Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Modular Development of Master-Slave Asymmetric Teleoperation Systems With a Novel Workspace Mapping Algorithm

This paper proposes a modular teleoperation software platform based on the robot operating system (ROS), which is flexible and portable for different master and slave devices. The main issues for the modularity are to develop its control modules in MATLAB/Simulink and access ROS by the robotics system toolbox, which will facilitate the design, analysis, and adjustment of the control algorithm in teleoperation systems greatly. In addition, a case study for this kind of modular teleoperation system is carried out, which is composed of a Geomagic Touch as the master device and a robotic arm of the Rethink Baxter robot as the slave device. Due to the asymmetric structure property between the master and slave devices, the proper workspace mapping which can cover the whole workspace of the slave robot and simultaneously achieve an excellent mapping accuracy becomes a challenging issue. Different from the traditional methods, a hybrid workspace mapping algorithm is proposed, which uses the joint space mapping to cover the whole workspace of the slave device and the operating space mapping to conduct the elaborate manipulation. A smoothing switch law between the joint space mapping and the operating space mapping is also designed. Comparative experiments are carried out, and the results verify the effectiveness and excellent performance of the proposed design methodology.
Analysis of utilization patterns and associated costs of the breast imaging and diagnostic procedures after screening mammography

Background Little data exist on real-world patterns and associated costs of downstream breast diagnostic procedures following an abnormal screening mammography or clinical exam. Objectives To analyze the utilization patterns in real-world clinical settings for breast imaging and diagnostic procedures, including the frequency and volume of patients and procedures, procedure sequencing, and associated health care expenditures. Materials and methods Using medical claims from 2011 to 2015 MarketScan Commercial and Medicare Databases, adult females with breast imaging/diagnostic procedures (diagnostic mammography, ultrasound, molecular breast imaging, tomosynthesis, magnetic resonance imaging, or biopsy) other than screening mammography were selected. Continuous health plan coverage without breast diagnostic procedures was required for ≥13 months before the first found breast diagnostic procedure (index event), with a 13-month post-index follow-up period. Key outcomes included diagnostic procedure volumes, sequences, and payments. Results reported descriptively were projected to provide US national patient and procedure volumes. Results The final sample of 875,526 patients was nationally projected to 12,394,432 patients annually receiving 8,732,909 diagnostic mammograms (53.3% of patients), 6,987,399 breast ultrasounds (42.4% of patients), and 1,585,856 biopsies (10.3% of patients). Following initial diagnostic procedures, 49.4% had second procedures, 20.1% followed with third procedures, and 10.0% had a fourth procedure. Mean (SD) costs for diagnostic mammograms of US$349 ($493), ultrasounds US$132 ($134), and biopsies US$1,938 ($2,343) contributed US$3.05 billion, US$0.92 billion, and US$3.07 billion, respectively, to annual diagnostic breast expenditures estimated at US$7.91 billion. Conclusion The volume and expense of additional breast diagnostic testing, estimated at US$7.91 billion annually, underscores the need for technological improvements in the breast diagnostic landscape.
Acute pulmonary embolism: mortality prediction by the 2014 European Society of Cardiology risk stratification model

