Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Assessment of everyday memory in patients with alcohol-related cognitive disorders using the Rivermead Behavioural Memory Test

In addiction care, most individuals seeking help do have problems in alcohol use. However, prolonged alcohol use, may cause damage to the brain, potentially producing cognitive deficits that may range from mild to a alcohol-related dementia (ARD). These impairments probably, may be attributed to the direct neurotoxicity of alcohol. Brain structures that appear to be most vulnerable to the effects of alcohol are the neocortex, the limbic system, hippocampus and cerebellum. In combination with malnutrition, resulting in thiamine deficiency, Korsakoff syndrome may be the result as well. Neuropathological changes concern petechial haemorrhaging, specifically in the corpora mammillaria, the thalamus, and various structures around the third and fourth ventricles. Korsakoff syndrome is characterized by severe amnesia, especially anterograde amnesia, and executive dysfunction. In clinical practice, delineating cognitive deficits resulting from alcohol use, the Korsakoff syndrome or alcohol-related dementia may be difficult, as for all these conditions clear biomarkers are to date lacking. Moreover, the abnormalities in the brain supposed to underlie Korsakoff syndrome cannot be easily detected by conventional brain imaging techniques. Lastly, alcohol-related dementia is a syndromal diagnosis without a discrete neuroanatomical substrate. Also, consensus on the clinical criteria of the Korsakoff syndrome and ARD, he criteria of which never have been fully accepted, is changing. Nevertheless, a thorough analysis of the cognitive and psychological functioning of individual patients with alcohol-use disorders, is always recommended.
Fixed-outline floorplanning through better local search

We study the fixed-outline floorplan formulation that is more relevant to hierarchical design style and is justified for very large ASICs and SOCs. We empirically show that the fixed-outline floorplan problem instances are significantly harder than the well-researched instances without fixed outline. Furthermore, we suggest new objective functions to drive simulated annealing and new types of moves that better guide local search in the new context. Our empirical evaluation is based on a new floorplanner implementation Parquet-1 that can operate in both outline free and fixed-outline modes. Our proposed moves are based on the notion of floorplan slack. The proposed slack computation can be implemented with all existing algorithms to evaluate sequence pairs, of which we use the simplest, yet semantically indistinguishable from the fastest reported. A similar slack computation is possible with many other floorplan representations. In all cases, the slowdown is by a constant factor - roughly 2x.
GENETIC ALGORITHM BASED ON RECEDING HORIZON CONTROL FOR REAL-TIME IMPLEMENTATIONS IN DYNAMIC ENVIRONMENTS

This paper introduces the concept of Receding Horizon Control (RHC) to Genetic Algorithm (GA) for real-time implementations in dynamic environments. The methodology of the new GA is presented with the emphases on how to effectively integrate the RHC strategy by following some RHC practices in control engineering, particularly, how to choose the length of receding horizon and how to design terminal penalty. Simulation results show that, when the RHC based GA is applied in dynamic environments, both computational efficiency and performance are improved in comparison with existing GAs.
Preemptive MultipathAdhoc on Demand Distance Vector Routing Protocol

A mobile ad hoc network (MANET) (1) consists of aset of mobile hosts capable of communicating with each other without the assistance of base stations . The topology of adhoc networks changes rapidly. TheAd hoc On Demand Distance Vector (AODV) (2)routing protocol and other on demand routing protocols suffers with many problems like delay and packetloss caused due to link break, time required in routere-discovery, and high routing over heads. Existingon-demand ad-hoc routing protocols starts route re-discovery only after a link break occurs, which incur s a significant cost in finding the link break a nd in establishing a new route. Preemptive routing algorithm tried to solve this problem by initiating r oute re-discovery before the actual link break occurs. But time requires in finding new route increases delay in data transfer. In this paper, Preemptive Multipath-AODV (PM -AODV) routing protocol is proposed to enhance the performance of AODV routing protocol by overcoming the listed inherite d problems. Our proposed scheme PM -AODV uses the concept of Ad hoc on demand multipath distance vector (AOMDV)(5) and Preemptive routing protocol. Sim ilar to AOMDV routing protocol, PM -AODV stores multiple disjoint rou tes from source to destination duri ng route discovery phase. Route maintenance phase of PM-AODV is similar to preemptive routing protocol but instead of starting new route discovery source n ode switch to alternate already stored path for data transfer. Thi s switching to previously storedalternate path reduces route re discovery latency time. A comparison of the proposed scheme with AODV and preemptive routing protocol is also presented. The proposed scheme reduces global flooding and increases bandwidth ut ilization. It also
Static and Dynamic Gait Parameters Before and After Multilevel Soft Tissue Surgery in Ambulating Children With Cerebral Palsy

