Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Intrathecal Drug Delivery for the Management of Pain and Spasticity in Adults; Recommendations for Best Clinical Practice Introduction and Purpose Membership of Group

The technique of intrathecal drug delivery (ITDD) is based on the principle that effective analgesia can be achieved by the action of some drugs at the dorsal horn and adequate concentrations cannot be achieved by systemic administration, or only by high systemic doses. Delivery of the drug by the intrathecal route is a means of achieving these enhanced therapeutic effects. The smaller doses needed for intrathecal administration also allow a reduction in side effects compared to systemic administration. There is evidence to support this technique. This document is intended to define and support best practice and provide guidance for: • practitioners and institutions delivering or planning to deliver the treatment • referrers, as to which patients might benefit • primary carers regarding the management of patients with implanted intrathecal drug delivery (ITDD) systems • purchasers of health care as to the nature of the technique and when it might be used The document describes the clinical use of ITDD systems in the management of pain and spasticity, reviews the available drugs and ITDD technologies and provides recommendations for the context in which this therapy should be delivered. It covers the situations in which pain relief is the major indication for the technique. The recommendations are primarily evidence based but where necessary comprise the opinion of the working group. The recommendations are accompanied by information for patients and their carers, intended to inform and support patients in their decisions. iv v Executive summary • Intrathecal drug delivery can be an effective method of pain control; it has a supportive evidence base. • There are three major categories of application namely • chronic non malignant pain (CNMP) • cancer pain • spasticity • For CNMP there is presently no randomised controlled trial evidence but supportive prospective open studies • For cancer pain there is randomised controlled trial evidence • For spasticity there are well designed open studies for effectiveness • Patient selection is important, particularly when used for CNMP. It must be carried out by a multiprofessional team with a comprehensive understanding of the physical, psychological and rehabilitation aspects of the patient's condition. • A multiprofessional, relevant infrastructure must be provided for continuing care. • A range of alternative treatments with appropriate support for their delivery should be available and considered. • Adherance to best practice is essential. Uniformity of best practice should be encouraged; this does not stifle development in the …
Algorithms for the Vehicle Routing and Scheduling Problems with Time Window Constraints

This paper considers the design and analysis of algorithms for vehicle routing and scheduling problems with time window constraints. Given the intrinsic difficulty of this problem class, approximation methods seem to offer the most promise for practical size problems. After describing a variety of heuristics, we conduct an extensive computational study of their performance. The problem set includes routing and scheduling environments that differ in terms of the type of data used to generate the problems, the percentage of customers with time windows, their tightness and positioning, and the scheduling horizon. We found that several heuristics performed well in different problem environments; in particular an insertion-type heuristic consistently gave very good results.
Extending CTL with Actions and Real Time

We present the logic ATCTL, which is intended to be used for model checking models that have been specified in a lightweight version of the Unified Modelling Language (UML). Elsewhere, we have defined a formal semantics for LUML to describe the models. This paper's goal is to give a specification language for properties that fits LUML; LUML includes states, actions and real time. ATCTL extends CTL with concurrent actions and real time. It is based on earlier extensions of CTL by De Nicola and Vaandrager (ACTL) and Alur et al. (TCTL). This makes it easier to adapt existing model checkers to ATCTL. To show that we can check properties specified in ATCTL in models specified in LUML, we give a small example using the Kronos model checker.
From Layout to Semantic: a Reranking Model for Mapping Web Documents to Mediated XML Representations

Many documents on the Web are formated in a weakly structured format. Because of their weak semantic and because of the heterogeneity of their formats, the information conveyed by their structure cannot be directly exploited. We consider here the conversion of such documents into a predefined mediated semi-structured format which will be more amenable to automatic processing of the document content. We develop a machine learning approach to this conversion problem where the transformation is learned automatically from a set of document examples manually transformed into the target structure. Our method proceeds in three steps. Given an input document, document elements are first annotated with labels of the target schema. Structured candidate documents are then generated using a generalized probabilistic context-free parsing algorithm. Finally candidates are reranked using a perceptron like ranking algorithm. Experiments performed on two different datasets show that the proposed method performs well in different contexts.
Images of God and the imaginary in the face of loss: a quantitative research on Vietnamese immigrants living in Canada

