Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Arrhythmia Management Devices

2799 According to a recent worldwide survey, current rates of de novo pacemaker and implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) implantation are higher than those of previous years at >700 000 and >200 000 per year, respectively. Parallel to the growth in cardiovascular implantable electronic device (CIED) use, technological advances have led to new sources of electromagnetic radiation. Modern CIEDs utilize shielding, filters, and bipolar leads to mitigate electromagnetic interference (EMI). Nevertheless, EMI sporadically results in harmful consequences. Physicians attending to patients with CIEDs must be aware of typical EMI sources and strategies to prevent malfunction of CIEDs.
Data Enrichment Using Data Sources on the Web

As businesses seek to monetize their data, they are leveraging Web-based delivery mechanisms to provide publicly available data sources. Also, as analytics becomes a central part of many business functions such as customer segmentation, competitive intelligence and fraud detection, many businesses are seeking to enrich their internal data records with data from these data sources. As the number of sources with varying degrees of accuracy and quality proliferate, it is a non-trivial task to effectively select which sources to use for a particular enrichment task. The old model of statically buying data from one or two providers becomes inefficient because of the rapid growth of new forms of useful data such as social media and the lack of dynamism to plug sources in and out. In this paper, we present the data enrichment framework, a tool that uses data mining and other semantic techniques to automatically guide the selection of sources. The enrichment framework also monitors the quality of the data sources and automatically penalizes sources that continue to return low quality results.
Evolution of cooperation in adaptive social networks

Sven Van Segbroeck COMO, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), B-1050 Brussels, Belgium. Francisco C. Santos IRIDIA, Universite Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), B-1050 Brussels, Belgium. Arne Traulsen Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Biology, D-24306 Plon, Germany. Tom Lenaerts SWITCH, VIB and Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), B-1050 Brussels, Belgium. Jorge M. Pacheco ATP-Group and CFTC, Departamento de Fisica da Faculdade de Ciencias, P-1649-003 Lisboa Codex, Portugal.
DYNAMIC PROCESS MODELING USING FUZZY SUBMODELS

Abstract This article discusses a new modular design approach for hybrid models consisting of a dynamic framework augmented with static fuzzy sub-models. As the framework is physically based, the models have a dynamic behaviour that corresponds well with the original process. Their fit to process data assures good steady state behaviour and corrects the dynamic behaviour for assumptions and simplifications. The hybrid model design is illustrated for three dynamically different processes: an ideally mixed, a distributed and a chained process.
Designing a Medium Access Control protocol for Body Area Networks

This work outlines challenges and requirements of designing a Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol for Body Area Networks, where sensor nodes send their measurement data to a central gateway device (also known as sink or hub) regularly on TDMA basis. While a number of protocols has already been proposed specifically for BAN's, they fail to account for unique characteristics of wireless channel around the human body, namely the deep and long fades that hinder communication. As such, they can not provide reliability and latency guarantees that are essential for many BAN applications. This work proposes to employ variable TDMA scheduling that allows the order of transmissions within each TDMA round to be decided dynamically, rather than be fixed in advance. Accordingly, the hub is able to account for variations of the wireless channel when allocating TDMA slots, thus increasing the probability of successful transmissions. Initial evaluations based on extensive experimental measurements have shown that, under strict latency constraints, variable scheduling approach allows to reduce transmission losses by up to 15% without accounting for retransmissions, and achieve over 99.5% reliability when retransmissions are enabled.
Oral Epithelium as a Surrogate Tissue for Assessing Smoking-Induced Molecular Alterations in the Lungs

Abstract The lungs and oral cavity of smokers are exposed to tobacco carcinogens. We hypothesized that tobacco-induced molecular alterations in the oral epithelium are similar to those in the lungs, and thus the oral epithelium may be used as a surrogate tissue for assessing alterations in the lungs. We used methylation-specific PCR to analyze promoter methylation of the p16 and FHIT genes at baseline and 3 months after intervention in 1,774 oral and bronchial brush specimens from 127 smokers enrolled in a randomized placebo-controlled chemoprevention trial. The association between methylation patterns in oral tissues and bronchial methylation indices (methylated sites / total sites per subject) was analyzed in a blinded fashion. At baseline, promoter methylation in bronchial tissue was present in 23% of samples for p16, 17% for FHIT, and 35% for p16 and FHIT; these percentages were comparable to methylation in oral tissue: 19% (p16), 15% (FHIT), and 31% (p16 and FHIT). Data from both oral and bronchial tissues were available for 125 individuals, in whom the two sites correlated strongly with respect to alterations (P < 0.0001 for both p16 and FHIT). At baseline, the mean bronchial methylation index was far higher in patients with oral tissue methylation (in either of the two genes; 39 patients) than in patients without oral tissue methylation (86 patients): 0.53 ± 0.29 versus 0.27 + 0.26 methylation index (P < 0.0001). Similar correlations occurred at 3 months after intervention. Our results support the potential of oral epithelium as a surrogate tissue for assessing tobacco-induced molecular damage in the lungs and thus have important implications for designing future lung cancer prevention trials and for research into the risk and early detection of lung cancer.
Cost effectiveness of home based population screening for Chlamydia trachomatis in the UK: economic evaluation of chlamydia screening studies (ClaSS) project

