Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Soy Isoflavones Supplementation for Patients with Irritable Bowel Syndrome: A Randomized Double Blind Clinical Trial

BACKGROUND Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is one of the common gastrointestinal disorders with unknown etiology. In experimental models, it is proposed that soy isoflavones may suppress the clinical and psychological symptoms of IBS by alteration of gut barrier tight junctions. METHODS We conducted this study to evaluate the effects of soy isoflavones on IBS symptoms and patients’ quality of life. In a randomized double blind placebo-controlled clinical trial, 67 patients with IBS were allocated to consume either soy isoflavones capsules or a placebo for 6 weeks. The primary outcome was a significant reduction in symptoms severity score and the secondary outcome was a significant improvement in quality of life. RESULTS 45 participants completed the study. There was no significant changes in mean differences of symptoms severity score between the two groups; however soy isoflavone supplementation could significantly improve the quality of life scores (p=0.009). CONCLUSION Soy isoflavones supplementation could improve the quality of life in patients with IBS; however it did not suppress the symptoms severity in 6 weeks. Further research with a longer duration is needed to determine the sustained clinical efficacy. This study was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT02026518
Planning the collaboration process: one-way to make it happen

Many CSCL researches present systems that provide the project-based learning (PEL) approach. Analyzing these systems, we observed that most of them do not provide support to the definition of collaborative processes by students and teachers, although the importance of this question is pointed out many times. Planning the interactions and the process in a group project could be a way to stimulate people to collaborate, promoting inter dependency and commitment with the work and learning. We present an infrastructure for collaborative project-based learning environments that supports teachers and students in the task of planning their work in order to improve the awareness about the process of "learning how to learn".
Growth and Regional Inequality in China During the Reform Era

Chinese city-level data indicate that differences in growth rates are far more severe than indicated in previous studies which typically use data at higher levels of aggregation. We estimate growth equations using city-level data and find that the policy of awarding a special economic zone status enhances growth substantially, increasing annual growth rates by 5.5 percentage points. Annual growth rates of open coastal cities are, on average, 3 percentage points higher. Our qualitative results on the role of policy and the effects of FDI are similar to those of earlier studies that have employed provincial-level data; but, quantitatively, our results are substantially different. We also provide evidence of an indirect role of policy in the growth process through its ability to attract growth-enhancing foreign direct investment.
Context Variation and Definitions in Learning the Meanings of Words: An Instance-Based Learning Approach

This article proposes an instance-based theoretical framework to account for the influence of both contexts and definitions on learning new word meanings and reports 2 studies that examine hypotheses about learning from context. One is that variation in contexts is important for allowing core meaning features of a word to emerge. The second is that definitions are effective because they can interact with contexts to communicate core meanings. Both experiments tested the effects of context variation by presenting adult learners with context sentences that either varied or repeated with each training trial. Experiment 1 varied whether definitions were also provided, whereas Experiment 2 varied context variability without definitions and examined the role of reading comprehension skill and pre-training word familiarity. Results across several different measures were that exposure to variable contexts led to better learning of abstract meanings than did equivalent exposure to a single context. In addition, definitions were more effective at conveying this knowledge than context alone. The instance-based framework accounts for the dual effects of contexts and definitions, suggesting how word learning results from abstraction across varied word encounters, both definitions and context sentences.
Design and development of 6-DOF robotic arm controlled by Man Machine Interface

This paper presents the design and development of a low cost and user friendly interface for the control of a 6-DOF slave tele-operated anthropomorphic robotic arm. Articulation of the robotic arm is achieved about six single-axis revolute joints: one for each shoulder abduction-adduction (abd-add), shoulder flexion-extension (flx-ext), elbow flx-ext, wrist flx-ext, wrist radial-ulnar (rad-uln), and gripper open-close. Tele-operator, master, uses the Man Machine Interface (MMI) to operate in real-time the robotic arm. The MMI has simple motion capture devices that translate motion into analog voltages which bring about the corresponding actuating signals in the robotic arm.
An Energy Consumption Analysis of Beacon Enabled Slotted CSMA/CA IEEE 802.15.4

Due to low power consumption and low duty cycle, IEEE 802.15. 4 standard is widely used for Low Rate Wireless Personal Area Networks (LR - WPANs). It works in Beacon Enabled (BEn) and Non Beacon Enabled (NBEn) mode. In BEn mode, it has Contention Access Period (CAP) and an optional Contention Free Period (CFP). During CAP, nodes contend to access the medium for communication while CFP period provides Guaranteed Time Slot (GTS) for low latency and applications requiring specific bandwidth. In this paper, we evaluate the comprehensive energy consumption of slotted CSMA/CA algorithm of IEEE 802.15. 4 standard during idle and back off periods. Simulation results with acknowledgment frame are given at the end of the paper.
Characterisation of Anisotropic, Non-Homogeneous Beam Sections with Embedded Piezo-Electric Materials

