Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Why Players use Pings and Annotations in Dota 2

Groupware research has long focused on representing gestures as a means to facilitate collaboration. However, this work has not led to wide support of gesturing in commercial groupware systems. In contrast, Dota 2, a popular MOBA game, provides two frequently-used gesturing tools: annotations - freely drawn lines on top of the gamespace - and pings - a combination of animation and sound indicating a point of interest. While gesturing tools are important for quickly coordinating with teammates in Dota 2, there is little information about how and why people use them. To gather this information, we performed two complementary studies: an interaction analysis of eight game replays, and a survey of 167 experienced players. Our findings include: six distinct motivations for the use of gesturing tools; when and how frequently gesture motivations occur during games; and, that players find pings an essential tool for winning, but not annotations. Our findings provide new directions for the design of gesturing tools in groupware and online games.
Trends in the cost of a healthy food basket and fruit and vegetable availability in New South Wales, Australia, between 2006 and 2009

Aim To compare food costs and variety of fresh fruits and vegetables (F&V) available at three time points in December 2006, December 2008 and July 2009. Methods Data on the cost of a 44-item food basket across the main food groups including fresh and packaged foods were collected in 2006 (149 stores), 2008 (105 stores) and 2009 (129 stores). In addition, the number of varieties of 30 different fresh F&V was surveyed. Stores included the two major supermarket chains and smaller grocery chains using a convenience sample in NSW. The effects of rural/regional differences, socioeconomic differences, and store competition on cost and variety were assessed. Results The mean price of the food basket increased by 3.4% between December 2006 and 2008 and was lowest in July 2009, decreasing by 6.2% from December 2006. Variation between the cheapest and most expensive individual stores resulted in a $221 price difference in 2009, $148 in 2008 and $182 in 2006. Total food and F&V costs were more expensive in remote areas compared with highly accessible areas. The number of F&V varieties was influenced by increasing remoteness, low socioeconomic area and supermarket competition. Conclusions There was considerable variability in food costs by geographic areas and availability of fresh F&V also varied in both geographic and socio-demographic areas. Monitoring of food costs may help reduce price variability, enabling identification of areas where the cost of food is disproportionately high.
ASSESSMENT OF SOME ATHEROSCLEROSIS RISK FACTORS IN CHILDREN OF PATIENTS WITH YOUNG STROKE

INTRODUCTION: Cerebral strokes below the age of 45 account for up to 3% of all strokes. Given that atherosclerotic thrombotic factors are the most frequent etiology of cerebrovascular accidents (CVA) second to cardioembolic causes, and that children of families with sequels of premature atherosclerosis are considered to be at risk, we assessed atherosclerosis risk factors and antiphospholipid antibody (APL-Ab) levels in children of patients with young stroke (YS) and without cardioembolic causes in comparison with controls. METHODS: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 27 children of patients with YS due to non-cardiac causes (case group) and 2 control groups, one with 52 children of patients with stroke after the age of 50, and another with 55 children without the history of stroke in their parents. Findings were analyzed with SPSS using ANOVA. RESULTS: The mean values of systolic and diastolic blood pressure, LDL-C and ApoB100 in the case group were significantly higher and mean HDL-C and ApoA1 were significantly lower in the case group. The number of APL-Ab-positive cases was larger in the case group. The other assessed variables were not different between the two control groups. CONCLUSIONS: Atherosclerotic thrombotic risk factors were more prevalent in children of patients with atherosclerotic thrombotic cerebral YS than in controls. Primordial and primary prevention of risk factors should be considered in children of these families.
Follow the successful crowd: raising MOOC completion rates through social comparison at scale

Social comparison theory asserts that we establish our social and personal worth by comparing ourselves to others. In in-person learning environments, social comparison offers students critical feedback on how to behave and be successful. By contrast, online learning environments afford fewer social cues to facilitate social comparison. Can increased availability of such cues promote effective self-regulatory behavior and achievement in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)? We developed a personalized feedback system that facilitates social comparison with previously successful learners based on an interactive visualization of multiple behavioral indicators. Across four randomized controlled trials in MOOCs (overall N = 33, 726), we find: (1) the availability of social comparison cues significantly increases completion rates, (2) this type of feedback benefits highly educated learners, and (3) learners' cultural context plays a significant role in their course engagement and achievement.
Reflective writing analytics for actionable feedback

Reflective writing can provide a powerful way for students to integrate professional experience and academic learning. However, writing reflectively requires high quality actionable feedback, which is time-consuming to provide at scale. This paper reports progress on the design, implementation, and validation of a Reflective Writing Analytics platform to provide actionable feedback within a tertiary authentic assessment context. The contributions are: (1) a new conceptual framework for reflective writing; (2) a computational approach to modelling reflective writing, deriving analytics, and providing feedback; (3) the pedagogical and user experience rationale for platform design decisions; and (4) a pilot in a student learning context, with preliminary data on educator and student acceptance, and the extent to which we can evidence that the software provided actionable feedback for reflective writing.
A neural network approach for students' performance prediction

