Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prevalence of blindness and cataract surgery in Nepal

BACKGROUND A national eye care programme was launched in Nepal in the early 1980s. The impact of this programme on blindness and cataract surgery prevalence was evaluated in two geographic zones. METHODS People aged 45 years and older were sampled using a stratified cluster design. Within randomly selected clusters, door to door enumeration was followed by visual acuity measurement and eye examinations at conveniently located sites. The full survey was preceded by a pilot study where operational methods were refined and quality assurance measures carried out. RESULTS Of the 5112 enumerated individuals 90% were examined. Blindness, defined as presenting visual acuity less than 6/60 in both eyes, was found in 5.3% (95% CI 3.6, 6.8) of individuals examined, with cataract being the principal cause in at least one eye in 78% of cases. Considering both cataract operated and unoperated cataract blind cases, surgical coverage was approximately 42%. CONCLUSION The findings suggest that blindness prevalence may have decreased slightly from that estimated in a 1981 national survey, both overall and cataract related. Similarly, cataract surgical coverage may have increased somewhat. None of these changes, however, are at statistically significant levels. Accordingly, the blindness problem remains challengingly high.
Query by singing/hum ming (QbSH) system for polyphonic music retrieval

This paper proposes a query-by-singing/humming (QbSH) system which retrieves the most similar music information by comparing the input data with the extracted feature information from a polyphonic music such as a MP3. The performance of music retrieval system is mainly affected by the matching engine. Feature sequences extracted from polyphonic music tracks may have many errors. Therefore, the chroma-scale representation, compensation, and asymmetric DTW (Dynamic Time Warping) are adopted in the matching engine to reduce the influence of errors and improve the performance. The performance of various distance metrics are also investigated in this paper. In our implementation, the proposed QbSH system achieves the MRR (Mean Reciprocal Rank) of 0.718 for 1000 singing/humming queries when searching from a database of 450 polyphonic music tracks.
Genome-wide association study identiﬁes a new susceptibility locus for cleft lip with or without a cleft palate

Nonsyndromic cleft lip with or without a cleft palate (NSCL/P) is among the most common human congenital birth defects and imposes a substantial physical and ﬁnancial burden on affected individuals. Here, we conduct a case–control-based GWAS followed by two rounds of replication; we include six independent cohorts from China to elucidate the genetic architecture of NSCL/P in Chinese populations. Using this combined analysis, we identify a new locus at 16p13.3 associated with NSCL/P: rs8049367 between CREBBP and ADCY9 (odds ratio ¼ 0.74, P ¼ 8.98 (cid:2) 10 (cid:3) 12 ). We conﬁrm that the reported loci at 1q32.2, 10q25.3, 17p13.1 and 20q12 are also involved in NSCL/P development in Chinese populations. Our results provide additional evidence that the rs2235371-related haplotype at 1q32.2
Improved PPP Ambiguity Resolution Considering the Stochastic Characteristics of Atmospheric Corrections from Regional Networks

With the increased availability of regional reference networks, Precise Point Positioning (PPP) can achieve fast ambiguity resolution (AR) and precise positioning by assimilating the satellite fractional cycle biases (FCBs) and atmospheric corrections derived from these networks. In such processing, the atmospheric corrections are usually treated as deterministic quantities. This is however unrealistic since the estimated atmospheric corrections obtained from the network data are random and furthermore the interpolated corrections diverge from the realistic corrections. This paper is dedicated to the stochastic modelling of atmospheric corrections and analyzing their effects on the PPP AR efficiency. The random errors of the interpolated corrections are processed as two components: one is from the random errors of estimated corrections at reference stations, while the other arises from the atmospheric delay discrepancies between reference stations and users. The interpolated atmospheric corrections are then applied by users as pseudo-observations with the estimated stochastic model. Two data sets are processed to assess the performance of interpolated corrections with the estimated stochastic models. The results show that when the stochastic characteristics of interpolated corrections are properly taken into account, the successful fix rate reaches 93.3% within 5 min for a medium inter-station distance network and 80.6% within 10 min for a long inter-station distance network.
Autonomic response to standardized stress predicts subsequent disease activity in ulcerative colitis

