Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Exploratory studies on social spaces between humans and a mechanical-looking robot

The results from two empirical studies of human–robot interaction are presented. The first study involved the subject approaching the static robot and the robot approaching the standing subject. In these trials a small majority of subjects preferred a distance corresponding to the ‘personal zone’ typically used by humans when talking to friends. However, a large minority of subjects got significantly closer, suggesting that they treated the robot differently from a person, and possibly did not view the robot as a social being. The second study involved a scenario where the robot fetched an object that the seated subject had requested, arriving from different approach directions. The results of this second trial indicated that most subjects disliked a frontal approach. Most subjects preferred to be approached from either the left or right side, with a small overall preference for a right approach by the robot. Implications for future work are discussed.
Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli induce attaching and effacing lesions and hemorrhagic colitis in human and bovine intestinal xenograft models

SUMMARY Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) O157:H7 is an important cause of diarrhea, hemorrhagic colitis and hemolytic uremic syndrome in humans worldwide. The two major virulence determinants of EHEC are the Shiga toxins (Stx) and the type III secretion system (T3SS), including the injected effectors. Lack of a good model system hinders the study of EHEC virulence. Here, we investigated whether bovine and human intestinal xenografts in SCID mice can be useful for studying EHEC and host tissue interactions. Fully developed, germ-free human and bovine small intestine and colon were established by subcutaneous transplantation of human and bovine fetal gut into SCID mice. Xenografts were allowed to develop for 3–4 months and thereafter were infected by direct intraluminal inoculation of Stx-negative derivatives of EHEC O157:H7, strain EDL933. The small intestine and colon xenografts closely mimicked the respective native tissues. Upon infection, EHEC induced formation of typical attaching and effacing lesions and tissue damage that resembled hemorrhagic colitis in colon xenografts. By contrast, xenografts infected with an EHEC mutant deficient in T3SS remained undamaged. Furthermore, EHEC did not attach to or damage the epithelium of small intestinal tissue, and these xenografts remained intact. EHEC damaged the colon in a T3SS-dependent manner, and this model is therefore useful for studying the molecular details of EHEC interactions with live human and bovine intestinal tissue. Furthermore, we demonstrate that Stx and gut microflora are not essential for EHEC virulence in the human gut.
Role of Akt in Growth and Survival of PANC-1 Pancreatic Cancer Cells

Introduction Akt is involved in different cellular processes such as cell growth, cell differentiation, and anti-apoptosis. Aims To investigate the role of Akt in cell growth and survival in PANC-1 pancreatic cancer cells. Methodology and Results Insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-I induced Akt activation in a dose-dependent manner and stimulated anchorage-dependent and anchorage-independent cell growth of PANC-1 cells. In PANC-1 cells infected with adenovirus vectors carrying kinase-deficient Akt, anchorage-dependent and anchorage-independent cell growth was significantly reduced in the presence or absence of IGF-I compared with cells infected with adenovirus vectors carrying wild-type Akt, although IGF-I significantly stimulated cell growth in both transfected cell lines. Conversely, in PANC-1 cells infected with adenovirus vectors carrying kinase-deficient Akt, typical DNA laddering was undetectable in DNA fragmentation assay, and DNA 3´-OH reactivity was not detected in TUNEL assay. We then examined the role of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3-K), an upstream mediator of Akt, on cell survival. In PANC-1 cells infected with adenovirus vector carrying a deletion mutant of the 85-kDa regulatory subunit of PI3-K and in cells treated with PI3-K inhibitor wortmannin, typical DNA laddering was evident in DNA fragmentation assay. In TUNEL assay, nuclear condensation and DNA 3´-OH reactivity was observed in approximately 30% of these cells. Conclusion The present results indicate that Akt is implicated in cell growth, but not in survival in PANC-1 cells. These results suggest that there may be an alternative survival signal cascade from PI3-K in PANC-1 cells.
Guest authorship, mortality reporting, and integrity in rofecoxib studies.

