Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Iimprovement of ultrasonic beacon-based local position system using multi-access techniques

The present work shows a local positioning system (LPS) for mobile robots (MR) using simultaneous emissions in the ultrasonic beacons. In order to solve the problem of the simultaneous emission of the ultrasonic beacons, the well-known technique called direct sequence code division multiple access (DS-CDMA) is used. This technique modulates the ultrasonic signal (50 kHz) with a 127-bit Gold code for even beacon. In this way, it is possible to detect the arrival time of the code, by earning out the simultaneous correlations with the assigned codes to each beacon. For determining the absolute position, the triangulation technique uses the time difference-of-arrival (TDOA) obtained between a reference beacon and the others. Using this method, certain errors, derived from the delay in the firing of the beacons and the response times of the ultrasonic transducers, are avoided. The existence of a synchronism in the emission of the beacons, that guarantees a periodic and simultaneous emission in all of them, is required, not being necessary to know the emission instant in the mobile robot. This is particularly useful in environments where several robots can coexist
Prevalence of tuberculosis among southern Zambian cattle and isolation of Mycobacterium bovis in raw milk obtained from tuberculin positive cows

Aim: To determine the prevalence of tuberculosis among traditional milking cows in southern Zambia and isolation of Mycobacterium spp from the tuberculin positive cow's milk. Materials and Methods: A total of 1,025 cows originating from traditional cattle sector, in Mapepe, Magoye, Monze, Batoka, GART- Batoka, Kalomo areas of Zambia, supplying major quantity of milk to milk processors, were tested for bovine tuberculosis using single comparative intra-dermal tuberculin test during 2011 and 2012. Milk samples obtained from 16 bovine tuberculin reactor cows were cultured for isolation of Mycobacterium spp and those showing growth of Mycobacterium spp. were identified through biochemical tests of the culture. Further confirmation and species differentiation of the Mycobacterium spp. isolates was done using the loop-mediated isothermal amplification system and multiplexpolymerase chain reaction Results: 27 (2.6%) of the cows tested were found tuberculin reactors, 9 cows (0.87 %) gave inconclusive reaction and 989 (96.48%) were non-reactors. Three milk samples (18.7%) out of the 16 tuberculin reactor cow's milk when cultured and upon molecular analysis, were found positive for presence of M. bovis indicating these positive cows were shedding M. bovis in their milk. Conclusion: The isolation of M. bovis in freshly drawn milk from the tuberculin positive reactor cows is being reported for the first time in Zambia. Bovine tuberculosis is an animal and human health risk in the traditional dairy herds supplying milk to the Zambian population especially in the informal market and needs attention of the public health and veterinary authorities.
Nonlethal Levels of Zeaxanthin Inhibit Cell Migration, Invasion, and Secretion of MMP-2 via NF-κB Pathway in Cultured Human Uveal Melanoma Cells

Zeaxanthin at nonlethal dosages (3–10 μM) significantly inhibited the cell migration of cultured uveal melanoma cells (C918 cell line) as determined by wound healing assay and Boyden chamber assay. Matrigel invasion assay showed that cell invasion of uveal melanoma cells could be significantly inhibited by zeaxanthin. Secretion of MMP-2 by melanoma cells was significantly inhibited by zeaxanthin in a dose-dependent manner as measured by ELISA kit. Zeaxanthin also significantly inhibited the NF-κB levels in nuclear extracts of the UM cells, which is the upstream of the MMP-2 secretion. These results suggest that zeaxanthin might be a potentially therapeutic approach in the prevention of metastasis in uveal melanoma.
Five personality dimensions and their influence on information behaviour

This article emphasize the importance of considering psychological mechanisms for a thorough understanding of users of information services. The focal point is the relation between personality and information seeking which is explored through a quantitative analysis of 305 university students' personality traits and information habits. It is shown that information behaviour could be connected to all the personality dimensions tested in the study - neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, competitiveness and conscientiousness. Possible explanations for these relations are discussed. It is concluded that inner traits interact with contextual factors in their final impact on information behaviour.
How the human brain allocates physical effort over time : evidence from behavior, neuroimaging and pharmacology

