Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A deep learning one-step solution to material image reconstruction in photon counting spectral CT

Photon counting detectors in x-ray computed tomography (CT) are a major technological advancement that provides additional energy information and improves the decomposition of the CT image into material images. One important challenge in this new modality is how best to perform tomographic reconstruction. As a result of measuring multiple projections from different energy bins, more complex reconstruction algorithms are required. These are computationally demanding, due to the their large number of degrees of freedom. Also, the reconstruction algorithm needs to output multi-material image solutions. Reconstruction algorithms for spectral CT divide into two paradigms: two-step and one-step. Most typical solution is the two-step approach, where a first step consists of a material decomposition in projection domain, and a second step on tomographic reconstruction of each projection. This solution is computationally tractable but can cause a loss of information and it is difficult to regularize. The one-step solution, on the other hand, solves a joint optimization material decomposition and reconstruction, it is solved iteratively and can be, however, very time consuming. We present a deep learning-based solution to the one-step problem, with an architecture that mimics the updates of a primal-dual solver, and has demonstrated much greater computational efficiency than model-based iterative reconstruction. We have studied a proof-of-concept on a set of 700 Shepp-Logan phantoms. Our approach has shown enhanced performance compared to a model-based two-step approach, as well as compared to considering deep learning only in the first step of the two-step solution.
Performance Evaluation of Pedestrian Locations Based on Contemporary Smartphones

Nowadays, a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) unit is embedded in nearly every smartphone. This unit allows a smartphone to detect the user’s location and motion, and it makes functions, such as navigation, tracking, and compass applications, available to the user. Therefore, the GNSS unit has become one of the most important features in modern smartphones. However, because most smartphones incorporate relatively low-cost GNSS chips, their localization accuracy varies depending on the number of accessible GNSS satellites, and it is highly dependent on environmental factors that cause interference such as forests and buildings. This research evaluated the performance of the GNSS units inside two different models of smartphones in determining pedestrian locations in different environments. The results indicate that the overall performances of the two devices were related directly to the environment, type of smartphone/GNSS chipset, and the application used to collect the information.
Financial development measurement: Comparison of the high- and low-income countries

The literature that treats financial sector development and its impact on various economic phenomena does not recognise a single indicator of financial development measurement, nor do the various regulators of the financial sector have a single indicator to measure its development. Divergencies in financial development proxies used have prompted the International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff to create an indicator that includes all aspects of financial sector development (Čihák, Demirgüç-Kunt, Feyen, & Levine, 2012). The purpose of this paper is to show the main indicators of the financial development measurement and the gap between high- and low-income countries’ financial systems using the financial development index (FD index) developed by the IMF. This paper introduces the financial development indicator and uses it to compare different income group countries. The results show differences in the levels of financial development across countries. We also notice an improvement of the overall financial system in all of the groups of countries, showing an increasing trend in the last 10 years compared to the previous 10 years, but the desperate fact is that low-income countries have a long way to go to reach the level of financial development of high-income countries.
Achieving Private and Fair Truth Discovery in Crowdsourcing Systems

Nowadays, crowdsourcing has witnessed increasing popularity as it can be adopted to solve many challenging question-answering tasks. One of the most significant problems in crowdsourcing is truth discovery, which aims to find reliable information from conflict answers provided by different workers. Despite the effectiveness for providing reliable aggregated results, existing works on truth discovery either fall short of preserving the workers’ privacy or fail to consider the unfairness issue in their design. In light of this deficiency, we propose a novel private and fair truth discovery approach called PFTD, which is implemented by two non-colluding cloud servers and leverages the Paillier cryptosystem. This approach not only preserves the privacy of the answers of each worker, but also addresses the unfairness issue in crowdsourcing. Extensive experiments conducted on both real and synthetic datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed PFTD approach.
Does time extend asymmetrically into the past and the future? A multitask crosscultural study

Does temporal thought extend asymmetrically into the past and the future? Do asymmetries depend on cultural differences in temporal focus? Some studies suggest that people in Western (arguably future-focused) cultures perceive the future as being closer, more valued, and deeper than the past (a future asymmetry), while the opposite is shown in East Asian (arguably past-focused) cultures. The proposed explanations of these findings predict a negative relationship between past and future: the more we delve into the future, the less we delve into the past. Here, we report findings that pose a significant challenge to this view. We presented several tasks previously used to measure temporal asymmetry (self-continuity, time discounting, temporal distance, and temporal depth) and two measures of temporal focus to American, Spanish, Serbian, Bosniak, Croatian, Moroccan, Turkish, and Chinese participants (total N = 1,075). There was an overall future asymmetry in all tasks except for temporal distance, but the asymmetry only varied with cultural temporal focus in time discounting. Past and future held a positive (instead of negative) relation in the mind: the more we delve into the future, the more we delve into the past. Finally, the findings suggest that temporal thought has a complex underlying structure.
Prognostic Significance of Bone Metastasis in Soft Tissue Sarcoma Patients Receiving Palliative Systemic Therapy: An Explorative, Retrospective Pooled Analysis of the EORTC-Soft Tissue and Bone Sarcoma Group (STBSG) Database

