Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The significance and outcome of continuous positive airway pressure-related central sleep apnea during split-night sleep studies.

OBJECTIVE To determine whether central sleep apnea (CSA) occurring during continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) titration in patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) reflects subclinical congestive heart failure (CHF), and whether these events will improve with CPAP therapy. DESIGN Cross-sectional analysis of patients with suspected sleep-related breathing disorders referred for split-night polysomnography PATIENTS AND METHODS Forty-two OSA patients with and without CPAP-related CSA were analyzed. All CSA patients (n = 21) and control subjects (n = 21) underwent echocardiography, pulmonary function testing, and arterial blood gas (ABG) analysis. Repeat polysomnography with CPAP was performed 2 to 3 months after adequate CPAP therapy in CSA group patients. RESULTS Demographic, Epworth sleepiness scale, pulmonary function test, ABG, and baseline diagnostic polysomnography findings were similar in both groups. There was no difference in the prevalence of subclinical left ventricular systolic dysfunction in the CSA group vs the control group. CSA patients had decreased sleep efficiency (SE), increased sleep stage 1 percentage, sleep stages shift, wake time after sleep onset (WASO), and total arousals compared to control subjects. Twelve of 14 patients (92%) in the CSA group demonstrated complete or near-complete resolution of CSA events on follow-up polysomnography and showed improvement in SE, WASO, and total arousals compared to their baseline study. CONCLUSIONS CSA events occurring during CPAP titration are transient and self-limited. They may be precipitated by the sleep fragmentation associated with initial CPAP titration and are not associated with an increased prevalence of occult CHF compared to OSA patients without CPAP-related CSA.
SCRIPT Passive Orthosis: Design and technical evaluation of the wrist and hand orthosis for rehabilitation training at home

In this paper, a new hand and wrist exoskeleton design, the SCRIPT Passive Orthosis (SPO), for the rehabilitation after stroke is presented. The SPO is a wrist, hand, and finger orthosis that assists individuals after stroke that suffer from impairments caused by spasticity and abnormal synergies. These impairments are characterized in the wrist and hand by excessive involuntary flexion torques that make the hand unable to be used for many activities in daily life. The SPO can passively offset these undesired torques, but it cannot actively generate or control movements. The user needs to use voluntary muscle activation to perform movements and thus needs to have some residual muscle control to successfully use the SPO. The SPO offsets the excessive internal flexion by applying external extension torques to the joints of the wrist and fingers. The SPO physically interacts with the users using the forearm shell, the hand plate and the digit caps from the Saebo Flex, but is otherwise a completely novel design. It applies the external extension torques via passive leaf springs and elastic tension cords. The amount of this support can be adjusted to provide more or less offset force to wrist, finger, or thumb extension, manually. The SPO is equipped with sensors that can give a rough estimate of the joint rotations and applied torques, sufficient to make the orthosis interact with our interactive gaming environment. Integrated inertial and gyroscopic sensors provide limited information on the user's forearm posture. The first home-based patient experiences have already let to several issues being resolved, but have also made it clear that many improvement are still to be made.
Infants' Ability to Learn New Words Across Accent

Title of Document: INFANTS’ ABILITY TO LEARN NEW WORDS ACROSS ACCENT Sabrina Panza, Master of Arts, 2011 Directed By: Dr. Rochelle Newman Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences The purpose of this study was to explore the phonetic flexibility of oddlers’ early lexical representations. In this study (based on Schmale, et al., 2011), toddle rs’ ability to generalize newly learned words across speaker accent was measured using a split-screen preferential looking paradigm. Twenty-four toddlers (mean age = 29 mont hs) were taught two new words by a Spanish-accented speaker and later tested by a native English speaker. One word had a phonological (vocalic) change across speaker accent (e.g., [fim]/[ feem]), while the other word did not (e.g., [ mef]/[mef]). Toddlers looked to the correct object significantly longer than chance only when the targ et label did not phonemically differ across accent. However, toddlers did not look longer to the nonphonemic target variant than the phonemic variant. High variability etween subjects was noted and the potential need for additional exposure prior to testing infant s on such a contrast is discussed. INFANTS’ ABILITY TO LEARN NEW WORDS ACROSS ACCENT
Poly-logarithmic deterministic fully-dynamic algorithms for connectivity, minimum spanning tree, 2-edge, and biconnectivity

