Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An early rehabilitation clinical pathway promoted functional recovery and improved quality of life in patients with ischemic stroke

Objective: To explore the effects of an early rehabilitation clinical pathway combined with a rehabilitation program on the activities of daily living, motor function and quality of life in patients with ischemic stroke. Methods: A total of 186 patients with ischemic stroke in the Jingzhou First People’s Hospital were randomly divided into group A and group B, with 93 cases in each group. Patients in group A were treated with an early rehabilitation clinical pathway and corresponding rehabilitation treatment, and patients in group B were treated with conventional rehabilitation. The Modified Barthel Index (MBI) and the Fugl-Meyer Motor Function Rating Scale (FMA) were used to assess the daily activity and motor functions in the two groups of patients. The stroke specific quality of life scale (SS-QOL) was used to assess quality of life after 3 months of rehabilitation. Results: The difference in value of MBI after treatment and the improvement degree of MBI in group A ((after MBI-before MBI)/(100-before MBI)×100%) were significantly higher than that of group B (All P<0.001). The difference in value of FMA and the degree of improvement in FMA ((after FMA-before FMA)/(100-before FMA)×100%) in patients in group A were significantly higher than those in group B (All P<0.001). The SS-QOL score of patients in group A was significantly better than that in group B (P<0.001). Conclusion: An early rehabilitation clinical pathway combined with a standardized rehabilitation program can promote daily activities and abilities, recover motor functions and improve quality of life in patients with ischemic stroke.
Phase transition in MgSiO3 perovskite in the earth’s lower mantle

A new polymorph of MgSiO3 more stable than the Pbnm-perovskite phase has been identified by first-principles computations. It has the CaIrO3 structure with Cmcm symmetry and consists of SiO3 layers intercalated by eightfoldcoordinated Mg ions. High-temperature calculations within the quasiharmonic approximation give a volume change of f 1.5% and a Clapeyron slope of f 7.5F 0.3 MPa/K at f 2750 K and f 125 GPa. These pressure–temperature (P–T) conditions are close to those in which a phase transition in MgSiO3-perovskite has been observed by in situ angle dispersive X-ray diffraction measurements. This transition appears to be associated with the DU discontinuity. D 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Handbook on Monitoring and Evaluation of Human Resources for Health

Citation for published version (APA): McQuide, P., Settle, D. , Abubaker, W. , Alsheikh, M. , Regina Pierantonin, C. , & de Vries, D. H. (2009). Use of administrative data sources for health workforce analysis: multicountry experience in implementation of human resources information systems. In M. R. Dal Poz, N. Gupta, E. Quain, & A. L. Soucat (Eds.), Handbook on Monitoring and Evaluation of Human Resources for Health with special applications for lowand middle-income countries (pp. 113-126). Geneva: World Health Organization.
Meta-analysis of the efficacy of prostate artery embolization in prostatic hyperplasia

Objective: The purpose of this article was to assess the efficacy of PAE in the treatment of LUTS related to BPH. Methods: Databases including PubMed, MEDLINE, EMBASE, the Cochrane Library, and other related sources were searched, with the results limited to items published between Jan. 1st, 2000 and Jun. 30th, 2017, for randomized controlled studies concerning PAE/BPH/LUTS and with no language restriction. Eligible randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were selected by independent paired researchers according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The overall quality of each of the included RCTs was assessed using the Cochrane risk of bias tool. The main outcome measures included the quality of life score (QoL), prostate volume (PV), the international prostate symptom score (IPSS), the maximum urinary flow rate (Qmax), postvoid residual urine volume (PVR volume), prostate-specific antigen (PSA), and the international index of erectile function (IIEF-5). The fixed effect model or random effect model was selected for the meta-analysis using RevMan 5.2 software. Results: Nine RCTs containing 508 patients were included. Compared with the baseline, the meta-analysis for this study showed that the QoL scores were significantly lowered after PAE at postoperative 1, 3, and 12 months (all P<0.001). The PV showed no significant change after PAE at postoperative 1 and 3 months (P=0.39, P=0.49), but it decreased significantly at postoperative 12 months (P<0.00001). Significant improvements were shown in IPSS (all P<0.00001) and Qmax (all P<0.0001) after PAE at postoperative 1, 3, and 12 months. The PVR volume was significantly improved after PAE at postoperative 1, 3, and 12 months (P=0.009, P=0.010, P=0.004). The PSA presented no improvement after PAE at postoperative 1 and 12 months (P=0.73, P=0.37), but it presented significant improvement after 3 months (P<0.0001). IIEF-5 showed no improvement after PAE at postoperative 1, 3, and 12 months (P=0.46, P=1.00, P=0.67). Conclusion: PAE is an effective treatment for BPH-induced LUTS.
UniKV: Toward High-Performance and Scalable KV Storage in Mixed Workloads via Unified Indexing

