Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Article in Press Computational Statistics and Data Analysis a Three-way Clusterwise Multidimensional Unfolding Procedure for the Spatial Representation of Context Dependent Preferences

Article history: Available online xxxx a b s t r a c t Various deterministic and latent structure approaches for combining forms of multidi-mensional scaling and cluster analysis have been previously discussed. A new clusterwise three-way unfolding methodology for the analysis of two-way or three-way metric domi-nance/preference data is proposed. The purpose of this proposed methodology is to simultaneously estimate a joint space of stimuli and cluster ideal point representations, as well as the clusters themselves, such that the geometry underlying the clusterwise model renders some indication of the underlying structure in the data. In the three-way case, it is shown how multiple ideal points can represent preference change over contexts or situations. Partitions , overlapping clusters, stationary and context dependent preference representations are allowed. After a literature review of related methodological research, the technical details of the proposed three-way clusterwise spatial unfolding model are presented in terms of modeling context/situational dependent preferences (i.e., preferences for various stimuli collected over the same set of subjects over time, situation, etc.). The psychological basis for the models is provided in terms of the extensive behavioral decision theory and consumer psychology literature on contextual preferences and situational effects. An application to a data set exploring preferences for breakfast/snack food data over a number of different usage situations is then presented, followed by a discussion on future potential research directions.
Risk factors associated with periprosthetic joint infection after total elbow arthroplasty

Background For patients undergoing total elbow arthroplasty (TEA), the present study aimed to investigate: (i) what risk factors are associated with periprosthetic elbow infection; (ii) what is the incidence of infection after TEA; and (iii) what is the acuity with which these infections present? Methods The Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative System database was used to identify all patients who underwent TEA between 2003 and 2012 in New York State. Admissions for prosthetic joint infection (PJI) were identified using ICD-9 (International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification) diagnosis code 996.66. Multivariate analysis was used to determine risk factors that were independently prognostic for PJI. Results Significant risk factors for PJI included hypothyroidism [odds ratio (OR) = 2.04; p = 0.045], tobacco use disorder (OR = 3.39; p = 0.003) and rheumatoid arthritis (OR = 3.31; p < 0.001). Among the 1452 patients in the study period who underwent TEA, 3.7% (n = 54) were admitted postoperatively for PJI. There were 30 (56%) early infections, 17 (31%) delayed infections and seven (13%) late infections. Conclusions Pre-operative optimization of thyroid function, smoking cessation and management of rheumatoid disease may be considered in surgical candidates for TEA. The results of the present study add prognostic data to the literature that may be helpful with patient selection and risk profile analysis. Level of evidence Level III: prognostic study
An official American Thoracic Society statement: update on the mechanisms, assessment, and management of dyspnea.

BACKGROUND Dyspnea is a common, distressing symptom of cardiopulmonary and neuromuscular diseases. Since the ATS published a consensus statement on dyspnea in 1999, there has been enormous growth in knowledge about the neurophysiology of dyspnea and increasing interest in dyspnea as a patient-reported outcome. PURPOSE The purpose of this document is to update the 1999 ATS Consensus Statement on dyspnea. METHODS An interdisciplinary committee of experts representing ATS assemblies on Nursing, Clinical Problems, Sleep and Respiratory Neurobiology, Pulmonary Rehabilitation, and Behavioral Science determined the overall scope of this update through group consensus. Focused literature reviews in key topic areas were conducted by committee members with relevant expertise. The final content of this statement was agreed upon by all members. RESULTS Progress has been made in clarifying mechanisms underlying several qualitatively and mechanistically distinct breathing sensations. Brain imaging studies have consistently shown dyspnea stimuli to be correlated with activation of cortico-limbic areas involved with interoception and nociception. Endogenous and exogenous opioids may modulate perception of dyspnea. Instruments for measuring dyspnea are often poorly characterized; a framework is proposed for more consistent identification of measurement domains. CONCLUSIONS Progress in treatment of dyspnea has not matched progress in elucidating underlying mechanisms. There is a critical need for interdisciplinary translational research to connect dyspnea mechanisms with clinical treatment and to validate dyspnea measures as patient-reported outcomes for clinical trials.
Sampled-data extended state observer-based backstepping control of two-link flexible manipulator

Currently, space robots such as planetary robots and flexible-link manipulators (FLMs) are finding specific applications to reduce the cost of launching. However, the structural flexible nature of their arms and joints leads to errors in tip positioning owing to tip deflection. The internal model uncertainties and disturbance are the key challenges in the development of control strategies for tip-tracking of FLMs. To deal with these challenges, we design a tip-tracking controller for a two-link flexible manipulator (TLFM) by developing a sampled-data extended state observer (SD-ESO). It is designed to reconstruct uncertain parameters for accurate tip-tracking control of a TLFM. Finally, a backstepping (BS) controller is designed to attenuate the estimation error and other bounded disturbances. Convergence and stability of the proposed control system are investigated by using Lyapunov theory. The benefits (control performance and robustness) of the proposed SD-ESO-based BS controller are compared with other similar approaches by pursuing both simulation and experimental studies. It is observed from the results obtained that SD-ESO-based BS Controller effectively compensates the deviation in tip-tracking performance of TLFM due to non-minimum phase behavior and model uncertainties with an improved transient response.
ENHANCED DYNAMIC THRESHOLD ALGORITHM OF QRS COMPLEX DETECTION

