Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Attitudes, Feelings, and Experiences of Online Gamers: A Qualitative Analysis

The playing of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) is now a highly popular leisure activity. The present study set out to explore the attitudes, experiences, and feelings of online gamers. The study entailed 71 interviews with online gamers (52 males, 19 females) from 11 different countries. Six main themes emerged from the analyses of the interview transcripts: (a) online gaming and integration into day-to-day lives; (b) online gaming, excessive play, and problems; (c) addiction; (d) psychosocial impact of online gaming; (e) online gaming, dissociation, and time loss; and (f) online gaming and the alleviation of negative feelings and mood states. These findings specifically showed how gamers used MMORPGs to alleviate negative feelings and provided detailed descriptions of personal problems that had arisen due to playing MMORPGs. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to previous qualitative and quantitative research in the area.
Pharmacokinetic Properties of Micafungin in Critically Ill Patients Diagnosed with Invasive Candidiasis

ABSTRACT The estimated attributable mortality rate for invasive candidiasis (IC) in the intensive care unit (ICU) setting varies from 30 to 40%. Physiological changes in critically ill patients may affect the distribution and elimination of micafungin, and therefore, dosing adjustments might be mandatory. The objective of this study was to determine the pharmacokinetic parameters of micafungin in critically ill patients and assess the probability of target attainment. Micafungin plasma concentrations were measured to estimate the pharmacokinetic properties of micafungin. MIC values for Candida isolates were determined to assess the probability of target attainment for patients. Data from 19 patients with suspected or proven invasive candidiasis were available for analysis. The median area under the concentration-time curve from 0 to 24 h at steady state (AUC0–24) was 89.6 mg · h/liter (interquartile range [IQR], 75.4 to 113.6 mg · h/liter); this was significantly lower than the median micafungin AUC0–24 values of 152.0 mg · h/liter (IQR, 136.0 to 162.0 mg · h/liter) and 134.0 mg · h/liter (IQR, 118.0 to 148.6 mg · h/liter) in healthy volunteers (P = <0.0001 and P = <0.001, respectively). All Candida isolates were susceptible to micafungin, with a median MIC of 0.016 mg/liter (IQR, 0.012 to 0.023 mg/liter). The median AUC0–24/MIC ratio was 5,684 (IQR, 4,325 to 7,578), and 3 of the 17 evaluable patients (17.6%) diagnosed with proven invasive candidiasis did not meet the AUC/MIC ratio target of 5,000. Micafungin exposure was lower in critically ill patients than in healthy volunteers. The variability in micafungin exposure in this ICU population could be explained by the patients' body weight. Our findings suggest that healthier patients (sequential organ failure assessment [SOFA] score of <10) weighing more than 100 kg and receiving 100 mg micafungin daily are at risk for inappropriate micafungin exposure and potentially inadequate antifungal treatment. (This study has been registered at ClinicalTrials.gov under identifier NCT01716988.)
Some ecological and evolutionary aspects of bear-salmon interactions in coastal British Columbia

I examine here quantity and characteristics of chum salmon (Oncorhynchus keta) captured by black bears (Ursus americanus) during autumn spawning migration in an old-growth watershed on Moresby Island (Haida Gwaii), western Canada. Spawning-salmon numbers ranged from 2300 to 6300 over 3 years of investigation (1992-1994) and there were a maximum of eight bears in the watershed. Following capture of a salmon, bears ate an average of 1.6 kg from each salmon carcass, including the brain, ovaries, and dorsal musculature, and generally tended to abandon viscera, testes, and bony remnants such as jaws. Complete counts of these jaws throughout the watershed in autumn 1993 demonstrated a total capture of 4281 salmon, for an average consumption rate of 13 salmon per day per bear over the 45-day spawning period. This comprised 74% of the salmon entering the stream (range among years 58-92%). Most salmon (70-80%) taken by bears were partially or completely spawned-out at the time of capture. Marginally but significan.
Joint Transmit and Receive Filter Optimization for Sub-Nyquist Delay-Doppler Estimation

In this paper, a framework is presented for the joint optimization of the analog transmit and receive filter with respect to a parameter estimation problem. At the receiver, conventional signal processing systems restrict the two-sided bandwidth of the analog prefilter <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$B$</tex-math></inline-formula> to the rate of the analog-to-digital converter <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$f_s$</tex-math> </inline-formula> to comply with the well-known Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem. In contrast, here we consider a transceiver that by design violates the common paradigm <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$B\leq f_s$ </tex-math></inline-formula>. To this end, at the receiver, we allow for a higher prefilter bandwidth <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$B>f_s$</tex-math></inline-formula> and study the achievable parameter estimation accuracy under a fixed sampling rate when the transmit and receive filter are jointly optimized with respect to the Bayesian Cramér–Rao lower bound. For the case of delay-Doppler estimation, we propose to approximate the required Fisher information matrix and solve the transceiver design problem by an alternating optimization algorithm. The presented approach allows us to explore the Pareto-optimal region spanned by transmit and receive filters that are favorable under a weighted mean squared error criterion. We also discuss the computational complexity of the obtained transceiver design by visualizing the resulting ambiguity function. Finally, we verify the performance of the optimized designs by Monte Carlo simulations of a likelihood-based estimator.
Effect of air gap on apparent temperature of body wearing various sizes of T-shirt

