Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Long‐term follow‐up of parental adjustment following a child's death at home or hospital

The adjustment of parents whose children had died from cancer 6 to 8 years earlier was assessed using structured interviews and standardized inventories. Forty parents had participated in a home hospice program during the terminal phase of their child's illness whereas 22 were parents of children who died in the hospital. Home care parents reported significantly stronger relationships with spouse and remaining children, firmer religious convictions, more adequate coping abilities, and less residual guilt than non‐home care parents. On the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), non‐home care parents exhibited more frequent indications of maladjustment including somatization, depression, and interpersonal problems. The results confirm that the more optimal adjustment of home care parents which was first reported 5 years earlier has been maintained. Support and expansion of pediatric home hospice programs are strongly encouraged in light of the positive results of our longitudinal studies.
Beneficial effects of long-term intravenous iron therapy with ferric carboxymaltose in patients with symptomatic heart failure and iron deficiency†

Aim The aim of this study was to evaluate the benefits and safety of long-term i.v. iron therapy in iron-deficient patients with heart failure (HF). Methods and results CONFIRM-HF was a multi-centre, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial that enrolled 304 ambulatory symptomatic HF patients with left ventricular ejection fraction ≤45%, elevated natriuretic peptides, and iron deficiency (ferritin <100 ng/mL or 100–300 ng/mL if transferrin saturation <20%). Patients were randomized 1 : 1 to treatment with i.v. iron, as ferric carboxymaltose (FCM, n = 152) or placebo (saline, n = 152) for 52 weeks. The primary end-point was the change in 6-min-walk-test (6MWT) distance from baseline to Week 24. Secondary end-points included changes in New York Heart Association (NYHA) class, Patient Global Assessment (PGA), 6MWT distance, health-related quality of life (QoL), Fatigue Score at Weeks 6, 12, 24, 36, and 52 and the effect of FCM on the rate of hospitalization for worsening HF. Treatment with FCM significantly prolonged 6MWT distance at Week 24 (difference FCM vs. placebo: 33 ± 11 m, P = 0.002). The treatment effect of FCM was consistent in all subgroups and was sustained to Week 52 (difference FCM vs. placebo: 36 ± 11 m, P < 0.001). Throughout the study, an improvement in NYHA class, PGA, QoL, and Fatigue Score in patients treated with FCM was detected with statistical significance observed from Week 24 onwards. Treatment with FCM was associated with a significant reduction in the risk of hospitalizations for worsening HF [hazard ratio (95% confidence interval): 0.39 (0.19–0.82), P = 0.009]. The number of deaths (FCM: 12, placebo: 14 deaths) and the incidence of adverse events were comparable between both groups. Conclusion Treatment of symptomatic, iron-deficient HF patients with FCM over a 1-year period resulted in sustainable improvement in functional capacity, symptoms, and QoL and may be associated with risk reduction of hospitalization for worsening HF (ClinicalTrials.gov number NCT01453608).
Learning Compositional Semantics for Open Domain Semantic Parsing

This paper introduces a new approach to learning compositional semantics for open domain semantic parsing. Our approach is called Dependency-based Semantic Composition using Graphs (DeSCoG) and deviates from existing approaches in several ways. First, we remove the need of the lambda calculus by using a graph-based variant of Discourse Representation Structures to represent semantic building blocks and defining new combinatory operations for our graph structures. Second, we propose a probability model to approximate probability distributions over possible semantic compositions. And third, we use a variant of alignment algorithms from machine translation to learn a lexicon. On the Groningen Meaning Bank (a recently released, large-scale, domain-general, semantically annotated corpus; Basile et al. (2012)), where we preprocess sentences with an existing dependency parser, we achieve results significantly better than the baseline. On Geoquery we obtain performance comparable to semantic parsers that were developed specifically for that domain.
Towards Biometric Person Identification using fNIRS

We investigate the potential of using fNIRS signals for biometric person identification. Independent sessions for training and testing have been recorded using 8 channels of frontal fNIRS. We extract logarithmic power spectral densities as features to train and test a Naive Bayes Classifier. We evaluate different frequency bands and report classification results for different trial lengths.
Session independent non-audible speech recognition using surface electromyography

