Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Approximate minimum spanning ellipse in the streaming model

In [11] Zarrabi-Zadeh and Chan proposed an algorithm to compute an approximate minimum spanning ball in the streaming model of computation and showed by an elegant analysis that the radius of the approximate ball is to within 3/2 of the exact one. Inspired by this result, in this paper we consider the extension of this result to computing approximate minimum spanning ellipses. The ball algorithm is simple to the point of being trivial, but the extension of the algorithm to ellipses is non-trivial. Surprisingly, the approximation ratio of the areas is not bounded and we provide an elegant proof of this.
Identification and description of environmental factors that influence participation of children with cerebral palsy

Physical, social, and attitudinal environment may restrict participation in children with cerebral palsy (CP). Here we discuss existing/possible approaches in order to identify and describe this environment. We used a critical review of evidence from the World Health Organization Literature Review on Environmental Factors; a search of electronic databases; and talked to specialists in order to find unpublished papers and‘grey’literature. Both children with disabilities and their parents identified a range of barrier and facilitator factors. These included psychosocial pressures (family, school), financial difficulties, and inadequate public services. Observational studies suggest that building structure, loss of income, and provision of specific equipment have a direct impact on levels of child participation. Some available instruments attempt to capture environmental factors by client survey or objective measurement; most relate to adult contexts, but there are a few child‐specific instruments for surveying attitudes of children to peers with disabilities and for observation of the school environment. Defining and measuring potential environmental determinants of participation for children with CP needs further development; and here we propose how this might be done.
The Harvard Trauma Questionnaire: Validating a Cross‐Cultural Instrument for Measuring Torture, Trauma, and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Indochinese Refugees

There are no valid and reliable cross-cultural instruments capable of measuring torture, trauma, and trauma-related symptoms associated with the DSM-III-R diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Generating such standardized instruments for patients from non-Western cultures involves particular methodological challenges. This study describes the development and validation of three Indochinese versions of the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire (HTQ), a simple and reliable screening instrument that is well received by refugee patients and bicultural staff. It identifies for the first time trauma symptoms related to the Indochinese refugee experience that are associated with PTSD criteria. The HTQ's cultural sensitivity may make it useful for assessing other highly traumatized non-Western populations.
Implementing Parser Metarules that Handle Speech Repairs and Other Disruptions

Mixed-initiative dialogs often contain interruptions in phrase structure such as repairs and backchannel responses. Phrase structure as traditionally defined does not accommodate such phenomena, so it is not surprising that phrase structure parsers are ill-equipped to handle them. This paper presents metarules that specify, how the instantiations of phrase structure rules may be restarted or interrupted, with allowance for interleaved speech. In the case of interleaved speech or backchannel responses, tlle metarules allow syntactically separate constituents to interleave or to straddlc each other. In the case of repairs, the metarules operate on the reparandum (what is being repaired) and alteration (the correction) to build parallel phrase structure trees: one with the reparandum and one with the alteration. Consider the partial utterance, take the ba~- um the oranges. The repair metarule would build two VPs, one being take the ban- and the other being take the oranges. The introduction of metarules simplifies the notion of an utterance since a sentence interrupted by an acknowledgment such as okay can stiU be treated as a single utterance formed around the interrupting acknowledgment. Together, metarules and phrase structure rules specify the structures that should be accommodated by a parser for mixed initiative dialogs. A dialog parser should also maintain a dialog chart that stores the results of syntactic and semantic analysis of all the dialog seen so far. This dialog chart will be a shared resource eliminating the nced for maintenance of a separate representation of dialog structure by a dialog manager.
A Family of Locking Protocols for Database Systems that Are Modeled by Directed Graphs

This paper is concerned with the problem of ensuring the integrity of database systems that are accessed concurrently by a number of independent asychronously running transactions. It is assumed that the database system is partitioned into small units that are referred to as the database entities. The relation between the entities is represented by a directed acyclic graph in which the vertices correspond to the database entities and the arcs correspond to certain access rights. We develop a family of non-two-phase locking protocols for such systems that will be shown to ensure serializability and deadlock-freedom. This family is sufficientdy general to encompass all the previously developed non-two-phase lose locking protocols as well as a number of new protocols. One of these new protocols that seems to be particularly useful is also presented in this paper.
Screening for Mild Cognitive Impairment: Comparison of “MCI Specific” Screening Instruments

