Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Upper Airway Variation and Frequent Alcohol Consumption Can Affect Compliance With Continuous Positive Airway Pressure

Objectives Compliance with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) treatment remains a primary concern for improving treatment outcomes of obstructive sleep apnea. There are few studies that have considered the role of upper airway anatomy on the compliance with CPAP. We hypothesized that upper airway anatomy would influence the compliance with CPAP. Methods One hundred out of 161 consecutive patients were enrolled in this study. The following possible determinants were tested against CPAP use: demographic and anthropometric data, minimal cross-sectional area on acoustic rhinometry, cephalometric and polysomnographic data, questionnaires of Epworth sleepiness scale and Beck depression index, and histories of previous upper airway surgery, degree of nasal obstruction, daily cigarette consumption, and weekly frequency of alcohol intake. Results Univariate analysis showed that histories of previous upper airway surgery and less frequent alcohol consumption, and longer mandibular plane-hyoid length (MP-H) on cephalometry were associated with longer average daily CPAP use. After adjustment for the confounding factors with multiple linear regression analysis, alcohol consumption and MP-H were still associated with the compliance with CPAP significantly. Conclusion To improve compliance with CPAP, careful evaluations of upper airway problems and life style are important before initiating CPAP.
An Image Inpainting Technique Based on 8-Neighborhood Fast Sweeping Method

Image inpainting is an important element in image restoration study, whose purpose is to restore the lost information automatically based on existing information. Image inpainting can be used to restore damaged images and videos, remove text and hidden errors on videos, and so on. Although the basic idea of the image inpainting is very simple, many of the image inpainting algorithms are very complex and difficult to achieve. In order to get a fast algorithm, this paper proposes a new algorithm based on 8-neighborhood fast sweeping method and improves the algorithm in details. By inpainting the same image using Bertalmio's method and our method, the experimental results verify that our algorithm is fast and feasibility.
Eocene Origin of Owens Valley, California

Bedrock (U-Th)/He data reveal an Eocene exhumation difference greater than four kilometers athwart Owens Valley, California near the Alabama Hills. This difference is localized at the eastern fault-bound edge of the valley between the Owens Valley Fault and the Inyo-White Mountains Fault. Time-temperature modeling of published data reveal a major phase of tectonic activity from 55 to 50 Ma that was of a magnitude equivalent to the total modern bedrock relief of Owens Valley. Exhumation was likely accommodated by one or both of the Owens Valley and Inyo-White Mountains faults, requiring an Eocene structural origin of Owens Valley 30 to 40 million years earlier than previously estimated. This analysis highlights the importance of constraining the initial and boundary conditions of geologic models and exemplifies that this task becomes increasingly difficult deeper in geologic time.
Dynamic Visual Tracking for Manipulators Using an Uncalibrated Fixed Camera

This paper presents a new controller for controlling a number of feature points on a robot manipulator to trace desired trajectories specified on the image plane of a fixed camera. It is assumed that the intrinsic and extrinsic parameters of the camera are not calibrated. A new adaptive algorithm is developed to estimate the unknown parameters online, based on three original ideas. First, we use the pseudoinverse of the depth-independent interaction matrix to map the image errors onto the joint space of the manipulator. By eliminating the depths in the interaction matrix, we can linearly parameterize the closed-loop dynamics of the manipulator. Second, to guarantee the existence of the pseudoinverse, the adaptive algorithm introduces a potential force to drive the estimated parameters away from the values that result in a singular Jacobian matrix. Third, to ensure that the estimated parameters are convergent to their true values up to a scale, we combine the Slotine-Li method with an online algorithm for minimizing the error between the estimated projections and real image coordinates of the feature points. We have proved asymptotic convergence of the image errors to zero by the Lyapunov theory based on the nonlinear robot dynamics. Experiments have been carried out to verify the performance of the proposed controller.
An Individual Differences Approach to Temporal Integration and Order Reversals in the Attentional Blink Task

