Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Markers of Iron Status Are Associated with Risk of Hyperuricemia among Chinese Adults: Nationwide Population-Based Study

Background: Elevated serum uric acid (SUA) involved in iron metabolism, has been increasingly recognized as a risk factor for gout and cardiovascular diseases. The objective of this study was to examine the associations between markers of iron status with risk of hyperuricemia (HU) in Chinese adult population. Methods: Data were extracted from the 2009 wave of the China Health and Nutrition Survey, consisting of 7946 apparently healthy adults. Serum ferritin (SF), transferrin, soluble transferrin receptors (sTfR), hemoglobin (Hb), high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), and SUA were measured. Diet was assessed with three consecutive 24 h recalls. Demographic characteristics, smoking status, alcohol consumption, and physical activities were investigated using a structured questionnaire. Multilevel mixed-effects models were constructed to estimate the associations of SF, transferrin, sTfR, and Hb with SUA and the risk of HU. Results: The crude prevalence of HU was 16.1%. SF, transferrin, and Hb levels were positively associated with SUA and the risk of HU after adjustment for cluster effects and potential confounders (all p-trend < 0.05). Compared with participants in the lowest quartile of SF, those in the highest quartile had significantly higher SUA concentrations (β = 0.899 mg/dL, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.788, 1.010; p < 0.001) and higher risk of HU (odds ratio (OR) = 3.086, 95% CI: 2.450, 3.888; p < 0.001). Participants with the highest quartile of transferrin had significantly higher SUA concentrations (β = 0.488 mg/dL, 95% CI: 0.389, 0.587; p < 0.001) and higher risk of HU (OR: 1.900; 95% CI: 1.579, 2.286; p < 0.001) when compared with those with the lowest quartile. In male participants, those in the highest quartile of Hb had significantly higher risk of HU when compared to the reference group (OR: 1.401, 95% CI: 1.104, 1.777; p < 0.01); however, this association was not found in female participants (OR: 1.093; 95% CI: 0.821, 1.455; p = 0.544). Conclusion: SF, transferrin, and Hb levels were positively associated with the risk of HU, and additional studies are needed to confirm the findings, as well as to elucidate their underlying mechanisms.
Optimal design of compliant thermal-structural microactuators with geometrical nonlinearities

The element-free Galerkin(EFG) method is integrated into topology optimization for designing compliant thermal-structural microactuators, with geometrical nonlinearities considered. Taking into account its more capable of capturing the natural behavior of nonlinear compliant mechanisms than the standard finite element method (FEM), the meshfree method is employed to discretize the governing equations and the bulk density field. Furthermore, the design sensitivity analysis is performed by incorporating the adjoint approach into the meshfree method. The availability of the proposed method is demonstrated by designing compliant actuators in which both linear and nonlinear modelings are considered.
Designing Educational Games by Combining Other Game Designs

The complexity and sophistication of computer games is growing every day, not only in terms of graphical resources and advanced interaction mechanisms but also with regards to their narratives and their rules. In this paper we propose to tackle the complexity related to the rules and narratives of a game design by describing it through combinations of more simple game designs. This approach not only facilitates the description of game designs that are easy to manage and understand but also enables the reuse of game design components, and also allows the designer to respond to established trends in computer games such as the use of "missions" and "mini-games". The proposed approach has been applied to the design and implementation of an educational game (EG) called "Safety Village" of the minigame genre, which aims to help raise children's awareness of emergencies and domestic risks.
Performance of the First Combined Smartwatch and Smartphone Diabetes Diary Application Study

Background: Wearable computing has long been described as the solution to many health challenges. However, the use of this technology as a diabetes patient self-management tool has not been fully explored. A promising platform for this use is the smartwatch—a wrist-worn device that not only tells time but also provides internet connection and ability to communicate information to and from a mobile phone. Method: Over 9 months, the design of a diabetes diary application for a smartwatch was completed using agile development methods. The system, including a two-way communication between the applications on the smartwatch and mobile phone, was tested with 6 people with type 1 diabetes. A small number of participants was deliberately chosen due to ensure an efficient use of resources on a novel system. Results: The designed smartwatch system displays the time, day, date, and remaining battery time. It also allows for the entry of carbohydrates, insulin, and blood glucose (BG), with the option to view previously recorded data. Users were able to record specific physical activities, program reminders, and automatically record and transfer data, including step counts, to the mobile phone version of the diabetes diary. The smartwatch system can also be used as a stand-alone tool. Users reported usefulness, responded positively toward its functionalities, and also provided specific suggestions for further development. Suggestions were implemented after the feasibility study. Conclusions: The presented system and study demonstrate that smartwatches have opened up new possibilities within the diabetes self-management field by providing easier ways of monitoring BG, insulin injections, physical activity and dietary information directly from the wrist.
A Fast and Accurate Feature Selection Algorithm Based on Binary Consistency Measure

