Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Using Experience-Based Co-Design Approach to Improve Communication between Mothers of Preterm Infants and NICU Staff

Yaseen Joolay Department of Paediatrics and Child Health University of Cape Town Cape Town, South Africa yaseen.joolay@uct.ac.za Melissa Densmore Department of Computer Science University of Cape Town Cape Town, South Africa mdensmore@cs.uct.ac.za Abstract There is a growing interest in the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) community to explore how technology can be used to support new mothers. However, little HCI research has been done to investigate the design of tools that can be used to support mothers of premature infants hospitalized in NICU, especially in the context of low-income mothers. Most mothers of premature infants are vulnerable to stress that is related to premature birth, which is often exacerbated by personal circumstances. To investigate how technological intervention can be used to support these mothers, we are using co-design approach, involving Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from Permissions@acm.org.
What next for Semantic Blogging

Semantic Blogging is the use of rich metadata to transform blogs from simple online diaries to full participants in an information sharing ecosystem. Originally the semantic blogging vision centred around informal decentralized knowledge management, but recent developments in social network analysis, microformats, semantic desktop applications and wikis have challenged, enriched and extended this vision. In this paper I review the history of semantic blogging, present a snapshot of where we are now, including two of my current experiments. BlogAccord is an exploration of music blogging, while the Snippet Manager is an information integration portal. I conclude this paper by offering a personal take on some promising future directions.
Cocoa consumption for 2 wk enhances insulin-mediated vasodilatation without improving blood pressure or insulin resistance in essential hypertension.

BACKGROUND Essential hypertension is characterized by reciprocal relations between endothelial dysfunction and insulin resistance. Cocoa flavanols stimulate production of the vasodilator nitric oxide from vascular endothelium. OBJECTIVE The objective was to test the hypothesis that consumption of cocoa may simultaneously lower blood pressure, improve endothelial dysfunction, and ameliorate insulin resistance in subjects with essential hypertension. DESIGN We conducted a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind, crossover trial of a flavanol-rich cocoa drink (150 mL twice a day, approximately 900 mg flavanols/d) in individuals with essential hypertension (n = 20). Antihypertensive medications were discontinued before study enrollment. After a 7-d cocoa-free run-in period, cocoa or flavanol-poor placebo (approximately 28 mg flavanols/d) treatment for 2 wk was followed by a 1-wk washout and then crossover to the other treatment arm. Blood pressure was measured thrice weekly. At baseline and after each treatment period, we assessed insulin sensitivity (hyperinsulinemic-isoglycemic glucose clamp) and insulin-stimulated changes in brachial artery diameter and forearm skeletal muscle capillary recruitment (Doppler ultrasound with or without microbubble contrast). RESULTS Cocoa treatment for 2 wk increased insulin-stimulated changes in brachial artery diameter when compared with placebo [median percentage increase from baseline (25th-75th percentile): 8.3 (4.2-11.3) compared with 5.9 (-0.3 to 9.6); P < 0.04]. Nevertheless, cocoa treatment did not significantly reduce blood pressure or improve insulin resistance and had no significant effects on skeletal muscle capillary recruitment, circulating plasma concentrations of adipocytokines, or endothelial adhesion molecules. CONCLUSIONS Daily consumption of flavanol-rich cocoa for 2 wk is not sufficient to reduce blood pressure or improve insulin resistance in human subjects with essential hypertension. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT00099476.
Design Space Exploration and its Visualization in AUTOFOCUS3

Software-intensive embedded systems are characterized by an increasing number of features that implement complex safety-critical functionalities. These systems are more and more developed in a model-based fashion that has been considered as a central design approach to deal with the increase in software complexity. These kinds of embedded systems always require multiple constraints both functional and non-functional ones. AUTOFOCUS3 is a model-based development framework using tightly integrated models that enable to perform design space exploration for multi-criteria problems. Finding suitable deployments, meaning the (efficient) assignment of software components to hardware components, is one of these problems. This paper illustrates how such a Design Space Exploration approach in a model-based framework can support the system designer in a (semi-) automatic way, enabling to compare different valid design solutions, w.r. t. a set of given system requirements. We propose a visualization technique to efficiently guide the system designer through such a calculated solutions space. The presented approach has been implemented in the AutoFOCUS3 framework.
System-Software Co-Engineering: Dependability and Safety Perspective

The need for an integrated system-software co-engineering framework to support the design of modern space systems is pressing. The current tools and formalisms tend to be tailored to specific analysis techniques and are not amenable for the full spectrum of required system aspects such as safety, dependability and performability. Additionally, they cannot handle the intertwining of hardware and software interaction. As such, the current practices lack integration and coherence. We recently developed a coherent and multidisciplinary approach towards developing space systems at architectural design level, linking all of the aforementioned aspects, and assessed it with several industrial evaluations. This paper reports on the approach, the evaluations and our perspective on current and future developments.
Social Cognition in Real Worlds: Cultural Psychology and Social Cognition