The dynamic threshold algorithm (DTA) presented by Pan Tompkins is a popular QRS detection method, and it has high sensitivity and specificity. However, the accuracy of this algorithm would be compromised if its sensitivity is increased. In this study, an enhanced dynamic threshold algorithm (EDTA) based on dynamic threshold rules is proposed, which add a compensation scheme to reduce the rate of misdetection and missed detection of R wave in low signal-to-noise ratio condition, sensitivity and detection error rate are calculated on simulated and clinical data to compare the performance between EDTA and DTA, and EDTA yields a competitive results. For the clinical data, the average accuracy rate of EDTA is 99.24%, which is higher than that of DTA at 95.98%. Further compared experiments among EDTA and the two other popular algorithms are conducted and the results of their validation over a public database are given and discussed, which prove our superiority.
A Novel Tubular Switched Reluctance Linear Launcher With a Module Stator

Electrical machines with transverse-flux (TF) paths have flexible structures, which may help to improve the performance of machines. Comparing to the flat-type structure in linear machines, the tubular-type structure is good for improving the electromagnetic thrust density. In this paper, a novel single-phase tubular-type switched reluctance linear launcher with TF path is proposed. Its stator is composed of several U-shaped modules, and windings are coiling on the yokes of these modules of the stator. This structure differs from the traditional tubular linear machine, and it avoids two windings squeezing in one stator slot so that the winding assembling process is easy. Gear-shaped poles on mover form more effective magnetic circuits than conventional machines. In the design process, the sensitivity analyses on five important parameters are conducted with the finite-element method (FEM) to achieve better performance on thrust density. The prototype has been manufactured and tested. The static and dynamic performances measured through experiments coincide well with the simulation results. These prove the correctness of the calculated FEM results and the well-manufactured machine, and its superiority in thrust density is verified.
NFS Tricks and Benchmarking Traps

We describe two modifications to the FreeBSD 4.6 NFS server to increase read throughput by improving the read-ahead heuristic to deal with reordered requests and stride access patterns. We show that for some stride access patterns, our new heuristics improve end-to-end NFS throughput by nearly a factor of two. We also show that benchmarking and experimenting with changes to an NFS server can be a subtle and challenging task, and that it is often difficult to distinguish the impact of a new algorithm or heuristic from the quirks of the underlying software and hardware with which they interact. We discuss these quirks and their potential effects.
Relación entre la orientación al mercado y la orientación emprendedora: su influencia en el rendimiento de la empresa

The analysis of the relation between entrepreneurial orientation, market orientation and business perfor- mance has become a focus of interest for researchers over the last decade. The relations between entrepreneurial orientation and business performance, and between market orientation and business performance are well docu- mented in the two bodies of specialized literature. However, despite the fact that the literature appears to indicate that both business orientations are not exclusive but actually complementary, very few studies have examined the joint effect of both orientations on business performance. The aim of this paper is to analyze the relation between both orientations in such a way as to draw conclusions that will contribute to clarifying the order of dependence bet- ween them. The results of our study enable us to throw some light on the relation between both business orienta- tions. The comparison of models that consider each orientation as an antecedent alternately allows us to state that entrepreneurial orientation can be considered as an antecedent of market orientation.
Assessment of Water Availability in the Sokoto Rima River Basin

