Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Introducing urban vitality as a determinant of children's healthy mobility habits: a focus on activity engagement and physical activity

In this study we introduce urban vitality as a determining factor for both physical activity (PA) and activity engagement in children living in Barcelona's Metropolitan Region. We compare the physical outcomes of children living in vital and non-vital areas using mobility data taken from a travel survey. Chi-square, and association tests were used to compare the health outcomes of children living in vital and non-vital areas. Specifically, we measured for activity engagement, walking for transport, minutes of PA and adequacy to World Health Organization PA recommendations. Results are stratified by age and gender and reveal how living in a vital area can produce up to 54 minutes more of PA per week, with a difference of nearly 20% in the number of outdoor activities undertaken. Neighbourhood vitality promotes healthier mobility habits, as children living in buzzing areas tend to engage in more activities and spend more minutes walking for transport.
Ii Dual Inheritance and Cultural Evolution Iv Cumulative Evolution without Meme-like Replication?

Joseph Henrich and Richard McElreath begin their survey of theories of cultural evolution with a striking historical example. They contrast the fate of the Bourke and Wills expedition — an attempt to explore some of the arid areas of inland Australia — with the routine survival of the local aboriginals in exactly the same area. That expedition ended in failure and death, despite the fact that it was well equipped, and despite the fact that those on the expedition were tough and experienced. For survival in such areas depended on accumulated local knowledge. The locals had learned how detoxify seeds before making bread from them, and how to catch the local fish. Bourke and Wills and their companions lacked this local knowledge, and died as a result (Henrich and McElreath 2003). This example is far from exceptional. In their writings on culture and evolution, Peter Richerson and Robert Boyd invite their readers to consider their bleak prospects if given the task of surviving without modern technology on the Altar Desert's "The Devil's Road" between Mexico and Old California. A lot of tough and experienced folk did not make it across that road. But the Papago Indians managed to make a living there on the basis of stone, wood and bone equipment and a lot of local knowledge (Boyd and Richerson 2000). Similar examples can be multiplied indefinitely, and they make a most important point. Humans are often very well adapted to their local environment. The behavioural adaptations of, say, the seal and whale hunting Inuit, in making kayaks and weapons out of the very restricted range of materials available to them in the arctic north, are as impressive as the morphological adaptations of the creatures they hunted. Moreover, that adaptation is knowledge-intensive: appropriate action in the artic north, in the altar desert, or in central Australia depends on the accumulation of extensive cognitive capital. The existence and importance of cognitive capital, in turn, makes evolutionary approaches to culture plausible. For cognitive capital is not accumulated rapidly. It is surely likely that the information of aboriginal and indian foragers was accumulated piecemeal and over time: it was the work of generations rather than genius. Moreover, it is very likely that the accumulation mechanism is sensitive to actual success rather 3 than to the anticipation of success 1. We can reasonably conjecture that the informational bases of Australian aboriginal desert survival was …
Detection of cognitive binding during ambiguous figure tasks by wavelet coherence analysis of EEG signals

It is hypothesized that the perception of an alternative image in ambiguous figures would be manifested as an increase in synchronization of EEG signals over multiple scalp sites as "cognitive binding" occurs. A statistical time-frequency analysis (STFA) approach is taken to detect cognitive binding. The STFA approach consists of an analysis filter bank that extracts useful components from the input EEG signals and certain statistical parameters at the output that characterize the synchronization patterns over multiple scalp sites. With the help of wavelet-packet filters and wavelet coherence measures, cognitive binding is detected over many frequency bands by statistical testing.
Social capital in media societies: The impact of media use and media structures on social capital

Social capital refers to the resources inherent in social relationships; it is considered the foundation of economic, political, and social development. To explore the media’s impact on social capital, we analyze the impact of media consumption at the individual level and the effects of media system structures at the national level. Multilevel analyses were computed using individual data from the European Social Survey and national data on media structures. The results indicate that Internet use and informational media use increase social capital. Moreover, societies seem to benefit from open, free, and pluralistic media systems as they support the production of social capital. In sum, we argue for a dissociation from a culturally pessimistic, one-sided point of view when discussing media effects. In today’s societies, media imply potential rather than restrictions.
Prostate Cancer Screening

