Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of variable echo spacing in multi-echo sequences for resolving long T2 componenets in multiple sclerosis

Five 48-echo C P M G pulse sequences were examined to determine their ef fect iveness in measur ing the T 2 relaxation character ist ics of cerebral t issue containing multiple sc leros is (MS) lesions. T o this end , two sets of exper iments were conducted in which the first 32 echoes had an echo spac ing of 10 ms while the secondary echo spac ing ( S E S ) , the final 16 echoes , was increased from 10 to 50 ms. In the first study 10 normal volunteers were imaged and the geometr ic mean T 2 ( G M T 2 ) , the peak widths and the myelin water fractions of the resultant T 2 distributions were measured and compared to the results of a previous study. The second study simulated the T 2 relaxation distributions that are expected in the brains of M S patients using a ser ies of N iC I 2 water phantoms. The G M T 2 , peak widths and myelin water fractions were measured in these phantoms. The volunteer study showed that the T 2 distributions in severa l gray matter structures conta ined a single main peak (70 95 ms) with a low, or zero , myelin water fraction. The resolution of both myelin ( 1 0 5 0 ms) and intra/extracellular (70 95 ms) water peaks decreased while the accuracy of the G M T 2 of the main peak improved as S E S increased. Sampl ing of the decay curves at longer t imes improved the separat ion of the short and intermediate T 2 compar tments. In the phantom study it was demonstrated that there w a s a c lear cl inical benefit to the use of a longer S E S . W h e n imaging les ions for which the T 2 of the intra/extracellular and lesion (200 500 ms) water compartments were separated by at least a factor of 3, each compartment in the distribution w a s better resolved when S E S w a s increased. W h e n the lesion T 2 was 179 ms, the intermediate and long T 2 peaks could not be resolved. The fraction that each component contributed to the mixtures a lso determined the resolution of their peaks . A s the fractional contributions of each component increased s o too did its resolution. Increased resolution of one component often resulted in better est imation of the other components . This study demonstrated that for speci f ic cl inical situations, it is advantageous to use extended secondary echo spac ings for imaging the les ions of M S patients, without the risk of losing valuable short T 2 information.
Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis of Psychosocial Factors Affecting Women’s Entrepreneurship

This work aims to clarify the psychosocial variables that lead women to undertake and those that prevent them from doing so. Two studies were conducted using a mixed methodology to compensate for the inherent weaknesses of using each approach. The first study was based on the collection of quantitative data using the GloPEW questionnaire with a sample of 296 people. The second study, of a qualitative nature, was carried out through focus groups with a sample of 26 people. The results show that self-efficacy and emotional intelligence are the main factors to develop to promote entrepreneurship among women. Although the data show statistical strength, it seems necessary to expand the sample and incorporate more profiles of female entrepreneurs, for example, with different levels of training, given the complexity and variety of intervening factors.
How scene encoding affects memory discrimination: Analysing eye movements data using data driven methods

ABSTRACT Encoding of visual scenes remains under-explored due to methodological limitations. In this study, we evaluated the relationship between memory accuracy for visual scenes and eye movements at encoding. First, we used data-driven methods, a fixation density map (using iMap4) and a saliency map (using GBVS), to analyse the visual attention for items. Second, and in a more novel way, we conducted scanpath analyses without a priori (using ScanMatch). Scene memory accuracy was assessed by asking participants to discriminate identical scenes (targets) among rearranged scenes sharing some items with targets (distractors) and new scenes. Shorter fixation duration in regions of interest (ROIs) at encoding was associated with a better rejection of distractors; there was no significant difference in the relative fixation time in ROIs at encoding, between subsequent hits and misses at test. Hence, density of eye fixations in data-driven ROIs seems to be a marker of subsequent memory discrimination and pattern separation. Interestingly, we also identified a negative correlation between average MultiDimensional Scaling (MDS) distance scanpaths and the correct rejection of distractors, indicating that scanpath consistency significantly affects the ability to discriminate distractors from targets. These data suggest that visual exploration at encoding participates in discrimination processes at test.
On the use of the substitution method in left-censored environmental data

ABSTRACT In risk assessment and environmental monitoring studies, concentration measurements frequently fall below detection limits (DL) of measuring instruments, resulting in left-censored data. The principal approaches for handling censored data include the substitution-based method, maximum likelihood estimation, robust regression on order statistics, and Kaplan-Meier. In practice, censored data are substituted with an arbitrary value prior to use of traditional statistical methods. Although some studies have evaluated the substitution performance in estimating population characteristics, they have focused mainly on normally and lognormally distributed data that contain a single DL. We employ Monte Carlo simulations to assess the impact of substitution when estimating population parameters based on censored data containing multiple DLs. We also consider different distributional assumptions including lognormal, Weibull, and gamma. We show that the reliability of the estimates after substitution is highly sensitive to distributional characteristics such as mean, standard deviation, skewness, and also data characteristics such as censoring percentage. The results highlight that although the performance of the substitution-based method improves as the censoring percentage decreases, its performance still depends on the population's distributional characteristics. Practical implications that follow from our findings indicate that caution must be taken in using the substitution method when analyzing censored environmental data.
New development: Strategic planning in interesting times—From inter-crisis to intra-crisis responses

