Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Predicting future locations of moving objects with deep fuzzy-LSTM networks

ABSTRACT Trajectory prediction plays an important role in supporting many advanced applications such as location-based services and advanced intelligent traffic managements. Most existing trajectory prediction methods employed fixed spatial division and focused on human closeness movement patterns. However, these methods could lead to a sharp boundary limitation and ignore the periodic characteristics of human mobility. This paper proposes a novel trajectory prediction method based on long short-term memory network (LSTM) called the trajectory predictor with fuzzy-long short-term memory network (TrjPre-FLSTM). First, we introduce a new fuzzy trajectory concept and extend the LSTM to a fuzzy-LSTM to overcome the sharp boundary limitation. Second, we explicitly incorporate the periodic movement patterns of moving objects in the trajectory prediction. Using a real-world mobile phone dataset, we evaluate the performance of TrjPre-FLSTM with two latest competitors. The case study results indicate that the proposed method outperforms the comparative methods in terms of the prediction accuracy.
Oral Health-Related Quality of Life of Children with Craniofacial Conditions

Objective: Evaluation of the Dutch Child Oral Health Impact Profile (COHIP), assessing the level of concordance between parents and children. The internal consistency and the predictive validity of the COHIP for self-reported general health were examined. Methods: Sample size was 35 pairs of parents and children age 11 to 14 with craniofacial conditions. Cronbach alphas were calculated and the level of concordance between parents and children was studied using t tests and intraclass correlations. Predictive validity was assessed using Pearson correlations and linear regression analyses. Results: The COHIP and its subscales, except for one, had satisfactory to high Cronbach alphas (.59 to .94). Parents and children did not differ significantly. Correlations between parents and children were high (.62 to .91). Only “Oral symptoms” proved to be a significant predictor of general health, but only in the parent sample. Conclusions: In spite of the high level of concordance found, proxy reports have to be considered complementary to the reports of the children themselves. The Dutch version of the COHIP performs adequately, but could use some further psychometric evaluation and revision. It does not seem advisable to use the subscales separately as predictors in the same regression model, since they are strongly intercorrelated. For use in craniofacial patients, further validation is needed on a larger sample and some items need to be revised or removed. Finally, given the small number of cases, conclusions must be drawn with caution.
Bilateral cochlear implants controlled by a single speech processor.

OBJECTIVE This study aimed to assess, in one profoundly hearing impaired subject, potential benefits and limitations in placing bilaterally implanted scala tympani electrode arrays under control of a single speech processor. STUDY DESIGN All available stimulation sites in both ears were compared in studies of pitch discrimination and pitch ranking, identifying three bilateral pairs capable of supporting interaural comparisons with no perceptible difference in pitch. Using those pairs, the subject's ability to lateralize sound was studied as a function of interaural time delay and interaural amplitude difference. Consonant identification scores were obtained for continuous interleaved sampling processors using various unilateral and bilateral combinations of electrodes. RESULTS For loudness-matched stimuli composed of 50-msec bursts of 80-microsec/phase pulses at 480 pulses/sec, the subject was able to identify the ear receiving the earlier onset for interaural delays at least as brief as 150 microsec for all three matched pairs. For similar simultaneous stimuli, the subject could identify the ear receiving the louder signal for the smallest deviations from loudness-matched amplitudes available from the implanted electronics. The consonant studies found no evidence that bilateral stimulation per se degrades speech processor performance, even for arbitrary divisions of information between the two ears. Additional contralateral as well as ipsilateral channels were observed to improve speech processor performance. CONCLUSIONS The ability of this subject to lateralize sounds on the basis of interaural delay or loudness difference, combined with the consonant identification results, supports further use of coordinated binaural stimulation to improve cochlear implant users' ability to understand speech, especially in the presence of competing speech noise.
Interstitial glutamate concentration is elevated in the masseter muscle of myofascial temporomandibular disorder patients.

