Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Inward leakage variability between respirator fit test panels – Part II. Probabilistic approach

ABSTRACT This study aimed to quantify the variability between different anthropometric panels in determining the inward leakage (IL) of N95 filtering facepiece respirators (FFRs) and elastomeric half-mask respirators (EHRs). We enrolled 144 experienced and non-experienced users as subjects in this study. Each subject was assigned five randomly selected FFRs and five EHRs, and performed quantitative fit tests to measure IL. Based on the NIOSH bivariate fit test panel, we randomly sampled 10,000 pairs of anthropometric 35 and 25 member panels without replacement from the 144 study subjects. For each pair of the sampled panels, a Chi-Square test was used to test the hypothesis that the passing rates for the two panels were not different. The probability of passing the IL test for each respirator was also determined from the 20,000 panels and by using binomial calculation. We also randomly sampled 500,000 panels with replacement to estimate the coefficient of variation (CV) for inter-panel variability. For both 35 and 25 member panels, the probability that passing rates were not significantly different between two randomly sampled pairs of panels was higher than 95% for all respirators. All efficient (passing rate ≥80%) and inefficient (passing rate ≤60%) respirators yielded consistent results (probability >90%) for two randomly sampled panels. Somewhat efficient respirators (passing rate between 60% and 80%) yielded inconsistent results. The passing probabilities and error rates were found to be significantly different between the simulation and binomial calculation. The CV for the 35-member panel was 16.7%, which was slightly lower than that for the 25-member panel (19.8%). Our results suggested that IL inter-panel variability exists, but is relatively small. The variability may be affected by passing level and passing rate. Facial dimension-based fit test panel stratification was also found to have significant impact on inter-panel variability, i.e., it can reduce alpha and beta errors, and inter-panel variability.
Nano-optical elements fabricated by e-beam and x-ray lithography

In this paper we report results obtained in the design and fabrication of diffractive optical elements (DOEs) with minimum feature size down to tens of nanometers by the use of e-beam and x-ray lithography. The DOEs are patterned using e-beam lithography and replicated by x-ray lithography. Since in our days there is an increased interest for extreme ultraviolet and x-ray microscopy our work has been focused toward the fabrication of DOEs mainly for these applications. Different types of zone plates (ZPs) were fabricated for x-ray beam focusing: high resolution ZPs for high resolution beam focusing, multilevel phase ZPs to increase the diffraction efficiency in the desired order and high aspect ratio ZPs for hard x-rays. Recently we have extended the concept of the ZPs to a more general category of DOEs which beside simple focusing can perform new optical functions in the range of x-rays. In particular, the intensity of the beam after the DOE can be distributed with almost complete freedom. We have designed and fabricated DOEs that focus the beam in an array of spots disposed either in plane or along the optical axis. This type of DOEs has been tested successfully in x-ray differential interference contrast microscopy. The possibility to introduce a specified phase shift between the generated spots is demonstrated in this paper by preliminary results obtained from computer simulations and experiments performed in visible light.
Experiments and Inverse Analysis for Determining Non-Linear Viscoelastic Properties of Polymeric Capsules and Biological Cells.

Experiments and Inverse Analysis for Determining Non-Linear Viscoelastic Properties of Polymeric Capsules and Biological Cells by Nhung T. Nguyen Co-Chairs: Anthony M. Waas and Alan S. Wineman The mechanics of capsules and cells plays an important role in many applications, including designing and efficiency testing for drug delivery purposes, establishing potential biomarkers for disease detection, and providing insight into many cells’ functions and processes. Hence, techniques like indentation, micropipette aspiration, and atomic force microscopy (AFM) based testing have been employed widely to probe their mechanical properties. Interpreting data from these experimental platforms, however, is still a challenging problem. It requires the incorporation of many factors into the model, such as contact mechanics, large deformations, nonlinearity in the material and the geometry, and history-dependent characteristics. This leads to significant computational cost associated with extracting mechanical properties. This thesis aims to address this issue by presenting a methodology to automatically and efficiently characterize non-linear viscoelastic (NLV) properties from time dependent data of polymeric capsules in compression and biological cells in AFM indentation. In addition, this thesis also investigates the possibility of utilizing the extracted NLV parameters for distinguishing cell groups.
Design of a high gain telescopic-cascode operational amplifier based on the ZTC operation condition