This chapter introduces the controversy of prostate cancer screening that has emerged over the past two decades, starting with the widespread use of the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test in 1994. The PSA test revolutionized prostate cancer detection as it is the first biomarker available to physicians to identify prostate cancers that could not be detected by a digital rectal exam. However, unrestricted utilization of the PSA test in asymptomatic men led to an increase in overdiagnosis and treatment-related morbidity. When reviewing evidence relating prostate cancer screening to prostate cancer–related morbidity and mortality, the US Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF) issued a recommendation in 2012 that screening among asymptomatic men for prostate cancer produces more harm than benefit. These recommendations were updated in 2018 to offer screening selectively for men between the ages of 55 and 69 years. Both recommendations called for physicians to engage patients in shared decision making regarding screening. Consequences of these recommendations on shared decision making, health communication, and efforts to address disparities in screening among underserved and at-risk populations are discussed.
Teaching research and practice of FPGA-based multi-core parallel computing course

Multicore related courses delivered or several years in universities, while mostly were parallel programming or just simulation with desktop software. This paper presented very hard approaches with FPGA to run up to 13 cores in a token ring, dedicated tool chains were used to compile and link C code into the executable object code. Especially, different parallel programming solutions of TSP (Travel Salesman Problem) were arranged for easy to difficult level of the course to let the student know the essential concepts of parallel architecture like synchronization, message, shared memory, barrier, etc. Several algorithms were involved with great disparity in performance comparison. In this course, both software and hardware skills were drilled, even slightly modification of the HDL designing of the cores were required. The course was based on the MIT course Multicore Systems Laboratory (6.173) and made some extensions, tried a new way to let the students to sense the multicore system architecture.
Vision-based Monte Carlo self-localization for a mobile service robot acting as shopping assistant in a home store

We present a novel omnivision-based robot localization approach which utilizes the Monte Carlo Localization (MCL), a Bayesian filtering technique based on a density representation by means of particles. The capability of this method to approximate arbitrary likelihood densities is a crucial property for dealing with highly ambiguous localization hypotheses as are typical for real-world environments. We show how omnidirectional imaging can be combined with the MCL-algorithm to globally localize and track a mobile robot given a taught graph-based representation of the operation area. In contrast to other approaches, the nodes of our graph are labeled with both visual feature vectors extracted from the omnidirectional image, and odometric data about the pose of the robot at the moment of the node insertion (position and heading direction). To demonstrate the reliability of our approach, we present first experimental results in the context of a challenging robotics application, the self-localization of a mobile service robot acting as shopping assistant in a very regularly structured, maze-like and crowded environment, a home store.
Algorithmic Skeletons: Structured Management of Parallel Computation

This book introduces a new approach to the design and implementation of software systems which will help users of large scale parallel systems coordinate many concurrent activities toward a single goal. It assesses the strengths an weaknesses of this approach with existing alternatives.Cole's system proposes a selection of independent algorithmic skeletons, each of which describes the structure of a particular style of algorithm. The user must describe a solution to a problem as an instance of the appropriate skeleton. The implementation task is simplified by the fact that each skeleton may be considered independently, in contrast to the monolithic programming interfaces of existing systems at a similar level of abstraction.The book describes four skeletons based on the notions of fixed degree divide and conquer, task queues, iterative combination, and clustering. Each is introduced in terms of the abstraction it presents to the user. Implementation on a square grid of autonomous processor memory pairs is considered and examples of problems which could be solved in terms of the skeleton are presented.Murray I. Cole is a Lecturer in the Computing Science Department of the University of Glasgow. "Algorithmic Skeletons" is included in the series Research Monographs in Parallel and Distributed Computing, Copublished with Pitman Publishing,
Design and implementation of IDS using Snort, Entropy and alert ranking system

Intrusion detection is the process of identifying suspicious activities on a target system or network. A lot of approaches have been proposed for building better Intrusion Detection Systems. Some of the approaches use signature based, some use anomaly based and some use both. Most of the real time systems use signature based techniques. Main problem with signature based technique is its vulnerability to unknown attacks. But the problem with anomaly based technique is that they give a lot of false alarms and very difficult to realize. Entropy is one of the anomaly detection technique used in intrusion detection. In this paper we are designing a system with the help of Entropy based technique and integrating with real time system Snort so that it can have advantages of both techniques. Also another issue of IDS, hectic amount of alert data, has also been addressed by developing alert reduction and ranking system. Experimental results show that our system which is working in real time is efficient in terms of attack detection and alert visualization.
Concerted Activity of IgG1 Antibodies and IL-4/IL-25-Dependent Effector Cells Trap Helminth Larvae in the Tissues following Vaccination with Defined Secreted Antigens, Providing Sterile Immunity to Challenge Infection

