Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Autism Spectrum Disorders in Older Adults: Toward Defining a Research Agenda

Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are among the most common of the severe developmental disabilities, yet little is known about older adults with ASDs—in particular, how the disabilities and dependencies that result from aging interact with those resulting from ASDs. The aging of the population in Western countries, the increasing rate of diagnosis of ASDs, and the burgeoning use of services for ASDs are converging to create a large, growing influx of older adults with ASDs that could impose tremendous humanistic and economic burdens on the healthcare system and society. An understanding of the epidemiological, biological, psychological, and social aspects of ASDs in older adults is essential for preparing to meet their needs, but studies on ASDs in these individuals are practically nonexistent. This article outlines observations and recommendations of a multidisciplinary expert group convened in March 2010 to characterize gaps in knowledge regarding ASDs in older adults and defines research directions to help individuals, the healthcare system, and society prepare for meeting the needs of this population. The proposed research agenda could help improve the lives of older adults with ASDs and inform research and clinical practice involving younger individuals with ASDs.
Confidence intervals for the between‐study variance in random effects meta‐analysis using generalised Cochran heterogeneity statistics

Statistical inference is problematic in the common situation in meta‐analysis where the random effects model is fitted to just a handful of studies. In particular, the asymptotic theory of maximum likelihood provides a poor approximation, and Bayesian methods are sensitive to the prior specification. Hence, less efficient, but easily computed and exact, methods are an attractive alternative. Here, methodology is developed to compute exact confidence intervals for the between‐study variance using generalised versions of Cochran's heterogeneity statistic. If some between‐study is anticipated, but it is unclear how much, then a pragmatic approach is to use the reciprocals of the within‐study standard errors as weights when computing the confidence interval. © 2013 The Authors. Research Synthesis Methods published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Cation substitution of CZTS solar cell with > 10% efficiency

High efficiency CZTS-based thin film solar cells are achieved by cation substitution and sol-gel method. Two approaches are presented here: 1) the substitution of Zn with Cd and 2) the substitution of Cu with Ag. For Cd-doped CZTS (i.e. CZCTS) the efficiency of CZCTS thin film solar cell can be improved from 9.24% to 10.66% by careful modification of alloys composition and interfaces between TCO/CdS/CZTS. For Ag-doped CZTS thin film solar cells, the improvement in power conversion efficiency can be correlated with the Voc and crystallinity improvements. Thus the limitations in CZTS system, such as Voc deficit, secondary phases, crystallinity and antisite defects, can be alleviated to some degree by using cation substitution.
The Effective Dimension of Asset-Liability Management Problems in Life Insurance ∗

Much effort has been spent on the development of stochastic asset-liability management (ALM) models for life insurance policies in the last years, see, e.g., Bacinello (2001), Ballota et al. (2006), Briys, Varenne (1997), De Felice, Moriconi (2005), Gerstner et al. (2007), Grosen, Jorgensen (2000), Miltersen, Persson (2003) and the references therein. Such models are becoming more and more important due to new regulations and a stronger competition. They are employed by insurance companies to simulate the mediumand long-term development of all assets and liabilities of their insurance portfolios. This way, the exposure of the company to financial, mortality and surrender risks can be analysed. The results are used to support management decisions regarding, e.g., the asset allocation, the bonus declaration or the design of new profitable and competitive insurance products. The models are also applied to obtain market-based, fair value accountancy standards as required by Solvency II and the International Financial Reporting Standard. Here, we consider the ALM model proposed in Gerstner et al. (2007). The main focus of this model is to simulate the temporal development of the most important balance sheet items for a portfolio of participating life insurance policies. Thereby, the time horizon [0, T ] is decomposed into M periods (tk−1, tk], 0 ≤ k ≤ M , with equal period length ∆t = T/M . Within this discrete time framework all terms can then be calculated recursively and in a modular way which allows an easy implementation and efficient simulation of the model. At time tk, the asset side of the balance sheet is determined by the market value Ck of the assets of the company which are invested in stocks and bonds. The temporal dynamics of the stock prices are modelled by a geometric Brownian motion while the short interest rates are obtained from a one-factor mean-reversion model, the socalled Cox-Ingersoll-Ross (CIR) model which is coupled to the stock price model via a constant correlation factor. This system, which is based on two independent standard
Influence of carbon nanotube concentration and sonication temperature on mechanical properties of HDPE/CNT nanocomposites

ABSTRACT Carbon nanotube (CNT) reinforced high-density polyethylene (HDPE) composites were prepared by a melt mixing procedure. The mechanical properties were analyzed using a central composite design where key factors were CNT concentration and sonication temperature during the sample preparation process. The results indicated that the optimum values were 0.8 wt% for the concentration of CNT and 55°C for the sonication temperature. The samples obtained at optimal conditions were systematically studied. Nanoindentation analysis showed an increase of 43% in Vickers hardness of the nanocomposite when compared to pure polymer. The improvement on the mechanical property is related to changes in the thermo-physical and viscoelastic properties of the nanocomposite.
Near-infrared spectroscopy and skeletal muscle oxidative function in vivo in health and disease: a review from an exercise physiology perspective