Persistent key-value (KV) stores are mainly designed based on the Log-Structured Merge-tree (LSM-tree), which suffer from large read and write amplifications, especially when KV stores grow in size. Existing design optimizations for LSM-tree-based KV stores often make certain trade-offs and fail to simultaneously improve both the read and write performance on large KV stores without sacrificing scan performance. We design UniKV, which unifies the key design ideas of hash indexing and the LSM-tree in a single system. Specifically, UniKV leverages data locality to differentiate the indexing management of KV pairs. It also develops multiple techniques to tackle the issues caused by unifying the indexing techniques, so as to simultaneously improve the performance in reads, writes, and scans. Experiments show that UniKV significantly outperforms several state-of-the-art KV stores (e.g., LevelDB, RocksDB, HyperLevelDB, and PebblesDB) in overall throughput under read-write mixed workloads.
Ontological Modelling and Reasoning of Phenotypes

The successful determination and analysis of phenotypes plays a key role in the diagnostic process, the evaluation of risk factors and the recruitment of participants for clinical and epidemiological studies. The development of computable phenotype algorithms to solve these tasks is a challenging problem, caused by various reasons. Firstly, the term ‘phenotype’ has no generally agreed definition and its meaning depends on context. Secondly, the phenotypes are most commonly specified as non-computable descriptive documents. Recent attempts have shown that ontologies are a suitable way to handle phenotypes and that they can support clinical research and decision making. The SMITH Consortium is dedicated to rapidly establish an integrative medical informatics framework to provide physicians with the best available data and knowledge and enable innovative use of healthcare data for research and treatment optimization. In the context of a methodological use case “phenotype pipeline” (PheP), a technology to automatically generate phenotype classifications and annotations based on electronic health records (EHR) is developed. A large series of phenotype algorithms will be implemented. This implies that for each algorithm a classification scheme and its input variables have to be defined. Furthermore, a phenotype engine is required to evaluate and execute developed algorithms. In this article we present a Core Ontology of Phenotypes (COP) and a software Phenotype Manager (PhenoMan), which implements a novel ontology-based method to model and calculate phenotypes. Our solution includes an enhanced iterative reasoning process combining classification tasks with mathematical calculations at runtime. The ontology as well as the reasoning method were successfully evaluated based on different phenotypes (including SOFA score, socio-economic status, body surface area and WHO BMI classification) and several data sets.
Impacts of surficial permafrost landforms on surface hydrology

The runoff response of low-gradient watersheds underlain by continuous permafrost is relatively high during snowmelt, but low during the remainder of the summer period, although a majority of the annual precipitation may occur during this three month period from June through August. Permafrost landforms such as drained-lakes, low-centered polygons, strangmoor ridges and reticulate-patterned ground retard surface drainage and increase surface storage. This accounts for the abundance of lakes, ponds and wetlands found in many lowgradient arctic catchments. Near annual maximum solar energy during the summer, coupled with available surface water, results in substantial vertical fluxes of water back to the atmosphere by evaporation, but augmented by transpiration. Evapotranspiration exceeds precipitation during the summer months. Extensive wetlands dry out during the summer; this produces potential surface storage for future rainfall or snowmelt and fragments the existing drainage network. The connectivity of the drainage network is only restored through large inputs of water into the basin; this generally occurs during the next spring snowmelt. A three-year case study of the Putuligayuk River catchment (471 km2) in northern Alaska will be presented. Permafrost, Phillips, Springman & Arenson (eds) © 2003 Swets & Zeitlinger, Lisse, ISBN 90 5809 582 7
ESPRESSO INSTRUMENT CONTROL ELECTRONICS AND SOFTWARE: FINAL PHASES BEFORE THE INSTALLATION IN CHILE

