Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dyspnoea: a multidimensional and multidisciplinary approach

Dyspnoea is a debilitating symptom that affects quality of life, exercise tolerance and mortality in various disease conditions/states. In patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), it has been shown to be a better predictor of mortality than forced expiratory volume in 1 s. In patients with heart disease it is a better predictor of mortality than angina. Dyspnoea is also associated with decreased functional status and worse psychological health in older individuals living at home. It also contributes to the low adherence to exercise training programmes in sedentary adults and in COPD patients. The mechanisms of dyspnoea are still unclear. Recent studies have emphasised the multidimensional nature of dyspnoea in the sensory–perceptual (intensity and quality), affective distress and impact domains. The perception of dyspnoea involves a complex chain of events that depend on varying cortical integration of several afferent/efferent signals and coloured by affective processing. This review, which stems from the European Respiratory Society research symposium held in Paris, France in November 2012, aims to provide state-of-the-art advances on the multidimensional and multidisciplinary aspects of dyspnoea, by addressing three different themes: 1) the neurophysiology of dyspnoea, 2) exercise and dyspnoea, and 3) the clinical impact and management of dyspnoea. ERS research faculty emphasises the need to translate new understanding of dyspnoea mechanisms into better treatment http://ow.ly/sxpFG
Neuromyths in Education: Prevalence and Predictors of Misconceptions among Teachers

The OECD’s Brain and Learning project (2002) emphasized that many misconceptions about the brain exist among professionals in the field of education. Though these so-called “neuromyths” are loosely based on scientific facts, they may have adverse effects on educational practice. The present study investigated the prevalence and predictors of neuromyths among teachers in selected regions in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. A large observational survey design was used to assess general knowledge of the brain and neuromyths. The sample comprised 242 primary and secondary school teachers who were interested in the neuroscience of learning. It would be of concern if neuromyths were found in this sample, as these teachers may want to use these incorrect interpretations of neuroscience findings in their teaching practice. Participants completed an online survey containing 32 statements about the brain and its influence on learning, of which 15 were neuromyths. Additional data was collected regarding background variables (e.g., age, sex, school type). Results showed that on average, teachers believed 49% of the neuromyths, particularly myths related to commercialized educational programs. Around 70% of the general knowledge statements were answered correctly. Teachers who read popular science magazines achieved higher scores on general knowledge questions. More general knowledge also predicted an increased belief in neuromyths. These findings suggest that teachers who are enthusiastic about the possible application of neuroscience findings in the classroom find it difficult to distinguish pseudoscience from scientific facts. Possessing greater general knowledge about the brain does not appear to protect teachers from believing in neuromyths. This demonstrates the need for enhanced interdisciplinary communication to reduce such misunderstandings in the future and establish a successful collaboration between neuroscience and education.
Using image classification for biomedical literature retrieval

The aim of literature retrieval is to find significant papers on a given topic. In previous publications, we examined the use of choosing these papers based on the pictures they include. To refine this approach we seek to employ picture classification to further narrow down the number of interesting pictures presented. This can be useful, for example, when looking for the results of specific experiments. The classification can also be useful as a data cleansing step, to omit all unnecessary pictures not used as a figure. We use a method originally designed to distinguish between photos and computer-generated pictures on the Web. We show that this method can not only be used to distinguish between raw data and derived representation figures, we can also reliably eliminate nonfigure pictures in the document, like text pages and logos. We tested this approach on two different data sets with different topics and different non-figure problems, both with satisfactory results
Accurate Blood Cells Segmentation through Intuitionistic Fuzzy Set Threshold

Counting and analysis of blood cells allow the evaluation and diagnosis of a vast number of diseases. In particular, the identification of white blood cells and red blood cells is a topic of great interest to hematologists. Nowadays the observation of blood samples is still performed manually by skilled operators. This task is tedious, lengthy and repetitive, and the results accuracy heavily depends on the operator skills. Differently, the automated analysis by computer is performed quickly, requires only one image of the blood sample and provides precise results. One of the major steps on image analysis is segmentation, that subdivides images into meaningful parts. Thresholding is one of the most used technique and subdivides the image pixels on the basis of their intensity grey levels. There are many crisp techniques for calculating the threshold value of an image. Recently many intuitionistic fuzzy methods have been proposed to determine the optimal threshold value, showing better results for segmentation but not even better computational performance. In this paper we propose an intuitionistic fuzzy set approach for optimal threshold selection based on computations performed on the histogram. This method is then extended in order to perform multiple thresholds and in order to take into account possible local variations on the image. The proposed approach has been tested on peripheral blood images, in order to subdivide the various image components, showing excellent performance both for segmentation both in terms of speed.
Playtesting for indie studios

