Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Real-Time Activity Classification Using Ambient and Wearable Sensors

New approaches to chronic disease management within a home or community setting offer patients the prospect of more individually focused care and improved quality of life. This paper investigates the use of a light-weight ear worn activity recognition device combined with wireless ambient sensors for identifying common activities of daily living. A two-stage Bayesian classifier that uses information from both types of sensors is presented. Detailed experimental validation is provided for datasets collected in a laboratory setting as well as in a home environment. Issues concerning the effective use of the relatively limited discriminative power of the ambient sensors are discussed. The proposed framework bodes well for a multi-dwelling environment, and offers a pervasive sensing environment for both patients and care-takers.
Genome-wide analysis identifies changes in histone retention and epigenetic modifications at developmental and imprinted gene loci in the sperm of infertile men.

BACKGROUND The sperm chromatin of fertile men retains a small number of nucleosomes that are enriched at developmental gene promoters and imprinted gene loci. This unique chromatin packaging at certain gene promoters provides these genomic loci the ability to convey instructive epigenetic information to the zygote, potentially expanding the role and significance of the sperm epigenome in embryogenesis. We hypothesize that changes in chromatin packaging may be associated with poor reproductive outcome. METHODS Seven patients with reproductive dysfunction were recruited: three had unexplained poor embryogenesis during IVF and four were diagnosed with male infertility and previously shown to have altered protamination. Genome-wide analysis of the location of histones and histone modifications was analyzed by isolation and purification of DNA bound to histones and protamines. The histone-bound fraction of DNA was analyzed using high-throughput sequencing, both initially and following chromatin immunoprecipitation. The protamine-bound fraction was hybridized to agilent arrays. DNA methylation was examined using bisulfite sequencing. RESULTS Unlike fertile men, five of seven infertile men had non-programmatic (randomly distributed) histone retention genome-wide. Interestingly, in contrast to the total histone pool, the localization of H3 Lysine 4 methylation (H3K4me) or H3 Lysine 27 methylation (H3K27me) was highly similar in the gametes of infertile men compared with fertile men. However, there was a reduction in the amount of H3K4me or H3K27me retained at developmental transcription factors and certain imprinted genes. Finally, the methylation status of candidate developmental promoters and imprinted loci were altered in a subset of the infertile men. CONCLUSIONS This initial genome-wide analysis of epigenetic markings in the sperm of infertile men demonstrates differences in composition and epigenetic markings compared with fertile men, especially at certain imprinted and developmental loci. Although no single locus displays a complete change in chromatin packaging or DNA modification, the data suggest that moderate changes throughout the genome exist and may have a cumulative detrimental effect on fecundity.
Clinical Pharmacology of Chemotherapy Agents in Older People with Cancer

Populations around the world are aging, and the associated increase in cancer incidence has led to the recognition of the importance of geriatric oncology. Chronological age is a poor determinant of pharmacological response to cancer chemotherapy agents. Age-associated changes in physiology and organ function have a significant impact on the clinical pharmacology of cancer chemotherapy agents used in cancer treatment. Altered response to medicines in older people is a consequence of changes in body composition, organ function, concomitant pathophysiology, multiple medications, genetic determinants of drug response, and patient's clinical status. These issues highlight the need to individualize the management of cancer in the older people with consideration of age-related changes in the clinical pharmacology of cancer drugs, analgesics, and adjunctive therapies.
A STRIDE-based Security Architecture for Software-Defined Networking

While the novelty of Software-Defined Networking (SDN) — the separation of network control and data planes — is appealing and simple enough to foster massive vendor support, the resulting impact on the security of communication networks infrastructures and their management may be tremendous. The paradigm change affects the entire networking architecture. It involves new IP-based management communication protocols, and introduces newly engineered, potentially immature and vulnerable implementations in both network components and SDN controllers. In this paper, the well-known STRIDE threat model is applied to the generic SDN concepts as a basis for the design of a secure SDN architecture. The key elements are presented in detail along with a discussion of potentially fundamental security flaws in the current SDN concepts. Keywords–Software-Defined Networking; STRIDE; Security Architecture; Network Security; Security Analysis.
Web as Huge Information Source for Noun Phrases Integration in the Information Retrieval Process

