Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The effect of epoch length on estimated EEG functional connectivity and brain network organisation

Objective. Graph theory and network science tools have revealed fundamental mechanisms of functional brain organization in resting-state M/EEG analysis. Nevertheless, it is still not clearly understood how several methodological aspects may bias the topology of the reconstructed functional networks. In this context, the literature shows inconsistency in the chosen length of the selected epochs, impeding a meaningful comparison between results from different studies. Approach. The aim of this study was to provide a network approach insensitive to the effects that epoch length has on functional connectivity and network reconstruction. Two different measures, the phase lag index (PLI) and the amplitude envelope correlation (AEC) were applied to EEG resting-state recordings for a group of 18 healthy volunteers using non-overlapping epochs with variable length (1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14 and 16 s). Weighted clustering coefficient (CCw), weighted characteristic path length (Lw) and minimum spanning tree (MST) parameters were computed to evaluate the network topology. The analysis was performed on both scalp and source-space data. Main results. Results from scalp analysis show a decrease in both mean PLI and AEC values with an increase in epoch length, with a tendency to stabilize at a length of 12 s for PLI and 6 s for AEC. Moreover, CCw and Lw show very similar behaviour, with metrics based on AEC more reliable in terms of stability. In general, MST parameters stabilize at short epoch lengths, particularly for MSTs based on PLI (1–6 s versus 4–8 s for AEC). At the source-level the results were even more reliable, with stability already at 1 s duration for PLI-based MSTs. Significance. The present work suggests that both PLI and AEC depend on epoch length and that this has an impact on the reconstructed network topology, particularly at the scalp-level. Source-level MST topology is less sensitive to differences in epoch length, therefore enabling the comparison of brain network topology between different studies.
Refining Hypertension Surveillance to Account for Potentially Misclassified Cases

Administrative health data have been used in hypertension surveillance using the 1H2P method: the International Classification of Disease (ICD) hypertension diagnosis codes were recorded in at least 1 hospitalization or 2 physician claims within 2 year-period. Accumulation of false positive cases over time using the 1H2P method could result in the overestimation of hypertension prevalence. In this study, we developed and validated a new reclassification method to define hypertension cases using regularized logistic regression with the age, sex, hypertension and comorbidities in physician claims, and diagnosis of hypertension in hospital discharge data as independent variables. A Bayesian method was then used to adjust the prevalence estimated from the reclassification method. We evaluated the hypertension prevalence in data from Alberta, Canada using the currently accepted 1H2P method and these newly developed methods. The reclassification method with Bayesian adjustment produced similar prevalence estimates as the 1H2P method. This supports the continued use of the 1H2P method as a simple and practical way to conduct hypertension surveillance using administrative health data.
On Using Histograms of Local Invariant Features for Image Retrieval

In this paper we employ different methods for constructing histograms from invariant features that are computed locally around a set of salient points. These points represent, together with their neighborhood, the most important visual information in an image. The features used for constructing the histograms are evaluations of Haar integrals with nonlinear kernel functions. The resulting histograms are able to preserve the local structure of the image in addition to the fact that they are invariant to Euclidean motion. We study and compare the performance of the different histogram construction methods for a database that consists of 15000 images.
An image approximation method using deformable continuous functions

This paper proposes a novel image approximation method which represents image signals as a linear combination of multiple 2D functions like the matching pursuit algorithm. The conventional matching pursuit algorithm uses over-complete basis-functions whose sizes and shapes are limited to specific ones available in a predefined dictionary. In order to avoid such limitations, our method employs the 2D Gabor functions whose shapes are controllable by eight kinds of parameters. These parameters are iteratively optimized for the respective functions by the quasi-Newton method so as to minimize the sum of squared approximation errors. Simulation results indicate that the proposed method has a potential to be used as an image coding tool and its rate-distortion performance can be better than the JPEG baseline scheme at very low bit-rates.
The epidemiology of thyroid cancer in the Czech Republic in comparison with other countries.