Over 25% of the world's population are infected with helminth parasites, the majority of which colonise the gastrointestinal tract. However, no vaccine is yet available for human use, and mechanisms of protective immunity remain unclear. In the mouse model of Heligmosomoides polygyrus infection, vaccination with excretory-secretory (HES) antigens from adult parasites elicits sterilising immunity. Notably, three purified HES antigens (VAL-1, -2 and -3) are sufficient for effective vaccination. Protection is fully dependent upon specific IgG1 antibodies, but passive transfer confers only partial immunity to infection, indicating that cellular components are also required. Moreover, immune mice show greater cellular infiltration associated with trapping of larvae in the gut wall prior to their maturation. Intra-vital imaging of infected intestinal tissue revealed a four-fold increase in extravasation by LysM+GFP+ myeloid cells in vaccinated mice, and the massing of these cells around immature larvae. Mice deficient in FcRγ chain or C3 complement component remain fully immune, suggesting that in the presence of antibodies that directly neutralise parasite molecules, the myeloid compartment may attack larvae more quickly and effectively. Immunity to challenge infection was compromised in IL-4Rα- and IL-25-deficient mice, despite levels of specific antibody comparable to immune wild-type controls, while deficiencies in basophils, eosinophils or mast cells or CCR2-dependent inflammatory monocytes did not diminish immunity. Finally, we identify a suite of previously uncharacterised heat-labile vaccine antigens with homologs in human and veterinary parasites that together promote full immunity. Taken together, these data indicate that vaccine-induced immunity to intestinal helminths involves IgG1 antibodies directed against secreted proteins acting in concert with IL-25-dependent Type 2 myeloid effector populations.
An Empirical Analysis of the Potential for Market Power in California&Apos;S Electricity Industry

We use demand and plant-level cost data to simulate competition in a restructured California electricity market. This approach recognizes that firms might have an incentive to restrict output in order to raise price and enables us to explicitly analyze each firm's ability to do so. We find that, under the current structure of generation ownership, there is potential for significant market power in high demand hours. During some months, congestion over Path 15, the primary in-state north-south transmission line, exacerbates the market power potential in northern California. While these results make deregulation of generation less attractive than if there were no market power, they do not suggest that deregulation would be a mistake. Nearly all markets exhibit some degree of market power. We find that the levels of hydroelectric production and the elasticity of demand are two of the most important factors in determining the severity of market power, having greater impact on equilibrium prices than the proposed divestitures of California's largest producers. These results indicate that policies promoting the responsiveness of both consumers and producers to price fluctuations can have a significant effect on reducing the market power problem.
Coexistence in Wireless Decentralized Networks

We consider a wireless communication network with a fixed number of frequency sub-bands to be shared among several transmitter-receiver pairs. In traditional frequency division (FD) systems, the available sub-bands are partitioned into disjoint clusters (frequency bands) and assigned to different users (each user transmits only in its own band). If the number of users sharing the spectrum is random, this technique may lead to inefficient spectrum utilization (a considerable fraction of the bands may remain empty most of the time). In addition, this approach inherently requires either a central network controller for frequency allocation, or cognitive radios which sense and occupy the empty bands in a dynamic fashion. These shortcomings motivate us to look for a decentralized scheme (without using cognitive radios) which allows the users to coexist, while utilizing the spectrum efficiently. We consider a frequency hopping (FH) scheme (with i.i.d. Gaussian code-books) where each user transmits over a selection of sub-bands and hops to another selection (with the same cardinality) from transmission to transmission. Developing an upper bound on the differential entropy of a mixed Gaussian random vector and via entropy power inequality, we offer a lower bound on the achievable rate of each user in the proposed scheme. Thereafter, in a setup where the number of active users and all the channel gains are unknown to transmitters, we obtain the maximum transmission rate per user to ensure a specified outage probability at a given SNR level. We demonstrate that “outage capacity” can be considerably higher in FH than the case of FD for reasonable distributions on the number of active users which guarantees a higher spectral efficiency in FH. Index Terms Frequency Hopping, Spectrum Sharing, Decentralized Networks, Mixed Gaussian Interference, -Outage Capacity
Concept Mapping: Connecting Educators Proc. of the Third Int. Conference on Concept Mapping Associating Documents to Concept Maps in Context

To be useful, automatic document classification systems must accurately place documents in categories that are meaningful to users. Because concept mapping externalizes humans' conceptualizations of a domain, concept maps provide meaningful categories for organizing documents. Since electronic concept-mapping tools provide mechanisms for using concept maps for effective document access, using concept maps as means to classify documents provides at the same time a browsing system to access the classified documents. To enable automatically associating documents with the relevant concept maps, this paper presents a new top-down/bottom-up approach to classifying documents in the context of topically relevant concept maps. Using the target concept maps as context for extracting concepts from text, this approach generates concept-map-based indexing structures from documents and then indexes them under the concept map most compatible with the document. An experimental evaluation shows marked improvements in performance compared both to a previous bottom-up approach to this classification task and to a second baseline method using unstructured keyword-based indices.
Toward Automatic State Management for Dynamic Web Services

