Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Knowledge Processing and Decision Support Systems

The section on knowledge processing and decision support systems contains four papers. One paper highlights methodological issues in developing and evaluating predictive clinical models. Although the emphasis is on artificial neural networks, most of the points apply to all types of predictive models. The remaining three papers in the section are about guidelines. Two evaluate guidelines that are integrated into the physicians’ workflow; they show increased physician compliance with the use of computer-based guidelines. The other describes a novel method for converting decision models into guidelines; this paper describes a pilot study that shows relatively high user subjective satisfaction with the generated guidelines. The remainder of this synopsis discusses each paper in turn.
MAPLE: reflected light from exoplanets with a 50-cm diameter stratospheric balloon telescope

Detecting light reflected from exoplanets by direct imaging is the next major milestone in the search for, and characterization of, an Earth twin. Due to the high-risk and cost associated with satellites and limitations imposed by the atmosphere for ground-based instruments, we propose a bottom-up approach to reach that ultimate goal with an endeavor named MAPLE. MAPLE first project is a stratospheric balloon experiment called MAPLE-50. MAPLE-50 consists of a 50 cm diameter off-axis telescope working in the near-UV. The advantages of the near-UV are a small inner working angle and an improved contrast for blue planets. Along with the sophisticated tracking system to mitigate balloon pointing errors, MAPLE-50 will have a deformable mirror, a vortex coronograph, and a self-coherent camera as a focal plane wavefront-sensor which employs an Electron Multiplying CCD (EMCCD) as the science detector. The EMCCD will allow photon counting at kHz rates, thereby closely tracking telescope and instrument-bench-induced aberrations as they evolve with time. In addition, the EMCCD will acquire the science data with almost no read noise penalty. To mitigate risk and lower costs, MAPLE-50 will at first have a single optical channel with a minimum of moving parts. The goal is to reach a few times 109 contrast in 25 h worth of flying time, allowing direct detection of Jovians around the nearest stars. Once the 50 cm infrastructure has been validated, the telescope diameter will then be increased to a 1.5 m diameter (MAPLE-150) to reach 1010 contrast and have the capability to image another Earth.
Points of controversy in the O‐2A lineage: Clocks and type‐2 astrocytes

In this short review I will present my views on two areas of controversy related to research on the O-2A progenitor cell. I will discuss some of the evidence for and against: 1) the existence of a cell-intrinsic timing mechanism, which contributes to the appropriately timed differenciation of O-2A progenitors into oligodendrocytes, and 2) the existence in vivo of type-2 astrocytes
Fuzzy neural network in case-based diagnostic system

Diagnosing electronic systems for symptoms supplied by customers is often difficult as human descriptions of symptoms are for the most part uncertain and ambiguous. As a result, traditional expert systems are not effective in providing reliable analysis, often require a large set of rules, and lack flexibility in terms of learning and modification. In this paper, we propose a fuzzy logic-based neural network (FLBN) to develop a case-based system for diagnosing symptoms in electronic systems. We demonstrate through data obtained from a real call-log database that the FLBN is able to perform fuzzy AND/OR logic rules and to learn from samples. Such a system is simple to develop and can achieve the performance similar to that of the human expert.
Fluorescence-Guided Surgery of Retroperitoneal-Implanted Human Fibrosarcoma in Nude Mice Delays or Eliminates Tumor Recurrence and Increases Survival Compared to Bright-Light Surgery