Web is a rich and diversified source of information. In this article, we propose to benefit from this richness to collect and analyze documents, with the aim of a relational indexation based on noun phrases. Proposed data processing chain includes a spider collecting data to build textual corpora, and a linguistic module analyzing text to extract information. Comparison of obtained corpus with corpus from Amaryllis conference shows the linguistic diversity of collected corpora, and particularly the richness of extracted noun phrases.
Visual object classification by sparse convolutional neural networks

A convolutional network architecture termed sparse convolu- tional neural network (SCNN) is proposed and tested on a real-world clas- sification task (car classification). In addition to the error function based on the mean squared error (MSE), approximate decorrelation between hid- den layer neurons is enforced by a weight orthogonalization mechanism. The aim is to obtain a sparse coding of the objects' visual appearance, thus removing the need for a dedicated feature selection stage. Working on un- processed image data only, it is demonstrated that classification accuracies can be improved by the proposed method compared to purely MSE-trained SCNNs and fully-connected multilayer perceptron architectures.
A SVM kernel for classifying partially occluded images

We propose a novel SVM (Support Vector Machine) kernel for classifying partially occluded images in the process of video tracking. The SVM kernel (called Bhattacharyya kernel) is derived from Bhattacharyya coefficient. In our study, the validity of Bhattacharyya kernel is proven. We use kernel density estimation of histogram as SVM's feature space. Experiments show the SVM based on Bhattacharyya kernel can keep high classification accuracy when occlusion or clutter of peripheral pixels appears. Bhattacharyya kernel can be generalized easily when using other features.
Finding the Most Powerful Measures of the Effectiveness of Tissue Plasminogen Activator in the NINDS tPA Stroke Trial

Background and Purpose We sought to identify the most powerful binary measures of the treatment effect of tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) in the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) rTPA Stroke Trial. Methods Using the Classification and Regression Tree (CART) algorithm, we evaluated binary cut points and combination of binary cut points with the 4 clinical scales and head CT imaging measures in the NINDS tPA Stroke Trial at 4 times after treatment: 2 hours, 24 hours, 7 to 10 days, and 3 months. The first analysis focused on detecting evidence of “early activity” of tPA with the use of outcome measures derived from the 2-hour and 24-hour clinical and radiographic measures. The second analysis focused on longer-term outcome and “efficacy” and used outcome measures derived from 7- to 10-day and 3-month measures. After identifying the cut points with the ability to classify patients into the tPA and placebo groups using part I data from the trial, we then used data from part II of the trial to validate the results. Results Of the 5 most powerful outcome measures for early activity of tPA, 4 involved the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) score at 24 hours or changes in the NIHSS score from baseline to 24 hours. The best overall single outcome measure was an NIHSS score ≤2 at 24 hours, which provided an odds ratio of 5.4 (95% CI, 2.4 to 12.1) and a projected sample size of 58 per treatment group assuming an &agr; of 0.05 (2-sided test) and a power of 80% using part I data. The top 2 and 3 of the top 5 outcome measures for detecting the longer-term efficacy of tPA also involved the NIHSS score. A Rankin score of 0 or 1 at 3 months was the third most powerful outcome measure. Outcome measures identified by CART from part I data were not as sensitive in detecting the effectiveness of tPA when applied to part II data. Conclusions Measures using the NIHSS and a Rankin score ≤1 were the most sensitive discriminators of the effectiveness of tPA in the NINDS tPA Stroke Trial compared with the other clinical and radiological measures. The outcome measures identified in this exploratory analysis (eg, NIHSS score ≤2 at 24 hours) would be best used as an outcome measure in future phase II trials of recanalization begun within the first 3 hours after stroke onset, with inclusion and exclusion criteria similar to those in the NINDS tPA Stroke Trial.
Analysis of MicroRNA Expression in Embryonic Developmental Toxicity Induced by MC-RR