Objective To investigate the cost effectiveness of screening for Chlamydia trachomatis compared with a policy of no organised screening in the United Kingdom. Design Economic evaluation using a transmission dynamic mathematical model. Setting Central and southwest England. Participants Hypothetical population of 50 000 men and women, in which all those aged 16-24 years were invited to be screened each year. Main outcome measures Cost effectiveness based on major outcomes averted, defined as pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy, infertility, or neonatal complications. Results The incremental cost per major outcome averted for a programme of screening women only (assuming eight years of screening) was �22 300 (€33 000; $45 000) compared with no organised screening. For a programme screening both men and women, the incremental cost effectiveness ratio was approximately �28 900. Pelvic inflammatory disease leading to hospital admission was the most frequently averted major outcome. The model was highly sensitive to the incidence of major outcomes and to uptake of screening. When both were increased the cost effectiveness ratio fell to �6200 per major outcome averted for screening women only. Conclusions Proactive register based screening for chlamydia is not cost effective if the uptake of screening and incidence of complications are based on contemporary empirical studies, which show lower rates than commonly assumed. These data are relevant to discussions about the cost effectiveness of the opportunistic model of chlamydia screening being introduced in England.
Chapter 3 Recent Developments in Auxiliary Particle Filtering

State space models (SSMs; sometimes termed hidden Markov models, particularly in the discrete case) are very popular statistical models for time series. Such models describe the trajectory of some system of interest as an unobserved E-valued Markov chain, known as the signal process. Let X1 ∼ ν and Xn|(Xn−1 = xn−1) ∼ f(·|xn−1) denote this process. Indirect observations are available via an observation process, {Yn}n∈N. Conditional upon Xn, Yn is independent of the remainder of the observation and signal processes, with Yn|(Xn = xn) ∼ g(·|xn). For any sequence {zn}n∈N, we write zi:j = (zi, zi+1, ., zj). In numerous applications, we are interested in estimating, recursively in time, an analytically intractable sequence of posterior distributions {p (x1:n| y1:n)}n∈N, of the form:
Assessment of the Dietary Intake of Schoolchildren in South Africa: 15 Years after the First National Study

There has not been a national dietary study in children in South Africa since 1999. Fortification of flour and maize meal became mandatory in October 2003 to address micronutrient deficiencies found in the national study in 1999. The purpose of this review was to identify studies done after 1999 in schoolchildren, 6–15 years old, in order to determine whether dietary intakes reflected improvements in micronutrients, namely: iron, zinc, vitamin A, folate, thiamine, riboflavin, vitamin B6, and niacin. An electronic and hand search was done to identify all studies complying with relevant inclusion criteria. The search yielded 10 studies. Overall, there is a paucity of dietary studies which have included the fortified nutrients; only four, of which only one, reported on all micronutrients; making it difficult to determine whether fortification has improved the micronutrient intake of schoolchildren. This is further complicated by the fact that different dietary methods were used and that studies were only done in three of the nine provinces and thus are not generalizable. The results of these studies clearly point to the importance of doing a national study on the dietary intake of schoolchildren in order to confirm the outcomes of the fortification process.
Kinematic Characteristics of 3-UPU Parallel Manipulator in Singularity and Its Application

Abstract This paper focuses on the kinematic characteristics of the 3-UPU (universal-prismatic-universal) parallel manipulator in one of singular configurations. The motion of the moving platform is analyzed by changing the layout of the universal joints. A layout of universal joints in the singular configuration is discussed in detail by deriving the kinematic and constraint equations. Solving the equations, the kinematic characteristics in such case is obtained. At the same time the kinematic characteristics is simulated by the commercial software and the results of the simulation verify it. Based on the kinematics characteristics of it, the application of the singular configuration is presented. And a compound limb which can translate freely along a circular path is presented. Finally, the some new 2-DOF (degree of freedom) planar parallel translating manipulators whose orientation can remain constant are put forward by the compound limb. The passive joints of the new 2-DOF planar parallel translating manipulators are universal joint and the struts of it do not bear the bending moment. It gives the planar parallel manipulator a good architecture to resist the force which is perpendicular to the kinematics plane.
Generating a Family of Byzantine Tolerant Protocol Implementations Using a Meta-Model Architecture

