Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Oral Health-Related Quality of Life and Traumatic Dental Injuries in Young Permanent Incisors in Brazilian Schoolchildren: A Multilevel Approach

Background Traumatic dental injury (TDI) during childhood may negatively impact the quality of life of children. Objective To describe the association of oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) and domains (oral symptons, functional limitation, emotional- and social-well-being) of children with individual and contextual variables. Methods A cross-sectional study was performed using a representative sample of 1,201 schoolchildren, 8–10 years-old, from public and private schools of Belo Horizonte, Brazil. The CPQ8–10 was used to assess OHRQoL, dichotomized in low and high impact. Sociodemographic information was collected through questionnaires to parents. Children were examined at schools, using the Andreasen criteria. Individual variables were gender, age, number of residents in home, parents/caregivers’ level of education, family income, and TDI (dichotomized into without trauma/mild trauma and severe trauma). Dental caries and malocclusion were considered co-variables. Contextual variables were the Social Vulnerability Index and type of school. Ethical approval and consent forms were obtained. Data were analyzed using SPSS for Windows 19.0 and HLM 6.06, including frequency distribution, chi-squared test and multilevel approach (p < 0.05). Results The prevalence of a negative impact on OHRQoL in children with severe trauma was 55.9%. The TDI negatively impacted emotional and social domains of OHRQoL. A multilevel analysis revealed a significant difference in OHRQoL according to the type of school and showed that 16% of the total variance was due to contextual characteristics (p < 0.001; ICC = 0.16). The negative impact on OHRQoL was higher in girls (p = 0.009), younger children (p = 0.023), with severe TDI (p = 0.014), those from public schools (p = 0.017) and whose parents had a lower education level (p = 0.001). Conclusion Severe trauma impacts OHRQoL on emotional and social domains. Contextual dimensions add information to individual variability to explain higher impact, emphasizing socioeconomic inequalities.
Expression Level Drives the Pattern of Selective Constraints along the Insulin/Tor Signal Transduction Pathway in Caenorhabditis

Genes do not act in isolation but perform their biological functions within genetic pathways that are connected in larger networks. Investigation of nucleotide variation within genetic pathways and networks has shown that topology can affect the rate of protein evolution; however, it remains unclear whether a same pattern of nucleotide variation is expected within functionally similar networks and whether it may be due to similar or different biological mechanisms. We address these questions by investigating nucleotide variation in the context of the structure of the insulin/Tor-signaling pathway in Caenorhabditis, which is well characterized and is functionally conserved across phylogeny. In Drosophila and vertebrates, the rate of protein evolution is negatively correlated with the position of a gene within the insulin/Tor pathway. Similarly, we find that in Caenorhabditis, the rate of amino acid replacement is lower for downstream genes. However, in Caenorhabditis, the rate of synonymous substitution is also strongly affected by the position of a gene in the pathway, and we show that the distribution of selective pressure along the pathway is driven by differential expression level. A full understanding of the effect of pathway structure on selective constraints is therefore likely to require inclusion of specific biological function into more general network models.
Approximations and control variates for pricing portfolio credit derivatives

Portfolio credit derivatives that depend on default correlation are increasingly widespread in the credit market. Valuing such products often entails Monte Carlo simulation. However, for large portfolios, plain Monte Carlo simulation can be slow. In this paper, we develop approximation methods for pricing collateralized debt obligation (CDO) tranches in the widely used factor copula approach. We also discuss using the approximations as control variates to improve the precision of Monte Carlo estimates. These approximation methods and control variate techniques could be applied to pricing other portfolio credit derivatives as well.
An intelligent model for reconstruction of stance time from faulty gait recording

In an erroneous footfall ground-reaction force-time recording, which may occur for people with disabilities or frail elderly individuals, the stance time (ST) can be either corrupted or missing. Previous methods to estimate missing ST require force-time data from multiple force platforms and are affected by inter-step variability. This paper presents a model based on support vector machine (SVM) that is capable of estimating the missing ST from the available vertical force-timing characteristics with significantly high accuracy. The model was built using features taken from a data set of 466 sample trials of 27 subjects. A test on 40 sample trials drawn from all the subjects revealed an average prediction accuracy of 96.63% (/spl plusmn/2.89%). In one-fourth of the test trials, the prediction error was within 1.0%. The model achieves considerable improvement over an artificial neural network based model built and tested on the same data set. The effect of kernel junction parameters and /spl epsiv/-insensitive loss function on prediction error is also analysed and presented.
Development of novel multifunctional robotic crawler for inspection of hanger cables in suspension bridges

