Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Musculoskeletal complaints in dental hygiene: a survey study from a Swedish county.

PURPOSE Musculoskeletal complaints in dental hygienists all employed by the National Dental Service in a Swedish county were evaluated with a standardized questionnaire. METHODS During an ergonomics course, a questionnaire similar to standardized Nordic questionnaires was completed by all 28 participants. The questionnaire elicited demographic data and the presence and location of musculoskeletal complaints. Standard descriptive statistical methods were used to analyze the data. RESULTS Subjects were all women, with a mean age of 40 years and a mean time of employment of five years. Most respondents worked part-time (mean 80%). Neck and shoulder complaints showed a clear predominance over other locations. Sixty-two percent of the subjects reported complaints associated with the neck and 81% with one or both shoulders during the previous 12 months. The frequency of complaints was higher on the right side. CONCLUSIONS Most neck, shoulder, arm, and back complaints were considered work-related according to the dental hygienists themselves. The frequency of lower extremity complaints was low, and only a few of these complaints were considered work-related.
Electric Company Portfolio Optimization Under Interval Stochastic Dominance Constraints

This paper addresses the problem of market risk management for a company in the electricity industry. When dealing with corporate volumetric exposure, there is a need for a methodology that helps to manage the aggregate risks in energy markets. The originality of the approach presented lies in the use of intervals to formulate a specic portfolio optimization problem under stochastic dominance constraints.
Optimization-Based Collision Avoidance

This article presents a novel method for exactly reformulating nondifferentiable collision avoidance constraints into smooth, differentiable constraints using strong duality of convex optimization. We focus on a controlled object whose goal is to avoid obstacles while moving in an $n$ -dimensional space. The proposed reformulation is exact, does not introduce any approximations, and applies to general obstacles and controlled objects that can be represented as the union of convex sets. We connect our results with the notion of signed distance, which is widely used in traditional trajectory generation algorithms. Our method can be applied to generic navigation and trajectory planning tasks, and the smoothness property allows the use of general-purpose gradient- and Hessian-based optimization algorithms. Finally, in case a collision cannot be avoided, our framework allows us to find “least-intrusive” trajectories, measured in terms of penetration. We demonstrate the efficacy of our framework on an automated parking problem, where our numerical experiments suggest that the proposed method is robust and enables real-time optimization-based trajectory planning in tight environments. Sample code of our example is provided at https://github.com/XiaojingGeorgeZhang/OBCA.
On the Feedback Enhancement and System Performance Evaluation of Downlink MU-MIMO for 3GPP LTE-Advanced

The feedback accuracy for the multiuser multiple input multiple output (MU-MUMO) system is to be enhanced in the release 10 of 3GPP LTE specification. In this paper, we propose a feedback mechanism together with associated precoding and scheduling schemes that could improve the feedback accuracy for both single user (SU) and multiuser MIMO. System level simulation results of the proposed scheme are evaluated and compared with the baseline of LTE Release 8 MU-MIMO. Results show that with a small amount of extra overhead, the proposed scheme can outperform Release 8 MU-MIMO by at least 10%.
Prevalence of HIV, STIs, and Risk Behaviors in a Cross-Sectional Community- and Clinic-Based Sample of Men Who Have Sex with Men (MSM) in Lima, Peru

