Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Air Displacement Plethysmography versus Dual-Energy X-Ray Absorptiometry in Underweight, Normal-Weight, and Overweight/Obese Individuals

Background Accurately estimating fat percentage is important for assessing health and determining treatment course. Methods of estimating body composition such as hydrostatic weighing or dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA), however, can be expensive, require extensive operator training, and, in the case of hydrostatic weighing, be highly burdensome for patients. Our objective was to evaluate air displacement plethysmography via the Bod Pod, a less burdensome method of estimating body fat percentage. In particular, we filled a gap in the literature by testing the Bod Pod at the lower extreme of the Body Mass Index (BMI) distribution. Findings Three BMI groups were recruited and underwent both air displacement plethysmography and dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry. We recruited 30 healthy adults at the lower BMI distribution from the Calorie Restriction (CR) Society and followers of the CR Way. We also recruited 15 normal weight and 19 overweight/obese healthy adults from the general population. Both Siri and Brozek equations derived body fat percentage from the Bod Pod, and Bland-Altman analyses assessed agreement between the Bod Pod and DXA. Compared to DXA, the Bod Pod overestimated body fat percentage in thinner participants and underestimated body fat percentage in heavier participants, and the magnitude of difference was larger for underweight BMI participants, reaching 13% in some. The Bod Pod and DXA had smaller discrepancies in normal weight and overweight/obese participants. Conclusions While less burdensome, clinicians should be aware that Bod Pod estimates may deviate from DXA estimates particularly at the lower end of the BMI distribution.
Fluorescent gangliosides as probes for the retention and organization of fibronectin by ganglioside-deficient mouse cells

Ganglioside-deficient transformed mouse fibroblasts (NCTC 2071A cells), which grow in serum-free medium, synthesize fibronectin but do not retain it on the cell surface. When fluorescent derivatives of gangliosides, containing either rhodamine or Lucifer yellow CH attached to the sialic acid residues, were added to the culture medium, the cells incorporated the derivatives and their surfaces became highly fluorescent. When the cells were stained with anti-fibronectin antibodies and a fluorescent second antibody, fibrillar strands of fibronectin were observed to be attached to the cell surface, with partial coincidence of the patterns of direct ganglioside fluorescence and indirect fibronectin immunofluorescence at the cell surface. When the cells were exposed to bacterial neuraminidase during the time of ganglioside insertion, similar patterns of fluorescence were observed. Because the fluorescent gangliosides are resistant to the enzyme, these results suggest that neuraminidase-sensitive endogenous glycoconjugates were not involved in the ganglioside-mediated retention and organization of endogenous fibronectin. After cells were exposed to exogenous chicken fibronectin, most of the fibronectin was attached to the substratum and only a few fibrils were attached to the cells. When exogenous gangliosides were included in the incubation, there was a striking increase in cell-associated exogenous fibronectin, which was highly organized into a fibrillar network. Conversely, cells incubated for 18 h with exogenous unmodified gangliosides exhibited a highly organized network of endogenously derived fibronectin. Upon further incubation of the cells for 2 h with fluorescent gangliosides, there was considerable co-distribution of the fluorescent gangliosides with the fibronectin network as revealed by immunofluorescence. Our results support the concept that gangliosides can mediate the attachment of fibronectin to the cell surface and its organization into a fibrillar network.
Exploring the practical themes for medical education social accountability in Iran

Aim: The purpose of this paper is to explore themes for enhancing socially accountability in medical education. Background: Medical education in Iran experience new challenges due to the enormous influence of changes in technology, development of new methods of teaching and learning, student requirements, patient management, financial credit constraints, and social and economic developments. For responding to these, use of strategic thinking in order to make appropriate decisions is the only solution. Strategic plans need to formulate practical guides which can help accountable to people's reasonable expectations. Patients and methods: For this qualitative study, along with the 14thnational conference on Medical Education in Iran, the opinions of experts were obtained during seven expert panels’ group discussions, each lasting four hours and including 10 participants. Data were collected by audiotapes, which were then transcribed. Data analyzed using a thematic content analysis approach. Peer and member checking during analysis and data triangulation from other recent studies were used to increase the findings’ trustworthiness. Results: Among more than hundred meaning units groups identified the following eight main themes as affecting the social accountable medical education in Iran: organization of responsive education councils; development of community based courses; development in field training; organization of educational processes; homogeneity in educational rules and regulations; budget management, educational outcomes; educational programs in departments and groups. Conclusion: This study have found the main themes that might affecting social accountable medical education in Iran, where Iranian policymakers should consider those when plan to make changes in medical education and could potentially adopt the proven useful policies and strategies of other countries.
Conformational Barrier of CheY3 and Inability of CheY4 to Bind FliM Control the Flagellar Motor Action in Vibrio cholerae

