Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Maintaining a Distinction Between Possible and Impossible Topics of Conversation in the Outpatient Respiratory Medical Clinic

The aim of this study is to generate a grounded theory explaining patterns of behavior among health care professionals (HCPs) during interactions with patients in outpatient respiratory medical clinics. The findings suggest that the HCPs managed contradictory expectations to the interaction by maintaining a distinction between possible and impossible topics to counseling. Three subcategories explaining the effort that maintain the impossible and possible topics separated were identified: (a) an effort to maintain the diseased lungs as the main task in counseling, (b) navigating interactions to avoid strong emotions of suffering in patients to reveal, (c) avoiding the appearance of the non-alterable life circumstances of the patients. The HCPs’ attitudes toward what patients could be offered generated a distance and a difficulty during counseling and created further suffering in the patients but likewise a discomfort and frustration among the HCPs.
Analytic Long-Term Forecasting with Periodic Gaussian Processes

Gaussian processes are a state-of-the-art method for learning models from data. Data with an underlying periodic structure appears in many areas, e.g., in climatology or robotics. It is often important to predict the long-term evolution of such a time series, and to take the inherent periodicity explicitly into account. In a Gaussian process, periodicity can be accounted for by an appropriate kernel choice. However, the standard periodic kernel does not allow for analytic long-term forecasting. To address this shortcoming, we re-parametrize the periodic kernel, which, in combination with a double approximation, allows for analytic longterm forecasting of a periodic state evolution with Gaussian processes. Our model allows for probabilistic long-term forecasting of periodic processes, which can be valuable in Bayesian decision making, optimal control, reinforcement learning, and robotics.
Sources of technical inefficiency of smallholder farmers in milk production in Ethiopia

This paper estimates technical inefficiency in milk production of smallholder dairy farmers in the highlands of Ethiopia and identifies factors associated with the observed inefficiency using a stochastic frontier production function approach. The analysis utilizes cross-section data collected from 1277 farmers. The result indicates a mean technical efficiency of 55%, suggesting sizeable technical inefficiency in milk production. The results further show that household wealth, education level and access to markets and institutions are the main drivers of technical efficiency in dairy production. Evidently by improving smallholder access to market and institutions as well as investing on adult education, it is possible to bring considerable gain in milk production.
Effects of ELTGOL and Flutter VRP1® on the dynamic and static pulmonary volumes and on the secretion clearance of patients with bronchiectasis.

BACKGROUND Although respiratory physical therapy is considered fundamental in the treatment of hypersecretive patients, there is little evidence of its physiological and therapeutic effects in bronchiectasis patients. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the acute physiological effects of ELTGOL and Flutter VRP1® in dynamic and static lung volumes in patients with bronchiectasis and, secondarily, to study the effect of these techniques in sputum elimination. METHODS Patients with clinical and radiological diagnosis of bronchiectasis were included. Patients underwent three interventions in a randomized order and with a one-week washout interval between them. Before all interventions patients inhaled two puffs of 100 mcg of salbutamol. There was a cough period of five minutes before and after the control protocol and the interventions (ELTGOL and Flutter VRP1®). After each cough series patients underwent assessments of dynamic and static lung volumes by spirometry and plethysmography. The expectorated secretions were collected during the interventions and during the second cough series, and quantified by its dry weight. RESULTS We studied 10 patients, two males and eight females (mean age: 55.9±18.1 years). After using Flutter VRP1®and ELTGOL there was a significant decrease in residual volume (RV), functional residual capacity (FRC) and total lung capacity (TLC) (p<0.05). There was a higher sputum production during ELTGOL compared with Control and Flutter VRP1® (p<0.05). CONCLUSION The ELTGOL and Flutter VRP1® techniques acutely reduced lung hyperinflation, but only the ELTGOL increased the removal of pulmonary secretions from patients with bronchiectasis.
A New Kinetic Spectrophotometric Method for Determination of Cefadroxil in Pharmaceutical Formulations Using Lawsonia inermis (Henna) as Natural Reagent

A new simple and sensitive kinetic spectrophotometric method has been proposed for the determination of cefadroxil in pure form and pharmaceutical formulations. The proposed method is based on the formation of yellow coloured product (λmax = 410 nm) that resulted after addition of the reagent, which is composed of a mixture of Henna extract, sodium hydroxide and potassium permanganate, to cefadroxil aqueous solution. The experimental conditions have been optimized. Beer’s law is obeyed over the concentrations of 100 - 35 μg/ml, with a linear regression correlation coefficient of 0.996. The proposed method has been successfully applied for the determination of cefadroxil in pharmaceutical dosage forms.
Improving the Enrollment in Dynamic Signature Verfication with Synthetic Samples

