Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Air pollution and biomarkers of systemic inflammation and tissue repair in COPD patients

The origin(s) of systemic inflammation in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is unclear. We investigated the impact of exposure to ambient air pollution on systemic biomarkers of inflammation (C-reactive protein (CRP), tumour necrosis factor-&agr;, interleukin (IL)-6, IL-8 and fibrinogen) and tissue repair (hepatocyte growth factor (HGF)) in 242 clinically stable COPD patients (mean age 67.8 years and forced expiratory volume in 1 s 71.3% predicted) in Barcelona, Spain, in 2004–2006. A spatiotemporal exposure assessment framework was applied to predict ambient nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and levels of particles with a 50% cut-off aerodynamic diameter of 2.5 &mgr;m (PM2.5) at each participant’s home address during 10 periods of 24 h (lags 1–10) and 1 year prior to the blood sampling date. We used linear regression models to estimate associations between biomarkers and exposure levels. An interquartile range (IQR) increase in NO2 exposure in lag 5 was associated with 51%, 10% and 9% increases in CRP, fibrinogen and HGF levels respectively. We also observed 12% and 8% increases in IL-8 associated with an IQR increase in NO2 exposure in lag 3 and over the year before sampling, respectively. These increases were larger in former smokers. The results for PM2.5 were not conclusive. These results show that exposure to ambient NO2 increases systemic inflammation in COPD patients, especially in former smokers. NO2 exposure increases levels of systemic inflammation biomarkers in COPD patients, especially in former smokers http://ow.ly/sRKnX
Unconscious Presentation of Object Affordances Evokes a Negative Compatibility Effect

According to Gibson's (1979) theory of “affordances”, the environment is constantly bombarding the viewer with a multitude of possible actions. More recently, it has been suggested that the simple viewing of an object can automatically elicit motor plans for actions towards this object. Research has attributed this phenomenon to the existence of two different neural pathways for processing visual information from objects and implied a distinction between conscious visual perception (meditated by the ventral stream) and unconscious visuomotor control (sub-served by the dorsal stream). This has proved compelling to many researchers, who have further tried to dissociate conscious visual perception from visually guided performance. In the present study, participants formed precision and power grips in response to a central colour stimulus, in order to determine whether these actions could be modulated by the prior subliminal presentation of pinch/grasp affording prime objects. All prime objects were briefly presented for 20 ms, thus making it impossible for participants to consciously identify these. A mask followed the prime's initial onset, after which the target was presented. The time between the onset of the prime and the appearance of the target was, also, varied in order to assess the time course of any priming effects obtained. The results suggest that affordances for relevant actions can also be extracted from objects whose physical properties are far from obvious, and appear inaccessible to consciousness. Furthermore, we provide evidence of a negative compatibility effect under experimental circumstances that have not been described in the literature before, and which rule out many kinds of interaction at a perceptual level.
TELEPHONY SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION USING POWER LINE COMMUNICATIONS

The actual idea of a telephony structure shows a Private Automatic Branch Exchange (PABX) directly controlling a whole communication system. Ringing and caller identification signals, voltage setting for the phone sets among other important parameters all are transmitted using twisted pair cables that have to be installed and distributed along the building. The use of existing indoor power lines as the communication channel benefits the installation of the telephony system because the network infrastructure is already mounted. However, power lines behave noisy and aggressive when transmitting high frequency signals and in order to establish effective communication, modern modulation and transmissions schemes have to be implemented. With this new conception, the transmission scenario changes completely and so does the system. This paper presents the idea for the design of an analog modular electronic interface that is intended to create a sort of correlation between the current standards for conventional communication schemes and this system, which uses power lines to communicate between its peers.
Proximity field nanopatterning of azopolymer thin films

A method for inscribing surface relief gratings in azopolymer thin films via proximity field nanopatterning is reported. Azopolymers prepared by ring opening metathesis polymerization were cast as thin films and brought into conformal contact with transparent polydimethylsiloxane phase masks. Irradiation of the film surface through the phase masks induces mass transport of azopolymer that generates surface relief structures on the basis of the intensity modulation of the light by structures on the phase mask. The experimental images obtained matched well with those produced by optical simulation. A wide variety of structures could be inscribed in the film surface which depended on the molecular weight of the azopolymer and irradiation time. Control experiments conducted suggest that the process is entirely photonic and that the presence of the phase mask on the film surface did not affect the inscription process.
Scaling GMM Expectation Maximization algorithm using bulk synchronous Parallel approach

