Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Four-Dimensional Computerized Tomography (4D-CT) Reconstruction Based on the Similarity Measure of Spatial Adjacent Images

Objective:To investigate the feasibility of a 4D-CT reconstruction method based on the similarity principle of spatial adjacent images and mutual information measure. Methods:A motor driven sinusoidal motion platform made in house was used to create one-dimensional periodical motion that was along the longitudinal axis of the CT couch. The amplitude of sinusoidal motion was set to an amplitude of ±1 cm. The period of the motion was adjustable and set to 3.5 s. Phantom objects of two eggs were placed in a Styrofoam block, which in turn were placed on the motion platform. These objects were used to simulate volumes of interest undergoing ideal periodic motion. CT data of static phantom were acquired using a multi-slice general electric (GE) LightSpeed 16-slice CT scanner in an axial mode. And the CT data of periodical motion phantom were acquired in an axial and cine-mode scan. A software program was developed by using VC++ and VTK software tools to resort the CT data and reconstruct the 4D-CT. Then all of the CT data with same phase were sorted by the program into the same series based on the similarity principle of spatial adjacent images and mutual information measure among them, and 3D reconstruction of different phase CT data were completed by using the software. Results:All of the CT data were sorted accurately into different series based on the similarity principle of spatial adjacent images and mutual information measures among them. Compared with the unsorted CT data, the motion artifacts in the 3D reconstruction of sorted CT data were reduced significantly, and all of the sorted CT series result in a 4D-CT that reflected the characteristic of the periodical motion phantom. Conclusion:Time-resolved 4D-CT reconstruction can be implemented with any general multi-slice CT scanners based on the similarity principle of spatial adjacent images and mutual information measure.The process of the 4D-CT data acquisition and reconstruction were not restricted to the hardware or software of the CT scanner and has the feasibility ,which extensive applicability.
Robust South African sign language gesture recognition using hand motion and shape

Research has shown that five fundamental parameters are required to recognize any sign language gesture: hand shape, hand motion, hand location, hand orientation and facial expressions. The South African Sign Language (SASL) research group at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) has created several systems to recognize sign language gestures using single parameters. These systems are, however, limited to a vocabulary size of 20 – 23 signs, beyond which the recognition accuracy is expected to decrease. The first aim of this research is to investigate the use of two parameters – hand motion and hand shape – to recognise a larger vocabulary of SASL gestures at a high accuracy. Also, the majority of related work in the field of sign language gesture recognition using these two parameters makes use of Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) to classify gestures. Hidden Markov Support Vector Machines (HM-SVMs) are a relatively new technique that make use of Support Vector Machines (SVMs) to simulate the functions of HMMs. Research indicates that HM-SVMs may perform better than HMMs in some applications. To our knowledge, they have not been applied to the field of sign language gesture recognition. This research compares the use of these two techniques in the context of SASL gesture recognition. The results indicate that, using two parameters results in a 15% increase in accuracy over the use of a single parameter. Also, it is shown that HM-SVMs are a more accurate technique than HMMs, generally performing better or at least as good as HMMs.
The role of psychosocial risk factors on the prevalence of low back pain amongst Grade 12 learners in public schools in the greater Durban area

Background: Low back pain (LBP) is the most prevalent musculoskeletal condition experienced by human beings and the most common cause of disability in developed nations. Psychosocial factors, involving aspects of social and psychological behaviour, have previously been documented as potential risk factors in the development of adult LBP. However, more research is required to fully understand the role of psychosocial risk factors on the prevalence of LBP amongst adolescents. Objective: To determine the prevalence of LBP and to identify selected psychosocial risk factors associated with LBP amongst Grade 12 learners in the Greater Durban area. Methods: A population-based study was conducted amongst a stratified random sample of 20 public secondary schools in all three educational districts in the Greater Durban area. Data was collected by means of a structured questionnaire administered to the sample population consisting of Grade 12 learners. Using an exploratory research design, the individuals reported on demographics as well as prevalence, severity, frequency and chronicity of LBP. In addition, data was obtained regarding various psychosocial risk factors including depression, exam stress and anxiety, socio-economic status, family history of LBP, smoking, alcohol and drug abuse amongst the respondents. Results: The prevalence of LBP was 57.42% with a median frequency of 8 times a month. About a third (33.9%) of the respondents experienced difficulty bending whilst 35% reported that their LBP spread down to the legs below their knees. The daily activity most affected by LBP was having a good night‟s sleep (50.6%), followed closely by playing sports (47.4%) and concentrating in class (46.6%). The majority of the respondents that suffered from LBP had taken pain relief medication (47.1%) whilst only 21% of the respondents had missed school because of LBP. With regards to the psychosocial risk factors under investigation, three of the risk factors did not show any association to LBP. They included socio-economic status, smoking and recreational drug use. In contrast, five psychosocial risk factors showed an 6 association to LBP. They included alcohol abuse, family history, exam stress, anxiety and depression. Finally, after adjusting for all other risk factors for adolescent LBP, depression and high exam stress showed the strongest correlation with the occurrence of LBP amongst Grade 12 learners in the Greater Durban area. Conclusion: LBP amongst adolescents is a common problem that increases with age, representing a risk for LBP in adulthood. The researcher is of the opinion, that this illustrates the need for further investigations with more profound studies on the risk factors so that more light can be shed on how to manage this ever-growing problem.
Performance Analysis of Multithreaded IoT Gateway

