Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
[Epidemiology of cerebrovascular diseases in Sabaneta, Colombia (1992-1993)].

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES In Columbia the epidemiology of cerebrovascular illness (ECV) is unknown. For this reason a study was made to determine the prevalence, incidence and annual mortality, and to identify the different types of ECV and the demographic characteristics of the population. MATERIAL AND METHODS In the urban area of Sabaneta, Columbia 13,588 door to door interviews were carried out among the inhabitants. A cutoff study carried out between April and June 1992 showed the prevalence of ECV. One year follow-up of persons without ECV between June 1992 and June 1993, enabled the incidence and annual mortality to be evaluated. A structured interview was used to identify the demographic characteristics of the population and classify people as healthy or as possibly having ECV. The latter were examined by neurologists to confirm or rule out the presence of ECV and to determine the type of ECV involved. Of the total urban population, 76.9% agreed to participate in the study. During the follow-up year, 8.4% were lost trace of. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS The prevalence of ECV was 559.3/ 100,000 inhabitants, increasing with age (15). In the 15-40 year old group, the incidence of ECV was 44 times higher in women than in men. The annual incidence rate was 88.9/100,000 inhabitants: thromboembolic disease was the most frequent. Of a total of 87 cases of ECV, 12 (13.98%) died of various causes during the year in which they were being observed. The annual mortality rate for ECV was 16.2/100,000 inhabitants, all being primary cases.
Bureaucratization in the U. S. Department of State

Very little social scientific research has considered the question of bureaucratization in the individual governmental agency. Departing from an experiment in de-bureaucratization, this article traces the origins of two core components of bureaucracy-hierarchy and rules-in the U. S. Department of State. The discussion emphasizes the interaction between the internal structure of a public organization and two sets of environmental factors: the power setting and the operating environment. It is argued that this interaction produces a high degree of message generation, top-down demands for accountability and control, and bottom-up pressures for clearance and guidance. These conditions lead to a heavy message volume and a high degree of centralization which, in turn, bring on communications overload. Bureaucracy increases as overload is handled through hierarchical differentiation and the proliferation of rules.
Gender and Language Differences on the Test of Workplace Essential Skills: Using Overall Mean Scores and Item-Level Differential Item Functioning Analyses

The Test of Workplace Essential Skills (TOWES) assesses cognitive skills in three areas using the following three separate subscales: Reading Text, Document Use, and Numeracy inWorking-Age Adults. The sample was composed of 2,688 working-age Englishspeaking Canadians who came from a variety of settings (e.g., trades training programs, adult education centers, college programs, and athletic clubs). The relationships between subscale test performance and the demographic variables of gender and language showed there were some group differences in mean levels of performance. However, at most, these differences accounted for less than 3% of the variance in performance on any subscale. In addition, differential item functioning analyses using the BILOG-MG program showed that at the item level, little or no gender or language bias was present. Recommendations based on the findings are presented.
Self-injurious behaviour in intellectual disability syndromes: evidence for aberrant pain signalling as a contributing factor.

BACKGROUND In most individuals, injury results in activation of peripheral nociceptors (pain-sensing neurons of the peripheral nervous system) and amplification of central nervous system (CNS) pain pathways that serve as a disincentive to continue harmful behaviour; however, this may not be the case in some developmental disorders that cause intellectual disability (ID). Moreover, individuals affected by ID disorders may initiate self-injurious behaviour to address irritating or painful sensations. In normal individuals, a negative feedback loop decreases sensation of pain, which involves descending inhibitory neurons in the CNS that attenuate spinal nociceptive processing. If spinal nociceptive signalling is impaired in these developmental disorders, an exaggerated painful stimulus may be required in order to engage descending anti-nociceptive signals. METHODS Using electronic databases, we conducted a review of publications regarding the incidence of chronic pain or altered pain sensation in ID patients or corresponding preclinical models. RESULTS There is a body of evidence indicating that individuals with fragile X mental retardation and/or Rett syndrome have altered pain sensation. These findings in humans are supported by mechanistic studies using genetically modified mice harbouring mutations consistent with the human disease. Thus, once self-injurious behaviour is initiated, the signal to stop may be missing. Several developmental disorders that cause ID are associated with increased incidence of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), which can cause severe visceral pain. Individuals affected by these disorders who also have GERD may self-injure as a mechanism to engage descending inhibitory circuits to quell visceral pain. In keeping with this hypothesis, pharmacological treatment of GERD has been shown to be effective for reducing self-injurious behaviour in some patients. Hence, multiple lines of evidence suggest aberrant nociceptive processing in developmental disorders that cause ID. CONCLUSIONS There is evidence that pain pathways and pain amplification mechanisms are altered in several preclinical models of developmental disorders that cause ID. We present hypotheses regarding how impaired pain pathways or chronic pain might contribute to self-injurious behaviour. Studies evaluating the relationship between pain and self-injurious behaviour will provide better understanding of the mechanisms underlying self-injurious behaviour in the ID population and may lead to more effective treatments.
Tempo Variation in Speech Production Implications for Speech Synthesis

