Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Handling Big Data Using NoSQL

With the emergence of Big Data, the use of NoSQL (Not only SQL) technology is rising rapidly among internet companies and other enterprises. Benefits include simplicity of design, horizontal scaling and finer control over availability. NoSQL databases are increasingly considered a viable alternative to relational databases, as more organizations recognize that its schema less data model is a better method for handling the large volumes of structured, semi structured and unstructured data, being captured and processed today. For example NoSQL databases are often used to collect and store social media data. This paper aims to introduce the concepts behind NoSQL, provides a review of relevant literature, highlights the different NoSQL database types, and provide arguments for and against adopting NoSQL. A small prototype application has been developed to assess the stated NoSQL benefits and illustrate the differences between the SQL and NoSQL approaches. The last section of the paper offers some conclusions and recommendations for further research to expand upon our research work.
EMOTION PROCESSES IN SCHIZOPHRENIA: IN RELATION WITH SYMPTOMATOLOGY AND DURATION OF ILLNESS

iv ÖZ. vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . ix TABLE OF CONTENTS.xi LIST OF TABLES. xiv LIST OF FIGURES . xv INTRODUCTION . 1 1.1 Schizophrenia.2 1.1.1 History of Schizophrenia . 2 1.1.2 Diagnostic criteria and subtypes of schizophrenia . 3 1.1.3 Epidemiology of Schizophrenia.4 1.1.4 Etiology of Schizophrenia . 6 1.2 Emotion Processes.9 1.3 Impaired Emotion Processes in Schizophrenia . 11 1.3. 1 Perception of Emotion Related Cues.12 1.3. 2 Experience of Emotion in Schizophrenia . 19 1.3. 3 Expression of Emotion of Schizophrenics.21 1.4 Symptomatology and Emotional Processing . 23 1.5 Duration of Illness.25 1.6 Significance and Purpose of the Study.28 METHOD . 31 2.1 Participants.31 2.2 Instruments.32
Nurse staffing and quality of care in UK general practice: cross-sectional study using routinely collected data.

BACKGROUND In many UK general practices, nurses have been used to deliver results against the indicators of the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF), a 'pay for performance' scheme. AIM To determine the association between the level of nurse staffing in general practice and the quality of clinical care as measured by the QOF. DESIGN OF THE STUDY Cross-sectional analysis of routine data. SETTING English general practice in 2005/2006. METHOD QOF data from 7456 general practices were linked with a database of practice characteristics, nurse staffing data, and census-derived data on population characteristics and measures of population density. Multi-level modelling explored the relationship between QOF performance and the number of patients per full-time equivalent nurse. The outcome measures were achievement of quality of care for eight clinical domains as rated by the QOF, and reported achievement of 10 clinical outcome indicators derived from it. RESULTS A high level of nurse staffing (fewer patients per full-time equivalent practice-employed nurse) was significantly associated with better performance in 4/8 clinical domains of the QOF (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, coronary heart disease, diabetes, and hypertension, P = 0.004 to P<0.001) and in 4/10 clinical outcome indicators (diabetes: glycosylated haemoglobin [HbA(1C)] < or =7.4%, HbA(1C) < or =10% and total cholesterol < or =193 mg/dl; and stroke: total cholesterol < or =5 mmol/L, P = 0.0057 to P<0.001). CONCLUSION Practices that employ more nurses perform better in a number of clinical domains measured by the QOF. This improved performance includes better intermediate clinical outcomes, suggesting real patient benefit may be associated with using nurses to deliver care to meet QOF targets.
AN ACTIVE MIDDLEWARE FOR SECURE AUTOMATIC RECONFIGURATION OF APPLICATIONS FOR ANDROID DEVICES