We investigated the effect of air gap on the apparent temperature. Using the developed thermocouple fabric and a thermal manikin, we measured temperature distribution of the measuring garments due to the change of T-shirt sizes. We were able to measure the apparent temperature distribution at points near a body while wearing different sizes of T-shirts. It was observed that the temperature distribution depending on different air gap between clothing and body. The apparent temperature depends on garment size and place. The effect of air gap on apparent temperature of body was experimentally confirmed.
Channel Estimation for Millimeter-Wave MIMO Communications With Lens Antenna Arrays

Millimeter-wave (mmWave) communication is a promising technology for future wireless communication systems. By utilizing the advanced lens antenna arrays, a mmWave lens multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system significantly reduces the number of radio-frequency (RF) chains required, and thus, achieves cost-effective implementation. In this paper, we propose a novel channel estimation scheme for the mmWave lens MIMO system with limited RF chains. The proposed scheme is applicable for the general mmWave MIMO communications, regardless of narrow-band or wide-band, time-division-duplexing or frequency-division-duplexing operations. By exploiting the energy-focusing property of lens arrays, jointly with the multipath sparsity of mmWave channels, the proposed channel estimation scheme requires only low-complexity two-way energy-based antenna selections and reduced-size MIMO channel estimation. Numerical results show that under limited RF chains and taking the channel training overhead and imperfect estimation into account, the proposed lens MIMO system achieves significantly higher throughput compared to the more complex benchmark system with the conventional uniform planar array and MIMO-orthogonal-frequency-division-multiplexing-based transmissions.
COPD is independently associated with 6‐month survival in patients who have life support withheld in intensive care

In‐hospital outcomes following decisions of withholding or withdrawing in Intensive Care Unit (ICU) patients have been previously assessed, little is known about outcomes after ICU and hospital discharge. Our objective was to report the 6‐month outcomes of discharged patients who had treatment limitations in a general ICU and to identify prognostic factors of survival.
KEVM: A Complete Formal Semantics of the Ethereum Virtual Machine

A developing field of interest for the distributed systems and applied cryptography communities is that of smart contracts: self-executing financial instruments that synchronize their state, often through a blockchain. One such smart contract system that has seen widespread practical adoption is Ethereum, which has grown to a market capacity of 100 billion USD and clears an excess of 500,000 daily transactions. Unfortunately, the rise of these technologies has been marred by a series of costly bugs and exploits. Increasingly, the Ethereum community has turned to formal methods and rigorous program analysis tools. This trend holds great promise due to the relative simplicity of smart contracts and bounded-time deterministic execution inherent to the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). Here we present KEVM, an executable formal specification of the EVM's bytecode stack-based language built with the K Framework, designed to serve as a solid foundation for further formal analyses. We empirically evaluate the correctness and performance of KEVM using the official Ethereum test suite. To demonstrate the usability, several extensions of the semantics are presented. and two different-language implementations of the ERC20 Standard Token are verified against the ERC20 specification. These results are encouraging for the executable semantics approach to language prototyping and specification.
Planning Hybrid Driving-Stepping Locomotion on Multiple Levels of Abstraction

Navigating in search and rescue environments is challenging, since a variety of terrains has to be considered. Hybrid driving-stepping locomotion, as provided by our robot Momaro, is a promising approach. Similar to other locomotion methods, it incorporates many degrees of freedom—offering high flexibility but making planning computationally expensive for larger environments. We propose a navigation planning method, which unifies different levels of representation in a single planner. In the vicinity of the robot, it provides plans with a fine resolution and a high robot state dimensionality. With increasing distance from the robot, plans become coarser and the robot state dimensionality decreases. We compensate this loss of information by enriching coarser representations with additional semantics. Experiments show that the proposed planner provides plans for large, challenging scenarios in feasible time.
Ankyloglossia: assessment, incidence, and effect of frenuloplasty on the breastfeeding dyad.