Deterministic fully dynamic graph algorithms are presented for connectivity, minimum spanning tree, 2-edge connectivity, and biconnectivity. Assuming that we start with no edges in a graph with <i>n</i> vertices, the amortized operation costs are <i>O</i>(log<sup>2</sup> <i>n</i>) for connectivity, <i>O</i>(log<sup>4</sup> <i>n</i>) for minimum spanning forest, 2-edge connectivity, and <i>O</i>(log<sup>5</sup> <i>n</i>) biconnectivity.
An Adaptive Multiresolution Mesh Representation for CPU-GPU Coupled Computation

In this paper, we present an adaptive multiresolution mesh representation exploring the computational differences of the CPU and the GPU. We build our representation considering a dense-polygon mesh simpliﬁed to a base mesh which stores the original geometry by means of an atlas structure. For both simpliﬁcation and reﬁnement processes, we present a hierarchical method based on stellar operators. During simpliﬁcation, we compute local parametrizations to generate charts and an atlas structure to be used later in reﬁnement. Unlike previous approaches, we employ the simpliﬁed mesh as our base domain in a novel atlas descriptor using a specialized halfedge data structure combined with our charts. Finally, we show that our mesh representation can be used to adaptively control the mesh resolution in CPU-GPU coupled applications, including mesh editing and visualization. Categories and Subject Descriptors (according to ACM CCS) : I.3. 5 [Computer Graphics]: Computational Geometry and Object Modeling—Curve, surface, solid, and object representations; I.3. 6 [Computer Graphics]: Methodology and Techniques—Graphics data structures and data types.
ANIMATION SYSTEM BASED ON TOUCH INTERFACE AND EFFICIENT CREATION TOOLS Anonymous ICME submission

Recently importance of tablet devices with touch interface increases significantly, because they attract not only mobile phone users, but also people of all generations including small kids to elderly people. One key technology on those devices is 3D graphics; some of them exceed the ability of desktop PCs. Although currently 3D graphics are only used for game applications, it also has a great potential for other purposes. For example, an interactive 3D animation system for tablet devices has been developed recently and attracts many people. With the system, multiple 3D animations are played depending on view direction and user’s gesture input. However, the system still has two critical issues: the first one is a complicated process for data creation, and the other is a conflict on several gestures overlapped at the same position. In the paper, the first issue is solved by using a realtime range sensor and the second one is solved by considering the relationship between the 3D object and the input 2D gesture. The effectiveness of the system was proved by making the real system and creating and manipulating the actual 3D animations.
The effect of Panax ginseng and diazepam on brain and hypothalamic 5-hydroxytryptamine during stress

Objective: To see the efect of anti-stress agents like Panax ginseng and diazepam on stress-induced elevation of 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) in brain and hypothalamus of rats. Methods: 5-HT was estimated in brain and hypothalamus of rats by spectrophotofluorometry with simultaneous fluorimetric estimation of corticosterone as an index of activation of hypothalamo-hypophyseal- adrenal axis. Results: Panax ginseng and diazepam both per se did not modify brain and hypothalamic 5-HT in unstressed rats. But both of them attenuated stress-induced elevation of brin and hypothalamic 5-HT. Conclusion: Mediation of 5-HT in anti-stress effect of Panax ginseng and diazepam can not be conjectured, as they may have a non specific anti-stress effect.
Detecting man-made objects in unconstrained subsea videos