The Sokoto-Rima River basin is located in the north western part of Nigeria, which comprise of four (4) states (i.e Sokoto, Kebbi, Katsina and Zamfara) and have population of more than 15million according to 2006 census. This makes the rivers and streams within the basin to be very important source of fresh water to the people living in those states. Therefore, even small decrease in runoff within the basin could have dramatic effects on the water supply of the region. This paper assesses and evaluates the impact of climate change on water availability and investigates the sensitivity of the basin to climate change in Sokoto-Rima river basin using the Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) model. This model allows the simulation and analysis of various water allocations and scenarios. The hydrological processes that occur for the six major rivers within the basin during 1970 to 2013 was satisfactorily model and calibrated by visual observation and compared with the measured data. The calibration process of the model was done using the first twenty two years climatological records (1970-1992) and validated with the remaining data (1993-2013). Simulations are proposed for various climatic situations considering the global climatic models (GCM) predictions. Six (6) developed climate change scenarios of temperature increase (0, +0.5, +1℃) coupled with decrease or increases in precipitation (0,-10%, +10%) were combined and applied for the study area in the WEAP model for simulation. Then, the climatically affected runoff, evapotranspiration, and water demand series were obtained as output of the WEAP model. Results indicate that climate change will significantly reduce the runoff, and increase evapotranspiration and water demand in the basin, more especially the demand for irrigation. The results indicate an annual reduction in the total available water of about 1.70 billion cubic meter and monthly water demand of 17.11 Billion Cubic Meter for the month of April (which is the driest month in the basin) for the selected sites under 10% reduction in the actual rainfall within the basin and increase in evapotranspiration under 1℃ increase in temperature, this indicate reduction of the surface water in the future for the basin. In addition, the dependency of the basin on surface water sources make it imperative to apply some methods of efficient use of water resources in the basin to ensure future sustainability. To adapt to the current trend and minimize the significant impact on availability of water supply in the basin in the foreseeable future, some proposed adaptation and mitigation measures to remedy this trend of scarcity ranges from sustainable developments to collaborative planning among the stakeholders within the basin.
Structure of summer phytoplankton communities of lake Płotycze Urszulińskie (Łęczna-Włodawa Lakeland) in the estimation of the state of its trophy

Summary. The lake under study is situated in the buffer zone of the Polesie National Park. It is a degradation-prone, shallow eutrophic lake. The quality of the waters in the lake is determined by the character of its catchment basin, the area structure of which is dominated by meadows and forests. In the summer seasons of 2007 and 2008 analysis was made of the qualitative and quantitative structure of the phytoplankton communities, of the productivity on the basis of concentration of chlorophyll a, and determination of the basic physicochemical properties of the water was performed. During the period of the study a change occurred in the qualitative and quantitative structure of phytoplankton communities. In 2007 the highest share in the total number of taxa was that of taxa from the classes Chlorophyta and Cyanoprokaryota, while in 2008 the qualitative structure was dominated by the Cyanoprokaryota. At the same time there was a notable increase in the quantitative share of taxa from the classes Dinophyta (primarily Peridinium gatunense) and Cryptophyta, and from the class Chrysophyceae. The changes in the quantitative and qualitative structure of phytoplankton were accompanied by a decrease in the concentration of chlorophyll a. The high presence of Peridinium gatunense and increased level of mixotrophic algae from other systematic groups may be related with a notable share of macrophytes and a considerable level of dead organic matter. The structure of phytoplankton communities and the concentration of chlorophyll a indicate good ecological status of the lake despite its susceptibility to degradation.
Modélisation intégrée des écoulements pour la gestion en temps réel d'un bassin versant anthropisé

Pour la gestion en temps reel des etiages comme pour celle des crues, l'une des principales missions des gestionnaires de bassin consiste a prevenir les situations de crise, generalement definies par des franchissements de debits seuils en differents points strategiques, afin d'en limiter les degâts, tant economiques et ecologiques que materiels et humains. La these propose une methodologie de synthese et d'identification d'un modele de simulation des debits, integrant les phenomenes de transferts hydrauliques (propagation en cours d'eau) et hydrologiques (transformation de la pluie en debit), ainsi que les transferts relatifs aux prelevements dans le cas des etiages. Le modele propose, construit dans le souci constant des contraintes de l'operationnel telles que la robustesse face aux aleas du terrain, l'assimilation des donnees en temps reel ou la commande automatique des vannes de barrage, presente un module hydraulique a base physique simplifiee couple, selon une approche semi-distribuee, a un module hydrologique global conceptuel. Cette demarche permet la prise en compte de debits lateraux non jauges dans le transfert en cours d'eau. L'approche est validee a travers des exemples theoriques et divers cas d'application reels : transfert en riviere soumis a l'influence de la maree, synthese d'un controleur boucle ouverte sur un canal d'irrigation, simulation de debits a l'exutoire de divers bassins versants francais, prevision des crues, synthese d'observateurs d'etats pour la reconstitution de prelevements.
Cedex Discussion Paper Series Cooperation in Small Groups: the Effect of Group Size

We study the effect of group size on cooperation in voluntary contribution mechanism games. As in previous experiments, we study fourand eight-person groups in high and low marginal per capita return (MPCR) conditions. We find a positive effect of group size in the low MPCR condition, as in previous experiments. However, in the high MPCR condition we observe a negative group size effect. We extend the design to investigate twoand threeperson groups in the high MPCR condition, and find that cooperation is highest of all in twoperson groups. The findings in the high MPCR condition are consistent with those from nperson prisoner’s dilemma and oligopoly experiments that suggest it is more difficult to sustain cooperation in larger groups. The findings from the low MPCR condition suggest that this effect can be overridden. In particular, when cooperation is low other factors, such as considerations of the social benefits of contributing (which increase with group size), may dominate any negative group size effect.
Mental Health and Learning Disabilities

