Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Age of transfused blood in critically ill adults.

BACKGROUND Fresh red cells may improve outcomes in critically ill patients by enhancing oxygen delivery while minimizing the risks of toxic effects from cellular changes and the accumulation of bioactive materials in blood components during prolonged storage. METHODS In this multicenter, randomized, blinded trial, we assigned critically ill adults to receive either red cells that had been stored for less than 8 days or standard-issue red cells (the oldest compatible units available in the blood bank). The primary outcome measure was 90-day mortality. RESULTS Between March 2009 and May 2014, at 64 centers in Canada and Europe, 1211 patients were assigned to receive fresh red cells (fresh-blood group) and 1219 patients were assigned to receive standard-issue red cells (standard-blood group). Red cells were stored a mean (±SD) of 6.1±4.9 days in the fresh-blood group as compared with 22.0±8.4 days in the standard-blood group (P<0.001). At 90 days, 448 patients (37.0%) in the fresh-blood group and 430 patients (35.3%) in the standard-blood group had died (absolute risk difference, 1.7 percentage points; 95% confidence interval [CI], -2.1 to 5.5). In the survival analysis, the hazard ratio for death in the fresh-blood group, as compared with the standard-blood group, was 1.1 (95% CI, 0.9 to 1.2; P=0.38). There were no significant between-group differences in any of the secondary outcomes (major illnesses; duration of respiratory, hemodynamic, or renal support; length of stay in the hospital; and transfusion reactions) or in the subgroup analyses. CONCLUSIONS Transfusion of fresh red cells, as compared with standard-issue red cells, did not decrease the 90-day mortality among critically ill adults. (Funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and others; Current Controlled Trials number, ISRCTN44878718.).
Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome with G608G LMNA Mutation

Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome (HGPS) is a rare condition originally described by Hutchinson in 1886. Death result from cardiac complications in the majority of cases and usually occurs at average age of thirteen years. A 4-yr old boy had typical clinical findings such as short stature, craniofacial disproportion, alopecia, prominent scalp veins and sclerodermatous skin. This abnormal appearance began at age of 1 yr. On serological and hormonal evaluation, all values are within normal range. He was neurologically intact with motor and mental development. An echocardiogram showed calcification of aortic and mitral valves. Hypertrophy of internal layer at internal carotid artery suggesting atherosclerosis was found by carotid doppler sonography. He is on low dose aspirin to prevent thromboembolic episodes and on regular follow up. Gene study showed typical G608G (GGC- > GGT) point mutation at exon 11 in LMNA gene. This is a rare case of Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome confirmed by genetic analysis in Korea.
A comprehensive toolchain for workload characterization across JVM languages

The Java Virtual Machine (JVM) today hosts implementations of numerous languages. To achieve high performance, JVM implementations rely on heuristics in choosing compiler optimizations and adapting garbage collection behavior. Historically, these heuristics have been tuned to suit the dynamics of Java programs only. This leads to unnecessarily poor performance in case of non-Java languages, which often exhibit systematic differences in workload behavior. Dynamic metrics characterizing the workload help to identify and quantify useful optimizations, but so far, no cohesive suite of metrics has adequately covered properties that vary systematically between Java and non-Java workloads. We present a suite of such metrics, justifying our choice with reference to a range of guest languages. These metrics are implemented on a common portable infrastructure which ensures ease of deployment and customization.
Stochastic processes in gravitropism

In this short review we focus on the role of noise in gravitropism of plants – the reorientation of plants according to the direction of gravity. We briefly introduce the conventional picture of static gravisensing in cells specialized in sensing. This model hinges on the sedimentation of statoliths (high in density and mass relative to other organelles) to the lowest part of the sensing cell. We then present experimental observations that cannot currently be understood within this framework. Lastly we introduce some current alternative models and directions that attempt to incorporate and interpret these experimental observations, including: (i) dynamic sensing, where gravisensing is suggested to be enhanced by stochastic events due to thermal and mechanical noise. These events both effectively lower the threshold of response, and lead to small-distance sedimentation, allowing amplification, and integration of the signal. (ii) The role of the cytoskeleton in signal-to-noise modulation and (iii) in signal transduction. In closing, we discuss directions that seem to either not have been explored, or that are still poorly understood.
Making gender work : managing equal opportunities

Part 1 Socio-economic, legal and cultural context of gender work: recent changes in women's employment in Britain the economics of equal opportunities the role of the law in equal opportunities employment deregulation and equal opportunities - the case for monitoring gender work towards the family friendly employer organizational culture and equalities work. Part 2 Managing equal opportunities/practical issues: women in the public and voluntary sectors in organizational change working within local government - lessons learned implementing equal opportunities in a local authority - a case study equal opportunities and the voluntary sector trade unions and equal opportunities the appeal and the claims of non-dominant groups conclusions: feminization and the new forms of exploitation.
A Novel Method for Borehole Blockage Removal and Experimental Study on a Hydraulic Self-Propelled Nozzle in Underground Coal Mines