In this paper, we propose a method for predicting final grades of students by a Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) from the log data stored in the educational systems. We applied this method to the log data from 108 students and examined the accuracy of prediction. From the experimental results, comparing with multiple regression analysis, it is confirmed that an RNN is effective to early prediction of final grades.
Ventilação mecânica não invasiva no pós-operatório imediato de cirurgia cardíaca

BACKGROUND: : Noninvasive ventilation is routine in acute respiratory failure patients; nevertheless, the literature is controversial for its use in cardiac surgery postoperative period. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effectiveness of preventive noninvasive ventilation in the immediate postoperative period of cardiac surgery, monitoring its impact until the sixth day of hospitalization. METHODS: This was a controlled study, where patients in immediate postoperative period of cardiac surgery were randomized into two groups: control (G1) and investigational (G2) which received noninvasive ventilation set on pressure support mode and positive end expiratory pressure, for 2 hours following extubation. Were evaluated ventilatory, hemodynamical and oxygenation variables both immediately after extubation and after noninvasive ventilation in G2. RESULTS: Thirty-two patients completed the study, 18 in G1 and 14 in G2. The mean age was 61±16.23 years for G1 and for G2 61.5 ± 9.4 years. Of the initial twenty-seven patients in G1, nine patients (33.3%) were excluded due to invasive ventilation requirements, and three patients (11.11%) had to go back to invasive mechanical ventilation. None of the 14 G2 patients was reintubated. Patients undergoing early ventilatory support showed better results in the assessments throughout the hospitalization time. CONCLUSION: Noninvasive post-cardiac surgery ventilation was proven effective, as demonstrated by increased vital capacity, decreased respiratory rate, prevention of post-extubation acute respiratory failure and reduced reintubation rates.
Evaluation of a treatment programme for serious mental illness and substance use in an inner city area

People with co-occurring drug and alcohol problems and mental disorders often fail to access treatment or are poorly treated by the current health systems. In 1994 an inner city community mental health service in Sydney attempted to address this problem by establishing a treatment programme targeting patients with a serious mental illness and substance use. The treatment programme employed 3.5 fulltime clinical staff and was called the Gemini Project. A quasi-experimental design was used to assess the efficacy of this service. Eighty-three patients were assessed for treatment, 67 received treatment and 37 were followed-up at 12 months. A revised version of the Opiate Treatment Index and the Nursing Modification version of the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale were used to measure drug taking, social functioning, HIV risk-taking behaviour, and psychiatric symptoms before and after intervention. One-year follow-ups detected no significant changes in patient outcomes. A major problem in implementing this progra.
Manual and gaze input cascaded (MAGIC) pointing

This work explores a new direction in utilizing eye gaze forcomputer input. Gaze tracking has long been considered as analternative or potentially superior pointing method for computerinput. We believe that many fundamental limitations exist withtraditional gaze pointing. In particular, it is unnatural tooverload a perceptual channel such as vision with a motor controltask. We therefore propose an alternative approach, dubbed MAGIC(Manual And Gaze Input Cascaded) pointing. With such an approach,pointing appears to the user to be a manual task, used for finemanipulation and selection. However, a large portion of the cursormovement is eliminated by warping the cursor to the eye gaze area,which encompasses the target. Two specific MAGIC pointingtechniques, one conservative and one liberal, were designed,analyzed, and implemented with an eye tracker we developed. Theywere then tested in a pilot study. This early- stage explorationshowed that the MAGIC pointing techniques might offer manyadvantages, including reduced physical effort and fatigue ascompared to traditional manual pointing, greater accuracy andnaturalness than traditional gaze pointing, and possibly fasterspeed than manual pointing. The pros and cons of the two techniquesare discussed in light of both performance data and subjectivereports.
Performance evaluation of input devices in trajectory-based tasks: an application of the steering law

Choosing input devices for interactive systems that best suitusers needs remains a challenge, especially consid- ering theincreasing number of devices available. The choice often has to bemade through empirical evalua- tions. The most frequently usedevaluation task hitherto is target acquisition, a task that can beaccurately modeled by Fitts law. However, todays use of computerinput devices has gone beyond target acquisition alone. Inparticular, we often need to perform trajectory-based tasks, suchas drawing, writing, and navigation. This paper illustrates how arecently discovered model, the steering law, can be applied as anevaluation paradigm complementary to Fitts law. We tested fivecommonly used computer input devices in two steering tasks, onelinear and one circular. Results showed that subjects performancewith the five devices could be generally classified into threegroups in the following order: 1. the tablet and the mouse, 2. thetrackpoint, 3. the touch- pad and the trackball. The steering lawproved to hold for all five devices with greater than 0.98correlation. The ability to generalize the experimental results andthe limitations of the steering law are also discussed.
Rise of the Chatbots: Finding A Place for Artificial Intelligence in India and US