Background The reduced ability to identify a second target when it is presented in close temporal succession of a first target is called the attentional blink (AB). Studies have shown large individual differences in AB task performance, where lower task performance has been associated with more reversed order reports of both targets if these were presented in direct succession. In order to study the suggestion that reversed order reports reflect loss of temporal information, in the current study, we investigated whether individuals with a larger AB have a higher tendency to temporally integrate both targets into one visual event by using an AB paradigm containing symbol target stimuli. Methodology/Principal Findings Indeed, we found a positive relation between the tendency to temporally integrate information and individual AB magnitude. In contrast to earlier work, we found no relation between order reversals and individual AB magnitude. The occurrence of temporal integration was negatively related to the number of order reversals, indicating that individuals either integrated or separated and reversed information. Conclusion We conclude that individuals with better AB task performance use a shorter time window to integrate information, and therefore have higher preservation of temporal information. Furthermore, order reversals observed in paradigms with alphanumeric targets indeed seem to at least partially reflect temporal integration of both targets. Given the negative relation between temporal integration and ‘true’ order reversals observed with the current symbolic target set, these two behavioral outcomes seem to be two sides of the same coin.
Stategi Intervensi Konseling Untuk Mengatasi Kecemasan Siswa

Dewasa ini, ditengarai bahwa banyak siswa di SMP dan SMA di Kab Magelang yang mengalami masalah dalam kehidupan pribadinya; salah satu diantaranya ialah masalah kecemasan. Apabila siswa mengalami kecemasan berlebihan, biasanya tidak mampu mengatasinya sendiri. Sebagai akibatnya siswa tersebut selalu mengalami kegagalan yang menyebabkan ia menjadi pesimis, mempunyai harga diri kurang, putus asa, frustasi, tak dapat bertindak efektif dan tak dapat mencapai prestasi optimal. Untuk mengatasi kecemasan yang dialami siswa SMP dan SMA di Kabupaten Magelang perlu dirancang dan diterapkan Strategi Intervensi Konseling yang tepat, tingkat kecemasan yang dialami para siswa dapat diturunkan secara maksimal dengan cara mendesain Strategi Intervensi Konseling dengan teknik Cognitive Restructuring (CR) dan Systematic Desensitization (SD) yang efektif diterapkan untuk mengatasi kecemasan para siswa SMP dan SMA di Kabupaten Magelang. Dengan melakukan kegiatan sebagai berikut: 1) menganalisis tingkat kecemasan para siswa SMP dan SMA di Kabupaten Magelang, 2) mengidentifikasi factor penyebab timbulnya kecemasan siswa, 3) menganalisis terori-teori yang mendukung pemecahan masalah kecemasan, dan 4) mendesain Strategi Intervensi Konseling yang cocok digunakan untuk mengentaskan kecemasan siswa. Sampel penelitian dipilih secara purposive random sampling. Instrumen penelitian yang digunakan adalah Skala Kecemasan (Manivest Anxiety Scale) dan angket evaluasi perlakuan. Desain eksperimen yang digunakan adalah pretest-postest control group desain. Penelitian ini diharapkan dapat menciptakan sebuah Strategi Intervensi Konseling yang cocok digunakan untuk mengurangi tingkat kecemasan siswa SMP dan SMA
Taming Cross-Technology Interference for Wi-Fi and ZigBee Coexistence Networks

