Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Assessment of seasonality in exposure to dioxins, furans and dioxin-like PCBs by using long-term food-consumption data

According to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) guidance related to uncertainties in dietary exposure assessment, exposure assessment based on short-term food-consumption surveys, such as 24-h recalls or 2-day records, tend to overestimate long-term exposure because of the assumption that the dietary pattern will be similar day after day over a lifetime. The aim of this study was to make an assessment of dietary exposure to polychlorinated dibenzodioxins (PCDDs) and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs), also called ‘dioxins’ and ‘dioxin-like PCBs’, using long-term household purchase and consumption survey data collected by TNS-Secodip. Weekly purchases of the major dioxins and dl-PCB vector products of these contaminants were collected for 328 single-person households, who participated at TNS-Secodip consumption surveys from 2003 to 2005 and who were single-person households in order to estimate better their consumption. These data were combined with average contamination levels of food products. Weekly gross average exposure was estimated at 10.2 pg toxic equivalent (WHO TEQ) kg−1 bw week−1 (95% confidence interval [9.6, 10.9]). According to the typical shape of the distribution of individual weekly exposures, it is sensible to fit an exponential law to these data. The mean was therefore 12.1 pg WHO TEQ kg−1 bw week−1. This value is higher than the arithmetic mean because it better takes into account inter-individual variability. It was estimated that about 20% of persons in this sample were exceeding the current health-based guidance value mainly due to high consumption of seafood and/or dairy products. Thanks to long survey duration (3 years) and the weekly recording of food consumption, it was possible to demonstrate the actual seasonality of dietary exposure to dioxins and dl-PCBs with a maximum between March and September; similar seasonality is observable for fish consumption. Autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) models were adjusted to the time series and it was demonstrated that the number of times the upper limit of confidence intervals exceeds the provisional tolerable weekly intake (PTWI) is about 15 weeks per year on average. Finally, compared with the results obtained from data collected in the short-term surveys (1 week), this study does not suggest that short-term consumption surveys tend to overestimate the long-term exposure.
Non-Contact Simultaneous Photoplethysmogram and Ballistocardiogram Video Recording towards Real-Time Blood Pressure and Abnormal Heart Rhythm Monitoring

We present a video-based method to monitor blood pressure by analyzing pulse transit time (PTT). The PTT is determined from ballistocardiogram (BCG) and photoplethysmogram (PPG), which are recorded simultaneously using a single camera. The measured blood pressure changes are compared with those measured with a cuff-based reference blood pressure monitor. In addition to blood pressure, premature ventricular contraction (PVC) is also observed from both PPG and BCG waveforms. The method provides a non-contact solution towards real-time blood pressure and abnormal heart rhythm monitoring of an individual under normal living conditions without his/her conscious attention.
Epidemiologic estimate of the proportion of fatalities related to occupational factors in Finland.

OBJECTIVES This study attempts to estimate the proportion of annual deaths related to occupational factors in Finland and considers related methodological issues and associated uncertainties. METHODS Statistics on causes of death, numbers of subjects exposed, and risk ratios obtained from the epidemiologic literature were used to estimate the population attributable fraction and disease burden for causes of death from work-related diseases. Gender-, age- and disease-specific numbers of deaths were provided by Statistics Finland for 1996. Information on the size of the population, broken down by gender, age, occupation, and industry, was acquired from population censuses. A Finnish job-exposure matrix supplied data on the prevalence of exposure for specific agents and the level of exposure among exposed workers. RESULTS The attributable fraction of work-related mortality in the relevant disease and age categories was estimated to be 7% (10% for men and 2% for women), and for all diseases and ages the fraction was 4%. For the main cause-of-death categories, the attributable fraction became 12% for circulatory system diseases, 8% for malignant neoplasms, 4% for respiratory system diseases, 4% for mental disorders, 3% for nervous system diseases, and 3% for accidents and violence. The following estimates were obtained for specific important diseases: 24% for lung cancer, 17% for ischemic heart disease, 12% for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and 11% for stroke. Based on these fractions, the total number of work-related deaths that occurred in Finland in 1996 was calculated to be on the order of 1800 (employed work force of 2.1 million); 86% involved men. CONCLUSIONS High-quality epidemiologic studies and national survey data are essential for obtaining reliable estimates of the proportion of deaths attributable to occupational factors. The magnitude of work-related mortality is an insufficiently recognized contributor to total mortality in Finland, especially from circulatory diseases and other diseases caused by exposure to agents other than asbestos.
Comparison of Plasticity In Vivo and In Vitro in the Developing Visual Cortex of Normal and Protein Kinase A RIβ-Deficient Mice

