Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Early application of an implantable loop recorder allows effective specific therapy in patients with recurrent suspected neurally mediated syncope.

AIMS This prospective multicentre observational study assessed the efficacy of specific therapy based on implantable loop recorder (ILR) diagnostic observations in patients with recurrent suspected neurally mediated syncope (NMS). METHODS AND RESULTS Patients with three or more clinically severe syncopal episodes in the last 2 years without significant electrocardiographic and cardiac abnormalities were included. Orthostatic hypotension and carotid sinus syncope were excluded. After ILR implantation, patients were followed until the first documented syncope (Phase I). The ILR documentation of this episode determined the subsequent therapy and commenced Phase II follow-up. Among 392 patients, the 1-year recurrence rate of syncope during Phase I was 33%. One hundred and three patients had a documented episode and entered Phase II: 53 patients received specific therapy [47 a pacemaker because of asystole of a median 11.5 s duration and six anti-tachyarrhythmia therapy (catheter ablation: four, implantable defibrillator: one, anti-arrhythmic drug: one)] and the remaining 50 patients did not receive specific therapy. The 1-year recurrence rate in 53 patients assigned to a specific therapy was 10% (burden 0.07 +/- 0.2 episodes per patient/year) compared with 41% (burden 0.83 +/- 1.57 episodes per patient/year) in the patients without specific therapy (80% relative risk reduction for patients, P = 0.002, and 92% for burden, P = 0.002). The 1-year recurrence rate in patients with pacemakers was 5% (burden 0.05 +/- 0.15 episodes per patient/year). Severe trauma secondary to syncope relapse occurred in 2% and mild trauma in 4% of the patients. CONCLUSION A strategy based on early diagnostic ILR application, with therapy delayed until documentation of syncope allows a safe, specific, and effective therapy in patients with NMS.
Microsecond-Scale Timing Precision in Rodent Trigeminal Primary Afferents

Communication in the nervous system occurs by spikes: the timing precision with which spikes are fired is a fundamental limit on neural information processing. In sensory systems, spike-timing precision is constrained by first-order neurons. We found that spike-timing precision of trigeminal primary afferents in rats and mice is limited both by stimulus speed and by electrophysiological sampling rate. High-speed video of behaving mice revealed whisker velocities of at least 17,000°/s, so we delivered an ultrafast “ping” (>50,000°/s) to single whiskers and sampled primary afferent activity at 500 kHz. Median spike jitter was 17.4 μs; 29% of neurons had spike jitter < 10 μs. These results indicate that the input stage of the trigeminal pathway has extraordinary spike-timing precision and very high potential information capacity. This timing precision ranks among the highest in biology.
ASTECH project: craft ontology and terminologies to share knowledge in renewable energies area across Europe

Advanced Sustainable Energy Technologies for Cooling and Heating Applications (ASTECH) project is about capitalisation and sharing knowledge across Europe in the domain of renewable energies. Experts, scientists and manufacturers are involved in this project to build a unique and shareable knowledge base about methods, technologies and providers in Europe. The participation of Ontologos corp. in this project is for the construction and the exploitation of this European document base. This project requires a particular focus on the multilingualism issue and that is why we will describe a new conceptual approach based on craft ontology and user-oriented terminologies. We present the OUSIA? method as a new extralinguistic solution for knowledge-sharing issues.
The MsmX ATPase plays a crucial role in pectin mobilization by Bacillus subtilis

Carbohydrates from plant cell walls are often found as heteropolysaccharides intertwined with each other. For competitive advantage against other microorganisms, and ability to fully exploit available carbon and energy sources, Bacillus subtilis possesses a high number of proteins dedicated to the uptake of mono- and oligosaccharides. Here, we characterize transporter complexes, belonging to the ATP-binding cassette (ABC) superfamily, involved in the uptake of oligosaccharides commonly found in pectin. The uptake of these carbohydrates is shown to be MsmX-dependent, assigning a key role in pectin mobilization for MsmX, a multipurpose ATPase serving several distinct ABC-type I sugar importers. Mutagenesis analysis of the transmembrane domains of the AraNPQ MsmX-dependent importer revealed putative residues for MsmX interaction. Interestingly however, although MsmX is shown to be essential for energizing various ABC transporters we found that a second B. subtilis ATPase, YurJ, is able to complement its function when placed in trans at a different locus of the chromosome.
The improvement of auto-scaling mechanism for distributed database - A case study for MongoDB