Zusammenfassung Tempoveränderungen in gesprochener Sprache werden von vielen verschiedenen Variablen beeinflusst, die nicht genuin phonetischer oder phonologischer Natur sind. Wie in Kapitel 2 dargestellt, umfassen diese Variablen extra-und para-linguistische Acknowledgments My initial idea of writing a PhD thesis was similar to the speaking style of news announcers which is marked by just few and short pauses, a clear and concise style, a high load of information, and a quick and fluent production. During the process of writing this thesis, which took by far longer than expected, I made some observations which were more similar to a style of speech in which I have to formulate spontaneously on topics I have to think about. This resulted in a considerable amount of pausing time due to planning errors, and to a very dynamic production tempo (with too many phases of ritardando). But unlike speech where we can find a very strong effect of phrase-final lengthening, my writing was characterised by a thesis-final shortening. (It is of course just speculation whether this might be due to some higher-level constraints.) I would like to thank all the people who discussed with me one aspect of the thesis or another in very different ways. First of all, I would like to say "Danke" to Bill Barry, my supervisor for many hours (and many pages) of discussion. Then I would like to thank all the people from the Institute of Phonetics at Saarland University who served as discussants or, additionally, as co-authors for various articles: A special thank you goes to all those people who gave me the opportunity to present my work in several departmental colloquia in Edinburgh, Vienna, Bonn, Stuttgart, and the "obligatory" one in Saarbrücken. Thus, thanks to Hannes Pirker, Maria Wolters, and Michaela Atterer. A big ZSz99Mjr\ goes to Alice Turk from the University of Edinburgh who was a permanent motivator for my work during my stays in Edinburgh. Last but not least, I am very grateful to Anja, Mattis and Finn who are probably glad that this piece of work has now found its end.
Visual task characterization for automated visual discourse synthesis

To develop a comprehensive and systematic approach to the automated design of visual discourse, we introduce a visual task taxonomy that interfaces high-level presentation intents with low-level visual techniques. In our approach, visual tasks describe presentation intents through their visual accomplishments, and suggest desired visual techniques through their visual implications. Therefore, we can characterize visual tasks by their visual accomplishments and implications. Through this characterization, visual tasks can guide the visual discourse synthesis process by specifying what presentation intents can be achieved and how to achieve them.
A True Annealing Approach to the Marriage in Honey-Bees Optimization Algorithm

Marriage in Honey-Bees Optimization is a new swarm intelligence technique inspired by the marriage process of honey-bees. It has been shown to be very effective in solving the propositional satisfiability problem known as 3-SAT. The objective of this paper is to test a conventional annealing approach as the basis for determining the pool of drones. The modified algorithm is tested using a group of randomly generated hard 3-SAT problems to compare its behavior and efficiency against previous implementations. The overall performance of the MBO algorithm was found to have improved significantly using the proposed annealing function. Furthermore, a dramatic improvement was noted with the committee machine using this true annealing approach.
Authentication and Authorization in FELIX

FELIX, the EU-Japan jointly-funded project, establishes a software defined networking (SDN) experimental facility which spans two continents and several administrative domains via dynamic transit network connections. The FELIX architectural blueprint provides an excellent example where key topics such as policy-based software-defined infrastructure instantiation is supported by resource orchestrators which manage multi-domain distributed compute and network resources including on-demand provisioning of transit network resources. In this context, FELIX implements a modern approach for authentication and authorization in SDN experimental facilities which enables fine-grained control and avoids single points of failure. This paper details the underlying mechanisms for user and transit network resource authentication and authorization in FELIX.
Tuberculosis in Thailand

Tuberculosis (TB) was expected to be eradicated by the end of this century. However, an increasing incidence of tuberculosis in many parts of the world has led to renewed interest in the disease. The pandemic of HIV infection has changed TB, an endemic disease, to an epidemic worldwide. In Thailand, tuberculosis cases and deaths reduced year after year, until 1992 when the cases began to increase as a result of HIV infection. The annual risk of infection in 1997 was estimated at 1.4%, with approximately 100 000 new TB cases developing each year. Fifteen per cent of tuberculosis patients are seropositive for HIV infection. Increasing antituberculosis drug resistance has been correlated with the high prevalence of HIV infection in some parts of the country. In 1995, cure rate of this disease was approximately 50% and, since 1996, in order to cope with the worsening situation, the National Tuberculosis Programme (NTP) has adopted Directly Observed Treatment, Short‐course (DOTS). Despite the current economic turmoil of the country, the programme has now been expanded to cover over 400 of the 810 districts of Thailand. Also, the economic effects of tuberculosis at the household level in Thailand were recently studied. Tuberculosis is a chronic disease that commonly affects the lower socioeconomic classes. Some patients were unable to follow the treatment regimens because of the financial burden. The low case detection and treatment completion rates are, in part, due to the inability of poor patients to cope with the expenditure.
Lignocellulosic Biomass: A Sustainable Bioenergy Source for the Future.