ABSTRACT This study examines the relationships between images of God, the imaginary and experiences of loss among Vietnamese immigrants living in Canada. One hundred twenty-nine participants completed four sets of questionnaires: a demographic questionnaire, a Questionnaire on God Image, the Brief Symptom Inventory, the Davidson Trauma Scale. In the second phase, 32 participants were administered the AT.9 test (an archetypal test with nine elements). In this test, participants are asked to draw, using nine symbolic elements, and then write a story based on their drawing. Results showed that a positive perception of God negatively correlated with somatisation, anxiety and hostility, whereas negative God image was significantly related to high levels of emotional distress. Results also showed that the synthetic categories of the imaginary were associated with a positive perception of God; and were negatively associated with somatisation, intrusion and hyper-vigilance. Further discussions on the main findings will address cultural implications in the fields of Mental Health, Religion and Culture.
A time-varying extremum-seeking control approach for discrete-time systems with application to model predictive control

This paper considers the solution of a real-time optimization problem using adaptive extremum seeking control for a class of unknown discrete-time nonlinear systems. It is assumed that the equations describing the dynamics of the nonlinear system and the cost function to be minimized are unknown and that the objective function is measured. The main contribution of the paper is to formulate the extremum-seeking problem as a time-varying discrete-time estimation problem. The proposed approach is applied in the design of nonlinear model predictive control algorithms where the extremum-seeking controller is used to perform the real-time optimization of the MPC. A simulation study and an experimental study is presented that demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed technique.
Challenges of internationalisation: Enhancing intercultural competence and skills for critical reflection on the situated andnon-neutral nature of knowledge

This paper examines the overall educational, social and cultural aims of internationalisation and internationalised curricula. Two specific goals expected to enrich graduates' generic attributes are identified: Intercultural competence and skills for critical reflection on the situated and non-neutral nature of knowledge. The challenges of fostering intercultural competence embedded within the curriculum are discussed first with reference to research on group work in culturally diverse groups. The issues of cultural-emotional connectedness and language proficiency are identified as major inhibiting factors for the success of such activities. Ehancing students' skills for critical reflection on the sitated and non-neutral nature of knowledge is disussed next. A set of learning objetivbes and principles for designing internationalised curricula that promote such skills is outlined. The significance of utilising internationalisation to enhance the quality of higher education is stressed.
Ambient Coaching of Progressive Relaxation

In this paper, we address the issue how an ambient intelligent system can coach people in doing progressive muscle relaxation exercises. Such a system could help many people in dealing with their stress-related problems like poor sleep. We develop a formal model of progressive muscle relaxation, formalize the different steps of the practice of relaxation and show how these can be assisted by an ambient system. The model can be used as a basis on top of which concrete coaching applications can be developed.
Time‐resolved contrast‐enhanced 3D MR angiography

An MR angiographic technique, referred to as 3D TRICKS (3D time‐resolved imaging of contrast kinetics) has been developed. This technique combines and extends to 3D imaging several previously published elements. These elements include an increased sampling rate for lower spatial frequencies, temporal interpolation of k‐space views, and zero‐filling in the slice‐encoding dimension. When appropriately combined, these elements permit reconstruction of a series of 3D image sets having an effective temporal frame rate of one volume every 2‐6 s. Acquiring a temporal series of images offers advantages over the current contrast‐enhanced 3D MRA techniques in that it i) increases the likelihood that an arterial‐only 3D image set will be obtained, ii) permits the passage of the contrast agent to be observed, and iii) allows temporal‐processing techniques to be applied to yield additional information, or improve image quality.
Illumination Variation in Face Recognition: A Review

The change of illumination problem is still a challenging and difficult problem in face recognition under complex illumination condition. There were many proposals that dealing with illumination problem in face recognition in the past decade. In this paper, we classify the existing methods into three main categories and introduce the representative algorithms and theories, then analyze the advantages and disadvantages of these algorithms correspondingly. As a result of this study we conclude direction of future research.
Vagus nerve stimulation for depression: efficacy and safety in a European study