We present a system detecting the presence of unconstrained man-made objects in unconstrained subsea videos. Classification is based on contours, which are reasonably stable features in underwater imagery. First, the system determines automatically an optimal scale for contour extraction by optimising a quality metric. Second, a two-feature Bayesian classifier determines whether the image contains man-made objects. The features used capture general properties of man-made structures using measures inspired by perceptual organisation. The system classified correctly approximately 85% of 1390 test images from five different underwater videos, in spite of the varying image contents, poor quality and generality of the classification task.
Package-Role Based Authorization Control Model for Wireless Network Services

Authorization and authentication services are the major components protecting integrity and authenticity. Authorization control service provides a mechanism to verify user permission to access services. In wireless networks, not only users may change roles but also services can be added, removed or modified more frequently. Although Role-Based Access Control or RBAC can simplify the management of dynamic users, it does not consider dynamic permissions between roles and services. To allow dynamic permission assignment between roles and services, in this paper, we present an authorization control model extended from RBAC using packages. The authorization control is specially designed to achieve optimal cost for large scale and dynamic networks of users and services.
Combined application of kalman filtering and correlation towards autonomous helicopter landing

Autonomous helicopter landing is a challenging problem in the field of aerial robotics. An autonomous maneuver depends largely on two capabilities: the decision of where to land and the generation of control signals to guide the vehicle to a safe landing. Here we present a control system that enables a helicopter to land on a stationary target (landmark) on the ground. The autonomous landing control process uses visual information to control the position, height as well as the orientation of the helicopter relative to the target for a safe and accurate landing. A remote controlled helicopter is used for the landing tests. The vision system, i.e., a wireless camera is mounted on the body of the helicopter and pointing downwards. The control algorithm is designed in MATLAB which issues control signals to the remote control of the helicopter based on the actual and desired visual inputs to the computer control system. The designed strategy of control is totally dynamics free as long as the helicopter and camera hardware's are concern. The closed loop system is established through virtual feedback system having visual information. The application of kalman filter (KF) is used for controlling the position and height of the helicopter. An individual controller is implemented for the orientation control based on the pattern-correlation of images.
Superiority of mitral valve repair in surgery for degenerative mitral regurgitation.

OBJECTIVES We aimed to assess the influence of type of operation on outcome in degenerative mitral regurgitation. METHODS We compared outcomes in 278 consecutive patients who underwent mitral valve repair (167 patients), replacement with subvalvular preservation (22 patients) and without subvalvular preservation (89 patients) for degenerative mitral regurgitation. RESULTS There was a trend towards lower mortality with repair and replacement with subvalvular preservation compared to replacement without subvalvular preservation. Thirty-day mortality was 1.2% vs 0.0% vs 4.7% (ns) respectively. Six-year survival was, respectively, 67.8 +/- 7.4% (P = 0.088) vs 80.8 +/- 11.0% (P = 0.25) vs 63.3 +/- 5.9% for all-cause death, 78.5 +/- 6.8% (P = 0.063) vs 95.5 +/- 4.4% (P = 0.092) vs 67.6 +/- 5.9% for all complication-related death and 80.5 +/- 6.9% (P = 0.076) vs 100.0 +/- 0.0% (P = 0.045) vs 72.8 +/- 5.8% for complication-related death due to myocardial failure. Multivariate analysis confirmed independent beneficial effects from repair compared to replacement without subvalvular preservation on complication-related death (hazard ratio 0.42, P = 0.010) and death from myocardial failure (hazard ratio 0.40, P = 0.014), and from repair compared to mechanical replacement on thromboembolism (hazard ratio 0.45, P = 0.029) and anticoagulation-related haemorrhage (hazard ratio 0.19, P = 0.026). CONCLUSIONS Mitral valve repair is superior to replacement. The greatest survival advantage is in reduced mortality from myocardial failure. Repair should be the operation of choice for degenerative mitral regurgitation.
Novel quaternion matrix factorisations