In this paper we introduce a speech recognition system based on myoelectric signals. The system handles audible and non-audible speech. Major challenges in surface electromyography based speech recognition ensue from repositioning electrodes between recording sessions, environmental temperature changes, and skin tissue properties of the speaker. In order to reduce the impact of these factors, we investigate a variety of signal normalization and model adaptation methods. An average word accuracy of 97.3% is achieved using seven EMG channels and the same electrode positions. The performance drops to 76.2% after repositioning the electrodes if no normalization or adaptation is performed. By applying our adaptation methods we manage to restore the recognition rates to 87.1%. Furthermore, we compare audibly to non-audibly spoken speech. The results suggest that large differences exist between the corresponding muscle movements. Still, our recognition system recognizes both speech manners accurately when trained on pooled data
MicroRNA Fingerprints Identify miR-150 as a Plasma Prognostic Marker in Patients with Sepsis

BACKGROUND The physiopathology of sepsis continues to be poorly understood, and despite recent advances in its management, sepsis is still a life-threatening condition with a poor outcome. If new diagnostic markers related to sepsis pathogenesis will be identified, new specific therapies might be developed and mortality reduced. Small regulatory non-coding RNAs, microRNAs (miRNAs), were recently linked to various diseases; the aim of our prospective study was to identify miRNAs that can differentiate patients with early-stage sepsis from healthy controls and to determine if miRNA levels correlate with the severity assessed by the Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS By using genome-wide miRNA profiling by microarray in peripheral blood leukocytes, we found that miR-150, miR-182, miR-342-5p, and miR-486 expression profiles differentiated sepsis patients from healthy controls. We also proved by quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction that miR-150 levels were significantly reduced in plasma samples of sepsis patients and correlated with the level of disease severity measured by the SOFA score, but were independent of the white blood counts (WBC). We found that plasma levels of tumor necrosis factor alpha, interleukin-10, and interleukin-18, all genes with sequence complementarity to miR-150, were negatively correlated with the plasma levels of this miRNA. Furthermore, we identified that the plasma levels ratio for miR-150/interleukin-18 can be used for assessing the severity of the sepsis. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE We propose that miR-150 levels in both leukocytes and plasma correlate with the aggressiveness of sepsis and can be used as a marker of early sepsis. Furthermore, we envision miR-150 restoration as a future therapeutic option in sepsis patients.
Distributed service control technique for detecting security attacks

We propose Distributed Service Control (DSC) technique for securing critical services. One of the main aims of DSC is to deal with the attacks by minimising the attack surface between two hosts. In our model, light weight security policies are enforced at the client machines to ensure that the client can access the services using legitimate traffic only. This will minimise the number of attacks that can be generated by the malicious client machine on the server. We will show that our model can increase the availability of the critical services. Our model can also be used as an early detection technique for the outbreak of worms.
Method for determining oxygen consumption rates of static cultures from microplate measurements of pericellular dissolved oxygen concentration

We describe a simple protocol for determining the oxygen consumption of cells in static culture. The protocol is based on a noninvasive oxygen‐sensing microplate and a simple mathematical model derived from Fick's Law. The applicability of the model is confirmed by showing the correlation of computed oxygen consumption rate (OCR) values to actual cell densities ascertained by direct cell counting and/or MTT for HL60 and U937 cells cultured in suspension. Correlation between computed OCR and these other indications of cell number was quite good, as long as the cultures were not diffusion‐limited for oxygen. The impact of the geometric factors of media depth and well size were confirmed to be consistent with the model. Based on this demonstrated correlation, we also developed a simple, completely noninvasive algorithm for ascertaining the per‐cell oxygen utilization rate (OUR), which is the ratio of OCR to cell number, and a fundamental cell characteristic. This is accomplished by correlating the known seed densities to extrapolated determinations of OCR at time zero. Such determinations were performed for numerous cell types, in varying well sizes. Resulting OUR values are consistent with literature values acquired by far more painstaking methods, and ranged from <0.01 fmol·min−1·cell−1 for bacteria to 0.1–10 fmol·min−1·cell−1 for immortalized mammalian and insect cell lines to >10 fmol·min−1·cell−1 for primary hepatocytes. This protocol for determining OCR and OUR is extremely simple and broadly applicable and can afford rapid, informative, and noninvasive insight into the state of the culture. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Constructing indoor navigation systems from digital building information

