Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Describing the attention profile of children and adolescents with acquired brain injury using the Virtual Classroom

Abstract Objectives: The objectives of the study were: (1) to describe the attention deficits profile of children with significant acquired brain injury (ABI) in comparison to matched controls, using the virtual classroom (VC); (2) to assess the utility of the VC in detecting attention deficits in children with ABI, as compared to classical neuropsychological tests and questionnaire-based assessment of attention; and (3) to determine how performance in the VC is affected by demographic and injury severity variables. Methods: Forty-one children with ABI and 35 age- and gender-matched controls, aged 8–16, were assessed with the VC. The results of the VC were compared to sub-tests of the Test of Everyday Attention for Children (TEA-Ch), the Conners' Parent Rating Scales-Revised: Short (CPRS-R:S) questionnaire and analysed according to demographic and injury severity variables. Results: Significant differences were found between the groups regarding the number of targets correctly identified in the VC. Significant inter-correlations were obtained between the VC variables. Significant correlations were found between the VC variables, the sub-tests of TEA-Ch and the CPRS-R:S and the demographic characteristics of the sample. Conclusion: The VC appears to be a sensitive and ecologically valid assessment tool for use in the diagnosis of attention deficits among children with ABI.
Artificial Immune Systems: A Novel Paradigm to Pattern Recognition

This chapter introduces a new computational intelligence paradigm to perform pattern recognition, named Artificial Immune Systems (AIS). AIS take inspiration from the immune system in order to build novel computational tools to solve problems in a vast range of domain areas. The basic immune theories used to explain how the immune system perform pattern recognition are described and their corresponding computational models are presented. This is followed with a survey from the literature of AIS applied to pattern recognition. The chapter is concluded with a trade-off between AIS and artificial neural networks as pattern recognition paradigms.
Scalable behaviors for crowd simulation

Crowd simulation for virtual environments offers many challenges centered on the trade‐offs between rich behavior, control and computational cost. In this paper we present a new approach to controlling the behavior of agents in a crowd. Our method is scalable in the sense that increasingly complex crowd behaviors can be created without a corresponding increase in the complexity of the agents. Our approach is also more authorable; users can dynamically specify which crowd behaviors happen in various parts of an environment. Finally, the character motion produced by our system is visually convincing. We achieve our aims with a situation‐based control structure. Basic agents have very limited behaviors. As they enter new situations, additional, situation‐specific behaviors are composed on the fly to enable agents to respond appropriately. The composition is done using a probabilistic mechanism. We demonstrate our system with three environments including a city street and a theater.
The effects of wireless transmission range on path lifetime in vehicle-formed mobile ad hoc networks on highways

An information network built on top of vehicles using inter-vehicle communication (IVC) can be viewed as a type of mobile ad hoc network (MANET). The lifetime of the unicast routing paths existing in an IVC network can be affected by several factors such as vehicle moving speed, wireless radio transmission range, traffic density, etc. The paper uses more realistic vehicle mobility traces to study the effects of wireless transmission range on path lifetime in an IVC network. The results presented can help IVC researchers choose an appropriate wireless transmission range for IVC networks.
Cross-Device Consistency in Automatically Generated User Interfaces

INTRODUCTION The growing importance of ubiquitous computing has motivated an outburst of research on automatic generation of user interfaces for different devices (e.g., [6] or our own Supple [4]). In some cases, care is taken to ensure that similar functionality is rendered similarly across different applications on the same device [5]. However, we also need to ensure that after using an application on one device (say, a PDA) and having learned that user interface, the user will not have to expend much effort having to learn a brand-new user interface for the same application when moving to a new platform (e.g., a touch panel). We have began to extend our Supple system in a way that allows it to produce interfaces that make a trade off between optimality given a new platform and similarity to the previously rendered user interfaces for the same application. In particular:
Characterization of 3D elastic porous polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) cell scaffolds fabricated by VARTM and particle leaching

In this study, elastic porous polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) cell scaffolds were fabricated by vacuum-assisted resin transfer moulding (VARTM) and particle leaching technologies. To control the porous morphology and porosity, different processing parameters, such as compression load, compression time, and NaCl particle size for preparing NaCl preform, were studied. The porous structures of PDMS cell scaffolds were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The properties of PDMS cell scaffolds, including porosity, water absorption, interconnectivity, compression modulus, and compression strength were also investigated. The results showed that after the porogen–NaCl particles had been leached, the remaining pores had the sizes of 150–300, 300–450, and 450–600 μm, which matched the sizes of the NaCl particles. The interconnectivity of PDMS cell scaffolds increases with an increase in the size of NaCl particles. It was also found that the smaller the size of the NaCl particles, the higher the porosity and water absorption of PDMS cell scaffolds. The content of residual NaCl in PDMS/NaCl scaffolds reduces under ultrasonic treatment. In addition, PDMS scaffolds with a pore size of 300–450 μm have better mechanical properties compared to those with pore sizes of 150–300 and 450–600 μm. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2016, 133, 42909.
Let's look at the elephant: metasynthesis of transference case studies for psychodynamic and cognitive psychotherapy integration.