Intensive Interaction is a socially interactive approach to supporting and developing the pre-verbal communication and sociability of people with severe or profound learning disabilities, or severe autism. Developed in the 1980’s from the psychological model of ‘augmented mothering’ the approach currently has an increasing number of proponents who make claims for increased social responsiveness due to the use of the approach. This short paper aims to evaluate some of the evidential claims of consequential increased social responses from people with severe and profound and multiple learning disabilities due to the use of Intensive Interaction techniques. Thus the paper presents a review of findings presented in relevant research papers which have been published in generally recognised academic journals. From this review the author concludes that although expanding, the current body of research has been limited in scope and scale, and has generally been conducted by a small number of Intensive Interaction practitioners and advocates. However, increased client social responsiveness was consistently reported across the research projects reviewed. In conclusion, this paper advocates for further systematic research into the approach by the wider research community to further develop the evidential base of the approach.
Monitoring the growth of the neural representations of new animal concepts

Although enormous progress has recently been made in identifying the neural representations of individual object concepts, relatively little is known about the growth of a neural knowledge representation as a novel object concept is being learned. In this fMRI study, the growth of the neural representations of eight individual extinct animal concepts was monitored as participants learned two features of each animal, namely its habitat (i.e., a natural dwelling or scene) and its diet or eating habits. Dwelling/scene information and diet/eating‐related information have each been shown to activate their own characteristic brain regions. Several converging methods were used here to capture the emergence of the neural representation of a new animal feature within these characteristic, a priori‐specified brain regions. These methods include statistically reliable identification (classification) of the eight newly acquired multivoxel patterns, analysis of the neural representational similarity among the newly learned animal concepts, and conventional GLM assessments of the activation in the critical regions. Moreover, the representation of a recently learned feature showed some durability, remaining intact after another feature had been learned. This study provides a foundation for brain research to trace how a new concept makes its way from the words and graphics used to teach it, to a neural representation of that concept in a learner's brain. Hum Brain Mapp 36:3213–3226, 2015. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Mécanismes de l'extension continentale au Mésozoïque en Asie de l'Est

La lithosphere continentale peut s’etirer selon trois modes (rift large, rift etroit et Core Complex). En Asie de l’Est, une extension continentale a eu lieu de la fin du Mesozoique au Cenozoique et ne semble correspondre a aucun des trois modes actuellement definis. Cette periode est caracterisee par un amincissement lithospherique exceptionnel (>100 km), la presence de MCC, de bassins sedimentaires et une importante activite magmatique. Base sur une approche multi-echelles, ce travail vise a mieux comprendre les mecanismes a l’origine de cette deformation lithospherique (jamais abordes) ainsi que du moteur de l’extension (encore vivement discute). Pluridisciplinaire, cette etude apporte de nouvelles contraintes a partir de l’analyse de la deformation finie (ductile ou fragile), du magnetisme des roches (ASM, paleomagnetisme), de la geochronologie (U/Pb sur zircon et 40Ar/39Ar sur monograins) et de la gravimetrie. Differents objets reconnus, revelant des quantites d’extension differentes (MCC vs. pluton cisaille), montrent que la croute continentale se deforme de maniere tres localisee, par la mise en place de larges domes extensifs separant des domaines de « radeaux » ou « boudins » presentant une deformation faible a nulle. Par comparaison des donnees crustales et mantelliques (tomographie sismique, geochimie) disponibles, cette etude met en evidence que l’amincissement lithospherique reconnu pour le Mesozoique est principalement lie a un important flux thermique du manteau, l’extension n’ayant qu’un role limite dans cet amincissement (<20%). En outre, eu egard au gradient geothermique exceptionnellement eleve de la region, a la fin du Mesozoique, il semble tres probable que des MCC puissent s’etre developpes sans epaississement prealable de la croute. L’analyse comparee des directions d’etirement dans la croute et dans le manteau met en evidence le role majeur de la subduction des panneaux plongeants le long de la marge est-asiatique. Un modele geodynamique a ete propose montrant le role du retrait successif des panneaux plongeants couple a un phenomene d’erosion thermique de la lithosphere.
An analysis of the relationship between quality and perceived innovation: "the case of financial firms"

Many organizations are adopting quality and innovation as practices that allow them to achieve competitive advantage owing to an increase in competitiveness. The goal of this paper is to examine whether quality can be regarded as a resource that sets up the necessary bases for implementing innovations in organizations. First, the concepts of quality and innovation are determined, so that we can analyse how they relate to each other. Later on, the different contributions existing that deal with the relationship between quality and innovation are revised. In the second part of the research, we formulate and verify some hypotheses, which are empirically tested using a sample of bank employees in several financial entities. Results allow us to establish that quality relates to innovation both directly and indirectly, in the latter case through employees’ satisfaction.