Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cochlear implants in children: an analysis of use over a three-year period.

OBJECTIVE This study aimed to determine whether children continue to wear their cochlear implant systems 1 and 3 years after implantation. STUDY DESIGN The design was a prospective study based on the analysis of forced-choice questionnaires on implant use completed independently by parents and teachers. SETTING The study was performed at a dedicated pediatric cochlear implant program in a tertiary referral center in the United Kingdom. PATIENTS All 85 consecutively implanted children who had reached the 1-year interval after implantation and 37 children who had reached the 3-year assessment interval after implantation participated. The patients represented all socioeconomic status groups, the entire range of educational settings, and often lived at a considerable distance from the implant center. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Parents and local teachers were asked to describe implant use in the following categories: 1) all of the time; 2) most of the time; 3) some of the time; and 4) none of the time. RESULTS One year after implantation, parents and teachers, respectively, rated 79 (93%) and 82 (96%) children as full-time users (category 1). Parents rated six children (7%) as users most of the time (category 2), and teachers rated three children (4%) as users most of the time. No child was rated as an occasional or nonuser (category 3 or 4). At 3 years after implantation, 33 (89%) and 34 (95%) children were rated as full-time users (category 1) by parents and teachers, respectively. Parents judged four children (11%) and teachers rated two children (5%) to be users most of the time (category 2). Again, no child was rated in category 3 or 4 as an occasional or nonuser. CONCLUSIONS The majority of implanted children use their implant systems all of the time over a 3-year period after implantation when selected appropriately and given appropriate follow-up.
Single Nucleotide Polymorphism Haplotypes in the Cholesteryl-Ester Transfer Protein (CETP) Gene and Lipid Phenotypes

We studied the association between high (HDL) and low-density (LDL) cholesterol concentrations and family-derived haplotypes based on six common SNPs in the cholesteryl-ester transfer protein (CETP) gene. We based our analysis on 201 founders from families recruited throughout Germany. The analysis revealed one subhaplotype block with complete, pairwise, linkage disequilibrium between 5 SNPs located in the promoter and intron 1. The sixth SNP was the well known 1405V polymorphism in exon 14, close to the 3′ end of the gene. Four haplotypes accounted for 86% of the entire sample. We found that haplotype associations with HDL, LDL, and the LDL/HDL ratio were more robust than associations with individual SNPs. Moreover, the associations were robust for men, but not for women. Our data suggest an interaction between gender and genetic variation within the CETP gene.
MIMO antenna design and optimization for mobile applications

A novel design strategy has been proposed for multiple antenna elements in MIMO systems to maximize the system capacity. Firstly, one single antenna has been effectively designed by HFSS software. Since it is very difficult to optimize the MIMO antenna parameters using HFSS, the single antenna has been modeled by a magnetic current to be used in optimization procedure. The magnetic current distribution can be employed in reciprocity approach along with MoM analysis to calculate the field radiation pattern of antenna element in presence of practical ground plane. This approach provides a calculation method, which is very suitable for optimization purposes. The optimization has been performed on correlation coefficient between antenna elements to obtain the optimum physical parameters. Ultimately, the optimal design has been validated by HFSS simulation.
Diminished curiosity in patients with probable Alzheimer's disease as measured by exploratory eye movements

Clinical accounts of Alzheimer's disease (AD) suggest that some patients exhibit markedly diminished curiosity and initiative early in the course of their illness. Such behavioral changes are extremely difficult to measure experimentally. We studied one aspect of curiosity by measuring exploratory eye movements in response to provocative visual stimuli in 12 patients with probable AD and 10 matched controls. Subjects viewed slides, each of which contained an incongruous or irregular figure paired with a congruous or regular one. Unlike controls, who spent significantly more time viewing the incongruous stimuli, AD patients distributed their viewing time equally and spent significantly less time than controls looking at the novel stimuli. Additionally, when presented with picture slides containing an unexpected element, AD patients exhibited diminished visual exploration overall and decreased attention to the incongruous part. Further analyses suggest that the results cannot be adequately explained by a general decline in cognition or by problems with ocular motility or directing visual attention. We conclude that AD patients exhibit diminished curiosity which can be measured by the study of exploratory eye movements.
Quality of Disease Management and Risk of Mortality in English Primary Care Practices.