This research study explores how chatbots can find a place in routine daily lives. Chatbot development has increased while in many cases its purpose still remains loosely defined. Due to its novel and relatively new technology, there is an opportunity to create meaningful experiences with chatbots in a typical person? s life. Qualitative insights were collected from 54 participants in India and the US over the course of two weeks. To identify opportunities for chatbots, we must understand how these programs are perceived and what needs exist for people. The research objectives include understanding the following: 1) anticipations for chatbots 2) preferred input modalities 3) opportunities for chatbots based on user needs.
A Comprehensive Java Benchmark Study on Memory and Garbage Collection Behavior of DaCapo, DaCapo Scala, and SPECjvm2008

Benchmark suites are an indispensable part of scientific research to compare different approaches against each another. The diversity of benchmarks is an important asset to evaluate novel approaches for effectiveness and weaknesses. In this paper, we describe the memory characteristics and the GC behavior of commonly used Java benchmarks, i.e., the DaCapo benchmark suite, the DaCapo Scala benchmark suite and the SPECjvm2008 benchmark suite. The paper can serve as a useful guide to select benchmarks in accordance with desired application characteristics on modern virtual machines as well as with different compilers and garbage collectors. It also helps to put results that are based on these benchmarks into perspective. Additionally, we compare Java's current default collector to the G1 GC.
Hierarchical cache/bus architecture for shared memory multiprocessors

A new, large scale multiprocessor architecture is presented in this paper. The architecture consists of hierarchies of shared buses and caches. Extended versions of shared bus multicache coherency protocols are used to maintain coherency among all caches in the system. After explaining the basic operation of the strict hierarchical approach, a clustered system is introduced which distributes the memory among groups of processors. Results of simulations are presented which demonstrate that the additional coherency protocol overhead introduced by the clustered approach is small. The simulations also show that a 128 processor multiprocessor can be constructed using this architecture which will achieve a substantial fraction of its peak performance. Finally, an analytic model is used to explore systems too large to simulate (with available hardware). The model indicates that a system of over 1000 usable MIPS can be constructed using high performance microprocessors.
Parallelizing Sequential Graph Computations

This article presents GRAPE, a parallel GRAPh Engine for graph computations. GRAPE differs from prior systems in its ability to parallelize existing sequential graph algorithms as a whole, without the need for recasting the entire algorithm into a new model. Underlying GRAPE are a simple programming model and a principled approach based on fixpoint computation that starts with partial evaluation and uses an incremental function as the intermediate consequence operator. We show that users can devise existing sequential graph algorithms with minor additions, and GRAPE parallelizes the computation. Under a monotonic condition, the GRAPE parallelization guarantees to converge at correct answers as long as the sequential algorithms are correct. Moreover, we show that algorithms in MapReduce, BSP, and PRAM can be optimally simulated on GRAPE. In addition to the ease of programming, we experimentally verify that GRAPE achieves comparable performance to the state-of-the-art graph systems using real-life and synthetic graphs.
Clinical validity of a negative computed tomography scan in patients with suspected pulmonary embolism: a systematic review

ContextThe clinical validity of using computed tomography (CT) to diagnose peripheral pulmonary embolism is uncertain. Insufficient sensitivity for peripheral pulmonary embolism is considered the principal limitation of CT.ObjectiveTo review studies that used a CT-based approach to rule out a diagnosis of pulmonary embolism.Data SourcesThe medical literature databases of PubMed, MEDLINE, EMBASE, CRISP, metaRegister of Controlled Trials, and Cochrane were searched for articles published in the English language from January 1990 to May 2004.Study SelectionWe included studies that used contrast-enhanced chest CT to rule out the diagnosis of acute pulmonary embolism, had a minimum follow-up of 3 months, and had study populations of more than 30 patients.Data ExtractionTwo reviewers independently abstracted patient demographics, frequency of venous thromboembolic events (VTEs), CT modality (single-slice CT, multidetector-row CT, or electron-beam CT), false-negative results, and deaths attributable to pulmonary embolism. To calculate the overall negative likelihood ratio (NLR) of a VTE after a negative or inconclusive chest CT scan for pulmonary embolism, we included VTEs that were objectively confirmed by an additional imaging test despite a negative or inconclusive CT scan and objectively confirmed VTEs that occurred during clinical follow-up of at least 3 months.Data SynthesisFifteen studies met the inclusion criteria and contained a total of 3500 patients who were evaluated from October 1994 through April 2002. The overall NLR of a VTE after a negative chest CT scan for pulmonary embolism was 0.07 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.05-0.11); and the negative predictive value (NPV) was 99.1% (95% CI, 98.7%-99.5%). The NLR of a VTE after a negative single-slice spiral CT scan for pulmonary embolism was 0.08 (95% CI, 0.05-0.13); and after a negative multidetector-row CT scan, 0.15 (95% CI, 0.05-0.43). There was no difference in risk of VTEs based on CT modality used (relative risk, 1.66; 95% CI, 0.47-5.94; P = .50). The overall NLR of mortality attributable to pulmonary embolism was 0.01 (95% CI, 0.01-0.02) and the overall NPV was 99.4% (95% CI, 98.7%-99.9%). ConclusionThe clinical validity of using a CT scan to rule out pulmonary embolism is similar to that reported for conventional pulmonary angiography.
A Reliable Method for Intratracheal Instillation of Materials to the Entire Lung in Rats