Background Further research is necessary to understand the factors contributing to the high prevalence of HIV/STIs among men who have sex with men (MSM) in Peru. We compared HIV/STI prevalence and risk factors between two non-probability samples of MSM, one passively enrolled from an STI clinic and the other actively enrolled from community venues surrounding the clinic in Lima, Peru. Methods A total of 560 self-identified MSM were enrolled between May-December, 2007. 438 subjects enrolled from a municipal STI clinic and 122 subjects enrolled during community outreach visits. All participants underwent screening for HIV, syphilis, HSV-2, gonorrhoea, and chlamydia and completed a survey assessing their history of HIV/STIs, prior HIV testing, and sexual behavior. Results HIV prevalence was significantly higher among MSM enrolled from the clinic, with previously undiagnosed HIV identified in 9.1% compared with 2.6% of community participants. 15.4 % of all MSM screened were infected with ≥1 curable STI, 7.4% with early syphilis (RPR≥1∶16) and 5.5% with urethral gonorrhoea and/or chlamydia. No significant differences between populations were reported in prevalence of STIs, number of male sex partners, history of unprotected anal intercourse, or alcohol and/or drug use prior to sex. Exchange of sex for money or goods was reported by 33.5% of MSM enrolled from the clinic and 21.2% of MSM from the community (p = 0.01). Conclusions Our data demonstrate that the prevalence of HIV and STIs, including syphilis, gonorrhoea, and chlamydia are extremely high among MSM enrolled from both clinic and community venues in urban Peru. New strategies are needed to address differences in HIV/STI epidemiology between clinic- and community-enrolled samples of MSM.
Estimating the prevalence of food risk increasing behaviours in UK kitchens

Foodborne disease poses a serious threat to public health. In the UK, half a million cases are linked to known pathogens and more than half of all outbreaks are associated with catering establishments. The UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) has initiated the UK Food Hygiene Rating Scheme in which commercial food establishments are inspected and scored with the results made public. In this study we investigate the prevalence of food risk increasing behaviours among chefs, catering students and the public. Given the incentive for respondents to misreport when asked about illegal or illicit behaviours we employed a Randomised Response Technique designed to elicit more accurate prevalence rates of such behaviours. We found 14% of the public not always hand-washing immediately after handling raw meat, poultry or fish; 32% of chefs and catering students had worked within 48 hours of suffering from diarrhoea or vomiting. 22% of the public admitted having served meat “on the turn” and 33% of chefs and catering students admitted working in kitchens where such meat was served; 12% of the public and 16% of chefs and catering students admitted having served chicken at a barbeque when not totally sure it was fully cooked. Chefs in fine-dining establishment were less likely to wash their hands after handling meat and fish and those who worked in award winning restaurants were more likely to have returned to work within 48 hours of suffering from diarrhoea and vomiting. We found no correlation between the price of a meal in an establishment, nor its Food Hygiene Rating Score, and the likelihood of any of the food malpractices occurring.
EMULSION GLASSES : A DYNAMIC LIGHT-SCATTERING STUDY

A liquid-glass transition was observed experimentally in a new system, an oil-in-water emulsion. Dynamic light scattering was employed to obtain the intermediate scattering function f(q,t) for a range of volume fractions f and scattering vectors q. The results are compared with predictions of the mode coupling theory. While the usual idealized version of the theory provides accurate fits to the data on the liquid side of the transition, fits for volume fractions near the transition and in the glass phase were found to require the extended version, presumably due to an additional decay mechanism related to the deformability of the oil droplets. @S1063-651X~99! 04901-6#
Optimal Load Factor for Approximate Nearest Neighbor Search under Exact Euclidean Locality Sensitive Hashing

Locality Sensitive Hashing (LSH) is an index-based data structure that allows spatial item retrieval over a large dataset. The performance measure, ρ, has significant effect on the computational complexity and memory space requirement to create and store items in this data structure respectively. The minimization of ρ at a specific approximation factor c, is dependent on the load factor, α. Over the years,α = 4has been used by researchers. In this paper, we demonstratethat the choice ofα = 4does not guarantee low computational complexity and low memory space of the data structure under the LSH scheme. To guarantee low computational complexity and low memory space, we proposeα = 5. Experiments on the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program imagery datasethave shown thatα = 5saves more than 75%on memory space; cuts the computational complexity by more than 70%andanswers query two times faster on the average compared to that ofα = 4. General Terms Nearest Neighbor, Search Algorithm, Locality Sensitive Hashing
Dermatan Sulfate Epimerase 1-Deficient Mice Have Reduced Content and Changed Distribution of Iduronic Acids in Dermatan Sulfate and an Altered Collagen Structure in Skin

