Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Increasing Nursing Referral to Telephone Quitlines for Smoking Cessation Using a Web-Based Program

Background:Smokers who make a quit attempt during hospitalization have improved long-term abstinence if they receive follow-up support, including via a telephone quitline, a free resource in the United States. Smokers are referred infrequently to this resource by healthcare providers. Objective:The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of a Web-based educational program (Helping Smokers Quit) on translating the Treating Tobacco Use and Dependence Clinical Practice Guideline: 2008 Update into practice. Using a Web-based survey, frequency of nurses’ self-reported referral of smokers to a quitline and performance of the components of a smoking cessation intervention (the 5As: Ask, Advise, Assess, Assist, Arrange) was compared with self-reported performance among nurses who received printed educational materials (control group) at 6 months. Methods:Nurses from 30 (n = 15 control and n = 15 intervention) randomly selected and assigned hospitals from California, Indiana, and West Virginia participated. Both groups received a toolkit of materials including a state quitline card and access to the Tobacco Free Nurses Web site; the intervention group had additional access to a project-specific Web page and the opportunity to attend a webinar. Only nurses who completed baseline and 6-month surveys were included in the analysis. Mean improvement of the 5As and refer scores and logistic regressions of consistent (usually or always) referral to a quitline were used to examine differences over time by group. Results:Pre–post data were collected for 333 nurses (209 intervention, 124 control). Mean improvement was significantly higher in Advise, Assess, Assist, Arrange, and Referral to a Quitline for the Help Smokers Quit group. Nurses in the control group significantly improved in Advise and Referral to a Quitline. Consistent referral was most likely in the intervention group (OR = 1.74, 95% CI [1.11, 2.72]), especially among those who viewed the webinar (OR = 2.34, 95% CI [1.03, 4.23]). Discussion:After 6 months, nurses in the intervention group had significant improvement in the frequency of interventions and consistency of referral of smokers to the quitline. The improvement of nurses’ referral to the quitline among the control group who only received printed materials demonstrates that both are effective strategies in increasing awareness of this resource.
Human-inspired balancing assistance: Application to a knee exoskeleton

As the impedance profiles of the human joints vary substantially during motion, the employment of variable impedance systems into exoskeletons, orthoses and prostheses that will be able to produce human-like mechanics could have significant benefits. In this direction, this manuscript presents a generic technique to estimate active joint stiffness based on an EMG-driven musculoskeletal model whose parameters are adjusted using experimental data obtained from common perturbation methods. In addition, a human balancing experiment was carried out to investigate correlations between the anteroposterior excursions of the center of pressure (CoP) with kinematic, kinetic, electromyographic measurements as well as the model stiffness of the knee joint. Motivated by the results of the cross-correlation analysis we present a human-inspired balancing assistance control for lower limb exoskeletons that permits for volitional stiffness regulation. Preliminary experimental evaluation is conducted using an assistive knee exoskeleton. The results indicate that the proposed control technique can be generalized to command a whole lower limb exoskeleton in order to provide effective balancing assistance to the user.
Grain Boundary Scars and Spherical Crystallography

We describe experimental investigations of the structure of two-dimensional spherical crystals. The crystals, formed by beads self-assembled on water droplets in oil, serve as model systems for exploring very general theories about the minimum-energy configurations of particles with arbitrary repulsive interactions on curved surfaces. Above a critical system size we find that crystals develop distinctive high-angle grain boundaries, or scars, not found in planar crystals. The number of excess defects in a scar is shown to grow linearly with the dimensionless system size. The observed slope is expected to be universal, independent of the microscopic potential.
Engineering a Fibrocartilage Spectrum through Modulation of Aggregate Redifferentiation

Expanded costochondral cells provide a clinically relevant cell source for engineering both fibrous and hyaline articular cartilage. Expanding chondrocytes in a monolayer results in a shift toward a proliferative, fibroblastic phenotype. Three-dimensional aggregate culture may, however, be used to recover chondrogenic matrix production. This study sought to engineer a spectrum of fibrous to hyaline neocartilage from a single cell source by varying the duration of three-dimensional culture following expansion. In third passage porcine costochondral cells, the effects of aggregate culture duration were assessed after 0, 8, 11, 14, and 21 days of aggregate culture and after 4 subsequent weeks of neocartilage formation. Varying the duration of aggregate redifferentiation generated a spectrum of fibrous to hyaline neocartilage. Within 8 days of aggregation, proliferation ceased, and collagen and glycosaminoglycan production increased, compared with monolayer cells. In self-assembled neocartilage, type II-to-I collagen ratio increased with increasing aggregate duration, yet glycosaminoglycan content varied minimally. Notably, 14 days of aggregate redifferentiation increased collagen content by 25%, tensile modulus by over 110%, and compressive moduli by over 50%, compared with tissue formed in the absence of redifferentiation. A spectrum of fibrous to hyaline cartilage was generated using a single, clinically relevant cell source, improving the translational potential of engineered cartilage.
Toward Quantifying System Manageability