To the Editor: The study by Drs Psaty and Kronmal and the accompanying Editorial by Drs DeAngelis and Fontanarosa regarding rofecoxib illustrate the recurring problem of discretionary or data-driven analysis. Given the possibility of selective analysis based on observed data and the risk of positive results due to chance alone, it is critical to know in detail which analyses were prespecified and when the prespecification occurred. This can only be done via a full protocol repository, as we suggested in 2002. Our proposal would establish a secure real-time repository for protocols, amendments, and statistical analysis plans. The material would be kept confidential for intellectual property reasons during the clinical trial and its analysis and then made public at the time of publication. The proposal has yet to be implemented, although the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Act of 2007 (US HR3580), which provides for a Web site for results of all phase 2, 3, and 4 trials, also requires posting the protocol. The rofecoxib data reported in the study by Psaty and Kronmal illustrate that the ascertainment of even a hard end point like mortality can be modulated by varying the appropriate window of time used to capture the event of interest. With other end points, especially composite end points, the situation is rife with possibilities of changing results by discretionary ascertainment. This is why one of the last aspects of the protocol to be finalized is often the statistical analysis plan. However, with no protocol or a timeline documentation of its provenance, these details are never made public so that it is not possible to see how published analyses compare with protocol-specified analyses. This transparency is needed to be confident in the validity of the results.
Liquid phase epitaxial growth and characterization of germanium far infrared blocked impurity band detectors

Germanium Blocked Impurity Band (BIB) detectors require a high purity blocking layer (< 10{sup 13} cm{sup -3}) approximately 1 mm thick grown on a heavily doped active layer ({approx} 10{sup 16} cm{sup -3}) approximately 20 mm thick. Epilayers were grown using liquid phase epitaxy (LPE) of germanium out of lead solution. The effects of the crystallographic orientation of the germanium substrate on LPE growth modes were explored. Growth was studied on substrates oriented by Laue x-ray diffraction between 0.02{sup o} and 10{sup o} from the {l_brace}111{r_brace} toward the {l_brace}100{r_brace}. Terrace growth was observed, with increasing terrace height for larger misorientation angles. It was found that the purity of the blocking layer was limited by the presence of phosphorus in the lead solvent. Unintentionally doped Ge layers contained {approx}10{sup 15} cm{sup -3} phosphorus as determined by Hall effect measurements and Photothermal Ionization Spectroscopy (PTIS). Lead purification by vacuum distillation and dilution reduced the phosphorus concentration in the layers to {approx} 10{sup 14} cm{sup -3} but further reduction was not observed with successive distillation runs. The graphite distillation and growth components as an additional phosphorus source cannot be ruled out. Antimony ({approx}10{sup 16} cm{sup -3}) was used as a dopant for the active BIB layer. A reduction in the donor binding energy due to impurity banding was observed by variable temperature Hall effect measurements. A BIB detector fabricated from an Sb-doped Ge layer grown on a pure substrate showed a low energy photoconductive onset ({approx}6 meV). Spreading resistance measurements on doped layers revealed a nonuniform dopant distribution with Sb pile-up at the layer surface, which must be removed by chemomechanical polishing. Sb diffusion into the pure substrate was observed by Secondary Ion Mass Spectroscopy (SIMS) for epilayers grown at 650 C. The Sb concentration at the interface dropped by an order of magnitude over {approx} 1.5 {micro}m. Layers grown at 550 C did not show significant Sb diffusion. Sn doped In{sub 2}O{sub 3} (ITO) was studied for use in far infrared transparent low temperature contacts for BIB arrays. It was found that {approx}100 nm of ITO deposited on Ge remains electrically conducting at 4 K and is {approx}90% transparent in the far infrared. ITO should be suitable for passivating contacts to Ge BIB arrays.
Designing a Good Low-Rate Sparse-Graph Code