Imagine the following scene: an adult approaches a light fixture resting on a table. He bends at the waist and touches a nearby button with his forehead: the light illuminates, and the adult gives a satisfied nod. The 16-month-old human who witnessed this scene soon approaches the table, and though it would be simpler to push the button with her hand, she, too, illuminates the light by using her forehead (Meltzoff, 1995). Furthermore, if the adult responds to the illuminated light with a frown and an “uh oh! ” (indicating that he hit the button by accident), 16-month-olds usually do not engage in any imitation (Carpenter, Akhtar, & Tomasello, 1998). It may not be obvious how this story relates to a chapter about cultural psychology and social cognition. And yet social cognition − both its very existence and its specific manifestations − is fundamentally shaped by culture. Cultural psychology emphasizes the formative power of culture at two levels: first, as a selection pressure that shaped humans as a species; second, as a diverse set of socially transmitted operating instructions that fundamentally shape human psychological functioning. At the first level, many cultural psychologists argue that the historical selection pressures of culture have shaped species-wide social cognitions such as those illustrated in the opening story: a capacity for sharing the intentions of others, and imitating goal-directed actions. At the second level, cultural psychologists argue for dramatically content-specific, culturally shaped social cognition across human social groups. Cultural psychologists work within a theoretical framework that emphasizes the ways human beings are significantly shaped by their adaptive participation with accumulated cultural settings, products, and information (Bruner, 1990; Markus & Hamedani, 2007; Shweder, 1989). Human children are born into a real world of “already-there” cultural content. To take advantage of the power of it, human children bring evolved social cognitive abilities to the table − they must be able and willing to imitate, discern others’ intent, be open to cooperation, and represent symbolically (Tomasello, 1993, 1999). Because of these species-wide adaptations, humans are able to acquire and use accumulated cultural knowledge and transmit it in a high-fidelity way (Tomasello, 1993). At the same time, these very adaptations suggest that the human species is destined to be variable. Inherited flexibility has made it possible for humans to adapt to a variety of physical settings around the earth. They develop and then socially transmit effective ways of functioning in variable worlds. In turn, the resulting diversity of cultural content shapes its users in culturally variable ways. Therefore, culture has both shaped human social cognition over phylogeny, and also shapes human social cognition during ontogeny. In this chapter on social cognition and culture, we will be describing psychological manifestations of
DeepAM: Migrate APIs with Multi-modal Sequence to Sequence Learning

Computer programs written in one language are often required to be ported to other languages to support multiple devices and environments. When programs use language specific APIs (Application Programming Interfaces), it is very challenging to migrate these APIs to the corresponding APIs written in other languages. Existing approaches mine API mappings from projects that have corresponding versions in two languages. They rely on the sparse availability of bilingual projects, thus producing a limited number of API mappings. In this paper, we propose an intelligent system called DeepAM for automatically mining API mappings from a large-scale code corpus without bilingual projects. The key component of DeepAM is based on the multimodal sequence to sequence learning architecture that aims to learn joint semantic representations of bilingual API sequences from big source code data. Experimental results indicate that DeepAM significantly increases the accuracy of API mappings as well as the number of API mappings, when compared with the state-of-the-art approaches.
Spam2Vec: Learning Biased Embeddings for Spam Detection in Twitter

In this paper, we propose a semi-supervised framework Spam2Vec to identify spammers in Twitter. This algorithmic framework learns the spam representations of the node in the network by leveraging biased random walks. Our spammer detection method yields an AUC of 0.54 with precision@100 as 0.12 and performs significantly better with 7.77% increase in AUC and a 2.4 times improvement on precision over the best performing baseline.
Final Results of Advanced Cryo-TanksResearch Project CHATT

The EU-FP7-funded study called CHATT (Cryogenic Hypersonic Advanced Tank Technologies) has been initiated early 2012 and will successfully be finished in June 2015. One of its core objectives is to investigate Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic (CFRP) cryogenic pressure tanks. The focus of the paper is on the technology development tasks of the study and its major obtained results in-cluding manufacturing and testing of four subscale tanks. The paper outlines the study logic of CHATT, gives a presentation of the technology development tasks, and summarizes major research results obtained until project completion. Finally, potential next steps in follow-on technology development and maturation are discussed.
Women and ARV-based prevention: opportunities and challenges