OBJECTIVES Although the movement towards psychotherapy integration is gaining momentum, theoretical polarization still prevails and prevents integration from maturing. This study strives for theoretical integration, shedding light on relations between two concepts from diametrically opposed therapies: the psychodynamic concept of transference and the cognitive concept of overgeneralization. DESIGN A qualitative metasynthetic study. METHOD The study maps core conflictual relationship themes transference components, codes other meaning units, and analyses relationship between categories. These procedures apply to published transference case descriptions. RESULTS Of the 33 case studies, 30 (about 90%) were shown to include overgeneralization thinking distortion. In all these cases, such overgeneralization concerned a central theme in the same category as Luborsky's components of transference. The results show that overgeneralization thinking errors (cognitive therapy) are the current cognitive manifestation of the transference patterns (psychoanalytic therapy). This observation maps the complementary character of the concepts and thus takes an additional significant step forward towards the consolidation of a theoretical platform for integrative intervention.
Narrow-Shallow-Low-Light Trees with and without Steiner Points

We show that for every set \(\mathcal S\) of n points in the plane and a designated point \(rt \in \mathcal S\), there exists a tree T that has small maximum degree, depth and weight. Moreover, for every point \(v \in \mathcal S\), the distance between rt and v in T is within a factor of (1 + e) close to their Euclidean distance ||rt,v||. We call these trees narrow-shallow-low-light (NSLLTs). We demonstrate that our construction achieves optimal (up to constant factors) tradeoffs between all parameters of NSLLTs. Our construction extends to point sets in \(\mathbb R^d\), for an arbitrarily large constant d. The running time of our construction is O(n ·logn).
Phishing Training: A Preliminary Look at the Effects of Different Types of Training

In this paper, we present the preliminary results of an experiment conducted to observe the impact of the different training techniques to increase the likelihood of participants identifying and reporting phishing messages. Three different training approaches were used – general video/quiz training, just-in-time training with simulated phishing emails, and a leaderboard, which awarded users points for forwarding correct phishing messages and penalized them for incorrect ones. The experiment emulated a normal working day of an executive assistant of a manager in an organization. Each participant was expected to accomplish work tasks and respond to work-related emails while watching for and reporting phishing messages. We observed that both general training and the presence of a leaderboard decreased the propensity to click on a phishing message, while we found no effect for different types of just-in-time training
A porous polymer–silica composite with a “vespula-like” structure for thermal insulating materials prepared via high pressure phase control

A new fabrication route for polymer–silica composite foams is developed which includes (1) a homogeneous mixture of polymer, silicon alkoxide, and CO2 under high pressure and (2) multiple phase separations of the mixture induced by a pressure drop. The method provides a unique “vespula like” porous polymer composite in which the cells include spherical silica-rich microparticles. This is an important milestone for “isolated silica aerogel in a polymer foam” for high performance and flexible thermal insulators.
Face sketch recognition

Automatic retrieval of face images from police mug-shot databases is critically important for law enforcement agencies. It can effectively help investigators to locate or narrow down potential suspects. However, in many cases, a photo image of a suspect is not available and the best substitute is often a sketch drawing based on the recollection of an eyewitness. We present a novel photo retrieval system using face sketches. By transforming a photo image into a sketch, we reduce the difference between photo and sketch significantly, thus allowing effective matching between the two. Experiments over a data set containing 188 people clearly demonstrate the efficacy of the algorithm.
Aquatic Respiration Rate Measurements at Low Oxygen Concentrations

Despite its huge ecological importance, microbial oxygen respiration in pelagic waters is little studied, primarily due to methodological difficulties. Respiration measurements are challenging because of the required high resolution of oxygen concentration measurements. Recent improvements in oxygen sensing techniques bear great potential to overcome these limitations. Here we compare 3 different methods to measure oxygen consumption rates at low oxygen concentrations, utilizing amperometric Clark type sensors (STOX), optical sensors (optodes), and mass spectrometry in combination with 18-18O2 labeling. Oxygen concentrations and consumption rates agreed well between the different methods when applied in the same experimental setting. Oxygen consumption rates between 30 and 400 nmol L−1 h−1 were measured with high precision and relative standard errors of less than 3%. Rate detection limits in the range of 1 nmol L−1 h−1 were suitable for rate determinations in open ocean water and were lowest at the lowest applied O2 concentration.
Diagnosis of tuberculous peritonitis using endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration biopsy of the peritoneum.