In recent years, cloud computing is the most popular topic on the IT industry. The underlying virtualization technologies, that make cloud computing possible, also get more and more attention. Gradually, companies move their services to the virtual host. These services include: desktop virtualization, application virtualization and database virtualization etc. Among these services, database virtualization can improve flexibility, maximize efficiency, lower costs and ease administrative overhead. In this paper, we use on-demand features of cloud computing and sharding features of MongoDB to provide an auto-scaling database virtualization solution that satisfy the service-level agreement (SLA) requirements. First, we apply an auto-scaling mechanism of route server in the database system. The experimental results show that the average response time of auto-scaling DB solution and none-scaling DB solution are 4.3 seconds and 7.1 seconds, respectively. Second, in order to minimize the impact when moving data to a new VM, we also design a shard data migration algorithm for the database system. The auto-scaling DB solution uses the algorithm to determine how many VM should be added and which data should be moved to those added VM.
A Scalable Method for Estimating Network Traffic Matrices from Link Counts

Traffic matrices are extremely useful for network configuration, management, engineering, and pricing. Direct measurement is, however, expensive in general and impossible in some cases. This paper proposes a scalable algorithm for statistically estimating a traffic matrix from the readily available link counts. It relies on a divide-andconquer strategy to lower the computational cost without losing estimation accuracy. The proposed algorithm is tested on a real network with 18 nodes. The estimates are comparable to the direct estimates but require dramatically less computation. Keywords—divide-and-conquer, MLE, link counts, scalability, statistical estimation, traffic matrix
Large-Mode-Area All-Solid Photonic Bandgap Fibers for the Mitigation of Optical Nonlinearities

There is still significant need for power scaling of fiber lasers. Large-mode-area fibers are a key for the mitigation of optical nonlinearities. In recent years, mode instability has shown itself to be an additional significant limiting factor for single-mode power scaling in the regime of a few hundred watts to kilowatts. It is better appreciated now that further power scaling requires significant high-order-mode suppression in addition to a large effective mode area in a fiber. In recent years, we have shown that all-solid photonic bandgap fibers are a superior approach due to their unsurpassed higher-order-mode suppression in large-mode-area designs, making them well suited for applications at high average powers. We will review of some of the recent progress, challenges, and prospects of all-solid photonic bandgap fibers in this invited paper.
Resilience in the face of sexual minority stress: “Choices” between authenticity and self-determination

ABSTRACT This qualitative study explored the experience of sexual minority stressors and corresponding resilience. Using a grounded theory approach, the core category identified in the analysis was minority stress results from systemic factors that cause lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) people to face competition between their desires for authenticity and self-determination. These findings shed light upon the insidious nature of minority stress, especially within U.S. contexts that lack protective legislation, and the adaptive strategies people use to mitigate their effects. By positioning resilience as a choice between authenticity and self-determination, resilience is understood to lessen but not resolve the deleterious impact of sexual minority stress.
Causes of Ischemic Stroke in Patients with Non-Valvular Atrial Fibrillation

