Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
From qualitative absolute order-of-magnitude to the extended set of Hesitant Fuzzy Linguistic Term Sets

Hesitant fuzzy linguistic term sets were introduced to grasp the uncertainty existing in human reasoning. In this paper, inspired by absolute order-of-magnitude qualitative reasoning techniques, an extension of the set of hesitant fuzzy linguistic term sets is presented to capture differences between non-compatible preferences. In addition, an order relation and two closed operations over this set are also introduced to provide a lattice structure to the extended set of hesitant fuzzy linguistic term sets. Based on this lattice structure a distance between hesitant fuzzy linguistic term sets is defined.
Journal of Neuroengineering and Rehabilitation Open Access a Swimming Robot Actuated by Living Muscle Tissue Biomechatronicsbionicscyberneticshybrid Roboticsmuscle Actuatorsskeletal Musclemuscle Organ Culturefunctional Electrical Stimulation

Biomechatronics is the integration of biological components with artificial devices, in which the biological component confers a significant functional capability to the system, and the artificial component provides specific cellular and tissue interfaces that promote the maintenance and functional adaptation of the biological component. Based upon functional performance, muscle is potentially an excellent mechanical actuator, but the larger challenge of developing muscle-actuated, biomechatronic devices poses many scientific and engineering challenges. As a demonstratory proof of concept, we designed, built, and characterized a swimming robot actuated by two explanted frog semitendinosus muscles and controlled by an embedded microcontroller. Using open loop stimulation protocols, the robot performed basic swimming maneuvers such as starting, stopping, turning (turning radius ~400 mm) and straight-line swimming (max speed >1/3 body lengths/second). A broad spectrum antibiotic/antimycotic ringer solution surrounded the muscle actuators for long term maintenance, ex vivo. The robot swam for a total of 4 hours over a 42 hour lifespan (10% duty cycle) before its velocity degraded below 75% of its maximum. The development of functional biomechatronic prototypes with integrated musculoskeletal tissues is the first critical step toward the long term objective of controllable, adaptive and robust biomechatronic robots and prostheses.
Effect of Crown to Implant Ratio and Implant Dimensions on Periimplant Stress of Splinted Implant-Supported Crowns: A Finite Element Analysis

Purpose:To assess the influence of different crown-implant (C/I) ratios and implant dimensions on periimplant stress in the partially edentulous posterior mandible by 3-dimensional finite element analysis (FEA). Materials and Methods:Two implants were placed in the second premolar and first molar regions of the mandibular model. The implants were then splinted with a 2-unit fixed bridge. The influence of 3 parameters (C/I ratio, implant length, and implant diameter) on periimplant bone stress was then analyzed by using FEA. Results:C/I ratios showed a direct relationship with periimplant bone stress, but the absolute height of the clinical crown had a much more significant influence. The implant length had less influence on the periimplant bone stress than the implant diameter. Lower stress values were detected in wide-diameter implants, even in scenarios involving long crowns. Conclusions:Crown height is a more important factor affecting the periimplant bone stress than the C/I ratio for splinted implant-supported crowns. Two-unit fixed restorations with high C/I ratios may be successfully used with wide-diameter implants in the posterior mandible.
Biped navigation in rough environments using on-board sensing

We present an approach to navigating a biped robot safely and efficiently through a complicated environment of previously unknown obstacles and terrain using only on-board sensing and odometry. Sensing of the environment is performed by a pivoting laser scanner, which continues to update the terrain representation as the robot walks. Safe stepping motions are planned from this data to follow the user's command, given in the form of an end goal, a rough path, or a joystick input. Results are demonstrated on a prototype robot in several environments.
RiskRoute: a framework for mitigating network outage threats

A comprehensive understanding of outage threats is critical for robust network design and operation, and evaluating cost trade-offs for recovery planning. In this paper, we describe a study of network infrastructure events due to outage events and a framework for mitigating these risks through backup routing and additional provisioning. We evaluate risk via the concept of bit-risk miles, the geographically-scaled outage risk of traffic in a network. Our focus on bit-risk miles allows for first-of-its-kind analysis of the tradeoffs of shortest path routing and risk-averse routing. We leverage the concept of bit-risk miles to present RiskRoute, a flexible routing framework that allows for backup routes to be configured to respond to both historical and immediately forecasted outage threats. Specifically, RiskRoute is an optimization framework that minimizes bit-risk miles between arbitrary points in a network. RiskRoute also reveals the best locations for provisioning additional network infrastructure in the form of new PoP-to-PoP links for single-network domains, and the best new peering relationships for multi-network domains. To assess and evaluate RiskRoute, we assemble diverse data sets including (i) - detailed topological maps and peering relationships of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in the US, and (ii) - historical information on different types of natural disasters which threaten physical infrastructure. Our analysis reveals the providers that have the highest risk to disaster-based outage events. We also provide provisioning recommendations for network operators that can in some cases significantly lower bit-risk miles for their infrastructures.
A universal realizability model for sequential functional computation