The European Society of Cardiology (ESC) has proposed an updated risk stratification model for death in patients with acute pulmonary embolism based on clinical scores (Pulmonary Embolism Severity Index (PESI) or simplified PESI (sPESI)), right ventricle dysfunction (RVD) and elevated serum troponin (2014 ESC model). We assessed the ability of the 2014 ESC model to predict 30-day death after acute pulmonary embolism. Consecutive patients with symptomatic, confirmed pulmonary embolism included in prospective cohorts were merged in a collaborative database. Patients’ risk was classified as high (shock or hypotension), intermediate-high (RVD and elevated troponin), intermediate-low (RVD or increased troponin or none) and low (sPESI 0). Study outcomes were death and pulmonary embolism-related death at 30 days. Among 906 patients (mean±sd age 68±16, 489 females), death and pulmonary embolism-related death occurred in 7.2% and 4.1%, respectively. Death rate was 22% in “high-risk” (95% CI 14.0–29.8), 7.7% in “intermediate-high-risk” (95% CI 4.5–10.9) and 6.0% in “intermediate-low-risk” patients (95% CI 3.4–8.6). One of the 196 “low-risk” patients died (0.5%, 95% CI 0–1.0; negative predictive value 99.5%). By using the 2014 ESC model, RVD or troponin tests would be avoided in about 20% of patients (sPESI 0), preserving a high negative predictive value. Risk stratification in patients at intermediate risk requires further improvement. 2014 ESC model in PE accurately identifies low-risk patients; further improvement for intermediate risk is needed http://ow.ly/10b3Qg
Improvement of Oxygen-Uptake Kinetics and Cycling Performance With Combined Prior Exercise and Fast Start.

PURPOSE To investigate whether oxygen-uptake ([Formula: see text]) kinetics and simulated 4-km cycling performance are synergistically improved by prior "priming" exercise and an all-out starting strategy. METHODS Nine men completed 4 target work trials (114 ± 17 kJ) to assess [Formula: see text] kinetics and cycling performance in a repeated-measures, crossover experimental design. Trials were initiated with either a 12-s all-out start or a self-selected start and preceded by prior severe-intensity (70%Δ) priming exercise or no priming exercise. RESULTS The [Formula: see text] mean response time (MRT) was lower (indicative of faster [Formula: see text] kinetics) in the all-out primed condition (20 ± 6 s) than in the all-out unprimed (23 ± 6 s), self-paced-unprimed (42 ± 13 s), and self-paced-primed (42 ± 11 s) trials (P < .05), with the [Formula: see text] MRT also lower in the all-out unprimed than the self-paced unprimed and self-paced primed trials (P < .05). Trial-completion time was shorter (performance was enhanced) in the all-out primed trial (402 ± 14 s) than in the all-out unprimed (408 ± 14 s), self-paced unprimed (411 ± 16 s), and self-paced primed (411 ± 19 s) trials (P < .05), with no differences between the latter 3 trials. CONCLUSIONS The findings from this study suggest that combining severe-intensity priming exercise with a short-duration all-out starting strategy can expedite the adjustment of [Formula: see text] and lower completion time during a cycling performance trial to a greater extent than either intervention administered independently. These results might have implications for optimizing performance in short-duration high-intensity competitive events such as a 4-km cycling time trial.
1st German Phage Symposium—Conference Report

In Germany, phage research and application can be traced back to the beginning of the 20th century. However, with the triumphal march of antibiotics around the world, the significance of bacteriophages faded in most countries, and respective research mainly focused on fundamental questions and niche applications. After a century, we pay tribute to the overuse of antibiotics that led to multidrug resistance and calls for new strategies to combat pathogenic microbes. Against this background, bacteriophages came into the spotlight of researchers and practitioners again resulting in a fast growing “phage community”. In October 2017, part of this community met at the 1st German Phage Symposium to share their knowledge and experiences. The participants discussed open questions and challenges related to phage therapy and the application of phages in general. This report summarizes the presentations given, highlights the main points of the round table discussion and concludes with an outlook for the different aspects of phage application.
Tropospheric ozonesonde profiles at long‐term U.S. monitoring sites: 1. A climatology based on self‐organizing maps