Objectives Prospective studies of the role of psychological stress in ulcerative colitis are inconsistent or show a modest relationship. We tested the hypothesis that individual differences in autonomic function are associated with differences in the disease course of ulcerative colitis. Methods The spectral power of heart rate variability, an indirect marker of autonomic function, was measured during a standardized stress protocol in 93 ulcerative colitis patients. Patients were categorized as typical or atypical by an increase or decrease, respectively, in the high frequency band of heart rate variability from a period of acute stress to recovery 5 min later. Disease activity was measured at baseline (time 1) and a second time point (time 2) 7–37 months later. Results An atypical pattern of heart rate variability at time 1, present in 29% of patients, was associated with lower mean disease activity at time 2 (atypical, 0.56±0.93; typical, 2.27±2.56, P=0.001). The contribution of heart rate variability pattern to explaining time 2 disease activity was independent of the contributions of other factors that differed between groups, including time 1 disease activity and lifetime corticosteroid use. Discussion An atypical pattern of autonomic reactivity may be a marker of individual differences in stress regulation that has prognostic significance in ulcerative colitis.
On modeling of cutting forces in micro-end milling operation

ABSTRACT Micro-end milling is used for manufacturing of complex miniaturized components precisely in wide range of materials. It is important to predict cutting forces accurately as it plays vital role in controlling tool and workpiece deflections as well as tool wear and breakage. The present study attempts to incorporate process characteristics such as edge radius of cutting tool, effective rake and clearance angles, minimum chip thickness, and elastic recovery of work material collectively while predicting cutting forces using mechanistic model. To incorporate these process characteristics effectively, it is proposed to divide cutting zone into two regions: shearing- and ploughing-dominant regions. The methodology estimates cutting forces in each partitioned zone separately and then combines the same to obtain total cutting force at a given cutter rotation angle. The results of proposed model are validated by performing machining experiments over a wide range of cutting conditions. The paper also highlights the importance of incorporating elastic recovery of work material and effective rake and clearance angle while predicting cutting forces. It has been observed that the proposed methodology predicts the magnitude and profile of cutting forces accurately for micro-end milling operation.
Improved Tribological Behavior of Grey Cast Iron Under Low and High Viscous Lubricants by Laser Surface Texturing

The main objective of this paper was to investigate the effect of laser surface texturing (LST) on the friction and wear behavior of gray cast iron in lubricated conditions. The dimples with a diameter of 54 μm and depth of about 10 μm were produced with various dimple densities in the range from 5 to 35 %. Ball-on-disc friction tests were carried out for all the specimens in low and high viscous oils. The friction coefficient was reduced by about 35 % after the LST compared with the untextured specimen at a load of 5 N and speed of 5 cm/s. The textured specimen with a dimple density of 10 % possessed the lowest friction coefficient of all the dimpled specimens in both low and high viscous oils. However, the high viscous oil was found to be more effective to achieve a lower friction coefficient compared to the low viscous oil. The friction coefficient reduced by about 46 % in high viscous oil compared to the low viscous oil. Similarly, the lower wear was noticed for the specimen with a dimple density of 10 % and 5 % among all the specimens in both low and high viscous oils. The resistance to wear of the specimens was also found to be enhanced in high viscous oil compared to those in low viscous oil.
Interferometric Laser Scanner for Direction Determination

In this paper, we explore the potential capabilities of new laser scanning-based method for direction determination. The method for fully coherent beams is extended to the case when interference pattern is produced in the turbulent atmosphere by two partially coherent sources. The performed theoretical analysis identified the conditions under which stable pattern may form on extended paths of 0.5–10 km in length. We describe a method for selecting laser scanner parameters, ensuring the necessary operability range in the atmosphere for any possible turbulence characteristics. The method is based on analysis of the mean intensity of interference pattern, formed by two partially coherent sources of optical radiation. Visibility of interference pattern is estimated as a function of propagation pathlength, structure parameter of atmospheric turbulence, and spacing of radiation sources, producing the interference pattern. It is shown that, when atmospheric turbulences are moderately strong, the contrast of interference pattern of laser scanner may ensure its applicability at ranges up to 10 km.
Detection of Very Long Antisense Transcripts by Whole Transcriptome RNA-Seq Analysis of Listeria monocytogenes by Semiconductor Sequencing Technology