When coal bed methane (CBM) drainage boreholes cross fractured, soft, or water-swelling strata, they collapse and block frequently. Borehole blockages result in a rapid decrease in CBM extraction ability, which leads to a reduction in CBM output and threatens coal mine safety production. To solve these problems, a novel method that uses a self-propelled water-jet nozzle to dredge blocked boreholes in coal seams has been proposed on the basis of the existing technology. Based on a theoretical analysis of the reason for borehole caving and the theory of blockage removal, we optimized the nozzle inlet pressure and selected an appropriate high-pressure resin pipe. A field experiment on the blockage removal of blocked CBM drainage boreholes using the proposed method was run in the Fengchun coal mine, Qijiang, Chongqing, southwest China. In this field trial, the time spent to unblock a borehole varied between 18.52 and 34.98 min, which is much shorter than using a drilling rig. After blockage removal, the average pure volume of the methane drainage of a single borehole was increased from 0.03 L/min to ~1.91–7.30 L/min, and the methane drainage concentration of a single borehole increased from 5% to ~44%–85%. The extraction effect increased significantly.
A robust space time co-channel interference mitigation and detection technique for Multiuser MIMO Multicarrier DS/CDMA systems

In this paper a Multiuser Multi Input Multi Output (MIMO) Multicarrier (MC) DS CDMA system with co-channel interference mitigation technique is investigated. The future generation (4G) Wireless Networks aim at offering very high data rates and flexibility by supporting multiple users by adopting multicarrier (MC) transmissions. Multicarrier (MC) DS CDMA system possesses all these attributes and thus proves to be a promising air interface for 4G. In spite of these advantages MC DS CDMA system suffers from interferences which limits its capacity. We consider MIMO MC DS CDMA systems, with NT transmit antennas for each asynchronous users and NR receive antennas at the base station over quasi static Rayleigh fading channel. The performance of the improved MMSE IC and ML decoding for MC DS/CDMA system is envisaged. Improved MMSE Interference Cancellation (IC) and Maximum Likelihood (ML) detection for k - asynchronous users is employed at the receiver. The MMSE estimation considered here is adaptive in nature. Simulation results divulge that MIMO MC DS CDMA system with Improved MMSE IC and ML decoding provides better interference suppression in a multiuser environment.
New Quality Metrics for Object-Oriented Programs

Some software metrics can be used to measure the program quality. Coupling metrics, as one type of quality metrics, are used in impact analysis and other maintenance tasks. In this work, we proposed new coupling metrics that measure the method calling relationships between classes. We also conducted experiments on five open- source systems to evaluate the effectiveness of the new measurement. The case study demonstrated that our proposed software metrics can complement the use of existing quality metrics to measure the software systems.
Identifying User Requirements for a Mobile Terminal Centric Ubiquitous Computing Architecture

System level solutions affect many properties of ubiquitous applications and thus also user experience. That is why user point of view should guide the design of mobile architectures although the users will see them indirectly, via the applications. This paper describes our approach in identifying user requirements for a ubiquitous computing architecture that facilitates mobile applications sensing their environment. The sensing is based on wireless connectivity to tags and sensors in the environment. We illustrated a representative set of future applications as scenarios and proof of concepts and evaluated them with potential users. Scenarios were analyzed to identify generic use cases and to understand the implications of the user feedback on the architecture. Our experiences show that user requirements for system level solutions can be identified with this approach. We identified several requirements for the architecture dealing with user interaction, wireless measurements, context-awareness, taking applications into use and ethical issues
An improved real-time hardware architecture for Canny edge detection based on FPGA

Edge detection is one of the key stages of image processing and object recognition. Canny edge detector is the most widely used edge detection algorithm because of its good performance. In this paper, a hardware architecture for real-time Canny edge detection has been proposed. By adopting the improved median filter, the performance and reliability of the system is improved when dealing with image contaminated by noise. A Shifting-LUT based direction calculation algorithm is adopted not only to improve the processing speed and reduce computational complexity but also to reduce the hardware consumption. The experimental results show that the hardware implementation is suitable for high performance and real-time applications.
Community, communication, collaboration: Scholarly practice in transformation

