Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Catastrophic Cervical Spine Injuries in the Collision Sport Athlete, Part 2

Catastrophic cervical spine injuries can lead to devastating consequences for the collision athlete. Improved understanding of these injuries can lead to identification of risk factors, early diagnosis, and effective on-field management. This article is the second in a 2-part series. The first part, published in the June 2004 issue, reviewed the current concepts regarding the epidemiology, functional anatomy, and diagnostic considerations relevant to cervical spine trauma in collision sports. In this article, the principles of on-field emergency care of the spine-injured athlete are reviewed. The authors discuss the need for effective pre-event planning, on-field evaluation and management of cervical spine injuries, and the transition of care from the playing field to the emergency room. The protocol for equipment removal, when necessary, is also reviewed. An organized, rapid approach to the management of cervical spine–injured collision athletes can help to optimize the outcomes of these catastrophic injuries.
Morphology selection for cupric oxide thin films by electrodeposition

Polycrystalline cupric oxide thin films were deposited using alkaline solution bath employing cathodic electrodeposition method. The thin films were electrodeposited at various solution pH. The surface morphology and elemental analyzes of the films were studied using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X‐ray analysis, respectively. SEM studies revealed that the surface morphology could be tailored suitably by adjusting the pH value during deposition. Mesh average on multiple lattice mode atomic force microscopy image was obtained and reported. Microsc. Res. Tech. 2011. © 2011 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Energy Efficient and Reliable Job Submission in Hadoop Clusters

MapReduce paradigm is highly suitable for large scale data intensive applications in the cloud environment. The scale of these applications necessitates minimization of cluster power consumption to reduce operational costs and carbon footprint. Energy consumption can be reduced by selective power down of nodes during periods of low utilization. Hadoop is basically used for batch processing of huge jobs. Before jobs are submitted, the files used them are uploaded into the cluster. A file is split up into a number of chunks and distributed across the Hadoop cluster. This paper addresses the problem of block allocation in distributed file system to improve reliability and energy efficiency. A framework to reduce power requirements of a cluster by identifying the number of replicas and their placement for reliable completion of the job has been designed. This will address the issues like block allocation, reliable job submission and minimization of cluster nodes to reduce power consumption. This framework is integrated with hadoop’s namenode. The scheduler component in Hadoop has also been modified to enable submission of jobs to active data node containing data to be operated on. A greedy approach and an evolutionary approach using Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) has been designed to identify suitable nodes to be activated in a cluster. Experimental results demonstrate the performance of these approaches.
Clinical Application of AIMS65 Scores to Predict Outcomes in Patients with Upper Gastrointestinal Hemorrhage

Background/Aims To evaluate the ability of the recently proposed albumin, international normalized ratio (INR), mental status, systolic blood pressure, age >65 years (AIMS65) score to predict mortality in patients with acute upper gastrointestinal bleeding (UGIB). Methods AIMS65 scores were calculated in 251 consecutive patients presenting with acute UGIB by allotting 1 point each for albumin level <30 g/L, INR >1.5, alteration in mental status, systolic blood pressure ≤90 mm Hg, and age ≥65 years. Risk stratification was done during the initial 12 hours of hospital admission. Results Intensive care unit (ICU) admission, endoscopic therapy, or surgery were required in 51 patients (20.3%), 64 (25.5%), and 12 (4.8%), respectively. The predictive accuracy of AIMS65 scores ≥2 was high for blood transfusion (area under the receiver operator characteristic curve [AUROC], 0.59), ICU admission (AUROC, 0.61), and mortality (AUROC, 0.74). The overall mortality was 10.3% (n=26), and was 3%, 7.8%, 20%, 36%, and 40% for AIMS65 scores of 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4, respectively; these values were significantly higher in those with scores ≥2 (30.9%) than in those with scores <2 (4.5%, p<0.001). Conclusions AIMS65 is a simple, accurate, non-endoscopic risk score that can be applied early (within 12 hours of hospital admission) in patients with acute UGIB. AIMS65 scores ≥2 predict high in-hospital mortality.
A Constraint Programming-Based Resource Management Technique for Processing MapReduce Jobs with SLAs on Clouds

Clouds that are rapidly gaining in popularity require an effective resource manager that can harness the power of the underlying resource pool, and provide resources on demand to its users. This paper focuses on resource management on clouds for workflow requests characterized by Service Level Agreements (SLAs). Specifically, we devise a novel MapReduce constraint programming based resource manager (MRCP-RM) that can effectively perform matchmaking and scheduling of MapReduce jobs, each characterized by an SLA comprising an earliest start time, execution time, and an end-to-end deadline. Using discrete event simulation a performance evaluation of MRCP-RM is conducted for an open system subjected to a stream of job arrivals. The simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the resource manager and provide insights into system behaviour and performance.
Integrating Caching Techniques in CDNs using a Classification Approach

Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) provide an efficient support for serving “resourcehungry” applications while minimizing the network impact of content delivery as well as shifting the traffic away from overloaded origin servers. However, their performance gain is limited since the storage space in CDN’s servers is not used optimally. In order to manage their storage capacity in an efficient way, we integrate caching techniques in CDNs. The challenge is to decide which objects would be devoted to caching so as the CDN’s server may be used both as a replicator and as a proxy server. In this paper we propose a nonlinear nonparametric model which classifies the CDN’s server cache into two parts. Through a detailed simulation environment, we show that the proposed technique can yield significant reduction in user-perceived latency as compared with other heuristic schemes.
HOG Feature Extractor Hardware Accelerator for Real-Time Pedestrian Detection

Histogram of oriented gradients (HOG) is considered as the most promising algorithm in human detection, however its complexity and intensive computational load is an issue for real-time detection in embedded systems. This paper presents a hardware accelerator for HOG feature extractor to fulfill the requirements of real-time pedestrian detection in driver assistance systems. Parallel and deep pipelined hardware architecture with special defined memory access pattern is employed to improve the throughput while maintaining the accuracy of the original algorithm reasonably high. Adoption of efficient memory access pattern, which provides simultaneous access to the required memory area for different functional blocks, avoids repetitive calculation at different stages of computation, resulting in both higher throughput and lower power. It does not impose any further resource requirements with regard to memory utilization. Our presented hardware accelerator is capable of extracting HOG features for 60 fps (frame per second) of HDTV (1080x1920) frame and could be employed with several instances of support vector machine (SVM) classifier in order to provide multiple object detection.
Understanding the Role of Structure in Concept Maps

Concept mapping is widely used in educational settings to aid knowledge construction, sharing, and comparison, as well as to assess students’ understanding. However, despite this rich range of uses, there have been few controlled studies of the relationship between concept maps and people’s internal conceptualizations. Because concept maps represent information as a network of concepts, an interesting question is how structural factors relate to concept importance. This paper presents results on modeling map-builders’ assessments of concept importance in terms of structural factors. Twenty subjects were asked to construct a concept map on a topic of interest and subsequently to rank labels of concepts extracted from their maps, based on the concepts’ importance in describing the map’s topic. Analysis of the results supports that subjects rank concepts higher if they are closer to the map’s root concept and if they have more outgoing connections or incoming connections relative to the other concepts. Agreement between the model’s predictions and subjects’ rankings was high, with Spearman’s rank correlation coefcients in some cases 1.0 or close to 1.0. These results suggest that topology alone is a sufcient indicator to extract topic-relevant information from concept maps. This has ramications for developing tools to assess student concept maps and concept map authoring support systems. The results have been applied in the design of isuggesteri systems that aid domain experts in building concept maps, by using structural information to identify important concepts and search for topic-relevant information in previously built concept map libraries and on the Web.
The Many Faces of Neuroendocrine Differentiation in Prostate Cancer Progression

In normal prostate, neuroendocrine (NE) cells are rare and interspersed among the epithelium. These cells are believed to provide trophic signals to epithelial cell populations through the secretion of an abundance of neuropeptides that can diffuse to influence surrounding cells. In the setting of prostate cancer (PC), NE cells can also stimulate surrounding prostate adenocarcinoma cell growth, but in some cases adenocarcinoma cells themselves acquire NE characteristics. This epithelial plasticity is associated with decreased androgen receptor (AR) signaling and the accumulation of neuronal and stem cell characteristics. Transformation to an NE phenotype is one proposed mechanism of resistance to contemporary AR-targeted treatments, is associated with poor prognosis, and thought to represent up to 25% of lethal PCs. Importantly, the advent of high-throughput technologies has started to provide clues for understanding the complex molecular profiles of tumors exhibiting NE differentiation. Here, we discuss these recent advances, the multifaceted manner by which an NE-like state may arise during the different stages of disease progression, and the potential benefit of this knowledge for the management of patients with advanced PC.
Planning with Noisy Probabilistic Relational Rules

Noisy probabilistic relational rules are a promising world model representation for several reasons. They are compact and generalize over world instantiations. They are usually interpretable and they can be learned effectively from the action experiences in complex worlds. We investigate reasoning with such rules in grounded relational domains. Our algorithms exploit the compactness of rules for efficient and fexible decision-theoretic planning. As a first approach, we combine these rules with the Upper Confidence Bounds applied to Trees (UCT) algorithm based on look-ahead trees. Our second approach converts these rules into a structured dynamic Bayesian network representation and predicts the effects of action sequences using approximate inference and beliefs over world states. We evaluate the effectiveness of our approaches for planning in a simulated complex 3D robot manipulation scenario with an articulated manipulator and realistic physics and in domains of the probabilistic planning competition. Empirical results show that our methods can solve problems where existing methods fail.
Switching ZVDk input shaper for flexible closed-loop system with saturation

