Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cooperative parallel asynchronous computation of the solution of symmetric linear systems

This paper introduces a new paradigm, called cooperative computation, for the solution of systems of linear equations with symmetric coefficient matrices. The simplest version of the algorithm consists of two agents, each one computing the solution of the whole system, using an iterative method. Infrequent unidirectional communication occurs from one agent to the other, either periodically, or probabilistically, thus characterizing the computation as parallel and asynchronous. Every time one agent communicates its current approximation of the solution to the other, the receiving agent carries out a least squares computation to replace its current value by an affine combination of the current approximations, and the algorithm continues until a stopping criterion is met. Deterministic and probabilistic variants of this algorithm are introduced and shown to be efficient, specifically in relation to the popular Barzilai-Borwein algorithm, particularly for ill-conditioned matrices.
Normal and Modified Urinary Nucleosides as Novel Biomarkers for Colorectal Cancer

Background: Up till now, there is still no ideal tumour marker for early diagnosis and effective monitoring, especially for patients who undergo surgical resection of colorectal cancer (CRC). Objective: to evaluate the clinical utility of normal and modified urinary nucleosides as diagnostic biomarkers to be used for the purpose of screening for CRC, in addition to assessment of the correlation between their preoperative levels, tumour size and modified Duke's staging, as well as their role in monitoring of surgery, as compared to CEA, the routinely used serum marker. Subjects and Methods: This study was conducted on 30 patients with CRC (Group I), 30 patients with benign colorectal diseases (Group II) and 30 apparently healthy subjects (Group III). Morning urine and serum samples were collected before surgery and on day 7 postoperative, for the assay of urinary nucleosides (adenosine, cytidine, guanosine, uridine, 1-methyladenosine, 7-methylguanosine and N4-acetylcytidine) by reversed phase high-performance liquid chromatography, and serum CEA by chemiluminescent sequential immunometric assay. Results: The levels of the measured urinary nucleosides in group I were significantly higher than those of group II or group III. Moreover, the elevated levels of the urinary nucleosides significantly decreased after curative resection of CRC. A significant positive correlation was found between the preoperative levels of some nucleosides and the tumour size, as well as the modified Duke's staging of CRC. Conclusion: Urinary nucleosides are satisfactory diagnostic biomarkers of CRC. Moreover, they are apparently of value in the postoperative monitoring of CRC patients. [Ola H. El-Demerdash, Ghada M. Sabbour, Amira I. Hamed, Hala Abdel Al Ahmed and A. A. Abou-Zeid. Normal and Modified Urinary Nucleosides as Novel Biomarkers for Colorectal Cancer. Life Sci J 2014;11(9):473-482]. (ISSN:1097-8135). http://www.lifesciencesite. com. 79
Cholinergic modulation of hippocampal network function

Cholinergic septohippocampal projections from the medial septal area to the hippocampus are proposed to have important roles in cognition by modulating properties of the hippocampal network. However, the precise spatial and temporal profile of acetylcholine release in the hippocampus remains unclear making it difficult to define specific roles for cholinergic transmission in hippocampal dependent behaviors. This is partly due to a lack of tools enabling specific intervention in, and recording of, cholinergic transmission. Here, we review the organization of septohippocampal cholinergic projections and hippocampal acetylcholine receptors as well as the role of cholinergic transmission in modulating cellular excitability, synaptic plasticity, and rhythmic network oscillations. We point to a number of open questions that remain unanswered and discuss the potential for recently developed techniques to provide a radical reappraisal of the function of cholinergic inputs to the hippocampus.
Experimental Evaluation and Predictive Control of an Air-Cored Linear Generator for Direct-Drive Wave Energy Converters