OBJECTIVE Ankyloglossia in breastfeeding infants can cause ineffective latch, inadequate milk transfer, and maternal nipple pain, resulting in untimely weaning. The question of whether the performance of a frenuloplasty benefits the breastfeeding dyad in such a situation remains controversial. We wished to 1) define significant ankyloglossia, 2) determine the incidence in breastfeeding infants, and 3) measure the effectiveness of the frenuloplasty procedure with respect to solving specific breastfeeding problems in mother-infant dyads who served as their own controls. METHODS We examined 2763 breastfeeding inpatient infants and 273 outpatient infants with breastfeeding problems for possible ankyloglossia and assessed each infant with ankyloglossia, using the Hazelbaker Assessment Tool for Lingual Frenulum Function. We then observed each dyad while breastfeeding. When latch problems were seen, we asked the mother to describe the sensation and quality of the suck at the breast. When pain was described, we asked the mother to grade her pain on a scale of 1 to 10. When lingual function was impaired, we discussed the frenuloplasty procedure with the parent(s) and obtained informed consent. After the procedure, the infants were returned to their mothers for breastfeeding. Infant latch and maternal nipple pain were reassessed at this time. RESULTS Ankyloglossia was diagnosed in 88 (3.2%) of the inpatients and in 35 (12.8%) of the outpatients. Mean Hazelbaker scores were similar for the presenting symptoms of poor latch and nipple pain. Median infant age (25th and 75th percentiles) at presentation was lower for poor latch than for nipple pain: 1.2 days (0.7, 2.0) versus 2.0 days (1.0, 12.0), respectively. All frenuloplasties were performed without incident. Latch improved in all cases, and maternal pain levels fell significantly after the procedure: 6.9 +/- 2.31 down to 1.2 +/- 1.52. CONCLUSION Ankyloglossia is a relatively common finding in the newborn population and represents a significant proportion of breastfeeding problems. Poor infant latch and maternal nipple pain are frequently associated with this finding. Careful assessment of the lingual function, followed by frenuloplasty when indicated, seems to be a successful approach to the facilitation of breastfeeding in the presence of significant ankyloglossia.
Storytelling and Visualization: An Extended Survey

Throughout history, storytelling has been an effective way of conveying information and knowledge. In the field of visualization, storytelling is rapidly gaining momentum and evolving cutting-edge techniques that enhance understanding. Many communities have commented on the importance of storytelling in data visualization. Storytellers tend to be integrating complex visualizations into their narratives in growing numbers. In this paper, we present a survey of storytelling literature in visualization and present an overview of the common and important elements in storytelling visualization. We also describe the challenges in this field as well as a novel classification of the literature on storytelling in visualization. Our classification scheme highlights the open and unsolved problems in this field as well as the more mature storytelling sub-fields. The benefits offer a concise overview and a starting point into this rapidly evolving research trend and provide a deeper understanding of this topic.
The Cloud that Runs the Mobile Internet: A Measurement Study of Mobile Cloud Services

Mobile applications outsource their cloud infrastructure deployment and content delivery to cloud computing services and content delivery networks. Studying how these services, which we collectively denote Cloud Service Providers (CSPs), perform over Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) is crucial to understanding some of the performance limitations of today's mobile apps. To that end, we perform the first empirical study of the complex dynamics between applications, MNOs and CSPs. First, we use real mobile app traffic traces that we gathered through a global crowdsourcing campaign to identify the most prevalent CSPs supporting today's mobile Internet. Then, we investigate how well these services interconnect with major European MNOs at a topological level, and measure their performance over European MNO networks through a month-long measurement campaign on the MONROE mobile broadband testbed. We discover that the top 6 most prevalent CSPs are used by 85 % of apps, and observe significant differences in their performance across different MNOs due to the nature of their services, peering relationships with MNOs, and deployment strategies. We also find that CSP performance in MNOs is affected by inflated path length, roaming, and presence of middleboxes, but not influenced by the choice of DNS resolver.
The Carotid Sinus Nerve—Structure, Function, and Clinical Implications

Interest has been renewed in the anatomy and physiology of the carotid sinus nerve (CSN) and its targets (carotid sinus and carotid body, CB), due to recent proposals of surgical procedures for a series of common pathologies, such as carotid sinus syndrome, hypertension, heart failure, and insulin resistance. The CSN originates from the glossopharyngeal nerve soon after its appearance from the jugular foramen. It shows frequent communications with the sympathetic trunk (usually at the level of the superior cervical ganglion) and the vagal nerve (main trunk, pharyngeal branches, or superior laryngeal nerve). It courses on the anterior aspect of the internal carotid artery to reach the carotid sinus, CB, and/or intercarotid plexus. In the carotid sinus, type I (dynamic) carotid baroreceptors have larger myelinated A‐fibers; type II (tonic) baroreceptors show smaller A‐ and unmyelinated C‐fibers. In the CB, afferent fibers are mainly stimulated by acetylcholine and ATP, released by type I cells. The neurons are located in the petrosal ganglion, and centripetal fibers project on to the solitary tract nucleus: chemosensory inputs to the commissural subnucleus, and baroreceptor inputs to the commissural, medial, dorsomedial, and dorsolateral subnuclei. The baroreceptor component of the CSN elicits sympatho‐inhibition and the chemoreceptor component stimulates sympatho‐activation. Thus, in refractory hypertension and heart failure (characterized by increased sympathetic activity), baroreceptor electrical stimulation, and CB removal have been proposed. Instead, denervation of the carotid sinus has been proposed for the “carotid sinus syndrome. ” Anat Rec, 302:575–587, 2019. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
From nonholonomic quantum constraint to canonical variables of photons I: true intrinsic degree of freedom