In recent years, telescopic cascode operational amplifiers have begun to be preferred due to their lower power consumption and higher bandwidths. In this paper, highperformance CMOS telescopic operational amplifier which has large DC gain and low power dissipation is presented. This telescopic cascode amplifier is based on the MOSFET zero-temperature coefficient (ZTC). In recent years, ZTC has been placed in the designs such as digital-to-analog converters, analog-to-digital converters, operational amplifiers, analog buffers, etc. The presented design is generated by combining two currents with a positive temperature coefficient and one with a negative temperature coefficient, in which an insensitive temperature current reference can be obtained. The operating temperature range from −30°C to 80°C is adjusted to ZTC current generator which provides stable and reliable operation throughout the desired temperature range. By using ZTC current reference as biasing, whole amplifier can be generated. The simple circuit and straightforward design structure make this approach advantageous over others. This circuit is verified by the simulation in Cadence 0.35pm CMOS technology. The power dissipation is kept low in pW for the remote application and low sensitive to temperature. The simulated results show high gain of 82dB and phase margin 82 degrees at a load of 10pF while consuming 35.22pW power. Also, 15ns settling time shows the higher speed of the designed amplifier. This design uses MOSFET and other components such as BJT transistors and resistors.
The effect of ibuprofen on muscle, hematological and renal function, hydric balance, pain, and performance during intense long-distance running.

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of prophylactic use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID, i.e. Ibuprofen) on physical performance, vertical jump, muscle biomarkers, liver, kidney, acute pain and hydration status of participants in the 42 km Trail Running Challenge, a long-distance race integrated over mountain routes. The sample consisted of 20 males randomly divided into two groups: a control group (CG) and an experimental group (EG) with 12 completing the race (41.1±8.8 y; 75.7±12.1 kg) and included in the final analysis. The EG were administered an ibuprofen capsule (400 mg) fifteen minutes before the beginning of the race, and again after 5 hours of racing if the route was not yet complete. There were significant time main effects for creatine kinase (CK) (p=0.001; f Cohen=0.25), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) (p<0.001; f Cohen=2.05), aspartate aminotransferase (AST) (p=0.002; f Cohen=1.53), creatinine (p=0.002; f Cohen=2.24), urea (p=0.001; f Cohen=2.25), heart rate (HR) (p<0.001; f Cohen=4.88) and pain scores (p<0.001; f Cohen=1.93) which all increased during the race. There was a group × time interaction for squat jump (SJ) which significantly decreased in only the CG (p= 0.045; f Cohen=2.17). This may have been related to increased frequency of pain reported after the race in the gastrocnemius of the CG compared to the EG (p<0.05). It was concluded that ibuprofen intake did not reduce muscle damage during the competition but maintained leg muscular power performance (i.e. vertical jump), possibly by reducing gastrocnemius muscle pain.
Quantitative MRI morphology of invasive breast cancer: correlation with immunohistochemical biomarkers and subtypes

Background Breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease with intrinsic molecular subtypes. The different biology and histology of breast cancer exhibit different tumor morphology at breast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). However, few studies have examined the quantitative relationship between the MRI morphological and immunohistochemical features in breast cancer. Purpose To investigate the correlations between tumor roundness, as quantitatively assessed with MRI and biomarkers or subtypes of breast cancer. Material and Methods A total of 280 women (mean age, 51 years; range, 28–79 years) with 282 invasive breast cancers (<5 cm) were included. The associations between the tumor roundness (1–100%), as measured using MRI software, and immunohistochemical (e.g. estrogen receptor [ER], progesterone receptor [PR], human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 [HER2], and Ki67) features were evaluated using Pearson’s or Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients and multiple linear regression analysis. Results An inverse correlation was observed between the ER (r = –0.408, P < 0.001) or PR (r = –0.248, P < 0.001) scores and tumor roundness, whereas a positive correlation was observed between the Ki67 index and tumor roundness (r = 0.354, P < 0.001). In multiple linear regression, the ER score (P < 0.001) and Ki67 index (P = 0.003) were independent factors determining tumor roundness. Triple-negative tumors (ER, PR, and HER2 negative) showed the highest mean roundness scores compared with the other subtypes (e.g. 67.3% for triple-negative, relative to 55.9% for HER2-enriched, 53.8% for luminal B, and 51.7% for luminal A, P < 0.001). Conclusion Our results suggest that breast tumors with lower ER expression and higher cellular proliferation or biologically aggressive triple-negative tumors are likely to manifest with relatively benign morphologic features.
Sum-rate maximization for energy harvesting-aided D2D communications underlaid cellular networks

This paper investigates the beamforming design for sum-rate maximization in energy harvesting (EH)-aided device-to-device (D2D) communications underlaid cellular networks. In the considered system, each receiving cellular or D2D user performs EH while decoding information from the base station (BS) or the paired transmitting D2D user. The objective is to derive optimal beamforming strategies at the BS and power allocations at transmitting D2D users, such that the network sum rate is maximized under EH and transmit power constraints. The original nonconvex problem is convexified by the semidefinite relaxation technique and a reformulation of the objective function with first-order approximation in each algorithm iteration, and solved by an iterative algorithm, based on the concept of the Frank-Wolfe algorithm. Simulation provides numerical validation of the proposed method from various perspectives.
Optimal Audiovisual Integration in the Ventriloquism Effect But Pervasive Deficits in Unisensory Spatial Localization in Amblyopia.