This paper presents a constrained application protocol enabled multithreaded Internet of Things (IoT) gateway that allows reliable and quick access to big data from IoT domains. We consider a proxy caching policy to accelerate the content delivery rate of sensor data while reducing the energy consumption of corresponding nodes. We propose a selective caching policy in which resource validation requests are sent based on user requests, besides updates from IoT nodes. We also describe an analytical model to evaluate the performance of multithreaded IoT gateway under various traffic conditions to meet the quality of service constraints. The proposed model is evaluated over single hop IPv6 over low-power wireless personal area networks/IEEE 802.15. 4 cluster. The performance evaluation clearly shows the effectiveness of our model in providing fast response and reduced energy consumption of the resources.
Scaffolding learning activities with collaborative scripts and mobile devices

The use of mobile devices, including mobile phones and tablets, is a growing trend in education. The practice has been widely technology driven and often justified simply by the importance of using new technology in a classroom and by claiming such devices to be important in reaching something referred to, although not that well defined, as 21st century skills. This thesis is one answer to the challenge represented by this development. It brings together theoretical ideas of scaffolding learning with collaborative scripts and the use of mobile devices as cognitive tools in a real life educational settings. This thesis has constructivist grounds and aims at exploring how to support collaborative learning when students have ill-structured problems and their activities are supported with mobile technologies. The study consists of three case studies, which together form an example of how important it is to design, develop and deliver lightweight digital tools and activities for learners to construct knowledge. Overall, the results of three case studies in this thesis confirms that it is a dubious assumption that learners will automatically take appropriate and measured advantage of the affordances of mobile devices and other emergent technologies involved in cognitive activities: rather, these cognitive tools require deliberate attention and effort from learners to make use of the affordances of the tools. Furthermore, results from the case studies reveal that personal factors such as students’ prior knowledge and their metacognitive and collaborative skills, as well as contextual cues such as cultural compatibility and instructional methods, influence student engagement.
Minimally invasive total splenectomy in dogs: A clinical report

Cases of minimally-invasive surgery are gaining acceptance among surgeons and animal owners. One type of minimally-invasive surgery is total splenectomy, which is indicated for splenic tumors, trauma, torsions, and for dogs that require blood transfusion. To assess the safety of the technique, experimental laparoscopic splenectomies were performed in dogs for the first time in Iran. Three adult male mixed-breed dogs were placed in dorsal recumbency at a 45° angle in the right lateral position, under aseptic condition and general anesthesia. Three trocars were placed; at the umbilicus, 3 cm cranial to the umbilicus and in the right caudolateral abdomen. The spleen was rotated 90° laterally and thermal coagulation of the blood vessels was performed by bipolar electrocautery. The pedicles were checked to ensure hemostasis. The spleen was morcellated and removed from the umbilical port using a retrieval bag. The mean surgery time was 42 minutes, and all dogs survived the surgery without complications. Laparoscopic splenectomy via three portals was found to be easy and safe.
A model for reasoning about persistence and causation

Reasoning about change requires predicting how long a proposition, having become true, will continue to be so. Lacking perfect knowledge, an agent may be constrained to believe that a proposition persists indefinitely simply because there is no way for the agent to infer a contravening proposition with certainty. In this paper, we describe a model of causal reasoning that accounts for knowledge concerning cause‐and‐effect relationships and knowledge concerning the tendency for propositions to persist or not as a function of time passing. Our model has a natural encoding in the form of a network representation for probabilistic models. We consider the computational properties of our model by reviewing recent advances in computing the consequences of models encoded in this network representation. Finally, we discuss how our probabilistic model addresses certain classical problems in temporal reasoning (e. g., the frame and qualification problems).
Simulating Blood Flow in an Anatomical Arterial Network