Background Soft-tissue sarcomas (STS) constitute a rare group of heterogeneous mesenchymal tumours containing more than 100 histologic subtypes. Here, we investigate whether, and if so, to what extent, skeletal metastases affect the outcome of patients with advanced or metastatic disease. Materials and Methods Selected patients participated in five clinical trials of EORTC-STBSG. Individuals were included if they started treatment with an active drug and had advanced/metastatic STS. The endpoints of interest were overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS). Univariate and multivariate pooled analyses (after correcting for 12 covariates) were employed with Kaplan–Meier and Cox regression to model the impact of bone metastasis at presentation per treatment line stratified by study. For the subset of patients with bone metastasis, the impact of another metastatic organ site was explored with multivariate Cox regression models. Results 565 out of 1034 (54.6%) patients received first-line systemic treatment for locally advanced or metastatic disease. Bone metastases were present in 140 patients (77 first-line, 63 second-line or higher). The unadjusted difference in OS/PFS with or without bone metastasis was statistically significant only for first-line patients. For OS, the adjusted hazard ratios for bone metastasis presence were 1.33 (95%-CI: 0.99–1.78) and 1.11 (95%-CI: 0.81–1.52) for first-line/second-line or higher treated patients, respectively. Likewise, the adjusted hazard ratios for PFS were 1.31 (95%-CI: 1.00–1.73) and 1.07 (95%-CI: 0.80–1.43). Effects were not statistically significant, despite a trend in first-line patients for both endpoints. Subgroup analyses indicated bone and lymph node metastasis as the most detrimental combination for OS and bone and lung metastasis for PFS. Conclusions Adult STS patients receiving palliative systemic therapy with bone metastasis carried an overall worse prognosis than STS patients without bone metastases. Skeletal metastasis was detrimental for both OS and PFS, independent of the treatment line. Findings may have implications for the management of these patients.
The design of spray chambers for bulk cooling of the air in mines

Recommendations are given for the design of multi-stage spray chambers in which air flows horizontally through water sprays. A detailed descriptionption is given of one such spray chamber at Hartebeestfontein gold mine that is used for bulk cooling of the incomingventilation air, and that has been constructed according to these recommendations. A method for predicting the performance parameters of horizontal multi-stage spray chambers is given, and the method is illustrated with some examples. The method is equally applicable to spray chambers in which the water, rather than the air, is cooled.
Effects of Acupuncture Combined with Moxibustion on Reproductive and Metabolic Outcomes in Patients with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Objectives In this systematic review, the effects of acupuncture combined with moxibustion on reproductive and metabolic outcomes in patients with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) were evaluated. Methods Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) assessing acupuncture combined with moxibustion + basic treatment (experimental group) versus basic treatment alone (control group) for treating PCOS were identified from English and Chinese databases up to November 3, 2021. Outcomes related to pregnancy, ovulation, miscarriage, sex hormones, and metabolic disorders were of interest. In the meta-analysis, risk ratios (RRs) and mean differences (MDs) and their 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were used as effect measures. Results Twenty-five RCTs (n = 1991) were included. The pooled results showed that the experimental group had significant increases in the pregnancy rate (RR 1.81, 95% CI 1.58 to 2.08) and ovulation rate (RR 1.31, 95% CI 1.22 to 1.40) and decreases in the miscarriage rate (RR 0.45, 95% CI 0.28 to 0.73), and ovarian volume (MD −0.75 cm3, 95% CI −1.30 to −0.20). In the experimental group, improvements in the luteinizing hormone (LH) level, the LH-to-follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) ratio, total testosterone level, fasting insulin level, and body mass index, but not in FSH, oestradiol, or dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate levels, were significantly greater. All reported adverse events were mild. Based on the limitations of risk of bias, inconsistency, imprecision, and/or publication bias, the level of evidence was judged to be moderate for the pregnancy rate, ovulation rate, miscarriage rate, LH level, and LH/FSH ratio and very low for the other outcomes. Conclusion Among patients with PCOS, using acupuncture combined with moxibustion as a complementary therapy to basic treatments can improve pregnancy, ovulation, and miscarriage rates, the levels some sex hormones, and metabolic indicators, with good safety. Additionally, this combination therapy may have no effect on the FSH, oestradiol, or dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate level.
Identification of the Precursor Cluster in the Crystallization Solution of Proteinase K Protein by Molecular Dynamics Methods