Background: Sensitive and specific instruments are required to screen for cognitive impairment (CI) in busy clinical practice. The Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) is widely validated but few studies compare it to tests designed specifically to detect mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Objective: Comparison of two “MCI specific” screens: the Quick Mild Cognitive Impairment screen (Qmci) and MoCA. Methods: Patients with subjective memory complaints (SMC; n = 73), MCI (n = 103), or dementia (n = 274), were referred to a university hospital memory clinic and underwent comprehensive assessment. Caregivers, without cognitive symptoms, were recruited as normal controls (n = 101). Results: The Qmci was more accurate than the MoCA in differentiating MCI from controls, area under the curve (AUC) of 0.90 versus 0.80, p = 0.009. The Qmci had greater (AUC 0.81), albeit non-significant, accuracy than the MoCA (AUC 0.73) in separating MCI from SMC, p = 0.09. At its recommended cut-off (<62/100), the Qmci had a sensitivity of 90% and specificity of 87% for CI (MCI/dementia). Raising the cut-off to <65 optimized sensitivity (94%), reducing specificity (80%). At <26/30 the MoCA had better sensitivity (96%) but poor specificity (58%). A MoCA cut-off of <24 provided the optimal balance. Median Qmci administration time was 4.5 (±1.3) minutes compared with 9.5 (±2.8) for the MoCA. Conclusions: Although both tests distinguish MCI from dementia, the Qmci is particularly accurate in separating MCI from normal cognition and has shorter administration times, suggesting it is more useful in busy hospital clinics. This study reaffirms the high sensitivity of the MoCA but suggests a lower cut-off (<24) in this setting.
An action research study of pronunciation training, language learning strategies and speaking confidence

English is a vehicle for international communication. In order to meet the demands of modern society, English teachers need to pay more attention to the development of learners’ competence and focus on a more effective and successful method. However traditional approaches to English language teaching still dominate Thai classrooms. Language teachers should not focus on reciting but should teach from their own understanding of language learning and help learners gain more competence with confidence. This study is a collaborative action research investigation to develop pronunciation training and communicative competence for Thai students studying English in Thailand. This study investigated pronunciation training and language learning strategies, how they influenced the learning behaviour of Thai students studying English and improved their speaking confidence. The purpose of the training was to improve students’ pronunciation and spoken intelligibility. It drew upon data collected in pronunciation training in one school in Thailand using language learning strategies and evaluated improvement after being trained in developing speaking confidence. The project contained two cycles, the first of which was to train five teachers using pronunciation training and language learning strategies. We evaluated their improvement in correct speech and in developing speaking confidence. In the second cycle, these teachers in turn taught a group of four students each and similar improvements were observed. The action phases showed the implications of the importance of pronunciation training in the Thai context and the usefulness of dictionary usage to help learners to improve their competence and to have more confidence to speak English. The project resulted in a change of policy by the school to include pronunciation teaching and to allocate English classes to teachers who understood that process. The pronunciation learning strategies in this study and those of other researchers were presented to formulate strategies as a contribution for teachers to include teaching pronunciation in their classroom instruction. The researcher intends that the data will be useful for language teachers to help them further their understanding of their students’ learning behaviour to achieve improved pronunciation. In addition, the phonetic symbol system used in the training was chiefly inspired from the symbols of the International Phonetic Association (IPA) to be standardized and easy to apply.
Relationship of vitamin D status to adult lung function and COPD

Background There is considerable interest in the possible role of vitamin D in respiratory disease, but only one population-based study has reported associations with lung function. Methods The cross-sectional relationships of total dietary vitamin D intake, serum 25 hydroxy vitamin D (25(OH)D) concentrations and three vitamin D receptor (VDR) polymorphisms (Apa1, Fok1 and Cdx2) with lung function and spirometrically-defined chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) were investigated in men and women aged 59–73 years in the Hertfordshire Cohort Study, UK. Results After controlling for confounders, total vitamin D intake was positively associated with forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1; difference in FEV1 between top and bottom quintiles of intake 0.079 l (95% CI 0.02 to 0.14), p trend=0.007, n=2942), ratio of FEV1 to forced vital capacity (FEV1/FVC; p trend=0.008) and negatively associated with COPD (OR comparing top and bottom quintiles 0.57 (95% CI 0.38 to 0.87), p trend=0.02). In contrast, serum 25(OH)D concentrations were not related to FEV1 (p trend=0.89, n=1197) but were positively associated with COPD (p trend=0.046). VDR genotypes were unrelated to lung function and did not modify the effects of dietary intake or 25(OH)D concentrations on lung function. Conclusions The results of this study did not confirm a positive association between blood 25(OH)D concentrations and adult lung function. The apparent relationships with dietary vitamin D are likely to be explained by other highly correlated nutrients in the diet.
Universitet under uppsikt

Under 1900-talet och sarskilt efter andra varldskriget har ett stort antal universitet och hogskolor tillkommit over hela varlden. Denna utveckling har medfort okade upplevda behov av att granska d .
Genetic Polymorphisms in the Hypothalamic Pathway in Relation to Subsequent Weight Change – The DiOGenes Study