ESPRESSO, the Echelle SPectrograph for Rocky Exoplanet and Stable Spectroscopic Observations, is undergoing the final testing phases before being shipped to Chile and installed in the Combined Coudé Laboratory (CCL) at the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere Very Large Telescope site (ESO-VLT). The integration of the instrument took place at the Astronomical Observatory of Geneva. It included the full tests of the Instrument Control Electronics (ICE) and Control Software, designed and developed at the INAF Astronomical Observatory of Trieste. ESPRESSO is the first ESO-VLT permanent instrument whose electronics is based on Beckhoff PLCs. Two PLC CPUs shares all the workload of the ESPRESSO functions and communicates through the OPC-UA protocol with the VLT instrument control software. In this phase all the devices and subsystems of ESPRESSO are installed, connected together and verified, mimicking the final working conditions in Chile. This paper will summarize the features of the ESPRESSO control system, the tests performed during the integration in Europe and the main performances obtained before the integration of the whole instrument “on sky” in South America.
Wireless Physical Layer Network Coding with Compute and Forward Relaying Strategy

Wireless Physical Layer Network Coding with Compute & Forward Relaying Strategy At the time Wireless Physical Layer Network Coding (WPNC) is hot topic in research community due to properties allowing to increase the overall troughput in dense networks. The main goal of the thesis is to analyze Compute & Forward as one possible relaying strategy in WPNC. In order to work with this strategy WPNC fundamentals and basics of lattice based code designs with emphasis on its information theoretic implications are explained in the first part of the thesis. Second part of the thesis focuses on Compute & Forward relaying strategy as a special case of technique used for WPNC. Analysis starts with a basic application to a single stage network analyzing the performance (residual MSE of lattice misalignment, noise amplification) in relationship with lattice inflation scaling and modulo lattice combination coefficients. There is also performed comparison of different Hierarchical Network Code (HNC) maps. The main contribution of the thesis is design of Hierarchical Interference Cancellation (H-IFC) concept and its comparision with standard solution.
Existence and non-existence of radially symmetric non-negative solutions for a class of semi-positone problems in an annulus

We study the boundary value problem { −∆u(x) = λf(u(x)), R < |x| < R̂ u(x) = 0, |x| ∈ {R, R̂} where λ > 0, f(0) < 0 and f is superlinear. We prove existence of a radially symmetric non-negative solution for λ > 0 sufficiently small and nonexistence of such a solution for λ > 0 large. This paper was done while the second author was visiting the Departamento de Análisis Matemático de la Universidad de Granada. He thanks this Department for its hospitality.
Spacecraft Pose Estimation For Non- Cooperative Rendezvous Based On Feature Codebook

The goal of this master’s thesis is the implementation and analysis of an algorithm able to detect the pose of a non-cooperative spacecraft in autonomous rendezvous scenarios. The algorithm is based on a codebook approach, where features reduced in dimensionality with a two-dimensional principal component algorithm are associated to attitudes. The training set of attitudes is generated using a 3D-CAD model of the non-cooperative spacecraft, with the rotations in the 3D space defined by means of random uniform quaternions. The document begins with a review of the different methods for spacecraft pose estimation under non-cooperative rendezvous scenarios, the Principal Component Analysis with some of its two-dimensional variations, and a study of the methods for sampling all the possible orientations of a 3D-object. Next, the proposed architecture of the system is described and tested, over a set of tests designed to simulate the different possible environments in a real case of application. The document is concluded with the discussed results, conclusions and guidelines for future work. The proposed algorithm allows to estimate accurately the pose under different illumination conditions and distances to the spacecraft, with a moderate computational load and without previous knowledge of the spacecraft’s pose.
Robust Design of Differential Operational Amplifiers by Constrained Optimization

