Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Towards an interval ﬁngerprinting approach for indoor localization.

The omni-present availability of sensor-rich smartphones along with the fact that people spend 80-90% of their time in indoor environments has recently boosted an interest around the so called Internet-based Indoor Navigation (IIN) [12]. These comprise of indoor models, such as floor-maps and points-of-interest, along with Internet of Things (IoT)-based raw data, such as wireless, light and magnetic signals, used to localize and track mobile users and targets. There is a large variety of localisation methods that exhibit diverse quality performance levels regarding precision, accuracy, cost, reliability, scalability, energy efficiency and robustness [1, 9]. One reason behind low performance usually observed in localization accuracy or robustness is the noisy nature of the IoT raw data used. For instance, the WiFi received signal strength (RSS), which is most commonly used by indoor localisation techniques, is in fact susceptible to multipath effects and interference, hence shows high variability over time. These variations may naturally introduce errors and jolts in reconstructed locations. To smoothen the location estimates and improve consistency, stateof-the-art localisation techniques work either with averaged signal data, or rely on more ad-
Future Generation Computer Systems

As the demands for big data analytics keep growing rapidly in scientific applications and online services, MapReduce and its open-source implementation Hadoop gained popularity in both academia and enterprises. Hadoop provides a highly feasible solution for building big data analytics platforms. However, defects of Hadoop are also exposed in many aspects including data management, resource management, scheduling policies
Avicularin Reduces the Expression of Mediators of Inflammation and Oxidative Stress in Bradykinin-Treated MG-63 Human Osteoblastic Osteosarcoma Cells

Background Avicularin is a plant-derived flavonoid used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat conditions that include ankle fracture. Bradykinin stimulated MG-63 human osteoblastic osteosarcoma cells has previously been studied in an in vitro model. This study aimed to investigate the effects of avicularin on bradykinin-treated MG-63 human osteoblastic osteosarcoma cells in vitro. Material/Methods MG-63 cells were treated with increasing concentrations of avicularin for 48 hours, followed by 1 μM of bradykinin for 24 h. The MTT assay was used to measure cell viability. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) were used to measure the expression of inflammatory mediators, interleukin-1β (IL-1β), IL-6, and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) mRNA and protein, respectively. The expression of oxidative stress factors, malondialdehyde (MDA), superoxide dismutase (SOD), and catalase were measured. Western blot and qRT-PCR were performed to determine p38, p65, inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), and cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) protein levels and mRNA expression, respectively. Results Avicularin had no cytotoxic effect on MG-63 cells. Avicularin significantly upregulated the expression levels IL-1β, IL-6, and TNF-α in the bradykinin treated group in a dose-dependent manner. Avicularin reduced the level of MDA and the activity of SOD and catalase in the bradykinin treated MG-63 cells, reduced p-p38, p-p65, iNOS, and COX-2 expression, and decreased the p-p38/p38 ratio and the p-p65/p65 ratio in bradykinin treated MG-63 cells in a dose-dependent manner. Conclusions Avicularin reduced the expression of inflammatory cytokines and the levels of markers of oxidative stress in MG-63 human osteoblastic osteosarcoma cells in vitro.
OIL PRICES AND UNEMPLOYMENT RELATIONSHIP IN SWEDISH ECONOMY by Ezatullah Najimi, Md. Abu Naim Shorkar,

The purpose of this paper is to figure out whether there is any relationship between the price of oil and the unemployment rate and to examine how the price of oil affects the unemployment rate considering the Swedish economy. The main objective is to see if a change in the oil price will cause a change in unemployment. I perform linear regression analysis relating current changes in the variables unemployment as independent variable and prices of oil as a dependent variable to conclude if there exists a relationship and ARDL model and Granger Causality has been applied to test the volatility of oil prices causes changes in the unemployment rate. To find out the relationship between these two variables, I have used Swedish unemployment and oil prices data from 1983 to 2017. The result has been received from the linear regression test on current changes that showed a relationship between the price of oil and unemployment in Sweden. In the linear regression relating to current changes in these variables, a positive relationship was indicated. The ARDL and Granger Causality test certifies the impact of oil prices on the unemployment rate.
Cohesion in Distributed Teams

