Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
BugzillaMetrics: an adaptable tool for evaluating metric specifications on change requests

To manage the evolution of software processes and products, it is essential to evaluate their current state and how it evolved. This information can be obtained by analyzing the data available in change request management (CRM) systems like Bugzilla. Metrics and charts on change requests are already available in current CRM systems. They provide information about common metrics, but their adaptability is limited. This paper describes a more flexible approach for the evaluation of metrics on change requests. The main characteristics of the tool presented in this paper are the separation between metric specification and data retrieval, an event driven algorithm that calculates time series data, and an abstraction of its data sources.
Design of Filtering-Radiating Patch Antennas With Tunable Radiation Nulls for High Selectivity

This communication demonstrates a method to design filtering antennas by using the filtering-radiating patch (FRP). The so-called FRP is a structure of a rectangular patch etched with slots. It inherits the radiation performance of conventional patch antennas, and more importantly, introduces filtering feature with a radiation null at either the upper or lower band edge of radiation efficiency curve. The frequencies of radiation nulls are easy to control. Based on the FRP, a novel filtering antenna is proposed. Two radiation nulls are realized at both band edges of the antenna efficiency curve, leading to a sharp band skirt and good selectivity in the boresight gain response. The locations of the two radiation nulls can be flexibly controlled by the lengths of slots. A prototype is fabricated and tested. The measured results show an impedance matching bandwidth of 7% with a center frequency of 5.24 GHz, two radiation nulls at 4.7 and 5.85 GHz, respectively, a realized gain of 6.6 dBi, the cross-polarization rejection larger than 23.4 dB, and the front-to-back ratio better than 15 dB. The presented method demonstrates the capability of not only achieving good filtering-radiating performances but also possessing very simple structures by only etching slots on the patch of a conventional microstrip antenna.
A Study towards Improving Eye Tracking Calibration Technique Using Support Vector Regression

Visual attention and movement have evolved by many ways in eye tracking system. With the mechanism and functionality of eye movement, tracking human eye with high accuracy is possible. In eye tracking system, calibration technique can be considered as the first crucial step to be taken before eye can be tracked. The technique highly depends on a number of calibration points used and the selection of these points influences the overall performance of eye tracking system. Knowing the possibility, there are various methods of eye tracking with a good calibration process. However, determining the optimum number of calibration points is a huge challenge when developing eye tracking system. The research focus is then oriented towards determining an optimum number of calibration points by integrating the method of Support Vector Regression (SVR) with the conventional calibration technique. The proposed method should be able to reduce processing time while having high eye tracking accuracy. This paper describes the calibration process and analyses the possible optimum number of calibration points which will be able to reduce processing time and improve accuracy of eye tracking system.
Fine root tradeoffs between nitrogen concentration and xylem vessel traits preclude unified whole‐plant resource strategies in Helianthus

Abstract Recent work suggests variation in plant growth strategies is governed by a tradeoff in resource acquisition and use, ranging from a rapid resource acquisition strategy to a resource‐conservative strategy. While evidence for this tradeoff has been found in leaves, knowledge of root trait strategies, and whether they reflect adaptive differentiation across environments, is limited. In the greenhouse, we investigated variation in fine root morphology (specific root length and tissue density), chemistry (nitrogen concentration and carbon:nitrogen), and anatomy (root cross‐sectional traits) in populations of 26 Helianthus species and sister Phoebanthus tenuifolius. We also compared root trait variation in this study with leaf trait variation previously reported in a parallel study of these populations. Root traits varied widely and exhibited little phylogenetic signal, suggesting high evolutionary lability. Specific root length and root tissue density were weakly negatively correlated, but neither was associated with root nitrogen, providing little support for a single axis of root trait covariation. Correlations between traits measured in the greenhouse and native site characteristics were generally weak, suggesting a variety of equally viable root trait combinations exist within and across environments. However, high root nitrogen was associated with lower xylem vessel number and cross‐sectional area, suggesting a tradeoff between nutrient investment and water transport capacity. This led to correlations between root and leaf traits that were not always consistent with an acquisition–conservation tradeoff at the whole‐plant level. Given that roots must balance acquisition of water and nutrients with functions like anchorage, exudation, and microbial symbioses, the varied evidence for root trait covariation likely reflects the complexity of interacting selection pressures belowground. Similarly, the lack of evidence for a single acquisition–conservation tradeoff at the whole‐plant level likely reflects the vastly different selection pressures shaping roots and leaves, and the resources they are optimized to obtain.
3D printing in chemistry: past, present and future