AIM To determine if myofascial temporomandibular disorder (TMD) pain patients have elevated interstitial concentrations of glutamate in the masseter muscle. METHODS Thirteen patients (3 men, 10 women) diagnosed with myofascial TMD pain and 10 (2 men, 8 women) age-matched healthy controls participated in a single microdialysis session. Microdialysis was performed in the patients in the most painful point of the masseter muscle, while in the healthy subjects a standardized point in the muscle was chosen. Two microdialysis samples were collected over 40-minute epochs. A blood sample was also taken for analysis of plasma glutamate concentration. Numeric rating scale (NRS) scores of pain intensity and unpleasantness, McGill Pain Questionnaire data, pain drawing areas, pressure pain thresholds, pressure pain tolerances, maximum voluntary bite force, and maximum voluntary mouth opening were collected as secondary measurements. RESULTS The median concentration of glutamate in the masseter muscle of the myofascial TMD pain patients (7.5 ± 2.6 ΜM) was significantly higher (P < .023, Mann-Whitney test) than the concentration in healthy controls (0.5 ± 0.4 ΜM). There were, however, no significant correlations between glutamate concentrations in the masseter muscle and NRS pain scores. Plasma concentrations of glutamate were similar in patients and healthy controls. CONCLUSIONS The present study demonstrates a marked increase in interstitial glutamate concentration in the masseter muscle of myofascial TMD pain patients. These novel findings suggest that peripheral glutamate could be involved in the pathophysiology of myofascial TMD pain.
Ethnographic insights into safety communication for frontline workers

Recent calls for organisation studies to embrace ‘the practice turn’ (Whittington, 2011) have expanded into an understanding of the potential for ethnographic research in occupational health and safety (OHS) research (Pink et al., 2016). The ethnographic project described here, with fieldwork conducted between 2008 and 2010, is one element of this growing appreciation of the potential for qualitative research in industrial settings. Ethnographies have not often been used in OHS settings, and ‘much practicebased knowledge remains undocumented, informal, unspoken and thus unaccounted for’ (Pink et al., 2016, p. 27). This study was motivated by an aim to make explicit the tacit safety knowledge understood and practised by a public service workforce subject to high injury rates. The research team, with Teague as field-based ethnographer, undertook a detailed investigation with customer-facing, frontline staff in a transport organisation. The article uses Teague’s ethnography to argue that new insights into improved safety practices are accessible via investigation of the everyday challenges and responses practised by frontline staff. It demonstrates the value of ethnographic research in opening up new avenues for understandings that can inform OHS policy development and the implementation of OHS procedures within complex organisations. In the context of this particular frontline customer service workforce, staff are positioned in an us-and-them relationship to members of the public through being required to work in pairs. The safety culture relies heavily upon partners looking out for each other, which can create social and emotional distance from the members of the public they are employed to serve. At the same time, the role appeals to people who have experience in security-based shiftwork, including former defence force personnel, firefighters and police. The physical fitness requirements of the role, and reliance on teamwork, complicate the communicative context when engaging with members of the public. This is particularly so when customers are verbally aggressive and/or impacted by alcohol or drugs.
Recovery and rehabilitation following subarachnoid haemorrhage. Part I: Outcome after inpatient rehabilitation.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Although subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH) is a subtype of stroke, functional outcome following rehabilitation for SAH must be considered distinct from that of cerebral infarction because of the younger age and the difference in pathology and resultant neurologic deficits. The purposes of this study were to: (1) describe the demographic and clinical characteristics of SAH patients receiving rehabilitation; (2) describe functional outcomes following inpatient rehabilitation; and (3) investigate possible relationships between patient characteristics and functional outcomes. METHODS Retrospective chart review of SAH patients admitted to inpatient rehabilitation. Functional Outcomes rated by the Functional Independence Measures (FIM). Analysis with descriptive and nonparametric statistics. RESULTS Eighty patients with SAH admitted to a rehabilitation unit with a mean age of 54 years. Fifty-seven had identified aneurysms as a cause of SAH. Seventy-four subjects (93%) presented with Hunt and Hess grades of 3-5. The median length of stay was 26 days in acute care and 49 days in rehabilitation. Seventy patients (88%) were discharged home. The mean admission FIM was 59.5 and mean discharge FIM 91.0. The FIM efficiency (aggregate change in FIM/day) was 0.62/day and the average rate of FIM gain 0.97 points/day. Hydrocephalus negatively influenced outcome (p = 0.05). There was a trend for subjects with worse Hunt and Hess scores at onset to have poorer discharge FIM scores. CONCLUSION SAH patients receiving inpatient rehabilitation make functional gains, although the rate of gain is less than for TBI or stroke. These SAH patients represent a subgroup with more severe SAH at onset than the total population of SAH survivors. The presence of hydrocephalus negatively impacts on outcome. Further detailed study of functional and neuropsychological outcome in SAH survivors is needed.
Modeling of nonlinear nonstationary dynamic systems with a novel class of artificial neural networks