BACKGROUND Thyroid cancer includes a broad spectrum of tumours with different prognoses. The global incidence has been increasing in recent years. Variables affecting its etiology are dietary, especially iodine intake and to a lesser extent selenium, environmental, like - ionizing radiation and, increased TSH level. These factors interplay with epigenetic and genetic changes within the cell. This review article presents thyroid cancer epidemiology, describes its main characteristics and the influence of environmental and lifestyle risk factors in the Czech Republic in comparison with other countries. METHODS AND RESULTS An epidemiological study of Czech patients with malignant thyroid carcinoma was made on the basis of the National Oncologic Registry (NOR) and Czech Statistical Office data summarized on the web portal SVOD. The data were compared with international data from the project GLOBOCAN 2008 Cancer Incidence and Mortality Worldwide. Apart from risk factors, prognostic factors with effect on patient survival were also analyzed. The survey showed that the incidence of thyroid cancer has been steadily growing in the Czech Republic. Since the beginning of the 1980s, it has increased 4 fold. It has a higher incidence than most other European countries but it is ranked with countries with an average and decreasing mortality. Obviously, the improved detection methods do not explain the growing incidence. The highest incidence is found for papillary carcinoma (PTC), now over 80% of cases. For follicular and medullar cancers, the incidence has not increased and for anaplastic carcinoma there is a slight decrease. Women over 40 years of age constitute the highest risk group. CONCLUSIONS There are a number of reasons for these trends, such as improved diagnostic techniques using ultrasound and FNAB and more radical surgery. There are also dietary/environmental factors (iodine deficiency and to a lesser extent selenium), nitrates, polychlorinated biphenyls, increased ionizing radiation, and prolonged increase in TSH. The prognosis of patients with DTC depends on the age at the time of diagnosis. A favorable prognosis also depends on timely detection.
Interactive smart character in a shooting game

Interactivity is a critical issue in designing a good game or similar virtual environments. As the computer hardware is continuously improved, more computing power can be invested in interactivity in addition to graphics rendering. For games with virtual characters, how a character interact with a user is usually specified at design time according to a given scene. Consequently, the characters in a game usually can only display canned motions at designated locations of a scene. After several runs of practice, the user may easily get bored because these actions become predictable. Therefore, it is highly desirable to have a smarter character that can plan its motions according to the inputs from the user as well as other constraints from the environments.
Einwanderung im Wohlfahrtsstaat: Die Solidarität und das Problem der Homogenität

Abstract Wenn Kontrollverlust und Verlustangste anstelle von Solidaritat und Sicherheit die Bevolkerungsmehrheiten vieler westlicher Staaten mobilisieren und Fragen der Integration und Immigration breite gesellschaftliche Sorgen uber Identitat sowie die politische und soziale Gemeinschaft hervorrufen, stellt sich in aller Aktualitat die Frage, was eine liberale Gesellschaft zusammenhalt. Vor diesem Hintergrund untersucht der Beitrag das Verhaltnis von gesellschaftlicher Homogenitat und Solidaritat im Wohlfahrtsstaat. Nachdem vergleichend die Schwierigkeiten aufgezeigt werden, die Einwanderung und Integration von Zuwanderern fur den Wohlfahrtsstaat auslosen, wird das Potential der Nation in Anbetracht der Suche nach gemeinsamer Kultur und Identitat beleuchtet. Beruht der Wohlfahrtsstaat auf einem die Mitglieder der Gemeinschaft zusammenhaltenden Konsens, kann er eine weitere Integration von Einwanderern unterstutzen. Allerdings ist Integration auch eine Voraussetzung fur die anfangliche Zulassung, an ihm z.
In Cystic Fibrosis Homozygotes and Heterozygotes, Neutrophil Apoptosis Is Delayed and Modulated by Diamide or Roscovitine: Evidence for an Innate Neutrophil Disturbance

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a chronic inflammatory lung disease characterized by polymorphonuclear neutrophil (PMN)-dominated airway inflammation. Defective apoptosis might explain PMN persistence at these inflammation sites. We previously reported that in CF patients PMN underwent delayed apoptosis, which was not always related to their infectious state and independent of the type of CF transmembrane regulator (CFTR) mutation. To understand the role of infection and PMN apoptosis in CF, PMN apoptosis was investigated in CF parents who are obligate heterozygotes for the CFTR mutation but without chronic bacterial infection. They also demonstrated delayed PMN apoptosis compared with healthy controls, as assessed by annexin-V labeling and caspase-3 cleavage. Diamide, a direct thiol-oxidizing agent, potentiated PMN apoptosis in controls and CF patients, resulting in similar levels of constitutive and Fas-potentiated apoptosis. The cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor roscovitine provided another approach to restore normal PMN apoptosis. However, the selective CFTR inhibitor CFTRInh172 did not affect PMN apoptosis in control subjects. Apparently, the dysregulation of CF PMN is not only a consequence of the chronic infectious state in CF children but might also be related to CF ‘intrinsic’ factors. Restoration of normal PMN apoptosis by cellular redox modulation or roscovitine opens new research avenues to decrease PMN-mediated inflammation in CF.
A Realistic Approach: RTST to Reduce Cost & Time

Regression testing is the most expensive technique, but this technique gives confidence that whatever changes has been incorporated they are not making any adverse affect to the output. In Regression Test Selection Technique (RTST), we select test case from existing test set and perform test to validate modify the software. In this framework, it has been tried to reduce costs by selecting and running only a subset of the test cases in a program's existing test suite
Motion field estimation using segmentation and consistency constraint