This paper deals with the design of low-rate sparse-graph codes, having a linear minimum distance d_{min} in the blocklength n. Its main contributions are: a) a necessary condition on a general family of sparse-graph codes with linear d_{min}; b) a justification of having degree-1 bits in the low-rate code structure; c) a new, efficient ensemble of low-rate sparse-graph codes with bits of degree 1, designed so that the necessary condition (a) is satisfied.
Animal escapology II: escape trajectory case studies

Summary Escape trajectories (ETs; measured as the angle relative to the direction of the threat) have been studied in many taxa using a variety of methodologies and definitions. Here, we provide a review of methodological issues followed by a survey of ET studies across animal taxa, including insects, crustaceans, molluscs, lizards, fish, amphibians, birds and mammals. Variability in ETs is examined in terms of ecological significance and morpho-physiological constraints. The survey shows that certain escape strategies (single ETs and highly variable ETs within a limited angular sector) are found in most taxa reviewed here, suggesting that at least some of these ET distributions are the result of convergent evolution. High variability in ETs is found to be associated with multiple preferred trajectories in species from all taxa, and is suggested to provide unpredictability in the escape response. Random ETs are relatively rare and may be related to constraints in the manoeuvrability of the prey. Similarly, reports of the effect of refuges in the immediate environment are relatively uncommon, and mainly confined to lizards and mammals. This may be related to the fact that work on ETs carried out in laboratory settings has rarely provided shelters. Although there are a relatively large number of examples in the literature that suggest trends in the distribution of ETs, our understanding of animal escape strategies would benefit from a standardization of the analytical approach in the study of ETs, using circular statistics and related tests, in addition to the generation of large data sets.
Commentary: Matched Instrumental Variables: A Possible Solution to Severe Confounding in Matched Observational Studies?

Matching in ObservatiOnal studies and shi et al. matching is a popular technique to deduce causal effects of a treatment on an outcome in observational data. In brief, matching individuals in groups with different values of the treatment (for cohort designs), but similar values of the observed covariates, so that within each group, the only difference between the individuals is their treatment values; for case–control designs, matching is done on the outcome, instead of on the treatment. then, under the usual set of causal identifying assumptions (conditional ignorability, consistency, and positivity), one can estimate the average causal effect of a treatment on an outcome. While there are many other techniques to estimate causal effects in observational data, including standardization, g-formula, g-estimation, inverse probability weighting, stratification, and targeted maximum likelihood estimation (see references 5–10 for textbook discussions), matching has some advantages over these methods. First, matching is transparent in assessing covariate balance. that is, if there are values of covariates for which almost all individuals have a high (or low) value of the treatment, then matching and its associated diagnostics will tell us that matched sets cannot be formed. Second, matching is blind to the outcome data; a matching algorithm only requires the measured covariates and the treatment values. more importantly, matching diagnostics and covariate balance checks can be done all without looking at the outcome data. Finally, for estimation, matching is nonparametric; it does not use any parametric modeling assumptions, such as linearity. For more discussions and recent overviews, see. In reference 1, the authors used matching to analyze the causal effect of trauma care from different trauma centers (treatment) on emergency department mortality (outcome). Because there were three treatment arms/trauma centers, level I and II trauma centers and nontrauma centers, the authors employed triplet matching where each patient from nontrauma centers were matched exactly with one patient from level I and II trauma centers, forming a triplet. Ideally, the patients in a matched triplet were similar with respect to the eight covariates about patient demographics and health.
Association of Age at Onset of Menopause and Time Since Onset of Menopause With Cardiovascular Outcomes, Intermediate Vascular Traits, and All-Cause Mortality: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.

