Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A digitally facilitated citizen-science driven approach accelerates participant recruitment and increases study population diversity.

QUESTION UNDER STUDY Our aim was to assess whether a novel approach of digitally facilitated, citizen-science research, as followed by the Swiss Multiple Sclerosis Registry (Swiss MS Registry), leads to accelerated participant recruitment and more diverse study populations compared with traditional research studies where participants are mostly recruited in study centres without the use of digital technology. METHODS The Swiss MS Registry is a prospective, longitudinal, observational study covering all Switzerland. Participants actively contribute to the Swiss MS Registry, from defining research questions to providing data (online or on a paper form) and co-authoring papers. We compared the recruitment dynamics over the first 18 months with the a priori defined recruitment goals and assessed whether a priori defined groups were enrolled who are likely to be missed by traditional research studies. RESULTS The goal to recruit 400 participants in the first year was reached after only 20 days, and by the end of 18 months 1700 participants had enrolled in the Swiss MS Registry, vastly exceeding expectations. Of the a priori defined groups with potential underrepresentation in other studies, 645 participants (46.5%) received care at a private neurology practice, 167 participants (12%) did not report any use of healthcare services in the past 12 months, 32 (2.3%) participants lived in rural mountainous areas, and 20 (2.0% of the 1041 for whom this information was available) lived in a long-term care facility. Having both online and paper options increased diversity of the study population in terms of geographic origin and type and severity of disease, as well as use of health care services. In particular, paper enrolees tended to be older, more frequently affected by progressive MS types and more likely to have accessed healthcare services in the past 12 months. CONCLUSION Academic and industry-driven medical research faces substantial challenges in terms of patient involvement, recruitment, relevance and generalisability. Digital studies and stakeholder engagement may have enormous potential for medical research. But many digital studies are based on limited participant information and/or informed consent and unclear data ownership, and are subject to selection bias, confounding and information bias. The Swiss MS Registry serves as an example of a digitally enhanced, citizen-science study that leverages the advantages of both traditional medical research, with its established research methods, and novel societal and technological developments, while mitigating their ethical and legal disadvantages and risks.
Structured nonlinear variable selection

We investigate structured sparsity methods for variable selection in regression problems where the target depends nonlinearly on the inputs. We focus on general nonlinear functions not limiting a priori the function space to additive models. We propose two new regularizers based on partial derivatives as nonlinear equivalents of group lasso and elastic net. We formulate the problem within the framework of learning in reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces and show how the variational problem can be reformulated into a more practical finite dimensional equivalent. We develop a new algorithm derived from the ADMM principles that relies solely on closed forms of the proximal operators. We explore the empirical properties of our new algorithm for Nonlinear Variable Selection based on Derivatives (NVSD) on a set of experiments and confirm favourable properties of our structured-sparsity models and the algorithm in terms of both prediction and variable selection accuracy.
Security-reliability tradeoff for cooperative multi-relay and jammer selection in Nakagami-m fading channels

In this paper, we analyze the security-reliability tradeoff (SRT) performance of the multi-relay cooperative networks over Nakagami-m fading channels. By considering the reliability of the first phase from the source to relay, a cooperative jamming (CJ) assisted secure transmission scheme is investigated to improve the security performance of the considered system. Specifically, we derive the approximate closed-form expression of the outage probability (OP) and exact closed-form expression of the intercepted probability (IP) for the CJ scheme to evaluate the SRT performance of the system. Finally, the simulation results verify the validity of our theoretical derivations and the advantage of the CJ scheme compared to the traditional scheme with no cooperative jammer.
Cross-checking WordNet and SUMO Using Meronymy

We report on the practical application of a black-box testing methodology for the validation of the knowledge encoded in WordNet, SUMO and their mapping by using automated theorem provers. Our proposal is based on the part-whole information provided by WordNet, out of which we automatically create a large set of tests. Our experimental results conﬁrm that the proposed system enables the validation of some pieces of information and also the detection of missing information or inconsistencies among these resources
Room occupancy detection: Combining RSS analysis and fuzzy logic

In this paper we focus our attention on the world of Internet of Things (IoT) objects and their potential for human indoor localization. Our aim is to investigate how Received Signal Strength (RSS) can be effectively used for identifying the position of a person at home, by exploiting common IoT communication networks. We propose a plug and play solution where the Anchor Nodes (ANs) are represented by smart objects located in the house, while the Unknown Node (UN) can be any smart object held by the user. The proposed solution automatically identifies the rooms where the smart objects are placed, by comparing a fuzzy weighted distance matrix derived from the anchor signals, with a threshold weighted distance matrix derived from the distances between rooms. The information can be easily integrated in any IoT environment to provide the estimation of the user position, without requiring the a priori knowledge of the positions of the anchor nodes.
Genetic Targeting of Organ-Specific Blood Vessels