Background: Oral anticoagulants (OACs) reduce the incidence of embolic events associated with non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF); however, ischemic stroke can still occur in such patients. Although there are various causes of ischemic stroke in patients with NVAF, their medication status at onset has scarcely been studied. This retrospective study aimed to determine the underlying causes of ischemic stroke in patients with NVAF in relation to pre-stroke anticoagulation. Methods: Among Japanese patients with acute ischemic stroke enrolled in the Fukuoka Stroke Registry from June 2007 to May 2013, 1,302 patients with NVAF who had been hospitalized within 24 h of onset were included in this study, and their backgrounds, pre-stroke use of OACs and prothrombin time-international normalized ratio (PT-INR) on admission were investigated. Strokes were regarded as being non-cardioembolic (CE) type when causes other than NVAF had been identified. The sub-therapeutic range (TR) for warfarin was defined according to Japanese guidelines for pharmacotherapy of atrial fibrillation. Results: Atrial fibrillation had been diagnosed prior to onset of stroke in 704 of 1,302 patients (54%). However, it had not been detected before or on admission, but identified later during hospitalization in 270 patients (21%). Of the patients who had atrial fibrillation on admission but had not been diagnosed as having it, 108 (8%) had not received any medication before onset of stroke and 220 (17%) had received medications other than OACs. OACs had been administered to 415 (59%) of the patients with known atrial fibrillation. The proportion of pre-stroke CHADS2 or CHA2DS2-VASc scores ≥1 ranged from 93 to 99% depending on whether atrial fibrillation had been diagnosed or anticoagulation therapy administered before stroke onset. The PT-INR was in the sub-TR on admission in 283 of 399 patients (71%) receiving warfarin. Male sex, smoking and previous stroke were more prevalent in patients with values within or over the TR of PT-INR than in those in the sub-TR. Non-CE stroke was more prevalent in patients with values above the lower therapeutic limit of the recommended PT-INR than in those in the sub-TR (p < 0.001). The number of CE strokes was much smaller in patients with high admission PT-INR values; this was not observed for non-CE ischemic strokes (p < 0.001). Conclusions: In the clinical setting, under-diagnosis, underuse and sub-therapeutic doses of OACs are major causes of ischemic stroke in patients with NVAF. However, non-CE ischemic strokes may develop in patients receiving therapeutic doses of warfarin.
Orchestrated session compliance

We investigate the notion of orchestrated compliance for client/server interactions in the context of session contracts. Devising the notion of orchestrator in such a context makes it possible to have orchestrators with unbounded buffering capabilities and at the same time to guarantee any message from the client to be eventually delivered by the orchestrator to the server, while preventing the server from sending messages which are kept indefinitely inside the orchestrator. The compliance relation is shown to be decidable by means of 1) a procedure synthesising the orchestrators, if any, making a client compliant with a server, and 2) a procedure for deciding whether an orchestrator behaves in a proper way as mentioned before.
MESA: A Map Service to Support Fuzzy Type-ahead Search over Geo-Textual Data

Geo-textual data are ubiquitous these days. Recent study on spatial keyword search focused on the processing of queries which retrieve objects that match certain keywords within a spatial region. To ensure e ective data retrieval, vari- ous extensions were done including the tolerance of errors in keyword matching and the search-as-you-type feature us- ing pre x matching. We present MESA, a map application to support di erent variants of spatial keyword query. In this demonstration, we adopt the autocompletion paradigm that generates the initial query as a pre x matching query. If there are few matching results, other variants are per- formed as a form of relaxation that reuses the processing done in earlier phases. The types of relaxation allowed in- clude spatial region expansion and exact/approximate pre- x/substring matching. MESA adopts the client-server ar- chitecture. It provides fuzzy type-ahead search over geo- textual data. The core of MESA is to adopt a unifying search strategy, which incrementally applies the relaxation in an appropriate order to maximize the eciency of query processing. In addition, MESA equips a user-friendly inter- face to interact with users and visualize results. MESA also provides customized search to meet the needs of di erent users.
Are influences during pregnancy associated with wheezing phenotypes during the first decade of life?