As cynobacterial blooms frequently occur in fresh waters throughout the world, microcystins (MCs) have caused serious damage to both wildlife and human health. MCs are known to have developmental toxicity, however, the possible molecular mechanism is largely unknown. This is the first toxicological study to integrate post-transcriptomic, proteomic and bioinformatics analysis to explore molecular mechanisms for developmental toxicity of MCs in zebrafish. After being microinjected directly into embryos, MC-RR dose-dependently decreased survival rates and increased malformation rates of embryos, causing various embryo abnormalities including loss of vascular integrity and hemorrhage. Expressions of 31 microRNAs (miRNAs) and 78 proteins were significantly affected at 72 hours post-fertilisation (hpf). Expressions of miR-430 and miR-125 families were also significantly changed. The altered expressions of miR-31 and miR-126 were likely responsible for the loss of vascular integrity. MC-RR significantly reduced the expressions of a number of proteins involved in energy metabolism, cell division, protein synthesis, cytoskeleton maintenance, response to stress and DNA replication. Bioinformatics analysis shows that several aberrantly expressed miRNAs and proteins (involved in various molecular pathways) were predicted to be potential MC-responsive miRNA-target pairs, and that their aberrant expressions should be the possible molecular mechanisms for the various developmental defects caused by MC-RR.
Culture, Nation, and Entrepreneurial Strategic Orientations: Implications for an Emerging Economy

Since most researchers use the terms “culture” and “nation” interchangeably, the majority of empirical cross-cultural studies aiming to isolate the role of culture tend to be cross-national studies that are confounded with the influence of the national environment. This study employs a hybrid, quasi-experimental design to Investigate whether the cultural or national effects have a stronger influence on entrepreneurs' perception of the environment and their strategic orientations. Specifically, I draw on three samples of entrepreneurs from two cultures and two countries, namely, mainland Chinese, Chinese Americans, and Caucasian Americans. Such a quasi-experimental design allows us to better isolate the role of culture. Compared with the cultural effect, the national effect is more influential. In light of China's emerging economy in which entrepreneurship figures prominently, these findings point to the importance of institution-building efforts that foster a more entrepreneur-friendly national environment.
The Clinicopathological Significance of MicroRNA-155 in Breast Cancer: A Meta-Analysis

Objective. Previous studies demonstrated that the associations between expression level of microRNA-155 (miR-155) and clinicopathological significance of breast cancer remained inconsistent. Therefore, we performed a meta-analysis based on eligible studies to summarize the possible associations. Methods. We identified eligible studies published up to May 2014 by a comprehensive search of PubMed, EMBASE, CNKI, and VIP databases. The analysis was performed with RevMan. 5.0 software. Results. A total of 15 studies were included. The results of meta-analysis showed that miR-155 was positively correlated with breast cancer with standardized mean difference (SMD) = 1.22. Elevated miR-155 was found in Her-2 positive or lymph node metastasis positive, or p53 mutant type breast cancer. But the result showed to be insignificant in TNM comparison. With respect to estrogen receptor alpha (ER) and progesterone receptor (PR) status, both of them showed significant associations with SMD = −1.2 and −1.85, respectively. Conclusion. MiR-155 detection might have a diagnostic value in breast cancer patients. It might be used as an auxiliary biomarker for different clinicopathological breast cancer.
Outage cost application in economic value evaluation of 115/22 kV substation construction for electronic industrial customers