Background Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) therapy is associated with a decrease in seizure frequency in partial-onset seizure patients. Initial trials suggest that it may be an effective treatment, with few side-effects, for intractable depression. Method An open, uncontrolled European multi-centre study (D03) of VNS therapy was conducted, in addition to stable pharmacotherapy, in 74 patients with treatment-resistant depression (TRD). Treatment remained unchanged for the first 3 months; in the subsequent 9 months, medications and VNS dosing parameters were altered as indicated clinically. Results The baseline 28-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAMD-28) score averaged 34. After 3 months of VNS, response rates (⩾50% reduction in baseline scores) reached 37% and remission rates (HAMD-28 score <10) 17%. Response rates increased to 53% after 1 year of VNS, and remission rates reached 33%. Response was defined as sustained if no relapse occurred during the first year of VNS after response onset; 44% of patients met these criteria. Median time to response was 9 months. Most frequent side-effects were voice alteration (63% at 3 months of stimulation) and coughing (23%). Conclusions VNS therapy was effective in reducing severity of depression; efficacy increased over time. Efficacy ratings were in the same range as those previously reported from a USA study using a similar protocol; at 12 months, reduction of symptom severity was significantly higher in the European sample. This might be explained by a small but significant difference in the baseline HAMD-28 score and the lower number of treatments in the current episode in the European study.
Time-dependent corticosteroid modulation of prefrontal working memory processing

Corticosteroids are potent modulators of human higher cognitive function. They are released in response to stress, and are thought to be involved in the modulation of cognitive function by inducing distinct rapid nongenomic, and slow genomic changes, affecting neural plasticity throughout the brain. However, their exact effects on the neural correlates of higher-order cognitive function as performed by the prefrontal cortex at the human brain system level remain to be elucidated. Here, we targeted these time-dependent effects of corticosteroids on prefrontal cortex processing in humans using a working memory (WM) paradigm during functional MRI scanning. Implementing a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled design, 72 young, healthy men received 10 mg hydrocortisone either 30 min (rapid corticosteroid effects) or 240 min (slow corticosteroid effects), or placebo before a numerical n-back task with differential load (0- to 3-back). Corticosteroids’ slow effects appeared to improve working memory performance and increased neuronal activity during WM performance in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex depending on WM load, whereas no effects of corticosteroids’ rapid actions were observed. Thereby, the slow actions of corticosteroids seem to facilitate adequate higher-order cognitive functioning, which may support recovery in the aftermath of stress exposure.
Simulating planet migration in globally evolving disks

Context. Numerical simulations of planet-disk interactions are usually performed with hydro-codes that - because they consider only an annulus of the disk, over a 2D grid - cannot take into account the global evolution of the disk. However, the global evolution governs type II planetary migration, so that the accuracy of the planetary evolution can be questioned. Aims. To develop an algorithm that models the local planet-disk interactions together with the global viscous evolution of the disk. Methods. We surround the usual 2D grid with a ID grid ranging over the real extension of the disk. The ID and 2D grids are coupled at their common boundaries via ghost rings, paying particular attention to the fluxes at the interface, especially the flux of angular momentum carried by waves. The computation is done in the frame centered on the center of mass to ensure angular momentum conservation. Results. The global evolution of the disk and the local planet-disk interactions are both well described and the feedback of one on the other can be studied with this algorithm, for a negligible additional computing cost with respect to the usual algorithms.
Translation, Cross-Cultural Adaptation and Validation of the Quality of Life in Autism Questionnaire (QoLA) from English into the Malay Language

ABSTRACT Parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often experience a lower quality of life, which impacts on their children’s care, functioning and outcome and requires assessment and monitoring. Malaysia is a country presenting with an increasing prevalence of ASD and needs a linguistically and culturally appropriate quality of life measurement for parents of children with ASD. The Quality of Life in Autism Questionnaire (QoLA) is a validated ASD-specific quality of life measure in English. This paper describes the translation and the cross-cultural adaptation process of the QoLA from English into Malay. The translated Malay version of QoLA exhibited reasonable levels of internal consistency, cross-cultural validity, face and content validity; and is ready to be used with Malay speakers.
Semi-supervised intelligent surveillance system for secure environments

This paper proposes a semi-supervised intelligent visual surveillance system to exploit the information from multi-camera networks for the monitoring of people and vehicles. Modules are proposed to perform critical surveillance tasks including: the management and calibration of cameras within a multi-camera network; tracking of objects across multiple views; recognition of people utilising biometrics and in particular soft-biometrics; the monitoring of crowds; and activity recognition. Recent advances in these computer vision modules and capability gaps in surveillance technology are also highlighted.
Control of underactuated planar hexapedal pronking through a dynamically embedded SLIP monopod