In today’s educational and work environments, teams often consist of members who are not co-located, and who interact through computer-mediation. Research on such distributed teams has focused on the effects of computer-mediation on decision making, performance, and performance measurement, but, with the exception of a few studies, little research has been done on the social-psychological effects of team distribution with regards to cohesion. This paper describes our current research investigating the effects of team member distribution on team cohesion.
Long-term weather variability, portfolio diversification and household welfare: evidence from rural Togo

Using matched georeferenced household panel data and long historical rainfall data from northern Togo, this paper investigates livelihood diversification and households’ welfare outcomes in the face of increasing weather variability. Our results show that long-term rainfall variation is decelerating diversification, while more short-term deviations accelerate crop diversification. Furthermore, diversification is more likely to occur in wealthier households. In terms of welfare implications, our results indicate that livestock diversification in particular has the potential to improve a household’s welfare. Local institutions seem to be supportive of crop and livestock diversification and contribute to decreases in poverty. However, the current arrangement of agricultural institutions in Togo is not effective in mitigating negative effects of climate change. The paper concludes that there is a necessity to strengthen credit, agricultural and market institutions for stimulating diversification in the agricultural portfolio. In terms of policy, the paper recommends targeted policies at stimulating livestock diversification at rural sub-Saharan Africa to strengthen livelihoods and reduce vulnerability to adverse climate change.
Web Science: Conceptualization of the Semantic Web

IntroduCtIon As the use of Web technologies has increased tremendously, the web business is getting attentions from business organizations. Originated from artificial intelligence (AI) tradition, the syllogism based Semantic Web has a great deal of hype. To introduce the semantic web, this paper is the initial effort to conceptualize the promises of the semantic web in the context of information and communication technologies. Especially, this paper emphasizes the science aspect of the semantic web, introducing theoretical approach on its meaning.
Multi-center propensity-matched comparison of transcatheter aortic valve implantation using the ACURATE TA/neo self-expanding versus the SAPIEN 3 balloon-expanding prosthesis.

AIMS In the absence of randomized data, we aimed to compare the transapical ACURATE and transfemoral ACURATE neo with the SAPIEN 3 prostheses using propensity-matching. METHODS AND RESULTS From 2012 to 2016, 1306 patients at 3 German centers received either the ACURATE/ACURATE neo prostheses (n=591) or the SAPIEN 3 prosthesis (n=715). Through nearest neighborhood matching with exact allocation for access route and center, pairs of 329 patients (250 transfemoral, 79 transapical) per group were determined. Patients were 81 years in average and had a logistic EuroSCORE-I of 19%. Pre- and post-dilatation was more frequent in the ACURATE group (97.6% versus 52.1%, p<0.001 for pre-dilatation and 40.4% versus 11.6%, p<0.001 for post-dilation), but rapid pacing for implantation was used less frequently (37.1% versus 98.2%, p<0.001). More than mild aortic regurgitation at post-operative echocardiography was 12.0% for the ACURATE group and 3.1% for the SAPIEN group, p=<0.001), thereby more than mild aortic regurgitation in the ACURATE group differed amongst the centers with 6.0% (3/50) in center 1, 34.1% (29/85) in center 2 and 3.4% (6/181) in center 3. Patients in the ACURATE group had less pacemaker compared to SAPIEN 3 (11.9% versus 18.5%, p=0.020), 30-day mortality was 4.6% versus 2.1% respectively, p=0.134 and one year- survival was 83.1% [95%CI:77.6-87.4] versus 88.8% [84.0-92.2]. CONCLUSIONS In this propensity score analysis, patients treated with the transapical ACURATE or transfemoral ACURATE neo prostheses had less pacemakers at 30 days, but more aortic regurgitation and lower 1 year survival.
Assessing intraspecific trait variability during seedling establishment to improve restoration of tropical dry forests