Background Recent studies have questioned the efficacy of releasing hip flexion contractures and the resulting ankle position after tendoachilles lengthening in ambulating children with cerebral palsy (CP). Methods Twenty-three ambulatory children with CP underwent 96 soft tissue-lengthening procedures without bony surgery. Preoperative and postoperative clinical and computerized gait data were reviewed. Results Static contractures improved reliably, with improvements in all areas measured, including hip flexion contracture (14 degree improvement), hip abduction (19 degree improvement), popliteal angle (26 degree improvement), and ankle dorsiflexion (11 degree improvement). The changes in computerized gait data were less uniform. The knees showed significant benefits, as evidenced by improved maximal knee extension in stance phase (37.3 degree preop and 19.9 degree postop) and at initial contact (51.6 degree preop and 34.8 degree postop). At the hip, a statistically significant improvement was only seen in maximum hip extension in stance phase (minimum hip flexion), and the magnitude of this change was only 4.6 degree (15.3 to 10.7 degree). There were no significant changes at the pelvis. At the ankle, the tendency was toward calcaneal gait after Achilles tendon lengthening, with excessive dorsiflexion seen both in stance (17.3 degree) and at toe off (−6.9 degree). Temperospatial parameters showed improved stride length, but no significant changes in gait velocity or cadence. Discussion The persistence of crouch postoperatively, though improved, likely limited the potential changes in hip kinematics. As this study excluded patients undergoing osseous surgery, it is possible that lever arm dysfunction may have contributed to the ongoing crouch. The results of this study suggest that static contractures and knee kinematics improve reliably after soft tissue surgery in children with CP, but that caution must be exercised when considering heel cord lengthening in these children. Level of Evidence Therapeutic level II. See Instructions to Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.
Investigating PHEV wind balancing capabilities using heuristics and model predictive control

The strive for sustainable energy systems will most likely lead to an increased use of renewable energy sources which to a large extent are fluctuating. Therefore, a larger demand for balancing capacity will be required to maintain system security. Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEV) represent a potential storage which could offer additional balancing power. Here, the applicability of PHEVs for this purpose is investigated. The study is performed in a system including a wind farm. The PHEV storage management approaches are based on a heuristic- and on a model predictive control scheme. They are compared in case studies. It is shown that the heuristic scheme is scalable while both schemes are able to balance the forecast error of renewable sources to an acceptable level.
Effect of Hibiscus sabdariffa L. Dried Calyx Ethanol Extract on Fat Absorption-Excretion, and Body Weight Implication in Rats

The effect of Hibiscus sabdariffa L. (Hs) calyx extract on fat absorption-excretion and body weight in rats, was investigated. Rats were fed with either a basal diet (SDC = Control diet) or the same diet supplemented with Hs extracts at 5%, 10% and 15% (SD5, SD10 and SD15). Only SD5 did not show significant increases in weight, food consumption and efficiency compared to SDC. The opposite occurred in SD15 group which showed a significant decrease for these three parameters. The SD10 responses were similar to SD15, with the exception of food consumption. In both SDC and SD5 groups, no body weight loss was observed; however, only in the latter group was there a significantly greater amount of fatty acids found in feces. A collateral effect emerging from the study is that components of Hs extract at the intermediate and greater concentrations used in this experiment could be considered possible antiobesity agents.
An Adaptive Power Saving Strategies based on Cross-layer Design in IEEE 802.16e