Abstract. In most daily activities related to work or leisure, the energy for muscle work substantially comes from oxidative metabolism. Functional limitations or impairments of this metabolism can significantly affect exercise tolerance and performance. As a method for the functional evaluation of skeletal muscle oxidative metabolism, near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) has important strengths but also several limitations, some of which have been overcome by recent technological developments. Skeletal muscle fractional O2 extraction, the main variable which can be noninvasively evaluated by NIRS, is the result of the dynamic balance between O2 utilization and O2 delivery; it can yield relevant information on key physiological and pathophysiological mechanisms, relevant in the evaluation of exercise performance and exercise tolerance in healthy subjects (in normal and in altered environmental conditions) and in patients. In the right hands, NIRS can offer insights into the physiological and pathophysiological adaptations to conditions of increased O2 needs that involve, in an integrated manner, different organs and systems of the body. In terms of patient evaluation, NIRS allows determination of the evolution of the functional impairments, to identify their correlations with clinical symptoms, to evaluate the effects of therapeutic or rehabilitative interventions, and to gain pathophysiological and diagnostic insights.
Cloud based social and sensor data fusion

As mobile cloud computing facilitates a wide spectrum of smart applications, the need for fusing various types of data available in the cloud grows rapidly. In particular, social and sensor data lie at the core in such applications, but typically processed separately. This paper explores the potential of fusing social and sensor data in the cloud, presenting a practice - a travel recommendation system that offers the predicted mood information of people on where and when users wish to travel. The system is built upon a conceptual framework that allows to blend the heterogeneous social and sensor data for integrated analysis, extracting weather-dependent people's mood information from Twitter and meteorological sensor data streams. In order to handle massively streaming data, the system employs various cloud-serving systems, such as Hadoop, HBase, and GSN. Using this scalable system, we performed heavy ETL as well as filtering jobs, resulting in 12 million tweets over four months. We then derived a rich set of interesting findings through the data fusion, proving that our approach is effective and scalable, which can serve as an important basis in fusing social and sensor data in the cloud.
A Bragg Wavelength-Insensitive Fiber Bragg Grating Ultrasound Sensing System that Uses a Broadband Light and No Optical Filter

An optical filter is incorporated in a conventional ultrasound detection system that uses a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) and broadband light source, to demodulate the FBG sensor signal. A novel ultrasound sensing system that does not require an optical filter is presented herein. Ultrasound could be detected via the application of signal processing techniques, such as signal averaging and frequency filters, to the photodetector output that corresponds to the intensity of the reflected light from a broadband light-illuminated FBG. Ultrasonic sensitivity was observed to be enhanced when an FBG was installed as a resonant sensor. This FBG ultrasound detection system is small and cheap to fabricate because it does not use a demodulating optical filter. The experimental results demonstrate that this system could be applied to ultrasonic damage inspection and acoustic emission measurements. Furthermore, this system was able to detect ultrasound despite the amount of strain or temperature that was applied to the FBG sensor because the ultrasound detection was not sensitive to the Bragg wavelength of the FBG sensor.
Machine Learning Enhancing Adaptivity of Multimodal Mobile Systems

One of the most important features of a mobile device concerns its flexibility and capability to adapt the functionality it provides to the users. However, the main problems of the systems present in literature are their incapability to identify user needs and, more importantly, the insufficient mappings of those needs to available resources/ services. In this paper, we present a two-phase construction of the user model: firstly, an initial static user model is built for the user connecting to the system the first time. Then, the model is revised/adjusted by considering the information collected in the logs of the user interaction with the device/context in order to make the model more adequate to the evolving user's interests/ preferences/behaviour. The initial model is built by exploiting the stereotype concept, its adjustment is performed exploiting machine learning techniques and particularly, sequence mining and pattern discovery strategies.
BCL11A gene DNA methylation contributes to the risk of type 2 diabetes in males

BCL11A is a critical modulator involved in hemoglobin switching. Recent studies have established an association between BCL11A gene polymorphisms and a risk of type 2 diabetes (T2D). The aim of the present study was to assess the correlation between BCL11A DNA methylation and T2D. A total of 48 T2D cases and 48 age- and gender-matched controls were recruited to evaluate BCL11A methylation using bisulfite pyrosequencing technology. Although no significant association was observed in BCL11A methylation between T2D patients and healthy controls (P=0.322), breakdown analysis by gender identified a significant association between BCL11A methylation and T2D in males (P=0.018). Notably, there was also a significant female-specific association between the mean BCL11A DNA methylation and triglyceride (TG) concentration (r=−0.34; P=0.019). The results indicated that BCL11A methylation contributed to the risk of T2D in males. In addition, BCL11A methylation may have an effect on the development of T2D by influencing TG metabolism. Thus, gender difference may provide new information to aid the understanding of T2D pathogenesis.
Trends and Outcomes in the Treatment of Gliomas Based on Data during 2001–2004 from the Brain Tumor Registry of Japan