A novel method for intratracheal instillation of rats is described by which an operator can confidently administer a liquid sample into the tracheal lumen, with direct observation of the entrance to the trachea. To confirm its efficacy, indigo carmine was administered with or without air to investigate optimal conditions for exposure of the whole lung. After administration of 0.5 ml of indigo carmine and an equal volume of air simultaneously by intratracheal instillation, sections through the whole lung demonstrated positive staining with the dye. For histological examination, 0.5 ml of saline containing iron oxide followed by an equal volume of air was administered intratracheally. Iron particles were observed in the wall of bronchioles and alveolar macrophages of whole lung. The method allows reliable intratracheal administration to large numbers of rats within a short period and should, therefore, prove useful for assays of toxicity in the respiratory tract.
BLOCKBENCH: A Framework for Analyzing Private Blockchains

Blockchain technologies are taking the world by storm. Public blockchains, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, enable secure peer-to-peer applications like crypto-currency or smart contracts. Their security and performance are well studied. This paper concerns recent private blockchain systems designed with stronger security (trust) assumption and performance requirement. These systems target and aim to disrupt applications which have so far been implemented on top of database systems, for example banking, finance and trading applications. Multiple platforms for private blockchains are being actively developed and fine tuned. However, there is a clear lack of a systematic framework with which different systems can be analyzed and compared against each other. Such a framework can be used to assess blockchains' viability as another distributed data processing platform, while helping developers to identify bottlenecks and accordingly improve their platforms. In this paper, we first describe BLOCKBENCH, the first evaluation framework for analyzing private blockchains. It serves as a fair means of comparison for different platforms and enables deeper understanding of different system design choices. Any private blockchain can be integrated to BLOCKBENCH via simple APIs and benchmarked against workloads that are based on real and synthetic smart contracts. BLOCKBENCH measures overall and component-wise performance in terms of throughput, latency, scalability and fault-tolerance. Next, we use BLOCKBENCH to conduct comprehensive evaluation of three major private blockchains: Ethereum, Parity and Hyperledger Fabric. The results demonstrate that these systems are still far from displacing current database systems in traditional data processing workloads. Furthermore, there are gaps in performance among the three systems which are attributed to the design choices at different layers of the blockchain's software stack. We have released BLOCKBENCH for public use.
P1-498 Measures and models for causal inference in cross-sectional studies: arguments for the appropriateness of the prevalence or and related logistic regression

Introduction Several papers have discussed which effect measures are appropriate to capture the contrast between exposure groups in cross-sectional studies, and which related multivariate models are suitable. Although some have favoured the Prevalence Ratio over the Prevalence OR—thus suggesting the use of log-binomial or robust Poisson instead of the logistic regression models—this debate is still far from settled and requires close scrutiny. Method In order to evaluate how accurately true causal parameters such as Incidence Density Ratio (IDR) or the Cumulative Incidence Ratio (CIR) are effectively estimated, we present a series of scenarios in which a researcher happens to find a preset ratio of prevalences (eg, 2.0) in a given cross-sectional study. Results Provided essential and non-waivable structuring conditions for causal inference are all met, results show that the CIR is most often inestimable whether through the prevalence ratio or the prevalence cross-product ratio, and that the latter is the measure that consistently yields an appropriate measure of the Incidence Density Ratio. Debating the role of multivariate regression models in cross-sectional studies, we contend that such models should be avoided when the structuring assumptions for causal inference do not hold. Nevertheless, if these assumptions are reasonably met, it is the logistic regression model that is best suited for this task as it provides a suitable estimate of the Incidence Density Ratio. Discussion In closing, we discuss the (un)favourable arguments raised in the literature in the light of our findings.