Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Inter-examiner reproducibility of tests and criteria for generalized joint hypermobility and benign joint hypermobility syndrome.

OBJECTIVE To test the reproducibility of tests and criteria for generalized joint hypermobility (GJH) and benign joint hypermobility syndrome (BJHS). METHODS A standardized protocol for clinical reproducibility studies was followed using a three-phase study (with a training, an overall agreement and a test phase). An overall agreement of at least 0.80 was required to proceed to the test phase. Phases 1, 2 and 3 used 14 patients (with varying degrees of hypermobility), 20 patients (50% cases) and 40 patients (50% cases), respectively. The inclusion criterion for cases was hypermobility (patients with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome or BJHS) and for controls, non-hypermobility (patients with shoulder and/or back pain); patients were selected from patients' files (phases 1 and 2) or included consecutively from our outpatient clinic (phase 3). RESULTS The overall agreement in phase 2 was 0.95 for GJH and 0.90 for BJHS. Reproducibility for diagnosing GJH and BJHS in phase 3 showed kappa values of 0.74 and 0.84, respectively. Kappa in the Beighton tests for diagnosing GJH (currently or historically) was generally above 0.80, except for the fifth fingers and elbows (> or = 0.60). In the Brighton tests for diagnosing BJHS, kappa was above 0.73, except for the skin signs (0.63). Lowest kappa was found in the Rotès-Quérol tests, where it was > or = 0.57, except for the right shoulder (0.31). CONCLUSION We found a good-to-excellent reproducibility of tests and criteria for GJH and BJHS. Future research on the validity of the tests and criteria for joint hypermobility is urgently needed.
CPT and other symmetries in string/M theory

We initiate a search for non-perturbative consistency conditions in M theory. Some non-perturbative conditions are already known in type-I theories; we review these and search for others. We focus principally on possible anomalies in discrete symmetries. It is generally believed that discrete symmetries in string theories are gauge symmetries, so anomalies would provide evidence for inconsistencies. Using the orbifold cosmic string construction, we give some evidence that the symmetries we study are gauged. We then search for anomalies in discrete symmetries in a variety of models, both with and without supersymmetry. In symmetric orbifold models we extend previous searches, and show in a variety of examples that all anomalies may be canceled by a Green-Schwarz mechanism. We explore some asymmetric orbifold constructions and again find that all anomalies may be canceled this way. The we turn to type-IIB orientifold models where it is known that even perturbative anomalies are non-universal. In the examples we study, by combining geometric discrete symmetries with continuous gauge symmetries, one may define non-anomalous discrete symmetries already in perturbation theory; in other cases, the anomalies are universal. Finally, we turn to the question of CPT conservation in string/M theory. It is well known that CPT is conserved in all string perturbation expansions; here in a number of examples for which a non-perturbative formulation is available we provide evidence that it is conserved exactly.
KINECT-BASED REAL-TIME RGB-D IMAGE FUSION METHOD

3D reconstruction of indoor environments based on vision has been developed vigorously. However, the algorithm's complexity and requirements of professional knowledge make it restricted in practical application. With the proposition of the concept of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI), the traditional method is no longer suitable for VGI. So in this work we utilize consumer depth cameras – Kinect to enable non-expert users to reconstruct 3D model of indoor environment with RGB-D data. Considering the possibility of camera tracking failure we propose a method to perform automatic relocalization.
Nanostructured conformable patch antenna array

Carbon nanotube (CNT) has emerged as potential candidate for replacement of conventional metal patch. The principal objective of our research is to develop nanostructure based flexible patch antenna array for multi frequency operation in Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) band. Patch antenna design using CNT on flexible cotton sheets and CNT silver composites as conductive patch and ground plane has been simulated. Due to high conformability and conductivity of CNT all antenna parameters like VSWR, Return loss, Gain and radiation pattern meet design criteria. Our simulated antenna shows a return loss less than −10 dB and VSWR less than 2 at 2.06 GHz, 2.38 GHz and 2.49 GHz. A simulation of a versatile and conformable antenna design has also been done wherein the whole geometry is rolled up like patch array on cylindrical surface. This brings about conformability to the curved surfaces and integration with the structure which results in a unique antenna design.
Extracting Loosely Structured Data Records Through Mining Strict Patterns

