Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
InLocW: A reliable indoor tracking and guiding system for smartwatches with path re-routing

In this work, an end-to-end indoor routing and guiding solution, ‘InLocW’ (InLoc - Wearable) is discussed. The initial location fix of the user is obtained using an infrastructure of BLE beacons. Primary focus is on continuous calculation of instantaneous walking direction (a primary arrow displayed on the smartwatch) based on user's current location estimated by a particle filter which runs in the back end. A solution is devised to synchronize these directions to user's walking, thereby solving the problem of inherent latency between estimated and actual user's location in a PDR system. Another major contribution of this work is a preventive measure against the deviation of user from the path, for which a secondary arrow is displayed on the smartwatch to inform the user of any impending turn well before the turn itself. Also a correction module is implemented which re-routes the user back to the correct path in case any deviation from the optimum path is detected, which constitutes another major contribution. The overall system works without any dependence on a smartphone, or any involvement of user with the smartwatch during routing, thereby allowing them to walk without any distractions, and just follow the displayed directions. The system has been tested on paths with multiple turns and has proved to be efficient in preventing deviations from the routing path, and ensuring a smooth movement of user from source to the selected destination with high reliability.
HUMAN SEX TRAFFICKING: INDIVIDUAL RISK FACTORS FOR RECRUITMENT, TRAFFICKING,

Human sex trafficking is the harboring, recruiting, or transporting of a person for purposes of prostitution. Traffickers use social networking sites to lure victims in a process called "grooming. " Past research suggests that sexual victimization online could be associated with online risky behaviors, offline risky behaviors (e.g., substance abuse), poor academic performance, and problems at home, among others. The purpose of this study was to identify those psychosocial constructs that increase an individual’s likelihood of becoming a victim of online HST. The likelihood of victimization was estimated by examining participants' reactions to realistic vignettes representing messages from strangers. This study hypothesized that executive dysfunction, participation in offline and online risk behaviors, and poor self-esteem would predict the likelihood of victimization. The results from the 168 young, female participants showed that marijuana use, online risk behavior, and self-esteem were found to predict this outcome. Executive dysfunction did not predict victimization likelihood.
MAK, a computational tool kit for automated MITE analysis

Miniature inverted repeat transposable elements (MITEs) are ubiquitous and numerous in higher eukaryotic genomes. Analysis of MITE families is laborious and time consuming, especially when multiple MITE families are involved in the study. Based on the structural characteristics of MITEs and genetic principles for transposable elements (TEs), we have developed a computational tool kit named MITE analysis kit (MAK) to automate the processes (http://perl.idmb.tamu.edu/mak.htm). In addition to its ability to routinely retrieve family member sequences and to report the positions of these elements relative to the closest neighboring genes, MAK is a powerful tool for revealing anchor elements that link MITE families to known transposable element families. Implementation of the MAK is described, as are genetic principles and algorithms used in its derivation. Test runs of the programs for several MITE families yielded anchor sequences that retain TIRs and coding regions reminiscent of transposases. These anchor sequences are consistent with previously reported putative autonomous elements for these MITE families. Furthermore, analysis of two MITE families with no known links to any transposon family revealed two novel transposon families, namely Math and Kid, belonging to the IS5/Harbinger/PIF superfamily.
VLSP: Enabling Location Privacy in Vehicular Location Based Services

In this paper, we present VLSP, a Vehicular Location based Service with Privacy grantees. In VLSP, we assume the service provider is untrusted and users do not have pre-established social relationships with each other, we use standard cryptographic primitives, Broadcast Encryption (BE) and Attribute-based Encryption (ABE) to provide privacy guarantees. By using VLSP, we are able to protect users' location privacy in vehicular location sharing social services. VLSP is mainly composed with three parts: OBUs, RSUs, and vehicular location sharing service provider. RSUs use RFID readers to communicate with users' OBUs to log users' locations, and uses standard cryptographic primitives and BE-based mechanism to establish trust and protect privacy for users who share their location information. We leverage ABE-based mechanism on service provider to control who can see users' location information. We evaluate VLSP using protocol, security and system implementation analysis, and find VLSP is both privacy-preserving and feasible.
Writing as construct in the Grade 12 Home Language curriculum and examination

The newly introduced Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) contains a plethora of genres and writing tasks, aimed at helping learners develop dexterity in written communication. Accordingly, writing also features as a dominant construct in the Grade 12 school-leaving examination, with an entire language paper (Paper 3) being devoted to the assessment of this ability. There are a number of material concerns with the writing component of the national curriculum, particularly in relation to the testing of this ability in a timed examination setting. The kinds of examination tasks do not provide a valid or reliable basis for measuring proficiency in written communication. Moreover, the separation of skills reflected in both the curriculum and Grade 12 language papers may serve to inhibit rather than advance writing proficiency. This paper problematises the nature of the writing tasks, on the basis of the accepted principles of validity, reliability and fairness in language testing. Data gleaned from an analysis of Home Language papers reveal a disturbing lack of comparability of standard, as well as the prejudicial treatment of some learners. A more responsible approach to the measurement of writing ability is advocated.
On the Role of Syntax in Speech Understanding