Vibrio cholerae contains multiple copies of chemotaxis response regulator (VcCheY1–VcCheY4) whose functions are elusive yet. Although previous studies suggested that only VcCheY3 directly switches the flagellar rotation, the involvement of VcCheY4 in chemotaxis could not be ruled out. None of these studies, however, focused on the structure, mechanism of activation or molecular basis of FliM binding of the VcCheYs. From the crystal structures of Ca2+ and Mg2+ bound VcCheY3 we proposed the presence of a conformational barrier composed of the hydrophobic packing of W61, M88 and V106 and a unique hydrogen bond between T90 and Q97 in VcCheY3. Lesser fluorescence quenching and higher Km value of VcCheY3, compared to its mutants VcCheY3-Q97A and VcCheY3-Q97A/E100A supported our proposition. Furthermore, aforesaid biochemical data, in conjunction with the structure of VcCheY3-Q97A, indicated that the coupling of T90 and Q97 restricts the movement of T90 toward the active site reducing the stabilization of the bound phosphate and effectively promoting autodephosphorylation of VcCheY3. The structure of BeF3 − activated VcCheY3 insisted us to argue that elevated temperature and/or adequacy of phosphate pool might break the barrier of the free-state VcCheY3 and the conformational changes, required for FliM binding, occur upon phosphorylation. Structure of VcCheY4 has been solved in the free and sulfated states. VcCheY4sulf, containing a bound sulfate at the active site, appears to be more compact and stable with a longer α4 helix, shorter β4α4 loop and hydrogen bond between T82 and the sulfate compared to VcCheY4free. While pull down assay of VcCheYs with VcFliMNM showed that only activated VcCheY3 can interact with VcFliMNM and VcCheY4 cannot, a knowledge based docking explained the molecular mechanism of the interactions between VcCheY3 and VcFliM and identified the limitations of VcCheY4 to interact with VcFliM even in its phosphorylated state.
Bayesian optimization of BCI parameters

An important factor in custom designing a brain computer interface, BCI, is the estimation of the values of its parameters. This paper proposes a fully automatic algorithm that uses Bayesian optimization to tune the hyper-parameters of a synchronous BCI. The algorithm finds a large number of possible sets of values for the hyper-parameters. Each set is then used to train the classifier and the results over the possible sets of hyper-parameter values are aggregated. In this paper we consider a simple motor imagery based BCI with two parameters: the EEG frequency bands and the time intervals from which the features are extracted. We use the linear discriminant analysis classifier and aggregate all results using multi-response linear regression. Experiments using the BCI competition III dataset 3b show that our proposed method results in considerable improvement in the accuracy of a BCI. The average accuracy of our method was 2.6% better than the best results obtained by existing methods.
Collision Detection for Rigid Bodies: A State of the Art Review

Virtual reality applications refer to the use of computers to simulate a physical environment in such a way that humans can readily visualize, explore, and interact with “objects” in this environment. The design of virtual scenes requires realistic physically based simulation algorithms and in particular efficient collision detection routines. Collision detection prevent penetrations between objects. This paper presents an overview of the collision detection procedures for rigid bodies. It divides those procedures in two families that form a general hybrid collision detection algorithm. The first family is used in the first phase known as broad phase that roughly detects collision. The second family is used in the second one known as narrow phase that exactly detects if collision occurs.
INTERACTIVE VISUALIZATION OF UNCERTAINTY IN FLOW FIELDS USING TEXTURE-BASED TECHNIQUES

We describe texture-based flow visualization techniques that bring out the uncertainties in real-world measured flow data or highlight the deviation of scenarios simulated with different numerical techniques. One visualization approach is based on a generic texture-filtering process that improves the perception of uncertainty-affected regions; the other approach focuses on a user-adjusted color coding of uncertainty. Both methods are implemented on graphics hardware and facilitate interactive visualization. The usefulness of these techniques is demonstrated for examples of simulation and PIV data sets.
STOD-RP: A Spectrum-Tree Based On-Demand Routing Protocol for Multi-Hop Cognitive Radio Networks

A unique challenge for routing in cognitive radio networks is the collaboration between the route selection and spectrum decision. To solve this problem, in this paper a Spectrum-Tree base On-Demand routing protocol (STOD-RP) is proposed where a spectrum-tree is built in each spectrum band. The formation of the spectrum-tree addresses the cooperation between spectrum decision and route selection in an efficient way. In addition, a new route metric is proposed as well as a fast and efficient spectrum-adaptive route recovery method. Simulation results show that our proposed STOD-RP reduces the control overhead and shortens the average end-to-end delay significantly.
A Quorum-Sensing Factor in Vegetative Dictyostelium Discoideum Cells Revealed by Quantitative Migration Analysis