We describe an approach to modelling a Byzantine tolerant distributed algorithm as a family of related finite state machines, generated from a single meta-model. Various artefacts are generated from each state machine, including diagrams and source-level protocol implementations. The approach allows a state machine formulation to be applied to problems for which it would not otherwise be suitable, increasing confidence in correctness.
Apple fruit detection and counting using computer vision techniques

In agriculture sector the problem of identification and counting the number of fruits on trees plays an important role in crop estimation work. At present manual counting of fruits and vegetables is carried out at many places. Manual counting has many drawbacks as it is time consuming and requires plenty of labors. The automated fruit counting approach can help crop management system by providing valuable information for forecasting yields or by planning harvesting schedule to attain more productivity. This work presents an automated and efficient fruit counting system using computer vision techniques. The proposed system uses minimum Euclidean distance based segmentation technique for segmenting the fruit region from the input image. Further circle overlaying is done on the fruit region and in the last fruits are counted on the basis of the centroid of the fruit regions. This proposed system is correctly detecting and counting the apples on the test images.
Fienup Algorithm With Sparsity Constraints: Application to Frequency-Domain Optical-Coherence Tomography

We address the problem of reconstructing a sparse signal from its DFT magnitude. We refer to this problem as the sparse phase retrieval (SPR) problem, which finds applications in tomography, digital holography, electron microscopy, etc. We develop a Fienup-type iterative algorithm, referred to as the Max- K algorithm, to enforce sparsity and successively refine the estimate of phase. We show that the Max- K algorithm possesses Cauchy convergence properties under certain conditions, that is, the MSE of reconstruction does not increase with iterations. We also formulate the problem of SPR as a feasibility problem, where the goal is to find a signal that is sparse in a known basis and whose Fourier transform magnitude is consistent with the measurement. Subsequently, we interpret the Max- K algorithm as alternating projections onto the object-domain and measurement-domain constraint sets and generalize it to a parameterized relaxation, known as the relaxed averaged alternating reflections (RAAR) algorithm. On the application front, we work with measurements acquired using a frequency-domain optical-coherence tomography (FDOCT) experimental setup. Experimental results on measured data show that the proposed algorithms exhibit good reconstruction performance compared with the direct inversion technique, homomorphic technique, and the classical Fienup algorithm without sparsity constraint; specifically, the autocorrelation artifacts and background noise are suppressed to a significant extent. We also demonstrate that the RAAR algorithm offers a broader framework for FDOCT reconstruction, of which the direct inversion technique and the proposed Max- K algorithm become special instances corresponding to specific values of the relaxation parameter.
Maternal Age at First Delivery Is Associated with the Risk of Metabolic Syndrome in Postmenopausal Women: From 2008–2010 Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

Background Recent cross-sectional studies demonstrated that earlier maternal age at first childbirth is correlated with a higher risk of diabetes in postmenopausal women. In this study, we evaluated whether the age at first delivery is associated with the risk of metabolic syndrome (MetS) in postmenopausal women. Methods A total of 4,261 postmenopausal women aged 45 years or older were analyzed using data generated from Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (2008–2010). Subjects were divided into three groups according to the maternal age at first delivery as follows: ≤ 20 years (n=878), 21-25 years (n=2314), and ≥ 26 years (n=1069). Results Approximately 37% of subjects had MetS. The prevalence of MetS showed a gradual increase as maternal age at first delivery decreased (≥ 26 years = 30.9% vs. 21-25 years = 39.9% vs. ≤ 20 years = 50.8%, respectively, p < 0.001). Central obesity indices such as trunk fat mass and waist circumference were significantly higher in the group aged ≤ 20 years than other groups. After adjustments for confounding factors, the odds ratios (ORs) for predicting the presence of MetS increased gradually as first delivery age decreased (≥ 26 years vs. 21-25 years vs. ≤ 20 years: OR [95% CI] = 1 vs. 1.324 [1.118-1.567] vs. 1.641 [1.322-2.036], respectively). Among components of MetS, younger maternal age at first delivery (≤ 20 years) was significantly associated with increased waist circumference (OR [95% CI] = 1.735 [1.41-2.13]), elevated blood pressure (1.261 [1.02-1.57]), high triglyceride (1.333 [1.072-1.659]), and low HDL-cholesterol (1.335[1.084-1.643]). Conclusions Our findings suggest that younger maternal age at first delivery is independently associated with a higher risk of central obesity and MetS in postmenopausal women.
Shed GP of Ebola Virus Triggers Immune Activation and Increased Vascular Permeability