We have provided a parallel implementation of Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) Expectation Maximization algorithm using Apache Hama Bulk synchronous Parallel approach. Apache Hama is suitable for iterative, compute intensive tasks. EM is iterative algorithm which converges to local minimum after many iterations. We have provided approach for distributing workload for Expectation and Maximization tasks on cluster nodes in case of big data. The approach is compared with Hadoop MaprRduce and Apache Spark implementations, using different datasets.
Detecting SQL Injection Vulnerabilities in Web Services

Web services are often deployed with critical software bugs that can be maliciously exploited. Web vulnerability scanners are regarded as an easy way to test web applications against security vulnerabilities. However, previous research shows that the effectiveness of these tools in web services environments is very poor. In fact, the high number of false-positives and the low coverage observed in practice highlight the strong limitations of these tools. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate that it is possible to develop a vulnerability scanner for web services that performs much better than the commercial ones currently available. Thus, we propose an approach to detect SQL Injection vulnerabilities, one of the most common and most critical types of vulnerabilities in web environments. Experimental evaluation shows that our approach performs much better than well-known commercial tools, achieving very high detection coverage while maintaining the false positives rate quite low.
The binary image retrieval based on the improved shape context

Considering the requirement for a more objective result of image retrieval, the features of image itself attract more and more attentions of researchers. Recently, the shape context of images is widely applied in image matching for its good invariance of translation and scale, as well as its good robust for shape context are introduced in this paper to conduct the retrieval of binary images. However, due to the lack of rotation invariance, a kind of improved feature of shape context is proposed, which ensures the rotation invariance by means of looking for the direction where the most sampling points are included. Through experiment we can find that in the case of the same recall rate, the precision rate of the algorithm in this paper is obviously better than the traditional algorithm of shape context. Furthermore, the calculating time of the proposed algorithm is reduced compared with the way in which rotation invariance is introduced in the images that are rotated many times. Therefore, the overall performance is improved, obtaining more satisfying result of retrieval.
How weak text categorizers can strengthen performance : exploring indexer difference

Combining the results of classifiers has shown much promise in machine learning generally. However published work on combining text categorizers suggests that, for this particular application, improvements in performance are hard to attain. Explorative research using a simple voting system is presented and discussed in the light of a probabilistic model that was originally developed for safety critical software. It was found that typical categorization approaches produce predictions which are too similar for combining them to be effective since they tend to fail on the same records. Further experiments using two less orthodox categorizers are also presented which suggest that combining text categorizers can be successful, provided the essential element of "difference" is considered.
The Model Railroad as an Example Avoiding Tacit Knowledge in Microelectronics Studies

Even though neither teachers nor learners are running for tacit knowledge, it is omnipresent even in engineering disciplines, such as electrical engineering and computer science. This paper is about a problembased learning environment, the model railroad project that is being developed at the University of Rostock. Two case studies, done in the Summer Term 2009, indicate that this problem-based learning environment can indeed support the students in their studies.
Robust BSBL recovery method of physiological signals with application to fetal ECG

Compressive Sensing (CS) techniques have emerged with the increasing demand of high data rate transmissions. Recently, block sparse Bayesian learning (BSBL) framework was introduced which has a superior performance over conventional CS methods. In this paper, the BSBL-Expectation Maximization (BSBL-EM) and BSBL-Bound Optimization (BSBL-BO) methods were deployed. The performance, mainly quality and speed, of recovering a block sparse signal was analyzed. Results showed that the two algorithms performance is almost the same in terms of NMSE. However, BSBL-BO achieved better efficiency since the required recovery time was less than BSBL-EM. To further investigate the algorithms performance, they were deployed to recover a real world FECG segment. They achieved a satisfactory quality where the distortion is negligible and does not affect the clinical diagnosis. Nevertheless, using BSBL-BO is more suitable for wireless tele-monitoring based systems since it is more efficient.
Bronchoalveolar neutrophils, interferon gamma-inducible protein 10 and interleukin-7 in AIDS-associated tuberculosis

During advanced AIDS tuberculosis (TB) often presents atypically with smear‐negative and non‐cavitary disease, yet immune features associated with this change are poorly characterized. We examined the local immune response in a cohort of Tanzanian AIDS‐associated TB patients who underwent bronchoalveolar lavage. TB infection was confirmed in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid by culture, probe and polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Among TB patients CD4 count correlated positively with the extent of cavitary disease as well as BAL TB load (qPCR CT). TB patients had significantly higher granulocyte–macrophage colony‐stimulating factor (GM‐CSF) than non‐TB patients, and those with non‐cavitary TB had significantly higher BAL interferon gamma‐inducible protein (IP‐10) and interleukin (IL)‐7 than those with cavities. BAL neutrophils were as prevalent as monocytes/macrophages or epithelial cells, and immunohistochemistry revealed that neutrophils, monocytes/macrophages, and epithelial cells were major sources of the IP‐10 and IL‐7. These data suggest a dysregulated cytokine profile may contribute to the TB of advanced AIDS.
Relações entre uso de álcool e violência entre parceiros íntimos: estudo seccional