This paper presents an approach to realistic motion field estimation. With this approach, an image is first segmented into homogeneous regions using a new multiscale gradient algorithm followed by watershed transformation. The multiscale gradient algorithm efficiently solves the oversegmentation problem of watershed transformation, increases segmentation accuracy and reduces the computational cost. The motion field is then estimated using block matching with a consistency constraint. The consistency constraint function is defined by neighbouring motion vectors and the segmentation map. Simulation results show that motion fields generated by block matching with the consistency constraint are very smooth within each object, approaching realistic motion fields, even when a small block size is used.
International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity Changes in Accessibility and Preferences Predict Children's Future Fruit and Vegetable Intake

Background: Most children eat fewer fruits and vegetables than recommended. To be able to design effective interventions, understanding the aetiology of the behaviour is important. Accessibility and preferences have shown to be strong correlates of fruit and vegetable intake in several cross-sectional studies. The aim of this study was to identify predictors of future fruit and vegetable intake and to explore longitudinal patterns of interactions between accessibility and preferences.
Cross-view action recognition via transductive transfer learning

Human action recognition is a hot topic in computer vision field. Various applicable approaches have been proposed to recognize different types of actions. However, the recognition performance deteriorates rapidly when the viewpoint changes. Traditional approaches aim to address the problem by inductive transfer learning, in which target-view samples are manually labeled. In this paper, we present a novel approach for cross-view action recognition based on transductive transfer learning. We address the problem by transferring instances across views. In our settings, both labels of examples from the target view and the corresponding relation between examples from pairwise views are dispensable. Experimental results on the IXMAS multi-view data set demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach, and are comparable to the state of the art.
Testing Multi-Factor Asset Pricing Models in the Visegrad Countries

There is no consensus in the literature as to which model should be used to estimate stock returns and the cost of capital in the emerging markets. The Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), which is most often used for this purpose in the developed markets, has a poor empirical record and is likely not to hold in the less developed and less liquid emerging markets. Various factor models have been proposed to overcome the shortcomings of the CAPM. This paper examines both the CAPM and macroeconomic factor models in terms of their ability to explain average stock returns using data from the Visegrad countries. We find, as expected, that the CAPM is not able to do this task. However, factor models, including factors such as the excess market return, industrial production, inflation, money, the exchange rate, exports, the commodity index, and the term structure, can in fact explain part of the variance in the Visegrad countries’ stock returns.
Blocking links to minimize contamination spread in a social network

We address the problem of minimizing the propagation of undesirable things, such as computer viruses or malicious rumors, by blocking a limited number of links in a network, which is converse to the influence maximization problem in which the most influential nodes for information diffusion is searched in a social network. This minimization problem is more fundamental than the problem of preventing the spread of contamination by removing nodes in a network. We introduce two definitions for the contamination degree of a network, accordingly define two contamination minimization problems, and propose methods for efficiently finding good approximate solutions to these problems on the basis of a naturally greedy strategy. Using large social networks, we experimentally demonstrate that the proposed methods outperform conventional link-removal methods. We also show that unlike the case of blocking a limited number of nodes, the strategy of removing nodes with high out-degrees is not necessarily effective for these problems.
An integral space-vector PWM technique for DSP-controlled voltage-source inverters

A novel PWM technique for voltage-source inverters, based on the idea of space vectors of switching integrals is presented. In contrast to most existing PWM methods, no explicit timing is required, smooth transition from the PWM mode to the square-wave mode is ensured, and minimum allowable widths of pulses and notches are guaranteed. The control algorithm is conceptually simple and easily implementable in a DSP. Four parameters of the modulation strategy are adjustable, allowing fine tuning of the modulator to requirements imposed by the application. Voltage spectra have a low harmonic content, most of the power being dispersed as the continuous power density. A prototype modulator is described and illustrated by the results of laboratory experiments.
Twitter-scale New Event Detection via K-term Hashing

First Story Detection is hard because the most accurate systems become progressively slower with each document processed. We present a novel approach to FSD, which operates in constant time/space and scales to very high volume streams. We show that when computing novelty over a large dataset of tweets, our method performs 192 times faster than a state-of-the-art baseline without sacrificing accuracy. Our method is capable of performing FSD on the full Twitter stream on a single core of modest hardware.
Power Quality Improvement Using Grid Side Converter of Wind Energy Conversion System

