Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dutch mortgage arrears and the role of the global financial crisis

As in many countries, the Dutch housing market was severely hit by the recent financial crisis. Following the recession, the average house price in the Netherlands fell by almost 25% and the proportion of homeowners with mortgage payment arrears nearly doubled. In this paper, we study mortgage payment arrears in the Netherlands and investigate the contribution of the credit crisis to the development of the current phenomenon of mortgage default. An aggregate distributed-lag model is employed for the period between 2004 and 2013 to assess the influence of various socio-economic factors. The variables considered include: aggregate mortgage debt, mortgage interest rate, unemployment rate and the dissolution of families. The paper concludes that family break-down remains the most important risk factor associated with mortgage default in the Netherlands. The effect of unemployment is generally minor while mortgage interest rates have no statistically significant impact except that they implicitly contribute to the level of mortgage debt. The impact of mortgage debt on payment arrears is limited because of the unique characteristics of the housing market.
: TOTAL SUDDEN HEARING LOSS WITH BENIGN PAROXYSMAL POSITIONAL VERTIGO

Sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSNHL) is defined as a hearing loss of at least 30 dB over three contiguous frequencies occurring in less than 3 days . Vertigo and profound hearing loss are considered poor prognostic factors in SSNHL . The most common diseases associated with vertigo in SSNHL include BPPV, vestibular neuropathy, central vertigo, and non-specific dizziness . The following case report is about a patient with sudden onset vertigo followed by total sudden sensorineural hearing loss in one ear, with nausea and vomiting upon changing her head position to left when lying down in bed. Her symptoms and results of examination are discussed.
Early HIV-1 Diagnosis Using In-House Real-Time PCR Amplification on Dried Blood Spots for Infants in Remote and Resource-Limited Settings

Background:In resource-limited settings, most perinatally HIV-1-infected infants do not receive timely antiretroviral therapy because early HIV-1 diagnosis is not available or affordable. Objective:To assess the performance of a low-cost in-house real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay to detect HIV-1 DNA in infant dried blood spots (DBS). Methods:One thousand three hundred nineteen DBS collected throughout Thailand from non-breast-fed infants born to HIV-1-infected mothers were shipped at room temperature to a central laboratory.In-house real-time DNA PCR results were compared with Roche Amplicor HIV-1 DNA test (Version 1.5) results. In addition, we verified the Roche test performance on DBS sampled from 1218 other infants using as reference HIV serology result at 18 months of age. Results:Real-time DNA PCR and Roche DNA PCR results were 100% concordant. Compared with HIV serology results, the Roche test sensitivity was 98.6% (95% confidence interval: 92.6% to 100.0%) and its specificity at 4 months of age was 99.7% (95% confidence interval: 99.2% to 99.9%). Conclusions:In-house real-time PCR performed as well as the Roche test in detecting HIV-1 DNA on DBS in Thailand. Combined use of DBS and real-time PCR assays is a reliable and affordable tool to expand access to early HIV-1 diagnosis in remote and resource-limited settings, enabling timely treatment for HIV-1-infected infants.
A systematic review of sacroiliac joint interventions.

BACKGROUND The sacroiliac joint is an accepted source of low back pain with or without associated lower extremity symptoms. The diagnosis and management of sacroiliac joint pain and the role of interventional techniques have been controversial. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the clinical usefulness of sacroiliac joint interventions in the diagnosis and management of sacroiliac joint pain. STUDY DESIGN A systematic review using the criteria as outlined by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), Cochrane Review Group Criteria, and QUADAS criteria for diagnostic studies. METHODS The databases of EMBASE and MEDLINE (1966 to November 2004), and Cochrane Review were searched. The searches included systematic reviews, narrative reviews, prospective and retrospective studies, and cross-references from articles reviewed. The search strategy included sacroiliac joint pain and dysfunction, sacroiliac joint injections, interventions, and radiofrequency. RESULTS The results of this systematic evaluation showed that for diagnostic purposes, there is moderate evidence showing the accuracy of comparative, controlled local anesthetic blocks. Prevalence of sacroiliac joint pain was demonstrated to be 10% to 19% by a double block paradigm. The false-positive rate of single, uncontrolled, sacroiliac joint injections was reported as 20%. For therapeutic purposes intraarticular sacroiliac joint injections with steroid and radiofrequency neurotomy were evaluated. Based on this review, there was moderate evidence for short-term and limited evidence for long-term relief with intraarticular sacroiliac joint injections. Evidence for radiofrequency neurotomy in managing sacroiliac joint pain was limited or inconclusive. CONCLUSIONS The evidence for the specificity and validity of diagnostic sacroiliac joint injections was moderate.The evidence for therapeutic intraarticular sacroiliac joint injections was limited to moderate. The evidence for radiofrequency neurotomy in managing chronic sacroiliac joint pain was limited.
Video surveillance using wireless sensors