Sonde‐based climatologies of tropospheric ozone (O3) are vital for developing satellite retrieval algorithms and evaluating chemical transport model output. Typical O3 climatologies average measurements by latitude or region, and season. A recent analysis using self‐organizing maps (SOM) to cluster ozonesondes from two tropical sites found that clusters of O3 mixing ratio profiles are an excellent way to capture O3 variability and link meteorological influences to O3 profiles. Clusters correspond to distinct meteorological conditions, e.g., convection, subsidence, cloud cover, and transported pollution. Here the SOM technique is extended to four long‐term U.S. sites (Boulder, CO; Huntsville, AL; Trinidad Head, CA; and Wallops Island, VA) with 4530 total profiles. Sensitivity tests on k‐means algorithm and SOM justify use of 3 × 3 SOM (nine clusters). At each site, SOM clusters together O3 profiles with similar tropopause height, 500 hPa height/temperature, and amount of tropospheric and total column O3. Cluster means are compared to monthly O3 climatologies. For all four sites, near‐tropopause O3 is double (over +100 parts per billion by volume; ppbv) the monthly climatological O3 mixing ratio in three clusters that contain 13–16% of profiles, mostly in winter and spring. Large midtropospheric deviations from monthly means (−6 ppbv, +7–10 ppbv O3 at 6 km) are found in two of the most populated clusters (combined 36–39% of profiles). These two clusters contain distinctly polluted (summer) and clean O3 (fall‐winter, high tropopause) profiles, respectively. As for tropical profiles previously analyzed with SOM, O3 averages are often poor representations of U.S. O3 profile statistics.
Characterising Risk Factors and Countermeasures for Risk Evaluation of Bring Your Own Device Strategy

Allowing employees to use their personal devices to perform official and private tasks through computing strategy known as bring your own device (BYOD) portends numerous benefits and security risks. The risks could propagate to enterprise information systems through some risk factors. Realistically, organisations anticipated the risks by implementing arrays of countermeasures. However, the characteristics that defined the relationships between the risk factors and the technical security controls are yet to be established. In order to evolve the features, this study conducted content analysis on some literatures which were selected through criteria developed for the research. Thereafter, the exploration revealed five characteristics that cut across risk factors, technical controls and the relationships between the former and the latter. Precisely, the derived characteristics are crucial toward achieving realistic risk evaluation process in BYOD strategy. Furthermore, the study opened more research directions as the risks circumscribing the strategy continue to emerge as global security challenge to vital information assets.
Growth of Lead and Aluminum Substituted Barium Hexaferrite Single Crystals from Lead Oxide Flux

Lead and aluminum substituted barium hexaferrite (Ba,Pb)Fe12–хAlхO19 single crystals were grown from lead oxide flux at 1260 °C as hexagonal plates with sizes of about 2 mm. A maximum substitution level of x = 4.82 was achieved for the first time for bulk single crystals. The variation of the unit cell parameters with Al content is in good agreement with literature data on exclusively Al substituted barium hexaferrite, while the substitution of Ba by Pb has hardly any influence. Similarly, Pb has only a negligible influence on the magnetic properties, while Al substitution significantly reduces the saturation magnetization in a very similar manner as known from Pb-free barium hexaferrite.
Associations of Smoking, Moderate Alcohol Use, and Function: A 20-Year Cohort Study of Older Women

Objective: The objective of this study is to determine whether the health effects of smoking and moderate alcohol use persist with aging. Method: Smoking status, alcohol use, and measures of function and health were obtained from 9,704 women aged ≥65 years at baseline and over 10- and 20-year follow-up periods. Adjusted multiple linear and logistic regression and Cox proportional hazard models estimated associations. Results: Current versus never smokers had worse walking speed, self-reported health, difficulty with instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs), and depression at 10 years and higher death rates at 10 and 20 years. Moderate versus never drinkers had better grip strength, walking speed, self-reported health, and less difficulty with IADLs and were less likely to live in nursing homes at 10 years and die at 10 and 20 years. Discussion: Among aging women over 20 years, smoking is associated with worse physical function, including death, while moderate alcohol use is associated with better outcomes.
The Impact of using 3D Interactive Animation Tool in Teaching Computer Programming at the Senior High School Level

A quasi experiment with interview was adopted to study the aptness of using 3D animations as an instructional method to introduce programming concepts to students at the Senior High School level. This research work was conducted with 100 students of Akroso Senior High School in the Birim central municipality of the eastern region of Ghana who were generally programming novice. Programming concepts considered included programming environments, loops, functions sequential and conditional execution of programs. A paired t-test carried out on the results of the performance test presents a p-value of 0.008 indicative of a numerically significant difference between the mean marks of participants during the experiments that used 3D animation method as against the experiments that used the text base method. Results from the interview showed that the instructional method used had impact on the performance of the learners. The use of 3D animation method presented programming concepts in a form that the learners can understand, motivates them to pursue programming related courses at a higher level and also impacts positively on their performance.
Spontaneous peer conversation in preschoolers with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder versus typical development.