ABSTRACT Dermatan sulfate epimerase 1 (DS-epi1) and DS-epi2 convert glucuronic acid to iduronic acid in chondroitin/dermatan sulfate biosynthesis. Here we report on the generation of DS-epi1-null mice and the resulting alterations in the chondroitin/dermatan polysaccharide chains. The numbers of long blocks of adjacent iduronic acids are greatly decreased in skin decorin and biglycan chondroitin/dermatan sulfate, along with a parallel decrease in iduronic-2-O-sulfated-galactosamine-4-O-sulfated structures. Both iduronic acid blocks and iduronic acids surrounded by glucuronic acids are also decreased in versican-derived chains. DS-epi1-deficient mice are smaller than their wild-type littermates but otherwise have no gross macroscopic alterations. The lack of DS-epi1 affects the chondroitin/dermatan sulfate in many proteoglycans, and the consequences for skin collagen structure were initially analyzed. We found that the skin collagen architecture was altered, and electron microscopy showed that the DS-epi1-null fibrils have a larger diameter than the wild-type fibrils. The altered chondroitin/dermatan sulfate chains carried by decorin in skin are likely to affect collagen fibril formation and reduce the tensile strength of DS-epi1-null skin.
Decline in Coronary Mortality in Sweden between 1986 and 2002: Comparing Contributions from Primary and Secondary Prevention

Background The relative importance of risk factor reduction in healthy people (primary prevention) versus that in patients with coronary heart disease (secondary prevention) has been debated. We aimed to quantify the contribution of the two. Methodology We used the previously validated IMPACT model to estimate contributions from primary prevention (reducing risk factors in the population, particularly smoking, cholesterol and systolic blood pressure) and from secondary prevention (reducing risk factors in coronary heart disease patients) in the Swedish population. Principal Findings Between 1986 and 2002, about 8,690 fewer deaths were related to changes in the three major risk factors. Population cholesterol fell by 0.64 mmol/L, with approximately 5,210 fewer deaths attributable to diet changes (4,470 in healthy people740 in patients.) plus 810 to statin treatment (200 in healthy people, 610 in patients). Overall smoking prevalence decreased by 10.3%, resulting in 1,195 fewer deaths, attributable to smoking cessation (595 in healthy people, 600 in patients). Mean population systolic blood pressure fell by 2.6 mmHg, resulting in 900 fewer deaths (865 in healthy people, 35 in patients), plus 575 fewer deaths attributable to antihypertensive medication in healthy people. The majority of falls in deaths attributable to risk factors occurred in people without known heart disease: 6,705 fewer deaths compared with 1,985 fewer deaths in patients (secondary prevention), emphasizing the importance of promoting health interventions in the general population. Conclusions The largest effects on mortality came from primary prevention, giving markedly larger mortality reductions than secondary prevention.
SME’s OPENNESS COMPLEMENTARITIES TO EXTERNAL SOURCE S OF INFORMATION: EVIDENCE FROM CHAUDIÈRE-APPALACHES MANUFACTURING FIRMS Primary Sub-theme: Open innovation (S6)

This paper draws on recent developments in open innovation literature to address three crucial questions: to what type of ESI are SMEs in the Chaudière-Appalaches region open? Are SMEs in this region simultaneously open to a set of ESI? Are there differences in the determinants of the openness of these SMEs to different ESI? The study considers the openness of SMEs to four categories of ESI: market sources, research sources, generally available sources of information and regional sources. The most important results of this study are: (1) there is a relation between the openness of SMEs and the four categories of ESI (Market sources, Generally available information sources, Research sources, and Regional sources), (2) the openness to these four groups of ESI seems to be complementary rather than substitute, and (3) not all variables included in the model explain the openness of SMEs in the Chaudière-Appalaches region to the four groups of ESI. These findings suggest that policies toward encouraging the adoption of open innovation must go through the edification of open innovation regional initiatives that take into account regions’ specificities.
Continuous, individual, time-dependent covariates in the Cormack-Jolly-Seber model