Background Many cells communicate through the production of diffusible signaling molecules that accumulate and once a critical concentration has been reached, can activate or repress a number of target genes in a process termed quorum sensing (QS). In the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum, QS plays an important role during development. However little is known about its effect on cell migration especially in the growth phase. Methods and Findings To investigate the role of cell density on cell migration in the growth phase, we use multisite timelapse microscopy and automated cell tracking. This analysis reveals a high heterogeneity within a given cell population, and the necessity to use large data sets to draw reliable conclusions on cell motion. In average, motion is persistent for short periods of time (), but normal diffusive behavior is recovered over longer time periods. The persistence times are positively correlated with the migrated distances. Interestingly, the migrated distance decreases as well with cell density. The adaptation of cell migration to cell density highlights the role of a secreted quorum sensing factor (QSF) on cell migration. Using a simple model describing the balance between the rate of QSF generation and the rate of QSF dilution, we were able to gather all experimental results into a single master curve, showing a sharp cell transition between high and low motile behaviors with increasing QSF. Conclusion This study unambiguously demonstrates the central role played by QSF on amoeboid motion in the growth phase.
ADAPTIVE NEURO-FUZZY MODELS FOR CONVENTIONAL COPLANAR WAVEGUIDES

In this work a new method based on the adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) was successfully introduced to determine the characteristic parameters, effective permittivities and characteristic impedances, of conventional coplanar waveguides. The ANFIS has the advantages of expert knowledge of fuzzy inference system and learning capability of neural networks. A hybrid-learning algorithm, which combines least-square method and backpropagation algorithm, is used to identify the parameters of ANFIS. There are very good agreement between the results of ANFIS models, experimental works, conformal mapping technique, spectral domain approach and a commercial electromagnetic simulator, MMICTL.
A hybrid approach to optimistic file system directory tree synchronization

There are two main approaches to optimistic file system synchronization: distributed file systems and file synchronizers. The former type is characterized by a log-based approach that depends on access to file system internals, the latter by a state-based approach that utilizes the standard file system interface, which limits the efficiency of change detection.We propose a hybrid approach that 1) defines a minor extension to the semantics of the file system interface that enables efficient state-based file system change detection and 2) employs selectively instantiated XML documents to make the use of state-based algorithms for optimistic synchronization feasible on large file systems.The hybrid approach is simple, well-suited for current file system architectures, and allows us to leverage existing state-based reconciliation algorithms. An initial implementation shows our approach to be feasible, lightweight, and interoperable and to have satisfactory performance.
Is the Notification of Monitoring a Threat to the Unemployed? A Regression Discontinuity Approach

In July 2004, the Belgian government intensified monitoring within the Unemployment Insurance scheme. Workers claiming unemployment benefits for more than 13 months are notified that past job-search behavior will be monitored 8 months later. In one region the target group is counseled shortly after the notification, while in others not or only once the monitoring has taken place. We exploit the discontinuity in the treatment assignment at the age of 30 to evaluate the threat effect of the notification on the probability of employment. We find that the effect is heterogeneous and critically depends on whether and when notified workers are counseled.
Efficient simulation for silicon-on-insulator waveguide electro-optic devices

This paper simulates the modulation efficiency and response time of free-carrier dispersion (FCD) effect on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) waveguide electro-optic (EO) devices using professional software called MEDICI. The dependence of free-carrier concentration on the applied voltage and device parameters and the corresponding response time are obtained, typically supporting a ∼1019 cm−3 concentration variation and a 10–30ns response time at 1.5–2.0V voltage.
Protecting Privacy of BLE Device Users

Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) has emerged as an attractive technology to enable Internet of Things (IoTs) to interact with others in their vicinity. Our study of the behavior of more than 200 types of BLE-equipped devices has led to a surprising discovery: the BLE protocol, despite its privacy provisions, fails to address the most basic threat of all—hiding the device’s presence from curious adversaries. Revealing the device’s existence is the stepping stone toward more serious threats that include user profiling/fingerprinting, behavior tracking, inference of sensitive information, and exploitation of known vulnerabilities on the device. With thousands of manufacturers and developers around the world, it is very challenging, if not impossible, to envision the viability of any privacy or security solution that requires changes to the devices or the BLE protocol. In this paper, we propose a new device-agnostic system, called BLE-Guardian, that protects the privacy of the users/environments equipped with BLE devices/IoTs. It enables the users and administrators to control those who discover, scan and connect to their devices. We have implemented BLE-Guardian using Ubertooth One, an off-the-shelf open Bluetooth development platform, facilitating its broad deployment. Our evaluation with real devices shows that BLE-Guardian effectively protects the users’ privacy while incurring little overhead on the communicating BLE-devices.
Stochastic Coordinate Descent for Nonsmooth Convex Optimization