Research in wireless sensor networks is continuously growing in recent years. However, despite the theoretical advances, practical applications are still in prototyping stages. In this paper, we will use concepts of wireless sensor networks for video surveillance application. Video surveillance is usually done with big cameras which have the capability of moving and zooming in and out. We will use small video cameras, which are low-cost and tiny tools, to implement video surveillance. Using a number of these cameras instead of a big camera will lower the cost of implementation. Coding concepts such as multi-terminal coding in sensor networks are applied to make the system efficient. The demonstration includes taking images with two cameras, and see how efficiently they can be transmitted to the base station. Then we will apply some coding strategies, to reduce the rate-distortion of our overall system.
DNNs for Sparse Coding and Dictionary Learning

The contributions of this paper are two-fold: (i) building a deep neural network with learnable nonlinearities for sparse coding; and (ii) developing a deep auto-encoder architecture to perform dictionary learning. For sparse coding, the weights and biases of the network are fixed as prescribed by the proximal-gradient methods and we model the nonlinear activations parsimoniously using a linear expansion of thresholds (LETs), which induces a rich variety of sparsity promoting regularizers. For dictionary learning, the activations are taken as the hard-thresholding operator and the network is trained to reconstruct the training examples. The linear mapping effected by the final layer of the auto-encoder constitutes the dictionary.
Engineering cellular redox balance in Saccharomyces cerevisiae for improved production of L‐lactic acid

Owing to the growing market for the biodegradable and renewable polymer, polylactic acid, world demand for lactic acid is rapidly increasing. However, the very high concentrations desired for industrial production of the free lactic acid create toxicity and low pH concerns for manufacturers. Saccharomyces cerevisiae is the most well characterized eukaryote, a preferred microbial cell factory for the largest industrial biotechnology product (bioethanol), and a robust, commercially compatible workhorse to be exploited for the production of diverse chemicals. S. cerevisiae has also been explored as a host for lactic acid production because of its high acid tolerance. Here, we constructed an L‐lactic acid‐overproducing S. cerevisiae by redirecting cellular metabolic fluxes to the production of L‐lactic acid. To this end, we deleted the S. cerevisiae genes encoding pyruvate decarboxylase 1 (PDC1), L‐lactate cytochrome‐c oxidoreductase (CYB2), and glycerol‐3‐phosphate dehydrogenase (GPD1), replacing them with a heterologous L‐lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) gene. Two new target genes encoding isoenzymes of the external NADH dehydrogenase (NDE1 and NDE2), were also deleted from the genome to re‐engineer the intracellular redox balance. The resulting strain was found to produce L‐lactic acid more efficiently (32.6% increase in final L‐lactic acid titer). When tested in a bioreactor in fed‐batch mode, this engineered strain produced 117 g/L of L‐lactic acid under low pH conditions. This result demonstrates that the redox balance engineering should be coupled with the metabolic engineering in the construction of L‐lactic acid‐overproducing S. cerevisiae. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2015;112: 751–758. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Vasovagal syncope in the older person : differences in presentation between older and younger patients