The overall aim of this thesis is to develop a computational model of the human arterial system to predict blood pressure and flow rates throughout the body. The model used an anatomical vascular network derived from the Visible Human Project and implemented in OpenCMISS, an open-source mathematical modelling environment that enables the application of finite-element analysis and other techniques to a variety of complex bioengineering problems. This arterial model coupled a one-dimensional arterial tree model with a lumped parameter description of the peripheral circulation is capable of simulating global hemodynamics and arterial wave propagation simultaneously and can provide the downstream boundary conditions for three-dimensional simulations at the particular arterial location using one-dimensional models of the entire arterial system and zero-dimensional models at the distal ends. The model provided better predictions of published experimental measurements compared to existing one-dimensional models. The model was used to simulate pressure and flow waveforms in pathological conditions to investigate potential uses in surgical planning and the use of inexpensive flow and pressure measurements for diagnosis. This includes the use of the model to explore the possibility of non-invasive disease diagnosis and comparison of different surgical options. The flow model was then coupled with an advection-diffusion equation to simulate the transport of solutes (drugs, hormones) through the vasculature. For the first time, by coupling with lumped parameter descriptions of metabolism and excretion in target organs, the extended model provides a physiologically based pharmacokinetic model that will be useful in drug development and regulatory toxicology to predict the kinetics and metabolism of substances in the body. The coupled framework has the ability to model pharmacokinetic response to the administration of drugs in a more physiologically realistic manner compared to the traditionally used compartmental models. iii An important contribution to the state of knowledge is the free availability of the codebase. Source code and anatomical data are not available for any of the existing models which makes it impossible to independently validate published results and to modify or extend the model for different applications. By providing this capability the thesis provides a useful computational resource to the bioengineering community.
Adolescents receiving chemotherapy sleep, symptoms, and quality of life

TITLE: Adolescents Receiving Chemotherapy: Sleep, Symptoms, and Quality of Life AUTHOR: Amy L. Johnson Purpose: This dissertation describes nocturnal sleep-wake activity of adolescents receiving chemotherapy and explores relationships between sleep, disease and treatmentrelated symptoms, and quality of life. Sample: 51 adolescents (ages 10 to 19 years) with a primary, secondary, or relapse of cancer (median time since diagnosis of four months) were enrolled. All participants lived and were treated in the Pacific Northwest. Methods: Nocturnal sleep-wake activity was assessed using objective (i.e. actigraphy) and subjective (i.e. 7Day Sleep Diary, Adolescent Sleep Wake Scale, Adolescent Sleep Hygiene Scale measures). Symptoms and quality of life were assessed using the Memorial Symptom Assessment Scale (MSAS 7-12) and Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory Version 4.0 Teen Report (PedsQL), respectively. Major Findings: Mean sleep start time was 23:11 (SD = 1:05) and sleep end time was 8:52 (SD = 1:10). The mean sleep duration was 581 minutes (SD = 67), mean total sleep time (TST) was 500 minutes (SD = 60), mean wake after sleep onset (WASO) was 80 minutes (SD = 29), and mean sleep efficiency was 82% (SD = 5%). The mean number of symptoms was 4 out of 10. The most prevalent symptoms were tiredness (67%), nausea (51%), pain (48%), and changes in appetite (48%); and the most distressing symptoms were worry (83%), pain (70%), and nausea (62%). The mean PedsQL total score was 60 (SD = 19) with physical health (M = 48, SD = 29) having the lowest subscale score. There were no significant correlations between sleep measures (i.e. TST, WASO) and symptoms or sleep measures and quality of life. There was, however, a significant relationship between symptoms Adolescents Receiving Chemotherapy 10 after treatment and quality of life (r = -.375, p = .019). Limitations: The study was limited by the cross-sectional design (i.e., the broad approaches to age and cancer and the potential for a response-shift). Implications: A primary sleep disturbance in this population may be fragmented sleep rather than the usual truncated sleep period seen in healthy adolescents. Actigraphy was useful in identifying the nature of the sleep disturbance in this population. Adolescents Receiving Chemotherapy 11 ADOLESCENTS RECEIVING CHEMOTHERAPY: SLEEP, SYMPTOMS, AND QUALITY OF LIFE CHAPTER
Delivering digitally: managing the transition to the knowledge media

We know that significant organizational change must have roots both at the top of an organization and “in the trenches” amongst those who must implement the change. In the middle lies a critical group of middle managers, directors and unit coordinators who are charged with defining and implementing both the broad plans and the minute details that create and sustain any change. It is to this later group that the second edition of Delivering Digitally is targeted.
Longitudinal study on impact of iPad use on teaching and learning