Creating video games is a lengthy and demanding process. Financial success for games studios often depends on making games that deliver a fun and engaging experience for a diverse audience of players. Therefore, understanding how players interact and behave during gameplay is of vital importance. Playtesting aims to assist developers to achieve their design intent and help to identify and resolve potential problem areas during development. However, playtests are not always feasible or affordable for smaller, independent game developers (indie studios) because they require specialized equipment and expertise. In addition to this, there is a lack of research on the value of playtesting for indie studios, which means most indie developers are not convinced of the value of user research and playtesting. This paper reports on our collaboration with six commercial indie developers conducting eleven rounds of playtesting session. Through these collaborations, our paper contributes to this growing domain by highlighting the value of playtesting for indie developers and discussing the user research process and approaches based on indie developers' needs and budget.
A CMOS Image Sensor-Based Stereo Matching Accelerator With Focal-Plane Sparse Rectification and Analog Census Transform

A low-latency and low-power stereo matching accelerator is monolithically integrated with a CMOS image sensor (CIS) for mobile applications. To reduce the overall latency, focal-plane processing is adopted by using the proposed analog census transform circuit (ACTC), and the image readout is pipelined with the following stereo matching process. In addition, a novel focal-plane rectification pixel array (FRPA) merges the rectification with the image readout without any additional processing latency. For area-efficient pixel design, sparse rectification is proposed, and the image rectification is implemented with only two additional switches in each pixel. A stereo matching digital processor (SMDP) is integrated with the CIS for cost aggregation. We present the full design including the layout with a 65 nm CMOS process, and the FRPA, the ACTC, and the SMDP achieve 11.0 ms latency with complete stereo matching stages, which is suitable for a smooth user interface. As a result, the 2-chip stereo matching system dissipates 573.9 μJ/frame and achieves 17% energy reduction compared to a previous stereo matching SoC.
Underglycosylation of ATF6 as a Novel Sensing Mechanism for Activation of the Unfolded Protein Response*

ATF6 is a key transcriptional activator of the unfolded protein response (UPR), which allows mammalian cells to maintain cellular homeostasis when they are subjected to a variety of environmental and physiological stresses that target the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). ATF6, a 90-kDa ER transmembrane protein, contains three evolutionarily conserved N-linked glycosylation sites within its carboxyl luminal domain. Although it is well established that p90ATF6 activation requires transit from the ER to the Golgi, where it is cleaved by the S1P/S2P protease system to generate a nuclear form p60ATF6 that acts as a transcriptional activator, the functional significance of p90ATF6 N-linked glycosylation is unknown. Here we show that ER Ca2+ depletion stress, a triggering mechanism for the UPR, induces the formation of ATF6(f), which represents de novo partial glycosylation of newly synthesized p90ATF6. By mutating a single amino acid within the N-linked glycosylation site closest to the carboxyl terminus of p90ATF6, we recreated ATF6(f). This mutation sharply reduces p90ATF6 association with calreticulin, a major Ca2+-binding chaperone for N-glycoprotein. We further determined that ATF6(f) exhibits a faster rate of constitutive transport to the Golgi, resulting in a higher level of p60ATF6 in the nucleus and stronger transactivating activity in the absence of ER stress. Additional analysis of p90ATF6 mutants targeting single or multiple N-glycosylation sites also showed higher constitutive transactivating activity than wild type ATF6. Because accumulation of underglycosylated proteins in the ER is a potent inducer for the UPR, these studies uncover a novel mechanism whereby the glycosylation status of p90ATF6 can serve as a sensor for ER homeostasis, resulting in ATF6 activation to trigger the UPR.
ACE for whom? Implications for clinical practice of post-infarct trials.

OBJECTIVE--To determine how many lives would be saved if patients were routinely treated with ACE inhibitors after myocardial infarction according to the criteria of four recent major clinical trials, and to estimate the costs and benefits of these approaches. DESIGN--Retrospective survey. SETTING--The Nottingham Health District. PATIENTS--Data from 7855 patients admitted between 1989 and 1990 were combined and the selection criteria of four major clinical trials (AIRE, SAVE, GISSI-3, and ISIS-4) were applied. RESULTS--Of the patients admitted in Nottingham with confirmed myocardial infarcts 39% were eligible for AIRE and 8% for SAVE. In patients with suspected myocardial infarction as defined by the major trials, 60% would have been eligible for GISSI-3 and 63% for ISIS-4. Treating appropriate patients in accordance with these trials would have saved 20 (AIRE), 3 (SAVE), 4 (GISSI-3) and 5 (ISIS-4) lives each year in Nottingham at a drug cost of 5400 pounds, 33 pounds 791, 2730 pounds, and 4116 pounds per life per year saved respectively. CONCLUSIONS--Short-term treatment with ACE inhibition appears to be cheaper but such an approach would save fewer lives. The AIRE study is the most applicable to current clinical practice but ACE inhibitors should be offered routinely to patients satisfying the criteria of any of the four major clinical trials.
Local high-order regularization on data manifolds