The Gram-positive bacterium Listeria monocytogenes is the causative agent of listeriosis, a severe food-borne infection characterised by abortion, septicaemia, or meningoencephalitis. L. monocytogenes causes outbreaks of febrile gastroenteritis and accounts for community-acquired bacterial meningitis in humans. Listeriosis has one of the highest mortality rates (up to 30%) of all food-borne infections. This human pathogenic bacterium is an important model organism for biomedical research to investigate cell-mediated immunity. L. monocytogenes is also one of the best characterised bacterial systems for the molecular analysis of intracellular parasitism. Recently several transcriptomic studies have also made the ubiquitous distributed bacterium as a model to understand mechanisms of gene regulation from the environment to the infected host on the level of mRNA and non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs). We have used semiconductor sequencing technology for RNA-seq to investigate the repertoire of listerial ncRNAs under extra- and intracellular growth conditions. Furthermore, we applied a new bioinformatic analysis pipeline for detection, comparative genomics and structural conservation to identify ncRNAs. With this work, in total, 741 ncRNA locations of potential ncRNA candidates are now known for L. monocytogenes, of which 611 ncRNA candidates were identified by RNA-seq. 441 transcribed ncRNAs have never been described before. Among these, we identified novel long non-coding antisense RNAs with a length of up to 5,400 nt e.g. opposite to genes coding for internalins, methylases or a high-affinity potassium uptake system, namely the kdpABC operon, which were confirmed by qRT-PCR analysis. RNA-seq, comparative genomics and structural conservation of L. monocytogenes ncRNAs illustrate that this human pathogen uses a large number and repertoire of ncRNA including novel long antisense RNAs, which could be important for intracellular survival within the infected eukaryotic host.
Efficient neural network pruning during neuro-evolution

In this article we present a new method for the pruning of unnecessary connections from neural networks created by an evolutionary algorithm (neuro-evolution). Pruning not only decreases the complexity of the network but also improves the numerical stability of the parameter optimisation process. We show results from experiments where connection pruning is incorporated into EANT2, an evolutionary reinforcement learning algorithm for both the topology and parameters of neural networks. By analysing data from the evolutionary optimisation process that determines the network's parameters, candidate connections for removal are identified without the need for extensive additional calculations.
Voxenter TM - Intelligent Voice Enabled Call Center for Hungarian

Abstract In this article we present a voice enabled call center whichintegrates our basic and applied research results on Hungarianspeech recognition. Telephone interfaces, data storage and re-trieval modules, and an intelligent dialog descriptor and man-ager module are also parts of the system. To evaluate the ef-ﬁciency of the recognition and the dialog, a voice enabled callcenter was implemented and tested under real life conditions.This article describes the main modules of the system and com-pares the result of the ﬁeld tests with that of the laboratory test-ing. 1. Introduction Hungarian speech research has a long tradition at our Labora-tory, there exist some research systems both for speech synthe-sis and for ASR (automatic speech recognition). Our previousASR research results were focused on special problems, likeacoustic model training, language modeling [1], and pronuncia-tion modeling [3]. Recently, large Hungarian speech databaseshave become available, recorded over mobile and ﬁxed tele-phone channels, which encouraged the implementation of di-alog systems that can be used for various services in the ﬁeld oftelephony. On one hand we had to integrate our previous basicand applied research results while, on the other hand, applyingreal voice driven dialogs initiated a new research area for Hun-garian.In the following section we provide an overview of thecall center realized, going into details about the main compo-nents, especially about the speech recognition engine. Then wedemonstrate our experimental results of the system and comparethem with laboratory test results.
HALO: haskell to logic through denotational semantics

Even well-typed programs can go wrong in modern functional languages, by encountering a pattern-match failure, or simply returning the wrong answer. An increasingly-popular response is to allow programmers to write contracts that express semantic properties, such as crash-freedom or some useful post-condition. We study the static verification of such contracts. Our main contribution is a novel translation to first-order logic of both Haskell programs, and contracts written in Haskell, all justified by denotational semantics. This translation enables us to prove that functions satisfy their contracts using an off-the-shelf first-order logic theorem prover.
Image-based skin color and texture analysis/synthesis by extracting hemoglobin and melanin information in the skin

This paper proposes an E-cosmetic function for digital images based on physics and physiologically-based image processing. A practical skin color and texture analysis/synthesis technique is introduced for this E-cosmetic function. Shading on the face is removed by a simple color vector analysis in the optical density domain as an inverse lighting technique. The image without shading is analyzed by a previously introduced technique that extracts hemoglobin and melanin components by independent component analysis. Experimental results using UV-B irradiation and the application of methyl nicotinate on the arms support the physiological validity of the analysis and the effectiveness of the proposed shading removal. We synthesized the way facial images changed due to tanning or alcohol consumption, and compared the synthesized images with images of actual changes in skin color. The comparison shows an excellent match between the synthesized and actual images of changes due to tanning and alcohol consumption. We also proposed a technique to synthesize the change of texture in pigment due to aging or the application of cosmetics. The pyramid-based texture analysis/synthesis technique was used for the spatial processing of texture. Using the proposed technique, we could realistically change the skin color and texture of a 50 year-old woman to that of a 20 year-old woman.
Inhibition of apoptosis and prolongation of neutrophil functional longevity by inflammatory mediators