ARV‐based HIV prevention methods available in pill, gel or ring formulations (broadly referred to as microbicides) offer the possibility of protection against HIV for women who find it difficult because they cannot ask their partners to use condoms or even refuse sex. Partial efficacy of ARV‐based medications has been demonstrated in a number of clinical trials around the world among various populations, building the evidence that ARV‐based technologies will contribute to reducing the AIDS epidemic worldwide. Disappointing results, however, from two trials in sub‐Saharan Africa, where poor adherence contributed to study closure due to futility, have raised questions about whether women at the centre of the epidemic are able to effectively use products that require routine use. Also, there are fears by some of risk compensation by decreased condom use because of the availability of microbicides when only partial efficacy has been demonstrated in microbicide trials to date. Of note, sub‐analyses of biologic measures of adherence in trials where this was possible have shown a strong correlation between good adherence and efficacy, reinforcing the necessity of good adherence. Research conducted in conjunction with clinical trials and post‐trials in advance of possible rollout of ARV‐based products have examined social and cultural factors, gender‐related and otherwise, influencing adherence and other aspects of women's use of products. These include HIV stigma, women's perception of risk, partner and community influences and the differing needs of women in various stages of life and in different circumstances. It is the purpose of this supplement to give voice to the needs of women who can benefit from woman‐initiated methods by presenting research results and commentary to contribute to the global conversation about optimizing women's experience with ARV‐based prevention.
SEGMENTATION OF SAR IMAGES USING FUZZY C MEANS WITH NON LOCAL SPATIAL INFORMATION

The Segmentation of the Images refers to extracting the needed region from the image based on some specified methodologies. Thresholding Approach, Model-based Approach, Level Set Approach are some of the segmentation methodologies. The clustering methodologies can provide accurate results for most of the cases. As the number of clusters separated from the image increases, the segmentation accuracy also increases. The fuzzy c means is one of the clustering based methodologies. It has been extensively used for segmentation of images. Even FCM has some drawback. The main drawback is that the performance is degraded by noise. This problem can be overcome by Fuzzy C Means with Non Local spatial Information which can be derived from the pixels with similar neighborhood configuration to the current pixels so that impact of Noise level in the Image is reduced. Experimental results obtained for synthetic and real SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) Images demonstrate the improved robustness and effectiveness.
Improving Rule- through Case-Base

A novel architecture is presented for combining rule-based and case-based reasoning. The central idea is to apply the rules to a target problem to get a first approximation to the answer; but if the problem is judged to be compellingly similar to a known exception of the rules in any aspect of its behavior, then that aspect is modelled after the exception rather than the rules. The architecture is implemented for the full-scale task of pronouncing surnames. Preliminary results suggest that the system performs almost as well as the best commercial systems. However, of more interest than the absolute performance of the system is the result that this performance was better than what could have been achieved with the rules alone. This illustrates the capacity of the architecture to improve on the rule-based system it starts with. The results also demonstrate a beneficial interaction in the system, in that improving the rules speeds up the case-based component.
Proteomic analysis of the silkworm midgut during larval-pupal transition

Metamorphosis is a key process in holometabolous insects since specific larval tissues, such as the midgut, the silk gland and the fat body, are remodeled into adult organs, or even disintegrate. However, the role of proteins and factors involved in the remodeling of these organs is still unclear. For this reason we undertook a proteomic study on the larval midgut of Bombyx mori to identify proteins whose expression significantly changes during larval-pupal metamorphosis and thus can have a role in this process. 2D-PAGE analysis showed upregulation or new expression of midgut proteins at 45 (pI 5.2), 29.8 (pI 6.11) and 20-kDa (pI 6-7) during the pupal stage. In addition zymogram analysis demonstrated the occurrence of protease activity at 37-kDa at the same developmental stage. By using MALDI-TOF-MS analysis the protein spots from 2D gel were identified as Hemolin, low molecular weight 30-kDa lipoproteins, HSP 20.8 and HSP 20.4, while the proteolytic band was identified as 37-kDa serine protease. The evidence herein presented suggests that the identified proteins could be involved in the immune protection during the remodeling of silkworm midgut that occurs at larval-pupal transition and represents a platform of knowledge necessary for future functional studies.
The Influence of Substitution of Dietary Fish Oil with Different Vegetable Oils on Performance and Fatty Acid Composition of Brown Trout, Salmo trutta