Indoor navigation is very useful in reality. An indoor navigation system requires an appropriate indoor model that represents the indoor space entities as well as topology and supports indoor distance computation. Indoor distance computation differs significantly from its outdoor counterpart, due to the indoor space characteristics. On the other hand, information about an indoor space is described in digital building information (DBI) formats like the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC). In such formats, geometric representation of entities is the focus but the topology is only implicit or even incomplete. Thus, constructing indoor navigation systems faces two major technical challenges: 1) indoor distance computation; 2) indoor space model creation from raw DBI. This paper presents a prototype system that addresses these two challenges. The system provides functions to process raw DBI files, employs PostgreSQL with PostGIS to manage the information carefully extracted from those files, and offers indoor navigation service that supports indoor distance computation. The system also presents an app that accesses the indoor navigation service from mobile terminals.
MULTIPLE OBJECTIVE MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES FOR COASTAL AQUIFERS UTILIZING NEW SURROGATE MODELS

Coastal aquifers are hydraulically connected to the sea and therefore susceptible to saltwater intrusion problems. This study proposes the utilization of a new surrogate model within coupled simulation-optimization (S/O) model for the management of coastal aquifers subjected to density-dependent saltwater intrusion processes. The simulation of the transient 3-dimensional density-dependent flow and transport model is based on the solution of an implemented numerical simulation model. Direct coupling of the numerical simulation model into the multi-objective genetic algorithm (MOGA) is computationally expensive. Hence, the solution of the numerical simulation model with random input variables are used to train and test the support vector machine regression (SVMR) surrogate models for approximately simulating the flow and transport processes. The performances of the new surrogate models are evaluated using various performance evaluation criteria. The resulting validated SVMR surrogate models are coupled to the MOGA and implemented for an illustrative coastal aquifer with an aim to develop efficient coastal aquifer management strategies. Based on the objective functions, execution of S/O model presented a set of optimal groundwater withdrawal rates from the simulated aquifer. It also ensured salinity levels at the designated monitoring wells are constrained within specified limits. The efficiency of the new SVMR surrogate models is also demonstrated. Evaluation results suggested that the projected S/O model is an effective way of developing feasible and reliable coastal aquifer management strategies. It also enhances the possibility of solving more realistic large-scale problems and developing regional-scale coastal aquifer management methodologies.
SNAP: predict effect of non-synonymous polymorphisms on function

Many genetic variations are single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Non-synonymous SNPs are ‘neutral’ if the resulting point-mutated protein is not functionally discernible from the wild type and ‘non-neutral’ otherwise. The ability to identify non-neutral substitutions could significantly aid targeting disease causing detrimental mutations, as well as SNPs that increase the fitness of particular phenotypes. Here, we introduced comprehensive data sets to assess the performance of methods that predict SNP effects. Along we introduced SNAP (screening for non-acceptable polymorphisms), a neural network-based method for the prediction of the functional effects of non-synonymous SNPs. SNAP needs only sequence information as input, but benefits from functional and structural annotations, if available. In a cross-validation test on over 80 000 mutants, SNAP identified 80% of the non-neutral substitutions at 77% accuracy and 76% of the neutral substitutions at 80% accuracy. This constituted an important improvement over other methods; the improvement rose to over ten percentage points for mutants for which existing methods disagreed. Possibly even more importantly SNAP introduced a well-calibrated measure for the reliability of each prediction. This measure will allow users to focus on the most accurate predictions and/or the most severe effects. Available at http://www.rostlab. org/services/SNAP
System for the measurement of the deviation of a laser beam from the vertical direction.

If a used "vertical beam" is not perfectly vertical in a measurement, a cosine error will be introduced into it. To decrease and compensate for this cosine error, a measurement system is proposed to measure the deviation of the laser beam from the vertical direction. The structure of our measurement system is illustrated, and a model for solving for the deviation angle is established. As the distance of the beam spots on the charge-coupled device is the essential parameter for the measurement results, the acquisition process for this distance is explained. Moreover, the accuracy of the algorithm used in the acquisition process is also tested by experiments. Further, a self-correction module is designed and applied to reduce the error caused by the corner cube reflector in the system. The characteristics of the measurement system such as the resolution, stability, temperature drift, and direction accuracy are analyzed through experiments. The combined uncertainty of the measurement system is calculated to be 11×10-6 rad.
End-to-end performance characteristics in energy-aware wireless sensor networks