We construct a universal and even logically fully abstract realizability model for the sequential functional programming language of call-by-name FPC. This model is defined within the category of modest sets over the total combinatory algebra L of observational equivalence classes of closed terms of the untyped programming language lambda+Error. This language is untyped lazy call-by-name lambda-calculus extended by a single constant ERR and a conditional construct which distinguishes this constant from any other syntactic value. Universality and (constructive) logical full abstraction of the model are proved in three steps. Firstly, a canonical universal and logically fully abstract realizability model for FPC over the typed combinatory algebra T of observational equivalence classes of closed FPC-terms is constructed. Then the recursive type U := mu alpha. void + [ alpha --> alpha ] is shown to be universal, i.e. any other type is a definable retract of U. Hence this type gives rise to an untyped combinatory algebra U which is applicatively equivalent to the typed combinatory algebra T. As a consequence, the realizability toposes over T and U are equivalent and hence the realizability model for FPC over U also universal and logically fully abstract. Finally it is shown that every closed FPC-term of type U can be defined in the untyped language lambda+Error. Hence the combinatory algebras l U and L are applicatively equivalent. It follows that the realizability model over L is universal and logically fully abstract. As a consequence we prove a variant of the Longley-Phoa Conjecture.
An SCN2A mutation in a family with infantile seizures from Madagascar reveals an increased subthreshold Na+ current

Missense mutations in SCN2A, encoding the brain sodium channel NaV1.2, have been described in benign familial neonatal‐infantile seizures (BFNIS), a self‐limiting disorder, whereas several SCN2A de novo nonsense mutations have been found in patients with more severe phenotypes including epileptic encephalopathy. We report a family with BFNIS originating from Madagascar. Onset extended from 3 to 9 months of age. Interictal EEGs were normal. In two patients, ictal electroencephalography (EEG) studies showed partial seizure patterns with secondary generalization in one. Seizures remitted before 18 months of age, with or without medication. Intellectual development was normal. A novel missense mutation of SCN2A, c.4766A>G/p.Tyr1589Cys, was found in a highly conserved region of NaV1.2 (D4/S2‐S3). Functional studies using heterologous expression in tsA201 cells and whole‐cell patch clamping revealed a depolarizing shift of steady‐state inactivation, increased persistent Na+ current, a slowing of fast inactivation and an acceleration of its recovery, thus a gain‐of‐function. Using an action potential waveform in a voltage‐clamp experiment we indicated an increased inward Na+ current at subthreshold voltages, which can explain a neuronal hyperexcitability. Our results suggest that this mutation induces neuronal hyperexcitability, resulting in infantile epilepsy with favorable outcome.
The impact of early childhood shocks on the evolution of cognitive and non-cognitive skills

The impact of early childhood health shocks on long-term outcomes has long been a major focus in the economics literature. This paper employs a detailed panel dataset in a poor, rural province in China to analyze the impact of early childhood shocks, proxied by rainfall in the county and year of birth, on the evolution of cognitive and non-cognitive skills over time. The results suggest that there is a significant impact of early shocks on cognitive skills that declines over time. However, there is no evidence of a significant impact of early shocks on non-cognitive skills
Micro-beam XRF and Fe–K Edge XAFS on the Cross Section of the Rust Layer Formed on a Weathering Steel

Micro-beam X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and X-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) techniques have been applied, for the first time, to the cross sections of a rust layer on a weathering steel exposed for 38 years to the atmospheric environment. Elemental mapping and Fe–K edge XAFS spectra were measured with a spatial resolution of about 3 μm by an X-ray micro beam formed by a K–B mirror with the synchrotron radiation. Cr distribution, including layered patterns in the rust layer, was clearly observed by the micro-beam XRF imaging. The combination of micro-XRF and extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) analysis on identical analytical points has demonstrated that the crystallinity of α-FeOOH is strongly related to the Cr concentration. The XRF and XAFS results are presented and discussed in terms of the analytical techniques and the relationship between the crystal structure of the rust and the Cr concentration.
Image annotation with discriminative model and annotation refinement by visual similarity matching

A large percentage of photos on the Internet cannot be reached by search engines because of the absence of textual metadata. Such metadata come from description and tags of the photos by their uploaders. Despite of decades of research, neither modelbased and model-free approaches can provide quality annotation to images. In this thesis, I present a hybrid annotation pipeline that combines both approaches in hopes of increasing the accuracy of the resulting annotations. Given an unlabeled image, the first step is to suggest some words via a trained model optimized for retrieval of images from text. Though the trained model cannot always provide highly relevant words, they can be used as initial keywords to query a large web image repository and obtain text associated with retrieved images. We then use perceptual features (e.g., color, texture, shape, and local characteristics) to match the retrieved images with the query photo and use visual similarity to rank the relevance of suggested annotations for the query photo. Thesis Supervisor: Edward Chang Title: Director of Research, Google Thesis Supervisor: Berthold Horn Title: Professor of Computer Science
Correlation between gastrointestinal hormones and anxiety-depressive states in irritable bowel syndrome