To enhance the power efficiency of broadband wireless access devices based on battery power, an adaptive power saving strategies based on cross-layer design i s proposed for IEEE 802.16e sleep-mode operation . In this paper, we evaluate performance of the power-saving mechanism based on sleep mode in IEEE 802.16e mobile Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) system, which is based on time scheme to trigger transition from awake mode to sleep mode and a sleep window to next sleep window. After being idle for a period of time, a design time parameter to overcome the flaw of power efficiency drop with the short time sleep, mobile station switch to sleep mode for the first sleep interval defined by initial sleep window, which dynamically tune according to the statistical measurement of traffic load from physical layer . By analyzing the behaviors of a mobile station working in the sleep-mode operation with a Markov chain model and explori ng the relationship among traffic, energy consumption and mean delay of power saving mechanism based on cross-layer design , a heuristic algorithm is proposed to adapt the parameters of sleep -mode mechanism to the mobile station traffic and the mean delay requirement. Extensive simulation results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms the traditional power saving mechanisms in both the power consumption and the mean delay.
CRTAP and LEPRE1 mutations in recessive osteogenesis imperfecta

Autosomal dominant osteogenesis imperfecta (OI) is caused by mutations in the genes (COL1A1 or COL1A2) encoding the chains of type I collagen. Recently, dysregulation of hydroxylation of a single proline residue at position 986 of both the triple‐helical domains of type I collagen α1(I) and type II collagen α1(II) chains has been implicated in the pathogenesis of recessive forms of OI. Two proteins, cartilage‐associated protein (CRTAP) and prolyl‐3‐hydroxylase‐1 (P3H1, encoded by the LEPRE1 gene) form a complex that performs the hydroxylation and brings the prolyl cis‐trans isomerase cyclophilin‐B (CYPB) to the unfolded collagen. In our screen of 78 subjects diagnosed with OI type II or III, we identified three probands with mutations in CRTAP and 16 with mutations in LEPRE1. The latter group includes a mutation in patients from the Irish Traveller population, a genetically isolated community with increased incidence of OI. The clinical features resulting from CRTAP or LEPRE1 loss of function mutations were difficult to distinguish at birth. Infants in both groups had multiple fractures, decreased bone modeling (affecting especially the femurs), and extremely low bone mineral density. Interestingly, “popcorn” epiphyses may reflect underlying cartilaginous and bone dysplasia in this form of OI. These results expand the range of CRTAP/LEPRE1 mutations that result in recessive OI and emphasize the importance of distinguishing recurrence of severe OI of recessive inheritance from those that result from parental germline mosaicism for COL1A1 or COL1A2 mutations. Hum Mutat 0, 1–8, 2008. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
The MonAMI reminder: a spoken dialogue system for face-to-face interaction

We describe the MonAMI Reminder, a multimodal spoken dialogue system which can assist elderly and disabled people in organising and initiating their daily activities. Based on deep interviews with potential users, we have designed a calendar and reminder application which uses an innovative mix of an embodied conversational agent, digital pen and paper, and the web to meet the needs of those users as well as the current constraints of speech technology. We also explore the use of head pose tracking for interaction and attention control in human-computer face-to-face interaction.
Triggering of the T3-Ti antigen-receptor complex results in clonal T-cell proliferation through an interleukin 2-dependent autocrine pathway.

Human T-cell clones and anti-T-cell-receptor antibodies (clonotypic) directed at surface receptors for antigen (T3-Ti molecular complex) as well as anti-interleukin 2 (IL-2) and anti-IL-2-receptor antibodies were utilized to investigate the mechanism by which alloantigens or antigen plus self-major histocompatibility complex (MHC) (i.e., physiologic ligand) trigger specific clonal proliferation. Soluble or Sepharose-bound anti-Ti monoclonal antibodies, like physiologic ligand, enhanced proliferative responses to purified IL-2 by inducing a 6-fold increase in surface IL-2 receptor expression. In contrast, only Sepharose-bound anti-Ti or physiologic ligand triggered endogenous clonal IL-2 production and resulted in subsequent proliferation. The latter was blocked by antibodies directed at either the IL-2 receptor or IL-2 itself. These results suggest that induction of IL-2 receptor expression but not IL-2 release occurs in the absence of T3-Ti receptor cross-linking. Perhaps more importantly, the findings demonstrate that antigen-induced proliferation is mediated through an autocrine pathway involving endogenous IL-2 production, release, and subsequent binding to IL-2 receptors.
RF/FSO Wireless Sensor Networks: A Performance Study