The committee of Brain Tumor Registry of Japan (BTRJ) was founded in 1973 and conducts surveys and analyses of incidence, therapeutic methods, and treatment outcomes of primary and metastatic brain tumors with the cooperation of the Japan Neurosurgical Society members. Newly diagnosed 3,000–4,000 primary brain tumors and 600–1,000 brain metastases patients were enrolled in each year. This report describes the trends and treatment outcomes of gliomas from BTRJ volume 13, including 13,431 patients with primary brain tumors who newly started treatment from 2001 to 2004. Data from 382 diffuse astrocytomas (DAs), 121 oligodendrogliomas (OLs), 90 oligoastrocytomas (OAs), 513 anaplastic astrocytomas (AAs), 126 anaplastic oligodendrogliomas (AOs), 106 anaplastic oligoastrocytomas (AOAs), and 1,489 glioblastomas (GBMs) were analyzed for overall survival (OS) and progression free survival (PFS) depending on age, symptoms, Karnofsky performance status, location of the tumor, extent of resection (EOR), initial radiotherapy and chemotherapy. The 5-year PFS rates of the patients with DA, OL + OA, AA, AO + AOA, and GBM were 57.0%, 74.6%, 28.7%, 54.0%, and 9.2%, and the 5-year OS rates were 75.0%, 90.0%, 41.1%, 68.2%, and 10.1%, respectively. Higher EOR ≥ 75% in DA and OL + OA and that ≥ 50% in AA, AO + AOA, and GBM significantly prolonged OS. Complications and cause of death were also reported. BTRJ had been edited for all the patients, researchers, and especially for clinicians at bedside to give useful information about brain tumors and to contribute to the advances in brain tumor treatment. This report revealed various clinical problematic issues pertaining to the diagnosis and treatment of gliomas.
Distortion as a validation criterion in the identification of suspicious reviews

Assessing the trustworthiness of reviews is a key issue for the maintainers of opinion sites such as TripAdvisor. In this paper we propose a distortion criterion for assessing the impact of methods for uncovering suspicious hotel reviews in TripAdvisor. The principle is that dishonest reviews will distort the overall popularity ranking for a collection of hotels. Thus a mechanism that deletes dishonest reviews will distort the popularity ranking significantly, when compared with the removal of a similar set of reviews at random. This distortion can be quantified by comparing popularity rankings before and after deletion, using rank correlation. We present an evaluation of this strategy in the assessment of shill detection mechanisms on a dataset of hotel reviews collected from TripAdvisor.
Stencil-Aware GPU Optimization of Iterative Solvers

Numerical solutions of nonlinear partial differential equations frequently rely on iterative Newton--Krylov methods, which linearize a finite-difference stencil-based discretization of a problem, producing a sparse matrix with regular structure. Knowledge of this structure can be used to exploit parallelism and locality of reference on modern cache-based multi and manycore architectures, achieving high performance for computations underlying commonly used iterative linear solvers. In this paper we describe our approach to sparse matrix data structure design and our implementation of the kernels underlying iterative linear solvers in PETSc. We also describe autotuning of CUDA implementations based on high-level descriptions of the stencil-based matrix and vector operations.
Microfluidic System Based on Thermoexpandable Polymer for on Chip Blood Coagulation Testing

This paper describes a simple system for the actuation of a biological fluid through micro-channels with a thermoactivated polymer actuator. This system is of interest for the development of single-use diagnostic test-strips since the actuation of the sample is integrated in the disposable test strip. On chip actuation has the advantage of reducing the size and the cost of the non disposable part of the measurement system and preventing any contamination of the sample since it is completely isolated from any non- disposable elements. The study of the developed system was done optically by monitoring the fluid progression in the channel. It has demonstrated typical flow range of 10 to 60 nl/min. A similar device was then used to prove its application to blood coagulation characterization based on an increase in blood viscosity. Such a system can find diverse applications in chemical analysis and diagnostics on chip where actuation by steps from nano to microliter range is required.
Supply Chain Network E-Management Based on Constraints Models

Current industrial trends require using a global information environment for negotiation between supply chain members, including customers, dealers, original equipment manufacturers, and suppliers. It makes the problem of information support for decisionmaking in supply chain management very dynamic. This paper discusses a generic framework of e-management that integrates intelligent information support, group-decision making, and agreement modelling for a supply chain network. It offers the platform for design and modelling of diverse implementation strategies related to the organisation structure, type of agreement, business and optimisation policies, decision-making and information sharing strategies and mechanisms for the supply chain using a fuzzy constraint network as the knowledge representation model.
Anatomic Stereotactic Catheter Ablation on Three-Dimensional Magnetic Resonance Images in Real Time