A novel scheme to generate multiple synthetic samples from a real on-line handwritten signature is proposed. The algorithm models a transmission channel which introduces a certain distortion into the real signature to produce the different synthetic samples. The method is used to increase the amount of data of the clients enrolling on a state-of-the-art HMM-based signature verification system. The enhanced enrollment results in performance improve up to70% between the case in which only one real sample of the user was available for the training, and the case where the proposed algorithm was used to generate additional synthetic training data.
Women's Liberation and the Left in New Haven, Connecticut 1968-1972

Much has been written about the failure of the twentieth-century American left to achieve the elusive goal of a unified movement that speaks for universal freedom. Some scholars such as Michael Tomasky and Todd Gitlin have laid blame at the doorstep of “the principle of separate organization on behalf of distinct interests” that “raged through the ‘movement’” in the 1960s and 1970s.1 Rejecting the broad humanitarian goals of the left in favor of a worldview in which “race and gender were preeminent,” identity-based movements, they argue, caused the “universalist impulse to fracture again and again. ”2 While recognizing that raceand gender-based movements have generated legitimate critiques of discrimination and have produced valuable scholarship, Gitlin and Tomasky aim their guns at “identity politics,” which Tomasky defines as a “politics based on personal identity, as opposed to doctrine or philosophical world view. ” For Gitlin, identity politics is that stage of a social movement in which the group emphasizes separate organizations and “searches for and cultivates distinct customs, qualities, lineages, ways of seeing or, as they come to be known, cultures. ”3 Arguing that separatist groups are not able to unite with others if they cultivate a separate instead of a common culture, Gitlin asserts that there “was no going back from a separatism of spirit. ” Identity politics, according to Tomasky, “has proved to be a disaster for the left. ”4 Critics of this point of view, such as Robin D. G. Kelley and Jesse Lemisch, have argued that identity-based movements have been crucial in generating analyses
Revised standards for statistical evidence

Significance The lack of reproducibility of scientific research undermines public confidence in science and leads to the misuse of resources when researchers attempt to replicate and extend fallacious research findings. Using recent developments in Bayesian hypothesis testing, a root cause of nonreproducibility is traced to the conduct of significance tests at inappropriately high levels of significance. Modifications of common standards of evidence are proposed to reduce the rate of nonreproducibility of scientific research by a factor of 5 or greater. Recent advances in Bayesian hypothesis testing have led to the development of uniformly most powerful Bayesian tests, which represent an objective, default class of Bayesian hypothesis tests that have the same rejection regions as classical significance tests. Based on the correspondence between these two classes of tests, it is possible to equate the size of classical hypothesis tests with evidence thresholds in Bayesian tests, and to equate P values with Bayes factors. An examination of these connections suggest that recent concerns over the lack of reproducibility of scientific studies can be attributed largely to the conduct of significance tests at unjustifiably high levels of significance. To correct this problem, evidence thresholds required for the declaration of a significant finding should be increased to 25–50:1, and to 100–200:1 for the declaration of a highly significant finding. In terms of classical hypothesis tests, these evidence standards mandate the conduct of tests at the 0.005 or 0.001 level of significance.
Motor-car driving and the heart rate.

The distribution and variation of symphalangism (hereditary fusion of the proximal interphalangeal joints) in the Talbot family at the present day have been studied. Five living members of the family with symphalangism have been studied. In addition to the finger abnormality fusion of certain tarsal bones has been found in each. The claim that transmission of symphalangism has occurred through 14 generations of the Talbot family has been reexamined. It is concluded that adequate proof of such transmission is lacking. This condition also occurs in an American family of Scottish ancestry. It is suggested that both families may have a common stock in the British Isles. An appeal is made for information about individuals with symphalangism and tarsal fusion, as it may be possible by tracing their lineage to establish a link between the two families.
Intelligent Power Management Using Multiple Agents

Intelligent Power Management (IPM) for a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is crucial in maximising the operational longevity of the network. An established regime for achieving this is through the opportunistic hibernation of redundant nodes. Redundancy, however, can have various definitions within the field of WSNs and indeed multiple protocols, each operating using a different definition, can coexist on the same node. In this paper, we advocate the use of a MAS as an appropriate mechanism by which different stake-holders, each desiring to hibernate a node in order to conserve power, can collaborate. We present this strategy as a more suitable paradigm for node hibernation than the traditional stack-based approach and motivate our discussion using intelligent power management as an exemplar.
Measuring the Influence of Social Context Referents in Substance Abuse Treatment: An Instrument Validation Study