OBJECTIVE To investigate whether better management of chronic conditions by family practices reduces mortality risk. DATA Two random samples of 5 million patients registered with over 8,000 English family practices followed up for 4 years (2004/5-2007/8). Measures of the quality of disease management for 10 conditions were constructed for each family practice for each year. The outcome measure was an indicator taking the value 1 if the patient died during a specified year, 0 otherwise. STUDY DESIGN Cross-section and multilevel panel data multiple logistic regressions were estimated. Covariates included age, gender, morbidity, hospitalizations, attributed socio-economic characteristics, and local health care supply measures. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Although a composite measure of the quality of disease management for all 10 conditions was significantly associated with lower mortality, only the quality of stroke care was significant when all 10 quality measures were entered in the regression. CONCLUSIONS The panel data results suggest that a 1 percent improvement in the quality of stroke care could reduce the annual number of deaths in England by 782 [95 percent CI: 423, 1140]. A longer study period may be necessary to detect any mortality impact of better management of other conditions.
Efficient Indexing for Structured and Unstructured Data

x Chapter 1: Introduction . 1 1.1 Top-k Query Processing . 2 1.2 Modeling Uncertainty in Data . 3 1.3 Computation Models . 4 1.4 Our Contributions . 5 Chapter 2: Preliminaries . 9 2.1 Ordered Range Retrieval . 9 2.2 Restricted Ordered Range Retrieval . 9 2.3 Three-dimensional Dominance Reporting . 10 2.4 Three-sided Orthogonal Range Reporting . 11 2.5 Suffix Trees and Compressed Suffix Trees . 11 2.6 Bit Vectors with Rank/Select Support . 12 Chapter 3: Ranked Join Indexing . 13 3.
Side‐branch wire entrapment during bifurcation PCI: Avoidance and management

An LAD/D1 bifurcation intervention was complicated by side‐branch wire entrapment and unravelling requiring goose‐neck snare removal. Residual microfilaments were retrieved from the main branch after further balloon inflations with a satisfactory final angiographic result and one‐year follow‐up. Various methods are available to avoid and deal with this complication. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Country-Specific Risk Premium, Taylor Rules, and Exchange Rates

The adoption of a Taylor-type monetary policy rule and an inflation target for emerging market economies that choose a flexible exchange rate regime is often advocated. This paper investigates the issue of exchange rate determination when interest-rate feedback rules are implemented in a continuous-time optimizing model of a small open economy facing an imperfect global capital market. It is demonstrated that when a risk premium on external debt affects the monetary policy transmission mechanism, the Taylor principle is not a necessary condition for determinacy of equilibrium. On the other hand, it is shown that exchange rate dynamics critically depends on whether monetary policy is active or passive.
RePort - Um Sistema de Extração de Informações Aberta para Língua Portuguesa (Report - An Open Information Extraction System for Portuguese Language)

An emerging field of research in Natural Language Processing (NLP) proposes Open Information Extraction systems (Open IE). Open IEs follow a domain-independent extraction paradigm that uses generic patterns to extract all relationships between entities. In this work, we present RePort, a method of Open IE for Portuguese, based on the ReVerb, an approach for English. Adaptations of syntactic and lexical rules for Portuguese were performed, using linguistic knowledge and a lexicon of verbal relations extracted from a corpus. The evaluation methodology consisted of two experiments where human evaluators indicated 81% accuracy for relations extracted by RePort, and the second experiment showed 77% similarity between the verbal relations extracted by RePort and its correlated extracted by ReVerb (from texts translated into English). Resumo. Um campo emergente de pesquisa em Processamento de Linguagem Natural (PLN) propõe Sistemas de Extração de Informações Abertos (Open Information Extraction System – Open IE) que segue um paradigma de extração independente de domínio que utiliza padrões genéricos para extrair todas as relações entre entidades. Neste trabalho apresentamos RePort, um método de Open IE para língua portuguesa, baseado na abordagem ReVerb para o inglês. Foram realizadas adaptações das regras sintáticas e lexicais para o português, usando conhecimento linguístico e um léxico de relações verbais extraído de um corpus. A metodologia de avaliação consistiu de dois experimentos, onde avaliadores humanos indicaram 81% de acurácia para as relações extraídas pelo RePort, e o segundo experimento mostrou 77% de similaridade entre as relações verbais extraídas pelo RePort e suas relações correlatas, extraídas pelo ReVerb (dos textos traduzidos em inglês).
From Automatic Sound Analysis of Gameplay Footage [Echos] to the Understanding of Player Experience [Ethos]: an Interdisciplinary Approach to Feedback- Based Gameplay Metrics

In line with the ICMC|SMC|2014 conference theme "from digital echos to virtual ethos", and the conference interdisciplinary main objective; the present paper is seeking to demonstrate that the sound feedback stream produced by videogames when activated by players (echos) can be automatically analyzed in order to study how sound can, not only, describe a gameplay perfor-mance, but also help to understand player experience and emotions (ethos). To do so, the present paper illustrates how sound processing algorithms can be applied in the game studies discipline in order to assess and understand better how players engage with videogames. The present paper proposes to adapt the Feedback-based Gameplay Metrics method, successfully applied to the analysis of gameplay footage video stream [17], to the sound stream, via the automatic detection of musical sequences and speech segment.
High‐degree sequence conservation in LPA kringle IV‐type 2 exons and introns