During Ebola virus (EBOV) infection a significant amount of surface glycoprotein GP is shed from infected cells in a soluble form due to cleavage by cellular metalloprotease TACE. Shed GP and non-structural secreted glycoprotein sGP, both expressed from the same GP gene, have been detected in the blood of human patients and experimentally infected animals. In this study we demonstrate that shed GP could play a particular role during EBOV infection. In effect it binds and activates non-infected dendritic cells and macrophages inducing the secretion of pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines (TNFα, IL1β, IL6, IL8, IL12p40, and IL1-RA, IL10). Activation of these cells by shed GP correlates with the increase in surface expression of co-stimulatory molecules CD40, CD80, CD83 and CD86. Contrary to shed GP, secreted sGP activates neither DC nor macrophages while it could bind DCs. In this study, we show that shed GP activity is likely mediated through cellular toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) and is dependent on GP glycosylation. Treatment of cells with anti-TLR4 antibody completely abolishes shed GP-induced activation of cells. We also demonstrate that shed GP activity is negated upon addition of mannose-binding sera lectin MBL, a molecule known to interact with sugar arrays present on the surface of different microorganisms. Furthermore, we highlight the ability of shed GP to affect endothelial cell function both directly and indirectly, demonstrating the interplay between shed GP, systemic cytokine release and increased vascular permeability. In conclusion, shed GP released from virus-infected cells could activate non-infected DCs and macrophages causing the massive release of pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines and effect vascular permeability. These activities could be at the heart of the excessive and dysregulated inflammatory host reactions to infection and thus contribute to high virus pathogenicity.
One-button recognizer: exploiting button pressing behavior for user differentiation

We present a novel way to recognize users by the way they press a button. Our approach allows low-effort and fast interaction without the need for augmenting the user or controlling the environment. It eschews privacy concerns of methods such as fingerprint scanning. Button pressing behavior is sufficiently discriminative to allow distinguishing users within small groups. This approach combines recognition and action in a single step, e.g., getting and tallying a coffee can be done with one button press. We deployed our system for 5 users over a period of 4 weeks and achieved recognition rates of 95% in the last week. We also ran a larger scale but short-term evaluation to investigate effects of group size and found that our method degrades gracefully for larger groups.
Conformational Dynamics of Dry Lamellar Crystals of Sugar Based Lipids: An Atomistic Simulation Study

The rational design of a glycolipid application (e.g. drug delivery) with a tailored property depends on the detailed understanding of its structure and dynamics. Because of the complexity of sugar stereochemistry, we have undertaken a simulation study on the conformational dynamics of a set of synthetic glycosides with different sugar groups and chain design, namely dodecyl β-maltoside, dodecyl β-cellobioside, dodecyl β-isomaltoside and a C12C10 branched β-maltoside under anhydrous conditions. We examined the chain structure in detail, including the chain packing, gauche/trans conformations and chain tilting. In addition, we also investigated the rotational dynamics of the headgroup and alkyl chains. Monoalkylated glycosides possess a small amount of gauche conformers (∼20%) in the hydrophobic region of the lamellar crystal (LC) phase. In contrast, the branched chain glycolipid in the fluid Lα phase has a high gauche population of up to ∼40%. Rotational diffusion analysis reveals that the carbons closest to the headgroup have the highest correlation times. Furthermore, its value depends on sugar type, where the rotational dynamics of an isomaltose was found to be 11–15% and more restrained near the sugar, possibly due to the chain disorder and partial inter-digitation compared to the other monoalkylated lipids. Intriguingly, the present simulation demonstrates the chain from the branched glycolipid bilayer has the ability to enter into the hydrophilic region. This interesting feature of the anhydrous glycolipid bilayer simulation appears to arise from a combination of lipid crowding and the amphoteric nature of the sugar headgroups.
Integration of Face and Hand Gesture Recognition

Face recognition and hand gesture recognition technologies have been developed separately for many years. Usually they are treated as independent systems. In this paper, we integrate the face and hand gesture recognition. We claim that the face recognition rate can be improved by hand gesture recognition. Also, we propose a security elevator scenario. Finally, we simulate this security elevator scenario by PCA method, based on the ORL database, and show that the face recognition rate and overall accuracy is improved after integration. We believe that this is a general method to integrate two recognition engines, not only for face and hand gesture recognition.
Cloning, Resource Exchange, and RelationAdaptation: An Integrative Self-Organisation Mechanism in a Distributed Agent Network

Self-organisation provides a suitable paradigm for developing self-managed complex distributed systems, such as grid computing and sensor networks. In this paper, an integrative self-organisation mechanism is proposed. Unlike current related studies, which propose only a single principle of self-organisation, this mechanism synthesises the three principles of self-organisation: cloning/spawning, resource exchange and relation adaptation. Based on this mechanism, an agent can autonomously generate new agents when it is overloaded, exchange resources with other agents if necessary, and modify relations with other agents to achieve a better agent network structure. In this way, agents can adapt to dynamic environments. The proposed mechanism is evaluated through a comparison with three other approaches, each of which represents state-of-the-art research in each of the three self-organisation principles. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed mechanism outperforms the three approaches in terms of the profit of individual agents and the entire agent network, the load-balancing among agents, and the time consumption to finish a simulation run.