Aim: to analyze the correspondence between the consumption of alcohol and the co-occurrence of violent episodes between intimate partners in a sample composed by the users of the Family Health Strategy program from the city of Nova Iguacu, Brazil. Methods: researchers performed a sectional study from a sample composed by 476 women, ages varying from 25 to 64 years old, and with intimate partners for at least one year. The instruments used were validated and transculturally adapted for Brazilian use. Results: it was observed statistically significant correspondence between the use of alcohol by the woman, and the co-occurrence of intimate violence (OR:4.2), including the psychological (OR:4.6), physical (OR:2.7), and sexual (OR:2.2) formats. Conclusion: the results call attention to a possible relationship between alcohol consumption and violence between intimate partners. Practical implications: the systematized tracking of alcohol consumption can be used as an important marker when there are suspicious evidences in abuse cases under family care practice, thus amplifying the possibilities of intervention of Family Health teams.
Power Enhancement for Piezoelectric Energy Harvester

—Piezoelectric energy harvesting technology has received a great attention during the last decade to activate low power microelectronic devices such as wireless sensor nodes (WSN). This paper investigates the necessary conditions to enhance the extracted AC electrical power from the exciting vibration energy using piezoelectric material. The effect of tip mass and its mounting position on maximum power extraction are investigated theoretically and experimentally. The optimal load impedance is also investigated to maximize the output power. The experimental results validated the theoretical and concluded remarks in the paper.
Performance evaluation and receiver front-end design for on-chip millimeter-wave wireless interconnect

This paper illustrates the feasibility of designing a power-efficient millimeter-wave (mm-wave) transceiver for on-chip wireless communication networks. The performance of the on-chip wireless interconnect using mm-wave transceiver was evaluated through both theoretical analysis as well as system-level simulations in Simulink. To reduce the bit error rate degradation due to channel distortion, root-raised-cosine pulse shaping was performed. The simulation results were then used to define the design specifications of individual RF building blocks. Accordingly, a low-power receiver front-end, consisting of a three-stage wideband LNA, and a single-balanced down-conversion mixer, was also designed. The LNA was implemented using a feed-forward structure to extend the bandwidth at no cost in power consumption. The supply voltage of the mixer was reduced to 0.6 V by eliminating the transistor stack. Simulation results showed that the receiver has a 3-dB bandwidth of 19.2 GHz, a peak gain of 26.5 dB, a noise figure lower than 7.8 dB, and an input P1dB of −28 dBm, while consuming only 11.6 mW.
Microalgae as Sources of Carotenoids

Marine microalgae constitute a natural source of a variety of drugs for pharmaceutical, food and cosmetic applications—which encompass carotenoids, among others. A growing body of experimental evidence has confirmed that these compounds can play important roles in prevention (and even treatment) of human diseases and health conditions, e.g., cancer, cardiovascular problems, atherosclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, muscular dystrophy, cataracts and some neurological disorders. The underlying features that may account for such favorable biological activities are their intrinsic antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and antitumoral features. In this invited review, the most important issues regarding synthesis of carotenoids by microalgae are described and discussed—from both physiological and processing points of view. Current gaps of knowledge, as well as technological opportunities in the near future relating to this growing field of interest, are also put forward in a critical manner.
Readiness Potential Reflects the Predictive Aspect of Sense of Agency

Rin Minohara∗1, Wen Wen∗1, Shunsuke Hamasaki∗1, Takaki Maeda∗2, Hiroshi Yamakawa∗1, Satoshi Shibuya∗3, Yukari Ohki∗3, Atsushi Yamashita∗1, Hajime Asama∗1 ∗1 Department of Precision Engineering, The University of Tokyo 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-8656 Japan ∗2 Department of Neuropsychiatry, Keio University School of Medicine 35 Shinanomachi, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, 160-8582 Japan ∗3 Department of Integrative Physiology, Kyorin University School of Medicine 6-20-2 Shinkawa, Mitaka, Tokyo, 181-8611 Japan
The Role of Perceiver Gender Ideology and Target Femininity in Implicit and Explicit Gender-Science Stereotypes