This paper introduces a novel robot which is able to climb hanger cables of long span suspension bridges. The robot has been developed for inspection purpose, and it can help us remotely inspect the state of cables by using cameras and Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) devices. The robot consists of two traction modules, two sub modules, and an adhesion mechanism. The unique design of the traction module ensures the stable movement of the robot on the twisted surface of the hanger cable. In this paper, we describe the structure and environmental situation of hanger cables and the mechanisms of the robot. Also, the results of experiments in the indoor and outdoor environments are included.
Tamarind (Tamarindus indica L.), an Underutilized Fruit Crop with Potential Nutritional Value for Cultivation in the United States of America: A Review

between Author researched practices, literature wrote first of the CJC consultant. Both ABSTRACT Tamarind is a perennial fruit crop revealing its potential as a viable resource vegetable of excellent nutrition. The late flowering types of tamarind are best suitable for cultivation in USDA Hardiness Zones 9-11, which include the warmer portions of California, Arizona, Alabama, Mississippi, New Mexico, Louisiana, Texas, and Florida. Germplasm introduction and evaluation trials will help to enhance cold hardiness, create variability in available genetic resource, and enable increased production of tamarind for various purposes.
Bridging the Semantic Gap to Mitigate Kernel-Level Keyloggers

Kernel-level key loggers, which are installed as part of the operating system (OS) with complete control of kernel code, data and resources, are a growing and very serious threat to the security of current systems. Defending against this type of malware means defending the kernel itself against compromise and it is still an open and difficult problem. This paper details the implementation of two classical kernel-level key loggers for Linux 2.6. 38 and how current defense approaches still fail to protect OSes against this type of malware. We further present our current research directions to mitigate this threat by employing an architecture where a guest OS and a virtual machine layer actively collaborate to guarantee kernel integrity. This collaborative approach allows us to better bridge the semantic gap between the OS and architecture layers and devise stronger and more flexible defense solutions to protect the integrity of OS kernels.
Robust Localization with Unknown Transmission Power for Cognitive Radio

The transmission power and position of the primary user in cognitive radio (CR) is very precious information because information of the primary user determines the spatial resource. This opportunistic spatial resource is available for secondary users to exploit it. To find the position of the primary user, we try to use existing positioning or localization schemes based on ranging techniques but those require the primary user's transmission power. Since most primary users in CR are legacy systems, there are no beacon protocols to advertise useful information such as transmission power. Some of the existing localization schemes do not require transmission power, but they do not work in Outer case that the primary user is out of convex hull of secondary user's coordinates. We propose constrained optimization method to estimate transmission power and position without prior information of transmission power. As a result, simulations on two major cases of network deployment. It is proved that the proposed constrained optimization method increases the performance in mean squared error (MSE) between the true and the estimated values of transmission power and which position.
Wind turbine control system modeling capabilities

At the National Renewable Energy Laboratory`s (NREL`s) National Wind Technology Center the authors are continuing to make progress in their ability to model complete wind turbine systems. An ADAMS{reg_sign} model of the NREL variable speed test bed turbine was developed to determine whether wind turbine control systems could be simulated and to investigate other control strategies for this turbine. Model simulations are compared with data from the operating turbine using the current mode of operation. In general, the simulations show good agreement with test data. Having established confidence in their ability to model the physical machine, the authors evaluated two other control methods. The methods studied are a generalized predictive control method and a bias estimation method. Simulation results using these methods are compared to simulation results of the current mode of operation of the turbine.
Role of Conservation Tillage as Climate Change Mitigation

There is an urgent need to match food production with increasing world population through identification of sustainable land management strategies. However, the struggle to achieve food security should be carried out keeping in mind the soil where the crops are grown and the environment in which the living things survive. Conservation Tillage (CT), practicing agriculture in such a way so as to cause minimum damage to the environment, is being advocated at a large scale world-wide, and is thought to take care of the soil health, plant growth and the environment. This paper aims to review the work done on conservation tillage in different agro-ecological regions so as to understand its impact from the perspectives of the soil, the crop and the environment. Research reports have identified several benefits of conservation tillage over conventional tillage (CT) with respect to soil physical, chemical and biological properties as well as crop yields and reduction in carbon dioxide emission from soil into the atmosphere. Processes of climate change mitigation and adaptation found zero tillage (ZT) to be the most environmental friendly among different tillage techniques. Keywords: Conservation Tillage, Sustainable Soil management, Climate Change DOI : 10.7176/CER/11-1-03
Convergent Propagation Algorithms via Oriented Trees

Inference problems in graphical models are often approximated by casting them as constrained optimization problems. Message passing algorithms, such as belief propagation, have previously been suggested as methods for solving these optimization problems. However, there are few convergence guarantees for such algorithms, and the algorithms are therefore not guaranteed to solve the corresponding optimization problem. Here we present an oriented tree decomposition algorithm that is guaranteed to converge to the global optimum of the Tree-Reweighted (TRW) variational problem. Our algorithm performs local updates in the convex dual of the TRW problem - an unconstrained generalized geometric program. Primal updates, also local, correspond to oriented reparametrization operations that leave the distribution intact.
Rupture Dynamics of Heterogeneous Frictional Interfaces