We report that the true intrinsic degree of freedom of the photon is neither the polarization nor the spin. It describes a local property in momentum space and is represented in the local representation by the Pauli matrices. This result is achieved by treating the transversality condition on the vector wavefunction as a nonholonomic quantum constraint. We find that the quantum constraint makes it possible to generalize the Stokes parameters to characterize the polarization of a general state. Unexpectedly, the generalized Stokes parameters are specified in a momentum-space local reference system that is fixed by another degree of freedom, called Stratton vector. Only constant Stokes parameters in one particular local reference system can convey the intrinsic degree of freedom of the photon. We show that the optical rotation is one of such processes that change the Stratton vector with the intrinsic quantum number remaining fixed. Changing the Stratton vector of the eigenstate of the helicity will give rise to a Berry's phase.
Seroprevalence and Associated Risk Factors of Toxoplasma gondii in Pregnant Women Attending in Northwest Ethiopia

Background Toxoplasmosis is a major public health problem among immuno-compromised individuals. This study aimed to determine the seroprevalence and associated risk factors of Toxoplasma gondii infection among pregnant women with and out HIV infections. Methods This cross sectional study was conducted among consecutive 385 pregnant women attended Antenatal Clinic from May 2010 to October 2011 at the Gondar University Teaching Hospital, Northwest Ethiopia. Venous blood was collected from each pregnant woman for testing HIV-1/2 and anti- Toxoplasma antibodies using rapid test kits. Data were entered and analyzed using SPSS version 20 statistical package. Results The overall magnitude of T. gondii and HIV was 88.6% (341/385) and 11.2% (43/385), respectively. The seroprevalence of T. gondii was not different among HIV infected and non-infected pregnant women (88.4%, 38/ 43 vs 88.6%, 303/342). Keeping cats in house showed statistically significant association with seropositivity of toxoplasmosis (P<0.05). Conclusion Irrespective of HIV infection, high rate of T. gondii was detected among pregnant women. These high prevalences indicate the need for an intensified public health awareness to reduce both infections.
ENRICHME Integration of Ambient Intelligence and Robotics for AAL

Technological advances and affordability of recent smart sensors, as well as the consolidation of common software platforms for the integration of the latter and robotic sensors, are enabling the creation of complex active and assisted living environments for improving the quality of life of the elderly and the less able people. One such example is the integrated system developed by the European project ENRICHME, the aim of which is to monitor and prolong the independent living of old people affected by mild cognitive impairments with a combination of smart-home, robotics and web technologies. This paper presents in particular the design and technological solutions adopted to integrate, process and store the information provided by a set of fixed smart sensors and mobile robot sensors in a domestic scenario, including presence and contact detectors, environmental sensors, and RFID-tagged objects, for long-term user monitoring and
Temperature accelerates the rate fields become forests

Significance The transition of abandoned fields into forests (secondary succession) has long informed ecologists’ understanding of community assembly and species interactions. Intriguingly, rates of secondary succession show a striking latitudinal pattern, with dominance by woody species (>50% cover) taking less than a decade in the southern United States, and up to 60 years in New England. We used a large-scale experimental network to test how multiple drivers (climate, soils, and the identity of dominant species) influence field-to-forest transitions. We found consistent evidence that climate is the strongest driver of tree establishment, suggesting that temperature limitation of succession in northern latitudes is likely to be reduced under future warming, potentially increasing rates of carbon uptake on abandoned agricultural land. Secondary succession, the postdisturbance transition of herbaceous to woody-dominated ecosystems, occurs faster at lower latitudes with important ramifications for ecosystem processes. This pattern could be driven by the direct effect of temperature on tree growth; however, an alternative mechanism is tree–herb competition, which may be more intense in more fertile northern soils. We manipulated soil fertility and herbaceous species composition in identical experiments at six sites spanning the Eastern United States (30–43° N) and monitored the growth and survival of four early successional trees. Tree seedling mass 2 years after sowing was strongly associated with site differences in mean growing season temperature, regardless of species or soil treatment. The effect of temperature was twofold: seedlings grew faster in response to warmer site temperatures, but also due to the reduction of competitive interference from the herbaceous community, which was inhibited in warmer sites. Our results suggest that increasing temperatures will promote a faster transition of fields to forests in temperate ecosystems.