Power consumption is an important design consideration for wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Hybrid radio frequency/free space optical (RF/FSO) WSNs have the potential to reduce this power consumption substantially. This paper studies the performance of the RF/FSO WSN by comparing its network lifetime against the lifetime of a traditional RF-only WSN. Two types of networks are considered: reconfiguring and non-reconfiguring networks. The results show that for the range of network parameters considered, the RF/FSO WSN lasts at least twice as long as its RF-only counterpart. This paper also discusses parameter selection for the best RF/FSO network coverage.
Does Environmental Enrichment Reduce Stress? An Integrated Measure of Corticosterone from Feathers Provides a Novel Perspective

Enrichment is widely used as tool for managing fearfulness, undesirable behaviors, and stress in captive animals, and for studying exploration and personality. Inconsistencies in previous studies of physiological and behavioral responses to enrichment led us to hypothesize that enrichment and its removal are stressful environmental changes to which the hormone corticosterone and fearfulness, activity, and exploration behaviors ought to be sensitive. We conducted two experiments with a captive population of wild-caught Clark's nutcrackers (Nucifraga columbiana) to assess responses to short- (10-d) and long-term (3-mo) enrichment, their removal, and the influence of novelty, within the same animal. Variation in an integrated measure of corticosterone from feathers, combined with video recordings of behaviors, suggests that how individuals perceive enrichment and its removal depends on the duration of exposure. Short- and long-term enrichment elicited different physiological responses, with the former acting as a stressor and birds exhibiting acclimation to the latter. Non-novel enrichment evoked the strongest corticosterone responses of all the treatments, suggesting that the second exposure to the same objects acted as a physiological cue, and that acclimation was overridden by negative past experience. Birds showed weak behavioral responses that were not related to corticosterone. By demonstrating that an integrated measure of glucocorticoid physiology varies significantly with changes to enrichment in the absence of agonistic interactions, our study sheds light on potential mechanisms driving physiological and behavioral responses to environmental change.
Scalable Hierarchical Scheduling for Multiprocessor Systems Using Adaptive Feedback-Driven Policies

This work addresses the problem of allocating resource-intensive parallel jobs on multicore- and multiprocessor-based systems, where the performance gains largely depend on effectively exploiting application parallelization across the available parallel computing resources. The objective is to find efficient allocation approaches that minimize the parallel jobs' completion time, i.e. makespan. Integrating feedback-driven adaptive strategies, we present a general hierarchical scheduling framework and show that two hierarchical scheduling algorithms: ABG-DS and AG-DS achieve scalable performance in term of makespan regardless of the number of hierarchical levels. Specifically, we prove that both ABG-DS and AG-DS have O(1)-competitive ratio for batched parallel jobs. Extending an existing tool, called Malleable-Lab, we evaluate the performance and scalability of our proposed algorithms and compare with that of well-known EQUI-based strategies. The simulation results demonstrate that both ABG-DS and AG-DS generally outperforms EQUI-EQUI for a wide range of parallel workloads. Moreover, feedback-driven adaptive scheduling algorithms show better scalability when the number of levels increases in the scheduling hierarchy.
PACMan: Prefetch-Aware Cache Management for high performance caching