In the search for factors contributing to the regulation of the Lp(a) lipoprotein concentration, we have sequenced the kringle IV‐type 2 encoding exons 1 and 2 together with the flanking intron sequences of the LPA gene in individuals with different serum concentrations of Lp(a) lipoprotein. The high degree of sequence identity between the kringle IV‐type 2 repeats made it possible to analyse all the 3–42 kringles simultaneously by polymerase chain reaction and direct DNA sequencing. The strategy used allowed us to determine approximately 700 bp from each kringle IV‐type 2 repeat, resulting in a rapid screen of on average 28 000 bp of the LPA gene from each individual. Comparing these bipartite kringle IV‐type 2 repeat sequences from 12 individuals with high and 11 individuals with low Lp(a) lipoprotein level revealed that: 1. no sequence polymorphism could be detected in the exons examined; 2. no sequence polymorphism could be detected in the consensus GT/AG splicing signals of exon/intron junctions; and 3. the proximal intron sequences seemed almost completely conserved in the 76–135 bp analysed. Only one position in the intron sequences exhibited the pattern of a G/A polymorphism. We observed no differences between the group with high and the group with low Lp(a) lipoprotein level. The very high conservation of intron sequences could support the hypothesis that the LPA gene evolved relatively recently. The contradictory finding of a corresponding sequence conservation between the human LPA and the plasminogen gene suggests that an evolutionary pressure has preserved these intron sequences over the last 40–90 million years.
OUTCOME OF CATARACT SURGERY. III. INFLUENCE OF AGE, MACULAR DISEASE AND TYPE OF CORRECTION

This study evaluates the influence of age, type of aphakic correction and macular disease on outcome of cataract surgery. This is done by multivariate regression analyses on data collected prospectively in 123 consecutive cataract patients. The analyses showed that age and type of correction had only minor influence on outcome. The most influencing factor was macular disease. If a patient's macula is or becomes diseased then outcome regardless of any other variables will be reduced compared to outcome in patients without macular disease and vice versa. These findings however do not mean that macular disease constitute a contraindication for cataract extraction. In fact we found that also the macular diseased cataract patients do benefit considerably from cataract surgery.
Black/White racial disparities in health: a cross-country comparison of Canada and the United States.

Research on health disparities in the United States has consistently reported poorer health outcomes among racial/ethnic minorities relative to whites, particularly among African Americans.1-2 In Canada, there are limited studies on racial/ethnic groups, presumably because of concerns about small samples, confidentiality, and an emphasis on socioeconomic inequalities.3 The body of literature regarding black Canadians, which compose 2.5% of the nation, is beginning to emerge. The existing literature indicates that the burden of disease may be greater for black Canadians compared with their white counterparts, and that black Canadians face a number of barriers to achieving good health, including poverty, difficulty accessing health care, discrimination, and poor health behaviors.4-8 We obtained nationally representative estimates of health indicators among native-born black Canadians, and compared these estimates with those of native-born white Canadians. We replicated the analyses using a US sample of African Americans .
Unsupervised semantic clustering of Twitter hashtags

Social micro-blogging networks such as Twitter provide an enormous amount of information, and their automated and unsupervised analysis constitutes an exciting research challenge in Artificial Intelligence. This work presents a novel methodology, based on a semantic clustering of the set of hashtags, which permits to obtain automatically the topics associated to a given set of tweets. A case study on the field of Oncology shows how the main topics of interest are successfully discovered.
FLYER: fast fault simulation of linear analog circuits using polynomial waveform and perturbed state representation

In this paper we propose a methodology for obtaining a closed form expression for the output of a linear analog circuits from its state-space description. Voltage waveforms at all the nodes of the circuit are obtained as polynomials in time. This closed form expressions for the circuit response together with the adjoint network method and sparse matrix techniques enhances fast parallel fault simulation. Experiments indicate that significant speedup of fault simulation over serial fault simulation using HSPICE can be obtained using our approach.
New phenotypes generated by the G57R mutation of BUD23 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

BUD23 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae encodes for a class I methyltransferase, and deletion of the gene results in slow growth and random budding phenotypes. Herein, two BUD23 mutants defective in methyltransferase activity were generated to investigate whether the phenotypes of the null mutant might be correlated with a loss in enzymatic activity. Expression at the physiological level of both D77A and G57R mutants was able to rescue the phenotypes of the bud23‐null mutant. The result implied that the methyltransferase activity of the protein was not necessary for supporting normal growth and bud site selection of the cells. High‐level expression of Bud23 (G57R), but not Bud23 or Bud23 (D77A), in BUD23 deletion cells failed to complement these phenotypes. However, just like Bud23, Bud23 (G57R) was localized in a DAPI‐poor region in the nucleus. Distinct behaviour in Bud23 (G57R) could not be originated from a mislocalization of the protein. Over‐expression of Bud23 (G57R) in null cells also produced changes in actin organization and additional septin mutant‐like phenotypes. Therefore, the absence of Bud23, Bud23 (G57R) at a high level might affect the cell division of yeast cells through an as yet unidentified mechanism. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Does a subparalysing dose of vecuronium enhance diaphragm fatigue?