Aim: Recently, attention has focused on possible early life origins for asthma. We sought to identify whether factors present during pregnancy were associated with development of childhood wheezing phenotypes. Methods: A whole population birth cohort (n=1456) on the Isle of Wight, UK, was followed through to age 10 y. Where possible, information regarding environmental exposures and events during pregnancy was obtained from the maternity records (n=1238). Children were seen at ages 1, 2, 4 and 10 y, and wheezing symptoms were used to define wheezing phenotypes in the first decade (n=1034). Results: Risk of early‐onsetpersistent wheeze (onset in the first 4 y, still present at age 10) was increased by environmental tobacco smoke exposure in pregnancy (OR=2.44; 95% CI: 1.37–4.34) plus maternal asthma (3.57; 1.84–6.94), but reduced by cat ownership (0.30; 0.13–0.62). Early transient wheeze (onset in the first 4 y, but not present at age 10) was increased by environmental tobacco smoke exposure (1.58; 1.02–2.45), male gender (1.68; 1.09–2.60) and low birthweight (3.65; 1.27–10.52). No environmental factors in pregnancy were associated with late‐onset persistent wheeze (onset after age 4 y, still present at 10 y).
Rapid loss of lakes on the Mongolian Plateau

Significance The Mongolian Plateau, composed mainly of Inner Mongolia in China and the Republic of Mongolia, has been experiencing remarkable lake shrinkage during the recent decades because of intensive human activities and climate changes. This study provides a comprehensive satellite-based evaluation of lake shrinkage across the plateau, and finds a greater decreasing rate of the number of lakes in Inner Mongolia than in Mongolia (34.0% vs. 17.6%) between the late 1980s and 2010, due mainly to an unsustainable mining boom and agricultural irrigation in the former. Disastrous damages to the natural systems are threatening the livelihood of local people, and we thus call for an urgent action to prevent further deterioration. Lakes are widely distributed on the Mongolian Plateau and, as critical water sources, have sustained Mongolian pastures for hundreds of years. However, the plateau has experienced significant lake shrinkage and grassland degradation during the past several decades. To quantify the changes in all of the lakes on the plateau and the associated driving factors, we performed a satellite-based survey using multitemporal Landsat images from the 1970s to 2000s, combined with ground-based censuses. Our results document a rapid loss of lakes on the plateau in the past decades: the number of lakes with a water surface area >1 km2 decreased from 785 in the late 1980s to 577 in 2010, with a greater rate of decrease (34.0%) in Inner Mongolia of China than in Mongolia (17.6%). This decrease has been particularly pronounced since the late 1990s in Inner Mongolia and the number of lakes >10 km2 has declined by 30.0%. The statistical analyses suggested that in Mongolia precipitation was the dominant driver for the lake changes, and in Inner Mongolia coal mining was most important in its grassland area and irrigation was the leading factor in its cultivated area. The deterioration of lakes is expected to continue in the following decades not only because of changing climate but also increasing exploitation of underground mineral and groundwater resources on the plateau. To protect grasslands and the indigenous nomads, effective action is urgently required to save these valuable lakes from further deterioration.
EDFA adaptive gain control effect analysis over an amplifier cascade in a DWDM optical system

In this paper, we analyze the EDFA adaptive gain control impact on 80 modulated C-band channels (10 Gbps NRZ) in a DWDM optical system composed of four cascaded amplifiers. System performance was evaluated in terms of channels optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR), noise figure (NF), bit error rate (BER), and gain flatness (GF) measurements. The adaptive EDFA scheme aims to optimize NF and GF spectra by adjusting its setpoint gain based on static information about these parameters and was improved here to prioritize NF when BER of the received signal remains under the FEC limit.
Mobile Contextual Advertising

3! 1! Introduction . 3! 1.1! Mobile Marketing.3! 1.2! Recommender systems.4! 1.3! Research Question.4! 2! Mobile Advertising . 5! 2.1! Mobile Marketing.5! 2.2! Spam.6! 2.3! Personalisation.6! 2.4! SMS Marketing . 7! 3! Machine Learning . 8! 3.1! Intelligent Machines . 8! 3.2! Knowledge Based or Machine Learning? 9! 3.3! Matching Advertisements with their Context . 10! 3.4! Machine-learning-based Recommendation . 10! 4! Experimental setup . 11! 4.1.1! iThumb.11! 4.2! Pilot experiment . 12! 4.3! Main experiment . 12! 4.4! Data collection . 13! 4.5! Statistics . 14! 4.6! Measures.14! 4.6. 1! Precision and Recall . 14! 4.6. 2! ROC Curve . 15! 4.7! Machine learning algorithms . 16! 4.7. 1! Rule Induction . 16! 4.7. 2! Decision Tree . 17! 4.7. 3! K-nearest neighbor algorithm . 17! 4.7. 4! Support Vector Machines.17! 4.8! Feature Selection . 18! 4.9! Data coding . 18! 5! Results.18!
On the understanding of programs with continuous code reviews

