenced by the autonomic regulation
Memristive devices for computation-in-memory

CMOS technology and its continuous scaling have made electronics and computers accessible and affordable for almost everyone on the globe; in addition, they have enabled the solutions of a wide range of societal problems and applications. Today, however, both the technology and the computer architectures are facing severe challenges/walls making them incapable of providing the demanded computing power with tight constraints. This motivates the need for the exploration of novel architectures based on new device technologies; not only to sustain the financial benefit of technology scaling, but also to develop solutions for extremely demanding emerging applications. This paper presents two computation-in-memory based accelerators making use of emerging memristive devices; they are Memristive Vector Processor and RRAM Automata Processor. The preliminary results of these two accelerators show significant improvement in terms of latency, energy and area as compared to today's architectures and design.
Being Moved by the Self and Others: Influence of Empathy on Self-Motion Perception

Background The observation of conspecifics influences our bodily perceptions and actions: Contagious yawning, contagious itching, or empathy for pain, are all examples of mechanisms based on resonance between our own body and others. While there is evidence for the involvement of the mirror neuron system in the processing of motor, auditory and tactile information, it has not yet been associated with the perception of self-motion. Methodology/Principal Findings We investigated whether viewing our own body, the body of another, and an object in motion influences self-motion perception. We found a visual-vestibular congruency effect for self-motion perception when observing self and object motion, and a reduction in this effect when observing someone else's body motion. The congruency effect was correlated with empathy scores, revealing the importance of empathy in mirroring mechanisms. Conclusions/Significance The data show that vestibular perception is modulated by agent-specific mirroring mechanisms. The observation of conspecifics in motion is an essential component of social life, and self-motion perception is crucial for the distinction between the self and the other. Finally, our results hint at the presence of a “vestibular mirror neuron system”.
DRACO: DRoid analyst combo an android malware analysis framework

Android being the most popular open source mobile operating system, attracts a plethora of app developers. Millions of applications are developed for Android platform with a great extent of behavioral diversities and are available on Play Store as well as on many third party app stores. Due to its open nature, in the past Android Platform has been targeted by many malware writers. The conventional way of signature-based detection methods for detecting malware on a device are no longer promising due to an exponential increase in the number of variants of the same application with different signatures. Moreover, they lack in dynamic analysis too. In this paper, we propose DRACO, which employs a two-phase detection technique that blends the synergy of both static and dynamic analysis. It has two modules, client module that is in the form an Android app and gets installed on mobile devices and a server module that runs on a server. DRACO also explains user about the features contributing to the maliciousness of analyzed app and generates scoring for that maliciousness. It does not require any root or super-user privileges. In an evaluation of 18,000 benign applications and 10,000 malware samples, DRACO performs better than several related existing approaches and detects 98.4% of the malware with few false alerts. On ten popular smartphones, the method requires an average of 6 seconds for on device analysis and 90 seconds on server analysis.
Inhibition of angiogenesis: a novel antitumor mechanism of the herbal compound arctigenin

Arctigenin, a functional ingredient of several traditional Chinese herbs, has been reported to have potential antitumor activity. However, its mechanisms of action are still not well elucidated. Because the establishment and metastatic spread of tumors is crucially dependent on angiogenesis, here we investigated whether arctigenin inhibits tumor growth by disturbing blood vessel formation. For this purpose, human dermal microvascular endothelial cells were exposed to different arctigenin doses to study their viability, proliferation, protein expression, migration, and tube formation compared with vehicle-treated controls. In addition, arctigenin action on vascular sprouting was analyzed in an aortic ring assay. Furthermore, we studied direct arctigenin effects on CT26.WT colon carcinoma cells. Spheroids of these tumor cells were transplanted into the dorsal skinfold chamber of arctigenin-treated and vehicle-treated BALB/c mice for the in-vivo analysis of tumor vascularization and growth by intravital fluorescence microscopy, histology, and immunohistochemistry. We found that noncytotoxic doses of arctigenin dose dependently reduced the proliferation of human dermal microvascular endothelial cells without affecting their migratory and tube-forming capacity. Arctigenin treatment also resulted in a decreased cellular expression of phosphorylated serine/threonine protein kinase AKT, vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2, and proliferating cell nuclear antigen and inhibited vascular sprouting from aortic rings. In addition, proliferation, but not secretion of vascular endothelial growth factor, was decreased in arctigenin-treated tumor cells. Finally, arctigenin suppressed the vascularization and growth of engrafting CT26.WT tumors in the dorsal skinfold chamber model. Taken together, these results show for the first time an antiangiogenic action of arctigenin, which may contribute considerably toward its antitumor activity.
Nkx6 proteins specify one zebrafish primary motoneuron subtype by regulating late islet1 expression

The ability of animals to carry out their normal behavioral repertoires requires exquisitely precise matching between specific motoneuron subtypes and the muscles they innervate. However, the molecular mechanisms that regulate motoneuron subtype specification remain unclear. Here, we use individually identified zebrafish primary motoneurons to describe a novel role for Nkx6 and Islet1 proteins in the specification of vertebrate motoneuron subtypes. We show that zebrafish primary motoneurons express two related Nkx6 transcription factors. In the absence of both Nkx6 proteins, the CaP motoneuron subtype develops normally, whereas the MiP motoneuron subtype develops a more interneuron-like morphology. In the absence of Nkx6 function, MiPs exhibit normal early expression of islet1, which is required for motoneuron formation; however, they fail to maintain islet1 expression. Misexpression of islet1 RNA can compensate for loss of Nkx6 function, providing evidence that Islet1 acts downstream of Nkx6. We suggest that Nkx6 proteins regulate MiP development at least in part by maintaining the islet1 expression that is required both to promote the MiP subtype and to suppress interneuron development.
Fitter, Happier, More Productive?: The Normative Ontology of Fitness Trackers

Fitness trackers promise a longer and better life for the people who engage with them. What is forgotten in their analysis for HCI, though, is how they re-conceptualise the very notion of what constitutes a 'step'. We discuss everyday edge cases illustrating how fitness trackers fail to address goals and ideals of people using them. They merely re-affirm the fitness of already fit people and can have an adversarial effect on others. For future designers, we offer strategies to become aware of their own biases and provide implications for designers potentially leading to more non-normative and diverse designs of trackers.
Experience using formal methods for capturing requirements of Web-based applications

The current practice in capturing requirements of Web-based applications is accomplished by an ad-hoc and informal manner. We investigate the use of formal methods to formalize the requirements of a Web-based application. We have used a simple yet powerful Definitional Specification Language (DSL) for this task. DSL is based on first order predicate calculus, and has three main concepts: a resource, a transitional, and a state type. These concepts help in specifying dynamic behaviors and the resultant specification is clear with no cumbersome manipulation of time variables. A brief description of DSL is given before we provide the informal requirements of our Web-based application. We formalize the requirements using DSL and describe how this is done. We conclude that the benefits gained with such formalization have made the development clear and minimized the cycle of fix-and-test.
Optimal 2x2 Antenna Placement for Short-Range Communications

In this letter, we investigate the optimal antenna placement with path loss and phase differences in terms of the condition number in short-range communications. First, the line-of-sight (LOS) 2×2 multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channel matrix with path loss and phase differences is modeled using the spherical-wave model. We then derive the explicit analytical expression and the geometrical pattern for the optimal antenna placement when considering the joint effects of path loss and phase differences, which are compared with the analytical expression and the geometrical pattern when considering only the phase differences. By the optimal antenna placement, the high correlation between the LOS responses can be overcome. Analytical and numerical results show that the path loss differences for short-range communications have a significant impact on the condition number.