Extracting loosely structured data records (DRs) has wide applications in many domains, such as forum pattern recognition, blog data analysis, and books and news review analysis. Currently existing methods work well for strongly structured DRs only. In this paper, we address the problem of extracting loosely structured DRs through mining strict patterns. In our method, we utilize both content feature and tag tree feature to recognize the loosely structured DRs, and propose a new approach to extract the DRs automatically. Through experimental study we demonstrate that this method is both effective and robust in practice.
Neuroanatomical Heterogeneity of Essential Tremor According to Propranolol Response

Background Recent studies have suggested that essential tremor (ET) is a more complex and heterogeneous clinical entity than initially thought. In the present study, we assessed the pattern of cortical thickness and diffusion tensor white matter (WM) changes in patients with ET according to the response to propranolol to explore the pathogenesis underlying the clinical heterogeneity of ET. Methods A total of 32 patients with drug naive ET were recruited prospectively from the Movement Disorders outpatient clinic. The patients were divided into a propranolol-responder group (n = 18) and a non-responder group (n = 14). We analyzed the pattern of cortical thickness and diffusion tensor WM changes between these two groups and performed correlation analysis between imaging and clinical parameters. Results There were no significant differences in demographic characteristics, general cognition, or results of detailed neuropsychological tests between the groups. The non-responder group showed more severe cortical atrophy in the left orbitofrontal cortex and right temporal cortex relative to responders. However, the responders exhibited significantly lower fractional anisotropy values in the bilateral frontal, corpus callosal, and right parietotemporal WM compared with the non-responder group. There were no significant clusters where the cortical thickness or WM alterations were significantly correlated with initial tremor severity or disease duration. Conclusions The present data suggest that patients with ET have heterogeneous cortical thinning and WM alteration with respect to responsiveness to propranolol, suggesting that propranolol responsiveness may be a predictive factor to determine ET subtypes in terms of neuroanatomical heterogeneity.
Applications of entropic spanning graphs

This article presents applications of entropic spanning graphs to imaging and feature clustering applications. Entropic spanning graphs span a set of feature vectors in such a way that the normalized spanning length of the graph converges to the entropy of the feature distribution as the number of random feature vectors increases. This property makes these graphs naturally suited to applications where entropy and information divergence are used as discriminants: texture classification, feature clustering, image indexing, and image registration. Among other areas, these problems arise in geographical information systems, digital libraries, medical information processing, video indexing, multisensor fusion, and content-based retrieval.
Cluster Ensembles, Majority Vote, Voter Eligibility and Privileged Voters

—Grouping items facilitates ideation. Although Cluster Analysis has become a classical technique for grouping in science and engineering, to the best of our knowledge it's use remains limited in business. In this application paper we use cluster ensembles to address three barriers to wide scale adoption in the banking industry. The aforementioned challenges are: consistency of results, knowledge beyond the data and grouping with multiple objectives. Contributions of this study include guidance on dealing with the lack of meaningful cluster labels (in the case of ensembles), bimodal cluster distributions and incorporating expert intuition into the clustering process. This application has delivered unobvious insight into a high-dimensional dataset to audiences with diverse backgrounds.
Invariant High Level Reeb Graphs of 3D Polygonal Meshes