The paper discusses the problem of the characterisation of untwisted, untapered, anisotropic and non-homogeneous straight beams with embedded piezo-electric devices. The determination of the section properties, i.e., the generalised electro-elastic stiffness and compliance matrices, is performed through an in-plane discretisation in a finite element way, in which the axial dependence of the unknown is handled in analytical form. This leads to a semi-analytical formulation that allows the solution of both the "central" and the "extremity" problems, namely, the indefinite and the boundary solutions. The piezo-electric generalisation implies the modelling of electro-static potential field. The peculiar bound for piezo-electric devices, the conductive laminae that allow sensing and actuation, implies a distributed non-holonomic constraint to the related electric variables. The section finite element discretisation allows detailed stress and electric displacement recovery, thus, giving the designer a powerful analysis tool. A Finite Volumes formulation is used in order to simplify the determination of the three-dimensional beam properties. This technique leads to punctual stiffness matrix evaluation, skipping numerical integration, and is intrinsically locking free. A complete set of numerical simulations and comparisons with three-dimensional models demonstrate the effectiveness and soundness of the proposed formulation.
Smoking out Health Disparities in Sexual and Gender Minorities: Lessons from the National Adult Tobacco Survey

Sexual and gender minorities (SGM) in the United States experience a number of health disparities and unique contributing factors to them. From a research perspective, survey design and implementation challenges, such as lack of inclusion of effective items for assessing SGM status and inadequate sampling methods, remain barriers to studying SGM. The purpose of this commentary is to describe, using the National Adult Tobacco Survey (NATS) survey items and datasets, the primary limitations we encountered when trying to describe SGM tobacco use. Our intent is to demonstrate through use of a national dataset around a specific health disparity, the imperative for researchers to change their data collection strategies and practices around tobacco use and other healthcare priorities. Our team utilized the 2009 NATS dataset as well as the 2012 iteration to highlight significant changes between them regarding demographics, tobacco use, and access to healthcare, in addition to methodological concerns regarding sampling strategies. It is critical that researchers strive to use items for survey research that accurately capture data on marginalized groups. Additionally, careful consideration is warranted regarding strategies to identify members of these populations, changes in item wording, and changes in questions asked over time in an effort to track changes in behavior over time.
Entropy-based optimization to trade-off energy and accuracy for activity mobile sensing

The availability of advanced sensors on smart-phones allows feeding mobile applications with rich contextual information. Continuous sensing mechanisms in smartphones cost high energy consumption to support accurate contextual recognition. Hence, there is a trade-off between the classification accuracy and the energy consumption that needs to be identified and optimized. In this paper, we formulate the energy-accuracy trade-off as an entropy-based optimization problem, in order to propose an efficient algorithm based on user activity and phone sensor parameters. Experiments demonstrate the gains of the proposed algorithm with 43% reduction in energy consumption for a case study based on real data traces.
Predicting Failures of Vision Systems

Computer vision systems today fail frequently. They also fail abruptly without warning or explanation. Alleviating the former has been the primary focus of the community. In this work, we hope to draw the community's attention to the latter, which is arguably equally problematic for real applications. We promote two metrics to evaluate failure prediction. We show that a surprisingly straightforward and general approach, that we call ALERT, can predict the likely accuracy (or failure) of a variety of computer vision systems - semantic segmentation, vanishing point and camera parameter estimation, and image memorability prediction - on individual input images. We also explore attribute prediction, where classifiers are typically meant to generalize to new unseen categories. We show that ALERT can be useful in predicting failures of this transfer. Finally, we leverage ALERT to improve the performance of a downstream application of attribute prediction: zero-shot learning. We show that ALERT can outperform several strong baselines for zero-shot learning on four datasets.
Outage performance of causal cognitive radio Z-interference fading channel with cognitive relaying

In this paper, we analyze the outage performance of causal cognitive radio Z-interference fading channel where cognitive user transmits concurrently with primary transmission while ensuring no degradation in primary's outage performance. Cognitive relay with best channel gain to primary receiver is selected from the set of qualified neighboring inactive cognitive users to relay primary's message. Analytical and simulations results show that cognitive relaying leads to improved outage mutual information and additional diversity for primary receiver while achieving significant outage mutual information for cognitive user.
ISPRS Archives XXXVIII-8/W3 Workshop Proceedings: Impact of Climate Change on Agriculture 234 EVALUATION OF AMSR-E SOIL MOISTURE PRODUCT AS AN INPUT TO CLIMATE CHANGE MODELS