A key challenge in the development of the Internet is to simplify construction of scalable widearea services. One approach to scaling wide-area services is to deploy generic computing power and storage in the network, and use it to absorb service load through dynamic resource recruitment, active caching, or dynamic service replication. Each of these approaches introduces distributed state and an accompanying burden on the programmer to manage that state. This paper develops an approach to automatic state management for replicated services, a key step toward the goal of automatically converting unscalable service implementations into scalable ones. We demonstrate a prototype implementation of automatic state management, called Ivory. Ivory transforms the bytecodes of a Java-based service to trap updates to its data structures and propagate modi ed objects among to peer replicas. We demonstrate our approach in the context of a service caching framework that replicates service code and data on demand, and present measurements of an example Web portal application that shows the overhead and scalability bene ts of service replication using Ivory.
Fasting plasma glucose in non-diabetic participants and the risk for incident cardiovascular events, diabetes, and mortality: results from WOSCOPS 15-year follow-up.

AIMS The evidence base for fasting plasma glucose (FPG) in the non-diabetic range as a risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD) is inconclusive. We investigated this question in the West of Scotland Coronary Prevention Study (WOSCOPS). METHODS AND RESULTS In WOSCOPS, we related FPG in 6447 men (mean age 55 years) with hypercholesterolaemia, but no history of CVD or diabetes, to the risk of cardiovascular events and mortality over 14.7 years of follow-up; 2381 non-fatal/fatal cardiovascular events and 1244 deaths occurred. Participants were divided into fifths of baseline FPG, Q1 (< or =4.3 mmol/L) to Q5 (>5.1-6.9 mmol/L). Q2 was designated the referent based on previous studies which have suggested a J-shaped relationship between FPG and CVD. Compared with Q2 (>4.3-4.6 mmol/L), men in Q5 had no elevated risk for cardiovascular events [hazard ratio (HR) 0.95 (0.83-1.08)], or all-cause mortality [HR 0.96 (0.80-1.15)] in fully adjusted analyses despite a significant risk for incident diabetes [HR 22.05 (10.75-45.22)]. After further dividing Q5 into fifths, Q5a-e, individuals in Q5e (FPG 5.8-6.9 mmol/L) were also not at increased risk of cardiovascular events [HR 1.05 (0.82-1.35)] or other endpoints compared with Q2. All results were similar using Q1 as the referent. CONCLUSION Elevations in FPG in the non-diabetic range were not associated with long-term risk of cardiovascular events in middle-aged men in WOSCOPS. These data suggest that the current FPG cutoff for diagnosing diabetes also appropriately identifies western men at risk of CVD.
A Multifaceted Study of Scedosporium boydii Cell Wall Changes during Germination and Identification of GPI-Anchored Proteins

Scedosporium boydii is a pathogenic filamentous fungus that causes a wide range of human infections, notably respiratory infections in patients with cystic fibrosis. The development of new therapeutic strategies targeting S. boydii necessitates a better understanding of the physiology of this fungus and the identification of new molecular targets. In this work, we studied the conidium-to-germ tube transition using a variety of techniques including scanning and transmission electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, two-phase partitioning, microelectrophoresis and cationized ferritin labeling, chemical force spectroscopy, lectin labeling, and nanoLC-MS/MS for cell wall GPI-anchored protein analysis. We demonstrated that the cell wall undergoes structural changes with germination accompanied with a lower hydrophobicity, electrostatic charge and binding capacity to cationized ferritin. Changes during germination also included a higher accessibility of some cell wall polysaccharides to lectins and less CH3/CH3 interactions (hydrophobic adhesion forces mainly due to glycoproteins). We also extracted and identified 20 GPI-anchored proteins from the cell wall of S. boydii, among which one was detected only in the conidial wall extract and 12 only in the mycelial wall extract. The identified sequences belonged to protein families involved in virulence in other fungi like Gelp/Gasp, Crhp, Bglp/Bgtp families and a superoxide dismutase. These results highlighted the cell wall remodeling during germination in S. boydii with the identification of a substantial number of cell wall GPI-anchored conidial or hyphal specific proteins, which provides a basis to investigate the role of these molecules in the host-pathogen interaction and fungal virulence.
Similarity among melodies for music information retrieval

Here we discuss how to look for similar melody in music databases by giving monophonic melody in sheet. In this work, we utilize text expression (or sheet music) to describe music and introduce pitch spectrum of melodies. By this feature, we concisely distinguish music from tempo, transposition or other arbitrary expressions. We show the usefulness by experimental results.