This paper presents the control of a WECS (wind energy conversion system), equipped with a DFIG (doubly fed induction generator), for maximum power generation and power quality improvement simultaneously. The proposed control algorithm is applied to a DFIG whose stator is directly connected to the grid and the rotor is connected to the grid through a back-to-back AC-DC-AC PWM (pulse width modulation) converter. The RSC (rotor side converter) is controlled in such a way to extract a maximum power, for a wide range of wind speed. The GSC (grid side converter) is controlled in order to filter harmonic currents of a nonlinear load coupled at the PCC (point of common coupling) and ensure smooth DC bus voltage. Simulation results show that the wind turbine can operate at its optimum energy for a wide range of wind speed and power quality improvement is achieved.
Study of the role of different phonon scattering mechanisms on the performance of a GAA silicon nanowire transistor

In this paper we study the effect that different phonon scattering mechanisms have on the performance of a silicon gate-all-around nanowire field effect transistor (GAA NWFET). The study is carried out using the Non-equilibrium Green's function (NEGF) formalism in the effective mass approximation. We consider the impact of the bias conditions on the influence of the different phonons on the transport characteristics. We show a quantitative and qualitative difference in the behaviours of the impact of the different phonons for different bias conditions. The simulations including all phonons reproduce the correct behaviour of previous simulations using a sophisticated tight-binding/NEGF approach [1] while presenting a much lower computational effort suitable for technology computer aided design (TCAD) applications. Finally, we confirm that the addition of the phonon related resistivity from simulations including only selected phonons (as proposed in Matthiessen's rule) does not add up to the resistivity of the simulation including all phonons together, underestimating in this way the total phonon related resistivity by 13%.
The region of attraction and exponentially uniform dynamics of HIV infection

The Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) model used in this paper, describes a patient's infection initial stage by means of a three-state-variable model. The dynamics of the patient's evolution is analysed during a 500 day term, where the range of day-long transient response is clearly shown, and then the trend towards the asymptotic state is shown. This cell behavior is the patient's state before patient develops AIDS. Based on that information, an estimate of the exponential uniform bound for perturbation, as well as the phase-space attraction region are shown. This information will be helpful for the physician personal in order to obtain a benign transient concerning the viral load dynamics. For the schedule of therapy it is desired.
Intervivos Giving Over the Lifecycle

Inter-vivos cash transfers and bequests between family members total hundreds of billions of dollars each year. They may equalize resources within a generation of a family as well as across family generations. Transfers delayed to the end of life may represent a significant motive for saving. The authors use longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study on inter-vivos transfers that span up to twelve years to: describe financial transfers made by parents to children and their correlation with donor characteristics, examine age patterns in giving behavior, the persistence of transfers, and how transfers change in response to changes in marital status, economic status and health. Their empirical analysis is motivated by a dynamic life-cycle model with intervivos transfers as an argument in the utility function which generates hypotheses about the age pattern of transfers and how mortality risk, risk aversion and economic resources affect giving behavior.
Lagrangian perturbation theory for rotating magnetic stars

Motivated by the possibility of radiation-driven instabilities in rotating magnetic stars, we study the stability properties of general linear perturbations of a stationary and axisymmetric, infinitely conducting perfect fluid configuration threaded by a magnetic field and surrounded by vacuum. We develop a Lagrangian perturbation framework which enables us to formulate a strict stability criterion based on the notion of a canonical energy (a functional of the fluid displacement ? and its first time-derivative). For any given choice of {? , ? t? }, the sign of the canonical energy determines whether the configuration is stable or not at the linear level. Our analysis provides the first complete description of the stability problem for a magnetic star, allowing for both rotation and the presence of a magnetic field in the exterior vacuum region. A key feature of the Lagrangian formulation is the existence of so-called ‘trivial’ fluid displacements, which do not represent true physical perturbations. In order for the stability criterion to make rigorous sense, one has to isolate these trivials and consider only the physical ‘canonical’ displacements. We discuss this problem and formulate a condition which must be satisfied by all canonical displacements. Having obtained a well-defined stability criterion, we provide examples which indicate that the magnetic field has a stabilizing effect on radiation-driven instabilities.
A Decomposition-Based Approach to Linear Time-Periodic Distributed Control of Satellite Formations

In this paper, we consider the problem of designing a distributed controller for a formation of spacecraft following a periodic orbit. Each satellite is controlled locally on the basis of information from only a subset of the others (the nearest ones). We describe the dynamics of each spacecraft by means of a linear time-periodic (LTP) approximation, and we cast the satellite formation into a state-space formulation that facilitates control synthesis. Our technique exploits a novel modal decomposition of the state-space model and uses linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) for suboptimal control design of distributed controllers with guaranteed H∞ performance for formations of any size. The application of the method is shown in two case studies. The first example is inspired by a mission in a low, sun-synchronous Earth orbit, namely the new Dutch-Chinese Formation for Atmospheric Science and Technology demonstration mission (FAST), which is now in the preliminary design phase. The second example deals with a formation of spacecraft in a halo orbit.