Background—Targets for radiofrequency (RF) ablation of atrial fibrillation, atrial flutter, and nonidiopathic ventricular tachycardia are increasingly being selected on the basis of anatomic considerations. Because fluoroscopy provides only limited information about the relationship between catheter positions and cardiac structures and is associated with radiation risk, other approaches to mapping may be beneficial. Methods and Results—An electromagnetic catheter positioning system was superimposed on 3D MR images using fiducial markers. This allowed the dynamic display of the catheter position on the true anatomy of previously acquired MR images in real time. In vitro accuracy and precision during catheter navigation were assessed in a phantom model and were 1.11±0.06 and 0.30±0.07 mm (mean±SEM), respectively. Left and right heart catheterization was performed in 7 swine without the use of fluoroscopy, yielding an in vivo accuracy and precision of 2.74±0.52 and 1.97±0.44 mm, respectively. To assess the reproducibility of RF ablation, RF lesions were created repeatedly at the identical anatomic site in the right atrium (n=8 swine). Average distance of the repeated right atrial ablations was 3.92±0.5 mm. Straight 3-point lines were created in the right and left ventricles to determine the ability to facilitate complex ablation procedures (n=6 swine). The ventricular lesions deviated 1.70±0.24 mm from a straight line, and the point distance differed by 2.25±0.63 mm from the pathological specimen. Conclusions—Real-time display of the catheter position on 3D MRI allows accurate and precise RF ablation guided by the true anatomy. This may facilitate anatomically based ablation procedures in, for instance, atrial fibrillation or nonidiopathic ventricular tachycardia and decrease radiation times.
THE CHARACTERIZATION OF SPHINGOLIPIDS FROM NEURONS AND ASTROGLIA OF IMMATURE RAT BRAIN 1

Abstract— Isolated neuronal cell bodies and astroglia of young (15–20‐day‐old) rat brains were both found to contain small concentrations of a variety of glycosphingolipids, including glucosylceramide, galactosylceramide, sulphatide, dihexosylceramide and gangliosides. These sphingolipids, plus sphingomyelin, were isolated, quantitated and their fatty acid and long chain base patterns determined. These data were compared to similar data obtained on these lipids isolated from whole brain and myelin of rats of the same age range.
Privacy-Preserving and Content-Protecting Location Based Queries

In this paper we present a solution to one of the location-based query problems. This problem is defined as follows: (i) a user wants to query a database of location data, known as Points Of Interest (POI), and does not want to reveal his/her location to the server due to privacy concerns, (ii) the owner of the location data, that is, the location server, does not want to simply distribute its data to all users. The location server desires to have some control over its data, since the data is its asset. Previous solutions have used a trusted anonymiser to address privacy, but introduced the impracticality of trusting a third party. More recent solutions have used homomorphic encryption to remove this weakness. Briefly, the user submits his/her encrypted coordinates to the server and the server would determine the user's location homomorphically, and then the user would acquire the corresponding record using Private Information Retrieval techniques. We propose a major enhancement upon this result by introducing a similar two stage approach, where the homomorphic comparison step is replaced with Oblivious Transfer to achieve a more secure solution for both parties. The solution we present is efficient and practical in many scenarios. We also include the results of a working prototype to illustrate the efficiency of our protocol.
Data Management in Mobile Networks CMSC 699 Independent Study Report

The improvements in the computational and communication capabilities of mobile devices has made them all pervasive and is leading to Ubiquitous computing in which all computations will fade into the background. Much of research has gone into improving the functionality, computational power, size and power constraints of mobile devices such as PDAs, cell phones etc. Also, there has been considerable work on improving the communication capabilities of mobile devices by increasing bandwidth and the development of protocols that are fault tolerant and resilient to the error prone wireless media. However, data management in such mobile networks will be key to the success of Ubiquitous Computing. In this report we will review some of the existing work in Data Management in Mobile Networks. In the final section, we propose a novel caching strategy for time varying data in Mobile Networks.
In Economics and Social Sciences Working Papers Series Marginal Contributions and Externalities in the Value Marginal Contributions and Externalities in the Value *

Our concern is the extension of the theory of the Shapley value to problems involving externalities. Using the standard axiom systems behind the Shapley value for an arbitrary exogenous coalition structure leads to the identification of bounds on players' payoffs around an " externality-free " value. In endogenizing the coalition structure, we analyze a two-stage process of coalition formation in whose second stage our axiomatic results are applied. We find reasons to explain inefficient coalition structures, and provide sufficient conditions for efficiency.