Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Games as a rehabilitation perspective of stroke patients

Among the diseases that cause disability, is stroke. The stroke patient needs physiotherapy for functional reinstatement. The games can be used as resources to boost rehabilitation and motivate more patients with stroke. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether a rehabilitation program associated with the intervention with games improves recovery of stroke patients. The research consisted of a case study, in which two patients underwent a standard physical therapy program (control group) and two, physical therapy and training with games (intervention group). Both groups performed 32 sessions, lasting one hour each session. Patients were assessed by Fugl Meyer scale of the arm, Box and Block Test and Functional Independence Measure. Regarding the scale Fugl Meyer, the games group achieved superior results, as the motor function in the control group, but there were no significant differences between them. The same happened to the parameters of the MIF test and Box and Block, comparing the pre- and postintervention. In this study, the use of games proved to be such a beneficial strategy as conventional therapy in the rehabilitation of stroke patients. The small sample size may have obscured a potential advantage of games compared to conventional Physiotherapy. This technique, combined with physical therapy, is a promising method in the motor recovery after stroke, it is also a favorable and enriching form of stimulus, not only the physical, but multisensory the patient.
Exocentric pointing in the visual field

“Exocentric pointing in the visual field” involves the setting of a pointer so as to visually point to a target, where both pointer and target are objects in the visual field. Phenomenologically, such pointings show systematic deviations from veridicality of several degrees. The errors are very small in the vertical and horizontal directions, but appreciable in oblique directions. The magnitude of the error is largely independent of the distance between pointer and target for stretches in the range 2–27°. A general conclusion is that the visual field cannot be described in terms of one of the classical homogeneous spaces, or, alternatively, that the results from pointing involve mechanisms that come after geometry proper has been established.
Radiologic placement of side-hole catheter with tip fixation for hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy.

PURPOSE To investigate the technical outcome of radiologic catheter placement with use of a side-hole catheter with distal fixation for hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy. MATERIALS AND METHODS Between January 1993 and September 1999, 426 patients were referred to our department to undergo intraarterial infusion chemotherapy for unresectable malignant liver tumors. A subclavian artery was exposed under local anesthesia and a catheter was inserted. After inserting the tip of the side-hole catheter into the gastroduodenal artery, splenic artery, or peripheral branch of the hepatic artery, the catheter tip was fixed to the vessel with use of coils and a mixture of n-butyl cyanoacrylate (NBCA) and iodized oil. The proximal end of the catheter was connected to an implanted port, and the port system was embedded subcutaneously. RESULTS Placement was successful in 425 of 426 patients (99.8%) in a mean time of 76 minutes. Catheter dislodgement was noted in 12 patients (2.8%). Cumulative patency rates of the hepatic artery calculated according to the Kaplan-Meier method for the entire group were 91.0%, 81.4%, and 58.1% at 6 months and 1 and 2 years, respectively. Complications related to catheter placement were observed in nine cases and included dysfunction of the implanted system (n = 3), significant bleeding around the implanted port (n = 2), improper infusion of NBCA and iodized oil (n = 2), and cerebral infarction (n = 2). CONCLUSION Radiologic catheter placement via a subclavian artery with side-hole catheter placement with distal fixation for hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy is a highly successful procedure with a reduced risk of catheter dislodgment and arterial occlusion.
REAL-TIME VISION BASED AUV NAVIGATION SYSTEM USING A COMPLEMENTARY SENSOR SUITE

Abstract This paper proposes a real-time navigation system for an AUV that takes advantage of the complementary performance of a sensor suite including a DVL, a compass, a depth sensor and altimeter sensors with a feature based motion estimator using vision. To allow for real-time performance of the vision based motion estimator a simple but fast correlation algorithm is used for feature matching. The compass and the depth sensors are used to bound the drift of the heading and depth estimations respectively. The altimeter is required in order to translate the feature displacements measured from the images into the metric displacements of the robot. While the robot must rely on DVL navigation above a certain altitude where vision is useless, DVL measurements can be complemented with higher frequency accurate motion estimates from the vision system when navigating close to the seafloor.
Analysis of Microbial Gene Transcripts in Environmental Samples