Manageability directly influences a system's reliability, availability, security, and safety, thus being a key ingredient of system dependability. Alas, we do not have today a good way to measure manageability or reason quantitatively about it, and this is a major hindrance in improving systems' ease of management. In this paper, we propose a manageability metric that aims to be objective, intuitive, and broadly applicable. We hope such a metric will help software developersmake the right design tradeoffs and will also foster fair competition on the basis of manageability. We also offer preliminary thoughts on incorporating this metric into a benchmark.
Overview of a Generic Evolutionary Design System

This paper presents an overview of a generic evolutionary design system. The system uses a hybrid 'steady-state' multiobjective genetic algorithm with an explicit mapping stage between genotypes and phenotypes to evolve designs. The system evolves the geometries of a range of solid object designs from scratch. A selection of evolved designs are presented.
Performance:The Metaphor in Educational Life

In daily communication,"prejudices" on the meaning of "performance" dominate people's understanding.But according to the human behaviorism,performance is one of the ways of human's life and existence.The introduction of performance in educational life,as an approach,can improve validity of instruction,and spiritedly,it can bring the new recognition to"self-consciousness",the new understanding to communication,the origin and the prototype of education,and life existence and development.
A QoS-Based Multichannel MAC Protocol for Two-Tiered Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks

Rapid penetration of small customized wireless devices and enormous growth of wireless communication technologies has already set the stage for large-scale deployment of wireless sensor networks. Offering precise quality of service (QoS) for multimedia transmission over sensor networks has not received significant attention. However offering some better QoS for wireless multimedia over sensor networks raises significant challenges. In this paper, we propose an adaptive Cross-Layer multi-channel QoS-MAC protocol to support energy-efficient, high throughput, and reliable data transmission in Wireless Multimedia Sensor Network (WMSNs). Our proposed protocol use benefit of TDMA and CSMA/CA to adaptively assign channels and timeslots to active multimedia sensor nodes in clusters. Simulations show that the proposed system achieves the performance objectives of WMSNs with increased network throughput at the cost of a small control and energy overhead.
Charge-Surrounded Pockets and Electrostatic Interactions with Small Ions Modulate the Activity of Retroviral Fusion Proteins

Refolding of viral class-1 membrane fusion proteins from a native state to a trimer-of-hairpins structure promotes entry of viruses into cells. Here we present the structure of the bovine leukaemia virus transmembrane glycoprotein (TM) and identify a group of asparagine residues at the membrane-distal end of the trimer-of-hairpins that is strikingly conserved among divergent viruses. These asparagines are not essential for surface display of pre-fusogenic envelope. Instead, substitution of these residues dramatically disrupts membrane fusion. Our data indicate that, through electrostatic interactions with a chloride ion, the asparagine residues promote assembly and profoundly stabilize the fusion-active structures that are required for viral envelope-mediated membrane fusion. Moreover, the BLV TM structure also reveals a charge-surrounded hydrophobic pocket on the central coiled coil and interactions with basic residues that cluster around this pocket are critical to membrane fusion and form a target for peptide inhibitors of envelope function. Charge-surrounded pockets and electrostatic interactions with small ions are common among class-1 fusion proteins, suggesting that small molecules that specifically target such motifs should prevent assembly of the trimer-of-hairpins and be of value as therapeutic inhibitors of viral entry.
Semantic image retrieval with hsv correlograms

Recently introduced color correlograms have been found to be superior to color histograms and color coherence vectors in content-based image retrieval. This is based on their ability to capture also spatial relationships of colors, in addition to occurrence statistics. In this work we study content-based retrieval of images using color correlograms computed in HSV color space. HSV correlograms are particularly interesting in terms of content-based retrieval, as HSV color space is supposed to provide better correspondence with human visual perception of color (dis)similari-ties than for example RGB color space. We explore different quantizations of the HSV color space, and try to make the correlogram more sensitive to changes in color content and less sensitive to illumination by quantisizing the hue component more precisely than the value component. The retrieval performance of HSV correlograms is quantitatively compared to that of RGB correlograms and HSV histograms based on queries with eight semantic categories of images manually designated by a human observer.
Clinical, genetic, neurophysiological and functional study of new mutations in episodic ataxia type 1