Code reviews are a very effective, but effortful quality assurance technique. A major problem is to read and understand source-code that was produced by someone else. With different programming styles and complex interactions, understanding the code under review is the most expensive sub-task of a code review. As with many other modern software engineering practices, code reviews may be applied as a continuous process to reduce the effort and support the concept of collective ownership. This study evaluates the effect of a continuous code review process on the understandability and collective ownership of the code base. A group of 8 subjects performed a total of 114 code reviews within 18 months in an industrial context and conducted an expert evaluation according to this research question. This study concludes that there is a clear positive effect on the understandability and collective ownership of the code base with continuous code reviews, but also limiting factors and drawbacks for complex review tasks.
Co-performer empathy in expert ensemble playing

This thesis, comprising four empirical studies, investigates the process of co-performer empathy in expert ensemble playing. Following an extensive review of the existing literature relating to both optimal experiences of performance and empathy, it begins by probing the relationship between ensemble musicians’ optimal experiences of performance and their experiences of co-performer empathy through a series of focus group interviews. In addition to co-performer empathy, spontaneous interpretative flexibility (SIF) in performance is identified to be a central feature of optimal experiences of expert ensemble performance. Through observational case studies, involving video-recall, acoustic analyses, and heart-rate measures, a model of process of co-performer empathy and the related process of SIF is constructed. The final model shows co-performer empathy to be a cyclical process grounded in a pre-requisite shared approach, both to the music and to working together. It is often characterised by a special connection between players. It involves the identification of a co-performer’s expressive intention, followed by an appropriate expressive response. Co-performer empathy appears to be a context-specific form of musical empathy that emerges as a group process during ensemble playing, and does not seem to be directly related to trait empathy. Finally, from the findings of these empirical studies, potential techniques for strengthening co-performer empathy and the production of SIF in ensemble playing are proposed.
Biomimetic sensor for certain phenols employing a copper(II) complex.

A new dimeric Cu(II) complex [Cu(mu(2)-hep)(hep-H)](2). 2PF(6) (1) containing a bidentate (hep-H = 2-(2-hydroxyethyl)pyridine) ligand was synthesized and characterized by single crystal X-ray diffraction studies. Each Cu ion in 1 is in a distorted square pyramidal geometry. Further 1 is used as a modifier in the construction of a biomimetic sensor for determining phenols [phenol (Phe), resorcinol (Res), hydroquinone (HQ), and catechol (Cat)] in phosphate buffer by using cyclic voltammetry (CV), chronocoulometry, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), differential pulse voltammetry (DPV), and square wave voltammetry (SWV). DPV has been proposed for trace determination of Phe and Res while SWV for HQ and Cat. The method has been applied for the selective and precise analysis of Phe in commercial injections, Res in hair coloring agents, HQ in photographic developers and cosmetics, and Cat in tea samples and guarana tablets. The calibration curves showed a linear response ranging between 10(-6) and 10(-8) M for all four of the analytes with detection limits (3sigma) of 1.04 x 10(-8), 2.31 x 10(-8), 1.54 x 10(-8), and 0.86 x 10(-8) M for Phe, Res, HQ, and Cat, respectively. The lifetime of the biomimetic sensor was 200 days at room temperature (at least 750 determinations). The catalytic properties of 1-CPE were characterized by chronoamperometry and were found to be in good agreement with Michaelis-Menten kinetics.