The recent introduction of η-Hermitian matrices A = AηH has opened a new avenue of research in quaternion signal processing. However, the exploitation of this matrix structure has been limited, perhaps due to the lack of joint diagonalisation methodologies of these matrices. As such, we propose novel decompositions of η-Hermitian matrices to address this shortcoming in the literature. As an application, we consider a blind source separation problem in the form of an Alamouti-based communication system. Simulation studies demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed joint diago-nalisation technique and indicate that our approach is particularly useful when the sources are correlated.
Engaging Bioanthropology College Students: The Role of Active and Cooperative Pedagogies

This dissertation examines the design and implementation of an active, cooperative pedagogy in an undergraduate biological anthropology course. The research draws upon a theoretical framework constructed from anthropology, education, and psychology research. The pedagogy studied was developed for and used in the laboratory component of a large, introductory course at the University of California at Berkeley. As such, the results of this research are relevant to not only other biological anthropology courses but also other large, introductory courses or laboratory-based courses in related disciplines. The dissertation evaluates the efficacy of the stated pedagogy by answering the following questions: Does the pedagogy effectively engage students of all learning styles in higher-level thinking? Does the pedagogy effectively promote high quality student learning, particularly learning of high-level course material? Does the pedagogy effectively foster long-term retention of key course concepts and higher-level thinking across students of various learning styles? Three lines of evidence are employed to answer these research questions. To address issues of student engagement, classroom observations of students are qualitatively evaluated. Student performance on the final exam in the course is statistically analyzed to answer questions related to initial student learning. In considering issues of student retention from a longitudinal perspective, student performance on a follow-up survey (administered between three months and two years after course completion) is statistically analyzed. Research presented here suggests the pedagogy does effectively promote student engagement with course material and foster students' long-term retention of learned course material. This efficacy is similar for students of different learning styles and generally applies to both low-level and high-level course material. Preliminary findings also suggest the pedagogy effectively promotes high quality student learning, including learning of high-level material. It is argued that the stated pedagogy is effective and that this and similar pedagogies could be usefully employed in similar courses in anthropology and biology. Within higher education, generally, and the discipline of anthropology, specifically, there is growing concern over how to effectively teach undergraduate students. The research discussed here provides evidence that active, cooperative approaches to undergraduate anthropology instruction are successful in promoting student engagement, learning, and retention. This research also provides a template for the evaluation of pedagogical approaches that can be applied to future investigations of various pedagogies used in anthropology instruction.
Toward combining intra-real time dispatch (RTD) and AGC for on-line power balancing

In this paper we propose first a predictive adaptive intra-RTD dispatch comprising: (1) Intra-RTD non-zero mean predictor which utilizes historic data about various uncertainties to predict the most likely non-zero mean imbalances; and, (2) Adaptive controller for non-zero mean intra-RTD imbalances using two-stage robust optimization. The result of applying these methods sequentially at the beginning of each RTD interval is the least-cost robust adaptation of RTD schedules in anticipation of the most likely non-zero mean imbalances. We illustrate how this proposed predictive adaptive intra-RTD dispatch can be implemented for a typical hour. Second, only hard-to-predict near-zero-mean imbalances are compensated using Automatic Generation Control (AGC). The basic conclusion is that a combination of predictive adaptive intra-RTD and recently proposed Enhanced-AGC (E-AGC) should be used for the least cost on-line balancing of non-zero mean and zero mean imbalances, respectively.
Power Redistribution for Optimizing Performance in MPI Clusters

Power efficiency has recently become a major concern in the high-performance computing domain. HPC centers are provisioned by a power bound which impacts execution time. Naturally, a tradeoff arises between power efficiency and computational efficiency. This paper tackles the problem of performance optimization for MPI applications, where a power bound is assumed. The paper exposes a subset of HPC applications that leverage cluster parallelism using MPI, where nodes encounter multiple synchronization points and exhibit inter-node dependency. We abstract this structure into a dependency graph, and leverage the asymmetry in execution time of parallel jobs on different nodes by redistributing power gained from idling a blocked node to nodes that are lagging in their jobs. We introduce a solution based on integer linear programming (ILP) for optimal power distribution algorithm that minimizes total execution time, while maintaining an upper power bound. We then present an online heuristic that dynamically redistributes power at run time. The heuristic shows significant reductions in total execution time of a set of parallel benchmarks with speedup up to 2.25x.
Acetaldehyde involvement in ethanol's postabsortive effects during early ontogeny