Developing sensory systems are sculpted by an activity-dependent strengthening and weakening of connections. Long-term potentiation (LTP) and depression (LTD) in vitro have been proposed to model this experience-dependent circuit refinement. We directly compared LTP and LTD induction in vitro with plasticityin vivo in the developing visual cortex of a mouse mutant of protein kinase A (PKA), a key enzyme implicated in the plasticity of a diverse array of systems. In mice lacking the RIβ regulatory subunit of PKA, we observed three abnormalities of synaptic plasticity in layer II/III of visual cortexin vitro. These included an absence of (1) extracellularly recorded LTP, (2) depotentiation or LTD, and (3) paired-pulse facilitation. Potentiation was induced, however, by pairing low-frequency stimulation with direct depolarization of individual mutant pyramidal cells. Together these findings suggest that the LTP defect in slices lacking PKA RIβ lies in the transmission of sufficient net excitation through the cortical circuit. Nonetheless, functional development and plasticity of visual cortical responses in vivo after monocular deprivation did not differ from normal. Moreover, the loss of all responsiveness to stimulation of the originally deprived eye in most cortical cells could be restored by reverse suture of eyelids during the critical period in both wild-type and mutant mice. Such an activity-dependent increase in response would seem to require a mechanism like potentiation in vivo. Thus, the RIβ isoform of PKA is not essential for ocular dominance plasticity, which can proceed despite defects in several common in vitro models of neural plasticity.
Optimized fixed point implementation of a local stereo matching algorithm onto C66x DSP

Stereo matching techniques aim at reconstructing disparity maps from a pair of images. The use of stereo matching techniques in embedded systems is very challenging due to the complexity of the state-of-the-art algorithms. An efficient local stereo matching algorithm has been chosen from the literature and implemented on a c6678 DSP. Arithmetic simplifications such as approximation by piecewise linear functions and fixed point conversions are proposed. Thanks to factorisation and precomputing, the memory footprint is reduced by a factor 13 to fit on the memory footprint available on embedded systems. A 14.5 fps speed (factor 60 speed-up) has been reached with a small quality loss on the final disparity map.
Rotational diffusion of acetylcholine receptors on cultured rat myotubes

The rotational mobility of acetylcholine receptors (AChR) in the plasma membrane of living rat myotubes in culture is measured in this study by polarized fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (PFRAP). These AChR are known to exist in two distinct classes, evident by labeling with rhodamine alpha-bungarotoxin; clustered AChR that are aggregated in a pattern of highly concentrated speckles and streaks, with each cluster occupying an area of approximately 1,000 microns 2; and nonclustered AChR that appear as diffuse labeling. PFRAP results reported here show that: (a) most clustered AChR (approximately 86%) are rotationally immobile within a time scale of at least several seconds; and (b) most nonclustered AChR (approximately 76%) are rotationally mobile with characteristic times ranging from less than 50 ms to 0.1 s. External cross-linking with the tetravalent lectin concanavalin A immobilizes many nonclustered AChR. PFRAP experiments in the presence of carbachol or cytochalasin D show that the restraints to rotational motion in clusters are remarkably immune to treatments that disperse clusters or disrupt cytoplasmic actin. The experiments also demonstrate the feasibility of using PFRAP to measure rotational diffusion on selected microscopic areas of living nondeoxygenated cells labeled with standard fluorescence probes over a very wide range of time scales, and they also indicate what technical improvements would make PFRAP even more practicable.
A novel approach to optimize the objective function based on VC dimension and structural risk minimization

So far, lots of algorithms and learning methods are taking the empirical risk for the optimization goal. In this paper, we propose a new way to optimize the objective function based on VC dimension and structural risk minimization. The optimized function F is firstly defined by us, and some effective design forms of it will also be given. Then we fulfill a useful criterion—the balance minimum optimization principle. This principle considers not only the empirical risk, but also considers the VC dimension of learning machine. Balancing the two factors can avoid the underfitting problem and overfitting problem. Experimental results show that the method we proposed is effective to improve the property of algorithm efficiency, convergence and generalization of the learning machine. Also, the proposed principle for optimization is a new criterion, which is not a practical method for a particular problem of improvement. Therefore, this method is suitable to be applied in many practical situations, which may bring a good generalization performance and efficiency in some learning problems.
The Mobile Agility Framework: An Exploratory Study of Mobile Technology Enhancing Organizational Agility