Rationale: Organs of the body require vascular networks to supply oxygen and nutrients and maintain physiological function. The blood vessels of different organs are structurally and functionally heterogeneous in nature. To more precisely dissect their distinct in vivo function in individual organs, without potential interference from off-site targets, it is necessary to genetically target them in an organ-specific manner. Objective: The objective of this study was to generate a genetic system that targets vascular endothelial cells in an organ- or tissue-specific manner and to exemplify the potential application of intersectional genetics for precise, target-specific gene manipulation in vivo. Methods and Results: We took advantage of 2 orthogonal recombination systems, Dre-rox and Cre-loxP, to create a genetic targeting system based on intersectional genetics. Using this approach, Cre activity was only detectable in cells that had expressed both Dre and Cre. Applying this new system, we generated a coronary endothelial cell–specific Cre (CoEC-Cre) and a brain endothelial cell–specific Cre (BEC-Cre). Through lineage tracing, gene knockout and overexpression experiments, we demonstrated that CoEC-Cre and BEC-Cre efficiently and specifically target blood vessels in the heart and brain, respectively. By deletion of vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2 using BEC-Cre, we showed that vascular endothelial growth factor signaling regulates angiogenesis in the central nervous system and also controls the integrity of the blood-brain barrier. Conclusions: We provide 2 examples to illustrate the use of intersectional genetics for more precise gene targeting in vivo, namely manipulation of genes in blood vessels of the heart and brain. More broadly, this system provides a valuable strategy for tissue-specific gene manipulation that can be widely applied to other fields of biomedical research.
Enforcing Adaptive Personalization Using Ontology

Due to increasing usage frequency of the search engines user becomes more and more familiar with searching techniques this leads to the fact that search engines becomes the inseparable part our life. As days are passing it is becoming tough to add all the favorite and important links of searched results in the browser to personalize the searched results. So a need of efficient personalization system is required which can store the searched results as long as user wants and automatically adapt the other searched URLs according to the users taste. Many systems are existed which barely store and retrieve the user’s searched URLs upon users request but most of them are fail to adapt the user taste according to time. This paper put forwards an idea of user personalization using ontology for the searched news URLs in the search engine. Where every searched result are keep updating based on the user storage and time limit which makes way to store more new useful search results and discard older ones for the efficient and long lasting storage space management.
Retinoic acid-induced expression of Hnf1b and Fzd4 is required for pancreas development in Xenopus laevis

ABSTRACT Retinoic acid (RA) is required for pancreas specification in Xenopus and other vertebrates. However, the gene network that is directly induced by RA signalling in this context remains to be defined. By RNA sequencing of in vitro-generated pancreatic explants, we identified the genes encoding the transcription factor Hnf1β and the Wnt-receptor Fzd4/Fzd4s as direct RA target genes. Functional analyses of Hnf1b and Fzd4/Fzd4s in programmed pancreatic explants and whole embryos revealed their requirement for pancreatic progenitor formation and differentiation. Thus, Hnf1β and Fzd4/Fzd4s appear to be involved in pre-patterning events of the embryonic endoderm that allow pancreas formation in Xenopus. Summary: The direct RA target genes Hnf1b and Fzd4 act as mediators of RA function in the pre-patterning of the dorsal endoderm during Xenopus gastrulation, resulting in pancreas specification in this context.
Control-oriented modeling of flight demonstrations for quadrotors using higher-order statistics and dynamic movement primitives

In this paper, we present a novel method for parsing demonstrations, and further characterizing the segments as subactions which are easy to implement by low-level motion controllers. Demonstration data's attributes of Gaussianity and linearity are linked to teacher's control manners and intentions, and Hinich's Gaussian and linear tests with higher-order statistics are adopted for segmentation. Wigner spectrum tools are applied to locate the rhythmic phases. Having parsed the demonstration into segments based on the test results, segmental features are parametrically represented in different ways, among which dynamic movement primitives (DMPs) are used to unifiedly model the nonlinear and rhythmic segments. For the multi-dimensional demonstrations, rules of selecting suitable variables for characterization are presented for both linear and nonlinear cases. The adverse effects brought about by inter-axis couplings are discussed and recognized using heuristics. For the case of multiple demonstrations, three-leveled feature consistency problem is also addressed. The proposed techniques are integrated into a whole for learning from flight demonstrations, and evaluated in simulations by modeling a quadrotor's axial roll maneuver. Results show the effectiveness of our method.
A preference-based multi-objective evolutionary strategy for Ab initio prediction of proteins