Capture-recapture methods are common in ecological studies when it is impossible to completely enumerate a population. Instead, individuals are captured, marked, and released back into the environment. Information about the population is derived by comparing the ratios of tagged to untagged individuals on subsequent capture occasions. Of primary interest in most capture-recapture studies are parameters governing the survival rate. Recent developments have focused on techniques to study the impact of different covariates on the survival probabilities. Straightforward methods have been developed for cases where the covariates are either discrete, constant over time, or apply to the population as a whole, but the problem has not been solved for the case of continuous time-dependent covariates unique to each individual. Because it is impossible to measure such variables on occasions where an individual was not captured, estimation can be considered a missing data problem. In this project, a model was constructed using a diffusion process to describe changes in a univariate covariate. Logistic functions were used to link the covariate to capture and survival rates and incorporate the data into the Cormack-Jolly-Seber model. Two methods of parameter estimation were developed based on techniques commonly used to handle missing data: a frequentist approach using the EM-algorithm and a Bayesian approach through MCMC. These methods were applied to simulated and real data-sets, and comparison of the results is provided. In short, though both methods yield similar results in most cases, the Bayesian approach was more reliable, easier to implement, and yielded estimates of the standard errors more readily than the EM-algorithm.
Does focusing on hand-grasping intentions modulate electroencephalogram &mgr; and &agr; suppressions?

Understanding the intentions of others presumably involves a human analog of the mirror neuron system. A putative marker of such mirror activity is the suppression of electroencephalographic oscillations in the 8–12 Hz range, which, when recorded over somatosensory areas, is associated with motor activity and labeled &mgr; rhythms. We investigated whether &mgr;-suppression can be modulated by attention to another person's intention as expressed by her hand movement toward an object and whether this suppression is distinguished from the suppression of &agr; waves that oscillate in the same frequency range and are modulated by attention and cognitive load. Both &mgr; and &agr; suppressions were modulated by task difficulty, and not distinctively by intention, reflecting the recruitment of resources needed for task performance.
Statistical Model Checking for Steady State Dependability Verification

We propose to apply the perfect simulation to perform statistical model checking of large Markov chains. Perfect simulation is an extension of Monte Carlo Markov Chain (MCMC) methods, it allows us to obtain exact steady-state samples of the underlying chain thus it avoids the burn-in time problem to detect the steady-state. The statistical model checking by MCMC methods has been already proposed in the last years. However the steady-state formulas can not be checked by this approach because of the problem of detecting steady-state. Thus we propose to do statistical model checking by combining perfect simulation and statistical hypothesis testing in order to verify steady state formulas. We apply our proposed method to verify the saturation and availability properties at long run for a multistage interconnection queueing network illustrating its efficiency when considering very large models.
Modeling Erlang in the pi-calculus

This paper provides a contribution to the formal modeling and verification of programs written in the concurrent functional programming language Erlang, which is designed for telecommunication applications. It presents a mapping of Core Erlang programs into the π--calculus, a process algebra whose name--passing feature allows to represent the mobile aspects of Erlang software in a natural way.
Integrated photonic systems for single photon generation and quantum applications