The aim of this study is to determine if fluorescence-guided surgery (FGS) can eradicate human fibrosarcoma growing in the retroperitoneum of nude mice. One week after retroperitoneal implantation of human HT1080 fibrosarcoma cells, expressing green fluorescent protein (GFP) (HT-1080-GFP), in nude mice, bright-light surgery (BLS) was performed on all tumor-bearing mice (n = 22). After BLS, mice were randomized into 2 treatment groups; BLS-only (n = 11) or the combination of BLS + FGS (n = 11). The residual tumors remaining after BLS were resected with FGS using a hand-held portable imaging system under fluorescence navigation. The average residual tumor area after BLS + FGS was significantly smaller than after BLS-only (0.4 ± 0.4 mm2 and 10.5 ± 2.4 mm2, respectively; p = 0.006). Five weeks after surgery, the fluorescent-tumor areas of BLS- and BLS + FGS-treated mice were 379 ± 147 mm2 and 11.7 ± 6.9 mm2, respectively, indicating that FGS greatly inhibited tumor recurrence compared to BLS. The combination of BLS + FGS significantly decreased fibrosarcoma recurrence compared to BLS-only treated mice (p < 0.001). Mice treated with BLS+FGS had a significantly higher disease-free survival rate than mice treated with BLS-only at five weeks after surgery. These results suggest that combination of BLS + FGS significantly reduced the residual fibrosarcoma volume after BLS and improved disease-free survival.
Performances comparison of different concentrated-winding configurations for 5-phase PMSG in normal and faulty modes in flux weakening operation for fixed pitch tidal turbines

This paper aims to evaluate some configurations of windings for low speed high power 5-phase permanent magnet synchronous generators (PMSG) associated to fixed pitch tidal turbines. Several Fractional-Slot Concentrated-Windings has been considered and compared for these specifications. The proposed structures are compared in terms of torque VS speed characteristics, including flux weakening operation, in healthy and faulty modes. In fault mode, the failure of one and two phases is considered. The results show that concentrated windings can be particularly useful for these particular specifications.
Inference With Difference-in-Differences With a Small Number of Groups: A Review, Simulation Study, and Empirical Application Using SHARE Data

Background: Difference-in-differences (DID) estimation has become increasingly popular as an approach to evaluate the effect of a group-level policy on individual-level outcomes. Several statistical methodologies have been proposed to correct for the within-group correlation of model errors resulting from the clustering of data. Little is known about how well these corrections perform with the often small number of groups observed in health research using longitudinal data. Methods: First, we review the most commonly used modeling solutions in DID estimation for panel data, including generalized estimating equations (GEE), permutation tests, clustered standard errors (CSE), wild cluster bootstrapping, and aggregation. Second, we compare the empirical coverage rates and power of these methods using a Monte Carlo simulation study in scenarios in which we vary the degree of error correlation, the group size balance, and the proportion of treated groups. Third, we provide an empirical example using the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe. Results: When the number of groups is small, CSE are systematically biased downwards in scenarios when data are unbalanced or when there is a low proportion of treated groups. This can result in over-rejection of the null even when data are composed of up to 50 groups. Aggregation, permutation tests, bias-adjusted GEE, and wild cluster bootstrap produce coverage rates close to the nominal rate for almost all scenarios, though GEE may suffer from low power. Conclusions: In DID estimation with a small number of groups, analysis using aggregation, permutation tests, wild cluster bootstrap, or bias-adjusted GEE is recommended.
Comparison of commercially available software tools for microprocessor programming

The software tools used to develop a microcomputer-based product can have a substantial effect on the development costs, development time cycle, and reliability, of that product. The power and the appropriateness of the commercially available software tools for programming microprocessors vary significantly. Hence, in addition to evaluating the appropriateness of a microprocessor for a particular product, the systems designer must also evaluate the software tools available for that microprocessor. This paper describes the various kinds of software support tools that are commercially available for programming microprocessor. The functions and features of the tool categories of editors, assemblers and compilers, loaders, simulators, and debuggers are discussed. Tradeoffs between cross-computer and resident tools are presented. Finally, an itemized fist of assembler features which support good program design is presented and six commercially available microprocessor assemblers (Fairchild's F8 assembler, Intel's 8080 assembler, Motorola's 6800 assembler, National's IMP-16 assembler, Rockwell's PPS-8 assembler, and Signetics' 2650 assembler) are compared on the extent to which they provide these features.
Drogue Position and Tracking with Machine Vision for Autonomous Air Refueling Based on EKF