Direct-drive wave energy converters using linear generators (LGs) are attractive due to their high efficiency and reliability. Air-cored LGs, in particular, are receiving increasing attention due to the elimination of attraction forces between the stator and translator and the resulting reduction in structural mass. In this paper, details of the construction of a novel air-cored LG are presented. A custom test rig is constructed for testing the LG, particularly with zero overlap between its stator and translator at the stroke ends. Predictive control for maximum power transfer from the generator is first proposed and tested as a sensorless alternative to methods employing linear position feedback and electromotive force (EMF) estimation with sense coils. The control strategy is verified through simulation and measurements. It is also shown that allowing for zero stator-translator overlap at the stroke ends can improve the power-to-weight ratio compared to complete stator-translator overlap during the entire stroke.
Acoustic differences between sustained vowels perceived as young or old

Perceptual recognition of young and old voices was studied with vowels uttered by male and female speakers. In the specific test conditions of this study more than 90% of the judgements were correct, even when only the centre part of a sustained vowel was heard. The latter thus contains relevant information for age discrimination. The sustained phonations that were unanimously judged as young or old by all the listeners were acoustically analysed. It appeared that several parameters were significantly different and consequently may have played a role in the perceptual judgement of young versus old: changes in fundamental frequency, higher perturbation measures, lower H1-H2 ratio in women, and lower formant frequencies. The lower F2 was, statistically, the most significant result. On the other hand, for none of the measures did the differences between young and old go in the same direction in all the correctly judged voices. Each parameter showed differences in both senses whereas the age recognition was u.
Horizontal Transmission of Beauveria bassiana in Anastrepha ludens (Diptera: Tephritidae) Under Laboratory and Field Cage Conditions

Abstract The virulence of two products of the fungus Beauveria bassiana (LCPP and Bassianil) on adult Anastrepha ludens (Loew) (Diptera: Tephritidae) and their effect on the mating performance of infected males was evaluated in laboratory and field cage tests. The horizontal transmission capacity of the fungus during copulation or attempted copulation also was quantified using inoculated males as well as the impact of infection on female fecundity and longevity. Both fungal products were found to be highly virulent (LCPP, mortality = 98.7% at 1 × 108 conidia per ml, LT50 = 4.20 d, LC50 = 9.35 × 105 conidia per ml; Bassianil, mortality = 99.3% at 1 × 108 conidia per ml, LT50 = 4.04 d, LC50 = 2.69 × 107conidia per ml). Mating success of inoculated males was not affected compared with the control group during the 3 d postinoculation. Horizontal transmission to females during the first day was 80.6 and 84.3% through mating and 15.4 and 21.6% through attempts to mate and contact during courtship for the LCPP and Bassianil products, respectively. The fertility of infected females was notably reduced, and longevity did not extend beyond 15 d. Our results suggest the possibility of using sterile flies as fungus vectors in sterile insect technique programs, but the potential benefits and shortcomings of this approach require further investigation.
Prevalence and predictors of early breastfeeding among late preterm mother-infant dyads.

BACKGROUND Although late preterm infants (LPIs), at 34(0/7)-36(6/7) weeks of gestation, are reported to have suboptimal rates of breastfeeding, there is a lack of quantitative evidence describing this trend. This study examined the prevalence of breastfeeding initiation and factors associated with breastfeeding non-initiation within a Pennsylvania population-based cohort of late preterm mother-infant dyads. SUBJECTS AND METHODS Descriptive statistics and odds ratios were used to assess and compare breastfeeding initiation rates in 2003-2009 among LPI mothers (n=62,451) and their infants (n=68,886) with moderately preterm (n=17,325) and term (n=870,034) infants. Binary logistic regression was used to determine the association of system/provider, sociodemographic, and medical factors with breastfeeding non-initiation in late preterm mother-infant dyads for the year 2009 (n=7,012). RESULTS Although LPI breastfeeding initiation in Pennsylvania increased significantly from 2003 (54%) to 2009 (61.8%) (p<0.001), the 2009 prevalence remained well below rates in term infant populations and national standards. The regression model indicated that interactions involving sociodemographic variables, including marital status, age, race/ethnicity, education, parity, Women, Infants and Children Program participation, and smoking status were among the most significant factors associated with LPI breastfeeding non-initiation (p<0.05). The univariate results were similar to those reported in preterm and term populations. CONCLUSIONS Our data suggest that certain, unexpected demographic groups in the late preterm population be prioritized for further analysis and possibly greater breastfeeding support. More research is indicated to understand the effect of modifiable psychosocial factors on LPI breastfeeding initiation.
Chronic Wound Pain: A Conceptual Model