This paper introduces a novel neural-network architecture that can be used to model time-varying Volterra systems from input-output data. The Volterra systems constitute a very broad class of stable nonlinear dynamic systems that can be extended to cover nonstationary (time-varying) cases. This novel architecture is composed of parallel subnets of three-layer perceptrons with polynomial activation functions, with the output of each subnet modulated by an appropriate time function that gives the summative output its time-varying characteristics. The paper shows the equivalence between this network architecture and the class of time-varying Volterra systems, and demonstrates the range of applicability of this approach with computer-simulated examples and real data. Although certain types of nonstationarities may not be amenable to this approach, it is hoped that this methodology will provide the practical tools for modeling some broad classes of nonlinear, nonstationary systems from input-output data, thus advancing the state of the art in a problem area that is widely viewed as a daunting challenge.
Linear Relations between Stimulus Amplitudes and Amplitudes of Retinal Action Potentials from the Eye of the Wolf Spider

Incremental photic stimuli have been used to elicit small amplitude retinal action potentials from light-adapted ocelli of the wolf spider, Lycosa baltimoriana (Keyserling) in order to see whether or not the amplitudes of these potentials are linearly related to the stimulus amplitudes. Sine wave variations of light intensity around a mean elicit sine wave variations in potential which contain inappreciable harmonics of the stimulus frequency and whose amplitudes are linearly related to the stimulus amplitudes. Likewise, the responses to the first two periodic Fourier components of incremental rectangular wave stimuli of variable duty cycle are directly proportional to the amplitudes of these components and have phases dependent only on the frequencies and phases of these components. Thirdly, a linear transfer function can be found which describes the amplitudes and phases of responses recorded at different frequencies of sine wave stimulation and this transfer function is sufficient to predict the responses to incremental step stimuli. Finally, it is shown that flash response amplitudes are linearly related to incremental flash intensities at all levels of adaptation. The relations of these linear responses to non-linear responses and to physiological mechanisms of the eye are discussed.
The Supply of Uncompensated Care in Pennsylvania Hospitals: Motives and Financial Consequences

Abstract: The need for uncompensated care has increased during a period in which hospitals are confronted with public and private-sector fiscal pressures. Using a panel design (1995-1998) on Pennsylvania private, not-for-profit general hospitals, we found the provision of uncompensated care is positively associated with financial surpluses, the provision of uncompensated care by neighboring hospitals, bed capacity, proportion of outpatient visits that are emergency, and the unemployment rate (a proxy for need for uncompensated care). Other analysis found that the provision of uncompensated care was not associated with operating surplus, except in hospitals that provide very large amounts of uncompensated care. Provision of services to Medicaid patients and HMO penetration had a negative impact on profitability.
Networked Multirate Output Feedback Control for Setpoints Compensation and Its Application to Rougher Flotation Process

This paper investigates the setpoints compensation for a class of complex industrial processes. Plants at the device layer are controlled by the local regulation controllers, and a multirate output feedback control approach for setpoints compensation is proposed such that the local plants can reach the dynamically changed setpoints and the given economic objective can also be tracked via certain economic performance index (EPI). First, a sampled-data multivariable output feedback proportional integral (PI) controller is designed to regulate the performance of local plants. Second, the outputs and control inputs of the local plants at the device layer are sampled at operation layer sampling time to form the EPI. Thus, the multirate problem is solved by a lifting method. Third, the static setpoints are generated by real-time optimization and the dynamic setpoints are calculated by the compensator according to the error between the EPI and objective at each operation layer step. Then, a networked case is studied considering unreliable data transmission described by a stochastic packet dropout model. Finally, a rougher flotation process model is employed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
We Can Have a High-Wage America

If an economy should produce benefits for most of its people, America has failed for the past generation. In terms of wage growth and inequality, America has fallen far behind its peer nations in Europe. Why? Not due to the inevitable forces of globalization and technical change, which the Europeans must also contend with, but due to policy failure. Here’s how to correct that.
Blocking the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system to prevent diabetes mellitus

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) is increasing around the world, and the public health impact of DM, driven largely by cardiovascular disease complications, underpins the importance of continued efforts toward primary prevention of DM. Only a few interventions have been shown to prevent DM, with none of them yet proven to improve cardiovascular risk commensurately. Accumulating evidence suggest that drugs that block the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS), many of which have proven cardiovascular disease (CVD) benefit, also have favourable effects on parameters of glucose metabolism and incident diabetes. Here we review the evidence accumulated to date from animal studies, clinical mechanistic studies and clinical trials regarding the effect of RAAS inhibition and incident DM.
Prompting Spiritual Practices through Christian Faith Applications: Self-Paternalism and the Surveillance of the Soul