Present study is an attempt to examine the suitability of soil moisture products available from Aqua-AMSR-E for their application in monsoon simulations at different temporal scales ranging from medium range to climate scales. For this purpose we have analysed the AMSR-E soil moisture products over 18 locations in India to evaluate their suitability for assimilation in numerical models. It has been found from the study that the AMSR-E soil moisture can be used as input to climate model over Indian region, except over mountainous region, coastal region and regions with dense vegetation. ∗ sasmita@sac.isro. gov.in
Toward evaluating material design interface paradigms for novice users

Material design is the process by which artists specify the reflectance properties of a surface, such as its diffuse color and specular roughness. We present a user study to evaluate the relative benefits of different material design interfaces, focusing on novice users since they stand to gain the most from intuitive interfaces. Specifically, we investigate the editing of the parameters of analytic bidirectional distribution functions (BRDFs) using three interface paradigms: physical sliders by which users set the parameters of analytic BRDF models, such as diffuse albedo and specular roughness; perceptual sliders by which users set perceptually-inspired parameters, such as diffuse luminance and gloss contrast; and image navigation by which material variations are displayed in arrays of image thumbnails and users make edits by selecting them. We investigate two design tasks: precise adjustment and artistic exploration. We collect objective and subjective data, finding that subjects can perform equally well with physical and perceptual sliders as long as the interface responds interactively. Image navigation performs worse than the other interfaces on precise adjustment tasks, but excels at aiding in artistic exploration. We find that given enough time, novices can perform relatively complex material editing tasks with little training, and most novices work similarly to one another.
Commercial Brain Computer Interface: Potential as a Natural User Interface

Natural user interfaces (NUIs) are alternatives to traditional input methods using different methods of interaction. The goal of NUIs is to provide a natural means of interaction that is effectively invisible to the user. Commercial Brain Computer Interfaces (BCIs) have the potential to meet this need. Towards this end, it was investigated whether a user's prior experience with traditional input methods affects their efficiency with the Emotiv (a commercially available BCI). This was used as an indicator of the suitability of the headset as an NUI. Two groups of participants, categorised based on their prior exposure to traditional input methods, were tested navigating a pair of robots through a test course, first with the Emotiv and then using a standard keyboard. The study determined that the Emotiv would be suitable to use as an NUI, but only when used in a non-critical context that is not time sensitive. The findings are that the technology is presently not yet ready to replace the traditional interface approach. However, the Emotiv offers a more natural alternative when interacting with computers compared to traditional approaches like the keyboard.
The Role of Partners and Workplaces in British and Swedish Men’s Parental Leave Decisions

Sweden has been long known for its early introduction of parental leave in the 1970s and the introduction of the first nontransferable “daddy month” in 1995 while the United Kingdom (UK) lagged behind with policies that reflected a strong male breadwinner model until the recent introduction of Additional Paternity Leave, which extended paternity leave up to twenty-six weeks. Our study examines parental leave decisions following the changes in policy, paying particular attention to the role of partners and workplaces. We draw on data from thirty-two interviews with Swedish parents conducted in 2008 and twenty-two interviews with British parents conducted in 2012. We find that mothers in both countries have great influence over parental leave decisions. However, this often perpetuates a much greater gendered division of parental leave in the UK than in Sweden. Furthermore, the British workplace continues to hold very different expectations for male and female employees regarding parental leave, while Swedish employers are generally accepting of men’s use of long parental leave.
Illustrative Data Graphics in 18th-19th Century Style: A Case Study

We present a scientific reflection on the creation of a large illustrative personal data graphics that we create to mimic 18th-19th century style visualizations. We discuss the relationship to illustrative visualization, the story-telling aspects of the design, the used data sources and their purpose, the creation of the overall style, and the aspects of the multi-author creation process.
One axon , many kinesins : What ’ s the logic ?

A large number of membrane-bounded organelles, protein complexes, and mRNAs are transported along microtubules to different locations within the neuronal axon. Axonal transport in the anterograde direction is carried out by members of a superfamily of specialized motor proteins, the kinesins. All kinesins contain a conserved motor domain that hydrolyses ATP to generate movement along microtubules. Regions outside the motor domain are responsible for cargo binding and regulation of motor activity. Present in a soluble, inactive form in the cytoplasm, kinesins are activated upon cargo binding. Selective targeting of different types of kinesin motors to specific cargoes is directed by amino acid sequences situated in their variable tails. Cargo proteins with specific function at their destination, bind directly to specific kinesins for transport. Whereas most kinesins move to microtubule plus-ends, a small number of them move to microtubule minus-ends, and may participate in retrograde axonal transport. Axonal transport by kinesins has a logic: Fully assembled, multisubunit, functional complexes (e.g., ion channel complexes, signaling complexes, RNA-protein complexes) are transported to their destination by kinesin motors that interact transiently (i.e., during transport only) with one of the complexes’ subunits.
Incremental Path Planning Using Partial Map Information for Mobile Robots