Background and objective Heterozygous mutations in KCNA1 cause episodic ataxia type 1 (EA1), an ion channel disorder characterised by brief paroxysms of cerebellar dysfunction and persistent neuromyotonia. This paper describes four previously unreported families with EA1, with the aim of understanding the phenotypic spectrum associated with different mutations. Methods 15 affected individuals from four families underwent clinical, genetic and neurophysiological evaluation. The functional impact of new mutations identified in the KCNA1 gene was investigated with in vitro electrophysiology and immunocytochemistry. Results Detailed clinical documentation, dating back to 1928 in one family, indicates that all patients manifested episodic ataxia of varying severity. Four subjects from three families reported hearing impairment, which has not previously been reported in association with EA1. New mutations (R167M, C185W and I407M) were identified in three out of the four families. When expressed in human embryonic kidney cells, all three new mutations resulted in a loss of Kv1.1 channel function. The fourth family harboured a previously reported A242P mutation, which has not been previously described in association with ataxia. Conclusions The genetic basis of EA1 in four families is established and this report presents the earliest documented case from 1928. All three new mutations caused a loss of Kv1.1 channel function. The finding of deafness in four individuals raises the possibility of a link between Kv1.1 dysfunction and hearing impairment. Our findings broaden the phenotypic range associated with mutations in KCNA1.
Clinical and Economic Benefits of Autologous Epidermal Grafting

Chronic wounds are an increasingly prevalent disease with a significant healthcare burden. These wounds often do not respond to standard of care therapy alone, requiring the use of adjuvant therapies. Epidermal grafting, previously utilized primarily for correction of leukoderma, is increasingly being recognized as a beneficial therapy for wounds, both acute and chronic. Epidermal grafting has been shown to be effective in the management of chronic wounds, with successful healing in refractory patients. It has not only been shown to be effective, but it is also associated with lower cost and morbidity than traditional skin grafting techniques as well as improved donor site healing. Through the use of a novel epidermal harvesting system, the CelluTome™ Epidermal Harvesting System (KCI, an Acelity company, San Antonio, TX), this treatment modality has become more standardized, reproducible, and easy to use as well as less time consuming, making its use in the clinical setting more convenient and beneficial. Epidermal grafting, therefore, represents a promising, efficacious, and cost-effective option for treatment of refractory non-healing wounds.
A Fault Tolerance Framework for High Performance Computing in Cloud

Cloud computing offers new capacity and flexibility solution to high performance computing (HPC) applications with provisioning of a large number of virtual machines for computational intensive applications. Fault tolerance allows HPC systems on cloud with multiple of nodes to complete execution of computational intensive applications in the present of fault. The most commonly used fault tolerance techniques for HPC is checkpoint/restart. However, checkpoint/restart increases the wall clock time of the execution of applications which increases the execution cost. In this paper we present a fault tolerance framework for high performance computing in Cloud. This framework proposes using process level redundancy (PLR) techniques to reduce the wall clock time of the execution of computational intensive applications.
Point source outbreaks of Campylobacter jejuni infection – are they more common than we think and what might cause them?

Despite being the commonest bacterial cause of infectious intestinal disease (IID) in England and Wales, outbreaks of campylobacter infection are rarely reported. However, data from the Campylobacter Sentinel Surveillance Scheme suggested that outbreaks might be more common than was previously suspected, since a high proportion of cases reported other illness in the home or in the community at the same time as their illness. To identify factors that might lead to these apparent outbreaks, the exposures of cases of Campylobacter jejuni infection reporting other illness, either in the home or the community, were compared with those for cases not reporting other illness using case–case methodology. Illness in the home was associated with consuming organic meats in the winter, having contact with a pet suffering from diarrhoea or visiting a farm in the 2 weeks before the onset of symptoms. Illness in the community was associated with the consumption of foods in restaurants or drinking unpasteurized milk. Prevention of campylobacter infection requires that better methods of outbreak detection and investigation are developed, which in turn should lead to a better understanding of risk factors.
Characterizing IT-based consumer health artefacts

Increasingly IT-based tools and applications are being provided for consumers to become involved in aspects of their own healthcare. Commentary on these artefacts varies widely as different areas of literature adopt different terminologies and perspectives in their discourse. Our paper provides a case study for how the literature available on this topic may be explored and classified according to a typology which was determined by structured application of PubMed searches. This has relevance to the more general design of approaches used for identifying IT-based topics in clinical literature.
Anxiety Break: A Smartphone Application Used to Examine the Mediating Effects of Metacognition on Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Worry is the highlight characteristic of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). While worry is very common in anxiety disorders, it is important to note that worry is common in non-clinical populations as well. The current study focused on the metacognitive model of GAD (Wells, 2005). Various intervention types available for those with GAD have been examined. However, with the surge of technological advances being integrated into the field of psychology, it is important to examine technology-based treatments, more specifically smartphone application interventions. The purpose of the current study was to use a smartphone application (Anxiety Breaks; Habib, 2013) that targets worry in a population that met GAD criteria using the Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ; Meyer et al., 1990). The goal was to examine how metacognitions mediate GAD symptoms before and after a three-week trial of application usage. It was hypothesized that post-usage scores would reflect a reduction in anxiety symptoms. Twenty-six undergraduate students at a large Midwestern university who reached the proper criteria for GAD after a phone screening of the PSWQ were recruited. Students engaged in an hour-long time one survey and computer task after which they were given the smartphone application to use for three weeks if they were in the immediate group or were told to wait for three weeks if they were in the waitlist group. Both groups completed weekly PSWQ’s and came in for another hour session after three weeks for time two and were given the opposite instructions from time one. At the end of the next three weeks, they were sent an online survey for time three. GADQ-IV and MCQ scores were predicted to decrease at time two after application use.
A multilevel eigenvalue based circuit partitioning technique