With the prevalence of smart phones and the role they play in the lives of consumers, the demand for high performing mobile computing is apparent. Although smartphones today are feature-rich, they are still resource-scarce; they are limited by their memory, energy, and processing power. These limitations constrain the ability of these devices to perform intensive computational tasks without compromising the consistency of mobile device performance. As such, the development of a dynamic and intelligent mobile middleware solution can ameliorate these constraints through the utilization of surrogate computing methodologies. In this paper, we present an intelligent and active middleware solution for secure automatic reconfiguration of applications for android devices. This middleware offers efficiency and enhances the conservation of resources for these devices. Index Terms Application offloading; Context awareness; Feature models; Mobile middleware; Reconfiguration; Surrogate computing
Application of K-mean Algorithm in Software Maintenance

— Software maintenance is one of the important and time consuming parts of software development lifecycle. Because maintenance covers the correction of errors ,the enhancement, deletion and addition of capabilities, the adaption of changing data requirements and operational environment, the improvement in performance, usability and other quality related attributes. Once the modification has been implemented, the software system has to be retested to gain confidence that it will perform according to the specification. For which once again test suite needs to be designed to test the modified module and the entire software. So the time spent in maintenance can be reduced by reducing the no. of test cases. We proposed a methodology based on clustering by which we can significantly reduce the test suite.
Response Properties of Visual Interneurons to Motion Stimuli in the Praying Mantis, Tenodera aridifolia

Abstract Intracellular responses of motion-sensitive visual interneurons were recorded from the lobula complex of the mantis, Tenodera aridifolia. The interneurons were divided into four classes according to the response polarity, spatial tuning, and directional selectivity. Neurons of the first class had small, medium, or large receptive fields and showed a strong excitation in response to a small-field motion such as a small square moving in any direction (SF neurons). The second class neurons showed non-directionally selective responses: an excitation to a large-field motion of gratings in any direction (ND neurons). Most ND neurons had small or medium-size receptive fields. Neurons of the third class had large receptive fields and exhibited directionally selective responses: an excitation to a large-field motion of gratings in preferred direction and an inhibition to a motion in opposite, null direction (DS neurons). The last class neurons had small receptive fields and showed inhibitory responses to a moving square and gratings (I neurons). The functional roles of these neurons in prey recognition and optomotor response were discussed.
The Effects of Nuclear Fragmentation Models on Single Event Effect Prediction

There is a need for improved physics models to correctly predict single event effects (SEEs) caused by nuclear reaction products from heavy ion radiation. Previous validations for nuclear fragmentation simulations are shown to be insufficient to support SEE analysis applications. A comparison of different physics models with experimental nuclear physics data coupled with energy deposition predictions is presented.
Part II. Analysis of data gaps pertaining to Shigella infections in low and medium human development index countries, 1984–2005

SUMMARY The global incidence of Shigella infection has been estimated at 80–165 million episodes annually, with 99% of episodes occurring in the developing world. To identify contemporary gaps in the understanding of the global epidemiology of shigellosis, we conducted a review of the English-language scientific literature from 1984 to 2005, restricting the search to low and medium human development countries. Our review yielded 11 population-based studies of Shigella burden from seven countries. No population-based studies have been conducted in sub-Saharan Africa or in low human development countries. In studies done in all age groups, Shigella incidence varied from 0·6 to 107 episodes/1000 person-years. S. flexneri was the most commonly detected subgroup in the majority of studies. Case-fatality rates ranged from 0% to 2·6% in population-based studies and from 0% to 21% in facility-based studies. This review highlights the large gaps in data on the burden of Shigella infections for low human development index countries and, more specifically, for sub-Saharan Africa.
Tunable pass-band FSS for beam steering applications

In this work we present a tunable pass-band Frequency Selective Surface (FSS) suitable for beam-steering operations. The structure at hand allows to electronically steer the scattered beam by means of a dynamic control of the phase related to the wave transmitted by each unit cell. Such an operation can be performed using electronically tunable capacitances (e.g. varactor diodes or MEMS capacitances) integrated into the passive structure. The proposed technique is capable of a simultaneous control of both the phase and magnitude of the wave transmitted by each cell of the periodic structure. A further improvement to the initial configuration was obtained using a multi-layer arrangement of pass-band FSSs. Full wave simulations and experimental analyses demonstrated a beam-steering FSSs operating within the C-band capable of a maximum control range for the phase of the wave transmitted by each unit cell up to 360° with transmission losses always lower than 3dB.
Iterative SLE Solvers over a CPU-GPU Platform

GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) have become one of the main co-processors that contributed to desktops towards high performance computing. Together with multi-core CPUs, a powerful heterogeneous execution platform is built for massive calculations. To improve application performance and explore this heterogeneity, a distribution of workload in a balanced way over the PUs (Processing Units) plays an important role for the system. However, this problem faces challenges since the cost of a task at a PU is non-deterministic and can be influenced by several parameters not known a priori, like the problem size domain. We present a comparison of iterative SLE (Systems of Linear Equations) solvers, used in many scientific and engineering applications, over a heterogeneous CPU-GPUs platform and characterize scenarios where the solvers obtain better performances. A new technique to improve memory access on matrix-vector multiplication used by SLEs on GPUs is described and compared to standard implementations for CPU and GPUs. Such timing profiling is analyzed and break-even points based on the problem sizes are identified for this implementation, pointing whether our technique is faster to use GPU instead of CPU. Preliminary results show the importance of this study applied to a real-time CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) application with geometry modification.
The Utilization of Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry in the Profiling of Several Antioxidants in Botanicals

Antioxidants are chemicals that inhibit oxidation, and certain antioxidant molecules from fruits and vegetables are thought to alleviate oxidative stress in biological systems. Oxidative stress is a process generated by excessive reactive oxygen species (ROS) in organisms, and it is considered to be involved in a number of illnesses such as cancer, arteriosclerosis, heart diseases, etc. Among these reactive oxygen species are hydroxyl radical OH•, superoxide radical O2 • and also hydrogen peroxide H2O2. Reactive nitrogen species (RNS) are also present in organisms, although at lower levels. The RNS include nitric oxide NO•, nitrogen dioxide NO2, nitrosyl cation NO+, etc. Reducing agents are also present in aerobic organisms. Among these are ascorbic acid, glutathione, and uric acid, and these molecules maintain a limited level of ROS in the organism. The enhancement of endogenous antioxidant capability of the human body is thought to be achieved by: 1) ingesting exogenous antioxidants either as food or as dietary supplements, 2) inducing the body production of antioxidant enzymes such as catalase, glutathione peroxidase, and superoxide dismutase, also with ingesting certain compounds, 3) inhibiting lipid peroxidation. The use of specific botanicals, either as food or as dietary supplements, has been intensively investigated for potential health benefits (see e.g. [1-5]). The reaction of antioxidants that interact with free radicals on a one-to-one basis takes place through various mechanisms. Among these are the hydrogen atom transfer (HAT), single electron transfer followed by proton transfer (SET or ET-PT), and sequential proton loss electron transfer (SPLET). For example, the HAT mechanism can be described by the following reactions (where ROO• is a free radical and AH an antioxidant):
The use of 2% chlorhexidine gel and toothbrushing for oral hygiene of patients receiving mechanical ventilation: effects on ventilator-associated pneumonia

Objective To evaluate the effects of oral chlorhexidine hygiene with toothbrushing on the rate of ventilator-associated pneumonia in a mixed population of critically ill patients under prolonged mechanical ventilation. Methods Prospective, randomized, and placebo-controlled pilot study. Patients who were receiving mechanical ventilation, had been admitted less than 24 hours prior, and were anticipated to require mechanical ventilation for more than 72 hours were included in the study. The patients were randomly divided into one of the following groups: chlorhexidine hygiene with toothbrushing or a placebo group (gel with the same color and consistency and toothbrushing). Results The planned interim analysis was conducted using 52 patients, and the study was terminated prematurely. In total, 28 patients were included in the chlorhexidine / toothbrushing group, and 24 patients were included in the placebo group. Ventilator-associated pneumonia occurred in 45.8% of the placebo group and in 64.3% of the chlorhexidine hygiene with toothbrushing group (RR=1.4; 95% CI=0.83-2.34; p=0.29). Conclusion Because the study was terminated due to futility, it was not possible to evaluate the impact of oral hygiene using 2% chlorhexidine and toothbrushing on the incidence of ventilator-associated pneumonia in this heterogeneous population of critical patients receiving long-term mechanical ventilation, and no beneficial effect was observed for this intervention.
Une pénalité de groupe pour des données multivoie de grande dimension