To make a syntactic mechanism adequate for speech understanding requires several things. First, regarding the role of syntax, the parser should expect less work of the front-end and leave more work for the semantic back-end than has been traditional. Second, the parser should embody several design principles, including: `consider many simple syntactic hypotheses in parallel' andùse numeric computation'. These and other considerations suggest a parser based on`construction hypotheses', that is, hypotheses as to where various syntactic constructions match the input. This model is suitable for noisy and ungrammatical inputs and enables semantic feedback to be applied to front end processing.
Integrated view-input ar interaction for virtual object manipulation using tablets and smartphones

Lately, mobile augmented reality (AR) has become very popular and is used for many commercial and product promotional activities. However, in almost all mobile AR applications, the user only views annotated information or the preset motion of the virtual object in an AR environment and is unable to interact with the virtual objects as if he/she were interacting with real objects in the real environment. In this paper, in an attempt to realize enhanced intuitive and realistic object manipulation in the mobile AR environment, we propose an integrated view-input AR interaction method, which integrates user device manipulation and virtual object manipulation. The method enables the user to hold a 3D virtual object by touching the displayed object on the 2D touch screen of a mobile device, and to move and rotate the object by moving and rotating the mobile device while viewing the held object by way of the 2D screen of the mobile device. Based on this concept, we implemented three types of integrated methods, namely the Rod, Center, and Touch methods, and conducted a user study to investigate the baseline performance metrics of the proposed method on an AR object manipulation task. The Rod method achieved the highest success rate (91%). Participants' feedback indicated that this is because the Rod method is the most natural, and evoked a fixed mental model that is conceivable in the real environment. These results indicated that visualizing the manipulation point on the screen and restricting the user's interactivity with virtual objects from the user's position of view based on a conceivable mental model would be able to aid the user to achieve precise manipulation.
From topology to metric: modal logic and quantification in metric spaces

We propose a framework for comparing the expressive power and computational behaviour of modal logics designed for reasoning about qualitative aspects of metric spaces. Within this framework we can compare such well-known logics as S4 (for the topology induced by the metric), wK4 (for the derivation operator of the topology), variants of conditional logic, as well as logics of comparative similarity. One of the main problems for the new family of logics is to delimit the borders between ‘decidable’ and ‘undecidable. ’ As a first step in this direction, we consider the modal logic with the operator ‘closer to a set τ0 than to a set τ1’ interpreted in metric spaces. This logic contains S4 with the universal modality and corresponds to a very natural language within our framework. We prove that over arbitrary metric spaces this logic is ExpTime-complete. Recall that over R, Q, and Z, as well as their finite subspaces, this logic is undecidable.
Analysis of Database Production Rules by Process Algebra

The purpose of this research is to analyze production rules with coupling modes in active databases and to exploit an assistant system for rule programming. Each production rule is a specification including an event, a condition, and an action. The action is automatically executed whenever the event occurs and the condition is satisfied. Coupling modes are useful to control execution order of transactions. For example, a transaction for consistency check should be executed after transactions for update. An active database, which is a database with production rules, can spontaneously update database states and check their consistency. Production rules provide a powerful mechanism for knowledge-bases. However it is very difficult in general to predict how a set of production rules will behave because of cascading rule triggers, concurrency, and so on. We are attempting to adopt a process algebra as a basic tool to analyze production rules. In order to describe and analyze concurrent and communicating systems, process algebras such as CCS, CSP, ACP, and π-calculus, are well known. However there are some difficulties to apply existing process algebras to analysis of production rules in growing process trees by process creation. In this paper we propose a process algebra named CCSPR (a Calculus of Communicating Systems with Production Rules), which is an extension of CCS. An advantage of CCSPR is to syntactically describe growing process trees. Therefore, production rules can be appropriately analyzed in CCSPR. After giving definitions and properties of CCSPR, we show an example of analysis of production rules in CCSPR. key words: active database, production rule, process algebra, process creation, process tree, multi-way communication.
Gene expression disorders of innate antibacterial signaling pathway in pancreatic cancer patients: implications for leukocyte dysfunction and tumor progression