This paper, the fuzzy logic is proposed to evaluate the outage cost of large electronic industries in Thailand. Two selected parameters input in the fuzzy logic model are the peak demand and outage frequency. The simulation results of 105 large electronic industries with peak demand between 1 MW to 9 MW show that the outage cost is 35,067–938,267 Baht/event. Furthermore, the outage cost is used to assess the economic value of new 115/22 kV substation construction. In this article, the Air Insulated Substation (AIS) and Gas Insulated Substation (GIS) are used to demonstrate the economic value assessment of new substation in term of Return on Investment (ROI) and Internal Rate of Return (IRR). The results show that ROI and IRR of the AIS are better than ROI and IRR of the GIS both considering and without considering the outage cost.
Establishing the Psychometric Properties of the ICOAP Questionnaire through Intra-Articular Treatment of Osteoarthritic Pain: Implementation for the Greek Version

Objectives. In this prospective study, we intend to establish the psychometric properties of ICOAP for its use in studies involving the Hellenic population. Methods. SF-36 Health Survey was used as a standard against ICOAP scores from a sample of 89 patients (mean age: 71.07, 69 females) with hip and knee OA pain who underwent 2 treatment cycles of 4 intra-articular injections of sodium hyaluronate, separated by a 12-week medication-free time interval. Both questionnaires were filled twice with no missing data during follow-up. Results. ROC analysis accomplished ICOAP's criterion-related validation. Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test and paired samples t-test endorsed ICOAP's responsiveness along with Effect Size values, standard response mean, and Relative Efficiency. Comparisons between the areas under curves (AUC) on ROC plots established external responsiveness. Cronbach's-alpha value favored ICOAP's internal consistency. This, along with intraclass correlation, results in both advocated reliability and content validity. Interitem discrimination was demonstrated by the ease of completion of ICOAP as well as the degree of familiarity with it. These findings inaugurated construct validity in collaboration with Spearman's and One-Way ANOVA results. Conclusions. ICOAP is a valid, reliable, and responsive QoL instrument and suitable for studies of osteoarthritic joint pain in the Greek setting.
Autovita : a 360 degree view of Person Information on the WWW

Search for a person over the WWW, is usually targeted to find personal information or to get a comprehensive overview of his/her web presence. Since, current day search engines still treat any search query as keywords, they fail to provide a comprehensive and quick summary for person related searches, instead returning a huge list of keyword based matching documents. It is largely left to the user to decide which page he is interested in and also comprehend and analyze the bits and pieces of information redundantly and sparsely distributed across various documents. In this paper, we discuss our system Autovita which mines person information from the web to provide a comprehensive and non-redundant summary for different dimensions of interest like background information, finance issues, colleague information etc. Such a 360 degree view for a person related search helps in quick identification and analysis of a person’s web presence.
Gravitational Lensing Limits on the Average Redshift of Submillimeter Sources

The submillimeter universe has now been explored with the Submillimeter Common-User Bolometer Array camera on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, and a claim has been made to the presence of a new population of optically unidentified star-forming galaxies at high redshifts (z≳3). Such a population dramatically alters current views on the star formation history of the universe as well as galaxy formation and evolution. Recently, new radio identifications of the Hubble Deep Field submillimeter sources have led to the suggestion that some of these sources are at low redshifts; however, the submillimeter source redshift distribution is still not well determined. Here we present an upper limit to the average redshift ⟨z⟩ by comparing the expected number of gravitationally lensed submillimeter sources that are due to foreground cluster potentials with the current observed statistics of such lensed sources. The upper limit depends on the cosmological parameters, and at the 68% confidence level, ⟨z⟩<3.1, 4.8, 5.2, or 8.0 for (Ωm, ΩΛ) values of (0.3, 0.7), (0.5, 0.5), (0.3, 0.0), or (1.0, 0.0), respectively. These upper limits are consistent with the redshift distribution for 850 μm sources implied by star formation history models that are based on measured background radiation at far-infrared and submillimeter wavelengths.
Deconvolution using the adaptive selective sidelobe canceller beamformer