Importance As many as 10% of women experience natural menopause by the age of 45 years. If confirmed, an increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and all-cause mortality associated with premature and early-onset menopause could be an important factor affecting risk of disease and mortality among middle-aged and older women. Objective To systematically review and meta-analyze studies evaluating the effect of age at onset of menopause and duration since onset of menopause on intermediate CVD end points, CVD outcomes, and all-cause mortality. Data Sources Medical databases (ie, Medline, EMBASE, and Web of Science) until March 2015. Study Selection Studies (ie, observational cohort, case-control, or cross-sectional) that assessed age at onset of menopause and/or time since onset of menopause as exposures as well as risk of cardiovascular outcomes and intermediate CVD end points in perimenopausal, menopausal, or postmenopausal women. Data Extraction and Synthesis Studies were sought if they were observational cohort, case-control, or cross-sectional studies; reported on age at onset of menopause and/or time since onset of menopause as exposures; and assessed associations with risk of CVD-related outcomes, all-cause mortality, or intermediate CVD end points. Data were extracted by 2 independent reviewers using a predesigned data collection form. The inverse-variance weighted method was used to combine relative risks to produce a pooled relative risk using random-effects models to allow for between-study heterogeneity. Main Outcomes and Measures Cardiovascular disease outcomes (ie, composite CVD, fatal and nonfatal coronary heart disease [CHD], and overall stroke and stroke mortality), CVD mortality, all-cause mortality, and intermediate CVD end points. Results Of the initially identified references, 32 studies were selected that included 310 329 nonoverlapping women. Outcomes were compared between women who experienced menopause younger than 45 years and women 45 years or older at onset; the relative risks (95% CIs) were 1.50 (1.28-1.76) for overall CHD, 1.11 (1.03-1.20) for fatal CHD, 1.23 (0.98-1.53) for overall stroke, 0.99 (0.92-1.07) for stroke mortality, 1.19 (1.08-1.31) for CVD mortality, and 1.12 (1.03-1.21) for all-cause mortality. Outcomes were also compared between women between 50 and 54 years at onset of menopause and women younger than 50 years at onset; there was a decreased risk of fatal CHD (relative risk, 0.87; 95% CI, 0.80-0.96) and no effect on stroke. Time since onset of menopause in relation to risk of developing intermediate cardiovascular traits or CVD outcomes was reported in 4 observational studies with inconsistent results. Conclusions and Relevance The findings of this review indicate a higher risk of CHD, CVD mortality, and overall mortality in women who experience premature or early-onset menopause.
Transmitter optimization for distributed Gaussian MIMO channels

In this paper, we consider the transmitter optimization problem for a point-to-point communication system with multiple base-stations cooperating to transmit to a single user. Each base-station is equipped with multiple antennas with a separate average power constraint imposed on it. First, we determine certain sufficient conditions for optimality which, in turn, motivate the development of a simple water-filling algorithm that can be applied if HTH is positive definite (H is the composite channel matrix). The water-filling algorithm is applied to each individual base-station and the symmetric matrix thus obtained is the optimal transmit covariance matrix if it is also positive semi-definite and none of its diagonal elements are zero. Secondly, we show that for a special class of distributed Gaussian MIMO channels, where the individual channel matrices have the same unitary left singular vector matrix, the transmitter optimization problem may be reduced from one of determining the optimal transmit covariance matrix of size N ×N to that of determining an optimal vector of length N. Finally, we propose a low-complexity, greedy water-filling algorithm for general channel matrices. The proposed algorithm is shown to attain near optimal rates in various scenarios through numerical simulations.
Cloud Computing Vs . Grid Computing

Cloud computing emerges as one of the hottest topic in field of information technology. Cloud computing is based on several other computing research areas such as HPC, virtualization, utility computing and grid computing. In order to make clear the essential of cloud computing, we propose the characteristics of this area which make cloud computing being cloud computing and distinguish it from other research areas. The service oriented, loose coupling, strong fault tolerant, business model and ease use are main characteristics of cloud computing. Grid computing in the simplest case refers to cooperation of multiple processors on multiple machines and its objective is to boost the computational power in the fields which require high capacity of the CPU. In grid computing multiple servers which use common operating systems and software have interactions with each other. Grid computing is hardware and software infrastructure which offer a cheap, distributable, coordinated and reliable access to powerful computational capabilities. This paper strives to compare and contrast cloud computing with grid computing from various angles and give insights into the essential characteristics of both.
Safety of Laparoscopic Colorectal Surgery in a Low-Volume Setting: Review of Early and Late Outcome