Banchefsky, Sarah Mary (Ph.D., Psychology and Neuroscience) The Role of Perceiver Gender Ideology and Target Femininity in Implicit and Explicit GenderScience Stereotypes Thesis directed by Professor Bernadette Park The present research examined a previously unexamined stereotype—that men possess more scientific traits than women—and two moderators of this gender-science stereotype: sociopolitical beliefs about how to approach gender differences (gender ideology) and target feminine facial appearance (gender prototypicality). A pre-test to select face stimuli first established that female scientists with more feminine facial appearance were judged as less likely to be scientists (Study 1). A second pre-test validated both positive and negative traits along the scientific and warmth dimension that were viewed as stereotypic of scientists. Study 2 found that science stereotypic traits were more readily associated with men than with women. Specifically, men were more associated with scientific and cold traits, and less associated with unscientific and warm traits, relative to women, and these stereotypes emerged whether assessed at an implicit level (using a go/no-go association task; GNAT) or an explicit level (using a percent estimate task), but were uncorrelated with one another. Moreover, gender ideology moderated explicit stereotypes but had no effect on implicit stereotypes; but greater assimilationism (i.e., believing that women should be more like men in the workplace) and segregationism (i.e., believing that men and women belong in separate roles) both predicted stronger gender-science stereotypes, whereas greater gender blindness (i.e., believing each person should be treated as a unique individual regardless of his or her gender) predicted weaker stereotypes. To examine whether gender prototypicality influenced the strength of implicit stereotypes, three versions of the GNAT instantiated gender using either generic names (control) or photos of high prototypical or low prototypical men and women (pre-tested in Study 1). Despite evidence that women’s facial prototypicality influenced perceived likelihood of being
The epistemological beliefs, learning approaches and study orchestrations of university students

This study examined the learning experience (learning approaches, study orchestrations and epistemological beliefs) of 388 university students. Data analysis revealed two main results. First, the different aspects of students’ learning experience were related: learning approaches and epistemological beliefs (two pairs of canonical variates accounted for the significant relationships), and epistemological beliefs and study orchestrations (sophisticated beliefs emerged mainly in those participants using deep study orchestrations). Second, study orchestrations, as well as the canonical variates from epistemological beliefs and learning approaches, predicted students’ academic performance. Results suggest that higher education institutions should provide scaffolding to foster the development of a mature learning experience amongst their students.
Board state evaluation in the game of Go-Preliminary WPE report

The game of Go is very interesting from a machine learning point of view since it has been shown to be PSPACE hard to solve explicitly [9]. A major factor for the complexity is due to being played on a 19x19 board where moves can not be considered using only spacial locality. Heuristics are difficult to make for Go because much of the game is qualitative and it is hard to assign quantitative values to such situations. This paper extends GNU Go [6], a hybrid heuristic based Go program, in three ways: decomposition of patterns for influence propagation, adaptive strategy for move generation and risk identification and resolution for move generation. Pattern decomposition is analyzed and shown to be inferior to the original patterns for influence propagation. Adaptive strategy and risk identification and resolution are shown to improve the performance of GNU Go by a statistically significant amount.
Modular continuum robotic endoscope design and path planning

Robotic endoscopes have the potential to help endoscopists position tools during procedures, to propel the endoscope to the desired position, to automate functions and to prevent perforations during procedures. This paper outlines the modular architecture for a continuum robotic endoscope with multiple bending segments along the length of the endoscope. Each of the segments is modular, containing a set of actuation motors that drive short cables in the continuum segments. Each modular segment of the robot is 15 mm in diameter, can turn 180 degrees and has a turning speed ranging from 35 to 250 degrees per second. The robot is composed of seven of these modular segments, has 14 degrees of freedom, is 0.91 m long and has a mass of 157 grams. The implementation for the mechanical, electrical, and software design is described and the robotic endoscope bending motions are sensed, simulated and controlled using kinematic models. Lastly, path planning trajectories of the endoscope segments are designed and coordinated to help propel the robot forward in an uncoiling motion and in a follow-the-leader fashion along a path that emulates simplified turns in a colon. We show that the robotic endoscope is able to exert less force on the walls of the colon emulation path, enable automated insertion into the patient, and execute colon wall avoidance and linear scanning motions not available in conventional endoscopes.
An Online Approach for Detecting Repackaged Android Applications Based on Multi-user Collaboration

Repackaged Android applications have been the major sources of mobile malware. There are two main mechanisms to detect repackaged apps. The first way is to insert self-checking codes to determine whether it is repackaged when the app is running, which can be done by developers. However, the self-checking codes are easy to be cracked. The second way is to scan and compare APK files to search potential repackaged apps, which can be done by app markets. However, some of app markets do not conduct repackaging detection in reality. Therefore, it is necessary for app users to defense against repackaged apps. For app users, we propose a new repackaging detection method, which is a novel online approach based on multi-user collaboration.