The aim of this study was to investigate the mechanism(s) of action of gastrointestinal hormones in the pathogenesis of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and the correlation between gastrointestinal hormones and psychological factors. Patients with IBS were divided into IBS with normal emotional state ratings and IBS in anxiety-depressive states groups. The two groups were then subdivided into IBS-constipation predominant (IBS-C) and IBS-diarrhea predominant (IBS-D) groups. Non-IBS patients with normal depression and anxiety ratings were recruited as controls. The serum concentrations of somatostatin (SS) and vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) were measured by radioimmunoassay, and the expression of SS and VIP in the colonic mucosa was detected by immunohistochemistry and radioimmunoassay. The anxiety-depression scores of patients with IBS were significantly different from those of the control group (P<0.05). The expression levels of SS and VIP in the serum and colonic mucosa of the patients with IBS were higher compared with those of the control group. Furthermore, the expression level of SS in the IBS-C group demonstrated a significantly larger increase than that in the IBS-D group (P<0.05); however, there was no significant difference in the expression of VIP between the IBS-C and IBS-D groups (P>0.05). In addition, the expression levels of SS and VIP in the IBS groups with normal emotional state ratings were notably different from those in the IBS groups in anxiety-depressive states (P<0.05). Anxiety-depressive states may lead to changes in the secretion of SS and VIP, and subsequently to changes in gastrointestinal motility and function.
Consonant Co-Occurrence in Stems across Languages: Automatic Analysis and Visualization of a Phonotactic Constraint

In this paper, we explore the phenomenon of Similar Place Avoidance (SPA), according to which successive consonants within stems sharing the same place of articulation are avoided. This principle has recently been hypothesized as a universal tendency although evidence from only a few languages scattered across the world has been considered. Using methods taken from the field of Visual Analytics, which have demonstrably been shown to help with understanding complex interactions across large data sets, we investigated a large crosslinguistic lexical database (comprising data on more than 4,500 languages) and found that a universal tendency can indeed be maintained.
Similarity-Based Watermarking for Sub-Sampling Images with Bacterial Foraging Techniques

Digital watermarking is an effective means for copyright protection or covert communication in the research field of information security. By using watermarking, the watermark bits are hidden into the multimedia content with the designed algorithm. And the watermarked contents, or the watermarked image in this paper, look almost identical to its original counterpart, while it still retains the capability to counteract intentional signal processing by others and keeps the existence of the hidden watermark. We employ the concept of sub-sampling and make use of the frequency coefficient similarities between the sub-images for effectively embedding the watermark. In addition, there must be requirements to keep both the embedded watermark alive and the watermarked contents acceptable. Here we make use of an optimization technique, called bacterial foraging, for obtaining an optimized watermarking algorithm with a properly designed fitness function comprising the possible requirements including the watermarked image quality and the capability for the existence of extracted watermark. Simulation results demonstrate the advantages and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm with the combination of sub-sampling and bacterial foraging.
The Remnants of Intergalactic Supernovae

Intergalactic Type Ia supernovae (SNe) have been discovered recently in rich galaxy clusters. These SNe are likely the descendants of an intergalactic stellar population, which has been discovered in recent years through a variety of tracers. We estimate the observational signatures of the associated SN remnants (SNRs) in the unusual intracluster medium (ICM) environment. We find that if Type Ia SNe still have a circumstellar medium (CSM) at the time of explosion, then their remnants are visible in the optical for ~102-103 yr, with properties similar to young galactic SNRs. In contrast with galactic SNRs, in which the ejecta from the explosion interacts with the interstellar medium (ISM), intracluster SNRs become undetectable in the optical band once their ejecta passes beyond the CSM and enters the hot and tenuous ICM. If Type Ia SNe have a CSM, there should be ~150 young SNRs in the nearby Virgo Cluster, with an Hα luminosity of ~1035 ergs s-1 and an angular size of ~0. ″1. We investigate the possibility that members of this SNR population may have recently been detected but incorrectly identified as intergalactic H II regions. Alternatively, if optical intergalactic SNRs do not exist in Virgo, this will constitute evidence that Type Ia SNe are devoid of a CSM, with implications for progenitor scenarios. Regardless of the presence of a CSM, about 10 older SNRs per square degree should be detectable in Virgo in the radio band, with fluxes of order 0.1 mJy at 1 GHz. Their angular sizes (~1''), morphologies, and lack of optical association with distant galaxies can distinguish them from the much more numerous background population. Their detection would provide an accurate measurement of the intracluster SN rate. Deep pointed observations toward the site of SN 1980I, a possibly intergalactic Type Ia event in Virgo, could test for the existence of a CSM by comparison to our predictions for the early-time development of intergalactic SNRs.
Protective Effects of Solanum erianthum D. Don Leaf Extract on Lead-Induced Toxicity in Adult Wistar Rats -