IMPACT As an intensive, long-term oriented and deliberative process, strategic planning is generally viewed as an essential practice in the public sector, yet mostly in relatively stable or non-crisis contexts. However, emerging crisis types (such as ‘creeping crises’) come with a novel mixture of features that disrupt conventional norms of public administration, crisis governance and policy-making. Drawing on the theories of creeping crises, strategic planning and empirical observations, the author explains how such crises create windows of opportunity for intra-crisis strategic planning. In such crisis conditions, practitioners should dedicate sufficient time to undertake intra-crisis strategic planning to drive crisis policy-making and crisis governance, rather than engaging in ad hoc and stopgap crisis responses.
Study on formulas for calculation of empirical frequency in curve-fitting method

A discussion is made on the theoretical basis of the curve fitting method and eleven formulas for calculation of the empirical frequency. By use of the statistical method, the design values by eight formulas are compared and analyzed for the curve fitting calculation of the population from the Pearson type III distribution. It is concluded that the calculated result by the Weiball formula is larger than its theoretical value, that the calculated results by the Huashi formula, the Haizen formula, and the Маматнов formula are satisfactory, and that the result by the least absolute value criterion is generally better than that by the least square criterion.
Big Data Analysis in Video Websites: Evidence from Bilibili and YouTube

Contemporarily, society enters the era of high-tech information technology, and big data is the product of the rapid development of information technology. Big data with the characteristics of Volume, Variety, Velocity, Veracity and Value plays an important role in various industries. It optimizes business processes, improves business quality, guides industry innovation, and ultimately provides convenience and better services for mankind. The development of Internet technology, communication technology, data transmission technology and smart terminal technology has contributed to the rise of video websites. More and more people choose to watch video in the websites to entertainment (e.g., YouTube, Tik Tok and Bilibili). Personal recommendation is one way to get viewers to stay and enhance viewers stickiness. In this paper, big data and video websites are linked. The role played by big data techniques in personalized push and provide differentiated services for viewers of video websites will be discussed. In addition, the limitations of the state-of-art big data technologies combined with the development status of video websites are analyzed. Overall, these results shed light on guiding further exploration of video websites using big data techniques to improve the business and user experience and find future directions.
Understanding the research on tracking, diagnosing, and intervening in sleep disorders using mHealth apps: Bibliometric analysis and systematic reviews

Objectives In solving the global challenge of sleep disorders, Mobile Health app is one of the important means to monitor, diagnose, and intervene in sleep disorders. This study aims to (1) summarize the status and trends of research in this field; (2) assess the production and usage of sleep mHealth apps; (3) calculate the conversion rate of grants that the proportion of newly developed apps from being funded and developed to published on application stores. Methods Using bibliometric and content analysis methods, based on “Research Paper-Product Output-Product Application” chain and considering the “Research Grants” of articles, we conducted a systematic review of eight databases, to identify relevant studies over the last decade. Results Over the past decade, 1399 authors published 313 papers in 182 journals and conferences. The number of publications increased with an average annual growth of 41.6%. The current focus area is research using cognitive behavioral therapy to intervene in sleep. Sleep-staging tracking is a shortcoming of this field. A total 368 sleep mHealth apps (233 newly developed and 135 existing) were examined in 313 papers; 323 grants supported 178 articles (56.9%). Only 12 of the newly developed apps are used in the real world, resulting in a 9% grant conversion rate. Conclusions In the last decade, the field of tracking, diagnosing, and intervening in sleep disorders using mHealth apps has shown a trend of rapid development. However, the conversion rate of products from being funded and developed for use by end-users is low.
Efficient Convolutional Processing of Spiking Neural Network With Weight-Sharing Filters

The importance of implementing an efficient convolutional neural network (CNN) is increasing. A weight-sharing spiking CNN inference system (WS-SCNN) employing efficient convolution layers (ECLs) is proposed and modeled to enable the compact convolutional processing of the spiking neural network (SNN) inference. The proposed ECL efficiently maps convolutional features between inputs and filter weights. The ECL does not replicate the synaptic filter array with respect to input sliding, which minimizes the number of synaptic devices required to implement hardware SNNs. A four-bit weight quantization capability of a fabricated charge-trap flash synaptic device is used to verify the accurate multiplication and summation of weights in the ECL. Moreover, a nine-layer WS-SCNN consisting of multiple ECLs is modeled, and the benefits of the WS-SCNN in terms of the area and energy are evaluated. Simulation results show that the WS-SCNN has 5.68 and 103.5 times higher energy and area efficiency than conventional SCNN systems, respectively.
Validation of Frequency-Domain Method to Compute Noise Radiated from Rotating Source and Scattered by Surface