Predicting the three-dimensional structure of a protein from its amino acid sequence is an important issue in the field of computational biology and bioinformatics. It remains as an unsolved problem and attract enormous researchers' interests. Different from most conventional methods, we model the protein structure prediction (PSP) problem as a multi-objective optimization problem. A three-objective energy function based on three physical terms is designed to evaluate a protein conformation. A multi-objective evolutionary strategy algorithm coupled with preference information is proposed in this study. The preference information is used in the survival criteria, focusing on the exploration of search process. The experimental results based on five proteins in PDB library demonstrate the effectiveness of proposed method. The analysis of Pareto fronts indicates that the preference information can make solutions diverse in genotypic space. Thus, the proposed method gives a new perspective for solving PSP problems.
The LIA Treebank of Spoken Norwegian Dialects

This article presents the LIA treebank of transcribed spoken Norwegian dialects. It consists of dialect recordings made in the period between 1950–1990, which have been digitised, transcribed, and subsequently annotated with morphological and dependency-style syntactic analysis as part of the LIA (Language Infrastructure made Accessible) project at the University of Oslo. In this article, we describe the LIA material of dialect recordings and its transcription, transliteration and further morphosyntactic annotation. We focus in particular on the extension of the native NDT annotation scheme to spoken language phenomena, such as pauses and various types of disﬂuencies, and present the subsequent conversion of the treebank to the Universal Dependencies scheme. The treebank currently consists of 13,608 tokens, distributed over 1396 segments taken from three different dialects of spoken Norwegian. The LIA treebank annotation is an on-going effort and future releases will extend on the current data set.
Human Bodily Asymmetry Relates to Behavioral Lateralization and May not Reliably Reflect Developmental Instability

(1) Background: The link between behavioral lateralization and bodily asymmetry in humans is studied to investigate the reliability of fluctuating asymmetry as a measure of developmental instability; (2) Methods: Morphological asymmetries of arms and legs, obtained from 3D body scans, were correlated with different measures of behavioral lateralization; (3) Results: Observed associations were in the directions expected, showing that more asymmetric use of the body increases asymmetry, especially in the arms, and more symmetric body use appears to have a symmetrizing effect; and (4) Conclusions: The results presented here question the suitability of human bodily asymmetry in arms and legs—or at least part of them—as a measure of developmental instability. There is a need for future research that identifies regions of the body that are not affected by behavioral lateralization and can reliably reflect developmental instability.
Bidirectional Connections between Depression and Ataxia Severity in Spinocerebellar Ataxia Type 3 Patients

Background: Spinocerebellar ataxia type 3 (SCA3), which is the most common subtype of SCA worldwide, exhibits common neuropsychological symptoms such as depression. However, the contribution of depression to the severity of SCA3 has not yet been thoroughly investigated. Methods: The present study investigated the prevalence of depression using Beck depression inventory in 104 molecularly conﬁrmed SCA3 patients from China. The putative risk factors for depression and whether the depression could affect the severity of ataxia were established by multivariable linear regression models. Results: The frequency of depression in the study subjects was 57.69% (60/104), which was higher than that in SCA3 patients from a subset of other populations. The gender (p = 0.03) and severity (p < 0.01) of ataxia were those risk factors that could affect depression. Conversely, depression (p < 0.01) together with the duration (p < 0.01) of SCA3 could also play a positive role in the severity of ataxia. Conclusions: The extremely common depression results from motor disability caused by ataxia; it also affects the disease severity of SCA3. These findings suggested that depression was a part of neurodegeneration in SCA3 and necessitated intensive focus and interventions while caring for SCA3 patients.
Peer Play in Inclusive Child Care Settings: Assessing the Impact of Stay, Play, & Talk, a Peer-Mediated Social Skills Program

ABSTRACT Peer-mediated interventions are highly effective strategies in supporting the development of social skills for young children; however, research has focused on how peer-mediated interventions are beneficial for children with social communication challenges such as Autism Spectrum Disorder. The goal of this study was to measure the efficacy of Stay, Play, & Talk for typically developing children in an inclusive child care setting to extend the use of the intervention beyond its previous focus on children with identified or suspected social communication challenges. Using pre- and post-intervention measures, social skills (communication, cooperation, empathy, and responsibility) increased significantly and problem behaviors (hyperactivity/inattention and internalizing behaviors) decreased significantly for children in the intervention group; whereas, their peers in the control group experienced significant increases in communication skills and bullying behaviors. These findings provide preliminary support for the efficacy of this peer-mediated intervention in supporting the development of social skills in typically developing young preschool-aged children.
The Stability of Communist Electorates: Evidence from a Longitudinal Analysis of French and Italian Aggregate Data*