This paper proposes a practical method for planning paths incrementally for mobile robots in unknown environments using the latest sensory information. A* algorithm was modified in this research for it to be able to handle an occupancy grid map with unknown information. Then the paper presented an algorithm that is able to robustly and incrementally searching for an optimal path based on the partial map simultaneously built by the robot. Waypoints was generated to further optimize the obtained path and were sequentially traced by the robot in a simple, reactive way. Extensive simulations and experiments were carried out to verify the proposed planning algorithm
A cohort study of bacteremic pneumonia

AbstractBacteremic pneumonia is usually associated with greater mortality. However, risk factors associated with hospital mortality in bacteremic pneumonia are inadequately described.The study was a retrospective cohort study, conducted in Barnes-Jewish Hospital (2008–2015). For purposes of this investigation, antibiotic susceptibility was determined according to ceftriaxone susceptibility, as ceftriaxone represents the antimicrobial agent most frequently recommended for hospitalized patients with community-acquired pneumonia as opposed to nosocomial pneumonia. Two multivariable analyses were planned: the first model included resistance to ceftriaxone as a variable, whereas the second model included the various antibiotic-resistant species (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Enterobacteriaceae). In all, 1031 consecutive patients with bacteremic pneumonia (mortality 37.1%) were included. The most common pathogens associated with infection were S aureus (34.1%; methicillin resistance 54.0%), Enterobacteriaceae (28.0%), P aeruginosa (10.6%), anaerobic bacteria (7.3%), and Streptococcus pneumoniae (5.6%). Compared with ceftriaxone-susceptible pathogens (46.8%), ceftriaxone-resistant pathogens (53.2%) were significantly more likely to receive inappropriate initial antibiotic treatment (IIAT) (27.9% vs 7.1%; P < 0.001) and to die during hospitalization (41.5% vs 32.0%; P = 0.001). The first logistic regression analysis identified IIAT with the greatest odds ratio (OR) for mortality (OR 2.2, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.5–3.2, P < 0.001). Other independent predictors of mortality included age, mechanical ventilation, immune suppression, prior hospitalization, prior antibiotic administration, septic shock, comorbid conditions, and severity of illness. In the second multivariable analysis that included the antibiotic-resistant species, IIAT was still associated with excess mortality, and P aeruginosa infection was identified as an independent predictor of mortality (OR 1.6, 95% CI 1.1–2.2, P = 0.047), whereas infection with ceftriaxone-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (OR 0.6, 95% CI 0.4–1.0, P = 0.050) was associated with lower mortality.More than one-third of our patients hospitalized with bacteremic pneumonia died. IIAT was identified as the most important risk factor for hospital mortality and the only risk factor amenable to potential intervention. Specific antibiotic-resistant pathogen species were also associated with mortality.
Etude sur la réactivité des établissements de santé aux incitations tarifaires

La tarification a l'activite (T2A), introduite dans les etablissements publics en 2004 et dans les etablissements prives en 2005, a mis en place un systeme tarifaire base sur le recueil medicalise qu'est le PMSI.
A randomized double-blind control study of early intra-coronary autologous bone marrow cell infusion in acute myocardial infarction: the REGENERATE-AMI clinical trial

Abstract Aims Clinical trials suggest that intracoronary delivery of autologous bone marrow-derived cells (BMCs) 1–7 days post-acute myocardial infarction (AMI) may improve left ventricular (LV) function. Earlier time points have not been evaluated. We sought to determine the effect of intracoronary autologous BMC on LV function when delivered within 24 h of successful reperfusion therapy. Methods and results A multi-centre phase II randomized, double-blind, and placebo-controlled trial. One hundred patients with anterior AMI and significant regional wall motion abnormality were randomized to receive either intracoronary infusion of BMC or placebo (1:1) within 24 h of successful primary percutaneous intervention (PPCI). The primary endpoint was the change in left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) between baseline and 1 year as determined by advanced cardiac imaging. At 1 year, although LVEF increased compared with baseline in both groups, the between-group difference favouring BMC was small (2.2%; 95% confidence interval, CI: −0.5 to 5.0; P = 0.10). However, there was a significantly greater myocardial salvage index in the BMC-treated group compared with placebo (0.1%; 95% CI: 0.0–0.20; P = 0.048). Major adverse events were rare in both treatment groups. Conclusion The early infusion of intracoronary BMC following PPCI for patients with AMI and regional wall motion abnormality leads to a small non-significant improvement in LVEF when compared with placebo; however, it may play an important role in infarct remodelling and myocardial salvage. Clinical trial registration Clinicaltrials.gov NCT00765453 and EudraCT 2007-002144-16.