During the last years, 3d printing for rapid prototyping using additive manufacturing has been receiving increased attention in the technical and scientific literature including some Chemistry-related journals. Furthermore, 3D printing technology (defining size and resolution of 3D objects) and properties of printed materials (e.g., strength, resistance to chemical attack, electrical insulation) proved to be important for chemistry-related applications. In this paper these are discussed in detail. In addition, application of 3D printing for development of Micro Plasma Devices (MPDs) is discussed and 2d-profilometry data of a 3D printed surfaces is reported. And, past and present chemistry and bio-related applications of 3D printing are reviewed and possible future directions are postulated.
OSHI - Open Source Hybrid IP/SDN Networking (and its Emulation on Mininet and on Distributed SDN Testbeds)

The introduction of SDN in IP backbones requires the coexistence of regular IP forwarding and SDN based forwarding. The former is typically applied to best effort Internet traffic, the latter can be used for different types of advanced services (VPNs, Virtual Leased Lines, Traffic Engineering). In this paper we first introduce the architecture and the services of an "hybrid" IP/SDN networking scenario. Then we describe the design and implementation of an Open Source Hybrid IP/SDN (OSHI) node. It combines Quagga for OSPF routing and Open vSwitch for OpenFlow based switching on Linux. The availability of tools for experimental validation and performance evaluation of SDN solutions is fundamental for the evolution of SDN. We provide a set of open source tools that allow to facilitate the design of hybrid IP/SDN experimental networks, their deployment on Mininet or on distributed SDN research testbeds and their test. Finally, using the provided tools, we evaluate key performance aspects of the proposed solutions. The OSHI development and test environment is available in a VirtualBox VM image that can be downloaded.
Testing the predictions of the Processing Efficienc y Theory – An orienteering simulation

The purpose of this study was to test the key predictions of the Processing Efficiency Theory (PET) in the context of a computer based orienteering task. 15 participants were placed into either high or low traitanxiety groups based on trait anxiety scores, and were subjected to two counterbalanced orienteering simulations: high and low pressure. Measures reflecting mental effort and efficiency of performance were taken under both conditions as well as the completion time of the orienteering task. A time-to-event paradigm was used to induce anxiety for the high-pressure simulation. As predicted, the dispositionally high trait anxious individuals reported significantly higher levels of state anxiety (P < 0.001) than the low trait anxious group as indexed by the self-report (MRF-L) and HR data. PET also predicts that heightened levels of anxiety stimulate an increase in on-task mental effort, significantly more so in the high trait anxious group. The findings from this study partially support PET, as participants experienced a significant increase in mental effort (P < 0.001) between simulations but the high trait group did not increase more than the low trait group (P = 0.122). Finally, PET predicts that even though processing efficiency has decreased, performance would not be necessarily negatively affected. The results revealed that the completion times between pressure simulations did not significantly differ (P = 0.334), providing support for PET. The findings from this study suggest that PET holds promise as a theoretical framework for providing an explanatory account of the mechanisms involved in the performance-anxiety relationship. However, a continued examination of the mechanisms that underlie changes in performance efficiency and effectiveness is needed if any concrete conclusion is to be drawn.
Identification of key differentially expressed genes associated with non-small cell lung cancer by bioinformatics analyses

Increasing evidence has indicated that the abnormal expressions of certain genes serve important roles in tumorigenesis, progression and metastasis. The aim of the present study was to explore the key differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and matched normal lung tissues by analyzing 4 different mRNA microarray datasets downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. In improving the reliability of the bioinformatics analysis, the DEGs in each dataset that met the cut-off criteria (adjust P-value <0.05 and |log2fold-change (FC)|>1) were intersected with each other, from which 195 were identified (consisting of 57 upregulated and 138 downregulated DEGs). The GO analysis results revealed that the upregulated DEGs were significantly enriched in various biological processes (BP), including cell cycle, mitosis and cell proliferation while the downregulated DEGs were significantly enriched in angiogenesis and response to drug and cell adhesion. The hub genes, including CCNB1, CCNA2, CEP55, PBK and HMMR, were identified based on the protein-protein interaction (PPI) network. The Kaplan-Meier survival analysis indicated that the high expression level of each of these hub genes correlates with poorer overall survival in all patients with NSCLC, which indicates that they may serve important roles in the progression of NSCLC. In conclusion, the DEGs and hub genes identified in the present study may contribute to the comprehensive understanding of the molecular mechanisms of NSCLC and may be used as diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers as well as molecular targets for the treatment of NSCLC.
Working Conditions and Mental Health of Nursing Staff in Nursing Homes