This paper reports on the results of a survey and focus groups exploring the use of the Internet by academic staff and research students at Curtin University of Technology for the purposes of scholarly communication. The survey included questions regarding the respondents' formal and informal scholarly communication practices and the way in which these have changed as the result of access to the Internet. The survey also asked a range of questions regarding respondents' use of library services, the frequency of their use of these services, and the manner in which their use of the library had been impacted by the increasing availability of Internet based access to services and collections. Whilst focus group discussions suggested some ambivalence towards the enabling potential of ICTs on scholarly communication, the evidence gathered indicates the extent to which research and communicative practice is changing and the resultant impact on scholarly communities. The paper concludes with some preliminary observations about changes to scholarly communities and the opportunity this offers for academic librarians to enhance their role in the development of research literate communities.
Television Truths: Forms of Knowledge in Popular Culture

From the Blackwell's website - "Grand in scope, bold, witty, and engaging, Television Truths fashions a provocative new philosophy for the study and appreciation of both TV and a TV polity. " Jonathan Gray, author of Watching with The Simpsons: Television, Parody, and Intertextuality, co-editor of Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World. "As always, John Hartley's provocative arguments and examples push against the boundaries and restrictions of conventional approaches. His focus on the multiple contexts of television adds greatly to our store of key questions about 'television. '" Horace Newcomb, Director, George Foster Peabody Awards, The University of Georgia. Television Truths considers what we know about TV, whether we love it or hate it, where TV is going, and whether viewers should bother going along for the ride. This engaging volume, written by one of television's best known scholars, offers a new take on the history of television and an up-to-date analysis of its imaginative content and cultural uses. • Explores the pervasive, persuasive, and powerful nature of television: among the most criticized phenomena of modern life, but still the most popular pastime ever • Written by John Hartley, one of television's best known scholars • Considers how television reflects and shapes contemporary life across the economic, political, social and cultural spectrum, examining its influence from historical, political and aesthetic perspectives • Probes the nature of, and future for, television at a time of unprecedented change in technologies and business plans • Provides an up-to-date analysis of content and cultural uses, from the television live event, to its global political influence, through to the concept of the "TV citizen" • Maps out a new paradigm for understanding television, for its research and scholarship, and for the very future of the medium itself. " (http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/book.asp? ref=9781405169790&site=1)
The Fast‐Slow Continuum in Mammalian Life History: An Empirical Reevaluation

Many life‐history traits co‐vary across species, even when body size differences are controlled for. This phenomenon has led to the concept of a “fast‐slow continuum,” which has been influential in both empirical and theoretical studies of life‐history evolution. We present a comparative analysis of mammalian life histories showing that, for mammals at least, there is not a single fast‐slow continuum. Rather, both across and within mammalian clades, the speed of life varies along at least two largely independent axes when body size effects are removed. One axis reflects how species balance offspring size against offspring number, while the other describes the timing of reproductive bouts.
NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF DROPLET-DEFORMATION BY A LEVEL SET APPROACH WITH SURFACE TENSION

In this paper we present a three-dimensional Navier–Stokes solver for incompressible two-phase flow problems with surface tension and apply the proposed scheme to the simulation of droplet-deformation. Our approach employs a standard finite difference/finite volume discretization on uniform Cartesian staggered grids and uses Chorin’s projection approach. The free surface between the two fluid phases is tracked with a level set technique. Here, the interface conditions are implicitly incorporated into the momentum equations by the continuum surface force method. Surface tension is evaluated using a smoothed delta function and third order interpolation. The problem of mass conservation for the two phases is treated by a reinitialization of the level set function employing a regularized signum function and a global fixed point iteration. All convective terms are discretized by a WENO scheme of fifth order. Altogether, our approach exhibits a second order convergence away from the free surface. The discretization of surface tension requires a smoothing scheme near the free surface which leads to a first order convergence in the smoothing region. We discuss the details of the proposed numerical scheme and present the results of several numerical experiments concerning mass conservation, convergence of curvature and the application of our solver to the simulation of droplet-deformation due to a shear flow in three space dimensions.
Evaluating Perception of Interaction Initiation in Virtual Environments Using Humanoid Agents

We evaluated user perception of certain attention behaviours, eye head and body orientation in particular, of humanoid agents in a virtual environment for the purposes of interaction initiation. Users were shown a number of scenarios involving agents making gaze, gesture and locomotion behaviours and were asked to report their impressions of how attentive the agents were and their perceived likely-hood to engage in interaction. These evaluation studies are critical for furthering our understanding of the early phases of human-computer interaction where distance may be involved and there is uncertainty as to the intention of the other to interact. Amongst other results, we establish here that the human perception of interest, interaction seeking and openness from a humanoid agent is based, in part, on the time-varying behaviour of its eyes, head, body and locomotion directions. Application domains include social robotics and embodied conversational agents.
Quasi-Fiscal Operations of Public Financial Institutions