Abstract iPads are so ubiquitous now that one sometimes forgets that they came onto the scene and into schools only very recently in 2010. Hence, there is relatively little empirical data of their impact on teaching and learning. This paper presents the findings of a 3- year study undertaken in an all-girls’ secondary school that piloted the use of the iPad through a project called Prototype 21st Century Class (P21C2). The project was launched with four classes in 2011 before scaling up to half the school by 2013. In this study, empirical data through lesson observation was triangulated with perception surveys and group interviews of both teachers and students. It was found that the use of iPad was associated with more learner engagement and collaboration. It also found that the P21C2 pioneers, particularly the low and high ability groups, performed better than their peers in the year-end examinations.
Modeling and Control of Single-Phase LCL-type Grid-connected Inverter in Discrete Domain

Abstract. The power electronics control system can be designed in the discrete domain or continuous domain. In consideration of the digitally control and delay of actual system, it is more accurate to design the system control parameters in discrete domain. This paper firstly establishes the discrete domain model of the system, then analyzes stability of the system in the discrete domain, specifically designs the control parameters. After that verifies the correctness of the discrete domain design scheme through simulation in MATLAB. With relatively universal adaptability, the design process of control parameters researched in this paper provides reference for designing of the controller of the grid-connected inverter in discrete domain.
Ballet An Illustrated History

Thank you very much for downloading ballet an illustrated history. Maybe you have knowledge that, people have look hundreds times for their chosen books like this ballet an illustrated history, but end up in infectious downloads. Rather than enjoying a good book with a cup of tea in the afternoon, instead they juggled with some malicious bugs inside their laptop. ballet an illustrated history is available in our digital library an online access to it is set as public so you can download it instantly. Our book servers hosts in multiple locations, allowing you to get the most less latency time to download any of our books like this one. Merely said, the ballet an illustrated history is universally compatible with any devices to read.
Specifying and Refining a Measurement Model for a Simulation-Based Assessment. CSE Report 619.

The challenges of modeling students’ performance in simulation-based assessments include accounting for multiple aspects of knowledge and skill that arise in different situations and the conditional dependencies among multiple aspects of performance in a complex assessment. This paper describes a Bayesian approach to modeling and estimating cognitive models in such situations, in terms of both statistical machinery and actual instrument development. The method taps the knowledge of experts to provide initial estimates for the probabilistic relationships among the variables in a multivariate latent variable model and refines these estimates using Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) procedures. This process is illustrated in the context of NetPASS, a complex simulation-based assessment in the domain of computer networking. We describe a parameterization of the relationships in NetPASS via an ordered polytomous item response model and detail the updating of the model with observed data via Bayesian statistical procedures ultimately being provided by Markov chain Monte Carlo estimation. Specifying and Refining a Complex Measurement Model Instruments in educational measurement have taken on a variety of forms ranging from the more familiar( e.g., multiple-choice formats) to the unique (e.g., computer simulation of a real-world application). Different formats yield different work products, for example, a scantron sheet with circles filled in, essays to be scored by raters, and portfolios. Though methods for drawing inferences from examinees’ work products to their knowledge, skills, and abilities exist for the more popular assessment instruments, new and innovative assessment instruments are often left needing inferential procedures to be developed individually. Nonstandard and complex tasks result in complex work products, and different combinations of knowledge and skill may be tapped in different tasks or subtasks. Drawing proper inferences in these situations requires models that accumulate and incorporate 1 We wish to thank David Williamson, Malcolm Bauer, Russell Almond, Duanli Yan, and Margaret Redman of Educational Testing Service and John Behrens and Sarah Demark of Cisco Learning Institute for their involvement with, and their support of our participation in, the NetPASS project.
An embedded RSA processor for encryption and decryption

Presents an embedded RSA processor, which can implement RSA cryptographic process under the control of an external microprocessor. The coarsely integrated operated scanning method is used to adapt the hardware implementation of Montgomery. The window method is also used to reduce significantly the number of modular multiplications needed. Pipelined control is used to speed up the throughput. Sequential access in the register group is used to make the routing regular and reduce the combinational logic. At a clock rate of 20 MHz, it takes only 160 ms at most to complete 1024 bit modular exponentiation using this RSA processor. The hardware size of this processor is approximately equivalent to 26,000 logic gates, and this design is very suitable for embedded systems.
Open-circuit Fault Diagnosis for Grid-connected NPC Inverter based on Independent Component Analysis and Neural Network

An open circuit (O-C) fault detection method for grid-connected neutral-point-clamped (NPC) inverter based on independent component analysis (ICA) and neural network (NN) is proposed in this paper. A NN classifier is applied to the fault diagnosis of NPC inverter. The ICA is utilized for the three phase current feature extraction. The ICA reduces the number of NN input neuron. A lower dimensional input space reduces the noise and the training time of NN, the ICA algorithm improves the mapping performance. The proposed algorithm is evaluated with simulation test set. The overall classification performance of the proposed network is more than 97%. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm performs satisfactorily to fault location.