BACKGROUND Increasing population and industrialization are continuously oppressing the existing energy resources and depleting the global fuel reservoirs. The elevated pollutions from the continuous consumption of non-renewable fossil fuels also seriously contaminating the surrounding environment. The use of alternate energy sources can be an environment-friendly solution to cope these challenges. Among the renewable energy sources biofuels (biomass-derived fuels) can serve as a better alternative to reduce the reliance on non-renewable fossil fuels. Bioethanol is one of the most widely consumed biofuels of today's world. OBJECTIVE The main objective of this review is to highlight the significance of lignocellulosic biomass as a potential source for the production of biofuels like bioethanol, biodiesel or biogas. METHODS We discuss the application of various methods for the bioconversion of lignocellulosic biomass to end products i.e. biofuels. The lignocellulosic biomass must be pretreated to disintegrate lignocellulosic complexes and to expose its chemical components for downstream processes. After pretreatment, the lignocellulosic biomass is then subjected to saccharification either via acidic or enzymatic hydrolysis. Thereafter, the monomeric sugars resulted from hydrolysis step are further processed into biofuel i.e. bioethanol, biodiesel or butanol etc. through the fermentation process. The fermented impure product is then purified through the distillation process to obtain pure biofuel. CONCLUSION Renewable energy sources represent the potential fuel alternatives to overcome the global energy crises in a sustainable and eco-friendly manner. In future, biofuels may replenish the conventional non-renewable energy resources due to their renewability and several other advantages. Lignocellulosic biomass offers the most economical biomass to generate biofuels. However, extensive research is required for the commercial production of an efficient integrated biotransformation process for the production of lignocellulose mediated biofuels.
Situational Variability in the Self-Concept: Appraisals, Expectancies, and Asymmetries

Three studies are described that examined the effects of contextual factors on the self-concept, self-regulation, and coping competence. Results indicated that personally significant social experiences influence not only the accessibility of differing self-conceptions, but also appraisals of their current and past self-descriptiveness and expectancies of their future likelihood. Furthermore, positive and negative experiences were found to have asymmetrical effects on these appraisals and expectancies and on their association with self-regulation and coping competence. By contrast, appraisals regarding the attractiveness and personal valuation of self-descriptors were more resistant to situational influence. Implications of these findings for clinical interventions are considered.
Comments on ‘Gain Scheduling Dynamic Linear Controllers for a Nonlinear Plant’

Lawrence & Rugh (1995), Kaminer et al. (1995) propose that the realisation for a gain-scheduled controller should be chosen to satisfy a local linear equivalence condition. However, this provides an inadequate basis selecting an appropriate realisation. Many realisations satisfy the local linear equivalence condition yet are not equivalent and can exhibit quite different dynamic behaviour. Furthermore, the condition imposes restrictions on the controller states and inputs which are not a priori necessary.
Who's Taking the Advanced Placement Courses and How Are They Doing: A Statewide Two-Year Study

Enrollment in Advanced Placement courses in all high school campuses in the State of Texas was examined for the 2004-2005 and the 2005 2006 school years to determine the extent to which student diversity was present. A higher percentage of the female student body, 17%, was enrolled in Advanced Placement courses than was the male student body, 13%. Almost a fifth of the White student body was enrolled in Advanced Placement courses, compared with slightly over 10% of the Hispanic student body and the African American student body. The percentages of economically disadvantaged students, Limited English Proficient, and students with special learning needs were low, as anticipated. Student success in these courses, however, differed as a function of gender and ethnicity, with African American students experiencing the least success. Of interest was that Hispanic students demonstrated the highest degree of success in these courses. Implications of these findings are discussed.
Refinement of weighted centroid localization using a regular infrastructure topology