Recent studies show that Wi-Fi interference has been a major problem for low power urban sensing technology ZigBee networks. Existing approaches for dealing with such interferences often modify either the ZigBee nodes or Wi-Fi nodes. However, massive deployment of ZigBee nodes and uncooperative Wi-Fi users call for innovative cross-technology coexistence without intervening legacy systems. In this work, we investigate the Wi-Fi and ZigBee coexistence when ZigBee is the interested signal. Typically, the duration of transmitting a ZigBee data packet is longer than that of a Wi-Fi packet. Mitigating short duration Wi-Fi interference (called <italic>flash</italic>) in long duration ZigBee data (called <italic>smog</italic>) is challenging. To address these challenges, we propose ZIMO: a sink-based MIMO design for harmony coexistence of ZigBee and Wi-Fi networks with the goal of protecting the ZigBee data packets from being interfered by high-power cross-technology signals. The key insight is to properly exploit opportunities resulted from differences between Wi-Fi and ZigBee, and bridge the gap between interested data and cross technology signals. Also, extracting the channel coefficient of Wi-Fi and ZigBee will enhance other coexistence technologies such as TIMO <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref1">[1]</xref> . We implement a prototype in GNURadio-USRP N200, and our extensive evaluations under real wireless conditions show that ZIMO can improve ZigBee network throughput up to 1.9<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\times$</tex-math> <alternatives><inline-graphic xlink:type="simple" xlink:href="yang-ieq1-2442252.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula>, with 1.5 <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\times$</tex-math><alternatives> <inline-graphic xlink:type="simple" xlink:href="yang-ieq2-2442252.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula> in media, and 1.1<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\times$</tex-math><alternatives><inline-graphic xlink:type="simple" xlink:href="yang-ieq3-2442252.gif"/> </alternatives></inline-formula> to 1.9<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\times$</tex-math><alternatives> <inline-graphic xlink:type="simple" xlink:href="yang-ieq4-2442252.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula> for Wi-Fi network as byproduct in ZigBee signal recovery.
Risk-Criterion for a Single Robot with External Safety Device

We introduce a robot-safety device system characterized by cold stand-by and by an admissible risky state. The system is attended by a single repairman and all the underlying repair time distributions are arbitrary. We obtain an explicit formula for the point availability of the robot-safety device system via an integral equation of the convolution-type. In order to decide whether the risky state is admissible, we introduce a risk-criterion based on the notion of rare events. The criterion is always satisfied in the case of fast repair. As an example, we consider the case of Coxian repair and we display a computer-plotted graph of the point availability obtained by numerical inversion of the corresponding Laplace-transform.
Defining Quality Child Care: Multiple Stakeholder Perspectives

Multiple perspectives regarding the definition of quality child care, and how child care quality can be improved, were examined using a focus group methodology. Participants were representatives from stakeholder groups in the child care profession, including child care center owners and directors (3 groups), parents (3 groups), child caregivers (3 groups), policy makers (1 group), and social service providers (1 group). Qualitative analysis revealed 6 components of quality that were consistently discussed across all participant groups: (a) communication and rapport, (b) caregiver practices, (c) staff characteristics, (d) finances and resources, (e) visibility and involvement, and (f) professionalism. Analyses highlighted differences among stakeholder groups and the complex interplay among quality components. Findings are compared to previously documented perspectives on child care quality, and a conceptual model is presented that (a) summarizes findings about how proximity to child impacts definitions of quality and (b) highlights the central role played by child care center directors. Implications for child care practice and policy are discussed.
Molecular Sciences Comparative Analysis of Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells from Bone Marrow, Adipose Tissue, and Umbilical Cord Blood as Sources of Cell Therapy

Various source-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have been considered for cell therapeutics in incurable diseases. To characterize MSCs from different sources, we compared human bone marrow (BM), adipose tissue (AT), and umbilical cord blood-derived MSCs (UCB-MSCs) for surface antigen expression, differentiation ability, proliferation capacity, clonality, tolerance for aging, and paracrine activity. Although MSCs from different tissues have similar levels of surface antigen expression, immunosuppressive activity, and differentiation ability, UCB-MSCs had the highest rate of cell proliferation and clonality, and significantly lower expression of p53, p21, and p16, well known markers of senescence. Since paracrine action is the main action of MSCs, we examined the anti-inflammatory activity of each MSC under lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced inflammation. Co-culture of UCB-MSCs with LPS-treated rat alveolar macrophage, reduced expression of inflammatory cytokines including interleukin-1α (IL-1α), IL-6, and IL-8 via angiopoietin-1 (Ang-1). Using recombinant Ang-1 as potential soluble paracrine OPEN ACCESS Int. 17987 factor or its small interference RNA (siRNA), we found that Ang-1 secretion was responsible for this beneficial effect in part by preventing inflammation. Our results demonstrate that primitive UCB-MSCs have biological advantages in comparison to adult sources, making UCB-MSCs a useful model for clinical applications of cell therapy.
Magnetars: the physics behind observations. A review