Background: vasovagal syncope (VVS) has been diagnosed with increasing frequency in older people since the description of the head-up tilt table test (HUTT). There is, however, a paucity of research describing the clinical features of VVS in this group. To address this issue, we investigated the age distribution and differences in clinical characteristics associated with age in patients diagnosed with VVS by HUTT at our tertiary referral centre. Methods: 1,060 consecutive patients with tilt-positive VVS were identified from a prospective database containing the demographic and clinical information of individuals assessed in our unit over a 10-year period. VVS was diagnosed with appropriate haemodynamic changes during HUTT and accompanying symptom reproduction. Results: we found a bimodal age distribution with a small peak at 20–29 years and a larger peak at 70–79 years. Patients aged ≥60 years were less likely to report total loss of consciousness [odds ratio (OR) 0.50, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.38–0.64], near loss of consciousness (OR 0.53, 95% CI = 0.40–0.70) or palpitations (OR 0.45, 95% CI = 0.28–0.72) and more likely to present with unexplained falls (OR 2.33, 95% CI = 1.36–4.32). The typical provoking factors of prolonged standing (OR 0.55, 95% CI = 0.40–0.72), posture change (OR 0.61, 95% CI = 0.46–0.82) and hot environments (OR 0.57, 95% CI = 0.42–0.78) were also less common in older patients. Conclusion: in our large study population, VVS was more common in older patients. The clinical presentation differed significantly between the two groups. Older patients were less likely to give a typical history and therefore clinicians need to have a high index of suspicion when evaluating the older patient presenting with collapse or unexplained falls.
Advanced metering and demand response communication performance in Zigbee based HANs

Using IEEE 802.15. 4 and Zigbee for home area networks (HANs) in the Smart Grid is becoming an increasingly prominent topic in the research area. As the standard designed for low data rate and low cost wireless personal area networks, IEEE 802.15. 4 is widely employed in the construction of home sensor networks to assist with real-time environment information. For the purposes of Smart Grid the Zigbee Alliance has defined new Smart Energy Profile Protocol that leverages the existing TCP and HTTP protocols. In this paper, we provide an overview of the Smart Grid's Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) and Demand Response (DR) functionalities, and the communication requirement they pose for the new SEP protocol. The discussion is followed by an evaluation of the theoretical performance bounds of the new architecture based on a analytical model. We conclude, by extending the model to account for WiFi interference which is expected to be present in home and office environments.
ESTIMATING PIECEWISE EXPONENTIAL FRAILTY MODEL WITH CHANGING PRIOR FOR BASELINE HAZARD FUNCTION S

Piecewise exponential models provide a very flexible framework for modeling univariate survival data. Although in a strict sense it is a parametric model, a piecewise exponential hazard can approximate any shape of a parametric baseline hazard. Therefore, in practice, defining a prior for a piecewise exponential hazard is the same as defining prior process for the nonparametric hazard function. The hazard function for each individual may depend on a set of risk factors or explanatory variables. However, it usually not explains all such variables are known or measurable, and these variables become interesting to be considered. This unknown and unobservable risk factor of the hazard function is often termed as the individual’s heterogeneity or frailty. This paper focuses on the covariates associated with individual such as age and gender related to the survival time in a piecewise exponential model and evaluates the effect of catheter insertion on subsequent survival.
Computer Simulation of Household Activity Scheduling

An operational model of household activity scheduling is proposed. The model is based on a theory entailing behavioral principles of how persons acquire, represent, and use information from and about the environment. Choices of destinations and departure times are consequences of the scheduling of a set of activities to be executed in a given time cycle. Illustrative computer simulations of the operational model show realistic effects of work hours, living in or outside the center, and travel speed. Several necessary improvements of the theory and operational model are discussed, such as incorporating learning effects and choice of travel mode for home-based trip chains. Strategies outlined for empirical tests include comparisons with existing models, psychological experiments illuminating basic assumptions, and the use of geographical information systems to process travel-diary data for single cases.
What does the Nom say? An algorithm for case disambiguation in Hungarian