Le probleme de la classification supervisee de donnees multivoie de grande dimension avec un a priori de structure de groupes sur les variables est etudie. Plus precisement une penalite adaptee a cette structure de donnees est proposee. Sans surcout calculatoire notable, cette penalite favorise l’interpretabilite des modeles obtenus. La penalite est ici developpee pour l’analyse discriminante et la regression logistique. Une application a l’analyse de donnees de neuroimagerie multimodale est presentee.
Efficient threshold cryptosystems

A threshold signature or decryption scheme is a distributed implementation of a cryptosystem, in which the secret key is secret-shared among a group of servers. These servers can then sign or decrypt messages by following a distributed protocol. The goal of a threshold scheme is to protect the secret key in a highly fault-tolerant way. Namely, the key remains secret, and correct signatures or decryptions are always computed, even if the adversary corrupts less than a fixed threshold of the participating servers. We show that threshold schemes can be constructed by putting together several simple distributed protocols that implement arithmetic operations, like multiplication or exponentiation, in a threshold setting. We exemplify this approach with two discrete-log based threshold schemes, a threshold DSS signature scheme and a threshold Cramer-Shoup cryptosystem. Our methodology leads to threshold schemes which are more efficient than those implied by general secure multi-party computation protocols. Our schemes take a constant number of communication rounds, and the computation cost per server grows by a factor linear in the number of the participating servers compared to the cost of the underlying secret-key operation. We consider three adversarial models of increasing strength. We first present distributed protocols for constructing threshold cryptosystems secure in the static adversarial model, where the players are corrupted before the protocol starts. Then, under the assumption that the servers can reliably erase their local data, we show how to modify these protocols to extend the security of threshold schemes to an adaptive adversarial model, where the adversary is allowed to choose which servers to corrupt during the protocol execution. Finally we show how to remove the reliable erasure assumption. All our schemes withstand optimal thresholds of a minority of malicious faults in a realistic partially-synchronous insecure-channels communication model with broadcast. Our work introduces several techniques that can be of interest to other research on secure multi-party protocols, e.g. the inconsistent player simulation technique which we use to construct efficient schemes secure in the adaptive model, and the novel primitive of a simultaneously secure encryption which provides an efficient implementation of private channels in an adaptive and erasure-free model for a wide class of multi-party protocols. We include extensions of the above results to: (1) RSA-based threshold cryptosystems; and (2) stronger adversarial models than a threshold adversary, namely to proactive and creeping adversaries, who, under certain assumptions regarding the speed and detectability of corruptions, are allowed to compromise all or almost all of the participating servers. (Copies available exclusively from MIT Libraries, Rm. 14-0551, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307. Ph. 617-253-5668; Fax 617-253-1690.)
Spline approximation of general volumetric data

We present an efficient algorithm for approximating huge general volumetric data sets, i.e. the data is given over arbitrarily shaped volumes and consists of up to millions of samples. The method is based on cubic trivariate splines, i.e. piecewise polynomials of total degree three defined w.r. t, uniform type-6 tetrahedral partitions of the volumetric domain. Similar as in the recent bivariate approximation approaches (cf. [10, 15]), the splines in three variables are automatically determined from the discrete data as a result of a two-step method (see [40]), where local discrete least squares polynomial approximations of varying degrees are extended by using natural conditions, i.e. the continuity and smoothness properties which determine the underlying spline space. The main advantages of this approach with linear algorithmic complexity are as follows: no tetrahedral partition of the volume data is needed, only small linear systems have to be solved, the local variation and distribution of the data is automatically adapted, Bernstein-Bézier techniques well-known in Computer Aided Geometric Design (CAGD) can be fully exploited, noisy data are automatically smoothed. Our numerical examples with huge data sets for synthetic data as well as some real-world data confirm the efficiency of the methods, show the high quality of the spline approximation, and illustrate that the rendered iso-surfaces inherit a visual smooth appearance from the volume approximating splines.
Trainee teachers' habits of healthy physical activity