We propose a new sequential deconvolution algorithm, that is applicable to imaging using moving and synthetic aperture arrays. The new method results in a higher resolution and a more accurate estimation than commonly used methods when strong interfering sources are present inside and outside the field of view (terrestrial interference, confusing sources). We demonstrate the algorithm performance over both simulated and real radio astronomical data.
Credit Constraints and International Financial Crises

A version of the Kiyotaki and Moore (1997) model of credit cycles is used to examine the extent to which a crisis in a country can spread to another seemingly unrelated country. The model features two small open economies that face credit constraints and produce a differentiated commodity which they export to a large country. A productivity shock to one of the small open economies triggers an adverse terms of trade shock to the other which is then amplified by credit constraints. The paper provides a new perspective on the relationship between terms of trade shocks and the balance of payments that differs from existing models which focus on risk sharing and consumption smoothing. In particular, it is shown that if financial frictions are present, a temporary terms of trade shock can trigger capital outflows and a rapid deterioration in the current account.
Book Review: Other Areas: Military Threats: The Costs of Coercion and the Price of Peace

Branislav Slantchev’s Military Threats makes an impressive contribution to the crisis escalation literature. Motivated by the puzzle of how states credibly demonstrate their resolve during a crisis, the author focuses on how physical military moves affect state behaviour. These moves have informational consequences, as they can signal the credible resolve of a particular state. In addition, these moves have functional consequences, as they affect the probability of victory in a potential war. By endogenising the war pay-off, Slantchev reveals potent mechanisms that can explicitly or implicitly compel state behaviour.While there are several important theoretical results derived from the formal analysis, a major finding is that military moves can demonstrate credible commitments, but not on the cheap.This is especially troubling for militarily powerful states, who find that reputation can be a ‘curse for the strong’ (p. 93). If states can engage in costly mobilisation actions to demonstrate their resolve credibly, this can decrease the probability of war. However, military moves can also lead to increased situational instability of the crisis. In other words, physical military moves may escalate a crisis to a war, even when the states’ preferences favour peace. Although largely a game-theoretic argument, Slantchev effectively makes his theory accessible to those less comfortable with formal methods. In addition, the author uses a host of illustrative examples and a longer case study to complement his theoretical assertions. His case analysis of the Korean War explains how China and the United States found themselves at war, although their preferences would have suggested otherwise. The author’s conclusion that China did not do enough in terms of military moves to deter the United States from crossing the 38th parallel challenges existing signalling explanations of this conflict. One limitation of this study is that the implications for the author’s arguments are understated. Slantchev begins this analysis with a careful review of the existing crisis literature, and finds that these models do not fully account for credible signalling. This is especially true for audience cost models, which underpin a significant portion of the formal democratic peace literature. As a result, the reader is left wondering how Slantchev’s theory affects these predictions, or how military moves affect different regime types in general. Despite this omission, this work offers a rich theoretical foundation for future empirical research on the effectiveness of military moves in crisis bargaining.
The Swiss Cheese Mutant Causes Glial Hyperwrapping and Brain Degeneration in Drosophila

Swiss cheese (sws) mutant flies develop normally during larval life but show age-dependent neurodegeneration in the pupa and adult and have reduced life span. In late pupae, glial processes form abnormal, multilayered wrappings around neurons and axons. Degeneration first becomes evident in young flies as apoptosis in single scattered cells in the CNS, but later it becomes severe and widespread. In the adult, the number of glial wrappings increases with age. The sws gene is expressed in neurons in the brain cortex. The conceptual 1425 amino acid protein shows two domains with homology to the regulatory subunits of protein kinase A and to conceptual proteins of yet unknown function in yeast, worm, and human. Sequencing of two sws alleles shows amino acid substitutions in these two conserved domains. It is suggested that the novel SWS protein plays a role in a signaling mechanism between neurons and glia that regulates glial wrapping during development of the adult brain.