Many applications in computer graphics need high level shape descriptions, in order to benefit from a global understanding of shapes. Topological approaches enable pertinent surface decompositions, providing structural descriptions of 3D polygonal meshes; but in practice, their use raises several difficulties. In this paper, we present a novel method for the construction of invariant high level Reeb graphs, topological entities that give a good overview of the shape structure. With this aim, we propose an accurate and straightforward feature point extraction algorithm for the computation of an invariant and meaningful quotient function. Moreover, we propose a new graph construction algorithm, based on an analysis of the connectivity evolutions of discrete level lines. This algorithm brings a practical solution for the suppression of non-significant critical points over piecewise continuous functions, providing meaningful Reeb graphs. Presented method gives accurate results, with satisfactory execution times and without input parameter. The geometrical invariance of resulting graphs and their robustness to variation in model pose and mesh sampling make them good candidates for several applications, like shape deformation (experimented in this paper), recognition, compression, indexing, etc.
The Impact of Expertise in Archery on the Attentional Biases of Perceptual and Representational Pseudoneglect

Turnbull & McGeorge (1998) asked a group of participants if they had bumped into anything recently and if so, on what side? Results reflected a trend towards bumping on the right. This tendency to bump into objects on the right has since been observed in a naturalistic setting (Nicholls, Loftus, Meyer, & Mattingley, 2007). But rather than an interesting quirk of statistics these studies, and many others have captured a phenomenon called pseudoneglect (Bowers and Heilman, 1980). It represents a subtle yet consistent bias in our spatial attention towards the left half of space and away from the right which results in the pattern of bumping or other lateralised errors seen in the spatial attention literature (See Jewell & McCourt, 2000). Furthermore, this bias does not just impact the perceptual sphere; it also crosses into the representational, impacting our memory for visual information (Bisiach & Luzatti, 1987). But whether this is consistent in individuals who are trained in an accuracy based sport remains unknown. The current research sought to examine perceptual and representational pseudoneglect effects in a group of expert archers compared to neurologically healthy controls. Results suggest that the attainment of expert level in archery is associated with reduced perceptual pseudoneglect. Archers showed a trend towards reduced representational pseudoneglect but this was non-significant. Results are discussed in line with theoretical frameworks of visual attention, pseudoneglect and expertise.
Variance reduction using nonlinear controls and transformations

Nonlinear regression-adjusted control variables are investigated for improving variance reduction in statistical and system simulations. To this end, simple control variables are piecewise sectioned and then transformed using linear and nonlinear transformations. Optimal parameters of these transformations are selected using linear or nonlinear least-squares regression algorithms. As an example, piecewise power-transformed variables are used in the estimation of the mean for the twovariable Anderson-Darling goodness-of-fit statistic W 2 2. Substantial variance reduction over straightforward controls is obtained. These parametric transformations are compared against optimal, additive nonparametric transformations obtained by using the ACE algorithm and are shown, in comparison to the results from ACE, to be nearly optimal.
AND-NOT logic framework for steady state analysis of Boolean network models

Finite dynamical systems (e.g. Boolean networks and logical models) have been used in modeling biological systems to focus attention on the qualitative features of the system, such as the wiring diagram. Since the analysis of such systems is hard, it is necessary to focus on subclasses that have the properties of being general enough for modeling and simple enough for theoretical analysis. In this paper we propose the class of AND-NOT networks for modeling biological systems and show that it provides several advantages. Some of the advantages include: Any finite dynamical system can be written as an AND-NOT network with similar dynamical properties. There is a one-to-one correspondence between AND-NOT networks, their wiring diagrams, and their dynamics. Results about AND-NOT networks can be stated at the wiring diagram level without losing any information. Results about AND-NOT networks are applicable to any Boolean network. We apply our results to a Boolean model of Th-cell differentiation.
Xanthine and 8-oxoguanine in G-quadruplexes: formation of a G·G·X·O tetrad