Received signal strength (RSS) readings of common RF transceivers as a low-cost range sensor metric enable a reliable indoor local positioning system (ILPS). The mobile blind nodes (BNs) send out RF signals which are received and evaluated for the RSS by stationary reference nodes (RNs). The low-complexity weighted centroid localization (WCL) algorithm is a suitable estimator for the erroneous RSS-based range estimates. In many cases, the RNs are installed in a regular manner, e.g. at the walls and with regular node distances. The novel approach is to convert the information of this regular topology into an increased positioning accuracy. For a given RN topology, the systematic error of WCL can be computed beforehand and used to compensate the systematic error during the online positioning. The accuracy of WCL estimates is improved significantly, especially at the edge of the RN grid. The basic WCL and the WCL using the proposed topology refinement technique are compared for a 2D positioning in a factory hall environment. The refinement is most effective for infrastructure setups with very limited number of reference nodes, enabling a cost effective and reliable positioning solution.
NEW JERSEY MEDICAL SCHOOL OF UMDNJ

and is one of only eight of its kind currently funded by the NCI. This program, which has been continuously funded by the NCI for 40 years, provides a unique eight-week research experience for New Jersey Medical School's first and second-year medical students as well as undergraduate students enrolled in our combined BS/MD seven-year program. This year 18 medical students and 3 undergraduates participated in biomedical research activities in both laboratory and clinical settings at either the NJMS-UH Cancer Center, or the broader cancer center research community on the Newark Campus, while developing a close working relationship with their faculty mentors. The administration of the summer program is focused at the Cancer Center where it is a part of the center's broader training mission in cancer education for both PhD and MD scientists. The Program Directors, Drs. Ozer and Mahon, and the Program Coordinator, Ms. Lorie-Anne Philips, expanded the program to include student attendance at the NJMS-UH Cancer Center multidisciplinary tumor boards, a workshop on scientific poster presentation, the generation of a group website that allows participants to interact with each other over the internet, and an on-line survey used to evaluate the program. All students were required to present their research at a poster session during the concluding symposium, one of the program highlights. Movie clips of these presentations, as well as other information about the program, are available for viewing at the Cancer Center website under the Training tab at the following URL: No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form without prior written permission of the editor, student author and faculty sponsor ii FACULTY EXECUTIVE ADVISORY COMMITTEE The faculty executive advisory committee is responsible for carefully reviewing and selecting the projects submitted by faculty, as well as reviewing the structure of the forthcoming Cancer Summer Program. We appreciate the time they took out of their busy schedules to evaluate the program and help make it a success. While the Cancer Center building currently houses 13 laboratories, the broader Cancer Center Community (CCC) is composed of 121 investigators from several departments of the NJMS, the New Jersey Dental School and the School of Public Health. It is a truly interdisciplinary and interdepartmental group that embraces research enterprises extending from basic science programs in tumor immunology, signal transduction, cancer stem cells, tumor virology, cell biology, animal models, and imaging, to health disparities and clinical …
Decision feedback equalizer with the blind matched filter estimation

The optimal receiver front-end is the matched filter (MF) for a maximum SNR in a communication channel with AWGN. The sampled MF output can be processed with the suboptimal yet computationally effective decision feedback equalizer (DFE). In this paper, the filters of the DFE are derived in terms of the channel autocorrelation sequence which is estimated blindly using the sampled channel output signal. Initially, the structure is operated in the linear equalizer (LE) mode (without the decision device (DD)) with the symbol-rate sampled MF placed at the end. During this LE mode, the MF is estimated blindly using the CMA. After it converges, the structure is put back into its original form and the DD is included in the feedback filter (FBF). The MF is adapted in the system identification structure using the detected symbols from the DD. In this way, the MF estimate from the CMA is improved further and an all-blind DFE is realized for a SISO system. The BER values obtained from this structure are very close to those obtained with the true values of the MF and hence they prove that the structure is efficient and effective.
Developmental dyslexia: The role of the cerebellum

Specific developmental dyslexia is normally identified by unexpected problems in learning to read for children of average or above average intelligence —“a disorder in children who, despite conventional classroom experience, fail to attain the language skills of reading, writing and spelling commensurate with their intellectual abilities” (from the definition by the World Federation of Neurology, 1968, p26). A typical estimate of the prevalence of dyslexia in Western school populations is 4% (Badian, 1984; Jorm, Share, Maclean, & Matthews, 1986), with roughly four times as many boys as girls being diagnosed, though other investigators (Shaywitz, Shaywitz, Fletcher and Escobar, 1990) have reported incidence as high as 10%. Dyslexia is genetic in origin (Smith, Kimberling, Pennington, & Lubs, 1983), and cannot therefore be ‘outgrown’ in adulthood, even if the reading difficulties are largely overcome.
The power play: Security-energy trade-offs in the IoT regime

We are in the regime of Internet-of-Things (IoT), - a regime characterized by billions of smart, connected computing devices coordinating to provide large-scale, highly personalized applications. Two overriding themes in this regime are energy consumption and security enforcement, which are both critical to the sustainability and proliferation of the IoT ecosystem. However, energy and security requirements are often at odds. This paper discusses several challenges in developing trustworthy IoT devices that comprehend the energy-security trade-offs. We also outline some emergent approaches to address this conflict.