ABSTRACT We analyzed gene expression in marine and freshwater bacterioplankton communities by the direct retrieval and analysis of microbial transcripts. Environmental mRNA, obtained from total RNA by subtractive hybridization of rRNA, was reverse transcribed, amplified with random primers, and cloned. Approximately 400 clones were analyzed, of which ∼80% were unambiguously mRNA derived. mRNAs appeared to be from diverse taxonomic groups, including both Bacteria (mainly α- and γ-Proteobacteria) and Archaea (mainly Euryarchaeota). Many transcripts could be linked to environmentally important processes such as sulfur oxidation (soxA), assimilation of C1 compounds (fdh1B), and acquisition of nitrogen via polyamine degradation (aphA). Environmental transcriptomics is a means of exploring functional gene expression within natural microbial communities without bias toward known sequences, and provides a new approach for obtaining community-specific variants of key functional genes.
A comparator with reduced regeneration time for continuous-time delta-sigma modulator

A design of a comparator with reduced regeneration time and down scaling voltage for continuous-time delta-sigma modulators (CT DSM) was proposed. It has voltage scaling down to 0.65 V, and gives worst case delay under 10%Ts (i.e. 125 ps for 800 MHz sampling frequency) at 1.2 V supply voltage. A 3rd order low pass CT DSM employing the proposed comparator achieves 50.76 dB of SNDR and 3.2 MHz bandwidth, which are 5.2 dB higher and 3.2 times wider than those of a 3rd order low pass CT DSM employing the reference comparator, respectively.
TEM and XANES study of MOVPE grown InAIN layers with different indium content

We present structure and spatially resolved composition studies by TEM (Transmission Electron Microscopy) and XANES (X-ray Absorption Near Edge Structure) of InAIN MOVPE (Metal-Organic Vapor Phase Epitaxy) epilayers containing 16-27 at% of indium. Investigations of the In L3 edge by synchrotron radiation absorption show a significant change of the post-edge structure depending on the indium content. We attribute this to the solubility limit and phase separation in this system. Our measurements suggest that the critical composition is 18% for our growth conditions. HRTEM cross-sectional and EDX investigations confirm such phase separation as well as the changing of the structure from 2D growth to columnar like growth for the sample with the highest indium content.
Parallel Best-First Search of State-Space Graphs: A Summary of Results

This paper presents many different parallel formulations of the A*/Branch-and-Bound search algorithm. The parallel formulations primarily differ in the data structures used. Some formulations are suited only for shared-memory architectures, whereas others are suited for distributed-memory architectures as well. These parallel formulations have been implemented to solve the vertex cover problem and the TSP problem on the BBN Butterfly parallel processor. Using appropriate data structures, we are able to obtain fairly linear speedups for as many as 100 processors. We also discovered problem characteristics that make certain formulations more (or less) suitable for some search problems. Since the best-first search paradigm of A*/Branch-and-Bound is very commonly used, we expect these parallel formulations to be effective for a variety of problems. Concurrent and distributed priority queues used in these parallel formulations can be used in many parallel algorithms other than parallel A*/branch-and-bound.
Bioimpedance in Cardiovascular Medicine

The terms bioimpedance or tissue impedance describe both the resistive and reactive components of tissue at the applied stimulus frequency. The capacitive reactive components of the measured tissue impedance change at higher frequencies due to the relative conductive properties of tissue fluids and cellular membranes. It is the resistive and reactive applications of bioimpedance that will be discussed in this article. Keywords: bioimpedance; tissue impedance; impedance cardiography; impedance plethysmography; transthoracic; intrathoracic
Actin in the photoreceptor connecting cilium: immunocytochemical localization to the site of outer segment disk formation