Faire le bon choix, c’est trouver le bon compromis entre cout et benefice. Dans le cas de la gestion de l’effort physique, ce compromis prend une dimension temporelle. Pour comprendre comment la decision d’arreter ou reprendre l’effort est prise, nous avons developpe un paradigme experimental chez le sujet humain sain et un modele computationnel dans lequel le cout estime augmente a l’effort car la fatigue affecte toute la commande motrice et diminue au repos quand nous recuperons. Le comportement reflete les variations de ce cout estime et du compromis avec le benefice attendu. Grâce a la complementarite de l’imagerie fonctionnelle par resonnance magnetique et de la magnetoencephalographie (MEG), le cout estime a ete localise dans les regions proprioceptives du cerveau : l’insula posterieure et le thalamus ventromedian. La MEG a egalement revele que la desynchronisation du rythme beta moteur (13-30Hz) permet une reprise plus rapide de l’effort quand les enjeux sont importants. Cette gestion strategique du repos est liee a l’utilite attendue qui peut etre dissociee de l’utilite reelle. Nos resultats montrent que la gestion de l’effort est adaptee en ligne au cout estime et modulee strategiquement en fonction des couts et benefices attendus. Les antalgiques (hypnose ou paracetamol) ont un effet limite sur ce processus, a l’inverse de la serotonine (Escitalopram). Notre contribution, a l’interface entre medecine du sport, theorie de la decision et modele d’accumulation utilises en neurosciences, propose un mecanisme pour optimiser la gestion de l’effort physique en maximisant les gains et minimisant les dommages corporels.
Impaired gut junctional complexes feature late-treated individuals with suboptimal CD4+ T-cell recovery upon virologically suppressive combination antiretroviral therapy

Objective:HIV-infected individuals with incomplete CD4+ T-cell recovery upon combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) display high levels of immune activation and microbial translocation. However, whether a link exists between gut damage and poor immunological reconstitution remains unknown. Design:Cross-sectional study of the gastrointestinal tract in late cART-treated HIV-infected individuals: 15 immunological nonresponders (CD4+ <350 cells/&mgr;l and/or delta CD4+ change from baseline <30%); 15 full responders (CD4+ >350 cells/&mgr;l and/or delta CD4+ change from baseline >30%). Methods:We assessed gut structure (junctional complex proteins in ileum and colon) and function (small intestine permeability/damage and microbial translocation parameters). The composition of the fecal microbiome and the size of the HIV reservoir in the gut and peripheral blood were investigated as possible mechanisms underlying mucosal impairment. Results:Markers of intestinal permeability, damage, systemic inflammation, and microbial translocation were comparable in all study individuals, yet the expression of junctional complex proteins in gut biopsies was significantly lower in HIV-infected patients with incomplete CD4+ restoration and negatively correlated with markers of CD4+ reconstitution. Electron microscopy revealed dilated intercellular spaces in individuals lacking immunological response to cART, yet not in patients displaying CD4+ T-cell recovery. Analysis of the fecal microbiome revealed an overall outgrowth of Bacteroides–Prevotella spp. with no differences according to CD4+ T-cell reconstitution. Interestingly, HIV reservoirs in peripheral CD4+ T cells and intestinal tissue negatively correlated with immune recovery. Conclusion:These observations establish gut damage and the size of the HIV reservoir as features of deficient immunological response to cART and provide new elements for interventional strategies in this setting.
Serum Levels of Toxic AGEs (TAGE) May Be a Promising Novel Biomarker for the Onset/Progression of Lifestyle-Related Diseases

Advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) generated with aging or in the presence of diabetes mellitus, particularly AGEs derived from the glucose/fructose metabolism intermediate glyceraldehyde (Glycer-AGEs; termed toxic AGEs (TAGE)), were recently shown to be closely involved in the onset/progression of diabetic vascular complications via the receptor for AGEs (RAGE). TAGE also contribute to various diseases, such as cardiovascular disease; nonalcoholic steatohepatitis; cancer; Alzheimer’s disease, and; infertility. This suggests the necessity of minimizing the influence of the TAGE-RAGE axis in order to prevent the onset/progression of lifestyle-related diseases (LSRD) and establish therapeutic strategies. Changes in serum TAGE levels are closely associated with LSRD related to overeating, a lack of exercise, or excessive ingestion of sugars/dietary AGEs. We also showed that serum TAGE levels, but not those of hemoglobin A1c, glucose-derived AGEs, or Nε-(carboxymethyl)lysine, have potential as a biomarker for predicting the progression of atherosclerosis and future cardiovascular events. We herein introduce the usefulness of serum TAGE levels as a biomarker for the prevention/early diagnosis of LSRD and the evaluation of the efficacy of treatments; we discuss whether dietary AGE/sugar intake restrictions reduce the generation/accumulation of TAGE, thereby preventing the onset/progression of LSRD.
Mobilizing Knowledge for Integrated Ecosystem Assessments

1999). Researchers, natural resource managers, and environmental practitioners face a number of challenges, including how to deal with information “fuzziness,” how to reconcile seemingly contradictory data, how to smooth over geographic and spatial variability or “lumpiness,” and how to consolidate information gathered at different spatial scales. One proposed solution has been to amalgamate different types of knowledge, such as by working across disciplines, combining qualitative and quantitative information, and linking formal and local knowledge in a complementary manner. But this approach is no panacea for ecosystem assessments involving complex systems, and new challenges arise when attempts are made to combine knowledge in this way. The techniques to combine different forms of knowledge and data from disparate sources, different spatial scales, and indeed different worldviews are neither well developed nor validated. The Southern African Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (SAfMA, http://www.maweb.org) was undertaken at a variety of spatial scales, from the regional (with sub-Saharan Africa as the assessment area) to the local (at the scale of a village, single protected area, or microwatershed). Each of these scales had its own stakeholders and thus its own key topics of concern. These in turn defined the information needs for the assessment at that scale. We found that as the scale of assessment moved from regional to local, so the balance of information availability shifted from formal, documented data, typically Chapter 9
Language Modeling with Tree Substitution Grammars

We show that a tree substitution grammar (TSG) induced with a coll psed Gibbs sampler results in lower perplexity on test data than both a s tandard context-free grammar and other heuristically trained TSGs, suggesting t hat it is better suited to language modeling. Training a more complicated bilexical p arsing model across TSG derivations shows further (though nuanced) improvemen t. We conduct analysis and point to future areas of research using TSGs as langu age models.
Medienanalyse und Visualisierung - Auswertung von Online-Pressetexten durch Text Mining

Obwohl sich die Medienwissenschaft als inter- oder transdisziplinares Arbeitsfeld versteht, haben methodische Ansatze aus der angewandten Informatik bisher kaum Eingang in das Methodeninventar der Medienwissenschaft gefunden (vgl. Rusch 2002b: 70f). Die so genannten „Neuen Medien“ finden sich zwar als Subjekt medienwissenschaftlicher Betrachtungen wieder (vgl. Ludes 1998: 51ff, 129), es besteht aber ein Defizit hinsichtlich der Modernisierung geeigneter Methoden fur die Medienanalyse, die bisher von qualitativen und an einzelnen Publikationen bzw. Medienereignissen orientierten Verfahren gepragt ist (vgl. Posner 2001, Andringa 2002, Schreier 2002). Dieser Beitrag versucht aufzuzeigen, wie Text Mining-Verfahren fur die inhaltliche Auswertung von Pressetexten genutzt werden konnen und so als „angewandte Medieninformatik“ einen interdisziplinaren Beitrag zur Medienanalyse leisten konnen. Es wird ein im World Wide Web verfugbarer Informationsdienst vorgestellt, der tagesaktuell uberregionale Online-Medien auswertet und begriffsbasiert die jeweils als relevant erkannten Konzepte als „Worter des Tages“ prasentiert. Dabei kommen sowohl Darstellungen relevanter Begriffe, die einem einfachen Kategoriensystem zugeordnet sind zum Zuge, als auch Visualisierungen von aktuellen Begriffsassoziationen und Visualisierungen des Aktualitatsverlaufs einzelner Konzepte.
Self-Monitoring, product type, friends and brand-related activities on facebook