Two separate solutions to a challenging robust design problem—that of a differential operational amplifier used in telephone equipment—were developed by Phadke (1986, 1989) based on Taguchi’s Orthogonal Inner Array ×Outer Array experimental approach and S/N ratios. This present study re-visits that problem in view of several new techniques that have evolved since then. This study finds these newer methods to be remarkably more effective. It is also shown that for such robust design problems marshalling these newer methods is no more complex, and hence could be valuably adapted to similar product or process design challenges.
PURE: Using Verified Remote Attestation to Obtain Proofs of Update, Reset and Erasure in low-End Embedded Systems

Remote Attestation ($\mathcal{R}\mathrm{A}$) is a security service that enables a trusted verifier ($\mathcal{V}{\text{rf}}$) to measure current memory state of an untrusted remote prover ($\mathcal{P}{\text{rv}}$). If correctly implemented, $\mathcal{R}\mathrm{A}$ allows $\mathcal{V}{\text{rf}}$ to remotely detect if $\mathcal{P}{\text{rv}}$'s memory reflects a compromised state. However, $\mathcal{R}{\mathrm{A}}$ by itself offers no means of remedying the situation once $\mathcal{P}$ rv is determined to be compromised. In this work we show how a secure $\mathcal{R}\mathrm{A}$ architecture can be extended to enable important and useful security services for low-end embedded devices. In particular, we extend the formally verified $\mathcal{R}\mathrm{A}$ architecture, VRASED, to implement provably secure software update, erasure, and system-wide resets. When (serially) composed, these features guarantee to $\mathcal{V}{\text{rf}}$ that a remote $\mathcal{P}{\text{rv}}$ has been updated to a functional and malware-free state, and was properly initialized after such process. These services are provably secure against an adversary (represented by malware) that compromises $\mathcal{P}{\text{rv}}$ and exerts full control of its software state. Our results demonstrate that such services incur minimal additional overhead (0.4% extra hardware footprint, and 100-s milliseconds to generate combined proofs of update, erasure, and reset), making them practical even for the lowest-end embedded devices, e.g., those based on MSP430 or AVR ATMega micro-controller units (MCUs). All changes introduced by our new services to VRASED trusted components are also formally verified.
ENTROPY BASED MEASURES FOR INCORPORATING FEATURE STREAM DIVERSITY IN THE LINGUISTIC SEARCH SPACE FOR SYLLABLE BASED AUTOMATIC ANNOTATED RECOGNIZER

In this paper, we propose a method to integrate acoustic features, Mel Frequency cepstral coefficients(MFCC) and Modified Group Delay Features(MODGDF), which are derived from short time magnitude and phase spectrum respectively and provide complementary information for speech recognition. Our method uses two information theoretic measures, namely, the entropy of the HMM model for merged feature stream, the entropy of the model for individual feature streams for a given syllable. During the training phase, the weights for the models of two feature streams, MFCC and MODGDF are computed. During recognition these weights are retrieved from the syllable-feature stream weight information and the likelihoods are appropriately weighed. The syllable lattice is now re-scored using these weighted likelihood scores in the linguistic search space. This technique yields reduced word error rate(WER) for experiments conducted on DBIL database [1].
The efficacy of sitagliptin for non-alcoholic-fatty liver disease: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

Introduction: The efficacy of sitagliptin for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease remains controversial. Therefore, this study was conducted as a systematic review and meta-analysis to explore the influence of sitagliptin versus placebo on the treatment of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Methods: PubMed, EMbase, Web of science, EBSCO, and Cochrane library databases were searched for dates through December 2018 for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) assessing the efficacy of sitagliptin versus placebo for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. This meta-analysis is performed using the random-effect model. Results: Five RCTs involving 208 patients are included in the meta-analysis. Overall, compared with control group for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, sitagliptin treatment has no substantially positive impact on NAS (Std. MD=-0.45; 95% CI=-1.0 to 0.1; P=0.11), steatosis (Std. MD=-0.40; 95% CI=-0.95 to 0.15; P=0.15), fibrosis (Std. MD=0.27; 95% CI=-0.28 to 0.81; P=0.34), ALT (Std. MD=0.19; 95% CI=-0.15 to 0.53; P=0.27), AST (Std. MD=0.35; 95% CI=-0.10 to 0.80; P=0.13), FBS (Std. MD=-1.77; 95% CI=-4.04 to 0.51; P=0.13), HOMA IR (Std. MD=0.03; 95% CI=-0.50 to 0.56; P=0.90), and LDL (Std. MD=0; 95% CI=-0.40 to 0.39; P=1.0). Conclusions: Sitagliptin treatment may produce no favorable efficacy for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
Make RBF Networks Fast Again- Exploiting Multi-Threaded Computing to Speed Up RBF Networks