The study was carried out to investigate changes in gene expression of innate antibacterial signaling pathways in patients with pancreatic cancer. Expression of the following genes was measured in peripheral blood leukocytes of 55 patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma using real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR): TLR4, NOD1, MyD88, TRAF6 and HMGB1. The levels of expression of TLR4, NOD1 and TRAF6 genes were significantly elevated (p = 0.007; p = 0.001 and p = 0.01, respectively), while MyD88 expression was markedly reduced (p = 0.0002), as compared to controls. Expression of TLR4 and NOD1 exceeded the normal level more than 3.5-fold and there was a significant correlation found between the expression of these genes (r = 0.558, p < 0.001). TLR4, NOD1 and MyD88 genes were expressed at a similar level both before and after surgery. No significant changes in the expression of HMGB1 gene were observed. The results of the study clearly indicate abnormal expression of genes belonging to innate antibacterial signaling pathways in peripheral blood leukocytes of patients with pancreatic cancer, which may lead to leukocyte dysfunction. Overexpression of TLR4, NOD1 and TRAF6 genes, and decreased MyD88 gene expression may contribute to chronic inflammation and tumor progression by up-regulation of the innate antibacterial response. The parameters tested are useful for monitoring innate immunity gene disorders and pancreatic cancer progression.
Restenosis following angioplasty in the swine coronary artery is inhibited by an orally active PDGF-receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor, RPR101511A.

BACKGROUND Platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF), a purported mediator of arterial response to injury, stimulates proliferation, chemotaxis, and matrix production by activation of its membrane receptor tyrosine kinase. Because these activities underlie restenosis, inhibition of the PDGF-receptor tyrosine kinase (PDGFr-TK) is postulated to decrease restenosis. METHODS AND RESULTS RPR101511A is a novel compound which selectively and potently inhibits the cell-free and in situ PDGFr-TK and PDGFr-dependent proliferation and chemotaxis in vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC). To evaluate the effect of RPR101511A (30 mg. kg-1. d-1 BID for 28 days following PTCA) on coronary restenosis, PTCA was performed in hypercholesterolemic minipigs whose left anterior descending (LAD) coronary artery had been injured by overdilation and denudation, yielding a previously existing lesion. Angiographically determined prePTCA minimal lumen diameters (MLD) were similar in vehicle and RPR101511A-treated pigs (1.98+/-0.09 versus 2.01+/-0.08 mm) and increased to the same extent in the 2 groups following successful PTCA (2.30+/-0.06 versus 2.52+/-0.13). At termination, there was an average 50% loss of gain in the vehicle-treated group but no loss of gain with RPR101511A (2.16+/-0. 05 versus 2.59+/-0.11, P<0.001). Morphometric analysis of the LAD showed that RPR101511A caused a significant decrease in total intimal/medial ratio (0.96+/-0.58 versus 0.67+/-0.09, P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS RPR101511A, which acts by inhibition of the PDGFr-TK, completely prevented angiographic loss of gain following PTCA and significantly reduced histological intimal hyperplasia.
Control of convex-monotone systems

We define the notion of convex-monotone system and prove that for such systems the state trajectory x(·) is a convex function of the initial state x(0) and the input trajectory u(·). This observation gives a useful class of nonlinear dynamical systems for which control design can be performed by convex optimization. Applications to evolutionary dynamics of diseases and voltage stability in power networks are presented.
An examination of the associations among multiple memory systems, past tense, and vocabulary in typically developing 5-year-old children.

PURPOSE Considerable research has investigated the role of verbal working memory in language development in children with and without language problems. Much less is currently known about the relationship between language and the declarative and procedural memory systems. This study examined whether these 2 memory systems were related to typically developing children's past tense and lexical knowledge. METHOD Fifty-eight typically developing children approximately 5 years of age completed a battery of linguistic and nonlinguistic tasks, including tests of vocabulary, past tense production, and procedural and declarative memory. RESULTS The results showed that declarative and procedural memory were not correlated with either regular or irregular past tense use. A significant correlation was observed between declarative memory and vocabulary. CONCLUSIONS The results of the study were not consistent with the view that the declarative and procedural memory systems support children's use of the regular and irregular past tense. However, evidence was found suggesting that declarative memory supports vocabulary in this age group.
MASS LOSS OF FOUR COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE HEAT-POLYMERIZED ACRYLIC RESINS AFTER TOOTHBRUSHING WITH THREE DIFFERENT DENTIFRICES