In both France and Italy, research on communism has mainly focused on the Communist parties' structures of command and on their doctrinal adaptation; much less attention has been given to their structures of support, and-in particular-to their capacity to find supporters for an aggressive social strategy. Reasoning from a model of voting stability which emphasizes the need for voter continuity in parties of mass mobilization, like the Communist party, we compare the French and Italian parties along two indices of voting stability: first, an index of overall electorate volatility; and second, an index of internal electoral fluidity. Using electoral statistics over a series of five or six national elections at the communal level in Italy and at the cantonal level in France, we compare the scores of the PCI and PCF along these two measures and demonstrate what appears to be a greater potential for mass mobilization in the electorate of the Italian party, a potential-it should be added-which seems to contrast with the differences in the two parties' structures of command, and with the differences in the revolutionary will of their respective leaderships.
Action of a deproteinized xenogenic biomaterial in the process of bone repair in rats submitted to inhalation of cigarette smoke.

PURPOSE To investigate if the inorganic bovine bone matrix changes the bone formation in rats submitted to inhalation of cigarette smoke. METHODS Twenty Wistar rats were divided into two groups: Cigarette Clot Group (CCG), which in the inhalation chamber received the smoke of 10 cigarettes, 3 times a day, 10 minutes, for 30 days and had the surgical cavity filled by clot; Cigarette Biomaterial Group (CBG), submitted to the same inhalation technique but with the cavity filled by biomaterial. RESULTS In CCG there was a significant difference of new bone tissue in the analyzed periods (15 and 45 days), and in 15 days, there was 4.8 ± 0.42 of bone formed and 11.73 ± 0.59 (p <0.05) in 45 days. The CBG also showed a significant difference between the periods of 15 to 45 days, being respectively 6.16 ± 0.30 and 11.60 ± 0.61. However, when the groups were compared, within the same analyzed periods, a significant difference was observed only in the period of 15 days, with the new bone percentage being greater in the CBG. CONCLUSION The bone matrix acted as an osteoinductive biomaterial, biocompatible and aided in the repair process, mainly in the initial period of recovery.
Growth–Inequality Tradeoff in the Design of Tax Structure: Evidence from a Large Panel of Countries

Using a structural model and a large panel dataset for 150 developed and developing countries covering the period 1970–2009, the present paper examines the potential tradeoff between economic growth and income inequality in the design of tax structure. We find clear evidence of: (i) a tradeoff between growth and inequality for both direct and indirect taxes; (ii) heterogeneous growth and inequality effects of tax instruments measured by levels and rates (particularly corporate income tax); and (iii) heterogeneous effects of tax instruments on different definitions of inequality (i.e. gross income, net income or expenditure).
A Review and Model Development of the Factors that Affect Mobile Marketing Acceptance by Customers

: The use of mobile is growing rapidly and it is expected to surpass all other media Nevertheless, the academic studies related to mobile usage such as mobile marketing are few. The purpose of this study is to review the factors that affect the acceptance of mobile marketing and to develop a new model of mobile marketing acceptance. A total of eight models were found related to mobile marketing were reviewed and analyzed. A frequency analysis was used to identify the extracted and frequent factors. The findings indicated that the acceptance of mobile marketing is influenced by attitude toward mobile marketing, usefulness, enjoyment, content access, content sharing, personal attachment, and information provision. Discussions of the findings were given and directions for future work were highlighted.
Forecasting Long Memory Time Series Under a Break in Persistence

We consider the problem of forecasting time series with long memory when the memory parameter is subject to a structural break. By means of a large-scale Monte Carlo study we show that ignoring such a change in persistence leads to substantially reduced forecasting precision. The strength of this effect depends on whether the memory parameter is increasing or decreasing over time. A comparison of six forecasting strategies allows us to conclude that pre-testing for a change in persistence is highly recommendable in our setting. In addition we provide an empirical example which underlines the importance of our findings.
Cross-border outbreak of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis linked to a university in Romania

Abstract Extensively drug-resistant (XDR) tuberculosis (TB) poses a threat to public health due to its complicated, expensive and often unsuccessful treatment. A cluster of three XDR TB cases was detected among foreign medical students of a Romanian university. The contact investigations included tuberculin skin testing or interferon gamma release assay, chest X-ray, sputum smear microscopy, culture, drug susceptibility testing, genotyping and whole-genome sequencing (WGS), and were addressed to students, personnel of the university, family members or other close contacts of the cases. These investigations increased the total number of cases to seven. All confirmed cases shared a very similar WGS profile. Two more cases were epidemiologically linked, but no laboratory confirmation exists. Despite all the efforts done, the source of the outbreak was not identified, but the transmission was controlled. The investigation was conducted by a team including epidemiologists and microbiologists from five countries (Finland, Israel, Romania, Sweden and the UK) and from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. Our report shows how countries can collaborate to control the spread of XDR TB by exchanging information about cases and their contacts to enable identification of additional cases and transmission and to perform the source investigation.