Magnetars are the strongest magnets in the present universe and the combination of extreme magnetic field, gravity and density makes them unique laboratories to probe current physical theories (from quantum electrodynamics to general relativity) in the strong field limit. Magnetars are observed as peculiar, burst–active x-ray pulsars, the anomalous x-ray pulsars (AXPs) and the soft gamma repeaters (SGRs); the latter emitted also three ‘giant flares’, extremely powerful events during which luminosities can reach up to 1047erg s−1 for about one second. The last five years have witnessed an explosion in magnetar research which has led, among other things, to the discovery of transient, or ‘outbursting’, and ‘low-field’ magnetars. Substantial progress has been made also on the theoretical side. Quite detailed models for explaining the magnetars’ persistent x-ray emission, the properties of the bursts, the flux evolution in transient sources have been developed and confronted with observations. New insight on neutron star asteroseismology has been gained through improved models of magnetar oscillations. The long-debated issue of magnetic field decay in neutron stars has been addressed, and its importance recognized in relation to the evolution of magnetars and to the links among magnetars and other families of isolated neutron stars. The aim of this paper is to present a comprehensive overview in which the observational results are discussed in the light of the most up-to-date theoretical models and their implications. This addresses not only the particular case of magnetar sources, but the more fundamental issue of how physics in strong magnetic fields can be constrained by the observations of these unique sources.
Compression of noisy Bayer pattern color filter array images

Bayer Pattern Color Filter Arrays (CFAs) are widely used in digital photo and video cameras. Generally these images are corrupted by a signal and exposure dependent quantum noise. An automatic image processing carrying out within camera usually implies a gamma and color corrections and an interpolation. And at the same time the noise in the image becomes non-quantum and spatially correlated. This results in a drastic decrease of posterior noise reduction. Considerably better quality of output images can be provided if non-processed Bayer Pattern CFAs (in RAW format) are extracted from a camera and processed on PC. For this case, more effective noise reduction can be achieved as well as better quality image reconstruction algorithms can accessed. The only drawback of storing images in a camera in RAW format is their rather large size. Existing lossless image compression methods provide image compression ratios (CRs) for such images of only about 1.5. 2 times. At the same time, a posterior filtering in addition to noise reduction results in appearing losses in the image. Therefore, the use of lossy image compression methods is defensible in this case while final decreasing of effectiveness of noise reduction is inessential. The paper describes a method of adaptive selection of quantization step for each block of a Bayer Pattern CFAs for DCT based image compression. This method allows restricting the decreasing of the posterior noise reduction by only 0.25. 0.3 dB. Achieved CRs for the proposed scheme are by 2.5. 5 times higher than for strictly lossless image compression methods.
The performance of turbo coded orthogonal frequency division multiplexing in rayleigh fading channel

This paper presents turbo coded orthogonal frequency division multiplexing performance which uses fading channel rayleigh distributed. Channel coefficients are generated by jakes method. Iterative decoding causes iteratively transfer of extrinsic LLR which yields correct polarity and realibility of soft decision. The size of block interleaver rules increasing weight codeword and declining bit error floor slope. The result shows that iterative decoding needs three iterations at least for optimum soft decision. The biggest interleaver's size produces the best bit error rate performance. The last result shows that turbo code produces significantly coding gain for mobile channel modelling.
Fibroblast Growth Factor 21 (FGF21) Protects against High Fat Diet Induced Inflammation and Islet Hyperplasia in Pancreas

Fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) is an important endocrine metabolic regulator expressed in multiple tissues including liver and adipose tissue. Although highest levels of expression are in pancreas, little is known about the function of FGF21 in this tissue. In order to understand the physiology of FGF21 in the pancreas, we analyzed its expression and regulation in both acinar and islet tissues. We found that acinar tissue express 20-fold higher levels than that observed in islets. We also observed that pancreatic FGF21 is nutritionally regulated; a marked reduction in FGF21 expression was noted with fasting while obesity is associated with 3–4 fold higher expression. Acinar and islet cells are targets of FGF21, which when systemically administered, leads to phosphorylation of the downstream target ERK 1/2 in about half of acinar cells and a small subset of islet cells. Chronic, systemic FGF21 infusion down-regulates its own expression in the pancreas. Mice lacking FGF21 develop significant islet hyperplasia and periductal lymphocytic inflammation when fed with a high fat obesogenic diet. Inflammatory infiltrates consist of TCRb+ Thy1+ T lymphocytes with increased levels of Foxp3+ regulatory T cells. Increased levels of inflammatory cells were coupled with elevated expression of cytokines such as TNFα, IFNγ and IL1β. We conclude that FGF21 acts to limit islet hyperplasia and may also prevent pancreatic inflammation.
A Gabor Wavelet Based Approach for Off-Line Recognition of ODIA Handwritten Numerals