BACKGROUND In typical development, early peer talk is crucial for pragmatic development. The pragmatic deficit, reflected in remarkably deficient conversational capabilities, is considered the hallmark of the language deficit in autism spectrum disorder (ASD); yet, spontaneous peer talk in preschoolers with ASD was rarely explored. METHOD We conducted comparative assessment of spontaneous peer talk during 10-min free-play scenarios in preschoolers with high-functioning ASD (HFASD; n = 27) versus those with typical development (n = 30). Groups were matched on SES, verbal/nonverbal MA, IQ, and CA. Correlations with CA, IQ, VMA, and NVMA were examined. We compared the two groups' interactions with a friend-partner versus a nonfriend partner; in addition, in the HFASD group, we examined interactions with a typical partner (mixed dyads) versus a partner with HFASD (nonmixed dyads). Children's conversations were videotaped and coded to tap pragmatic capabilities and conversational quality. RESULTS Findings revealed group differences in pragmatic abilities and conversational quality, with the typical group showing more intact capacities than the HFASD group. However, in the HFASD group, interactions with friends surpassed interactions with nonfriends on several key pragmatic capabilities and on all conversational quality measures (meshing, assertiveness, and responsiveness), thus suggesting that friendship may enable children to converse in a more socially complex and coregulated way. Also, children with higher cognitive capabilities, especially in the HFASD group, demonstrated more intact pragmatic capacities. CONCLUSION Despite the robust pragmatic deficit in HFASD, reflected in conversational capabilities, involvement in friendship relationships and high cognitive capabilities were linked to more intact pragmatic capacities. Theoretical and therapeutic implications are discussed.
The Transcription Factor AP4 Promotes Oncogenic Phenotypes and Cisplatin Resistance by Regulating LAPTM4B Expression

Lysosomal-associated protein transmembrane-4 beta (LAPTM4B) is a novel oncogene, whose overexpression is involved in cancer occurrence and progression. However, the mechanism of LAPTM4B transcriptional regulation remains unclear. In this study, the results of transcription factor (TF) profiling plate arrays indicated that AP4 was a potential transcription factor regulating LAPTM4B expression. LAPTM4B was positively correlated with AP4 and they were both associated with poor overall and disease-free survival. Luciferase and electrophoretic mobility shift assay assays confirmed that AP4 directly bound to the polymorphism region of LAPTM4B promoter and modulated its transcription. Functionally, AP4 promoted cell proliferation, migration, invasion, and assisted drug resistance in part through upregulation of LAPTM4B. Taken together, these findings identify LAPTM4B as a direct AP4 target gene and the interaction of AP4 and LAPTM4B plays an important role in breast cancer progression. Implications: This study demonstrates that AP4 promotes cell growth, migration, invasion, and cisplatin resistance through upregulation of LAPTM4B expression, thus representing an attractive therapeutic target for breast cancer. Mol Cancer Res; 16(5); 857–68. ©2018 AACR.
Early Clinically Relevant Improvement in Quality of Life and Clinical Outcomes 1 Year Postsurgery in Patients with Knee and Hip Joint Arthroplasties