The presented thesis covers the development and investigation of novel integrated single photon sources and their application for quantum information schemes. Single photon generation was based on single defect centers in diamond nanocrystals. Such defect centers offer unique optical properties as they are room temperature stable, non-blinking, and do not photo-bleach over time. The fluorescent nanocrystals are mechanically stable, their size down to 20 nm enabled the development of novel nano-manipulation pick-and-place techniques. One of these techniques features an atomic force microscope and allows nanometer precise deposition of pre-selected diamond crystals in complex photonic structures. Two different approaches were pursued to realize novel single photon sources. The first one is the bottom-up integration of fluorescent diamond nanocrystals into nanoand micrometer scaled fiber devices and resonant structures. Generated single photons couple evanescently to these structures, enabling efficient coupling without additional optical components, making them ultra-stable and maintenance free. The second approach is the application of a solid immersion microscope. Its solid immersion lens acts as a dielectric antenna for the emission of defect centers, enabling the highest photon rates of up to 2.4Mcts/s and collection efficiencies of up to 4.2% from nitrogen vacancy defect centers achieved to date. Furthermore, the microscope can be applied at cryogenic temperatures enabling novel applications and fundamental investigations not possible before due to insufficient photon rates. Such an application was the determination of the spectral diffusion time of a single nitrogen vacancy defect center in diamond nanocrystals to be about τD = 2. 2μs, giving new insights into the mechanism causing spectral diffusion. Spectral diffusion is a limiting property for quantum information applications, e.g. to realize two-photon interference. The table-top solid immersion microscope was integrated into a compact mobile single photon system with dimension of only 7 x 19 x 23 cm3 while still maintaining record-high stable photon rates. This makes it interesting for various single photon applications. Two of such applications were realized. First, a quantum key distribution scheme based on the BB84 protocol was implemented, for the first time also with silicon vacancy defect centers. Secondly, a conceptually novel scheme for the generation of infrared single photons was introduced and realized. It is based on a photonic crystal fiber which acts as a conversion device for single pump photons provided by the compact mobile system.
Cell-Cycle Kinetics of Neocortical Precursors Are Influenced by Embryonic Thalamic Axons

Thalamic afferents are known to exert a control over the differentiation of cortical areas at late stages of development. Here, we show that thalamic afferents also influence early stages of corticogenesis at the level of the ventricular zone. Using an in vitro approach, we show that embryonic day 14 mouse thalamic axons release a diffusable factor that promotes the proliferation of cortical precursors over a restricted developmental window. The thalamic mitogenic effect on cortical precursors (1) shortens the total cell-cycle duration via a reduction of the G1 phase; (2) facilitates the G1/S transition leading to an increase in proliferative divisions; (3) is significantly reduced by antibodies directed against bFGF; and (4) influences the proliferation of both glial and neuronal precursors and does not preclude the action of signals that induce differentiation in these two lineages. We have related these in vitrofindings to the in vivo condition: the organotypic culture of cortical explants in which anatomical thalamocortical innervation is preserved shows significantly increased proliferation rates compared with cortical explants devoid of subcortical afferents. These results are in line with a number of studies at subcortical levels showing the control of neurogenesis via afferent fibers in both vertebrates and invertebrates. Specifically, they indicate the mechanisms whereby embryonic thalamic afferents contribute to the known early regionalization of the ventricular zone, which plays a major role in the specification of neocortical areas.
Temperature and Development Impacts on Housekeeping Gene Expression in Cowpea Aphid, Aphis craccivora (Hemiptera: Aphidiae)

Quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) is a powerful technique to quantify gene expression. To standardize gene expression studies and obtain more accurate qRT-PCR analysis, normalization relative to consistently expressed housekeeping genes (HKGs) is required. In this study, ten candidate HKGs including elongation factor 1 α (EF1A), ribosomal protein L11 (RPL11), ribosomal protein L14 (RPL14), ribosomal protein S8 (RPS8), ribosomal protein S23 (RPS23), NADH-ubiquinone oxidoreductase (NADH), vacuolar-type H+-ATPase (ATPase), heat shock protein 70 (HSP70), 18S ribosomal RNA (18S), and 12S ribosomal RNA (12S) from the cowpea aphid, Aphis craccivora Koch were selected. Four algorithms, geNorm, Normfinder, BestKeeper, and the ΔCt method were employed to evaluate the expression profiles of these HKGs as endogenous controls across different developmental stages and temperature regimes. Based on RefFinder, which integrates all four analytical algorithms to compare and rank the candidate HKGs, RPS8, RPL14, and RPL11 were the three most stable HKGs across different developmental stages and temperature conditions. This study is the first step to establish a standardized qRT-PCR analysis in A. craccivora following the MIQE guideline. Results from this study lay a foundation for the genomics and functional genomics research in this sap-sucking insect pest with substantial economic impact.