In this paper, we present our algorithm called nom-or-not designed for dissolving case-disambiguation in Hungarian. By case, we mean an abstract syntactic case, a kind of syntactic role of the given token. Nouns and proper names, adjectives, participles and numerals without a case suffix are always tagged as Nom , although the lack of case ending may represent various functions: it may mark the subject of the sentence or a possessor or the nominal part of a nominal predicate or the vocative case; on top of that, a modifier of a nominal or a nominal combined with a postposition lacks a case suffix as well; proper names consisting of two or more elements are also caseless. Our algorithm is motivated by the needs of a psycholinguistically motivated parser which aims to process sentences from left to right. Therefore, our case disambiguator follows the basic principles of the parser and analyses the sentences from left to right, always making a decision based on the information of the previously processed elements and the elements in a two token wide look-ahead parsing window. Our preliminary results show that if some modifications and new rules are added and it’s run on a more precisely annotated corpus, it can improve the disambiguator algorithm. The preliminary results were obtained from a manually annotated corpora of 500 sentences.
Adaptation of the Differentiation of Self Inventory Short Form (DSI-SF) to Turkish: Validity and Reliability Study

Bu calismanin amaci benligin farklilasmasi envanteri kisa formunun Turkce’ye uyarlanarak gecerlik ve guvenirlik analizlerinin gerceklestirilmesidir. Arastirma grubu universite ogrencileri ve yetiskinlerden olusan 20 - 64 yas arasi katilimcilardan olusturulmustur. Olcegin yapi gecerligi dogrulayici faktor analizi ve % 27’lik alt-ust grup arasindaki farkin manidarligi ile incelenmistir. Uyum gecerliginin test edilmesinde benlik saygisi, surekli kaygi ve otantiklige iliskin olcumlerden yararlanilmistir. Guvenirlik analizleri ise ic tutarlik ve iki hafta sureli test tekrari yontemleriyle gerceklestirilmistir. Dogrulayici faktor analizi sonucunda kabul edilebilir sinirlarda uyum iyiligi degerlerine ulasilmis ve BFE-KF’nin dort bilesenli yapisi dogrulanmistir. Yuzde 27’lik alt-ust grup farkinin manidarligina iliskin bagimsiz orneklem t testi ve MANOVA sonuclarina gore, olcek puanlari benligin farklilasma duzeyi yuksek ve dusuk gruplarda anlamli sekilde farklilasmaktadir. Ayrica korelasyon analizlerinden elde edilen sonuclar da olcegin uyum gecerligini sagladigini gostermistir. Cronbach alfa ic tutarlik katsayisi . 82 olarak bulunmustur. Bulgular, Benligin Farklilasmasi Envanteri Kisa Formunun gecerli ve guvenilir bir olcme araci oldugunu gostermektedir.
Primary Automatic Analysis of the Entire Flow of Supercomputer Applications ?

Supercomputers are widely used to solve various computationally expensive tasks that arise both in fundamental scientific and applied problems. However, the extreme complexity of supercomputers’ architecture leads to low real efficiency of their usage. This is aggravated by the fast growth of massive involvement in the HPC area, which leads to a significant increase in the number of users who do not have experience in developing efficient parallel applications. There are many tools for analyzing and optimizing parallel programs, however, in our experience, they are used quite rarely. One of the main reasons for that is the complexity of their proper use — it is necessary to understand which tool should be used in current situation, how to use it correctly, how to interpret results obtained with this tool, etc. Our project as a whole is aimed at solving this problem. The main goal is to develop a software package that will help users understand what performance problems are present in their applications and how these problems can be detected and eliminated using existing performance analysis tools. The first task that arises in this project is primary mass analysis of the entire flow of supercomputer applications. Solving it will allow to promptly identify the facts of inefficient application behavior, as well as give first recommendations on how to further conduct more detailed performance analysis. In this paper, we describe the features of the software package subsystem aimed at solving this task.
Visual complexity and aesthetic perception of web pages

The visual appearance of a Web page influences the way a user will interact with the page. Web page structural elements (such as text, tables, links, and images) and their characteristics (such as colour and size) are used to determine the visual presentation and complexity level of a Web page. We theorise that by understanding a user's visual and aesthetic perception of a Web page we can understand the cognitive effort required for interaction with that page. This paper describes an investigation into user perception of the visual complexity and aesthetic appearance of Web pages. Results show a strong and high correlation between users' perception of visual complexity, structural elements (links, images, words and sections) and aesthetic appearance (organisation, clearness, cleanliness, interestingness and beautifulness) of a Web page. We argue that the results should be used as a further understanding for keeping the balance between aesthetic appearance of a Web page and its visual complexity. Web pages will then be designed that can still be aesthetically attractive but also usable and not overloaded with information for the users.
Passive force display using ER brakes and its control experiments