Input shapers have been used to suppress residual vibration of flexible systems. The shaped reference, which is the output from the input shaper, avoids exciting the vibratory modes of the flexible closed-loop systems, resulting in zero residual vibration. Nevertheless, in practice, actuator saturation normally exists. The saturation changes the shaped control effort, intended for residual vibration suppression. As a result, the performance of the input shaper is degraded. This paper presents a technique to avoid violating the saturation by choosing the right input shaper for every reference step size. Using the rigid plant model, the control effort is computed for the shaped reference. Hence, given a saturation level of the control effort, the right input shaper that does not produce the shaped reference that violates the saturation level can be selected. The step size of the baseline reference can be varied, leading to switching among input shapers. The ZVDk input shaper was used. The proposed technique applied favorably both in simulation and in experiment.
Vaccination with poly-L-arginine as immunostimulant for peptide vaccines: induction of potent and long-lasting T-cell responses against cancer antigens.

Vaccines that induce high numbers of sustained T cell responses are urgently needed for the treatment of numerous diseases including cancer. Antigen-presenting cells (APCs), the most important of which are dendritic cells, orchestrate antigen-dependent T cell responses in that they present antigens to T cells in an appropriate environment. Here we present evidence that after vaccination with a simple mixture of the cationic poly-amino acid poly-L-arginine and tumor antigen-derived peptide antigens, large numbers of antigen-specific T cells are induced and APCs mediate the generation of T lymphocytes. We observe that after s.c. injection, MHC class II(+) cells infiltrate injection sites and are loaded with large amounts of antigen in vivo under the influence of poly-L-arginine. Consequently, numerous antigen-charged APCs can be detected in draining lymph nodes of vaccinated animals. Antigen-specific T cell responses induced are systemic and were readily detected more than 4 months after the last vaccination, the latest time point we measured. By contrast, even after repeat injections, we were consistently unable to detect antibody responses against poly-L-arginine, allowing this compound to be used for numerous booster injections. Clinical trials in cancer patients using poly-L-arginine as immunostimulant will be carried out in the near future.
Time reversal of ultrasonic fields. I. Basic principles

Time reversal of ultrasonic fields represents a way to focus through an inhomogeneous medium. This may be accomplished by a time-reversal mirror (TRM) made from an array of transmit-receive transducers that respond linearly and allow the incident acoustic pressure to be sampled. The pressure field is then time-reversed and re-emitted. This process can be used to focus through inhomogeneous media on a reflective target that behaves as an acoustic source after being insonified. The time-reversal approach is introduced in a discussion of the classical techniques used for focusing pulsed waves through inhomogeneous media (adaptive time-delay techniques). Pulsed wave time-reversal focusing is shown using reciprocity valid in inhomogeneous medium to be optimal in the sense that it realizes the spatial-temporal matched filter to the inhomogeneous propagation transfer function between the array and the target. The research on time-reversed wave fields has also led to the development of new concepts that are described: time-reversal cavity that extends the concept of the TRM, and iterative time-reversal processing for automatic sorting of targets according to their reflectivity and resonating of extended targets. <<ETX>>
In silico investigation of the short QT syndrome, using human ventricle models incorporating electromechanical coupling

Introduction: Genetic forms of the Short QT Syndrome (SQTS) arise due to cardiac ion channel mutations leading to accelerated ventricular repolarization, arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death. Results from experimental and simulation studies suggest that changes to refractoriness and tissue vulnerability produce a substrate favorable to re-entry. Potential electromechanical consequences of the SQTS are less well-understood. The aim of this study was to utilize electromechanically coupled human ventricle models to explore electromechanical consequences of the SQTS. Methods and Results: The Rice et al. mechanical model was coupled to the ten Tusscher et al. ventricular cell model. Previously validated K+ channel formulations for SQT variants 1 and 3 were incorporated. Functional effects of the SQTS mutations on [Ca2+]i transients, sarcomere length shortening and contractile force at the single cell level were evaluated with and without the consideration of stretch-activated channel current (Isac). Without Isac, at a stimulation frequency of 1Hz, the SQTS mutations produced dramatic reductions in the amplitude of [Ca2+]i transients, sarcomere length shortening and contractile force. When Isac was incorporated, there was a considerable attenuation of the effects of SQTS-associated action potential shortening on Ca2+ transients, sarcomere shortening and contractile force. Single cell models were then incorporated into 3D human ventricular tissue models. The timing of maximum deformation was delayed in the SQTS setting compared to control. Conclusion: The incorporation of Isac appears to be an important consideration in modeling functional effects of SQT 1 and 3 mutations on cardiac electro-mechanical coupling. Whilst there is little evidence of profoundly impaired cardiac contractile function in SQTS patients, our 3D simulations correlate qualitatively with reported evidence for dissociation between ventricular repolarization and the end of mechanical systole.
Ontology-Based Intelligent Web Mining Agent for Taiwan Travel