We have examined, in six healthy volunteers, the effect of a subparalysing dose of vecuronium on the development of diaphragm fatigue. Vecuronium was given as a 0.5-mg bolus i.v. followed by 0.5 mg infused over 30 min; as a control, saline was given in random order. Diaphragm strength was assessed by measuring transdiaphragm pressure and by electromyography. Diaphragm fatigue was induced by breathing against an inspiratory resistance. The plasma concentration of vecuronium varied between 15 and 30 ng ml-1 15 min after administration of vecuronium was started. Peripheral neuromuscular block was not detected in any subject. Diaphragm fatigue developed within the same period in both groups: mean 334 (SD 166) s after saline and 345 (190) s after vecuronium. The electromyographic pattern of diaphragm fatigue and the time constant of relaxation of transdiaphragm pressure after fatigue were similar in both groups. We conclude that, at low plasma concentrations of vecuronium, similar to those present in the postoperative period, there was no predisposition to diaphragm fatigue.
Performance analysis of subband adaptive systems using an equivalent model

In this paper, we propose an equivalent model for subband adaptive systems, in order to analyze the performance of the system. Using the proposed model, we obtain a new interpretation of the system, and show theoretical equations of the optimum adaptive digital filter (ADF) coefficients and the least mean squared error (LMSE). From these equations, we also derive the theoretical values of the optimum ADF coefficients and the LMSE. Comparing them with results of computer simulations without the model, we can see agreements of the theoretical values and the simulation results. <<ETX>>
Fabrication of monolithic Wheatstone bridge circuit for piezoresistive microcantilever sensor

In this paper, the fabrication of monolithic Wheatstone bridge circuit on piezoresistive microcantilever sensor is presented. The development of the device is realized through silicon micromachining technology on silicon substrate through three major fabrication steps including silicon piezoresistive microcantilever formation, aluminum deposition of Wheatstone bridge interconnections and microcantilever release. The electrical discontinuity of interconnections which is one of the major issues encountered in the fabrication process is discussed and analyzed. Deposition of proper thickness of metal interconnection layers through metal evaporation process accompanied with annealing process at low temperature ensures complete electrical connections in the monolithic Wheatstone bridge configuration. Measurement of the fabricated Wheatstone bridge circuit shows a good agreement between theoretical and experimental values indicating successful fabrication of the device. Fabrication of piezoresistive microcantilever structure integrated with monolithic Wheatstone bridge circuit with resistance values in the range of 1 to 9 kΩ has been successfully realized using silicon micromachining technology.
Placing user needs at the centre of building performance simulation: transfering knowledge from human computer interaction

This paper reviews and explores some principles and theories of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and the related field of Interaction Design in relation to Building Performance Simulation (BPS). HCI seeks to make computer systems and software more useable and more attractive to its users. The main focus of the paper is on the interaction between user and computer system and how interaction could facilitate the knowledge transfer of BPS procedures and processes from experts to non-experts. The paper discusses users and their tasks, designing for interaction, and the level of control different users might have over BPS. Design patterns are proposed as a means of interaction between user and computer system. The aim of the paper is to provide a platform for a future discussion on the extent to which BPS has engaged with HCI practices and principles, and the possibilities HCI holds for the further development of BPS. A number of research directions are identified.
The Effect of Multi-Additional Sampling for Multi-Fidelity Efficient Global Optimization

Powerful computer-aided design tools are presently vital for engineering product development. Efficient global optimization (EGO) is one of the most popular methods for design of a high computational cost problem. The original EGO is proposed for only one additional sample point. In this work, parallel computing is applied to the original EGO process via a multi-additional sampling technique. The weak point of the multi-additional sampling is it has slower convergence rate when compared with the original EGO. This paper applies the multi-fidelity technique to the multi-additional EGO process to see the effect of the number of multi-additional sampling points and the converge rate. A co-kriging method and a hybrid RBF/Kriging surrogate model are selected for the surrogate model in the EGO process to show the advantage of the multi-additional EGO process compared with the single-fidelity Kriging surrogate model. In the experiment, single-additional sampling points and two to four number of multi-additional sampling per iteration are tested with symmetry and asymmetry mathematical test functions. The results show the hybrid RBF/Kriging surrogate model can obtain the similar optimal points when using the multi-additional sampling EGO.