G-quadruplexes are four-stranded structures built from stacked G-tetrads (G·G·G·G), which are planar cyclical assemblies of four guanine bases interacting through Hoogsteen hydrogen bonds. A G-quadruplex containing a single guanine analog substitution, such as 8-oxoguanine (O) or xanthine (X), would suffer from a loss of a Hoogsteen hydrogen bond within a G-tetrad and/or potential steric hindrance. We show that a proper arrangement of O and X bases can reestablish the hydrogen-bond pattern within a G·G·X·O tetrad. Rational incorporation of G·G·X·O tetrads in a (3+1) G-quadruplex demonstrated a similar folding topology and thermal stability to that of the unmodified G-quadruplex. pH titration conducted on X·O-modified G-quadruplexes indicated a protonation-deprotonation equilibrium of X with a pKa ∼6.7. The solution structure of a G-quadruplex containing a G·G·X·O tetrad was determined, displaying the same folding topology in both the protonated and deprotonated states. A G-quadruplex containing a deprotonated X·O pair was shown to exhibit a more electronegative groove compared to that of the unmodified one. These differences are likely to manifest in the electronic properties of G-quadruplexes and may have important implications for drug targeting and DNA-protein interactions.
Uterine artery embolization for symptomatic fibroids: long-term changes in disease-specific symptoms and quality of life.

BACKGROUND To investigate the long-term changes in health-related quality of life (HRQOL) after uterine artery embolization (UAE) for symptomatic fibroids, we conducted a prospective cohort study. METHODS Eighty-two women completed the validated uterine fibroid symptom and QOL (UFS-QOL) questionnaire before UAE. Short-term results after a median of 8 months (range: 3-20) have been published previously. Patients were asked to complete the questionnaire again after a median of 6.3 years (range: 5-7.6). Secondary outcome measures were the frequency of additional surgical or endovascular procedures due to treatment failure and the menstrual status. RESULTS A total of 4/82 patients (5%) were lost to follow-up. Of the remaining 78 patients, 11 underwent surgery or repeat UAE (hysterectomy n = 6, myomectomy n = 1, UAE n = 4) at a median of 13 months (range: 5-70) after UAE. Two patients failed clinically but did not undergo a second intervention. The overall treatment failure rate 6 years after UAE was 17%. Clinical long-term follow-up regarding symptom control and quality of life was available in the remaining 65 patients. Symptom severity scores decreased from a median of 37.50 (quartile range, QR: 28.13-53.13) to 0.00 (QR: 0.00-10.94) (P < 0.001), whereas the HRQOL total score increased from a median of 64.66 (QR: 46.34-79.10) to 100.00 (QR: 96.12-100.00) (P < 0.001). Both scores also improved significantly compared with short-term results (P = 0.006 and P = 0.041). Permanent amenorrhea was observed in five patients at a median of 18 months (range: 10-46) after UAE and at a mean patient age of 50 years. CONCLUSIONS UAE leads to durable relief of fibroid-related symptoms and sustained improvement in HRQOL. After 6 years, clinical failure can be expected in 17%, and most of these patients require secondary invasive treatment.
Self-suspension real-time tasks under fixed-relative-deadline fixed-priority scheduling

Self-suspension is becoming a prominent characteristic in real-time systems such as: (i) I/O-intensive systems (ii) multi-core processors, and (iii) computation offloading systems with coprocessors, like Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). In this work, we study self-suspension systems under fixed-priority (FP) fixed-relative-deadline (FRD) algorithm by using release enforcement to control self-suspension tasks' behavior. Specifically, we use equal-deadline assignment (EDA) to assign the release phases of computations and suspensions. We provide analysis for deriving the speedup factor of the FP FRD scheduler using suspension-laxity-monotonic (SLM) priority assignment. This is the first positive result to provide bounded speedup factor guarantees for general multi-segment self-suspending task systems.
Sentiment analysis - e-bussines and e-learning common issue

The paper is focused on sentiment analysis in Web 2.0 capable systems. The analysed text needs to be in the Slavic languages and Czech language in particular. We have used our experience from both environment, business one (e-shops) and educational one (adaptive web system XAPOS) and the native knowledge of the Czech language in our approach to analysing the sentiment of internet users. A case study from the business and e-learning environment is described.
TERRA Expression Levels Do Not Correlate with Telomere Length and Radiation Sensitivity in Human Cancer Cell Lines