Stochastic coordinate descent, due to its practicality and efficiency, is increasingly popular in machine learning and signal processing communities as it has proven successful in several large-scale optimization problems , such as l1 regularized regression, Support Vector Machine, to name a few. In this paper, we consider a composite problem where the nonsmoothness has a general structure that is compatible with a coordinate partition, and we solve the nonsmooth optimization problem using a sequence of smooth approximations. In particular, we extend Nesterov’s estimate sequence technique by incorporating smooth approximation and coordinate randomization. By studying the effect of smooth approximation, we develop rules for selecting smooth approximations that not only guarantee the algorithm’s convergence but also provide better convergence rate than the subgradient black-box model. Specifically, we obtain the convergence rate of O ( 1 K ) for nonsmooth convex functions and O ( 1 K2 ) for strongly convex functions. The convergence analysis developed in this paper and the results, to the best of our knowledge, have not been shown previously for stochastic coordinate descent.
Method of Moments Estimation of Ornstein-Uhlenbeck Processes Driven by General L\'{e}vy Process

Ornstein-Uhlenbeck processes driven by general L\'{e}vy process are considered in this paper. We derive strongly consistent estimators for the moments of the underlying L\'{e}vy process and for the mean reverting parameter of the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process. Moreover, we prove that the estimators are asymptotically normal. Finally, we test the empirical performance of our estimators in a simulation study and we fit the model to real data.
Impact of synaptic unreliability on the information transmitted by spiking neurons.

The spike generating mechanism of cortical neurons is highly reliable, able to produce spikes with a precision of a few milliseconds or less. The excitatory synapses driving these neurons are by contrast much less reliable, subject both to release failures and quantal fluctuations. This suggests that synapses represent the primary bottleneck limiting the faithful transmission of information through cortical circuitry. How does the capacity of a neuron to convey information depend on the properties of its synaptic drive? We address this question rigorously in an information theoretic framework. We consider a model in which a population of independent unreliable synapses provides the drive to an integrate-and-fire neuron. Within this model, the mutual information between the synaptic drive and the resulting output spike train can be computed exactly from distributions that depend only on a single variable, the interspike interval. The reduction of the calculation to dependence on only a single variable greatly reduces the amount of data required to obtain reliable information estimates. We consider two factors that govern the rate of information transfer: the synaptic reliability and the number of synapses connecting each presynaptic axon to its postsynaptic target (i.e., the connection redundancy, which constitutes a special form of input synchrony). The information rate is a smooth function of both mechanisms; no sharp transition is observed from an "unreliable" to a "reliable" mode. Increased connection redundancy can compensate for synaptic unreliability, but only under the assumption that the fine temporal structure of individual spikes carries information. If only the number of spikes in some relatively long-time window carries information (a "mean rate" code), an increase in the fidelity of synaptic transmission results in a seemingly paradoxical decrease in the information available in the spike train. This suggests that the fine temporal structure of spike trains can be used to maintain reliable transmission with unreliable synapses.
Predicting humor response in dialogues from TV sitcoms

We propose a method to predict humor response in dialog using acoustic and language features. We use data from two popular TV sitcoms - "The Big Bang Theory" and "Seinfeld" - to predict how the audience responds to humor. Due to the sequentiality of humor response in dialogues we use a Conditional Random Field as classifier/predictor. Our method is relatively effective, with a maximum precision obtained of 72.1% in "Big Bang" and 60.2% in "Seinfeld". Experiments show that audio, speed, word and sentence length features are the most effective. This work is applicable to develop appropriate machine response empathetic to emotion in dialog, in addition to humor.
Is it the more the merrier

Purpose – This research seeks to uncover some empirical evidence on how prevalent the problem of information overload has become, how it has affected the performance of organisations.Design/methodology/approach – Set in the context of the information‐intensive tourism industry, this exploratory study examined the top two state‐owned tour operators in China. Using semi‐structured group interviews supplemented by a questionnaire survey, the empirical evidence gathered was examined to identify key themes concerning information overload.Findings – The problem was felt more by the front line operatives than those who managed them. Increasing tiredness, high stress levels and more mistakes made at work were amongst the symptoms. Factors specific to the tourism industry included poor clarity in job division and task procedures, low standardisation of job contents, inter‐team work, and loose team structures. Experience, training and staff motivation were identified as possible ways to address the problem.Research.