For autonomous air refueling (AAR) of unmanned aircraft, the measurement of relative position between receiver aircraft and tanker aircraft is critical in the docking phase. This paper proposes a monocular vision-based relative position estimation method, which calculates the location coordinate by recognizing the beacons on the drogue with image processing. To increase the robustness for rejecting air disturbance and improve output frequency of drogue detection, the extended Kalman filter is applied to this system for estimating the states. The EKF can provides position estimation of drogue in camera frame if the image detection failed because of disturbance. And the region of interest (ROI) can be estimated according to the predicted drogue position in pixel frame, which reduce the time of image processing significantly. In order to evaluate the performance of this machine vision strategy for AAR based on EKF, a simulation validation platform is established. The real relative position can be obtained on this platform, the comparison between real values and estimated values indicates that the EKF has a high accuracy on drogue position estimation, meanwhile, the ROI can track the drogue smoothly.
Low-loss bend-bend coupler for Si-based ultra-small microrings resonator

This paper presents a bend-bend coupler for an ultrasmall silicon-on-insulator based microring resonator to reduce the loss at the coupling region between the access waveguides and the microring. Furthermore, a large free-spectral range as well as an enhanced coupling coefficient is obtained. The multi-mode effect is also reduced.
Learning ontology relations by combining corpus-based techniques and reasoning on data from semantic web sources

Ontologies are formal and shared conceptualizations of domains of interest, and are a crucial ingredient to the Semantic Web and to knowledge-based applications. The manual construction of ontologies is a cumbersome and expensive undertaking, a lot of research effort has been invested developing methods to (semi)automatically learn ontologies. In contrast to existing approaches to ontology learning, which are typically either applied to natural language text or to structured information sources, this doctoral thesis proposes a novel approach that combines corpus-based methods with knowledge extracted from Semantic Web sources for learning non-taxonomic relations in ontologies. The corpus-based methods use vector space model similarities of verbs co-occurring with unlabeled and labeled relations to calculate relation label suggestions from an arbitrary but specified set of label candidates. The integration of additional semantics gained from reasoning on data from external sources such as DBpedia and OpenCyc links domain concepts to concepts from a meta ontology. This information from semantic inference and validation then helps to refine label suggestions generated by the corpus-based methods on the basis of ontological restrictions defined upon the meta ontology. A formal evaluation presents the accuracy and average ranking precision of the proposed hybrid approach. It demonstrates the superior performance as compared to methods that solely rely on domain text data or those that only build upon reasoning on external structured data sources. Gerhard Wohlgenannt 9783631753842 Downloaded from PubFactory at 12/13/2018 04:19:14PM via free access Gerhard Wohlgenannt 9783631753842 Downloaded from PubFactory at 12/13/2018 04:19:14PM via free access
Observer-based Tracking and Identi cation of Chaotic Systems with Application to Chaotic Communication Through Noisy Channel

| A novel observer for tracking and identifying a chaotic system with time-varying bifurcation parameters via an observation signal contaminated by additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) is developed in this paper. It is realized by an adaptive algorithm which takes advantage of the good approximation capability of the Radial Basis Function (RBF) neural network and the ability of the Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) for tracking a time-varying dynamical system. It is demonstrated that, provided the bifurcation parameter varies slowly in a time window, a chaotic dynamical system can be tracked and identi ed continuously, and the time-varying bifurcation parameter can also be retrieved in a sub-window of time via a simple least-squaret method. The proposed tracking and parameter retrieval method can be used in a chaotic modulation/demodulation system where a message is represented by the parameter variation and carried by a wideband chaotic signal.
Web design: a key factor for the website success