Background Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in genes encoding the components involved in the hypothalamic pathway may influence weight gain and dietary factors may modify their effects. Aim We conducted a case-cohort study to investigate the associations of SNPs in candidate genes with weight change during an average of 6.8 years of follow-up and to examine the potential effect modification by glycemic index (GI) and protein intake. Methods and Findings Participants, aged 20–60 years at baseline, came from five European countries. Cases (‘weight gainers’) were selected from the total eligible cohort (n = 50,293) as those with the greatest unexplained annual weight gain (n = 5,584). A random subcohort (n = 6,566) was drawn with the intention to obtain an equal number of cases and noncases (n = 5,507). We genotyped 134 SNPs that captured all common genetic variation across the 15 candidate genes; 123 met the quality control criteria. Each SNP was tested for association with the risk of being a ‘weight gainer’ (logistic regression models) in the case-noncase data and with weight gain (linear regression models) in the random subcohort data. After accounting for multiple testing, none of the SNPs was significantly associated with weight change. Furthermore, we observed no significant effect modification by dietary factors, except for SNP rs7180849 in the neuromedin β gene (NMB). Carriers of the minor allele had a more pronounced weight gain at a higher GI (P = 2×10−7). Conclusions We found no evidence of association between SNPs in the studied hypothalamic genes with weight change. The interaction between GI and NMB SNP rs7180849 needs further confirmation.
An ERP Study on Facial Expression of Emotion: Comparison of Linguistic and Visual Semantic Decoding

The present research compared the semantic information processing of linguistic stimuli with semantic elaboration of nonlinguistic facial stimuli. To explore brain potentials (ERPs, event-related potentials) related to decoding facial expressions and the effect of semantic valence of the stimulus, we analyzed data for 20 normal subjects (M age = 23.6 yr., SD = 0.2). Faces with three basic emotional expressions (fear, happiness, and sadness from the 1976 Ekman and Friesen database), with three semantically anomalous expressions (with respect to their emotional content), and the neutral stimuli (face without an emotional content) were presented in a random order. Differences in peak amplitude of ERP were observed later for anomalous expressions compared with congruous expressions. In fact, the results demonstrated that the emotional anomalous faces elicited a higher negative peak at about 360 msec. , distributed mainly over the posterior sites. The observed electrophysiological activity may represent specific cognitive processing underlying the comprehension of facial expressions in detection of semantic anomaly. The evidence is in favour of comparability of this negative deflection with the N400 ERP effect elicited by linguistic anomalies.
Spatio-temporal motion segmentation via level set partial differential equations

Motion-based segmentation of image sequences is an important problem of image analysis, with numerous applications to image coding and image manipulation. We present a novel algorithm for segmenting image sequences into distinct motion trajectories. This algorithm is expressed as a system of level set partial differential equations which is solved using level set discretization schemes. We provide experimental results on real image sequences with natural and synthetic image motion.
The safety and efficacy of intravenous ferric carboxymaltose in anaemic patients undergoing haemodialysis: a multi-centre, open-label, clinical study

Background. Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) often present with iron depletion and iron deficiency anaemia (IDA) because of frequent blood (and iron) loss. Therapy consists of repletion of iron stores and intravenous (i.v.) iron has become the standard care in this setting. However, older i.v. iron preparations have their limitations. This study primarily investigated the safety, and also the efficacy, of ferric carboxymaltose (FCM), a next-generation i.v. iron formulation, given as a bolus–push injection in patients with CKD undergoing maintenance haemodialysis (HD). Methods. Patients (aged 18–65 years) with IDA undergoing HD received 100–200 mg of iron as FCM via an i.v. bolus–push injection into the HD venous line, two to three times weekly for ≤6 weeks. Safety assessments included incidence of adverse events (AEs). Treatment responders were patients attaining ≥1.0 g/dl increase in haemoglobin (Hb) from baseline at any time during the study. Enrolled patients (safety population) receiving ≥1 dose of study medication were included in the efficacy analyses [intent-to-treat (ITT) population]. Results. Of 163 patients enrolled, 150 (92%) completed the study. The mean ± SD total cumulative dose of iron as FCM administered was 2133.3 ± 57.7 mg. In total, 193 AEs were reported in 89 out of 163 (54.6%) patients. Almost three-quarters of patients (73.6%) received erythropoiesis-stimulating agents (ESAs), but the dose remained stable during the study. Serious AEs occurred in 12 out of 163 (7.4%) patients and two patients died; none of these was considered by the investigator to be related to the study medication. Only five out of 163 (3.1%) patients discontinued study medication due to an AE. Overall, 100 out of 162 (61.7%; ITT population) patients were treatment responders, and mean Hb levels increased from 9.1 ± 1.30 g/dl at baseline to 10.3 ± 1.63 g/dl at follow-up. Conclusions. FCM is well-tolerated and effective in the correction of Hb levels and iron stores in patients with IDA undergoing HD. As changes in anaemia treatment other than i.v. FCM (e.g. increased ESA doses) were not permitted during the study, the clinically relevant increase in Hb in the majority of patients can be solely attributed to efficient iron utilization. The incidence of AEs was as expected for this population.
Hebbian Mechanisms Revealed by Electrical Stimulation at Developing Rat Neuromuscular Junctions