Forest restoration is an effective tool to mitigate climate change, but its implementation in highly diverse and threatened tropical dry forests (TDFs) is particularly challenging due to the hostile environment. Intraspecific trait variability (ITV) in response to these constraints may be very informative for predicting the potential for species acclimation and therefore for improving trait-based species screenings that best match each particular scenario of forest restoration. We analyzed ITV during seedling establishment of three widely distributed and ecologically contrasting TDF species in a greenhouse multifactorial experiment crossing levels of resource availability (nutrients and water) and herbivory to assess the capacity of ITV to discern strategies of seedling establishment and to predict species’ growth rates and acclimation potential. The three species studied had contrasting responses to the experimental treatments, suggesting different strategies of seedling establishment. The species with the most plastic pattern of growth performed the best, especially due to its ability to modulate the trade-off of root-to-shoot allocation of biomass depending on nutrient availability. Almost 50% of the variation in the root mass ratio was within species, half of which was a direct response of the treatments, indicating a strong acclimation potential. Individual-level trait measurements, however, were poor predictors of seedling growth rates. ITV, particularly the ability to adapt the pattern of biomass allocation, can be critical during seedling establishment. We propose incorporating information about ITV and the ability of species to modulate their phenotypic expression to cope with environmental variability into programs of forest restoration. Easily implemented and standardized greenhouse experiments are an inexpensive way to obtain high-quality data on the plasticity of forest species, which can be very valuable for predicting the potential of species acclimation and thus improving the selection of species that better match each particular scenario of restoration.
The Effects of microRNA-515-5p on the Toll-Like Receptor 4 (TLR4)/JNK Signaling Pathway and WNT1-Inducible-Signaling Pathway Protein 1 (WISP-1) Expression in Rheumatoid Arthritis Fibroblast-Like Synovial (RAFLS) Cells Following Treatment with Receptor Activator of Nuclear Factor-kappa-B Ligand (RANK

Background This study aimed to investigate the effects of microRNA-515-5p (miR-515-5p) on the expression of the WNT1-inducible-signaling pathway protein 1 (WISP-1) gene in rheumatoid arthritis fibroblast-like synovial (RAFLS) cells following treatment with the receptor activator of nuclear factor-kappa-B ligand (RANKL). Material/Methods RAFLS cells were cultured in vitro and were divided into six study groups: a normal control group; a miR-515-5p mimic group; a miR-515-5p inhibitor group; a RANKL (50 ng/ml) treatment group; a miR-515-5p mimic+RANKL treatment group; and a miR-515-5p inhibitor+RANKL treatment group. The luciferase assay was used to determine the effects of miR-515-5p on the WISP1 expression. Cell proliferation, cell apoptosis, the cell cycle, and protein expression were determined using the Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8) assay, flow cytometry, Western blot, and real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Results The luciferase assay showed that the effects of miR-515-on the 3′-UTR of WISP1 inhibited the gene expression. The miR-515-5p mimics promoted cell proliferation, reduced apoptosis, and promoted the cell cycle. The miR-515-5p mimics reduced, the expression of TLR4, WISP1, and JNK at the mRNA level, while the miR-515-5p inhibitor promoted the expression of TLR4, WISP1, and JNK. Both the miR-515-5p inhibitor and mimic promoted the phosphorylation of AKT in RAFLS cells treated with or without RANKL compared with the control, and the miR-515-5p inhibitor promoted the phosphorylation of JNK in the RAFLS cells. Conclusions In RAFLS cells, miR-515-5p inhibited the expression of the WISP1 gene, and treatment with RANKL inhibited the TLR4/JNK signaling pathway.
Evaluating learning outcomes in the implementation of flipped teaching using data envelopment analysis