Mammalian telomeres are transcribed into long non-coding telomeric repeat-containing RNA (TERRA) molecules that seem to play a role in the maintenance of telomere stability. In human cells, CpG-island promoters drive TERRA transcription and are regulated by methylation. It was suggested that the amount of TERRA may be related to telomere length. To test this hypothesis we measured telomere length and TERRA levels in single clones isolated from five human cell lines: HeLa (cervical carcinoma), BRC-230 (breast cancer), AKG and GK2 (gastric cancers), and GM847 (SV40 immortalized skin fibroblasts). However, these two parameters did not correlate with each other. Moreover, cell survival to γ-rays did not show a significant variation among the clones, suggesting that, in this cellular system, the intra-population variability in telomere length and TERRA levels does not influence sensitivity to ionizing radiation. This conclusion was supported by the observation that in a cell line in which telomeres were greatly elongated by the ectopic expression of telomerase, TERRA expression levels and radiation sensitivity were similar to the parental HeLa cell line.
Evaluation of fish oil-rich in MUFAs for anti-diabetic and anti-inflammation potential in experimental type 2 diabetic rats

The advantages of monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs) on insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) have been well established. However, the molecular mechanisms of the anti-diabetic action of MUFAs remain unclear. This study examined the anti-hyperglycemic effect and explored the molecular mechanisms involved in the actions of fish oil- rich in MUFAs that had been acquired from hybrid catfish (Pangasius larnaudii×Pangasianodon hypophthalmus) among experimental type 2 diabetic rats. Diabetic rats that were fed with fish oil (500 and 1,000 mg/kg BW) for 12 weeks significantly reduced the fasting plasma glucose levels without increasing the plasma insulin levels. The diminishing levels of plasma lipids and the muscle triglyceride accumulation as well as the plasma leptin levels were identified in T2DM rats, which had been administrated with fish oil. Notably, the plasma adiponectin levels increased among these rats. The fish oil supplementation also improved glucose tolerance, insulin sensitivity and pancreatic histological changes. Moreover, the supplementation of fish oil improved insulin signaling (p-AktSer473 and p-PKC-ζ/λThr410/403), p-AMPKThr172 and membrane GLUT4 protein expressions, whereas the protein expressions of pro-inflammatory cytokines (TNF-α and nuclear NF-κB) as well as p-PKC-θThr538 were down regulated in the skeletal muscle. These data indicate that the effects of fish oil-rich in MUFAs in these T2DM rats were partly due to the attenuation of insulin resistance and an improvement in the adipokine imbalance. The mechanisms of the anti-hyperglycemic effect are involved in the improvement of insulin signaling, AMPK activation, GLUT4 translocation and suppression of pro-inflammatory cytokine protein expressions.
Seething But Quiet: Power Differentially Affects Public Vs. Private Expressions Of Blame

Blame is an important social act that evolved to become an integral part of social regulation. Blame is associated with significant social costs for the person facing blame (e.g., social isolation, punishment) as well as for the person expressing blame (e.g., criticism if blame is improperly given). Because of these social costs, blame must be justified or warranted by the perpetrators mental states or the severity of the outcome. The current study suggests that power is a role constraint that will uniquely affect public blame while leaving private blame unaffected. Data show that when confronting moral violations people may privately blame as they please; however, deciding when and how to express public blame is constrained by social status and power.
POLICY-DRIVEN PROCESS MAPPING ( PDPM ) : TOWARD PROCESS DESIGN AUTOMATION Design Science

Recently, many organizations are investing a great amount to revamp their business policies in order to comply with the new regulations related to Sarbanes-Oxley. For organizations with large-scale business processes, maintaining those processes to meet the changing policies is a non-trivial problem. In this paper, we present an innovative process mapping methodology named Policy-Driven Process Mapping (PDPM) that takes advantage of detailed organizational policies. In particular, we show how narrative process-related policies can be formalized and how process maps can be systematically created via a set of rules and algorithms. Our research contributes to business process management by providing a theoretical foundation for the development of advanced process mapping tools, thereby taking the first step toward automatable process design procedures.