This paper presents a frequency-domain method to compute noise radiated from the rotating source and scattered by the surface, where both the acoustic pressure and acoustic velocity of the noise radiated from the rotating thickness and loading sources are computed with the frequency-domain numerical method and the surface scattering effect is taken into account by employing the frequency-domain equivalent source method. To validate the above method, the analytical solutions for noise radiated from the rotating monopole and dipole point sources and scattered by a rigid sphere are proposed. A good agreement between the numerical results and the analytical solutions has been achieved. Moreover, the Isom noise consistency test is also carried out to validate the frequency-domain numerical method. The analysis of the computational error is investigated as well.
The Influence of Emotional Labor of Service Employees on Customer Service Misbehavior and Repurchase Intention: The Role of Face

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the emotional labor of service employees affects customer service misbehavior and repurchase intention and to explore the mechanism and boundary conditions. Methods We collected a total of 252 pairs of employee–customer valid matching data and used SPSS 24.0 and Mplus7.0 statistical analysis tools to perform statistical analysis and hypothesis testing. Results The results showed that employees’ surface acting has a significant positive impact on customer misbehavior and negative impact on repurchase intention via perceived face threat, while deep acting has a significant negative impact on customer misbehavior and positive impact on repurchase intention via perceived face threat. And customer face threat sensitivity not only moderates the relationship between service employee emotional labor and customer perceived face threat but also moderates the indirect effect of surface acting on customer misbehavior and repurchase intention via customer perceived face threat. Conclusion Based on face theory, this study explained how and when emotional labor of service employees may affect customer service misbehavior and repurchase intention. These results contribute to the emotional labor and customer service misbehavior literature by introducing perceived face threat as an underlying mechanism and face threat sensitivity as a boundary condition. In addition, this study suggests that service-oriented enterprises should pay attention to the management and guidance of employees’ emotional labor and try their best to let employees show deep acting rather than surface acting.
Research on the algorithm for rapid judging position relations between line segments and a circle

A rapid judgment on relative position relations between a line segment and a circle is presented in this paper. The basic principle is to judge the position relation between a line segment and a circle window by means of the distance from the center of the circle to the line on which the line segment lies ,and the distance of perpendicular ray of the line segment from the circle center, when the intersection happens, the intersecting point or points will be obtained. The concept of principal ray and principal vector created in this algorithm is brand new.Computing is in extremely high efficiency when judging complete visibility or invisibility of line segment.
Interest Rate Curve Interpolations and Their Assessment via Hedge Simulations

In this paper we discuss interest rate curve interpolation methods and their properties in the context of financial applications. We review the modern (multi-curve) theory of interest rate curve modeling, taking into account collateralization. Building on this solid foundation we reconsider several curve interpolation methods and derive some modifications thereof. We revise well-known criteria for the goodness of interpolation and introduce the hedge error, arising from dynamic delta-hedging over an extended period, as enhanced evaluation parameter. This new criterion reflects both a practical and meaningful choice since hedging is the essential instrument applied by banks to mitigate interest rate risks. The hedge error particularly represents the amount of money at risk. Numerical results in a multi-curve financial framework are derived by means of a Java-based implementation performed on actual market data.
Field dependence of the intrinsic domain magnetization of a ferromagnet

In this paper, the variation of the intrinsic domain magnetization of a ferromagnetic with the external magnetic field, is obtained. The basis of the treatment is the exchange interaction model amplified by explicit consideration of the dipole-dipole interaction between the atomic magnets. Approximations appropriate to low temperatures and equivalent to those used by Bloch in his derivation of the ${T}^{1}$ law, are introduced. The resultant expression for the intrinsic volume susceptibility decreases slowly with increasing field; at high fields the functional dependence is as the inverse square root of the field. The variation with temperature is linear; at room temperature and for fields of about 4000 gauss, the order of magnitude of the (volume) susceptibility is ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}4}$. The results are compared with experiment and satisfactory agreement is found.
Moving Forward from Moral Injury: A Mixed Methods Study Investigating the Use of 3MDR for Treatment-Resistant PTSD