This paper examines the everyday use of applications designed for Christian spiritual practices, ranging from Bible reading to prayer to meditation to forms of personal and collective worship. These applications are designed to prompt and reinforce particular behaviours on the part of users to support them in their devotional efforts. As a technology that sits between the external workings of (divine) power and reaffirmations of power through personal examination, these spiritual applications seem to exemplify Foucauldian concerns about surveillance and the production of subjectivity. However, a considered examination of these technologies and an empirical investigation of their use suggests a more complicated story. Though these may be considered “technologies of the self,” their use seems to vary amongst adherents, surprisingly less used by those who may be seen as more spiritually committed. Rather than serving to “quantify” or even “gamify” spirituality fully, the use of these apps suggests a form of self-paternalism in which certain users willingly respond to features designed to encourage particular spiritual practices—a mode of governance that subtly promotes particular (personally) desired behaviours. Drawing in part on an international survey that examined users’ motivations and experiences with these applications, the contexts and results of spiritual applications raise several issues for surveillance studies more generally, including considerations needed for contextual norms, responses to and accommodation of social expectations, and a reorientation towards agency in relation to the production of subjectivity.
Treatment of chronic pain by deep brain stimulation: long term follow-up and review of the literature.

Since the senior author's (J.E.A.) first report in 1972 of the use of deep brain stimulation (DBS) to control chronic pain, electrodes for DBS have been implanted in 141 patients. Of reported series, this one has the largest number of patients and the longest period of follow-up. The mean age of patients in this study was 51.2 years. The mean length of follow-up was 80 months. Patients had experienced pain for a mean period of 65 months before DBS was attempted; all patients had exhausted other medical and surgical therapies. For the purposes of this study, pain states were characterized as being either nociceptive or deafferentation in nature. Nociceptive pain was treated primarily by stimulation of the periaqueductal or periventricular gray, and deafferentation pain was treated primarily by stimulation of the sensory thalamus. Eighty-four patients were treated for deafferentation pain, which included the thalamic pain syndrome (25 cases), peripheral neuropathic pain (16 cases), anesthesia dolorosa (12 cases), paraplegia pain (11 cases), postcordotomy dyesthesia (5 cases), phantom limb pain (5 cases), thoracic neuralgia (4 cases), and miscellaneous pain states (6 cases). We treated 57 patients with nociceptive pain states, 51 for low back and skeletal pain and 6 for pain from the invasion of cancer. Initial relief of pain was obtained by 83 patients (59%). After the mean follow-up period of 80 months, 42 patients (31%) continued to obtain significant pain relief with DBS. Some pain states, particularly anesthesia dolorosa and paraplegia pain, did not seem to respond to DBS. Major complications of therapy included wound infection (12%) and intracranial hemorrhage (3.5%); there was one death in the series (0.7%). (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Additionality of countercyclical credit: a cost-effectiveness analysis of the Investment Maintenance Program (PSI)

The Investment Maintenance Program (PSI) was structured by the Brazilian Government in 2009, with the explicit aim of stopping the aggregate investment plummet, observed in the first semester of that year. With an expressive budget, this program has recently received much attention in the Brazilian economic debate, with several authors questioning its capacity to boost investments, since the gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) has not recovered its pre-crisis level. Using information available at the firm level, this paper aims to contribute to the debate by evaluating the impact of PSI on the investment level of firms – focusing on the industrial sector. The identification strategy adopted for this purpose was based on two complementary matching estimators: the Propensity Score Matching (PSM) and the Conditional Differences-in-Differences Matching (DIDM). The data used came from the Annual Industrial Survey (PIA) of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) on economic activities of industrial firms for the 2007-2010 period and from the BNDES records on industrial firms receiving PSI financing in the 2009-2010 period. The empirical results showed a positive impact of PSI on the firms’ investment level, even though its magnitude declined between 2009 and 2010. The cost-effectiveness analysis also showed a decreasing pattern over this period.
Lattice Boltzmann simulation of the flow of binary immiscible fluids with different viscosities using the Shan-Chen microscopic interaction model

We present a lattice Boltzmann study of the flow of a binary fluid where the fluid components have different viscosities. For this purpose, a microscopic interaction model (due to Shan & Chen) is used. The model is validated for Poiseuille flow of layered immiscible binary fluids and the dispersion of a capillary wave. We then study the unstable displacement of a viscous fluid by a less viscous fluid in a two-dimensional channel. Although a finger-like structure was observed in many simulations, it is not clear if this structure was produced due to viscous fingering or due to other effects.
Addressing the Root Causes of Disparities in School Discipline: An Educator's Action Planning Guide.

Absolute numbers The actual physical number counted in the population. In terms of disparities, absolute numbers allow measures of difference between subgroups. For example, if 35 students with disabilities are suspended while only six students without a disability designation are suspended, these numbers may suggest a higher rate of suspensions for students with disabilities compared with nondisabled students.