Introduction: This study analyses the habits of physical activity of a group of students at the University of Vigo (Spain). Methods: It uses the SRHI (Self-Report Habits Index) scale, which was used for the first time in Spain. It starts from the premise that future educators should have good physical activity habits if they want to convey this attitude to their students due to its importance for health and quality of life. Results: Physical activity habits are well-established in future Secondary Education Physical Education teachers but not in future Infant and Primary Education teachers. In addition, there are greater physical activity habits in men, in students who previously participated in sport at school and at younger ages. The most common difficulties for creating physical activity habits are lack of time, sport facilities and companionship for carrying out the activity. Discussion: In this section our results, which broadly coincide with the results of other studies regarding the same subject, are contrasted with the results of those other studies.
Generalizing from Research Findings: The Merits of Case Studies

The case study as a key research method has often been criticized for generating results that are less generalizable than those of large‐sample, quantitative methods. This paper clearly defines generalization and distinguishes it from other related concepts. Drawing on the literature, the author shows that case study results may be less generalizable than those of quantitative methods only in the case of within‐population generalization. The author argues that case studies have merits over quantitative methods in terms of theoretical generalization, identifying disconfirming cases and providing useful information for assessing the empirical generalizability of results.
Cognitive outcome after bacterial meningitis

Objective– To evaluate long‐term cognitive deficits in unselected patients with previously diagnosed meningitis and to compare these deficits to neurologic and psychopathologic impairment. Patients and methods– Twenty‐two unselected patients (mean age 52.5±17.1 years) were examined neurologically, psychiatrically, and psychometrically 30±11 months after the acute stage of bacterial meningitis. Results of psychometric tests were compared with clinical long‐term deficits. Psychometric tests were additionally applied on 17 healthy controls (mean age 49.2±14.2 years). Results– Neurologic or psychopathologic symptoms were found in 16 patients. Psychometrically, the speed of cognitive processes and psychomotor performance, concentration, visuoconstructive capacity, and memory functions were reduced significantly in patients as compared to controls. Verbal intelligence was less affected than performance efficiency. Patients with pneumococcal meningitis had significantly lower test results than patients with other pathogens. The psychometric test results were only slightly related with clinical findings of the follow‐up examination. Conclusion– Psychometric deficits are frequent after bacterial meningitis, and their relation with neurologic and psychopathologic symptoms is loose. The pattern of neuropsychologic impairment accentuates psychomotor slowing combined with memory disturbances, and resembles features observed in subcortical cognitive impairment.
Bayesian network for fault diagnosis

Fault diagnosis based on artificial intelligence techniques often deals with uncertain knowledge and incomplete input data. Probability reasoning is a method to deal with uncertain information, and Bayesian network is a tool that brings it into the real world applications. This paper describes the application of Bayesian network for diagnosing faulty components from engineered systems. A general procedure for constructing the Bayesian network structure on the basis of a bond graph model is proposed. We demonstrate how the resulting Bayesian network can be applied to fault diagnosis in an engineered system.
Brain toxoplasmosis: typical and atypical imaging features.

Poster: "ECR 2011 / C-1661 / Brain toxoplasmosis: typical and atypical imaging features. " by: "N. G. Macias1, A. D. Sotomayor2, J. berenguer1, M. T. Pujol Farre1, M. Olondo3, L. Oleaga Zufiria1; 1Barcelona/ES, 2Barcelona, Barcelona/ES, 3barcelona 08036/ES"