PURPOSE To present the wound care practitioner with a model for the assessment and treatment of wound-related pain. TARGET AUDIENCE This continuing education activity is intended for physicians and nurses with an interest in wound care and related disorders. OBJECTIVES After reading this article and taking this test, the reader should be able to: Discuss the pathophysiology of chronic pain and the wound pain model. Describe the patient's wound-related pain perspective. Identify aspects of local wound care and their relationship to pain.
Propriospinal Circuitry Underlying Interlimb Coordination in Mammalian Quadrupedal Locomotion

Soon after birth, freely moving quadrupeds can express locomotor activity with coordinated forelimb and hindlimb movements. To investigate the neural mechanisms underlying this coordination, we used an isolated spinal cord preparation from neonatal rats. Under bath-applied 5-HT, N-methyl-d,l-aspartate (NMA), and dopamine (DA), the isolated cord generates fictive locomotion in which homolateral cervicolumbar extensor motor bursts occur in phase opposition, as does bursting in homologous (left-right) extensor motoneurons. This coordination corresponded to a walking gait monitored with EMG recordings in the freely behaving animal. Functional decoupling of the cervical and lumbar generators in vitro by sucrose blockade at the thoracic cord level revealed independent rhythmogenic capabilities with similar cycle frequencies in the two locomotor regions. When the cord was partitioned at different thoracic levels and 5-HT/NMA/DA was applied to the more caudal compartment, the ability of the lumbar generators to drive their cervical counterparts increased with the proportion of chemically exposed thoracic segments. Blockade of synaptic inhibition at the lumbar level caused synchronous bilateral lumbar rhythmicity that, surprisingly, also was able to impose bilaterally synchronous bursting at the unblocked cervical level. Furthermore, after a midsagittal section from spinal segments C1 to T7, and during additional blockade of cervical synaptic inhibition, the cord exposed to 5-HT/NMA/DA continued to produce a coordinated fictive walking pattern similar to that observed in control. Thus, in the newborn rat, a caudorostral propriospinal excitability gradient appears to mediate interlimb coordination, which relies more on asymmetric axial connectivity (both excitatory and inhibitory) between the lumbar and cervical generators than on differences in their inherent rhythmogenic capacities.
Effects of a short burst of gait training with body weight-supported treadmill training for a person with chronic stroke: A single-subject study

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a short-burst dose of intense gait training with body weight-supported treadmill training (BWSTT) on walking speed, endurance, and quality of life of a participant with chronic stroke. A single-subject experimental (A-B-A-A) design with immediate and 3-month retention phases was used. The participant was a 66-year-old woman, 1 year after left cerebrovascular accident. Repeated baseline walking performance was established during 2 weeks of testing using the comfortable 10-meter walk test (CWT) and the 6-minute walk test (6MWT). The Stroke Impact Scale (SIS) was measured one time during baseline. Baseline testing was followed by ten 30-minute sessions of BWSTT over a 2-week duration. Retention testing was conducted immediately and 3 months following the intervention. Statistically significant improvements from baseline with the CWT and the 6MWT were achieved and maintained by the participant across all subsequent measurement phases. Improvements considered to be clinically meaningful changes in the SIS domains of strength and mobility achieved immediately after the intervention were not maintained at 3-month retention testing. For the participant in this study, the short-burst dosage of BWSTT provided a feasible and effective means for improving goal-oriented functional walking ability.
Advances in automatic transcription of Italian broadcast news