The common graph Laplacian regularizer is well-established in semi-supervised learning and spectral dimensionality reduction. However, as a first-order regularizer, it can lead to degenerate functions in high-dimensional manifolds. The iterated graph Laplacian enables high-order regularization, but it has a high computational complexity and so cannot be applied to large problems. We introduce a new regularizer which is globally high order and so does not suffer from the degeneracy of the graph Laplacian regularizer, but is also sparse for efficient computation in semi-supervised learning applications. We reduce computational complexity by building a local first-order approximation of the manifold as a surrogate geometry, and construct our high-order regularizer based on local derivative evaluations therein. Experiments on human body shape and pose analysis demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of our method.
Robust Estimation Design of a Class of Systems with Noise Coupling Input Saturation

An investigation about the robust estimation of a class of systems with noise coupling input saturation is presented in this study. In general, the existed estimation algorithm is based on the exactly known of the input saturation, but in fact, this is not always true in some practical cases because of the coupling of input saturations and input noises. For treating these kinds of coupling problems in the state estimations of systems, in this study, one fuzzy-based robust estimation algorithm is proposed. The proposed robust estimator includes two parts: firstly, a regression form fuzzy system that is adopted to approximate the unknown input saturation, and then, a robust estimator that combines the above fuzzy system by robust filter design concept for eliminating the effects of noises and modeling uncertainties is proposed. This combination of fuzzy approach and robust filtering technologies successfully offers one a more simple and practical method for treating the estimation problem of a class of systems that input saturations and input noises couple together.
Feature based Devnagari numeral recognition using ANN

NOTE FROM ACM: It has been determined that the author of this article plagiarized the contents from a previously published paper. Therefore ACM has shut off access to this paper. The paper by Joshi, Rajput, and Jadhav plagiarizes the following paper: Feature Extraction Based on Moment Invariants for Handwriting Recognition by R. J. Ramteke and S. C. Mehrotra which may be found here For further information, contact the ACM Director of Publications.
Impact of Concrete Recycled Materials on some Properties of Concrete

Recycling building demolition waste in addition to environmental benefits is also economically interesting. In addressing the environmental issues it is recommended to give priority to recovery and rational utilization of waste with regard to their basic characteristics before disposal respectively storage. Issue of the use of recycled materials in concrete structures and their disposal in the world and in our longer pays much attention. Use and recycling of construction materials is a great asset for more prospective and progressive methods of construction waste utilizations. The program focused on waste management is therefore necessary to reconcile economic and environmental aspects in order to come to an optimal solution of the issue of waste and environmental protection.
Auction-Based Network Selection in a Market-Based Framework for Trading Wireless Communication Services

A digital marketplace (DMP) is a market-based framework in which a network selection mechanism is facilitated through a variant of procurement first-price sealed-bid auction, i.e., wireless network operators (NOs) bid for the right to transport the subscriber's requested service over their infrastructure. In this paper, we create an economic model of this mechanism, and we characterize the equilibrium under generic assumptions about the cost distributions of the NOs. Furthermore, the equilibrium is explicitly derived under more specific assumptions about the model, i.e., two NOs and costs drawn from uniform distributions. In this case, we also characterize the expected prices that the subscriber has to pay depending on their preferences about the service, e.g., trading off quality for a lower price. Finally, we provide a numerical analysis of the case with more than two NOs.
Graphical and kinematical approach to cosmological horizons

We study the apparition of event horizons in accelerated expanding cosmologies. We give a graphical and analytical representation of the horizons using proper distances to coordinate the events. Our analysis is mainly kinematical. We show that, independently of the dynamical equations, all the event horizons tend in the future infinity to a given expression depending on the scale factor that we call asymptotic horizon. We also encounter a subclass of accelerating models without horizons. When the ingoing null geodesics do not change concavity in its cosmic evolution we recover the de Sitter and quintessence-Friedmann-Robertson-Walker models.
A strategic analysis of internet contents market in electronic commerce

Many online content providers tend to charge their services since they are confronted with difficulties to attain revenue from the online advertising. This paper shows why they charge their services as the online market becomes grow and explore the strategies when the conventional offline contents firms enter the online contents market. And we also discuss some implications related to pricing strategies in online contents market.
The theory, practice, and a tool for BSP performance prediction applied to a CFD application

The Bulk Synchronous Parallel (BSP) model provides a theoretical framework to accurately predict the execution time of parallel programs. In this paper we describe a BSP programming library that has been developed, and contrast two approaches to analysing performance: (1) a pencil and paper method with a theoretical cost model; (2) a profiling tool that analyses trace information generated during program execution. These approaches are evaluated on an industrial application code that solves fluid dynamics equations around a complex aircraft geometry on an IBM SP2 and SGI PowerChallenge. We show how the tool can be used to explore the communication patterns of the CFD code and accurately predict the performance of the application on any parallel machine. This work was performed within Oxford Parallel with financial support from Rolls Royce plc and EPSRC.
The Michaelis–Menten kinetics of soil extracellular enzymes in response to temperature: a cross‐latitudinal study