Purpose – Web design has been identified as a key factor for the acceptance and success of the websites and electronic commerce. The purpose of this paper is to analyse, from a marketing point of view the main aspects that could influence online users' perceptions and behaviours, in order to achieve a successful e‐commerce website.Design/methodology/approach – An extensive literature review was developed emphasising the special role that web design could play in the interaction user‐interface. Besides, the methodology related to benchmarking allows firms to know the best practices and to learn some key lessons for developing their businesses online.Findings – The literature review affirms that web design is a key factor for getting positive outcomes as it influences on users and online consumers' perceptions and behaviours. A website design addressed to simplicity and freedom of navigation provides clear, timely and accurate information in all its contents and an appearance that calls for the users' atten.
Contrasting Orthogonal and Non-orthogonal Space-Time Schemes for Perfectly-Known and Estimated MIMO Channels

We consider the space-time coding issue in MIMO structures and compare the two potential choices of orthogonal and non-orthogonal schemes with a simple iterative detector for the latter case. We show that the choice of non-orthogonal schemes is quite rational and justified, regarding the substantial gain that we can obtain, compared to orthogonal coding. Two cases of perfectly-known channel at receiver and pilot-only-based channel estimation are studied
Primary Production: Sensitivity to Surface Irradiance and Implications for Archiving Data

An equation is derived to express the sensitivity of daily, watercolumn production by phytoplankton in the ocean to variations in irradiance at the sea surface. Assuming no spectral effects, and a vertically uniform chlorophyll profile, the sensitivity is a function only of the dimensionless irradiance. Spectral effects can be accounted for as a function of the chlorophyll concentration. At the global scale, the relative reduction in daily production consequent on halving the surface irradiance (representing the expected scope for variation in surface irradiance under natural conditions) is found to be from 30% to 40%. Choice of data source for irradiance may incur a further systematic error of up to 15%. Given that local irradiance (the principal forcing for primary production) may vary from day to day, the issue of how to archive production data for the most generality is discussed and recommendations made in this regard.
Role of neurosecretory cells in the photoperiodic induction of pupal diapause of the tobacco hornworm Manduca sexta

In the tobacco hornworm, Manduca sexta, pupal diapause can be induced by exposure of fifth‐instar larvae to a short‐day photoperiod. We studied the effect of surgical ablation of tissues containing the neurosecretory cells of the brain of fifth‐instar larvae on the photoperiodic induction of pupal diapause. At the end of the experiments, we immunostained the neurosecretory cells to determine the success of the ablations. Under long‐day conditions (LD 16:8 at 22°C), all intact larvae, most of the sham‐operated larvae, and control‐operated larvae developed into nondiapausing pupae. Under short‐day conditions (LD 10:14 at 22°C), most intact, sham‐operated, and control‐operated larvae developed into diapausing pupae. Removal of type‐II cells did not interfere with the photoperiodic response. Under long‐day conditions, elimination of type‐Ia1 cells did not affect the incidence of nondiapausing pupae. When type‐Ia1 cells were removed under short‐day conditions, however, the incidence of nondiapausing pupae was higher (51%, n = 41) than that of the intact (16%, n = 75), sham‐operated (24%, n = 88), control‐operated larvae (5%, n = 40), and larvae with type‐II cells removed (11%, n = 27). Thus, removal of type‐Ia1 cells can impede induction of diapause. These results indicate that the type‐Ia1 neurosecretory cells have an important role in the induction of pupal diapause. J. Comp. Neurol. 462:275–285, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Quantitative estimates of the optimal balance between digestible lysine and the true protein contents of broiler feeds