In this paper, we study end-to-end performance characteristics of S-MAC, an energy-aware medium access control (MAC) protocol for wireless sensor networks (WSN). WSNs are composed of battery-driven communication entities. In order to complete a given task, all sensor nodes, which are deployed in an ad-hoc fashion, have to collaborate by exchanging and forwarding measurement data. S-MAC was proposed to provide an energy-efficient MAC protocol for wireless sensor networks. It provides similar features like traditional protocols such as IEEE 802.11. Additionally, new mechanisms were added to allow self-configuration and more energy conservation. The most prominent novel feature is adaptive listening. In this paper, we provide further insight into the behavior of adaptive listening. As opposed to transient experiments on hardware, we study an S-MAC implementation -- adapted from an existing one -- in the network simulator ns-2. We evaluate the steady-state S-MAC performance in multiple simulations, where we apply simulation control techniques. End-to-end performance characteristics, like end-to-end delays and their jitter, are investigated under different load conditions on a multi-hop network. From our results, we conclude that end-to-end behavior in these networks may be very sensitive to load and other conditions and that careful measurements have to be made to ensure a good operating point for WSNs
DURABILITY ASPECTS OF PROBABILISTIC ULTIMATE LIMIT STATE DESIGN

An example calculation is given to demonstrate the various steps in a probabilistic approach of durability aspects of structural reinforced concrete design. The results are translated into a verification procedure based on code type limit state formulations, characteristic values and partial factors. This way the durability aspect is a natural extension of the classical resistance vertification where deterioration effects normally are neglected.
A horse of a different color

Key termsequine; immunophenotype; ISCTmarkersThere has been growing interest in recent years in the use ofmesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) as a potential treatment fora number of important diseases. MSCs were first describedas colony-forming units consisting of fibroblast-like cellsderived from bone marrow (1). Since then they have beenisolated from many different tissues such as adipose, muscle,synovium, dental pulp, tendon, peripheral blood, Wharton’sjelly, and umbilical cord blood (2–4). The biological charac-teristics of MSCs that contribute to their therapeutic activityand the mechanisms of action continue to be studied.Despite many advances in MSC therapy, a specific markerthat defines cultured MSCs and identifies them within theirtissue niche has remained elusive. As a consequence, theInternational Society of Cell Therapy (ISCT) proposed a setof minimal test criteria for human MSCs as a first attempt atstandardization for laboratory and preclinical research. Thesecriteria include plastic adherence, trilineage differentiation toosteoblast, adipocyte, and chondrocyte lineages, and a phe-notype relating to surface marker expression. This latter stip-ulates that MSCs, measured by flow cytometry, must show 95% positivity for CD73, CD90, and CD105 antigens and 2% for CD45, CD34, CD14 or CD11b, CD79a or CD19,and HLA class II (5). These criteria were established only for human MSCresearch. However, the study of MSCs is not limited to humanapplications: many animal models are routinely used in pre-clinical investigation and in veterinary applications. There isan urgent need for a universal marker(s) to define and identifyMSCs from all tissues of origin, which will apply across allspecies.There has been an interest in equine MSC therapy formore than 10 years, especially in the treatment of musculo-skeletal disorders such as tendon or joint disease. In addition,because of similarities in terms of structure and biomechanics,the horse is accepted by the US Food and Drug Administra-tion as an animal model suitable for the investigation of carti-lage and tendon repair therapies for human use. In recentyears, several equine trials have been carried out using MSCsfrom different sources. Most of these reported a positive out-come (6) although the mechanism of action remains unclear.It can be argued that failure to understand the biologicalmechanism of repair hinders development of optimized thera-pies. It can also be argued that the lack of meaningful potencytests will hamper the development of standardized cell prepa-rations. The most important identifying characteristics ofequine MSCs have been plastic adhesion and trilineage poten-tial. The use of cell surface markers has been limited due tothe lack of commercial antibodies that cross-react with equineantigens (7). The paper published in this issue (p. XXX) by Paebstet al. is the first to analyze the complete panel of human MSCmarkers established by the ISCT in equine MSCs derived fromfive different tissue sources (marrow, adipose, tendon, umbili-cal cord tissue, and umbilical cord blood).
Electric Motor Copper Winding Stiffness Calculation Method by FEA Approach

Electric motor is a key component of an electric vehicle. Electric motors consist of 3 primary components - Rotor, stator, and housing - stator / housing are fixed parts and rotor is the rotating part. Electric motors work on the principle of magnetic flux, thereby, making the function of copper winding as a primary efficiency factor in both stator and rotor. The electric motor rotor experiences high centrifugal loading due to high rotational speed, and hence, winding in the rotor are more complex and necessary to be structurally integral. The copper wire winding with a layer of enamel coating is fused with varnish to form a composite like structure around the stack. Ways to predict the winding mechanical behavior which influences the structural integrity of the copper winding shall be studied with an equivalent FEA approach with better correlation to the physical tests.