This paper presents some recent improvements in automatic transcription of Italian broadcast news obtained at ITCirst. A first preliminary activity was carried out in order to develop a suitable speech corpus for the Italian language. The resulting corpus, formed by recordings covering 30 hours of radio news, was exploited for developing a baseline system for transcription of broadcast news. The system performs in different stages: acoustic segmentation and classification, speaker clustering, acoustic model adaptation and speech decoding. Major recent advances allowing performance improvement concern with speech segmentation and clustering, acoustic modeling, acoustic model adaptation and the language model. The transcription system features a 14.3% word error rate on planned studio speech and 18.7% on the whole test set formed by recordings of radio broadcast news. When applied to a test set formed by recordings of television broadcast news, the system features 16.5% word error rate on planned studio speech and 23.2% by considering the whole test set.
A novel solder ball coating process with improved reliability

Underfill process is essential for flip-chip, CSP and ultrafine pitch BGA packages to obtain good solder fatigue life. But capillary flow underfill slows down the process time and no-flow underfill may introduce reliability issues such as underfill entrapment, delamination at interfaces between underfill and other materials. Furthermore, both two underfills make the rework impossible. A novel solder ball coating process (to be patented) is proposed in this study to compromise the pros and cons of two underfill processes. Before reflow, solder balls are dipped into the underfill pool so that each solder ball is encapsulated in a layer of underfill. Then solder joints go through the typical surface mount reflow process and the underfill, or coating, is also cured during the reflow. As all solder balls are still separated, they are able to be reworked later. However, the existence of the coating reduces the surface energy of solder balls and stress concentration at the solder-pad interface. Therefore, crack initiation and propagation is dramatically delayed and solder ball fatigue life is significantly improved. The proposed process is discussed in details and compared with no flow underfill processes. A 3D nonlinear viscoplastic finite element model of the FlexBGA 144 package is built to investigate the effects of major process and design parameters on the thermo-mechanical and mechanical durability of eutectic SnPb and lead-free Sn3.8AgO. 5Cu solder balls. These parameters include the coating thickness, the Young's modulus of the coating and the CTE of the coating. The thermal cycling profile consisted of temperature extremes from -55 to +125/spl deg/ Celsius with a 15-minute dwell at hot, a 10-minute dwell at cold, and a 6-10/spl deg/ Celsius per minute ramp. The results show that thermo-mechanical durability is almost doubled for both eutectic and lead-free solder balls with coating. This process provides an inexpensive and fast solution for improving the solder ball reliability in advanced packages.
Association between Cognitive Performance and Cortical Glucose Metabolism in Patients with Mild Alzheimer’s Disease

Background: Neuronal and synaptic function in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is measured in vivo by glucose metabolism using positron emission tomography (PET). Objective: We hypothesized that neuronal activation as measured by PET is a more sensitive index of neuronal dysfunction than activity during rest. We investigated if the correlations between dementia severity as measured with the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) and glucose metabolism are an artifact of brain atrophy. Method: Glucose metabolism was measured using [18F]fluorodeoxyglucose PET during rest and activation due to audiovisual stimulation in 13 mild to moderate AD patients (MMSE score ≧17). PET data were corrected for brain atrophy. Results: In the rest condition, glucose metabolism was correlated with the MMSE score primarily within the posterior cingulate and parietal lobes. For the activation condition, additional correlations were within the primary and association audiovisual areas. Most local maxima remained significant after correcting for brain atrophy. Conclusion: PET activity measured during audiovisual stimulation was more sensitive to functional alterations inglucose metabolism in AD patients compared to the resting PET. The association between glucose metabolism and MMSE score was not dependent on brain atrophy.
AlGaN/GaN MOS-HEMT With $\hbox{HfO}_{2}$ Dielectric and $\hbox{Al}_{2}\hbox{O}_{3}$ Interfacial Passivation Layer Grown by Atomic Layer Deposition