Pronking (aka. stotting) is a gait in which all legs are used in synchrony, resulting in long flight phases and large jumping heights that may potentially be useful for mobile robots on rough terrain. Robotic instantiations of this gait suffer from severe pitch instability either due to underactuation, or the lack of sufficient feedback. Nevertheless, the dynamic nature of this gait suggests that the Spring-Loaded Inverted Pendulum Model (SLIP), a very successful predictive model for both natural and robotic runners, would be a good basis for more robust and maneuverable robotic pronking. In this paper, we describe how “template-based control”, a controller structure based on the embedding of a simple dynamical “template” within a more complex “anchor” system, can be used to achieve stable and controllable pronking for a planar, underactuated hexapod model. In this context, high-level control of the gait is regulated through speed and height commands to the SLIP template, while the embedding controller based on approximate inverse-dynamics and carefully designed passive dynamics ensures the stability of the remaining degrees of freedom. We show through extensive simulation experiments that unlike existing open-loop alternatives, the resulting control structure provides stability, explicit maneuverability and significant robustness against sensor and actuator noise.
Exploring a scalable solution to identifying events in noisy Twitter streams

The unprecedented use of social media through smartphones and other web-enabled mobile devices has enabled the rapid adoption of platforms like Twitter. Event detection has found many applications on the web, including breaking news identification and summarization. The recent increase in the usage of Twitter during crises has attracted researchers to focus on detecting events in tweets. However, current solutions have focused on static Twitter data. The necessity to detect events in a streaming environment during fast paced events such as a crisis presents new opportunities and challenges. In this paper, we investigate event detection in the context of real-time Twitter streams as observed in real-world crises. We highlight the key challenges in this problem: the informal nature of text, and the high-volume and high-velocity characteristics of Twitter streams. We present a novel approach to address these challenges using single-pass clustering and the compression distance to efficiently detect events in Twitter streams. Through experiments on large Twitter datasets, we demonstrate that the proposed framework is able to detect events in near real-time and can scale to large and noisy Twitter streams.
Resource-Bounded Local Computation

This paper proposes a generic approximation method for solving the problem of inference under limited computational resources. The method is based on the concept of valuation algebras with its wide range of possible instantiations in many different domains. The goal is to construct convenient resource-bounded any-time algorithms, for which the available time to perform the local computations is determined by the user. 2
A dominance estimation mechanism using eye-gaze and turn-taking information

With a goal of contributing to multiparty conversation management, this paper proposes a mechanism for estimating conversational dominance in group interaction. Based on our corpus analysis, we have already established a regression model for dominance estimation using speech and gaze information. In this study, we implement the model as a dominance estimation mechanism, and propose an idea of utilizing the mechanism in moderating multiparty conversations between a conversational robot and three human users. The system decides whom the system should talk to based on the dominance level of each user.
A whole genome long-range haplotype (WGLRH) test for detecting imprints of positive selection in human populations

MOTIVATION The identification of signatures of positive selection can provide important insights into recent evolutionary history in human populations. Current methods mostly rely on allele frequency determination or focus on one or a small number of candidate chromosomal regions per study. With the availability of large-scale genotype data, efficient approaches for an unbiased whole genome scan are becoming necessary. METHODS We have developed a new method, the whole genome long-range haplotype test (WGLRH), which uses genome-wide distributions to test for recent positive selection. Adapted from the long-range haplotype (LRH) test, the WGLRH test uses patterns of linkage disequilibrium (LD) to identify regions with extremely low historic recombination. Common haplotypes with significantly longer than expected ranges of LD given their frequencies are identified as putative signatures of recent positive selection. In addition, we have also determined the ancestral alleles of SNPs by genotyping chimpanzee and gorilla DNA, and have identified SNPs where the non-ancestral alleles have risen to extremely high frequencies in human populations, termed 'flipped SNPs'. Combining the haplotype test and the flipped SNPs determination, the WGLRH test serves as an unbiased genome-wide screen for regions under putative selection, and is potentially applicable to the study of other human populations. RESULTS Using WGLRH and high-density oligonucleotide arrays interrogating 116 204 SNPs, we rapidly identified putative regions of positive selection in three populations (Asian, Caucasian, African-American), and extended these observations to a fourth population, Yoruba, with data obtained from the International HapMap consortium. We mapped significant regions to annotated genes. While some regions overlap with genes previously suggested to be under positive selection, many of the genes have not been previously implicated in natural selection and offer intriguing possibilities for further study. AVAILABILITY the programs for the WGLRH algorithm are freely available and can be downloaded at http://www.affymetrix. com/support/supplement/WGLRH_program. zip.