Objective To measure and identify the determinants of the outcomes after hip/knee arthroplasty (HA/KA) in patients with osteoarthritis during the first postsurgical year. Design In this prospective observational study, we evaluated the preoperative and postoperative (3, 6, and 12 months) outcomes of 626 patients who underwent HA (346 with median age 65 years, 59% female) or KA (280 with median age 66.5 years, 54% female) between 2008 and 2013. Generic and specific tools were used to measure health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and utility. Good outcome was defined as an improvement in WOMAC (Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index) greater than or equal to the minimal important difference (MID). Regressions were performed to evaluate the relationship between preoperative and postoperative measures and evolution of WOMAC/good outcome. Results We observed an almost systematic improvement of all parameters for up to 12 months, but especially at the 3-month follow-up. The low number of comorbidities and the absence of postoperative complications were the common determinants of improvement of WOMAC total score after 12 months. Other parameters (background of the joint, preoperative function and length of hospital stay in KA group; place of discharge in HA group) affected the evolution of WOMAC scores. 87.09% of HA and 73.06% of KA patients experienced a good outcome. A small number of comorbidities, a worse preoperative function, a shortened hospital stay (KA only), and an absence of early postoperative complications (HA only) significantly predicted a good outcome. Conclusions Intermediate HRQoL following HA or KA improved quickly from preoperative levels for all instruments. More than 70% of patients achieved a good outcome defined as improved pain, stiffness and disability and the predictors are slightly close.
Executable Operational Semantics of Solidity

Bitcoin has attracted everyone's attention and interest recently. Ethereum (ETH), a second generation cryptocurrency, extends Bitcoin's design by offering a Turing-complete programming language called Solidity to develop smart contracts. Smart contracts allow creditable execution of contracts on EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) without third parties. Developing correct smart contracts is challenging due to its decentralized computation nature. Buggy smart contracts may lead to huge financial loss. Furthermore, smart contracts are very hard, if not impossible, to patch once they are deployed. Thus, there is a recent surge of interest on analyzing/verifying smart contracts. While existing work focuses on EVM opcode, we argue that it is equally important to understand and define the semantics of Solidity since programmers program and reason about smart contracts at the level of source code. In this work, we develop the structural operational semantics for Solidity, which allows us to identify multiple design issues which underlines many problematic smart contracts. Furthermore, our semantics is executable in the K framework, which allows us to verify/falsify contracts automatically.
20-Year Nationwide Follow-Up Study on Discontinuation of Antipsychotic Treatment in First-Episode Schizophrenia.

OBJECTIVE It is generally believed that after the first episode of schizophrenia, the risk of relapse decreases with time in patients who are stabilized. Many treatment guidelines recommend that after stabilization, antipsychotic treatment should be continued for 1-5 years, and longer exposure should be avoided if possible. However, there is no published evidence to substantiate this view. The authors used nationwide databases to investigate this issue. METHOD Prospectively gathered nationwide register data were used to study the risk of treatment failure (psychiatric rehospitalization or death) after discontinuation of antipsychotic treatment. Multivariate Cox regression was used to assess outcomes among all patients hospitalized for the first time with a schizophrenia diagnosis in Finland during the period of 1996-2014 (N=8,719). RESULTS The lowest risk of rehospitalization or death was observed for patients who received antipsychotic treatment continuously (adjusted hazard ratio=1.00), followed by patients who discontinued antipsychotic use immediately after discharge from the first hospital treatment (hazard ratio=1.63, 95% CI=1.52-1.75), within 1 year (hazard ratio=1.88, 95% CI=1.57-2.24), within 1-2 years (hazard ratio=2.12, 95% CI=1.43-3.14), within 2-5 years (hazard ratio=3.26, 95% CI=2.07-5.13), and after 5 years (a median of 7.9 years) (hazard ratio=7.28, 95% CI=2.78-19.05). Risk of death was 174%-214% higher among nonusers and patients with early discontinuation of antipsychotics compared with patients who received antipsychotic treatment continuously for up to 16.4 years. CONCLUSIONS Whatever the underlying mechanisms, these results provide evidence that, contrary to general belief, the risk of treatment failure or relapse after discontinuation of antipsychotic use does not decrease as a function of time during the first 8 years of illness, and that long-term antipsychotic treatment is associated with increased survival.