Hardware prefetching and last-level cache (LLC) management are two independent mechanisms to mitigate the growing latency to memory. However, the interaction between LLC management and hardware prefetching has received very little attention. This paper characterizes the performance of state-of-the-art LLC management policies in the presence and absence of hardware prefetching. Although prefetching improves performance by fetching useful data in advance, it can interact with LLC management policies to introduce application performance variability. This variability stems from the fact that current replacement policies treat prefetch and demand requests identically. In order to provide better and more predictable performance, we propose Prefetch-Aware Cache Management (PACMan). PACMan dynamically estimates and mitigates the degree of prefetch-induced cache interference by modifying the cache insertion and hit promotion policies to treat demand and prefetch requests differently. Across a variety of emerging workloads, we show that PACMan eliminates the performance variability in state-of-the-art replacement policies under the influence of prefetching. In fact, PACMan improves performance consistently across multimedia, games, server, and SPEC CPU2006 workloads by an average of 21.9% over the baseline LRU policy. For multiprogrammed workloads, on a 4-core CMP, PACMan improves performance by 21.5% on average.
User experiences and expectations of vibrotactile, thermal and squeeze feedback in interpersonal communication

The haptic modality provides a new channel for interpersonal communication through technology by utilizing the sense of touch. In the development of novel haptic communication devices, it is essential to explore the potential users' perceptions of such a communication channel. To this end, we conducted two explorative user studies with two early prototypes that demonstrated three different haptic feedback types: vibrotactile, thermal and squeeze feedback. We arranged focus groups and interviews to study the participants' experiences, expectations and ideas of using these haptic technologies in interpersonal communication. The findings show, for example, that people prefer to use haptic communication mainly with people close to them. Haptics can be used for pragmatic purposes as well as in emotional communication, for example in mimicking touch between the communication partners. Squeezes were experienced as the most pleasant type of haptic feedback. Furthermore, the participants preferred receiving haptic stimuli to their hand area, through a mobile phone or a wristband-like device. We argue that using early prototypes in an early stage of research process in focus groups and interviews is especially useful for stimulating idea generation and discussions about expectations and experiences of haptic technologies.
Perfectionism, over commitment to work, and burnout in employees seeking workplace counselling

Abstract Perfectionism is linked to a range of psychological disorders. Burnout is an important construct in the working population and has been found to overlap with related constructs such as depression. There has been limited research conducted between perfectionism and burnout. This study aimed to examine the link between perfectionism and burnout and if procrastination and over commitment to work were mediators of the relationship. There were 69 participants recruited who were seeking counselling from a counselling firm, providing employee assistance services. The results indicated that procrastination was not a significant mediator of the relationship between concern over mistakes (CM) perfectionism and burnout. There was a significant mediating relationship found, where overcommitment to work mediated the relationship between CM perfectionism leading to burnout. The implications of the study in terms of interventions for employees suffering burnout, and directions for future research in regards to the relationship between perfectionism and burnout are considered.
Pathway correcting DNA replication errors in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Mutation of predicted 3′‐‐>5′ exonuclease active site residues of Saccharomyces cerevisiae POL3 DNA polymerase (delta) or deletion of the PMS1 mismatch repair gene lead to relative (to wild type) spontaneous mutation rates of approximately 130 and 41, respectively, measured at a URA3 reporter gene inserted near to a defined replication origin. The POL3 exonuclease‐deficient mutant pol3‐01 generated most classes of single base mutation in URA3, indicating a broad specificity that generally corresponds to that of the PMS1 system. pol3‐01 pms1 haploid cells ceased growth after a few divisions with no unique terminal cell morphology. A pol3‐01/pol3‐01 pms1/pms1 diploid was viable and displayed an estimated URA3 relative mutation rate of 2 × 10(4), which we calculate to be catastrophically high in a haploid. The relationship between the relative mutation rates of pol3‐01 and pms1 was multiplicative, indicating action in series. The PMS1 transcript showed the same cell cycle periodicity as those of a set of DNA replication genes that includes POL3, suggesting PMS1 is co‐regulated with these genes. We propose that the POL3 3′‐‐>5′ exonuclease and the PMS1 mismatch repair system act on a common pathway analogous to the dnaQ‐‐>mutHLS pathway of DNA replication error correction in Escherichia coli.