Due to the gradual increase in travel, the travel agent plays an important role in providing travel information conform to tourist’s requirements. Taiwan, also known as Formosa, its society is known throughout the world for its sincere hospitality and diverse cultural cuisine, and it has been one of the top tourist attractions in East Asia for years. In this paper, we propose an ontology-based intelligent web mining agent for Taiwan travel. The core technologies of the agent contain the ontology model, fuzzy inference mechanism, particle swarm optimization and ant colony optimization. The proposed agent can help tourist to collect Taiwan travel information form World Wide Web automatically by using tourist’s natural language description or documents. In this way, it will reduce travel agency’s workload and to accelerate the speed of tourist’s getting the travel information.
PROBLEMATIZING THE THEORY- PRACTICE GAP: HOW ESL TEACHERS MAKE SENSE OF THEIR PRESERVICE EDUCATION (KURAM VE UYGULAMA ARASINDAKİ BOŞLUK ÜZERİNE BİR ÇALIŞMA: İNGİLİZCE ÖĞRETMENLERİ KENDİ LİSANS

educators have generally considered the "theory-practice gap" to be constructed uniformly by teachers. However, the two preservice teachers who participated in this study made sense of their coursework differently, in ways that were related to the identities they constructed for themselves as teachers. In this paper I argue that it is important to examine variations in how preservice teachers make sense of their teacher education, and to examine their understandings of the theoretical and practical elements of their coursework in relationship to the identities they construct for themselves as teachers. That is, before we can make compelling connections between theory and practice we must further explore the complexity of how teachers construct this relationship. This examination may allow us to better tailor teacher education experiences to teachers' unique needs.
New feedback method of hybrid HMM/ANN methods for continuous speech recognition

In continuous speech recognition, the co-pronunciation between two successive phonemes seriously disturbs the recognition effect. It is difficult for pure hidden Markov model (HMM) methods to cope with co-pronunciation, because HMM methods consider that two successive frames of speech are independant. The hybrid HMM and artificial neural network (ANN) methods with feedback multilayer perceptron (MLP) (Bourlard and Wellekens, 1990; Bourlard and Morgan 1994) provide the ability to cope with co-pronunciation by means of feedback input. In this paper, we propose a new feedback method for feedback hybrid HMM/ANN methods on the basis of the original methods. The new feedback method provides more information of co-pronunciation to the feedback ANN. From HMM/ANN with feedback double MLP structure, we discuss the method that reduces the computation of the feedback MLP during recognition.
A shuffled iterative bit-interleaved coded modulation receiver for the DVB-T2 standard: Design, implementation and FPGA prototyping

Rotated QAM constellations improve Bit-Interleaved Coded Modulation (BICM) performance over fading channels. Indeed, an increased diversity is obtained by coupling a constellation rotation with interleaving between the real and imaginary components of transmitted symbols either in time or frequency domain. Iterative processing at the receiver side can provide additional improvement in performance. In this paper, an efficient shuffled iterative receiver is investigated for the second generation of the terrestrial digital video broadcasting standard DVB-T2. Scheduling an efficient message passing algorithm with low latency between the demapper and the LDPC decoder represents the main contribution. The design and the FPGA prototyping of the resultant shuffled iterative BICM receiver are then described. Architecture complexity and measured performance validate the potential of iterative receiver as a practical and competitive solution for the DVB-T2 standard.
Design, Synthesis and Trypanocidal Evaluation of Novel 1,2,4-Triazoles-3-thiones Derived from Natural Piperine

The work reported herein describes the synthesis and the assessment of the trypanocidal activity of thirteen new 1,2,4-triazole-3-thiones obtained from natural piperine, the main constituent of the dry fruits of Piper nigrum. It is part of a research program aiming to use abundant and easily available natural products as starting materials for the design and synthesis of new molecules potentially useful as antiparasitic drugs. The variously substituted triazole derivatives were synthesized from the natural amide in four steps with the use of microwave irradiation on overall yields ranging from 32% to 51%. The cyclohexyl substituted derivative showed the best trypanocidal profile on proliferative forms of Trypanosoma cruzi (Y strain), with IC50s = 18.3 and 8.87 μM against epimastigotes and amastigotes, respectively.