Optical Character Recognition is one of the most interesting and highly motivated areas of research, which has been very much ap-preciated in different aspect to the area of digitations world. Here in this paper we have suggested a probabilistic approach for develop-ing recognition system for handwritten Odia numerals. To report a good level of recognition of Odia scripts is quite challenging with respect to other Indian scripts . All the procedure are sequentially enclosed to develop an recognition model and report a successful recognition accuracy. Here we have performed the analysis over to standard handwritten numeral database named as IITBBS Odia Numeral Database, which is collected from IIT Bhubaneswar. In the suggestive recognition system we have adopted a 2D-Gabor wavelet transformation approach for selection of feature vector. Apart from it we have also noted down the dimensional reduction to the obtained feature vector by sustaining to PCA. In order to predict high recognition rate we have followed up by RBF Neural Network classifier. In addition to it we have also evaluate different version of RBF like Gaussian and Polynomial. Performing over 400 samples each of 10 categories (400*10) number of Odia numeral images, we have maintained a well-defined training and testing ratio in the clas-sifier and achieved 98.02%, 96.8%. recognition rate for the reported classifiers.
University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics Changzhi Suffix Tonal Reduplication Changzhi Suffix Tonal Reduplication Changzhi Suffix Tonal Reduplication

In this paper, a floating tonal reduplicant suffix is proposed to re-analyze Changzhi Chinese suffix tone sandhi (Hou 1983), which has been presented as major evidence for Contour Tone Units (CTU). All stem contour tones in Changzhi, except one stem level tone, overwrite the underlying tone (HMH) of the adjectival and diminutive suffixes. In Yip (1980, 1989), this process was analyzed as spreading contour tones as units. The stem level tone was assumed to be assigned by a Default Tone Rule ordered after the tonal spreading rule. However, this CTU-based analysis has a problem of ordering paradox that derives incorrect outputs of the general disyllabic patterns. Combining with the primary concept of 'tonal copying' process proposed by has a more plausible explanation to Changzhi suffix tone sandhi. The OT analysis suggests that a floating tonal reduplicant T-RED accompanies the suffixes in Changzhi. The correspondence between the stem tonemes and T-RED is faithful, and the latter docks onto the suffixes whose underlying tonemes are then overwritten by this process. The stem level tone is not an exception; it undergoes the same reduplication process, but covertly, with the unchanged surface tonal sequence.
RePP-C: Runtime estimation of performance-power with workload consolidation in CMPs

Configuration of hardware knobs in multicore environments for meeting performance-power demands constitutes a desirable feature in modern data centers. At the same time, high energy efficiency (performance per watt) requires optimal thread-to-core assignment. In this paper, we present the runtime estimator (RePP-C) for performance-power, characterized by processor frequency states (P-states), a wide range of sleep intervals (Cl-states) and workload consolidation. We also present a schema for frequency and contention-aware thread-to-core assignment (FACTS) which considers various thread demands. The proposed solution (RePP-C) selects a given hardware configuration for each active core to ensure that the performance-power demands are satisfied while using the scheduling schema (FACTS) for mapping threads-to-cores. Our results show that FACTS improves over other state-of-the-art schedulers like Distributed Intensity Online (DIO) and native Linux scheduler by 8.25% and 37.56% in performance, with simultaneous improvement in energy efficiency by 6.2% and 14.17%, respectively. Moreover, we prove the usability of RePP-C by predicting performance and power for 7 different types of workloads and 10 different QoS targets. The results show an average error of 7.55% and 8.96% (with 95% confidence interval) when predicting energy and performance respectively.