ABSTRACT This paper introduces a newly developed assessment tool, the Ecological Assessment of Substance abuse Experiences (EASE) that has been designed to measure the influence of social context referents (i.e., family, peers, and community) on clients' attitudes and outcome beliefs related to substance abuse and recovery. An initial exploratory factor analysis was conducted with a small sample of adult treatment-seekers (N =103) to identify its underlying factors and to examine the instrument's item-factor fit. Items clustered onto four orthogonal factors: “belonging-recovery,” “belonging-drugs/alcohol,” “disconnect-recovery,” and “attitudinal congruence-recovery. ” Preliminary findings suggest that socio-emotional outcome beliefs and attitudes about drug use and recovery behaviors, as related to family, peers, and community contexts, may be significant areas to address during routine assessment practices that may lead to more comprehensive and contextually appropriate treatment plans.
Hyper-Heuristic Based Product Selection for Software Product Line Testing

A Software Product Line (SPL) is defined as a set of software systems that share a common and managed set of features satisfying specific needs of a particular market segment or domain [1]. The SPL offers a number of common artifacts for building products, including mandatory and variable elements. SPL approaches have been adopted by many software companies1 to ease reuse and reduce time and production costs. A feature represents a functionality that is visible to the user and can be designed as a variability, which represents a variable functionality that may or may not be present in a product. On the other hand, mandatory features are common to all SPL products. To facilitate feature management, most SPL methodologies use the Feature Model (FM) [2] to represent all the SPL variabilities and commonalities.
Active Optical Sensing of Spring Maize for In-Season Diagnosis of Nitrogen Status Based on Nitrogen Nutrition Index

The nitrogen (N) nutrition index (NNI) is a reliable indicator of crop N status and there is an urgent need to develop efficient technologies for non-destructive estimation of NNI to support the practical applications of precision N management strategies. The objectives of this study were to: (i) validate a newly established critical N dilution curve for spring maize in Northeast China; (ii) determine the potential of using the GreenSeeker active optical sensor to non-destructively estimate NNI; and (iii) evaluate the performance of different N status diagnostic approaches based on estimated NNI via the GreenSeeker sensor measurements. Four field experiments involving six N rates (0, 60, 120,180, 240, and 300 kg·ha−1) were conducted in 2014 and 2015 in Lishu County, Jilin Province in Northeast China. The results indicated that the newly established critical N dilution curve was suitable for spring maize N status diagnosis in the study region. Across site-years and growth stages (V5–V10), GreenSeeker sensor-based vegetation indices (VIs) explained 87%–90%, 87%–89% and 83%–84% variability of leaf area index (LAI), aboveground biomass (AGB) and plant N uptake (PNU), respectively. However, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) became saturated when LAI > 2 m2·m−2, AGB > 3 t·ha−1 or PNU > 80 kg·ha−1. The GreenSeeker-based VIs performed better for estimating LAI, AGB and PNU at V5–V6 and V7–V8 than the V9–V10 growth stages, but were very weakly related to plant N concentration. The response index calculated with GreenSeeker NDVI (RI–NDVI) and ratio vegetation index (R2 = 0.56–0.68) performed consistently better than the original VIs (R2 = 0.33–0.55) for estimating NNI. The N status diagnosis accuracy rate using RI–NDVI was 81% and 71% at V7–V8 and V9–V10 growth stages, respectively. We conclude that the response indices calculated with the GreenSeeker-based vegetation indices can be used to estimate spring maize NNI non-destructively and for in-season N status diagnosis between V7 and V10 growth stages under experimental conditions with variable N supplies. More studies are needed to further evaluate different approaches under diverse on-farm conditions and develop side-dressing N recommendation algorithms.
Monoclonal antibodies to respiratory syncytial virus proteins: identification of the fusion protein

Six monoclonal antibodies directed against respiratory syncytial virus proteins were produced. Each was characterized by immunoprecipitation and indirect immunofluorescence. One was directed against the nucleocapsid protein. NP 44, two were directed against a 37,000-dalton protein, two were directed against the major envelope glycoprotein, GP 90, and one was directed against the 70,000-dalton envelope protein, VP 70. Indirect immunofluorescence stain patterns of infected HEp-2 cells defined GP 90 and VP 70 as viral proteins expressed on the cell surface, whereas NP 44 and the 37,000-dalton protein were detected as intracytoplasmic inclusions. One of the anti-GP 90 antibodies neutralized virus only in the presence of complement but did not inhibit cell-cell fusion. The anti-VP 70 antibody neutralized virus without complement and inhibited cell-cell fusion of previously infected HEp-2 cells, thus identifying VP 70 as the fusion protein.
Utilizing learning styles for interactive tutorials