Clinical and biomedical studies sustains the notion that early ontogeny is a vulnerable window to the impact of alcohol. Experiences with the drug during these stages increase latter disposition to prefer, use or abuse ethanol. This period of enhanced sensitivity to ethanol is accompanied by a high rate of activity in the central catalase system, which metabolizes ethanol in the brain. Acetaldehyde (ACD), the first oxidation product of ethanol, has been found to share many neurobehavioral effects with the drug. Cumulative evidence supports this notion in models employing adults. Nevertheless very few studies have been conducted to analyze the role of ACD in ethanol postabsorptive effects, in newborns or infant rats. In this work we review recent experimental literature that syndicates ACD as a mediator agent of reinforcing aspects of ethanol, during early ontogenetic stages. We also show a meta-analytical correlational approach that proposes how differences in the activity of brain catalase across ontogeny, could be modulating patterns of ethanol consumption.
Duplex mode selection and channel allocation for full-duplex cognitive femtocell networks

In this paper, we investigate the problem of incorporating full-duplex (FD) transmission in cognitive femtocell networks (CFN) to achieve higher spectrum utilization. We aim to maximize the sum rate of a full-duplex cognitive femtocell network (FDCFN) as well as guaranteeing the quality of service (QoS) of users in the form of a required signal to interference plus noise ratios (SINR). We propose a duplex mode selection strategy based on stable roommate matching, as well as a greedy channel allocation algorithm with a proven performance bound. Numerical results show that the proposed schemes effectively improve the sum rate of the FDCFN.
Accuracy of Five Domestic Violence Screening Questions With Nongraphic Language

To assess the accuracy of 5 domestic violence screening questions designed with less graphic language that they may be appropriate when children are present, mothers (n = 400) were recruited from primary care waiting rooms. Sensitivities, specificities, and predictive values were calculated using the revised Conflict Tactic Scale. “How do you and your partner work out arguments? ” was the best individual question (area under the receiver operating characteristics curve 0.82, sensitivity 25%, specificity 97.7%). The 3-question combination with the domains of argument, safety, and manner of treating you and the children had the best results (area under the receiver operating characteristics curve 0.86, sensitivity 45.5%, and specificity 94.6%). The high specificity suggests a less graphic and potentially more acceptable group of questions for introductory discussions about domestic violence.
On the Heroism of Really Pursuing Formal Methods

Formal methods have been "preached" as a means to achieve better reliability and other qualities in software and systems for half a century. Despite many success stories confirmed their effectiveness, there is still much reluctance (not only) in the industrial world to apply them on a large scale. In this paper I add my modest personal view to the rich and long-standing debate on the reasons of this apparent failure, I examine the main challenges to face and the most promising symptoms to hope into an improved state of the affairs.
An evaluation of enhancing social tagging with a knowledge organization system

Purpose – Traditional subject indexing and classification are considered infeasible in many digital collections. This paper seeks to investigate ways of enhancing social tagging via knowledge organization systems, with a view to improving the quality of tags for increased information discovery and retrieval performance.Design/methodology/approach – Enhanced tagging interfaces were developed for exemplar online repositories, and trials were undertaken with author and reader groups to evaluate the effectiveness of tagging augmented with control vocabulary for subject indexing of papers in online repositories.Findings – The results showed that using a knowledge organisation system to augment tagging does appear to increase the effectiveness of non‐specialist users (that is, without information science training) in subject indexing.Research limitations/implications – While limited by the size and scope of the trials undertaken, these results do point to the usefulness of a mixed approach in supporting the sub.