Organizational agility is a key factor for survival and success in today's global, interconnected and turbulent business environment. Mobile technology, due to its anywhere, anytime characteristics, can be a promising tool for enhancing organizational agility. Yet there are no studies that guide organizations in leveraging mobile technology for improving speed and responsiveness to market needs. This paper attempts to fill this gap by exploring the question of how mobile technology can be used to enhance organizational agility. We use an exploratory research approach that analyzes archival data of 89 case studies describing contemporary applications of mobile technology within organizations. After developing a mobile agility framework and using it as our analytical lens, we examine each case to identify specific ways in which mobile technology is used to improve operational, customer, and partnering agility. The main contribution of this study is identification of emergent clusters of agility-enhancing mechanisms based on the benefits of mobile technology. The discovered benefits and mechanisms can guide organizations on improving their agility with the help of mobile technology. We also formulate research questions that should be addressed by future studies in order to produce a more comprehensive theoretical understanding of how mobile technology improves organizational agility.
Joint axis and position estimation from inertial measurement data by exploiting kinematic constraints

We consider 6d inertial measurement units (IMU) attached to rigid bodies, e.g. human limb segments or links of a robotic manipulator, which are connected by hinge joints and spheroidal joints. Novel methods for joint axis estimation and joint position estimation are presented that exploit the kinematic constraints induced by these two types of joints. The presented methods do not require any knowledge about the sensor units' positions or orientations and do not include integration, i.e. they are insensitive to measurement bias. By means of a three-links simulation model, the estimation algorithms are validated and convergence is analyzed. Finally, the algorithms are tested using experimental data from IMU-based human gait analysis.
Asparagine and glutamine: using hydrogen atom contacts in the choice of side-chain amide orientation.

Small-probe contact dot surface analysis, with all explicit hydrogen atoms added and their van der Waals contacts included, was used to choose between the two possible orientations for each of 1554 asparagine (Asn) and glutamine (Gln) side-chain amide groups in a dataset of 100 unrelated, high-quality protein crystal structures at 0.9 to 1.7 A resolution. For the movable-H groups, each connected, closed set of local H-bonds was optimized for both H-bonds and van der Waals overlaps. In addition to the Asn/Gln "flips", this process included rotation of OH, SH, NH3+, and methionine methyl H atoms, flip and protonation state of histidine rings, interaction with bound ligands, and a simple model of water interactions. However, except for switching N and O identity for amide flips (or N and C identity for His flips), no non-H atoms were shifted. Even in these very high-quality structures, about 20 % of the Asn/Gln side-chains required a 180 degrees flip to optimize H-bonding and/or to avoid NH2 clashes with neighboring atoms (incorporating a conservative score penalty which, for marginal cases, favors the assignment in the original coordinate file). The programs Reduce, Probe, and Mage provide not only a suggested amide orientation, but also a numerical score comparison, a categorization of the marginal cases, and a direct visualization of all relevant interactions in both orientations. Visual examination allowed confirmation of the raw score assignment for about 40 % of those Asn/Gln flips placed within the "marginal" penalty range by the automated algorithm, while uncovering only a small number of cases whose automated assignment was incorrect because of special circumstances not yet handled by the algorithm. It seems that the H-bond and the atomic-clash criteria independently look at the same structural realities: when both criteria gave a clear answer they agreed every time. But consideration of van der Waals clashes settled many additional cases for which H-bonding was either absent or approximately equivalent for the two main alternatives. With this extra information, 86 % of all side-chain amide groups could be oriented quite unambiguously. In the absence of further experimental data, it would probably be inappropriate to assign many more than this. Some of the remaining 14 % are ambiguous because of coordinate error or inadequacy of the theoretical model, but the great majority of ambiguous cases probably occur as a dynamic mix of both flip states in the actual protein molecule. The software and the 100 coordinate files with all H atoms added and optimized and with amide flips corrected are publicly available.
Performance analysis of multiclass object detection using SVM classifier

Multiclass object detection is considered for detecting different object classes in a cluttered environment. Traditional approaches require applying a battery of different classifiers to the image with a large number of complex features used to detect the objects. Specialized detectors usually excel in performance, while the class-specific features increase detection accuracy, but at the expense of complexity. In this paper, an efficient method of human face and car detection using cascaded structure of independent object classifiers is proposed. The approach is based on background elimination using statistical features, followed by foreground detection using Principal component analysis (PCA) and Histogram of Gradients (HoG) with SVM classifier. For detecting the object of interest from the image, the system primarily filters the potential object area by analyzing the local histogram distribution. After background elimination, the trained classifier detects foreground using higher order parameters like PCA for human faces and HOG for cars. In this paper, the kernel function for SVM classifier, suitable for individual object classifier is analysed based upon ROC-AUC parameter. The proposed system is implemented in Matlab. The system is validated with performance metrics like precision, recall and accuracy.
Rabies virus infects mouse and human lymphocytes and induces apoptosis