Central banks and other public financial institutions act as agents of fiscal policy in many countries. Their "quasi-fiscal" operations and activities can affect the overall public sector balance without affecting the budget deficit as conventionally measured, may also have important allocative effects, and increase the effective size of the public sector. This paper analyzes the macroeconomic and financial effects of such quasi-fiscal activities, as well as the taxes, subsidies, and other expenditures that such activities introduce outside the budget. Measurement and accounting issues are addressed, and policy recommendations are offered.
Selecting Multimedia Interactions to Build Knowledge Structures

ABSTRACT Two sets of multimedia learning materials were compared for their ability to promote learning of introductory computer programming The first set of materials was a sequentially navigated multiple-screen multimedia application created according to well-established instructional design frameworks developed for the classroom or print materials. The second set was presented on a single screen designed in accordance with multimedia learning theory. The first set proved poorer for learning than standard laboratory session materials. The second set supported learning in novice learners to a greater degree than an equivalent set of print materials, the first set of multimedia materials, and the standard laboratory materials from the first experiment. The most apparent difference in the two sets of materials was that the second set aimed to reduce split attention by including only key information and by eliminating navigation between screens. The second set of materials also profited from increased content-related interactivity to simulate instructor-learner dialogue, thus elaborating declarative knowledge structures with procedural knowledge.
An adaptive multi-biometric incremental fusion strategy in the context of BMEC 2007

We present the general principles of a dynamical sequential fusion strategy for multibiometric systems allowing reducing the cost associated to the use of different modalities while preserving a good performance compared to that of a global fusion system. We have implemented this strategy in the BMEC (BioSecure multimodal evaluation campaign) 2007 cost-sensitive evaluation. We show that this approach was very robust to the occurrence of missing data thanks to its adaptive implementation.
Optimizing non-functional Properties of a Service Composition using a Declarative Model-to-Model Transformation

Developing applications comprising service composition is a complex task. Service composition requires the knowledge of various process languages (e.g. WS-BPEL, XPDL, or WSFL) or the knowledge of languages like WS-CDL which focus more on messaging aspects. To choose the right language for the problem at hand requires a lot of research as different aspects of various languages need to be considered. Therefore, to lower the skill barrier for developers it is important to describe the problem on an abstract level and not to focus on implementation details. This can be done using declarative programming which fosters to describe only the result of the problem (which is what the developer wants) rather than the description of the implementation. We therefore use purely declarative model-to-model transformations written in a universal model transformation language which is capable of handling even non-function properties using optimization and mathematical programming. This makes it easier to understand and describe service composition and non-fuctional properties for the developer.
Jester 2.0 (poster abstract): evaluation of an new linear time collaborative filtering algorithm

Jester is a WWW-based system that allows users to retrieve jokes based on their ratings of sample jokes. Our emphasis is on a new principal component analysis (PCA) and clustering-based linear time collaborative filtering algorithm for efficient and effective personalized information retrieval. Let m be the number of users in the database (currently over 12000) and n be the number of jokes rated by a user to characterize his or her preference (currently 10). We report new results comparing Jester 1.0’s O(nm) algorithm with Jester 2.0’s O(n) algorithm: the latter improves the retrieval effectiveness by more than 40% and reduces retrieval time by a factor of 12,000. To try Jester, please visit: http://shadow.ieor. berkeley.edu/humor 1. PROBLEM DEFINTION Collaborative Filtering, a.k. a. recommender systems [3], offer promising techniques for personalized information retrieval when preferences are difficult to characterize semantically [ 1,2,4]. The classic collaborative filtering problem has the Following structure given a set of objects with associated ratings, the object space is divided into two sets the predictor set and the recommendation set. A new user rates all the objects in the predictor set. Based on these ratings, objects are retrieved from the recommendation. The system should be : 1. Effective : recommended objects should receive high ratings. 2. Efficient : online recommendation process should run quickly. Konstan, Miller et. al. [2] implemented Grouplens, one of the first system for rating objects (postings) from a variety of different Usenet newsgroups including rechumor. They developed a simple but computationally intensive prediction algorithm based on weighted correlations and reported their results for a relatively small number of users. Breese et. al. [4] at Microsoft Research, classifies the collaborative filtering algorithms into two distinct classes Memory-based and Model-based: memory-based algorithms operate over the entire user database to make predictions, and model-based learn a model, which is then used for predictions. Jester 1.0 is memory-based. Jester 2.0 is modelPermission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy otherwise. to republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. SIGIR ‘99 8199 Berkley, CA, USA