Synapse competition and elimination are widespread developmental processes, first demonstrated at neonatal neuromuscular junctions. Action potential activity was long shown to exert a powerful influence, but mechanisms and contribution relative to other factors are still not well understood. Here we show that replacement of natural motoneuronal discharge with synchronous activity suppresses elimination of polyneuronal innervation of myofibers. This requires the simultaneous chronic conduction block (tetrodotoxin) and distal electrical stimulation of motor axons during ectopic synaptogenesis in denervated adult soleus muscle. If in fact chronic stimulation is applied without central block of motor axons, the time course of synapse elimination is as fast as in control muscles undergoing natural activity. Our findings follow the prediction of Hebb's postulate and imply that asynchronous activity drives developmental synapse elimination in muscle. They further suggest that motoneurons could become transiently synchronized during development and regeneration, helping to establish the initial polyneuronal innervation.
U.S. Culturally specific prejudices: Interpersonal prejudices of individualists and intergroup prejudices of collectivists

The authors propose that the nature of prejudice differs across cultures. A model is introduced that proposes that the interpersonal perspective associated with individualist cultures (Westerners) leads to interpersonal prejudices, whereas the intergroup perspective associated with collectivist cultures (Easterners) leads to intergroup prejudices. These prejudices, in turn, are argued to impact on the outcomes of individuals working in intercultural teams. An organisational diversity climate of openness fostered by diversity oriented HRM and the combined use of individualist and collectivist HRM policies and practices is proposed to minimize the negative effects of such prejudices can be minimized.
The Use of Plans in Knowledge Management Tasks

This paper discusses how a plan execution system could be used to assist in a knowledge management task, such as searching a set of databases for a relevant document. PARETO iS a plan execution system based on the as-needed expansion of a hierarchy of sketchy plans. It has been adapted for use in several different domains. There are several problems that would arise in adapting PARETO to assist in a knowledge management task such as searching for a relevant document in a proprietary intranet. However, there are also advantages that would be provided by the use of such a system.
A Hybrid Image Feature Descriptor for Classification

Feature extraction methods have an important role in image classification. In this paper, a hybrid texture feature descriptor is proposed by utilizing the attributes of two complementary features, PRICoLBP and LPQ. PRICoLBP performs well in the case of geometric and photometric variations however it does not properly express the local texture of an image, while LPQ method performs well for the local structure of an image. We propose to use the hybrid scheme by combining the properties of PRICoLBP and LPQ and name it as Pair wise Rotation Invariant Co-occurrence Local Phase Quantization (PRICLPQ). Standard texture and material datasets have been used to verify the robustness of proposed hybrid scheme. The experiments show that the proposed hybrid scheme outperforms the state-of-the-art feature extraction methods like LBP, LPQ, CLBP, LBPV, SIFT, MSLBP, Lazebnik and PRICoLBP in term of accuracy.
User authentication via adapted statistical models of face images

It has been previously demonstrated that systems based on local features and relatively complex statistical models, namely, one-dimensional (1-D) hidden Markov models (HMMs) and pseudo-two-dimensional (2-D) HMMs, are suitable for face recognition. Recently, a simpler statistical model, namely, the Gaussian mixture model (GMM), was also shown to perform well. In much of the literature devoted to these models, the experiments were performed with controlled images (manual face localization, controlled lighting, background, pose, etc). However, a practical recognition system has to be robust to more challenging conditions. In this article we evaluate, on the relatively difficult BANCA database, the performance, robustness and complexity of GMM and HMM-based approaches, using both manual and automatic face localization. We extend the GMM approach through the use of local features with embedded positional information, increasing performance without sacrificing its low complexity. Furthermore, we show that the traditionally used maximum likelihood (ML) training approach has problems estimating robust model parameters when there is only a few training images available. Considerably more precise models can be obtained through the use of Maximum a posteriori probability (MAP) training. We also show that face recognition techniques which obtain good performance on manually located faces do not necessarily obtain good performance on automatically located faces, indicating that recognition techniques must be designed from the ground up to handle imperfect localization. Finally, we show that while the pseudo-2-D HMM approach has the best overall performance, authentication time on current hardware makes it impractical. The best tradeoff in terms of authentication time, robustness and discrimination performance is achieved by the extended GMM approach.