Attenuated and highly neurovirulent rabies virus strains have distinct cellular tropisms. Highly neurovirulent strains such as the challenge virus standard (CVS) are highly neurotropic, whereas the attenuated strain ERA also infects nonneuronal cells. We report that both rabies virus strains infect activated murine lymphocytes and the human lymphoblastoid Jurkat T-cell line in vitro. The lymphocytes are more permissive to the attenuated ERA rabies virus strain than to the CVS strain in both cases. We also report that in contrast to that of the CVS strain, ERA viral replication induces apoptosis of infected Jurkat T cells, and cell death is concomitant with viral glycoprotein expression, suggesting that this protein has a role in the induction of apoptosis. Our data indicate that (i) rabies virus infects lymphocytes, (ii) lymphocyte infection with the attenuated rabies virus strain causes apoptosis, and (iii) apoptosis does not hinder rabies virus production. In contrast to CVS, ERA rabies virus and other attenuated rabies virus vaccines stimulate a strong immune response and are efficient live vaccines. The paradoxical finding that a rabies virus triggers a strong immune response despite the fact that it infects lymphocytes and induces apoptosis is discussed in terms of the function of apoptosis in the immune response.
Generalization of supervised learning for binary mask estimation

This paper addresses the problem of speech segregation by estimating the ideal binary mask (IBM) from noisy speech. Two methods will be compared, one supervised learning approach that incorporates a priori knowledge about the feature distribution observed during training. The second method solely relies on a frame-based speech presence probability (SPP) es-timation, and therefore, does not depend on the acoustic condition seen during training. We investigate the influence of mismatches between the acoustic conditions used for training and testing on the IBM estimation performance and discuss the advantages of both approaches.
Corrective Discourse in Turkish EFL Classrooms.

The present study examines oral corrective discourse in preparatory EFL classes at BUSEL (Bilkent University, School of English Language), Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey. It is a descriptive classroom-centred study carried out within the framework of the discourse analysis tradition. A comprehensive strategy of methodological and data triangulation implemented in the study involves observation and description of teacher-student interactional behaviours in managing corrective discourse, the EFL teachers' interviews, and a questionnaire, administered to the Turkish students. The study considers oral corrective discourse evolving in the Turkish EFL classes, the EFL teachers' actual corrective feedback provided in formal instruction and their decision making on error treatment, and the Turkish students' stated preferences for the amount and type of corrective feedback on the part of the teachers. The study demonstrates a small degree of parity between the Turkish students' preferences for error treatment and the EFL teachers' actual corrective practice in the instructional setting.
Classification based extraction of numeric values from clinical narratives

The robust extraction of numeric values from clinical narratives is a well known problem in clinical data warehouses. In this paper we describe a dynamic and domain-independent approach to deliver numerical described values from clinical narratives. In contrast to alternative systems, we neither use manual defined rules nor any kind of ontologies or nomenclatures. Instead we propose a topic-based system, that tackles the information extraction as a text classification problem. Hence we use machine learning to identify the crucial context features of a topic-specific numeric value by a given set of example sentences, so that the manual effort reduces to the selection of appropriate sample sentences. We describe context features of a certain numeric value by term frequency vectors which are generated by multiple document segmentation procedures. Due to this simultaneous segmentation approaches, there can be more than one context vector for a numeric value. In those cases, we choose the context vector with the highest classification confidence and suppress the rest. To test our approach, we used a dataset from a german hospital containing 12,743 narrative reports about laboratory results of Leukemia patients. We used Support Vector Machines (SVM) for classification and achieved an average accuracy of 96% on a manually labeled subset of 2073 documents, using 10-fold cross validation. This is a significant improvement over an alternative rule based system.
Development of River Information Management System according to the participatory sensing

In the rivers area, it has become frequent problems with illegal dumping, flood, inundation, and damage. We need the support and understanding of the problems quickly. Future measures also require. River basin is a wide range. Only the river administrator is difficult to perform adequate monitor and response. River Information Management System was developed by the collaboration with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Chubu Regional Development Bureau Shonai River river office In order to strengthen the monitoring of the river. River Information Management System is composed of a Post Management System and River Information Applications. River Information Application is an application using the GPS function and camera functions of the smartphone. Post Management System is a system for managing the problems by river administrator.
Making UpLib Useful : Personal Document Engineering

Any new system must provide significant advantages to users for them to adopt it over their existing practices. In this paper, we discuss changes made over the last two years of use of the UpLib personal digital library system, to provide those advantages in the realm of document management. These changes are concentrated in the document acquisition phase, where document analysis is performed and databases of document information are prepared. However, some changes have been made in the areas of document management and document usage, primarily to allow user better interaction with the improved document projections.