When learning ideas and concepts, humans often cluster similar ideas together, breaking up concepts into sub-concepts after learning the concepts. A way to model this idea is to train neural networks using soft-assignment clustering algorithms as non-linear activation layers. Concepts can be broken up through adding centroids to the output vocabulary after initial training and using transfer learning to fine tune the new sub-concepts. This can be used to grow vocabularies in neural networks with minimal training. However, extensive training times of these layers still pose a hindrance for fast training of networks with huge amounts of high dimensional data. This paper addresses the above problem by exploiting the high degree of parallelism that exists in the computation of these layers. We outline the translation of a CPU version of Radial Basis Function Layers (RBF) into a General Purpose Graphical Processing Unit (GPGPU) version for speed and for practical use in deep learning. We compare the forward and backward inference times of a single-threaded CPU, multi-threaded CPU, and a GPGPU implementation of an RBF layer, and show that we obtain considerable speed-ups when multi-tasking. We also publicly release all back-end and bench-marking code for ready integration with TensorFlow for use in the scientific community.
Electoral neural network technologies in the information- analytical system of the security operation center

The article describes an approach to improving methods for solving security event classification problems in information and analytical systems of security operation centers based on an ensemble of electoral neural networks, as well as using the adaptive reduction method of a neural network ensemble to improve the classification reliability. Electoral neurons differ from classic neurons in a more efficient way of processing input information. The approach is based on the application of procedures for adaptive reduction of the results of classifiers of the ensemble and the choice of the method of their aggregation. It is shown that the use of the considered approach provides an increase in the efficiency of solving the set task.
Multiple Paths to Firm Innovation in Sub-Saharan Africa: How informal institutions matter

Although innovation studies in developing countries acknowledge the importance of resources for firm innovation, their emphasis tends to be on bottlenecks created by resource constraints and institutional weaknesses. We address this shortcoming by exploring the relationship among firm resources and formal and informal institutions leading to innovation in these settings. By adopting a crisp-set qualitative comparative analysis of firms in sub-Saharan Africa, we confirm the thesis that informal institutions substitute underdeveloped formal institutions and in combination with firm-level resources afford firm innovation. More importantly, we find that informal institutions also complement more developed formal institutions in the presence or absence of high levels of firm resources or accommodate them in the presence of high levels of firm resources to support firm innovation. Our findings point to multiple paths that firms can take to be innovative that best fit their existing institutional context.
A NEW FUZZY ADAPTIVE VOLTAGE CONTROLLER FOR A THREE-PHASE INVERTER IN A STANDALONE DISTRIBUTED GENERATION SYSTEM

A New Fuzzy Adaptive voltage control technique for a three-phase Distributed generation system, which is fed by a solar PV system in the load location, is proposed in this paper. The technique uses adaption control and state feedback control techniques to achieve the required performance. The algorithm is easy to implement, and it is very robust to system uncertainties and sudden load disturbances. This control strategy ensures the most desired voltage regulation performance (zero steady-state error and low THD), under different types of loads such as balanced load, unbalanced load, and nonlinear load. The simulation results are presented for different types of loads and are compared to the performances of the adaptive voltage controller without fuzzy to validate the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme. This strategy achieves good voltage regulation in terms of zero steady state error and low THD for sudden changes in balanced load, unbalanced load, and nonlinear load. The system is simulated and its performance is evaluated using MATLAB environment.