It is known that precursor clusters appear in solution prior to protein crystallization. For proteinase K, as it was found by SAXS, such clusters are dimers, but the accuracy of the method did not allow for determining its type. In this work, the behavior of six possible types of precursor clusters was simulated by the molecular dynamics technique. Stability analysis revealed the most probable type of dimer formed in the proteinase K solution before its crystallization. SAXS data modelling also supported the MD calculations. The dynamics of this precursor cluster was modeled at three temperatures: 20, 30, and 40 °C. At 40 °C, an abnormal increase in the stability of the thermophilic proteinase K was found.
A GIS BASED NEW NAVIGATION APPROACH FOR REDUCING EMERGENCY VEHICLE'S RESPONSE TIME

Recently, for ensuring human life and safety, routing and intervening emergency vehicles as soon as possible an important subject. Ambulance, firefighter, police and other emergency vehicles are the main object of the intervention. Reaching the emergency area as soon as possible is important for saving human life and preventing economic loss. Directing and routing emergency vehicles from the moment they receive an emergency call to the event location must be considered carefully. In this study, ensuring the shortest response time for the emergency vehicles, obstacles like speed bumps, traffic lights, parking status of the streets, railroad crossings and crossroads which reduce the speed of emergency vehicles and increasing the intervention time are detected. In order to determine the effect of obstacles, a new Segment Effect Value (SEV) formula is developed. Values are assigned to the street segments according to obstacles in particular streets. SEV formula makes possible to determine the routes that provides the shortest intervention time. Results are compared with the shortest route and the shortest time route.
Automatic flight envelope recovery for large transport aircraft

This thesis presents the design of an automatic flight envelope recovery system for large transport aircraft. The flight envelope of the aircraft is conceptualised to consist of the aerodynamic envelope, the attitude envelope, the flight vector envelope, and the structural integrity envelope. The time scale separation between the aircraft’s fast rigid body rotational dynamics and its slower point mass translational dynamics is exploited to separate the flight envelope recovery into an inner-loop recovery of the angular rates and aerodynamic envelope, and an outer-loop recovery of the attitude, flight path angle, and airspeed while remaining within the structural integrity envelope. Two approaches to flight envelope recovery are proposed. The first approach uses a passive method to recover the aerodynamic envelope using the natural stability of the aircraft and then uses the conventional flight control laws, with their flight envelope protection functions, to recover the aircraft attitude and flight vector. The second approach uses an active method to recover the aerodynamic envelope using a Lyapunov-based inner-loop controller and uses an outer-loop controller based on optimal control theory to recover the aircraft attitude, flight path angle and airspeed while minimising the altitude loss. The automatic flight envelope recovery is verified in simulation on the NASA Generic Transport Model (GTM), a wide-envelope aircraft model that is able to model the flight mechanics of large transport aircraft in out-of-envelope conditions. ii Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za
SIRQU: Dynamic Quarantine Defense Model for Online Rumor Propagation Control

Rumors can spread very rapidly through online social networks (OSNs), leading to huge negative impact on human society. Hence, there is an urgent need to develop models that can minimize the spread of rumors. In this article, we propose a novel framework to improve the cost and efficiency of rumor propagation control. First, to reduce the impact of rumor controlling mechanism on users’ normal activities, we introduce a soft dynamic quarantine strategy into rumor propagation control and develop a new propagation model named susceptible-infected-removed-quarantined ignorants-quarantined spreaders (SIRQU) to model and block the rumor propagation in the network. Second, to further improve the control efficiency, we propose an influential node selection algorithm based on discrete particle swarm optimization with an evolutionary search strategy, and the controlling mechanism is only applied on the most influential nodes. Finally, we conduct a series of simulations and experiments on several public datasets and the dataset collected from Sina Weibo to validate the proposed method, and the results show that the proposed method outperfoms the related baseline algorithms.
Optimizing Community Supervision Practices with the Elo-rating System: A Proof-of-Concept

Abstract Record numbers of offenders are being released to community supervision. This poses a challenge to agencies and officers in charge of providing supervision because there are far more clients in need of supervision than officers can reasonably attend to. This challenge represents an opportunity for criminologists to work with agencies to find innovative ways to allocate their limited resources. Standardized risk assessments are the most commonly used tool for determining which clients receive the most resources (e.g., officer attention). But risk assessment is a static instrument that is incapable of making cross-client predictions. We offer a novel, dynamic approach by integrating the Elo-rating system into the risk assessment paradigm. Our study is meant to present a potential innovative solution and to demonstrate that it may have merit when applied in practice. We test our idea against data from the Pathways to Desistance Study and show that the Elo-rating system is a flexible tool that can be used to adjust to changes in risk more rapidly than standard risk assessment tools. We also show that the Elo-rating system, when combined with risk assessment, can increase the accuracy of prospective predictions of recidivism risk. We discuss how Elo-rating system could be used by community supervision agencies seeking to optimize decision-making.
Knowledge and Attitudes towards Palliative Care: Validation of the Spanish Version of Questionnaire on Palliative Care for Advanced Dementia