Force information is often required for tele-operation systems and virtual reality. Conventional force displays are active systems with actuators. This, however, is inherently active, so that it may become a danger. Consequently, passive force display is an effective method for assuring safety. The authors developed a brake using ER (electrorheological) fluid and passive force display using ER brakes. They discuss two degree of freedom passive force display and basic control experiments.
Ezetimibe effectively lowers LDL‐cholesterol in cardiac allograft recipients on stable statin therapy

Abstract: We investigated tolerability and efficacy of ezetimibe treatment (10 mg/d) in 25 heart allograft recipients already on stable statin therapy. Total cholesterol (TC), low‐density cholesterol (LDL‐C), high‐density cholesterol (HDL‐C), triglycerides (TG), immunosuppressant drug levels, laboratory and clinical parameters were assessed before, four months and one yr after initiation of ezetimibe treatment. Mean equivalent statin dose was 53.5 ± 12.3 mg of pravastatin, remaining unchanged throughout the study period. Ezetimibe was generally well tolerated, only two patients (8%) discontinued ezetimibe due to stomach pain or headache. Mean TC decreased from 231.8 ± 6.4 mg/dL before therapy to 202.2 ± 8.8 mg/dL after four months and 192.9 ± 7.0 mg/dL after one yr (p < 0.001). Mean LDL‐C decreased from 143.1 ± 5.4 mg/dL to 121.4 ± 7.9 mg/dL (month 4; p < 0.05) and 107.1 ± 5.6 mg/dL (one yr; p < 0.001). TG decreased from 182 ± 14.3 mg/dL to 173.3 ± 17.5 mg/dL after one yr (p < 0.05), whereas HDL‐C was unchanged. Initial LDL‐C and cardiac diagnosis before transplantation were identified as predictors of absolute LDL‐C reduction. Immunosuppressant drug doses and blood concentrations were unchanged as well as other laboratory and clinical parameters. Ezetimibe appears safe and effective for further reduction of TC and LDL‐C in heart allograft recipients already on stable statin therapy. Extent of pre‐treatment LDL‐C and cardiac disorder prior to transplantation appear to correlate with the efficacy of ezetimibe therapy.
Transport AC Loss Properties of a Bi-2223 Superconducting Coil From 0.1 Hz to 10 Hz

We propose a method to evaluate transport AC losses in Bi-2223 superconducting coils by integrating the local external-field losses of the stacked taped wires over the coil's windings. We measured the transport AC losses of a 16 double-pancake coil of twisted Bi-2223 Ag-sheathed tapes, in the frequency range from 0.1 to 10 Hz at liquid nitrogen temperature. We also measured the external-field losses of short specimens of 6-stack Bi-2223 wires both in perpendicular and parallel field configurations through a saddle-shaped pickup coil method. The external losses are mainly due to hysteresis losses in the superconducting filaments and coupling losses among the filaments. The local external-field loss in the test coil is approximately calculated as the sum of perpendicular- and parallel-field losses of the short specimen. In the calculation, geometrical effects because of the neighboring turns in the coil are also considered, in addition to the magnitude and direction distributions of the local magnetic field. We compared the numerically evaluated external-field losses to the measured transport AC losses, and discussed the applicability of the proposed method.
Highly Efficient Thermophotovoltaics Enabled by Photon Recycling

Thermophotovoltaic efficiencies above 50% may soon be realizable due to recent advances in thin-film photovoltaics. Highly efficient thin-film photovoltaics cells are highly reflective in the below-bandgap spectral region. In a thermophotovoltaic system, this allows the below-bandgap radiation to be reflected back to the emitter, so that their energy can be used to reheat the source, rather than being lost. In this work, we present a substantial improvement in the thermophotovoltaic conversion efficiency in the presence of photon recycling. We also predict the achievable conversion efficiency for a system that uses In0.53Ga0. 47As photovoltaic cells, and present an experimental cavity to be used for future efficiency measurements.