The onset of sliding motion is conditional on the propagation of rupture fronts that detach the contacting asperities forming a frictional interface. These ruptures, when propagating over a fault surface, are the most common mechanism for an earthquake. Experimentally, the transition from static to sliding friction takes place when a rupture traverses the entire interface. But ruptures can also arrest before reaching the end of the interface. The determination of the mechanisms responsible for rupture arrest is of particular interest for understanding an earthquake's magnitude selection. Propagating ruptures have been shown to be true shear cracks, driven by singular fields at their tip, and fracture mechanics have been successfully used to describe rupture arrest along homogeneous frictional interfaces. Performing high temporal resolution measurements of the real contact area and strain fields, we demonstrate that the same framework provides an excellent quantitative description of rupture arrest along interfaces with heterogeneous fracture properties and complex stress distributions at a macroscopic scale. This work unravels the different mechanisms responsible for rupture arrest along model laboratory faults. This fracture‐based paradigm opens a window to a wide range of possible consequences for frictional behavior along any two contacting bodies; from the centimeter scale to the scale of natural faults.
Evaluating the Impact of the Electronic Health Record on Patient Flow in a Pediatric Emergency Department

Summary Background: There is little data on the effect of the EHR on emergency department (ED) efficiency. Objective: 1) to quantify the effect of the EHR on patient flow in an academic pediatric ED. 2) to analyze the effects of patient census, boarding time, staffing hours, and acuity on the mean daily ED length-of-stay (LOS) and triage-to-provider time. Methods: ED performance was compared before and after the implementation of an EHR in May 2008. Six month intervals were used with a 5 month period of adjustment between the pre- and post-EHR intervals. 34791 patient visits met inclusion criteria. Multiple linear regression was used to evaluate the LOS and triage-to-provider time as influenced by internal and external variables affecting the ED. Results: Daily patient census increased by 5.8% (p<0.01) without a change in rate of ED admissions. Nursing and practitioner hours increased by 19.7% and 16.1%, respectively because of the increased census and a perceived slowing associated with the EHR. Following the implementation, LOS remained unchanged while triage-to-provider time increased by 5 minutes per patient (p<0.05). Factors that independently affected both LOS and triage-to-provider time included census, acuity, and practitioner hours (p<0.05). When controlling for these independent variables, the use of an EHR did not affect either outcome variable (p=0.251, 0.074 respectively). However, patient flow was worsened with the EHR during days of extremely high patient census. Conclusion: An ED-EHR was associated with a modest increase in time to see a medical provider but was not associated with a change in overall LOS. When controlling for factors including patient volume, acuity, and staffing, the EHR did not independently affect ED patient flow. The EHR may have a more profound impact on ED performance during periods of extremely high census.
A Rhinocerotid Skull Cooked-to-Death in a 9.2 Ma-Old Ignimbrite Flow of Turkey

Background Preservation of fossil vertebrates in volcanic rocks is extremely rare. An articulated skull (cranium and mandible) of a rhinoceros was found in a 9.2±0.1 Ma-old ignimbrite of Cappadocia, Central Turkey. The unusual aspect of the preserved hard tissues of the skull (rough bone surface and brittle dentine) allows suspecting a peri-mortem exposure to a heating source. Methodology/Principal Findings Here we describe and identify the skull as belonging to the large two-horned rhinocerotine Ceratotherium neumayri, well-known in the late Miocene of the Eastern Mediterranean Province. Gross structural features and microscopic changes of hard tissues (bones and teeth) are then monitored and compared to the results of forensic and archaeological studies and experiments focusing on heating effects, in order to reconstruct the hypothetical peri-mortem conditions. Macroscopic and microscopic structural changes on compact bones (canaliculi and lamellae vanished), as well as partial dentine/cementum disintegration, drastic enamel-dentine disjunctions or microscopic cracks affecting all hard dental tissues (enamel, cementum, and dentine) point to continued exposures to temperatures around 400–450°C. Comparison to other cases of preservation of fossil vertebrates within volcanic rocks points unambiguously to some similarity with the 79 AD Plinian eruption of the Vesuvius, in Italy. Conclusions/Significance A 9.2±0.1 Ma-old pyroclastic density current, sourced from the Çardak caldera, likely provoked the instant death of the Karacaşar rhino, before the body of the latter experienced severe dehydration (leading to the wide and sustainable opening of the mouth), was then dismembered within the pyroclastic flow of subaerial origin, the skull being separated from the remnant body and baked under a temperature approximating 400°C, then transported northward, rolled, and trapped in disarray into that pyroclastic flow forming the pinkish Kavak-4 ignimbrite ∼30 km North from the upper Miocene vent.
Using additive noise in back-propagation training