Actin has been localized in Rana pipiens retinas that were fixed and embedded in aldehyde cross-linked BSA. Thin sections were reacted sequentially with (a) affinity-purified antiactin antibodies induced in rabbits; (b) biotinyl-sheep anti-rabbit antibodies; and (c) avidin- ferritin conjugates. As expected, antiactin labeling density was high in the apical pigment epithelial cell processes and in the calycal processes of photoreceptors. Actin was also localized in a new site. The connecting cilium that joins the inner and outer segments of both rods and cones was heavily labeled by antiactin at its outer segment (OS), or distal, end. In this region of the cilium, the plasma membrane evaginates to form new OS disks and these basal disks were labeled in some instances. Below the new disks in rods, the cytoplasm of liplike expansions of the distal cilium was also heavily labeled. The plasma membrane and interior of the connecting cilium and the remainder of the OS were unlabeled. These findings suggest that actin may participate in the vectorial transport of opsin and other intrinsic membrane proteins that are incorporated into newly forming OS disks. The results also implicate actin in the membrane expansion involved with OS disk formation.
Assembly of pili on the surface of Corynebacterium diphtheriae

Pili of Gram‐negative pathogens are formed from pilin precursor molecules by non‐covalent association within the outer membrane envelope. Gram‐positive microbes employ the cell wall peptidoglycan as a surface organelle for the covalent attachment of proteins, however, an assembly pathway for pili has not yet been revealed. We show here that pili of Corynebacterium diphtheriae are composed of three pilin subunits, SpaA, SpaB and SpaC. SpaA, the major pilin protein, is distributed uniformly along the pilus shaft, whereas SpaB is observed at regular intervals and SpaC seems positioned at the pilus tip. Assembled pili are released from the bacterial surface by treatment with murein hydrolase, suggesting that the pilus fibres may be anchored to the cell wall envelope. All three pilin subunit proteins are synthesized as precursors carrying N‐terminal signal peptides and C‐terminal sorting signals. Some, but not all, of the six sortase genes encoded in the genome of C. diphtheriae are required for precursor processing, pilus assembly or cell wall envelope attachment. Pilus assembly is proposed to occur by a mechanism of ordered cross‐linking, whereby pilin‐specific sortase enzymes cleave precursor proteins at sorting signals and involve the side chain amino groups of pilin motif sequences to generate links between pilin subunits. This covalent tethering of adjacent pilin subunits appears to have evolved in many Gram‐positive pathogens that encode sortase and pilin subunit genes with sorting signals and pilin motifs.
Cooperative Co-evolution with Weighted Random Grouping for Large-Scale Crossing Waypoints Locating in Air Route Network

The large-scale Crossing Waypoints Location Problem (CWLP) is a crucial problem in the design of Air Route Network (ARN). CWLP is fully non-separable and nondifferentiable, and thus traditional algorithms can hardly deal with it. This paper proposes an algorithm named Cooperative Co-evolution with Weighted Random Grouping (CCWR) to tackle it. CCWR employs the weighted random (WR) grouping strategy, which is specifically designed for CWLP, to divide the large-scale Crossing Waypoints (CWs) into small sub-groups and an Evolutionary Algorithm (EA) to solve the smaller scale CWs location problem in each sub-group. Experiments on the database of the ARN in China have been carried out to evaluate the performance of CCWR. The results showed that CCWR is superior to a number of state-of-the-art algorithms, and the advanced performance of CCWR is mainly due to the WR grouping strategy. Keywords-Air Route Network; Crossing Waypoints Location; Cooperative Co-evolution.
Stock Market Swings and the Value of Innovation, 1908-1929

