Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Virtual reality systems enhance students’ achievements in engineering education

ABSTRACT Virtual reality (VR) is being used for many applications, ranging from medicine to space and from entertainment to training. In this research paper, VR is applied in engineering education, the scope being to compare three major VR systems with the traditional education approach when we do not use any VR system (No-VR). The Corner Cave System (CCS) is compared with the Head Mounted Display (HMD) system. Both of these systems are using a tracking system to reflect the user movements in the virtual environment. The CCS uses only three coordinates: x-, y- and z-axis. The HMD system has six degrees of freedom, the x-, y- and z-axis, as well as the roll, pitch and yaw. Those two systems are also compared with HMD, as a standalone device (HMD-SA) without the tracking system where it has only roll, pitch and yaw. The objective of the study was to evaluate the impact of VR systems on the students’ achievements in engineering colleges. The research examined the effect of the four different methods and compared the scores of the students after each test. The experiments were ran over 48 students. Those systems show incredible results.
Self-Adapting Linear Algebra Algorithms and Software

One of the main obstacles to the efficient solution of scientific problems is the problem of tuning software, both to the available architecture and to the user problem at hand. We describe approaches for obtaining tuned high-performance kernels and for automatically choosing suitable algorithms. Specifically, we describe the generation of dense and sparse Basic Linear Algebra Subprograms (BLAS) kernels, and the selection of linear solver algorithms. However, the ideas presented here extend beyond these areas, which can be considered proof of concept.
Second-Order Convergence of Mesh-Adaptive Direct Search

Abstract: A previous analysis of second-order behavior of pattern search algorithms for unconstrained and linearly constrained minimization is extended to the more general class of mesh adaptive direct search (MADS) algorithms for general constrained optimization. Because of the ability of MADS to generate an asymptotically dense set of search directions, we are able to establish reasonable conditions under which a subsequence of MADS iterates converges to a limit point satisfying second-order necessary or sufficient optimality conditions for general set-constrained optimization problems.
Visual clues in multimodal rendering

This report presents a comparative analysis of different multimodal rendering methods proposed in [FPT02]. It shows how relevant features of a property as well as relationships between data can be outlined by choosing an appropriate fusion modality. In addition, it analyses the visual clues that can be provided by using different shading models and by enabling rendering parameters such as depth cueing and light source attenuation. The simulations are performed on the software Hipo whose design is described in [PTF02].
Dose-Response Study of Vigabatrin in Children With Refractory Epilepsy

Twenty children aged 2 months to 18 years were included in a dose-response study of vigabatrin as add-on therapy to preexisting antiepileptic drugs (up to two per patient). All children had severe refractory epilepsy: partial seizures with or without secondary generalization in 19, and myoclonic seizures in one. After a 2-month observation period and a 1-month add-on placebo period, a fixed dose of add-on vigabatrin was given for 2 months: 1, 1.5, or 2 g/day, according to body weight (mean dose, 60 mg/kg/day). Three patients (15%) became seizure free, and nine (45%) showed a 50% to 99% reduction in seizure frequency. In the 17 patients whose seizures were not totally suppressed, vigabatrin dose was increased for a further 2 months, and in 7 patients who still showed less than 50% reduction in seizure frequency, vigabatrin dose was increased again. Efficacy appeared unchanged by these higher doses. During a 9-month follow-up phase, no tolerance to the effects of vigabatrin was observed, with three children seizure free and 13 (65%) reporting a 50% to 99% reduction in seizure frequency. During the study, adverse effects were recorded in three children (15%), namely drowsiness, constipation, fatigue, and apathy. These effects were generally transient, being observed during the dose-modification phase and disappearing either spontaneously or on reduction of vigabatrin dose. Clinical and laboratory tolerability to vigabatrin appeared to be very good, with no patients having withdrawn from the study because of side effects. A slight reduction in red blood cell count and hemoglobin levels was noted but was of doubtful clinical significance. There was also a slight, nonsignificant decrease in phenytoin plasma levels. In conclusion, vigabatrin is an effective and well-tolerated therapy in children with refractory epilepsy at the dose of 60 mg/kg/day. Higher doses do not appear to bring any further significant benefit. (J Child Neurol 1991;6(Suppl):2S45-2S51).
IT Security Investment and Gordon-Loeb's 1/e Rule