Giving a like on a brand-related Facebook page happens each day thousand times. You come across a brand-related Facebook page and click the like button most of the time without thinking about it more than a few seconds. Maybe it’s a brand you already know, and which you like. Maybe then you see some interesting new video of the brand on the page and view it (consuming), and share it with your friends (contributing). Maybe some of your friends think it would be cool to make an own video for the brand and you decide to take part in that video (creating). These are all familiar brand-related online activities in which each and every one of us had already taken part in at some time. The study at hand aims to answer the question how our self-monitoring, the product type of the advertised product on brand-related Facebook pages and the number of given friend likes can actually influence our online brand-related actions. The study was carried out with a questionnaire spread via Facebook. In total 251 respondents took part in the study. Results show that the more hedonic the advertised product was and the more friends already liked the brand-related Facebook page, the more willing are people to spend time and effort on the brand by consuming, contributing and creating brand-related content. Self-monitoring had only an effect on the consuming and contributing dimension of brand-related actions. This study gives a better understanding of the reasons why people decide to take part in brand-related actions via Facebook (consuming, contributing and creating). To get more brand-related actions of consumers on Facebook, companies should aim to attract as many people as possible, so that their friends also decide to spend time on their brand-related Facebook page.
Controversies over the role of the court interpreter

Role definition in Community Interpreting in general remains a controversial issue. The different levels of development of the profession across the world, make consensus on this issue even more difficult. Different roles have been proposed and practised. However, a multiplicity of conflicting roles leads to confusion among users of interpreting services and to insecurity among practising interpreters. The consequences of each of the suggested roles have not yet been fully investigated, with personal opinions and ideology forming the basis for the selection of roles. This chapter will deal specifically with Court Interpreting, as a specialised branch of Community Interpreting. It will outline and analyse each of the most commonly practised and proposed roles, providing examples of each from authentic data based evidence. It will then speculate on the consequences of the application of each role and provide the reasons behind the adoption of a particular role for court interpreters as the most appropriate.
The Effect of Avatar Technology on Sign Writing Vocabularies Acquisition for Deaf Learners

The increasing interest in 3D virtual human avatars has led to an expansion in the scale of their applications. One of the most significant uses of such technology is providing appropriate educational services for deaf and hearing impaired learners who experience immense difficulties in acquiring literacy skills in spoken languages. In fact, a great deal of effort has been devoted to create animated characters for rendering stories, poems, scientific terms, or any written text into signed languages (SLs). In this paper, we aim to investigate the effect of integrating a 3D signing avatar in an educational game and examine how such technology can boost the learning experience of deaf gamers. Particularly, we will seek, through a pilot study, to investigate whether the use of a signing avatar has a positive effect on the acquisition of SignWriting notation, a written form of SL, for those learners.
Stellate ganglion block for the management of hot flashes and sleep disturbances in breast cancer survivors: an uncontrolled experimental study with 24 weeks of follow-up.