Neutrophil apoptosis leads to macrophage ingestion of intact senescent neutrophils. This may represent a neutrophil removal mechanism that is important both in the control of inflammatory tissue injury and for the normal resolution processes of inflammation. Because apoptosis is likely to be a key control process in cell and tissue homeostasis, a number of inflammatory mediators were tested for their ability to modulate the rate of apoptosis in populations of neutrophils aging in culture. Endotoxic lipopolysaccharide, human recombinant complement factor 5a, and human recombinant granulocyte‐ macrophage colony‐stimulating factor all markedly inhibited the rate of neutrophil apoptosis in a concentration‐dependent fashion, without inducing necrosis (as assessed by trypan blue exclusion). This inhibitory effect on the rate of neutrophil apoptosis was shown by morphological criteria and confirmed by gel electrophoresis of extracted DNA. Inhibition of apoptosis of aging neutrophil populations was associated with prolongation of the functional life span of the population as assessed by the ability of neutrophils to spread on glass surfaces, to polarize in response to deliberate stimulation with N‐formyl‐Met‐Leu‐Phe (fMLP), and to release the granule enzyme marker myeloperoxidase on fMLP stimulation. These observations show that inflammatory mediators prolong the functional life span of neutrophils through modulation of apoptosis. Further elucidation of these mechanisms will lead to a better understanding of the processes controlling neutrophil residence and function in inflamed tissues and may provide further insights into the molecular mechanisms of apoptosis, which is of widespread importance in tissue biology.
Penetration of amoxicillin and potassium clavulanate into the cerebrospinal fluid of patients with inflamed meninges

A single intravenous dose of 2.0 g of amoxicillin and 0.2 g of potassium clavulanate was given to patients with bacterial meningitis, and the pharmacokinetics of both drugs in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and plasma were evaluated. Twenty-one patients aged 14 to 76 years were studied. Both amoxicillin and potassium clavulanate were detectable in the CSF as early as 1 h and reached peak concentrations by approximately 2 h. The highest mean CSF concentrations were 2.25 micrograms/ml for amoxicillin and 0.25 micrograms/ml for potassium clavulanate and were found in patients with moderately or severely inflamed meninges. The CSF penetration relative to plasma for amoxicillin and potassium clavulanate was 5.8 and 8.4%, respectively. These levels suggest that the amoxicillin-potassium clavulanate combination may be effective for the treatment of bacterial meningitis caused by beta-lactamase-producing pathogens.
Energy-efficient cooperative routing for multi-hop networks over Nakagami-m and Rice channels

In this paper, the problem of energy saving in cooperative multi-hop wireless sensor networks is studied with the constraint of a given outage probability. In these networks, each node transmits its signal to the next mcoop nodes on the route ending with the sink node. Rice and Nakagami channels are considered. In this paper, we derive the upper bound of the end to end (e-2-e) outage probability for these networks. Numerical results show that the proposed cooperative routing can provide considerable energy saving compared to that of non-cooperative multi-hop transmission. Results show that the proposed network achieves up to 74% energy saving over Nakagami-2 channels when the optimum number of mcoop is three with the maximum outage probability of 10−4. In these conditions, energy savings up to 95% is achieved over Rice channels when mcoop is four and it is shown the Rice parameter has no effect on the amount of energy saving.
Technical Report: Design, Implementation and Deployment of Intermittency-aware Cellular Edge Services for Rural areas

Rural areas continue to be plagued by limited data connectivity due to poor and unreliable power infrastructure, poor backhaul connectivity and lack of economic incentives for telecom providers. These factors continue to be an impediment to providing reliable, highly available and bandwidth intensive mobile services and applications to function well in such contexts. This paper presents the design, implementation and deployment of GreenLinks, a new ground-up platform that enables intermittency-aware, reliable and available cellular services and application support in rural contexts under extreme operational environments with limited power and no existing cellular coverage. Unlike the conventional monolithic cellular network architecture, GreenLinks enables a distributed (and potentially disjoint) collection of open, programmable cellular base stations to offer a gamut of both conventional cellular services and new forms of distributed edge services. GreenLinks offers new application primitives to support different types of intermittency-aware distributed mobile edge services including P2P transactions, voice-based social media applications, and distributed mobile sensing applications. Using a participatory sensing white spaces approach, a GreenLinks base stati
Regulatory legacy , VoIP adoption and investment incentives 1

The introduction of VoIP telephony raises concerns about current regulatory practice. Access regulation has been designed for PSTN and the liberalization of the PSTN market. This paper explores the effects of access regulation of PSTN networks on consumers’ adoption of a new technology in the form of VoIP. It also discusses the link between access regulation and the incentives to invest in VoIP. JEL-Classiffcation: L96, L51, L13.