Proliferation of modern information technology over the past decades was one of the leading causes of productivity growth in the US and worldwide. Appreciation of this fact lead to a surge of interest to economic aspects of this phenomenon. In particular, the economic aspects of cybersecurity risks and of vulnerabilities of information technologies became increasingly scrutinized, especially given the relatively open, standard driven character of most communication and data processing protocols. We refer the reader to the survey [1] for comprehensive and up-to-date references. We address here the question of investment into IT security: how much a firm facing a risk of loss due to IT vulnerabilities has to invest in mitigating these risks?
The Effect of Obstacle Strength Distribution on the Critical Resolved Shear Stress of Engineering Alloys

Line tension simulations were implemented to study the glide of a single dislocation through an array of randomly distributed point obstacles. The strength of each obstacle in the glide plane was populated from an assumed distribution, mimicking what might be expected in engineering alloys containing precipitates. The effect of changing the width of the distribution was investigated. It was found that the assumption of a uniform strength gives a lower bond to the critical resolved shear stress.
Ultrahigh‐Gain Single SnO2 Microrod Photoconductor on Flexible Substrate with Fast Recovery Speed

Owing to the special properties and wide applications, UV photodetectors based on wide‐band‐gap semiconductors have drawn an increasing interest during the last two decades. However, practical UV photodetectors are required two contradictory performances: high internal gain and fast recovery speed, because high internal gain is achieved by long life time of photoexcited carriers and fast recovery needs their fast decay. Their slow decay in wide‐band‐gap semiconductors has been known as a persistent photoconductivity (PPC) problem and hinders applications. In this paper, a good solution to the above contradictory problem is demonstrated on a single SnO2 microrod photoconductor, which shows both high photoconductive gain (≈1.5 × 109) and quick recovery speed (<1 s). Notably, the quick recovery speed is associated with the removal of the persistent photoconductivity effect (>1 d), which is induced by a novel “reset” process: bending and straightening the microrod and subsequently applying a voltage pulse. This result suggests that SnO2 microrods have potential applications in high‐performance UV photodetecting devices.
Architecture-Aware Mapping and Optimization on Heterogeneous Computing Systems

The emergence of scientific applications embedded with multiple modes of parallelism has made heterogeneous computing systems indispensable in high performance computing. The popularity of such systems is evident from the fact that three out of the top five fastest supercomputers in the world employ heterogeneous computing, i.e., they use dissimilar computational units. A closer look at the performance of these supercomputers reveals that they achieve only around 50% of their theoretical peak performance. This suggests that applications that were tuned for erstwhile homogeneous computing may not be efficient for today’s heterogeneous computing and hence, novel optimization strategies are required to be exercised. However, optimizing an application for heterogeneous computing systems is extremely challenging, primarily due to the architectural differences in computational units in such systems. This thesis intends to act as a cookbook for optimizing applications on heterogeneous computing systems that employ graphics processing units (GPUs) as the preferred mode of accelerators. We discuss optimization strategies for multicore CPUs as well as for the two popular GPU platforms, i.e., GPUs from AMD and NVIDIA. Optimization strategies for NVIDIA GPUs have been well studied but when applied on AMD GPUs, they fail to measurably improve performance because of the differences in underlying architecture. To the best of our knowledge, this research is the first to propose optimization strategies for AMD GPUs. Even on NVIDIA GPUs, there exists a lesser known but an extremely severe performance pitfall called partition camping, which can affect application performance by up to seven-fold. To facilitate the detection of this phenomenon, we have developed a performance prediction model that analyzes and characterizes the effect of partition camping in GPU applications. We have used a large-scale, molecular modeling application to validate and verify all the optimization strategies. Our results illustrate that if appropriately optimized, AMD and NVIDIA GPUs can provide 371-fold and 328-fold improvement, respectively, over a hand-tuned, SSE-optimized serial implementation. To my Parents and Grandparents. mMmF−pApA, dAdA−dAdFmA
Do Crosscutting Concerns Cause Defects?