The possible protective effects of the most potent fraction of Solanum erianthum ethanol leaf extract on lead-induced toxicity in adult wistar rats were investigated. Phytochemical constituents, antioxidant and membrane stabilizing activities of the ethanol extract and its fractions were determined using standard procedures. Acute and sub-chronic oral toxicity studies were carried out. The blood samples, liver, and kidney were collected for the estimation of biochemical and organ parameters, and histomorphological studies. The ethyl acetate fraction had the highest antioxidant activities and high membrane stabilizing potentials when compared to the crude extract and other fractions. Significant elevations were observed in plasma albumin, creatinine and urea levels in group treated with lead only. The activities of plasma ALT and AST were significantly increased in group treated with lead alone. Treatment with ethyl acetate fraction significantly decreased (< 0.05) the elevated ALT, AST, urea and creatinine levels. The histology evidence showed progressive degeneration of the liver and kidney tissues in lead treated groups while the administration of S. erianthum showed appreciable degrees of protection to both the liver and kidney. The study concluded that ethyl acetate fraction of S. erianthum has protective effects against lead-induced toxicity in adult Wistar rats.
Probabilistic Representation of Complexity

We study individuals' behavior in an environment that is deterministic, but too complex to permit tractable deterministic representation. Under mild conditions, behavior is represented by a unique probabilistic model in which the agent's inability to think through all contingencies of the problem translates into uncertainty about random states. We interpret this probabilistic model as embodying all patterns the agent perceives in his environment, yet allowing for the possibility that there may be important details he had missed. The implied behavior is rational in the traditional sense, yet consistent with an agent who believes his environment is too complex to warrant precise planing, foregoes finely detailed contingent rules in favor of vaguer plans, and expresses a preference for flexibility.
Correcting and Validating Syntactic Dependency in the Spoken French Treebank Rhapsodie

This article presents the methods, results, and precision of the syntactic annotation process of the Rhapsodie Treebank of spoken French. The Rhapsodie Treebank is an 33,000 word corpus annotated for prosody and syntax, licensed in its entirety under Creative Commons. The syntactic annotation contains two levels: a macro-syntactic level, containing a segmentation into illocutionary units (including discourse markers, parentheses â¦) and a micro-syntactic level including dependency relations and various paradigmatic structures, called pile constructions, the latter being particularly frequent and diverse in spoken language. The micro-syntactic annotation process, presented in this paper, includes a semi-automatic preparation of the transcription, the application of a syntactic dependency parser, transcoding of the parsing results to the Rhapsodie annotation scheme, manual correction by multiple annotators followed by a validation process, and finally the application of coherence rules that check common errors. The good inter-annotator agreement scores are presented and analyzed in greater detail. The article also includes the list of functions used in the dependency annotation and for the distinction of various pile constructions and presents the ideas underlying these choices.
Asthma incidence in wood-processing industries in Finland in a register-based population study.

OBJECTIVES This register-based population study determined incidence rates of clinically verified asthma among woodworkers, other blue-collar workers, and administrative personnel employed in wood-processing industries in Finland. Exposure to wood dust was under special scrutiny. METHODS All Finns employed in wood-processing industries were followed for asthma incidence via record linkage in the years 1986-1998. Incident cases included people with asthma reimbursed for medication by the national health insurance or registered as having occupational asthma. Age-adjusted incidence rates and relative risks (RR) by gender were estimated for wood workers, other blue-collar workers, and administrative employees (referents) in wood industries. RESULTS The relative risk of asthma was increased for all woodworkers among both genders [men: RR 1.5, 95% confidence interval (95% CI) 1.2-1.8; women: RR 1.5, 95% Cl 1.2-1.7]; a similarly elevated risk was also found for other blue-collar workers (men: RR 1.5, 95% Cl 1.2-1.8; women: RR 1.4, 95% Cl 1.2-1.6) in the same wood industries. Statistically increased relative risks were found for low and medium exposure to wood dust, but not for high exposure. Altogether 217 of the 4074 clinically verified asthma cases were reported as occupational asthma in the Finnish Register on Occupational Diseases. CONCLUSIONS The incidence rates for asthma were significantly increased both among the woodworkers and the other blue-collar workers in wood industries but without a clear dose-response. Cases recognized as occupational asthma accounted for only a small part of the total asthma excess, indicating that much of the work-related asthma excess remains unrecognized in these industries.