Brown trout Salmo trutta (~1 g) were fed four casein-gelatin based diets with different lipid resources for 6 weeks. The sources of dietary lipid were menhaden oil (MO diet), hazelnut oil (HO diet,), a blend of linseed oil and soybean oil (1:1) (LO+SO diet), and soybean lecithin (LE diet). Feeding trial was conducted in a recirculating water system at 13±0.2°C. Fish fed LO+SO diet demonstrated the highest growth performance while those fed HO diet had the lowest growth rate (P<0.05). The fatty acid profiles of fish reflected the fatty acid composition of the diets. High level of docosahexaenoic acid (22:6n-3, DHA) in whole body lipids of fish fed LO+SO diet corresponded with the high level of linolenic acid (18:3n-3, LNA) in the lipids of this diet. Fish fed LE diet which was rich in linoleic acid (18:2n-6, LA) had the highest level of arachidonic acid (20:4n-6 , ARA) in their body. The results suggest that the efficiency of elongation and desaturation of C18 fatty acids depends on the dietary lipid source and brown trout has capacity to transform LA and LNA to ARA and DHA, respectively. Growth depletion in fish fed HO diet might be caused by essential fatty acid deficiency.
Understanding the basis of space closure in Orthodontics for a more efficient orthodontic treatment

ABSTRACT Introduction: Space closure is one of the most challenging processes in Orthodontics and requires a solid comprehension of biomechanics in order to avoid undesirable side effects. Understanding the biomechanical basis of space closure better enables clinicians to determine anchorage and treatment options. In spite of the variety of appliance designs, space closure can be performed by means of friction or frictionless mechanics, and each technique has its advantages and disadvantages. Friction mechanics or sliding mechanics is attractive because of its simplicity; the space site is closed by means of elastics or coil springs to provide force, and the brackets slide on the orthodontic archwire. On the other hand, frictionless mechanics uses loop bends to generate force to close the space site, allowing differential moments in the active and reactive units, leading to a less or more anchorage control, depending on the situation. Objective: This article will discuss various theoretical aspects and methods of space closure based on biomechanical concepts.
Circular RNAs are long-lived and display only minimal early alterations in response to a growth factor

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are widespread circles of non-coding RNAs with largely unknown function. Because stimulation of mammary cells with the epidermal growth factor (EGF) leads to dynamic changes in the abundance of coding and non-coding RNA molecules, and culminates in the acquisition of a robust migratory phenotype, this cellular model might disclose functions of circRNAs. Here we show that circRNAs of EGF-stimulated mammary cells are stably expressed, while mRNAs and microRNAs change within minutes. In general, the circRNAs we detected are relatively long-lived and weakly expressed. Interestingly, they are almost ubiquitously co-expressed with the corresponding linear transcripts, and the respective, shared promoter regions are more active compared to genes producing linear isoforms with no detectable circRNAs. These findings imply that altered abundance of circRNAs, unlike changes in the levels of other RNAs, might not play critical roles in signaling cascades and downstream transcriptional networks that rapidly commit cells to specific outcomes.
Output Feedback Fuzzy Control for Uncertain Nonlinear Systems

In this paper, a fuzzy control scheme, which employs the output feedback control approach, is suggested for the stabilization of nonlinear systems with uncertainties. The uncertain nonlinear system can be represented by uncertain Takagi-Sugeno (TS) fuzzy model structure, which is further rearranged to give a set of uncertain linear systems. A switching-type fuzzy-model-based controller, which utilizes the static output feedback control strategy, is designed based on this preliminary study. Theoretical analysis guarantees that under the control of the proposed technique, the uncertain nonlinear system is stabilizable by the switching-type static output-feedback fuzzy-model-based controller. Finally, two computer simulation examples are provided to show the effectiveness and feasibility of the developed controller design method.
Hypoxia induces severe right ventricular dilatation and infarction in heme oxygenase-1 null mice.

Heme oxygenase (HO) catalyzes the oxidation of heme to generate carbon monoxide (CO) and bilirubin. CO increases cellular levels of cGMP, which regulates vascular tone and smooth muscle development. Bilirubin is a potent antioxidant. Hypoxia increases expression of the inducible HO isoform (HO-1) but not the constitutive isoform (HO-2). To determine whether HO-1 affects cellular adaptation to chronic hypoxia in vivo, we generated HO-1 null (HO-1(-/-)) mice and subjected them to hypoxia (10% oxygen) for five to seven weeks. Hypoxia caused similar increases in right ventricular systolic pressure in wild-type and HO-1(-/-) mice. Although ventricular weight increased in wild-type mice, the increase was greater in HO-1(-/-) mice. Similarly, the right ventricles were more dilated in HO-1(-/-) mice. After seven weeks of hypoxia, only HO-1(-/-) mice developed right ventricular infarcts with organized mural thrombi. No left ventricular infarcts were observed. Lipid peroxidation and oxidative damage occurred in right ventricular cardiomyocytes in HO-1(-/-), but not wild-type, mice. We also detected apoptotic cardiomyocytes surrounding areas of infarcted myocardium by terminal deoxynucleotide transferase-mediated dUTP nick end-labeling (TUNEL) assays. Our data suggest that in the absence of HO-1, cardiomyocytes have a maladaptive response to hypoxia and subsequent pulmonary hypertension. J.Clin. Invest. 103:R23-R29 (1999).