There is a growing consensus that crosscutting concerns harm code quality. An example of a crosscutting concern is a functional requirement whose implementation is distributed across multiple software modules. We asked the question, "How much does the amount that a concern is crosscutting affect the number of defects in a program? " We conducted three extensive case studies to help answer this question. All three studies revealed a moderate to strong statistically significant correlation between the degree of scattering and the number of defects. This paper describes the experimental framework we developed to conduct the studies, the metrics we adopted and developed to measure the degree of scattering, the studies we performed, the efforts we undertook to remove experimental and other biases, and the results we obtained. In the process, we have formulated a theory that explains why increased scattering might lead to increased defects.
Fat and water separation in balanced steady‐state free precession using the Dixon method

In this work the feasibility of separating fat and water signals using the balanced steady‐state free precession (SSFP) technique is demonstrated. The technique is based on the observation (Scheffler and Hennig, Magnetic Resonance in Medicine 2003;49:395–397) that at the nominal values of TE = TR/2 in SSFP imaging, phase coherence can be achieved at essentially only two orientations (0° and 180°) relative to the RF pulses in the rotating frame, under the assumption of TR << T2, and independently of the SSFP angle. This property allows in‐phase and out‐of‐phase SSFP images to be obtained by proper choices of the center frequency offset, and thus allows the Dixon subtraction method to be utilized for effective fat–water separation. The TR and frequency offset for optimal fat–water separation are derived from theories. Experimental results from healthy subjects, using a 3.0 Tesla system, show that nearly complete fat suppression can be accomplished. Magn Reson Med 51:243–247, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Wisdom of Crowds: Single Image Super-resolution from the Web

This paper addresses the problem of learning based single image super-resolution. Previous research on this problem employs human user to provide a set of images that are similar to the target image as a reference. Then the super-resolution algorithm can learn from the provided reference images to predict the high resolution details for the target image. We propose a fully automatic scheme, which leverages the knowledge of the entire visual world and to query relevant references from the Internet. The proposed scheme is free of human supervision, and the performance compromise is small. We conduct experiments to show the effectiveness of the method.
Occupational exposures and risk of oesophageal cancer by histological type: a case–control study in eastern Spain

Objective: To explore the relationship between occupations and specific occupational exposures and oesophageal cancer (OC) by histological type. Methods: A multicentre hospital-based case–control study was conducted in two Mediterranean provinces of Spain. Occupational, sociodemographic and lifestyle information was collected from 185 newly diagnosed male oesophageal cancer patients (147 squamous cell, 38 adenocarcinoma) and 285 frequency matched controls. Occupation was coded according to the Spanish National Classification of Occupations 1994. Occupational exposure to a selection of carcinogenic substances was assessed by the FINJEM job exposure matrix. Odds ratios were calculated by unconditional logistic regression adjusting for age, education, alcohol intake and cigarette smoking. Results: For the squamous cell variety, statistically significant associations were found for waiters and bartenders (OR 8.18, 95% CI 1.98 to 33.75) and miners, shotfirers, stone cutters and carvers (OR 10.78, 95% CI 1.24 to 93.7) in relation to other occupations. For the adenocarcinoma variety, statistically significant associations were observed for carpenters and joiners (OR 9.69), animal producers and related workers (OR 5.61) and building and related electricians (OR 8.26), although these observations were based on a low number of cases. Regarding specific exposures, the study found a statistically significant increased risk of squamous cell carcinoma for ionising radiation, and of adenocarcinoma for high exposure to volatile sulphur compounds (OR 3.12) and lead (OR 5.30). For all histological types of OC combined, a three-fold increase in risk was found with a significant trend for asbestos exposure (OR 3.46, 95% CI 0.99 to 12.10). Conclusions: The data suggest that some occupational exposures may specifically increase the risk of oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma or adenocarcinoma, while other exposures such as asbestos may increase the overall risk of OC.
Zebrafish assays for drug toxicity screening