VLSI circuit partitioning is an important step in the physical design of integrated circuits. In VLSI partitioning, a circuit is partitioned into smaller relatively independent sub-circuits. In this paper we present an eigenvalue based multilevel partitioning algorithm. The proposed method uses a matrix reordering technique to produce a minimal bandwidth matrix, relying upon matrix sparsity. The reordering technique is applied to the connectivity matrix of a clustered circuit and the matrix connectivity information is obtained. This connectivity information is used to partition the circuit. The experimental results demonstrate the technique's effectiveness against flat partitioning algorithms.
Factors Associated with Unfavorable Treatment Outcomes in New and Previously Treated TB Patients in Uzbekistan: A Five Year Countrywide Study

Background TB is one of the main health priorities in Uzbekistan and relatively high rates of unfavorable treatment outcomes have recently been reported. This requires closer analysis to explain the reasons and recommend interventions to improve the situation. Thus, by using countrywide data this study sought to determine trends in unfavorable outcomes (lost-to-follow-ups, deaths and treatment failures) and describe their associations with socio-demographic and clinical factors. Method A countrywide retrospective cohort study of all new and previously treated TB patients registered in the National Tuberculosis programme between January 2006 and December 2010. Results Among 107,380 registered patients, 67% were adults, with smaller proportions of children (10%), adolescents (4%) and elderly patients (19%). Sixty per cent were male, 66% lived in rural areas, 1% were HIV-infected and 1% had a history of imprisonment. Pulmonary TB (PTB) was present in 77%, of which 43% were smear-positive and 53% were smear-negative. Overall, 83% of patients were successfully treated, 6% died, 6% were lost-to-follow-up, 3% failed treatment and 2% transferred out. Factors associated with death included being above 55 years of age, HIV-positive, sputum smear positive, previously treated, jobless and living in certain provinces. Factors associated with lost-to-follow-up were being male, previously treated, jobless, living in an urban area, and living in certain provinces. Having smear-positive PTB, being an adolescent, being urban population, being HIV-negative, previously treated, jobless and residing in particular provinces were associated with treatment failure. Conclusion Overall, 83% treatment success rate was achieved. However, our study findings highlight the need to improve TB services for certain vulnerable groups and in specific areas of the country. They also emphasize the need to develop unified monitoring and evaluation tools for drug-susceptible and drug-resistant TB, and call for better TB surveillance and coordination between provinces and neighbouring countries.
String Distances for Near-duplicate Detection

Near-duplicate detection is important when dealing with large, noisy databases in data mining tasks. In this paper, we present the results of applying the Rank distance and the Smith-Waterman distance, along with more popular string similarity measures such as the Levenshtein distance, together with a disjoint set data structure, for the problem of near-duplicate detection. HE concept of near-duplicates belongs to the larger class of problems known as knowledge discovery and data mining, that is identifying consistent patterns in large scale data bases of any nature. Any two chunks of text that have possibly different syntactic structure, but identical or very similar semantics, are said to be near duplicates. During the last decade, largely due to low cost storage capacity, the volume of stored data increased at amassing rates; thus, the size of useful and available datasets for almost any task has become very large, prompting the need of scalable methods. Many datasets are noisy, in the very specific sense of having redundant data in the form of identical or nearly identical entries. In an interview for The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel (see http://www.metrocorpcounsel.com/articles/7757/ near-duplicates-elephant-document-review-room), Warwick Sharp, vice-president of Equivio Ltd., a company offering information on retrieval services to law firms with huge legal document databases, noted that 20 to 30 percent of data they work with are actually near-duplicates, and this is after identical duplicate elimination. The most extreme case they handled was made up of 45% near-duplicates. Today it is estimated that around 7% of websites are approximately duplicates of one another, and their number is growing rapidly. On the one hand, near-duplicates have the effect of artificially enlarging the dataset and therefore slowing down any processing; on the other hand, the small variation between them can contain additional information so that, by merging them, we obtain an entry with more information than any of the original near-duplicates on their own. Therefore, the key problems regarding near-duplicates are identification