Consistency‐based feature selection is an important category of feature selection research, and its advantage over other categories is due to consistency measures used to include the effect of interaction among features into evaluation of relevance of features. Even if features individually appear irrelevant to class labels, they can collectively show strong relevance. In such cases, we say that the features interact with each other. Consistency measures, in this regard, evaluate the collective relevance of a set of features and has been intuitively understood as a metric to measure a distance of an arbitrary feature set from the state of being consistent: A set of features is said to be consistent if, and only if, they as a whole determine class labels. In history, the binary consistency measure, which returns the value 1 if the feature set is consistent and 0 otherwise, was the first consistency measure introduced, and many advanced measures followed. The problem of the binary measure consists in the fact that it always returns 1 if a data set includes no consistent feature set. The measures that followed have solved this problem but sacrificed time efficiency of evaluation. Therefore, feature selection leveraging these measures are not fast enough to apply to large data sets. In this article, we aim to improve time efficiency of consistency‐based feature selection. To achieve the goal, we propose a new idea, which we call data set denoising: We eliminate examples which are viewed as noises from a data set until the data set becomes to include consistent feature sets and then apply the binary measure to find an appropriate feature set that is consistent. In our evaluation through intensive experiments, CWC, a new algorithm that implements data set denoising outperformed in both time efficiency and accuracy the benchmark consistency‐based algorithms. Specifically, CWC was about 31 times faster than the LCC that had been known as the fastest in the literature. Furthermore, in a comparison including feature selection algorithms that are not consistency‐based, CWC has turned out to be one of the fastest and the most accurate feature selection algorithms.
Numerical algorithms for simulation of multisection lasers by using traveling wave model

Abstract Sequential and parallel algorithms for the simulation of the dynamics of high‐power semiconductor lasers is presented. The model equations describing the multisection broad–area semiconductors lasers are solved by the finite difference scheme, which is constructed on staggered grids. This nonlinear scheme is linearized applying the predictor‐corrector method. The algorithm is implemented by using the ParSol tool of parallel linear algebra objects. For parallelization we adopt the domain partitioning method, the domain is split along the longitudinal axis. Results of computational experiments are presented, the obtained speed‐up and efficiency of the parallel algorithm agree well with the theoretical scalability analysis.
Coupled-channel calculation of stopping powers for intermediate-energy light ions penetrating atomic H and He targets.

Evaluation des pouvoirs d'arret et des sections efficaces differentielles d'ionisation pour p − , H + , He 2+ et Li 3+ penetrant dans des cibles d'hydrogene et d'helium a des energies de 10 a 500 keV/u
FEATURE EXTRACTION IN SEGMENTED WORDS FOR SEMI-AUTOMATIC TRANSCRIPTION OF HANDWRITTEN ARABIC DOCUMENTS

Scanning is a widely used solution for the preservation of ancient manuscripts. However, this solution gives masses of document images which content is not easily exploitable. In this work, we propose a new method that reduces considerably the manual transcription. The aim is to explore the content of digitized manuscripts. The proposed method is based on two main phases: the first one consists to segment the digitized manuscripts on words, while the second searches in a database of image words and their equivalent in text mode the corresponding text words of each image word if it exists. This search phase is based on a matching operation between features extracted words and those stored in the database. To characterize each word, we use SIFT (Scale Invariant Feature Transform) algorithm as a feature extractor for interest words points. The results of the comparison provide a set of words in text mode which helps transcription of Arabic manuscripts
PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT TO INCREASE CHILDREN’S READING INTEREST FOR PRESCHOOL CHILDREN’S CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT Rahmi Department of Early Childhood Education, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Syiah Kuala University, Banda Aceh 23111, Indonesia

Parental involvement plays a significant role in early childhood education. Parents are the most important persons that influence the children at their homes until the children enter preschool. Character development is an essential for children and it starts at an early age. Children reading interest enhances their character development through the exposures of values in the stories. Moral story books provide role models for children’s reading interest and thus, by reading the stories and selecting high quality reading materials, parents help the preschool children character development and change their attitudes toward people in their surroundings. The purpose of this study was to provide an overview of parent involvement in increasing children reading interest in preschool to support their character development. The study was conducted to observe the level of parental involvement in reading the stories to the children at home. This research utilized quantitative analysis of responses gathered from 109 parents. Data was collected using questionnaire with descriptive statistics analysis. The results showed that the respondents’ (parents) level of involvement is high toward the reading interest of preschool children as depicted by the overall mean score (M=48.97; SD=.36). The research finding shows that there are differences between the parents’ that are frequently involved in reading the story than the parents’ that are not. Therefore, it can be concluded that as the frequency of parental involvement in reading stories for children is high, the level of reading interest follows to increase, and thus influence positively toward the children’s character development.
Semiology of Graphics - Diagrams, Networks, Maps