Decomposition of soil organic matter (SOM) is mediated by microbial extracellular hydrolytic enzymes (EHEs). Thus, given the large amount of carbon (C) stored as SOM, it is imperative to understand how microbial EHEs will respond to global change (and warming in particular) to better predict the links between SOM and the global C cycle. Here, we measured the Michaelis–Menten kinetics [maximal rate of velocity (Vmax) and half‐saturation constant (Km)] of five hydrolytic enzymes involved in SOM degradation (cellobiohydrolase, β‐glucosidase, β‐xylosidase, α‐glucosidase, and N‐acetyl‐β‐d‐glucosaminidase) in five sites spanning a boreal forest to a tropical rainforest. We tested the specific hypothesis that enzymes from higher latitudes would show greater temperature sensitivities than those from lower latitudes. We then used our data to parameterize a mathematical model to test the relative roles of Vmax and Km temperature sensitivities in SOM decomposition. We found that both Vmax and Km were temperature sensitive, with Q10 values ranging from 1.53 to 2.27 for Vmax and 0.90 to 1.57 for Km. The Q10 values for the Km of the cellulose‐degrading enzyme β‐glucosidase showed a significant (P = 0.004) negative relationship with mean annual temperature, indicating that enzymes from cooler climates can indeed be more sensitive to temperature. Our model showed that Km temperature sensitivity can offset SOM losses due to Vmax temperature sensitivity, but the offset depends on the size of the SOM pool and the magnitude of Vmax. Overall, our results suggest that there is a local adaptation of microbial EHE kinetics to temperature and that this should be taken into account when making predictions about the responses of C cycling to global change.
A framework to support the design of learning objects based on the Cog-Learn Pattern Language

In this paper we present the Cognitor, an authoring tool developed to support teachers designing instructional material for Web-based Distance Learning. Cognitor instantiates the Cog-Learn Pattern Language which captures design knowledge and present solutions for recurring problems at Distance Learning context. The framework provided by Cognitor makes it easier to design usable and accessible learning objects, which is a difficult task for novice teachers who lack experience in pedagogy and Web-based instructional design. Cognitor organizes the displayed content seen by the student, taking aim at facilitating his interaction and, consequently facilitating the knowledge process.Projetar material instrucional para Web é uma tarefa difícil para professores que não têm experiência em pedagogia e projeto instrucional Web. Padrões surgiram como uma forma de capturar conhecimento de projeto em um contexto e apresentar soluções para os projetistas. Neste trabalho apresenta-se a ferramenta Cognitor que instancia um framework baseado na Linguagem de Padrões Cog-Learn. Pretende-se fornecer apoio aos professores durante o projeto e edição de objetos de aprendizagem no formato SCORM para sistemas de EAD com o objetivo de melhor organizar o conteúdo na interface visualizada pelo aluno, facilitando a sua interação e, conseqüentemente, facilitando o seu processo de aprendizagem.
In situ TEM study of mechanical behaviour of twinned nanoparticles

There is strong interest in studying changes in mechanical properties with reducing grain size. The rational is that consequent dislocation glide cannot be sustained, resulting in an increase in material strength. However, this comes with the cost of a reduction in ductility. It has been shown that coherent twin boundaries in nanostructured Cu improve the ductility to 14% [Lu et al., Science 324 (2009) p. 349]. In this paper, we report for the first time the compression of individual nanoparticles using an in situ force probing holder in the transmission electron microscope. Four types of nanoparticles were tested, three with twin boundaries (decahedra, icosahedra and a single twin) and one free of defects (octahedral). Our results indicate the yield strength of the twinned nanoparticles is between 0.5 and 2.0 GPa. The total malleability for the twinned particles range from 80 to 100%. In addition, experimental results were reproduced by MD simulations of the compression phenomena and suggest that the outstanding mechanical properties are related with partial dislocation multiplication at twin boundaries.
Evolving the UNIX System Interface to Support Multithreaded Programs

Allowing multiple threads to execute within the same address space makes it easier to write programs that deal with related asynchronous activities and that execute faster on shared-memory multiprocessors. Supporting multiple threads places new constraints on the design of operating system interfaces. We present several guidelines for designing or redesigning interfaces for multithreaded clients. We show how 1 these guidelines were used to design an interface to UNIX -compatible file and process management facilities in the Topaz operating system. Two implementations of this interface are in everyday use: a native one for the Firefly multiprocessor, and a layered one running within a UNIX process.