We have developed a novel AlGaN/GaN metal-oxide-semiconductor high-electron mobility transistor using a stack gate HfO<sub>2</sub>/Al<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub> structure grown by atomic layer deposition. The stack gate consists of a thin HfO<sub>2</sub> (30-A) gate dielectric and a thin Al<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub> (20- A) interfacial passivation layer (IPL). For the 50-A stack gate, no measurable <i>C</i>-<i>V</i> hysteresis and a smaller threshold voltage shift were observed, indicating that a high-quality interface can be achieved using a Al<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub> IPL on an AlGaN substrate. Good surface passivation effects of the Al<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub> IPL have also been confirmed by pulsed gate measurements. Devices with 1- mum gate lengths exhibit a cutoff frequency (<i>fT</i>) of 12 GHz and a maximum frequency of oscillation (<i>f</i> <sub>MAX</sub>) of 34 GHz, as well as a maximum drain current of 800 mA/mm and a peak transconductance of 150 mS/mm, whereas the gate leakage current is at least six orders of magnitude lower than that of the reference high-electron mobility transistors at a positive gate bias.
Virtual prototyping of a semi-active transfemoral prosthetic leg

This article presents a virtual prototyping study of a semi-active lower limb prosthesis to improve the functionality of an amputee during prosthesis–environment interaction for level ground walking. Articulated ankle–foot prosthesis and a single-axis semi-active prosthetic knee with active and passive operating modes were considered. Data for level ground walking were collected using a photogrammetric method in order to develop a base-line simulation model and with the hip kinematics input to verify the proposed design. The simulated results show that the semi-active lower limb prosthesis is able to move efficiently in passive mode, and the activation time of the knee actuator can be reduced by approximately 50%. Therefore, this semi-active system has the potential to reduce the energy consumption of the actuators required during level ground walking and requires less compensation from the amputee due to lower deviation of the vertical excursion of body centre of mass.
Modafinil augmentation of antidepressant treatment in depression.

BACKGROUND Despite a relative lack of controlled data, stimulants are often used to augment antidepressant treatment in patients who have had only a partial response to first-line therapy. Modafinil is a novel psychostimulant that has shown efficacy in, and was recently marketed for, treating excessive daytime sleepiness associated with narcolepsy. The mechanism of action of modafinil is unknown, but, unlike other stimulants, the drug is highly selective for the central nervous system, has little effect on dopaminergic activity in the striatum, and appears to have a lower abuse potential. METHOD In this retrospective case series, we describe 7 patients with DSM-IV depression (4 with major depression and 3 with bipolar depression) for whom we used modafinil to augment a partial or nonresponse to an antidepressant. The Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression was administered as part of routine clinical practice prior to treatment and at each subsequent visit. RESULTS At doses of 100 to 200 mg/day, all 7 patients achieved full or partial remission, generally within 1 to 2 weeks. All patients had some residual tiredness or fatigue prior to starting modafinil, and this symptom was particularly responsive to augmentation. Side effects were minimal and did not lead to discontinuation of the drug in any of the patients. CONCLUSION Modafinil appears to be a drug with promise as an augmenter of antidepressants, especially in patients with residual tiredness or fatigue. It is a particularly attractive alternative to other stimulants because of its low abuse potential and Schedule IV status.
Robust Iterative Feedback Tuning Control of a Compliant Rehabilitation Robot for Repetitive Ankle Training

Robot-assisted rehabilitation offers benefits, such as repetitive, intensive, and task-specific training, as compared to traditional manual manipulation performed by physiotherapists. In this paper, a robust iterative feedback tuning (IFT) technique for repetitive training control of a compliant parallel ankle rehabilitation robot is presented. The robot employs four parallel intrinsically compliant pneumatic muscle actuators that mimic skeletal muscles for ankle's motion training. A multiple degrees-of-freedom normalized IFT technique is proposed to increase the controller robustness by obtaining an optimal value for the weighting factor and offering a method with learning capacity to achieve an optimum of the controller parameters. Experiments with human participants were conducted to investigate the robustness as well as to validate the performance of the proposed IFT technique. Results show that the normalized IFT scheme will achieve a better and better tracking performance during the robot repetitive control and provides more robustness to the system by adapting to various situations in robotic rehabilitation.