BACKGROUND/AIMS Tuberculous peritonitis is prevalent in developing countries and its diagnosis is still challenging due to the lack of specific clinical characteristics and the difficulty in obtaining tissue from the peritoneum without laparoscopy. Endoscopic ultrasound - guided fine needle aspiration is emerging as the most effective and safe method for obtaining tissue from the structures surrounding the gut lumen. Our study aimed to elucidate the efficacy of endoscopic ultrasound-fine needle aspiration of the peritoneum in the diagnosis of tuberculous peritonitis. MATERIALS AND METHODS Three patients (2 male and 1 female; aged 38, 25, and 65 years, respectively) suspected of having tuberculous peritonitis were recruited into the study. Clinical evaluation including computed tomography imaging and analysis of ascitic fluid were performed. Endoscopic ultrasound-fine needle aspiration biopsy of the peritoneum was performed trans-gastrically with a 19-gauge ProCore needle in all patients. At least two different areas of the peritoneum suspected to be involved were sampled and paraffin-embedded cell blocks were prepared for each biopsy specimen. RESULTS Biopsy specimens were positive for Mycobacterium tuberculosis by polimerase chain reaction in 2 patients and positive for multinucleated giant cells in all patients. Treatment for tuberculosis resulted in the resolution of symptoms and ascites. No procedure- related complications occured. CONCLUSIONS Endoscopic ultrasound-fine needle aspiration is an efficacious and safe method to obtain tissue from the peritoneum to use in the diagnosis of tuberculous peritonitis.
Send Orders of Reprints at Reprints@benthamscience.org Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis -current Issues in Clinical Practice

Aims: To review current issues in the diagnosis and treatment of primary sclerosing cholangitis. Methods: search of PubMed using the terms " primary sclerosing cholangitis " , " PSC " , " cholangitis " and " cholestasis " , as well as by review of current guidelines from the major international liver societies. Results: Primary sclerosing cholangitis is still a challenging condition to diagnose and manage, but newer imaging modalities like MRCP and timing of liver transplantation point the way forward.
Automatic Bookmark Classification: A Collaborative Approach

Bookmarks (or Favorites, Hotlists) are a popular strategy to relocate interesting websites on the WWW by creating a personalized local URL repository. Most current browsers oer a facility to store and manage bookmarks in a hierarchy of folders; though, with growing size, users reportedly have trouble to create and maintain a stable taxonomy. This paper presents a novel collaborative approach to ease bookmark management, especially the “classification” of new bookmarks into a folder. We propose a methodology to realize the collaborative classification idea of considering how similar users have classified a bookmark. A combination of nearest-neighbour-classifiers is used to derive a recommendation from similar users on where to store a new bookmark. Additionally, a procedure to generate keyword recommendations is proposed to ease the annotation of new bookmarks. A prototype system called CariBo has been implemented as a plugin of the central bookmark server software SiteBar. A case study conducted with real user data supports the validity of the approach.
Automatic image capturing and processing for PetrolWatch

In our previous work [1], we proposed a Participatory Sensing (PS) architecture called PetrolWatch to collect and share fuel prices from camera images of road-side price board (billboard) of service (or gas) stations. A key part of the PetrolWatch architecture, and the main focus of this paper, is the automatic billboard image capture from a moving car without user intervention. We develop the system design and implementation of the automatic image collection for PetrolWatch. Capturing a clear image by an unassisted mobile phone from a moving car is proved to be a challenge by our street driving experiments. We design the camera control and image pre-selection schemes to address this challenge. In particular, we leverage the advanced capabilities of modern mobile phones to design an acceptable camera triggering range and set the camera focus accordingly. Experiment results show that our design improve fuel price extraction rate by more than 40%. To deal with blurred images caused by vehicle vibrations, we design a set of pre-selection thresholds based on the measures from embedded accelerometer of the mobile phone. Our experiments show that our pre-selection improves the system efficiency by eliminating 78.57% of the blurred images.
Authenticated Key Agreement with Rekeying for Secured Body Sensor Networks