Originally published in French in 1967, "Semiology of Graphics" holds a significant place in the theory of information design. Founded on Jacques Bertin's practical experience as a cartographer, Part One of this work is an unprecedented attempt to synthesize principles of graphic communication with the logic of standard rules applied to writing and topography. Part Two brings Bertin's theory to life, presenting a close study of graphic techniques including shape, orientation, color, texture, volume, and size in an array of more than 1,000 maps and diagrams.
Regulation of p 27 Kip 1 phosphorylation and G 1 cell cycle progression by protein phosphatase PPM 1 G

The cell cycle, an essential process leading to the cell division, is stringently controlled by the key cell cycle regulators, cyclin-CDK complexes, whose activity is further regulated by a variety of mechanisms. p27Kip1 is a cyclin-CDK inhibitor that arrests the cell cycle at the G1 phase by blocking the activation of cyclin E-CDK2 complex, preventing the improper entry to the cell cycle. Dysfunction of p27 has been frequently observed in many types of human cancers, resulting from p27 protein degradation and cytoplasmic mislocalization, which are highly regulated by the phosphorylation status of p27. Although the kinases that phosphorylate p27 have been extensively studied, phosphatases that dephosphorylate p27 remain to be elucidated. By using genomic phosphatase screening, we identified a PPM family phosphatase, PPM1G, which could reduce p27 phosphorylation at T198. We further confirmed that PPM1G is a novel p27 phosphatase by demonstrating that PPM1G can interact with and dephosphorylate p27 in cells and in vitro. Functionally, ectopic expression of PPM1G enhanced p27 protein stability and delayed cell cycle progression from G1 to S phase. In accordance, knockdown of PPM1G accelerated p27 degradation during G1 phase and rendered cells resistant to the cell cycle arrest induced by serum deprivation. Mechanistically, PPM1G inhibited the interaction of p27 to 14-3-3θ, a chaperone protein that facilitates p27 nuclear export. Knockdown of PPM1G promoted the cytoplasmic localization of p27. Taken together, our studies identified PPM1G as a novel regulator of p27 that dephosphorylates p27 at T198 site and, together with p27 kinases, PPM1G controls cell cycle progression by maintaining the proper level of p27 protein.
A study of uncertainty estimation for time-domain analysis by considering incompleteness of TRL calibration kit

We have developed a new algorithm of the Monte-Carlo calculation for the uncertainty evaluation of time-domain measurements, which directly relates to the incompleteness of a calibration standard used on a vector network analyzer. In contrast to the previous study, the propagation of S-parameter uncertainty is considered, and correlations between measured S-parameters at different frequency points are rigorously taken into account, which is important because the time-domain analysis treats the frequency dependence of the S-parameter. We confirmed that the uncertainty of the peak determination at the time-domain is strongly affected by S-parameter uncertainties especially when we measure time-domain signals including multiple peaks, and quantitatively clarified that it is essential for the uncertainty analysis of time-domain measurements to evaluate the propagation of S-parameter uncertainties appropriately.
Biofilm formation by staphylococci on fresh, fresh-frozen and processed human and bovine bone grafts.

Biofilm formation is a multi-step process influenced by surface properties. We investigated early and mature biofilm of Staphylococcus aureus on 4 different biological calcium phosphate (CaP) bone grafts used for filling bone defects. We investigated standardised cylinders of fresh and fresh-frozen human bone grafts were harvested from femoral heads; processed humanand bovine bone grafts were obtained preformed. Biofilm formation was done in tryptic soy broth (TSB) using S. aureus (ATCC 29213) with static conditions. Biofilm density after 3 h (early biofilm) and 24 h (mature biofilm) was investigated by sonication and microcalorimetry. After 3 h, bacterial density was highest on fresh-frozenandfresh bone grafts. After 24 h, biofilm density was lowest on freshbone grafts (p < 0.001) compared to the other 3 materials, which did not differ quantitatively (p > 0.05). The lowest increase in bacterial density was detected on fresh bone grafts (p < 0.001). Despite normal shaped colonies, we found additional small colonies on the surface of the fresh and fresh-frozen samples by sonication. This was also apparent in microcalorimetric heat-flow curves. The four investigated CaP bone grafts showed minor structural differences in architecture but marked differences concerning serum coverage and the content of bone marrow, fibrous tissue and bone cells. These variations resulted in a decreased biofilm density on freshand fresh-frozenbone grafts after 24 h, despite an increased early biofilm formation and might also be responsible for the variations in colony morphology (small colonies). Detection of small colony variants by microcalorimetry might be a new approach to improve the understanding of biofilm formation.
Body adiposity index assess body fat with high accuracy in nondialyzed chronic kidney disease patients

High body fat (BF) is an alarming condition that also affects nondialyzed chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients. Distinct methods are used to evaluate BF; however, in CKD population it remains unclear which one is more reliable showing high accuracy. Dual‐energy X‐ray absorptiometry (DXA), used as reference method to estimate adiposity, is expensive and time consuming to be applied in clinical settings. Recently, a new body adiposity index (BAI), that estimates BF from easily accessible measures, was validated in the general population. The aim of this study was to evaluate which simple and practical method, routinely used to estimate BF, shows the highest accuracy compared with DXA, in nondialyzed CKD patients.
A multidimensional study of perceptual-emotional qualities in music.