Purpose Classically understood as a deficit in spatial vision, amblyopia is increasingly recognized to also impair audiovisual multisensory processing. Studies to date, however, have not determined whether the audiovisual abnormalities reflect a failure of multisensory integration, or an optimal strategy in the face of unisensory impairment. We use the ventriloquism effect and the maximum-likelihood estimation (MLE) model of optimal integration to investigate integration of audiovisual spatial information in amblyopia. Methods Participants with unilateral amblyopia (n = 14; mean age 28.8 years; 7 anisometropic, 3 strabismic, 4 mixed mechanism) and visually normal controls (n = 16, mean age 29.2 years) localized brief unimodal auditory, unimodal visual, and bimodal (audiovisual) stimuli during binocular viewing using a location discrimination task. A subset of bimodal trials involved the ventriloquism effect, an illusion in which auditory and visual stimuli originating from different locations are perceived as originating from a single location. Localization precision and bias were determined by psychometric curve fitting, and the observed parameters were compared with predictions from the MLE model. Results Spatial localization precision was significantly reduced in the amblyopia group compared with the control group for unimodal visual, unimodal auditory, and bimodal stimuli. Analyses of localization precision and bias for bimodal stimuli showed no significant deviations from the MLE model in either the amblyopia group or the control group. Conclusions Despite pervasive deficits in localization precision for visual, auditory, and audiovisual stimuli, audiovisual integration remains intact and optimal in unilateral amblyopia.
Analysis and experimental investigation of dielectrophoretic force in a planar electrode structure

In this paper, we have analyzed the dielectrophoretic (DEP) force in a planar electrode structure and compared the force with the values from the experiments. The analysis is made by an FEM package program. The motion of yeast cells in the electrode array is analyzed with curve fitting in order to calculate the force from the experiments. The DEP force from the analysis is one order higher than that from the experiments when the cells move afloat by from the bottom.
Recommender systems for citizens: the CitRec'17 workshop manifesto

This manifesto summarises the outcomes of the 1st Workshop on Recommender Systems for Citizens (CitRec'17), held at the 11th ACM Conference on Recommender Systems, in August 2017 in Como, Italy. We discuss challenges and opportunities for the development of recommender systems for citizens, including: the clarification of the role of recommender systems for cities and citizens; in this context, the identification of classes of items to be recommended; the need for targeting and engaging the right population, involving the right stakeholders; and the existence of underlying ethical issues such as fairness and consensus. We further provide an action plan to bring forward the research and application of recommender systems for citizens.
Fuzzy Cognitive Diagnosis for Modelling Examinee Performance

Recent decades have witnessed the rapid growth of educational data mining (EDM), which aims at automatically extracting valuable information from large repositories of data generated by or related to people’s learning activities in educational settings. One of the key EDM tasks is cognitive modelling with examination data, and cognitive modelling tries to profile examinees by discovering their latent knowledge state and cognitive level (e.g. the proficiency of specific skills). However, to the best of our knowledge, the problem of extracting information from both objective and subjective examination problems to achieve more precise and interpretable cognitive analysis remains underexplored. To this end, we propose a fuzzy cognitive diagnosis framework (FuzzyCDF) for examinees’ cognitive modelling with both objective and subjective problems. Specifically, to handle the partially correct responses on subjective problems, we first fuzzify the skill proficiency of examinees. Then we combine fuzzy set theory and educational hypotheses to model the examinees’ mastery on the problems based on their skill proficiency. Finally, we simulate the generation of examination score on each problem by considering slip and guess factors. In this way, the whole diagnosis framework is built. For further comprehensive verification, we apply our FuzzyCDF to three classical cognitive assessment tasks, i.e., predicting examinee performance, slip and guess detection, and cognitive diagnosis visualization. Extensive experiments on three real-world datasets for these assessment tasks prove that FuzzyCDF can reveal the knowledge states and cognitive level of the examinees effectively and interpretatively.
The Design of Questionnaire of Students' Perceived Gender and Role of Humanoid Robots in Education

Humanoid robots were introduced into the education sector as tools, tutors and companions for students to make learning more effective. This research does reliability and validity test for a proposed questionnaire which looks at various perceptions issues such as how students perceive gender and the role that humanoid robots have. Such a valid and reliable questionnaire could help the research team get the whole picture of students' preference, attitude, and level of interaction with humanoid robots for educational purpose. The research could help to determine what and how these issues will affect the acceptance and integration of humanoid robots into the education system.
An Economic Analysis of Photovoltaic Industry