Background: Palliative care is essential in the care of people with advanced dementia, due to the increasing number of patients requiring care in the final stages of life. Nurses need to acquire specific knowledge and skills to provide quality palliative care. The Questionnaire on Palliative Care for Advanced Dementia (qPAD) is useful for assessing knowledge and attitudes toward palliative care, but its adaptation to the Spanish language and analysis of its effectiveness and usefulness for the Spanish culture is lacking. Objective: To report on the Spanish language adaptation and psychometric analysis of the qPAD. Methods: The Questionnaire on Palliative Care for Advanced Dementia Spanish version (qPAD-SV) was obtained from a process that included translation, back-translation, comparison with other language versions, expert review, and pilot study. Content validity, criterion validity, and reliability of the questionnaire were analyzed. The difficulty and discrimination indices of items composing the knowledge subscale were also calculated. Results: Adequate content validity index obtained after the analysis of qPAD-SV by a heterogeneous group of experts was found (overall CVI = 0.96; 0.95 for the Knowledge subscale and 0.99 for the Attitudes subscale). Significant correlations with the Palliative Care Knowledge test (rho = 0.368, p < 0.001) and Self-Efficacy in Palliative Care Scale (rho = 0.621, p < 0.001) show an adequate criterion validity. Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the Knowledge subscale (0.60) and the Attitudes subscale (0.91) supported the reliability of the qPAD-SV. The questionnaire had an overall difficulty index of 0.71, with three items that could be considered difficult or very difficult, and eleven items that could be considered very easy. Discussion: Although it shows internal consistency, validity, and difficulty indices similar to those obtained by qPAD versions in other languages, a reformulation of the items with lower content validity or discrimination indices and those that show difficulties in their comprehension is an aspect to be taken into account to improve this tool. Conclusions: The qPAD-SV is a useful instrument in Spanish to measure the knowledge of Spanish nurses in palliative care and is suitable for international comparisons.
Identification and Validation of a New Peptide Targeting Pancreatic Beta Cells

Noninvasive targeted visualization of pancreatic beta cells or islets is becoming the focus of molecular imaging application in diabetes and islet transplantation studies. In this study, we aimed to produce the beta-cell-targeted peptide for molecular imaging of islet. We used phage display libraries to screen a beta-cell-targeted peptide, LNTPLKS, which was tagged with fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC). This peptide was validated for targeting beta-cell with in vitro and in vivo studies. Immunocytochemistry (ICC) and fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) analysis were used to validate the target specificity of the peptide. FITC-LNTPLKS displayed much higher fluorescence in beta cells vs. control cells in ICC. This discrimination was consistently observed using primary rodent islet. FACS analysis showed right shift of peak point in beta cells compared to control cells. The specific bind to in situ islet was verified by in vitro experiments using rodent and human pancreatic slices. The peptide also showed high affinity of islet grafts under the renal capsule. In the insulinoma animal model, we could find FITC-LNTPLKS accumulated specifically to the tumor, thus indicating a potential clinical application of molecular imaging of insulinoma. In conclusion, LNTPLKS showed a specific probe for beta-cells, which might be further utilized in targeted imaging/monitoring beta cells and theragnosis for beta-cells-related disease (diabetes, insulinoma, etc.).
Lignans Extract from Knotwood of Norway Spruce—A Possible New Weapon against GTDs

Grapevine trunk diseases (GTDs) pose a major threat to the wine industry worldwide. Currently, efficient biological methods or chemical compounds are not available for the treatment of infected grapevines. In the present study, we used an extract from the knotwood of spruce trees as a biological control against GTDs. Our in vitro trial was focused on the antifungal effects of the extract against the most common GTD pathogens—Cadophora luteo-olivacea, Dactylonectria torresensis, Diaporthe ampelina, Diaporthe bohemiae, Diplodia seriata, Eutypa lata, and Phaeoacremonium minimum. Our in vitro trial revealed a high antifungal effect of the extract against all tested fungi. The inhibition rates varied among the different species from 30% to 100% using 1 mg·mL−1 extract. Subsequently, the efficiency of the extract was supported by an in planta experiment. Commercial grafts of Vitis vinifera were treated with the extract and planted. The total genomic DNA of grapevines was extracted 10 days and 180 days after the treatment. The fungal microbial diversities of the treated/untreated plants were compared using high-throughput amplicon sequencing (HTAS). Treated plants showed 76.9% lower relative abundance of the genus Diaporthe and 70% lower relative abundance of the genus Phaeoacremonium 10 days after treatment. A similar scenario was observed for the genus Cadophora 180 days after treatment, where treated plants showed 76% lower relative abundance of this genus compared with untreated grapevines.