Abstract Typical poultry feed formulation models have been developed for meeting the minimum specifications of the essential amino acids (EAAs), ignoring the importance of providing precise levels of the non-essential amino acids (NEAAs) that are required for maximum performance. Including true protein (TP) values in these models in relation to EAAs can most accurately account for the requirements of all amino acids (AAs) in the ration (essential, non-essential and excess EAAs). Data from recent research reports on the digestible lysine (dLys) requirements for maximum weight gain and minimum feed conversion ratio (FCR) were compiled from the literature. dLys requirements and the TP contents of the feeds were recalculated based on common ingredient composition values. Broken-line linear (BLL) and broken-line quadratic (BLQ) models were fitted to the data and compared. The dLys requirements of broilers (g/kg diet) for body weight gain (BWG) and FCR were found to increase linearly as a function of the true and crude protein contents of the diet. These relationships were not affected by either age or sex. As chickens aged, the dLys requirements decreased. However, the dLys requirement to TP ratio did not change with age for BWG or FCR. For maximum BWG and minimum FCR, the dLys requirements were estimated from the prediction models to be 4.92% ± 0.51 and 5.58% ± 0.70 of the TP level of the diet, using the BLL models, respectively. The good linear relationship between the dLys requirement and TP level allows the prediction of the variables from each other for use in feed formulation to represent the requirements of both EAAs and NEAAs. The dietary dLys requirements were estimated to be lower using the BLL vs. the BLQ models. TP was a better predictor of dLys requirements than crude protein (higher R2 values).
The Construction of the Model of the Curved Fast Ramped Superconducting Dipole for FAIR SIS300 Synchrotron

The Facility for Anti-proton and Ion Research (FAIR), under development at GSI, includes the synchrotron SIS300, so called because the magnetic rigidity is 300 Tm. In order to reach the required high intensities of proton and heavy ions beams, the bending dipole magnets have to be pulsed from the injection magnetic field of 1.5 T up to 4.5 T maximum field at the rate of 1 T/s. These 7.8 m long magnets have cos θ shaped coils with a 100 mm bore and the particular characteristic to be geometrically curved, with a sagitta of 112.9 mm. These challenging requirements triggered R&D activities, aimed at the development of suitable construction technologies for fast ramped curved coils. The heart of the R&D program is the construction of a 3.9 m long model. The paper discusses the main problems faced during the design and the construction of the cold mass, mainly covering the aspects related to the manufacture.
Medial temporal lobe atrophy in stroke patients: relation to pre-existing dementia

OBJECTIVE The links between stroke and Alzheimer’s disease seem to be closer than expected by chance. In a previous study it was shown that up to 16% of patients admitted for stroke had pre-existing dementia. Medial temporal lobe atrophy (MTLA) is strongly associated with Alzheimer’s disease. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of MTLA and its relation with pre-existing dementia. METHOD The study was conducted on 170 consecutive stroke patients (87 women; median age 75 years; 152 infarcts), who underwent non-contrast CT with temporal lobe oriented 2 mm contiguous slices at admission. A cut off point of 11.5 mm was used to differentiate patients with and without MTLA. Pre-existing dementia was assessed using the informant questionnaire on cognitive decline in the elderly (IQCODE) with a cut off score of 104. RESULTS Ninety four patients (55.3%) had MTLA, of whom 23 (24.5%) had pre-existing dementia; of 76 patients without MTLA, only four (5.3%) had pre-existing dementia (p=0.0007). The logistic regression analysis with MTLA as dependent variable found the following independent variables: increasing age (p<0.05), and global cerebral atrophy scores (p<0.01). The IQCODE scores just reached significance (p=0.05). CONCLUSION Stroke patients with MTLA are more likely to have pre-existing dementia; this suggests that Alzheimer’s disease might contribute to the dementia syndrome. A longitudinal follow up is now necessary to determine whether stroke patients with MTLA and without pre-existing dementia are at increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease over subsequent years.
Prosodic disturbance in aphasia: speech timing versus intonation production

Temporal control has often been suspected to be a critical factor in intonation production. In particular, disturbance in the production of fundamental frequency (F0) associated with intonation in patients with aphasia has been attributed to a primary underlying deficit in speech timing. The present study examined the speech timing abilities of two groups of patients with fluent and nonfluent aphasia who were found in a companion study to have relatively normal intonation production ability. Results indicated severe temporal control abnormalities for the patients with nonfluent aphasia. The fluent aphasic patients performed at comparable levels with the normal subjects, although in absolute terms their durations were also generally longer than normal. These findings do not support the view that intonation production depends critically on speech timing, and that its disturbance in aphasia is due to underlying temporal control deficit.