Background: Exposure to trauma and potentially morally injurious events may lead to moral injury (MI). The link between MI and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may have particularly relevant implications for treatment-resistant PTSD (TR-PTSD). Multi-modal Motion-Assisted Memory Desensitization and Reconsolidation (3MDR), a technology-assisted exposure-based trauma therapy that has been used in the treatment of PTSD, may also be an acceptable modality for patients in the treatment of TR-PTSD and MI. This proof-of-concept study aimed to investigate (1) whether MI co-occurs in military members (MMs) and veterans with TR-PTSD, and (2) the perspectives of MMs and veterans with TR-PTSD utilizing 3MDR for MI. Methods: This study employed a mixed-methods clinical trial. Military Members and veterans participated in this study (N = 11) through self-reported questionnaires, video recordings of treatment sessions, and semi-structured interviews post-session and post-intervention, with longitudinal follow-up to 6 months. Results: MI scores correlated with self-reported measures of mental health symptoms related to PTSD. The thematic analysis revealed three emergent themes: (1) Realities of War, (2) Wrestling Scruples, and (3) Moral Sensemaking. Conclusion: MI was highly correlated with TR-PTSD and themes regarding MI. This result, while preliminary, allows for the postulation that MI may be contributing to the continuation of PTSD symptoms in TR-PTSD, and that 3MDR may be an acceptable modality for addressing these symptoms in MMs and veterans.
Real-time detection of generic objects using objectness estimation and locally adaptive regression kernels matching

Our purpose is to develop a detection algorithm capable of searching for generic interest objects in real time without large training sets and long-time training stages. Instead of the classical sliding window object detection paradigm, we employ an objectness measure to produce a small set of candidate windows efficiently using Binarized Normed Gradients and a Laplacian of Gaussian-like filter. We then extract Locally Adaptive Regression Kernels (LARKs) as descriptors both from a model image and the candidate windows which measure the likeness of a pixel to its surroundings. Using a matrix cosine similarity measure, the algorithm yields a scalar resemblance map, indicating the likelihood of similarity between the model and the candidate windows. By employing nonparametric significance tests and non-maxima suppression, we detect the presence of objects similar to the given model. Experiments show that the proposed detection paradigm can automatically detect the presence, the number, as well as location of similar objects to the given model. The high quality and efficiency of our method make it suitable for real time multi-category object detection applications.
Analgesic Efficacy of COX-2 Inhibitors in Periodontal Surgery: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

The objective of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to evaluate the analgesic efficacy of COX-2 inhibitors versus other drugs in periodontal surgery. Two researchers searched PubMed, Google Scholar, ACM Digital, BASE, EBSCOhost, Scopus, or Web of Science for clinical trials using various combinations of words. All articles that met the selection criteria were assessed using the Cochrane Collaboration’s risk of bias tool. For data analysis, the inverse variance and mean difference statistical method was used with Review Manager 5.3 software for Windows. According to the conclusion of each study (qualitative evaluation), only one clinical trial had results in favor of a COX-2 inhibitor when compared to placebo, one clinical study informed that a COX-2 was better that an active control, four studies showed similar analgesic efficacy to active controls, and one clinical study informed the analgesic effect of one celecoxib-caffeine combination in comparison with celecoxib alone and placebo (n = 337). The COX-2 inhibitors showed a decrease in the rescue analgesic consumption (n = 138; I2 = 15%; mean difference = −0.31; 95%CIs = −0.6 to −0.01), and lower pain intensity at four hours (n = 178; I2 = 0%; mean difference = −2.25; 95%CIs = −2.94 to −1.55; p = 0.00001) when compared to active controls after periodontal surgery. In conclusion, the data indicate that COX-2 agents produce better pain relief in comparison to placebo and other drugs after periodontal surgery.
Mountain Hiking: Prolonged Eccentric Muscle Contraction during Simulated Downhill Walking Perturbs Sensorimotor Control Loops Needed for Safe Dynamic Foot–Ground Interactions

Safe mountain hiking requires precise control of dynamic foot–ground interactions. In addition to vision and vestibular afferents, limb proprioception, sensorimotor control loops, and reflex responses are used to adapt to the specific nature of the ground contact. Diminished leg dexterity and balance during downhill walking is usually attributed to fatigue. We investigated the supplementary hypothesis that the eccentric contractions inherent to downhill walking can also disrupt muscle proprioception, as well as the sensorimotor control loops and reflex responses that depend on it. In this study, we measured leg dexterity (LD), anterior–posterior (AP) and medio–lateral (ML) bipedal balance, and maximal voluntary leg extension strength in young and healthy participants before and after 30 min of simulated downhill walking at a natural pace on a treadmill at a 20° decline. Post–pre comparisons of LD (p < 0.001) and AP balance (p = 0.001) revealed significant reductions in dynamic foot–ground interactions after eccentric exercise without an accompanying reduction in leg extension strength. We conclude that eccentric contractions during downhill walking can disrupt the control of dynamic foot–ground interactions independently of fatigue. We speculate that mountaineering safety could be improved by increasing conscious attention to compensate for unadjusted proprioception weighting, especially in the descent.