Developing successful Web-based learning environments has shown to be a challenging and difficult endeavour that requires knowledge from multiple domains like pedagogy, psychology, knowledge engineering, software engineering, and Web technologies. Their lack of individual preferred ways of instruction is a challenge we address in this paper. We introduce a Web-based learning environment that teaches concepts from artificial intelligence to college students. This environment is intended to be used as a complementary tool for the standard lectures. By adapting the instruction and learning material to the individual student's learning style the tutorial gives the student a personal learning experience and it was our expectation that the tutorial would increase the user's knowledge and interest about the topic. Results and feedback were gathered from the students.
Modeling and Applications of Metamaterial Transmission Lines Loaded With Pairs of Coupled Complementary Split-Ring Resonators (CSRRs)

This letter is focused on the modeling, analysis, and applications of microstrip lines loaded with pairs of electrically coupled complementary split-ring resonators (CSRRs). Typically, these epsilon-negative (ENG) metamaterial transmission lines are implemented by loading the line with a single CSRR (etched beneath the conductor strip) in the unit cell. This provides a stopband in the vicinity of the CSRR resonance. However, by loading the line with a pair of CSRRs per unit cell, it is possible to either implement a dual-band ENG transmission line (useful, for instance, as a dual-band notch filter), provided the CSRRs are tuned at different frequencies, or to design microwave sensors and comparators based on symmetry disruption (in this case by using identical CSRRs and by truncating symmetry by different means, e.g., asymmetric dielectric loading). The design of these CSRR-based structures requires an accurate circuit model able to describe the line, the resonators, and the different coupling mechanisms (i.e., line-to-resonator and inter-resonator coupling). Thus, a lumped element equivalent circuit is proposed and analyzed in detail. The model is validated by comparison to electromagnetic simulations and measurements. A proof-of-concept of a differential sensor for dielectric characterization is proposed. Finally, the similarities of these structures with coplanar waveguide transmission lines loaded with pairs of SRRs are pointed out.
Eyetracker-Based Driver State and Intention Recognition for Realtime Control and Configuration of Human-Machine Interfaces in Vehicles – 121

In the first funding period this project was focused on a novel gaze-based human-machine interface that was intended to avoid driver overload in automotive uses. A major short-term goal was the extension of an existing headmounted eyetracker to a low-latency remote system that was to be integrated into an automotive environment. Based on the gaze data and other modalities like speech as well as facial expression, algorithms for automated driver state and intention recognition were envisioned together with a cognitive system that autonomously adapts the information flow between vehicle and driver to the drivers state, thereby avoiding driver overload. Various approaches of early signal and late semantic fusion were planned to be applied in the integration of multimodal user state recognition. In this progress report, we will summarize the gathered results concerning various novel approaches for remote eye tracking, implemented (automotive) demonstrators, and crosscluster cooperations with other CoTeSys projects. Due to the numerous activities and requests within the cluster in the first project year, the application scenario and project title for the ongoing research activities are redefined. Accordingly, we have started to tailor the eye-tracking system to the needs of the humanoid robot scenario and the observation of human workers in the cognitive factory. In production environments important and safety related instructions and symbols can be projected into a workers primary field of view using sophisticated projection techniques based on the knowledge of the users gaze direction. The long-term vision is the integration of remote gaze recognition also into humanoids. Thus a humanoid robot like Johnnie will be able to perceive and interpret a humans area/focus of interest and therefore, by recognizing look ahead fixations, collisions and other critical situations can be avoided.
Increasing the Throughput of Polar Decoders

The serial nature of successive-cancellation decoding results in low polar decoder throughput. In this letter we present an improved version of the simplified successive-cancellation decoding algorithm that increases decoding throughput without degrading the error-correction performance. We show that the proposed algorithm has up to three times the throughput of the simplified successive-cancellation decoding algorithm and up to twenty-nine times the throughput of a standard successive-cancellation decoder while using the same number of processing elements.
Handbook on the Economics of Discrimination

Discrimination’s dynamic nature means that no single theory, method, data or study should be relied upon to assess its magnitude, causes, or remedies. Despite some gains in our understanding, these remain active areas of debate among researchers, practitioners and policymakers. The specially commissioned papers in this volume, all by distinguished contributors, present the full range of issues related to this complex and challenging problem.
Modeling Hierarchical Event Streams in System Level Performance Analysis TIK Report

The growing complexity of embedded real-time systems requires elaborate methods in their design process. While simulation does not sufficiently cover corner cases, analytic methods for system level performance analysis have been established in the past. Their efficiency in computing hard bounds on buffer sizes, end-to-end delays or throughput has proven their usefulness. One of the major drawbacks of these methods are the limited system configurations that can be analyzed with high accuracy. In this report we extend existing methods for analyzing heterogeneous multiprocessor systems such that different types of data streams can be composed to a higher level event stream with multiple hierarchies. Furthermore, we describe how such hierarchical event streams can be decomposed into their sub-streams. Additionally, we show how these new methodologies are used to model the distributed heterogeneous communication system of the COMBEST case study provided by EADS.