This article investigates whether the run-up in stock market prices during the 1920s was related to the accumulation of intangible capital by firms. I use a matched data set of company financials and historical patent citations for 121 publicly traded firms between 1908 and 1929. I show that the returns to intangible capital were approximately three times larger during the 1920s compared to the 1910s reflecting significant changes in the configuration of company assets between these decades. Intangible capital growth was substantial in 1920s America, investors realized it, and they integrated this information into their market pricing decisions. There appears to have been a major shift in investor psychology towards intangibles during the stock market boom. One implication of the findings is that investors were not only more responsive to intangible capital at this time, but through triggering large stock market payoffs for innovation they also encouraged its growth. Introduction A recurrent theme in the modern literature on the economics of financial markets is the extent to which stock market swings reflect changes in the present discounted value of expected future earnings or the ‘animal spirits’ of investors. For example, the rapid acceleration in stock prices during the 1990s can be explained both by changes in expected investor payoffs in response to the accumulation of intangible capital by firms (e.g., Hall, 2001), and by behavioral phenomenon that caused a speculative bubble (e.g., Shiller, 2001). Whether swings in the stock market are driven by the diffusion of new technologies or by periods of irrational exuberance is an important question in the economics of innovation and finance. While this question is central to the debate over the causes of the recent stock market boom and bust it is also important to a fuller understanding of another major event in the American stock market – the run-up in equity prices during the 1920s and the Great Crash of 1929. While Irving Fisher famously reported on the eve of the Crash that stock prices would remain permanently higher than in past years due to the arrival of new technologies and advances in managerial organization that created positive expectations about future profits and dividend growth, retrospective analysis has indicated the presence of a ‘bubble’ (DeLong and Shleifer, 1991; Rappoport and White 1993, 1994). The speculative bubble hypothesis has become orthodox in the literature given that the S&P Composite Index fell by more than 80 percent from its September 1929 peak to its level in June 1932. The Great Crash is the canonical example in American financial history of market prices diverging significantly from fundamentals. Despite the conventional wisdom that stock market prices were unrealistically high during the 1920s, we know little about the types of assets that investors are said to have been
Eye Detection and Gaze Estimation

A technique for eye detection and gaze estimation was developed in MATLAB for the ubiquitous cases in which a user sits in front of a camera and screen. Such a technique could enable computer interfaces that determine the user’s input from low-effort eye movements that naturally express user intent. Furthermore, applications such as driver fatigue assessment, surveillance, or advertising would benefit from such technology. Eye location in images is a previously solved problem; however, “black box” eye detection techniques do not allow us flexibility in and understanding of the core functionality required for a gaze-driven interface. To assess the effectiveness of this technique, two experiments were performed. First, eye detection (localizing the centroid of the iris and pupil) was performed on images from the training set with 50% success in finding both eyes with zero false positives, 94% success in finding at least one eye of the subject, and 17% success in finding both eyes of subjects not wearing glasses. Second, gaze estimation was performed on subjects viewing known points in a room.
A method to shorten signals in SM-OFDM

Spatial modulation (SM) added to traditional OFDM communications has been intensively studied as a candidate transmission method to convey high-speed, low-delay, power-efficient and high-mobility 5G communications in a reliable basis. This approach implies the use of multiple antennas at the transmitter. Then, the fundamental aspect revised in this work takes into account that in a single-carrier SM system, the selection of the active transmit antenna according to (part of) the information bits makes it possible to use a single power amplifier (PA) that is switched among the available antennas. On the other hand, in a conventional SM-OFDM system, every antenna needs to be continuously active as the index information is typically different for each subcarrier. Consequently, we propose a transmission scheme that precodes the information symbols in frequency domain, such that the global symbol period is split into partitions that enable a sequential operation of antennas which can be fed by a single PA. In addition, it is possible to establish that the proposed approach tends to be more robust against disturbances observed in high mobility environments.
DMD Mutations in 576 Dystrophinopathy Families: A Step Forward in Genotype-Phenotype Correlations