Background. There is increasing evidence suggesting that the laparoscopic technique is the treatment of choice for large bowel resection, including for malignancy. The purpose of the study was to assess whether general surgeons, with particular skills in advanced laparoscopy, can adequately provide safe laparoscopic colorectal resections in a low-volume setting. Methods. A retrospective review of prospectively collected case series of all laparoscopic colorectal resections performed under the care of a single general surgeon is presented. The primary endpoint was postoperative clinical outcome in terms of morbidity and mortality. Secondary endpoints were adequacy of surgical margins and number of lymph nodes harvested for colorectal cancer cases. Results. Seventy-three patients underwent 75 laparoscopic resections between March, 2003, and May, 2011. There was no elective mortality and the overall 30-day postoperative morbidity was 9.3%. Conversion and anastomotic leakage rates were both 1.3%, respectively. None of the malignant cases had positive margins and the median number of lymph nodes retrieved was 17. Conclusions. Our results support the view that general surgeons with advanced skills in minimally invasive surgery may safely perform laparoscopic colorectal resection in a low-volume setting in carefully selected patient cases.
Identifying and Characterizing Sleeping Beauties on YouTube

The generally accepted notion about popularity dynamics of user generated contents (e.g., tweets, videos) is that such contents attain their peak popularity within first few days and then gradually fade into oblivion. However, analyzing more than 350K videos on YouTube, we find that more than 10% of them obtain their peak popularity after at least one year from being uploaded. We term such videos as Sleeping Beauties and observe that these videos engage users more compared to other videos on YouTube. We further observe that sleeping beauties can retain their popularity to a greater extent following their peak popularity compared to other videos. We believe that recognizing such videos will not only benefit the advertisers, but also the designers of recommendation systems who seek to maximize user satisfaction. Through this interactive poster, we bring the presence and characteristics of sleeping beauties in front of the research community.
Cohort profile: the 1982 Pelotas (Brazil) birth cohort study.

Pelotas is a city in the extreme south of Brazil, near the border of Uruguay, with 214 000 urban inhabitants in 1982. At the time, we were assistant professors, each working in one of the two medical schools in the city, and both undergoing post-graduate training at the University of London. We were inspired by the findings of the British perinatal study, and one of us (FCB) decided to do a similar study for his doctoral thesis. The lack of reliable data on perinatal mortality in Brazil, due to poor registration of births and deaths—particularly stillbirths— justified the launch of the study. Funding from the International Development Research Center (Canada) was obtained for the perinatal survey, which led to FCB’s PhD thesis. 1,2
Inconsistency detection and resolution for context-aware middleware support

Context-awareness is a key feature of pervasive computing whose environments keep evolving. The support of context-awareness requires comprehensive management including detection and resolution of context inconsistency, which occurs naturally in pervasive computing. In this paper we present a framework for realizing dynamic context consistency management. The framework supports inconsistency detection based on a semantic matching and inconsistency triggering model, and inconsistency resolution with proactive actions to context sources. We further present an implementation based on the Cabot middleware. The feasibility of the framework and its performance are evaluated through a case study and a simulated experiment, respectively.
Establishing digital molecular communications in blood vessels

In this paper we propose a solution for transmitting digital information within the cardiocirculatory system. In particular, we make use of a channel delivering burst of molecules, emitted by mobile transmitters, which diffuse in the blood towards fixed receivers, that are attached to the vessel walls. This communication scheme has been inspired by the real signaling between platelets and endothelial cells, the behavior of which has been investigated experimentally. We thus believe that our proposal can be successfully deployed in living bodies. On the basis of the results achieved through simulations on the communication system capabilities, we propose a simple but effective receiver scheme, and we outline the future research directions.