Zebrafish are vertebrate organisms that are of growing interest for preclinical drug discovery applications. Zebrafish embryos develop most of the major organ systems present in mammals, including the cardiovascular, nervous and digestive systems, in < 1 week. Additional characteristics that make them advantageous for compound screening are their small size, transparency and ability to absorb compounds through the water. Furthermore, gene function analysis with antisense technology is now routine procedure. Thus, it is relatively simple to assess whether compounds or gene knockdowns cause toxic effects in zebrafish. Assays are being developed to exploit the unique characteristics of zebrafish for pharmacological toxicology. This review discusses assays that may be used to assess invivo toxicity and provides examples of compounds known to be toxic to humans that have been demonstrated to function similarly in zebrafish.
Replicating the Violence Risk Appraisal Guide: A Total Forensic Cohort Study

Introduction The performance of violence risk assessment instruments can be primarily investigated by analysing two psychometric properties: discrimination and calibration. Although many studies have examined the discrimination capacity of the Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (VRAG) and other actuarial risk assessment tools, few have evaluated how well calibrated these instruments are. The aim of the present investigation was to replicate the development study of the VRAG in Europe including measurements of discrimination and calibration. Method Using a prospective study design, we assessed a total cohort of violent offenders in the Zurich Canton of Switzerland using the VRAG prior to discharge from prisons, secure facilities, and outpatient clinics. Assessors adhered strictly to the assessment protocol set out in the instrument’s manual. After controlling for attrition, 206 offenders were followed in the community for a fixed period of 7 years. We used charges and convictions for subsequent violent offenses as the outcomes. Receiver operating characteristic analysis was conducted to measure discrimination, and Sanders’ decomposition of the Brier score as well as Bayesian credible intervals were calculated to measure calibration. Results The discrimination of the VRAG’s risk bins was modest (area under the curve = 0.72, 95% CI = 0.63–0.81, p<0.05). However, the calibration of the tool was poor, with Sanders’ calibration score suggesting an average assessment error of 21% in the probabilistic estimates associated with each bin. The Bayesian credible intervals revealed that in five out of nine risk bins the intervals did not contain the expected risk rates. Discussion Measurement of the calibration validity of risk assessment instruments needs to be improved, as has been done with respect to discrimination. Additional replication studies that focus on the calibration of actuarial risk assessment instruments are needed. Meanwhile, we recommend caution when using the VRAG probabilistic risk estimates in practice.
Quorum sensing control of Type VI secretion factors restricts the proliferation of quorum-sensing mutants

Burkholderia thailandensis uses acyl-homoserine lactone-mediated quorum sensing systems to regulate hundreds of genes. Here we show that cell-cell contact-dependent type VI secretion (T6S) toxin-immunity systems are among those activated by quorum sensing in B. thailandensis. We also demonstrate that T6S is required to constrain proliferation of quorum sensing mutants in colony cocultures of a BtaR1 quorum-sensing signal receptor mutant and its parent. However, the BtaR1 mutant is not constrained by and outcompetes its parent in broth coculture, presumably because no cell contact occurs and there is a metabolic cost associated with quorum sensing gene activation. The increased fitness of the wild type over the BtaR1 mutant during agar surface growth is dependent on an intact T6SS-1 apparatus. Thus, quorum sensing activates B. thailandensis T6SS-1 growth inhibition and this control serves to police and constrain quorum-sensing mutants. This work defines a novel role for T6SSs in intraspecies mutant control. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.14712. 001
The use of nonpharmacologic techniques to prevent postoperative nausea and vomiting: a meta-analysis.