Nursing staff in nursing homes suffer from poor mental health, probably associated with stressful working conditions. Working conditions may distribute differently among nursing assistants, licensed practical nurses, and registered nurses due to their different levels in the organizational hierarchy. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the association between working conditions and mental health among different nursing groups, and examine the potential moderating effect of job group on this association. Self-administered questionnaires were collected with 1,129 nursing staff in 15 for-profit non-unionized nursing homes. Working conditions included both physical and psychosocial domains. Multivariate linear regression modeling found that mental health was associated with different working conditions in different nursing groups: physical safety (β = 2.37, p < 0.05) and work-family conflict (β = –2.44, p < 0.01) in NAs; work-family conflict (β = –4.17, p < 0.01) in LPNs; and physical demands (β = 10.54, p < 0.05) in RNs. Job group did not moderate the association between working conditions and mental health. Future workplace interventions to improve mental health should reach to nursing staff at different levels and consider tailored working condition interventions in different nursing groups.
PET as a plastic substrate for the flexible optoelectronic applications

In this paper, different techniques are used for characterization the structural, thermal and optical properties of the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate. The PET substrate was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and UV spectrophotometer, respectively. X-ray diffraction patterns confirm the proper phase formation of the material. The high transmission in the visible range makes this PET substrate suitable and useful such as optoelectronic and other thin film applications.
Contextual Bandits : Approximated Linear Bayes for Large Contexts

Contextual bandits, and in general informed decision making, can be studied in the general stochastic/statistical setting by means of the conditional probability paradigm where Bayes’ theorem plays a central role. However, when informed decisions have to be made considering very large contextual information or the information is contained in too many variables with large history of observations and the time to take decisions is critical, the exact calculation of the Bayes’ rule, to produce the best decision given the available information, is unaffordable. In this increasingly common setting some derivations and approximations to conditional probability and the Bayes’ rule will progressively gain greater applicability. In this article, an algorithm able to handle large contextual information in the form of binary features for optimal decision making in contextual bandits is presented. The algorithm is analyzed with respect to its scalability in terms of the time required to select the best choice and the time required to update its policy. Last but not least, we address the exploration and exploitation issue explaining, despite the incomputability of an optimal tradeoff, the way in which the proposed algorithm “naturally” balances exploration and exploitation by using common sense.
Pre-Stroke Modified Rankin Scale: Evaluation of Validity, Prognostic Accuracy, and Association with Treatment

Background and purpose The modified Rankin Scale (mRS) was designed to measure poststroke recovery but is often used to describe pre-stroke disability. We sought to evaluate three aspects of pre-stroke mRS: validity as a measure of pre-stroke disability; prognostic accuracy and association of pre-stroke mRS scores, and process of care. Methods We used data from a large, UK clinical registry. For analysis of validity, we compared pre-stroke mRS against other markers of pre-stroke function (age, comorbidity index, care needs). For analysis of prognostic accuracy, we described univariable and multivariable models comparing pre-stroke mRS and other prognostic variables against a variety of outcomes (early and late mortality, length of stay, institutionalization, incident complications). Finally, we described association of pre-stroke mRS and components of evidence-based stroke care (early neuroimaging, admission to stroke unit, assessment of swallow). Results We analyzed data of 2,491 stroke patients. Concurrent validity analyses suggested statistically significant, but modest correlations between pre-stroke mRS and chosen variables (rho >0.40; p < 0.0001 for all). Every point increase of pre-stroke mRS was associated with poorer outcomes for our prognostic variables (unadjusted p < 0.001). This association held when corrected for other covariates. For example, pre-stroke mRS 4–5 odds ratio (OR): 6.84 (95% CI: 4.24–11.03) for 1 year mortality compared to mRS 0 in adjusted model. There was a difference between pre-stroke mRS and treatment, with higher pre-stroke mRS more likely to receive evidence-based care. Conclusion Results suggest that pre-stroke mRS has some concurrent validity and is a robust predictor of prognosis. This association is not explained by the influence of pre-stroke mRS on care pathways.
Need for speed: An optimized gridding approach for spatially explicit disease simulations