Many medical systems are currently equipped with a large number of tiny, non-invasive sensors, located on, or close to, the patient’s body for health monitoring purposes. These groupings of sensors constitute a body sensor network (BSN). Key management is a fundamental service for medical BSN security. It provides and manages the cryptographic keys to enable essential security features such as confidentiality, integrity and authentication. Achieving key agreement in BSNs is a difficult task. Many key agreement schemes lack sensor addition, revocation, and rekeying properties, which are very important. Our proposed protocol circumvents these shortcomings by providing node rekeying properties, as well as node addition and revocation. It proposes a key distribution protocol based on public key cryptography—the RSA (Rivest, Shamir and Adleman) algorithm, and the DHECC (Diffie-Hellman Elliptic Curve Cryptography) algorithm. The proposed protocol does not trust individual sensors, and partially trusts the base station (hospital). Instead of loading full pair-wise keys into each node, after installation our protocol establishes pair-wise keys between nodes according to a specific routing algorithm. In this case, each node doesn’t have to share a key with all of its neighbors, only those involved in the routing path; this plays a key role in increasing the resiliency against node capture attacks and the network storage efficiency. Finally we evaluate our algorithm from the BSN security viewpoint and evaluate its performance in comparison with other proposals.
On the design of agent-based systems using UML and extensions

The Unified Software Development Process (USDP) and Unified Modeling Language (UML) have been now generally accepted as the standard methodology and modeling language for developing object-oriented systems. Although agent-based systems introduce new issues, we consider that USDP and UML can be used in an extended manner for modeling agent-based systems. We present a methodology for designing agent-based systems and the specific models expressed in the UML-based notation corresponding to each phase of the software development process. UML was extended using the provided mechanism: stereotypes. Therefore, this approach can be managed with any CASE tool supporting UML. A case study, the development of a specific agent-based student assessment system (SAS), is presented.
A transport protocol for content-centric networking with explicit congestion control

Content-centric networking (CCN) adopts a receiver-driven, hop-by-hop transport approach that facilitates in-network caching, which in turn leads to multiple sources and multiple paths for transferring content. In such a case, keeping a single round trip time (RTT) estimator for a multi-path flow is insufficient as each path may experience different round trip times. To solve this problem, it has been proposed to use multiple RTT estimators to predict network condition. In this paper, we examine an alternative approach to this problem, CHoPCoP, which utilizes explicit congestion control to cope with the multiple-source, multiple-path situation. Protocol design innovations of CHoPCoP include a random early marking (REM) scheme that explicitly signals network congestion, and a per-hop fair share Interest shaping algorithm (FISP) and a receiver Interest control method (RIC) that regulate the Interest rates at routers and the receiver respectively. We have implemented CHoPCoP on the ORBIT testbed and conducted experiments under various network and traffic settings. The evaluation shows that CHoPCoP is a viable approach that can effectively deal with congestion in the multipath environment.
A pathway to subwavelength imaging using a metamaterial superlens

Recent theoretical works have suggested the possibility of constructing a diffraction-free lens by using a negative refractive index medium (NRIM). The key theoretical proposition is that evanescent waves can be greatly enhanced by increasing the thickness of the NRIM. We present here experimental evidence on enhanced transmission of evanescent waves via surface plasmon at a thin silver film operating near surface plasma resonant frequency. We found the transmission of evanescent waves rapidly grows with the film thickness up to about 50 nm, after which it decays as loss becomes significant. These experiments also demonstrated the broadening of enhanced transmission spectrum as photon energy approaches plasma resonance εAg = -1 condition. These findings represent the first step toward the understanding and realization of a diffraction-free lens by using NRIM.
Friction Stir Welding of 900MPa Grade TWIP Steel

Friction stir welding (FSW) was successfully performed about 900MPa grade Twinning Induced Plastisity (TWIP) steel. A PCBN tool with convex-type shoulder was applied. Optimal process conditions were deduced. Microstructure and mechanical properties such as hardness, tensile strength and impact absorbed energy were observed and evaluated, respectively. An optical microscope (OM) and a field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM) was selected for observing the grain structure.
A Non-Parametric Statistical Approach for Malicious Users Detection in Cognitive Wireless Ad-Hoc Networks

In cognitive wireless ad-hoc networks the cooperative sensing achieves more accurate results than non-cooperative ones. However, it also exposes the network to attacks. In this paper an algorithm based on the non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis test is proposed to detect malicious users without having any a priori knowledge. The algorithm makes use of the existing statistical differences between the cooperative decision and the non-cooperative decisions. Once an attack of malicious users is detected, the Conover-Inman post-hoc method is used to discern between honest and malicious users.