The development of photovoltaic industry can produce great socio-economic implications in terms of induced production and job creation. The world photovoltaic market has been growing and will be strongly influenced by photovoltaic costs and available technologies. The overall cost to implement a facility for module production having a capacity per year that may be regarded as the minimum profitable size for module production in China is considered. An input–output analysis is used for assessing the relative economic impact on production and employment. A sensitivity analysis shows that the results are reasonably robust.
Conducting polymers: Efficient thermoelectric materials

This review highlights the recent progress made in the area of thermoelectric (TE) applications of conducting polymers and related composites. Several examples of such materials and their TE properties are discussed. TE properties of new poly(2,7-carbazole) derivatives are highlighted. References are also made to carbon nanotube/polymer composites and their improved electrical and TE performance. Studies on polymer/inorganic materials composites have also taken a step forward and have shown very promising TE properties. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys, 2011
An improved labeled multi-bernoulli filter for bearings-only multi-target tracking

The Multi-Bernoulli filter propagates the multitarget posterior probability density forward under the precondition that targets are indistinguishable, whereas distinguishing target identities is important in real tracking systems. The recently proposed Labeled Multi-Bernoulli (LMB) filter addresses the target trajectories and track labels that makes it more suitable for practical applications. For tracking targets with bearing-only measurements, the classical nonlinear filters sometimes are not effective. In this paper, we propose an improved LMB filter which replaces the one Gaussian in the likelihood function with a Gaussian mixture. Simulation results show that the proposed method successfully reduces estimation error with tractable computational cost.
Prediagnostic Serum Vitamin D Levels and the Risk of Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis in European Populations: A Nested Case-Control Study.

Background A low vitamin D status has been put forward as a potential risk factor for the development of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). This study investigated the association between prediagnostic circulating vitamin D concentrations and dietary intakes of vitamin D, and the risk of Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC). Methods Among 359,728 participants of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition cohort, individuals who developed CD or UC after enrollment were identified. Each case was matched with2 controls by center, gender, age, date of recruitment, and follow-up time. At cohort entry, blood samples were collected and dietary vitamin D intakes were obtained from validated food frequency questionnaires. Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels were measured using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Conditional logistic regression was performed to determine the odds of CD and UC. Results Seventy-two participants developed CD and 169 participants developed UC after a median follow-up of 4.7 and 4.1 years, respectively. Compared with the lowest quartile, no associations with the 3 higher quartiles of vitamin D concentrations were observed for CD (p trend = 0.34) or UC (p trend = 0.66). Similarly, no associations were detected when serum vitamin D levels were analyzed as a continuous variable. Dietary vitamin D intakes were not associated with CD (p trend = 0.39) or UC (p trend = 0.83). Conclusions Vitamin D status was not associated with the development of CD or UC. This does not suggest a major role for vitamin D deficiency in the etiology of IBD, although larger studies are needed to confirm these findings.
Comparison of Characteristics of Female Drivers with Single and Multiple DUI Convictions

BACKGROUND Women are increasingly involved in drunk driving and fatal crashes, yet except for the screening performed in criminal justice settings, little is known about their life context, psychiatric histories, and family backgrounds. This study describes a sample of women with histories of arrest for driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI) who were interviewed outside a criminal justice setting and contrasts women with single versus multiple DUI convictions. METHODS Women with recent documented histories of DUI participated in a study of women's health behaviors. Thirty-six women with 1 DUI and 62 with 2 or more DUIs participated in a diagnostic telephone interview which assessed demographics, alcohol use and problems, psychiatric problems, treatment, and partner violence. RESULTS The sample overall had high rates of co-occurring psychiatric problems, parental alcohol problems, early sexual and physical abuse, and head injuries. Alcohol use severity and the prevalence of head injuries and partner alcohol problems were significantly higher among women with multiple DUIs than women with a single DUI. Measures reflecting life context, such as marital status, number of children, and childhood trauma, were not associated with number of DUIs. CONCLUSIONS Findings suggest that DUI recidivism in women is accounted for primarily by AUD severity and is not influenced by previous life events such as partner violence, psychiatric problems, and family context such as divorce/separation or number of children. Multiple DUIs in women may mark an alcohol severity threshold beyond which few factors account for additional risk.
Building an English-Vietnamese Bilingual Corpus for Machine Translation

Bilingual corpora are critical resources for machine translation research and development since parallel corpora contain translation equivalences of various granularities. Manual annotation of word alignments is of significance to provide a gold-standard for developing and evaluating both example-based machine translation models and statistical machine translation models. This paper presents research on building an English-Vietnamese parallel corpus, which is constructed for building a Vietnamese-English machine translation system. We describe the specification of collecting data for the corpus, linguistic tagging, bilingual annotation, and the tools specially developed for the manual annotation. An English-Vietnamese bilingual corpus of over 800,000 sentence pairs and 10,000,000 English words as well as Vietnamese words has been collected and aligned at the sentence level, and over 45,000 sentence pairs of this corpus have been aligned at the word level.