UNLABELLED We assessed the efficacy of nonpharmacologic techniques to prevent postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV) by systematic review. These studies included acupuncture, electroacupuncture, transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, acupoint stimulation, and acupressure. Of the 24 randomized trials retrieved by a search of articles indexed on the MEDLINE and EMBASE databases (1980-1997), 19 were eligible for meta-analysis. The primary outcomes were the incidence of nausea, vomiting, or both 0-6 h (early efficacy) or 0-48 h (late efficacy) after surgery. The pooled relative risk (RR) and numbers needed to treat (NNT) were calculated. In children, no benefit was found. Some results in adults were significant. Nonpharmacologic techniques were similar to antiemetics in preventing early vomiting (RR = 0.89 [95% confidence interval 0.47-1.67]; NNT = 63 [10-infinity]) and late vomiting (RR = 0.80 [0.35-1.81]; NNT = 25 [5-infinity]) in adults. Nonpharmacologic techniques were better than placebo at preventing early nausea (RR = 0.34 [0.20-0.58]; NNT = 4 [3-6]) and early vomiting in adults (RR = 0.47 [0.34-0.64]; NNT = 5 [4-8]). Nonpharmacologic techniques were similar to placebo in preventing late vomiting in adults (RR = 0.81 [0.46-1.42]; NNT = 14 [6-infinity]). Using nonpharmacologic techniques, 20%-25% of adults will not have early PONV compared with placebo. It may be an alternative to receiving no treatment or first-line antiemetics. IMPLICATIONS This systematic review showed that nonpharmacologic techniques were equivalent to commonly used antiemetic drugs in preventing vomiting after surgery. Nonpharmacologic techniques were more effective than placebo in preventing nausea and vomiting within 6 h of surgery in adults, but there was no benefit in children.
Loss of CD34 Expression in Aging Human Choriocapillaris Endothelial Cells

Structural and gene expression changes in the microvasculature of the human choroid occur during normal aging and age-related macular degeneration (AMD). In this study, we sought to determine the impact of aging and AMD on expression of the endothelial cell glycoprotein CD34. Sections from 58 human donor eyes were categorized as either young (under age 40), age-matched controls (> age 60 without AMD), or AMD affected (>age 60 with early AMD, geographic atrophy, or choroidal neovascularization). Dual labeling of sections with Ulex europaeus agglutinin-I lectin (UEA-I) and CD34 antibodies was performed, and the percentage of capillaries labeled with UEA-I but negative for anti-CD34 was determined. In addition, published databases of mouse and human retinal pigment epithelium-choroid were evaluated and CD34 expression compared between young and old eyes. Immunohistochemical studies revealed that while CD34 and UEA-I were colocalized in young eyes, there was variable loss of CD34 immunoreactivity in older donor eyes. While differences between normal aging and AMD were not significant, the percentage of CD34 negative capillaries in old eyes, compared to young eyes, was highly significant (p = 3.8×10−6). Endothelial cells in neovascular membranes were invariably CD34 positive. Published databases show either a significant decrease in Cd34 (mouse) or a trend toward decreased CD34 (human) in aging. These findings suggest that UEA-I and endogenous alkaline phosphatase activity are more consistent markers of aging endothelial cells in the choroid, and suggest a possible mechanism for the increased inflammatory milieu in the aging choroid.
Humoral Antibody Response of the Tilapia Oreochromis niloticus Against Cichlidogyrus spp. (Monogenea)

The humoral immune response of the tilapia Oreochromis niloticus was evaluated using a direct ELISA. Serum was tested from fish infected with Cichlidogyrus spp. (Monogenea) and from fish injected intraperitoneally with the Cichlidogyrus spp. antigenic extract, i.e., 150 μl of the Cichlidogyrus spp. saline extract diluted in Freund's complete adjuvant (FCA) (1:1) were inoculated intraperitoneally at day 0, followed by 2 dosages of 50 μl of the same Cichlidogyrus spp. saline extract diluted in Freund's incomplete adjuvant (FIA) (1:1) at weeks 2 and 4, respectively. The humoral response was also evaluated by the double immunodiffusion test (DID) and by serum protein and total immunoglobulin (Ig) determinations. The IgM OD values in the hyperimmune fish were significantly higher than in the infected and uninfected fish groups. In the DID test, a precipitation (antigen–antibody) band was observed between the Cichlidogyrus spp. saline extract and hyperimmune sera, but not with the other groups. Increases in serum protein concentration and total Igs were observed in the immunized fish at weeks 2 and 10 postinjection. Results from this study suggest that tilapia is capable of producing an induced humoral immune response against an antigenic extract of Cichlidogyrus spp.