The possibility of improving the generalization capability of a neural network by introducing additive noise to the training samples is discussed. The network considered is a feedforward layered neural network trained with the back-propagation algorithm. Back-propagation training is viewed as nonlinear least-squares regression and the additive noise is interpreted as generating a kernel estimate of the probability density that describes the training vector distribution. Two specific application types are considered: pattern classifier networks and estimation of a nonstochastic mapping from data corrupted by measurement errors. It is not proved that the introduction of additive noise to the training vectors always improves network generalization. However, the analysis suggests mathematically justified rules for choosing the characteristics of noise if additive noise is used in training. Results of mathematical statistics are used to establish various asymptotic consistency results for the proposed method. Numerical simulations support the applicability of the training method.
A review of financial instruments to pay for predator conservation and encourage human–carnivore coexistence

One of the greatest challenges in biodiversity conservation today is how to facilitate protection of species that are highly valued at a global scale but have little or even negative value at a local scale. Imperiled species such as large predators can impose significant economic costs at a local level, often in poverty-stricken rural areas where households are least able to tolerate such costs, and impede efforts of local people, especially traditional pastoralists, to escape from poverty. Furthermore, the costs and benefits involved in predator conservation often include diverse dimensions, which are hard to quantify and nearly impossible to reconcile with one another. The best chance of effective conservation relies upon translating the global value of carnivores into tangible local benefits large enough to drive conservation “on the ground. ” Although human–carnivore coexistence involves significant noneconomic values, providing financial incentives to those affected negatively by carnivore presence is a common strategy for encouraging such coexistence, and this can also have important benefits in terms of reducing poverty. Here, we provide a critical overview of such financial instruments, which we term “payments to encourage coexistence”; assess the pitfalls and potentials of these methods, particularly compensation and insurance, revenue-sharing, and conservation payments; and discuss how existing strategies of payment to encourage coexistence could be combined to facilitate carnivore conservation and alleviate local poverty.
Non-Invasive Brain-Actuated Control of a Mobile Robot

We review and extend earlier work on the logic CFD, a description logic that allows terminological cycles with universal restrictions over functional roles. In particular, we consider the problem of reasoning about concept subsumption and the problem of computing certain answers for a family of attribute-connected conjunctive queries, showing that both problems are in PTIME. We then consider the effect on the complexity of these problems after adding a concept constructor that expresses concept union, or after adding a concept constructor for the bottom class. Finally, we show that adding both constructors makes both problems EXPTIME-complete.
Characterization of a chromosomally encoded 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid/alpha-ketoglutarate dioxygenase from Burkholderia sp. strain RASC

The findings of previous studies indicate that the genes required for metabolism of the pesticide 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) are typically encoded on broad-host-range plasmids. However, characterization of plasmid-cured strains of Burkholderia sp. strain RASC, as well as mutants obtained by transposon mutagenesis, suggested that the 2,4-D catabolic genes were located on the chromosome of this strain. Mutants of Burkholderia strain RASC unable to degrade 2,4-D (2,4-D- strains) were obtained by insertional inactivation with Tn5. One such mutant (d1) was shown to have Tn5 inserted in tfdARASC, which encodes 2,4-D/alpha-ketoglutarate dioxygenase. This is the first reported example of a chromosomally encoded tfdA. The tfdARASC gene was cloned from a library of wild-type Burkholderia strain RASC DNA and shown to express 2,4-D/alpha-ketoglutarate dioxygenase activity in Escherichia coli. The DNA sequence of the gene was determined and shown to be similar, although not identical, to those of isofunctional genes from other bacteria. Moreover, the gene product (TfdARASC) was purified and shown to be similar in molecular weight, amino-terminal sequence, and reaction mechanism to the canonical TfdA of Alcaligenes eutrophus JMP134. The data presented here indicate that tfdA genes can be found on the chromosome of some bacterial species and suggest that these catabolic genes are rather mobile and may be transferred by means other than conjugation.
Venous aneurysm complicating arteriovenous fistula access and matrix metalloproteinases

Abstract Introduction: An arteriovenous fistula (AVF) for placed for hemodialysis may be burdened by one particular complication-the formation of a venous aneurysm. It has been shown that matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) and neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL) could represent markers of disease in both venous and arterial vessels. Materials and methods: This case study reports a rare case of enormous venous aneurysm-correlated MMP and NGAL levels in a woman with an AVF. Results: Significantly higher levels of plasma MMP-1, MMP-8, MMP-9, and NGAL were detected in this patient during aneurysmal evaluation before the surgery; these levels significantly decreased 1, 3 and 6 months after surgery. Conclusion: MMP and NGAL levels could represent a marker of aneurysmal disease, and their plasma evaluation could help physicians to stratify the risk of complications in patients with an AVF.