This study integrated various teaching factors—based on the idea of a flipped classroom—in a financial management course. The study’s aim was to establish an effective teaching implementation strategy and evaluation mechanism with respect to learning outcomes, which can serve as a reference for the future modification of teaching methods. This study implemented a teaching method in five stages and estimated the learning efficiencies of 22 students (in the teaching scenario and over two semesters). Subsequently, data envelopment analysis (DEA) was used to compare, for each student, between the learning efficiencies before and after participation in the flipped classroom—in the first and second semester, respectively—to identify the crucial external factors influencing learning efficiency. According to the results, the average overall student learning efficiency increased from 0.901 in the first semester to 0.967 in the second semester, which demonstrate that the flipped classroom approach can improve teaching effectiveness and learning outcomes. The results also showed a difference in learning efficiency between male and female students.
Clinical Neuropharmacology Patient Management Series

A 42-year-old woman presents with a 2-year history of frequent, short-lasting unilateral headaches of the left supra-orbital and temporal regions. The headaches are defined as sharp, stabbing pain that lasts 10–20 minutes, and occur 8–15 times per day. The bouts last 4–6 weeks, with headache-free periods that last 4–5 months. There is accompanying left eye redness, lacrimation, conjunctival injection, and ptosis. The attacks have never awakened her from sleep. She reports no preceding auras, accompanying nausea, vomiting, or photophobia. There is a medical history of a short-term ill-defined cardiac arrhythmia and hypertension, controlled by Zestoretic (Stuart Pharmaceuticals, Wilmington, DE, USA). There is no history or family history of headaches. Her cardiovascular and neurologic examinations are normal, including a blood pressure of 138/82 and a regular pulse of 78 bpm. Electrocardiography, earlier echocardiography, brain magnetic resonance (MR) imaging with gadolinium, and serum analyses are normal.
PESARO 2018

—Designing artiﬁcial neural networks is a challenging task due to the vast design space. In this paper, we present our exploration on different types of deep neural networks and different shapes for a regression analysis task. The network types range from simple multi-layer perceptron networks to more complex convolutional and residual neural networks. Within the exploration, we analyzed the behavior of the different network shapes, when processing measurement data characteristic for mass spectrometers. Mass spectrometers are used to determine single substances within gaseous mixtures. By applying deep neural networks for the measurement data processing, the behavior of the measurement system can be approximated indirectly through the learning process. In addition, we evaluate the usage of reinforcement learning to design the neural network’s architecture.
Repel the Syntruders! A Crowdsourcing Cleanup of the Thesaurus of Modern Slovene

The Thesaurus of Modern Slovene is the largest open-source digital collection of Slovene synonyms, published in March 2018 by the Centre of Language Resources and Technologies of the University of Ljubljana. The Thesaurus was initially compiled entirely automatically and allows users to contribute toward improving the resource by adding suggestions for missing synonyms and/or by evaluating both the synonym candidates from the initial database as well as the suggestions added by other users. As an automatically generated language resource, however, the initial database of the Thesaurus includes a certain degree of noise. In the paper, we present two crowdsourcing activities aimed at cleaning up the database. The first is a targeted annotation campaign aimed at evaluating multi-word synonym candidates in the Thesaurus, and the second is an analysis of user votes provided directly in the Thesaurus interface. Both scenarios are examples of an effective postprocessing method for an automatically generated language resource and demonstrate that crowdsourcing can play an important role in smart lexicography, especially in the case of less-resourced languages.
Effects of moderate Damköhler number on miscible viscous fingering involving viscosity decrease due to a chemical reaction