BACKGROUND We studied the stellate ganglion block (SGB) recently suggested for the treatment of severe vasomotor symptoms and sleep disturbances in breast cancer survivors. Following an initial pilot study, which focused on the acceptability and safety of SGB for this important problem, we evaluated its short- and long-term efficacy. MATERIALS AND METHODS Postmenopausal breast cancer survivors with severe vasomotor symptoms resistant to standard nonhormonal pharmacological intervention were eligible. Diaries were used to measure daily hot flash scores (frequency and intensity) and sleep quality (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index) during scheduled visits at baseline, 1, 4, 12 and 24 weeks following the SGB. Efficacy data were analyzed using longitudinal regression models. RESULTS Thirty-four patients participated and none refused the SGB procedure. Most patients received more than one SGB. The pilot study found SGB to be safe. In the main study, hot flash scores were reduced from baseline by 64% [95% confidence interval (CI) -74% to -49%] and 47% (95% CI -62% to -27%) at weeks 1 and 24, respectively. The odds ratio of better sleep quality relative to baseline was 3.4 at week 1 (95% CI 1.6-7.2) and 4.3 at week 24 (95% CI 1.9-9.8). CONCLUSION In the short term, SGB appears to be an effective treatment with acceptable morbidity for some breast cancer survivors with therapy-resistant vasomotor symptoms and/or sleep disturbances. Although sleep quality was maintained out to 24 weeks the efficacy of SGB for hot flashes was reduced over time. A randomized controlled trial is needed to confirm these findings.
Principles and Tools for Collaborative Entity-Based Intelligence Analysis

Software tools that make it easier for analysts to collaborate as a natural part of their work will lead to better analysis that is informed by more perspectives. We are interested to know if software tools can be designed that support collaboration even as they allow analysts to find documents and organize information (including evidence, schemas, and hypotheses). We have modified the Entity Workspace system, described previously, to test such designs. We have evaluated the resulting design in both a laboratory study and a study where it is situated with an analysis team. In both cases, effects on collaboration appear to be positive. Key aspects of the design include an evidence notebook optimized for organizing entities (rather than text characters), information structures that can be collapsed and expanded, visualization of evidence that emphasizes events and documents (rather than emphasizing the entity graph), and a notification system that finds entities of mutual interest to multiple analysts. Long-term tests suggest that this approach can support both top-down and bottom-up styles of analysis.
Emerging treatment for advanced lung cancer with EGFR mutation

Introduction: Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. It is usually diagnosed at advanced stage for which platinum-based chemotherapy had been the standard approach, although with limited clinical benefits. Discovery of oncogenic EGFR mutations in lung cancer have shifted the treatment paradigm with molecularly targeted therapies. Areas covered: EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) have become the first-line choice in patients with advanced NSCLC harboring EGFR activating mutations. However, resistance to targeted therapy develops inevitably during the course of treatment. Multiple mechanisms of acquired resistance have been discovered, most commonly the secondary mutation of T790M in exon 20. The second- and third-generation EGFR TKIs are holding promise to overcome T790M-associated acquired resistance and currently being tested in clinical trials. In this article, we focus on the emerging approaches to overcome the different mechanisms of resistance to targeted therapies in patients with EGFR-mutant advanced NSCLC. Expert opinion: It is essential to uncover the complex mechanisms underlying the progression of lung cancer after upfront EGFR TKIs. Next generation, in particular, the third generations of EGFR TKIs have been developed against acquired T790M mutation with promising clinical activity and better toxicity profile. Combination of targeted therapies has also been explored. Further studies are needed to detect the real-time changes of the resistance mechanisms and to develop new therapeutic strategies for lung cancer patients with EGFR mutations.
EWOD (Electrowetting-on-Dielectric) Actuated Optical Micromirror

This paper introduces a novel method to control the tilting motion of an optical micromirror using EWOD (Electrowetting-on-Dielectric) actuation that can be used in optical devices (e.g., optical scanner, large scale display). Using the vertical motion of a liquid droplet during EWOD movement that gives a height difference due to the contact angle variation at the three-phase contact line by an applied voltage, a dramatically simplified and effective tilting motion of micromirror can be realized. The actuation concept, fabrication, and test of the initial devices are reported. A preliminary time response experiment of our initial device is also included to examine the feasibility of our device as a large display component.