Wedin L. A multidimensional study of perceptual-emotional qualities in music. Scand. J. Psychol. , 1972, 13, 241–257. —Forty musical excerpts were judged in terms of emotionally coloured adjectives using a check-list procedure and different types of sorting procedures. Similarities were estimated by rank correlation or simple confusion indices and nonmetric multidimensional scaling was applied. Three dimensions were txtracted and labelled Intensity-Softness, Pleasantness-Unpleasantness and Solemnity-Triviality. These qualities were then related to the stimulus qualities judged in more “technical” terms like tempo, pitch, modality etc.
Preignition and Autoignition Behavior of the Xylene Isomers

Abstract : The relative preignition and autoignition reactivity of o-, m- and p-xylene has been studied. Preignition experiments were conducted in a pressurized flow reactor facility at 600-850 K temperatures, 8 atm pressure, and lean equivalence ratios. Analysis of the data included carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide measurements using a nondispersive infrared analyzer and molecular oxygen measurements using an electrochemical oxygen cell. Identification of intermediate species was performed using gas chromatography with flame ionization detection and a mass spectrometer. Additional experiments were conducted in a single cylinder research engine. Neat o- and m-xylene were oxidized in the reactor under preignition conditions. They showed no reactivity, so mixtures of each isomer with n-dodecane were tested and compared, and intermediate species were identified. This data helped resolve a recent controversy regarding the relative reactivity of the xylene isomers. To study the autoignition of the xylenes, the isomers neat, in binary mixtures with n-decane, and in six-component JP-8 surrogates were tested in the single cylinder research engine. The experimental data were analyzed and compared to existing chemical kinetic models, and it was concluded that at lower temperatures (<850 K), the xylenes show similar reactivity, and at higher temperatures, o-xylene is the more reactive isomer.
A field study of age and gender differences in habitual adult sleep

The sleep of 52 healthy paid subjects (23 male) divided into three age‐bands (20–34, 35–49 and 50–70 y) were recorded at night in their homes for a total of 190 subject‐nights while following their normal daily activities and habitual sleep‐wake schedule. There was a shortening in both nocturnal total sleep period and total sleep time (TST) with age, the oldest group sleeping 46 min less than the youngest. Also, the mid‐point of sleep occurred 32 min earlier in the oldest group compared with the youngest group. The reduction in TST with age was due, in part, to increased wake periods within sleep. The youngest subjects showed more Movement Time which progressively decreased with age while the amount of stage 1 increased with age. The amount of slow‐wave sleep (SWS, stages 3+4) was reduced, stage 4 was more than halved, while REM was slightly reduced with age. There were far fewer significant gender differences in the sleep variables: males, particularly in the middle and oldest age bands, had more stage 1 than females, while females had more SWS, particularly stage 3, than males. In general, despite relatively limited subject selection criteria, there was good agreement with previous laboratory‐based normative sleep values for the effect of age and gender.
Structured Noncommutative Multidimenisonal Linear Systems and Scale-Recursive Modeling

Recently, the multiscale signal and image processing community has recognized that a suitable model for multiresolution processes is a model with time-like variable indexed by the nodes on a homogeneous tree with different depths in the tree corresponding to different spatial scales associated with the signal or image. It turns out that these system models are close relatives of the Structured Noncommutative Multidimensional Linear Systems (SNMLSs) introduced by Ball-GroenewaldMalakorn [5], but with system operators dependent on the node of the tree at which the state update occurs. This provides engineering motivation for the introduction of a “parametervarying” version of SNMLS.
Real-time retasking of multiple coordinated assets

The Intelligent Tasker was developed to provide dynamic retasking of autonomous coordinated aerial assets to accommodate “pop-up” points of interest and the loss of a team member during a coordinated mission. The system was implemented in MATLAB and can be integrated with various ground stations. The user interface and backend GA Optimizer make planning and executing an optimized coordinated mission straightforward and uncomplicated for the user. The software allows for the original tasking of multiple assets and then the retasking of assets in real-time during flight, if need arises. This work is applied to small fixed wing UAVs, but could easily be applied to other types of aerial, terrestrial, or even aquatic vehicles. This paper presents results that extend previous work using genetic algorithms to efficiently task multiple small fixed wing unmanned aerial vehicles in order to gather information from multiple sites in an optimized way.