Numerical models for simulating outbreaks of infectious diseases are powerful tools for informing surveillance and control strategy decisions. However, large-scale spatially explicit models can be limited by the amount of computational resources they require, which poses a problem when multiple scenarios need to be explored to provide policy recommendations. We introduce an easily implemented method that can reduce computation time in a standard Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Removed (SEIR) model without introducing any further approximations or truncations. It is based on a hierarchical infection process that operates on entire groups of spatially related nodes (cells in a grid) in order to efficiently filter out large volumes of susceptible nodes that would otherwise have required expensive calculations. After the filtering of the cells, only a subset of the nodes that were originally at risk are then evaluated for actual infection. The increase in efficiency is sensitive to the exact configuration of the grid, and we describe a simple method to find an estimate of the optimal configuration of a given landscape as well as a method to partition the landscape into a grid configuration. To investigate its efficiency, we compare the introduced methods to other algorithms and evaluate computation time, focusing on simulated outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) on the farm population of the USA, the UK and Sweden, as well as on three randomly generated populations with varying degree of clustering. The introduced method provided up to 500 times faster calculations than pairwise computation, and consistently performed as well or better than other available methods. This enables large scale, spatially explicit simulations such as for the entire continental USA without sacrificing realism or predictive power.
Association of Fibroblast Growth Factor 23 With Risk of Incident Coronary Heart Disease in Community-Living Adults

Importance Higher circulating fibroblast growth factor 23 (FGF23) concentrations are associated with cardiovascular disease events linked to heart failure, but associations of FGF23 with coronary heart disease (CHD) have been less consistent. Objective To determine the association of plasma FGF23 concentrations with incident CHD and whether this association differs by race, sex, or chronic kidney disease status. Design, Setting, and Participants We examined the association of FGF23 concentrations with incident CHD risk within the Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke study, a prospective cohort of black and white adults 45 years and older enrolled between January 2003 and October 2007 with follow-up through December 31, 2011. Using a case-cohort design, we measured FGF23 concentrations in 829 participants who developed incident CHD and in 812 participants randomly selected from the Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke study cohort (cohort random sample). To account for the stratified sampling design, the cohort random sample was weighted back to the original cohort overall (n = 22 127). Cox proportional hazards models were used to examine the association of FGF23 concentration with incident CHD, adjusting for CHD risk factors and kidney function. In prespecified analyses, we examined whether race, sex, or chronic kidney disease modified the association of FGF23 concentration with incident CHD. Exposures Plasma C-terminal FGF23 concentrations. Main Outcomes and Measures Investigator-adjudicated incident CHD events. Results Of the 22 127 participants in the weighted cohort random sample, 13 059 (58.9%) were female and 9435 (42.6%) were black, and the mean age was 64.3 (95% CI, 63.7-64.9) years. Greater age, lower estimated glomerular filtration rate, higher urine albumin to creatinine ratio, and female sex were associated with higher FGF23 concentration at baseline. In multivariable models adjusted for established CHD risk factors and kidney function, higher FGF23 concentrations were associated with greater risk of CHD (hazard ratio [HR] comparing fourth with first quartile, 2.15; 95% CI, 1.35-3.42). The magnitude and strength of these associations differed by sex. However, these differences were no longer observed when adjusting for hormone therapy in women (men: HR comparing fourth with first quartile, 2.40; 95% CI, 1.30-4.42; women: HR comparing fourth with first quartile, 2.34; 95% CI, 1.04-5.27) or when using sex-specific FGF23 quartiles (men: HR comparing fourth with first quartile, 2.65; 95% CI, 1.43-4.90; women: HR comparing fourth with first quartile, 2.26; 95% CI, 1.02-5.03). Conclusions and Relevance Higher FGF23 concentrations were associated with greater risk of CHD. Heterogeneity in the association by sex may be caused by differences in the distribution of plasma FGF23 concentrations or the use of hormone therapy in men vs women.
Modelling non-symmetric collagen fibre dispersion in arterial walls

New experimental results on collagen fibre dispersion in human arterial layers have shown that the dispersion in the tangential plane is more significant than that out of plane. A rotationally symmetric dispersion model is not able to capture this distinction. For this reason, we introduce a new non-symmetric dispersion model, based on the bivariate von Mises distribution, which is used to construct a new structure tensor. The latter is incorporated in a strain-energy function that accommodates both the mechanical and structural features of the material, extending our rotationally symmetric dispersion model (Gasser et al. 2006 J. R. Soc. Interface 3, 15–35. (doi:10.1098/rsif.2005.0073)). We provide specific ranges for the dispersion parameters and show how previous models can be deduced as special cases. We also provide explicit expressions for the stress and elasticity tensors in the Lagrangian description that are needed for a finite-element implementation. Material and structural parameters were obtained by fitting predictions of the model to experimental data obtained from human abdominal aortic adventitia. In a finite-element example, we analyse the influence of the fibre dispersion on the homogeneous biaxial mechanical response of aortic strips, and in a final example the non-homogeneous stress distribution is obtained for circumferential and axial strips under fixed extension. It has recently become apparent that this more general model is needed for describing the mechanical behaviour of a variety of fibrous tissues.