We have succeeded in experimentally investigating the effects of a moderate Damköhler number, Da (defined as the ratio between a characteristic time of fluid motion and that of a chemical reaction), for various Péclet numbers, Pe, on miscible viscous fingering involving a decrease in the viscosity of the displaced liquid due to a chemical reaction in Hele-Shaw cells. We achieved this by using a chemical reaction between a polymer solution and metal ions. Main analysis has been done for the radial fingering. In the range of Pe employed here, the fingering patterns without the reaction (Da = 0) were independent of Pe. The fingering patterns with the reaction depended on the single parameter, Da, and the area occupied by the fingering pattern near the injection hole increased with Da in the range of Da employed here. The ratio of the area occupied by the fingering pattern within the circle radius of which is the length of longest finger to the area of the circle increased with Da in the range of Da employed here. This result is opposite to that of Nagatsu et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 571, 2007, p. 475), in which the area was decreased by the reaction decreasing the viscosity involving significantly high Da. Experiments in the linear geometry show that the shape of a single finger also depended on the single parameter, Da, and the finger width increased near the base with Da. This result is also opposite to that in the previous case in which the width of a single finger was considered to be decreased by the reaction. These results, interestingly, show that the effects of the decrease in the displaced liquid's viscosity due to chemical reaction on the fingering pattern for moderate Da are opposite to those for significantly high Da. A mechanism for the opposite effects on the fingering pattern depending on Da is discussed.
Sirolimus for the treatment of lymphangioleiomyomatosis

ABSTRACT Introduction: Lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM) is a rare cystic lung disease that is associated with recurrent pneumothorax, abdominal tumors including lymphangioleiomyomas and angiomyolipomas, chylous fluid accumulations and progressive respiratory failure. Sirolimus has been shown to slow the progression of disease. Areas covered: In this review, the current evidence, indications, precautions, and practical use of sirolimus therapy in patients with LAM is discussed. Expert opinion: In LAM, the lung becomes diffusely infiltrated with smooth muscle-like cells containing mechanistic target of rapamycin complex (mTOR) activating mutations in tuberous sclerosis genes which drive destructive parenchymal remodeling. LAM cells arise from an unknown source, migrate to the lung and express vascular endothelial growth factor D (VEGF-D). In the laboratory, mTOR inhibitors block destructive LAM cell behaviors including abnormal growth, migration and metalloproteinase production and induce tumor regression in animal models. The MILES trial demonstrated that sirolimus, stabilizes lung function, reduces VEGF-D and improves measures of functional performance. Based on MILES, sirolimus was approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of LAM in 2015. Available mTOR inhibitor therapies are suppressive, requiring chronic or even lifelong exposure for continued benefit. Multiple trials are underway to refine the use of mTOR inhibitors in LAM.
A new antenna feed having equal E -and H-plane patterns

When two complementary sources are combined in the proper amplitude and phase, desirable radiation characteristics for feeding a circular aperture are obtained. It is shown that when the feed is achieved there results a circular beam cross section which optimizes the efficiency of illumination of a circular aperture. The back radiation from the feed is down 30 db from that in the forward direction, minimizing interference effects between feed and aperture. It is the purpose of this thesis to show how a feed composed of complementary sources has been physically realized and to present and discuss experimental radiation and impedance data. It is well known that the radiation pattern of an electric dipole is a circle in the H plane and a figure 8 in the E plane. An open-ended coaxial line carrying the TE_{11} mode is similar to a magnetic dipole; i.e., the E plane is nearly circular while the H plane is like a figure 8. These two sources have been combined to produce a feed whose E - and H -plane patterns are of equal width. The complementary source idea has been applied to feeds of both linear and circular polarization. The linearly polarized feed is excited from rectangular waveguide and is simple to fabricate. It can be easily matched over a broadband. This feed has been used to illuminate a 20-inch parabola with the result that the secondary E and H planes are of equal width and the side lobes are 30 db down from the main radiation. The circularly polarized feed is excited from a circularly polarized TE_{11} mode in coaxial line. The radiating structure maintains circular symmetry and the axial ratio remains essentially constant over a large portion of the beam.