Recent advances in molecular therapies for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) require precise genetic diagnosis because most therapeutic strategies are mutation-specific. To understand more about the genotype-phenotype correlations of the DMD gene we performed a comprehensive analysis of the DMD mutational spectrum in a large series of families. Here we provide the clinical, pathological and genetic features of 576 dystrophinopathy patients. DMD gene analysis was performed using the MLPA technique and whole gene sequencing in blood DNA and muscle cDNA. The impact of the DNA variants on mRNA splicing and protein functionality was evaluated by in silico analysis using computational algorithms. DMD mutations were detected in 576 unrelated dystrophinopathy families by combining the analysis of exonic copies and the analysis of small mutations. We found that 471 of these mutations were large intragenic rearrangements. Of these, 406 (70.5%) were exonic deletions, 64 (11.1%) were exonic duplications, and one was a deletion/duplication complex rearrangement (0.2%). Small mutations were identified in 105 cases (18.2%), most being nonsense/frameshift types (75.2%). Mutations in splice sites, however, were relatively frequent (20%). In total, 276 mutations were identified, 85 of which have not been previously described. The diagnostic algorithm used proved to be accurate for the molecular diagnosis of dystrophinopathies. The reading frame rule was fulfilled in 90.4% of DMD patients and in 82.4% of Becker muscular dystrophy patients (BMD), with significant differences between the mutation types. We found that 58% of DMD patients would be included in single exon-exon skipping trials, 63% from strategies directed against multiexon-skipping exons 45 to 55, and 14% from PTC therapy. A detailed analysis of missense mutations provided valuable information about their impact on the protein structure.
Short-Term Memory, Working Memory, and Executive Functioning in Preschoolers: Longitudinal Predictors of Mathematical Achievement at Age 7 Years

This study examined whether measures of short-term memory, working memory, and executive functioning in preschool children predict later proficiency in academic achievement at 7 years of age (third year of primary school). Children were tested in preschool (M age = 4 years, 6 months) on a battery of cognitive measures, and mathematics and reading outcomes (from standardized, norm-referenced school-based assessments) were taken on entry to primary school, and at the end of the first and third year of primary school. Growth curve analyses examined predictors of math and reading achievement across the duration of the study and revealed that better digit span and executive function skills provided children with an immediate head start in math and reading that they maintained throughout the first three years of primary school. Visual-spatial short-term memory span was found to be a predictor specifically of math ability. Correlational and regression analyses revealed that visual short-term and working memory were found to specifically predict math achievement at each time point, while executive function skills predicted learning in general rather than learning in one specific domain. The implications of the findings are discussed in relation to further understanding the role of cognitive skills in different mathematical tasks, and in relation to the impact of limited cognitive skills in the classroom environment.
The 2N-ary Choice Tree Model for N-Alternative Preferential Choice

The 2N-ary choice tree model accounts for response times and choice probabilities in multi-alternative preferential choice. It implements pairwise comparison of alternatives on weighted attributes into an information sampling process which, in turn, results in a preference process. The model provides expected choice probabilities and response time distributions in closed form for optional and fixed stopping times. The theoretical background of the 2N-ary choice tree model is explained in detail with focus on the transition probabilities that take into account constituents of human preferences such as expectations, emotions, or socially influenced attention. Then it is shown how the model accounts for several context-effects observed in human preferential choice like similarity, attraction, and compromise effects and how long it takes, on average, for the decision. The model is extended to deal with more than three choice alternatives. A short discussion on how the 2N-ary choice tree model differs from the multi-alternative decision field theory and the leaky competing accumulator model is provided.
Real-Time ECG Emulation: A Multiple Dipole Model for Electrocardiography Simulation

A new model for describing electrocardiography (ECG) is presented, which is based on multiple dipoles compared to standard single dipole approaches in vector electrocardiography. The multiple dipole parameters are derived from real data (e.g. four dipoles from 12-channel ECG) by solving the backward problem of ECG numerically. Results are transformed to a waveform description based on Gaussian mixture for every dimension of each dipole. These compact parameterized descriptors are used for a very realistic real-time simulation applying the forward solution of the proposed model.