The association between a toothbrush and a dentifrice is the most used denture cleaning method. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the abrasiveness of specific and non-specific denture cleaning dentifrices on different heat-polymerized acrylic resins. Sixteen specimens (90x30x3mm) of each acrylic resin (QC-20, Lucitone 550, Clássico, Vipi-Cril) were prepared and randomly assigned to 4 groups: 1: control (distilled water), 2: Colgate, 3: Bonyplus and 4: Dentu-Creme. The specimens were subjected to simulated toothbrushing in an automatic brushing machine using 35,600 brush strokes for each specimen. Brushing abrasion run at a 200-g load with the specimens immersed in 2:1 dentifrice/water slurry. Specimens were reconditioned to constant mass and the mass loss (mg) was evaluated. Data were analyzed by 2-way ANOVA and Tukey's test (α=0.05). Analysis of dentifrices' abrasive particles was made by scanning electron microscopy. Colgate produced the greatest mass reduction (42.44 mg, p<0.05), followed by Dentu-Creme (33.60 mg). Bonyplus was the less abrasive (19.91 mg), similar to the control group (19.69 mg) (p>0.05). The mass loss values indicated that QC-20 (33.13 mg) and Lucitone 550 (33.05 mg) resins were less (p<0.05) resistant to abrasion than Clássico (26.04 mg) and Vipi-Cril (23.43 mg). In conclusion, Colgate produced the greatest abrasion. Specific dentifrices for dentures tend to cause less damage to acrylic resins.
CARDIAC-SPECIFIC TROPONIN I LEVELS TO PREDICT THE RISK OF MORTALITY IN PATIENTS WITH ACUTE CORONARY SYNDROMES

A BSTRACT Background In patients with acute coronary syndromes, it is desirable to identify a sensitive serum marker that is closely related to the degree of myocardial damage, provides prognostic information, and can be measured rapidly. We studied the prognostic value of cardiac troponin I levels in patients with unstable angina or non–Q-wave myocardial infarction. Methods In a multicenter study, blood specimens from 1404 symptomatic patients were analyzed for cardiac troponin I, a serum marker not detected in the blood of healthy persons. The relation between mortality at 42 days and the level of cardiac troponin I in the specimen obtained on enrollment was determined both before and after adjustment for base-line characteristics. Results The mortality rate at 42 days was significantly higher in the 573 patients with cardiac troponin I levels of at least 0.4 ng per milliliter (21 deaths, or 3.7 percent) than in the 831 patients with cardiac troponin I levels below 0.4 ng per milliliter (8 deaths, or 1.0 percent; P 0.001). There were statistically significant increases in mortality with increasing levels of cardiac troponin I ( P 0.001). Each increase of 1 ng per milliliter in the cardiac troponin I level was associated with a significant increase (P 0.03) in the risk ratio for death after adjustment for the base-line characteristics that were independently predictive of mortality (ST-segment depression and age 65 years). Conclusions In patients with acute coronary syndromes, cardiac troponin I levels provide useful prognostic information and permit the early identification of patients with an increased risk of death. (N Engl J Med 1996;335:1342-9.)
Effect of Mutations at Position E138 in HIV-1 Reverse Transcriptase and Their Interactions with the M184I Mutation on Defining Patterns of Resistance to Nonnucleoside Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors Rilpivirine and Etravirine

ABSTRACT Impacts of mutations at position E138 (A/G/K/Q/R/V) alone or in combination with M184I in HIV-1 reverse transcriptase (RT) were investigated. We also determined why E138K is the most prevalent nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor mutation in patients failing rilpivirine (RPV) therapy. Recombinant RT enzymes and viruses containing each of the above-mentioned mutations were generated, and drug susceptibility was assayed. Each of the E138A/G/K/Q/R mutations, alone or in combination with M184I, resulted in decreased susceptibility to RPV and etravirine (ETR). The maximum decrease in susceptibility to RPV was observed for E138/R/Q/G by both recombinant RT assay and cell-based assays. E138Q/R-containing enzymes and viruses also showed the most marked decrease in susceptibility to ETR by both assays. The addition of M184I to the E138 mutations did not significantly change the levels of diminution in drug susceptibility. These findings indicate that E138R caused the highest level of loss of susceptibility to both RPV and ETR, and, accordingly, E138R should be recognized as an ETR resistance-associated mutation. The E138K/Q/R mutations can compensate for M184I in regard to both enzymatic fitness and viral replication capacity. The favored emergence of E138K over other mutations at position E138, together with M184I, is not due to an advantage in either the level of drug resistance or viral replication capacity but may reflect the fact that E138R and E138Q require two distinct mutations to occur, one of which is a disfavorable G-to-C mutation, whereas E138K requires only a single favorable G-to-A hypermutation. Of course, other factors may also affect the concept of barrier to resistance.
[Management of positional head deformity in 31 infants].

OBJECTIVE To investigate the clinical effect of postural correction training and helmet therapy in the treatment of moderate-severe positional head deformity defined as asymmetric head shape in infants. METHODS A total of 31 infants who were diagnosed with moderate-severe plagiocephaly and/or brachiocephaly were enrolled. According to the different treatment methods, the infants were divided into helmet therapy group with 11 infants and postural correction training group with 20 infants. The cranial vault asymmetry index (CVAI), cephalic ratio (CR), and head circumference growth were compared between the two groups before and after treatment. RESULTS Compared with the postural correction training group, the helmet therapy group had significantly lower CVAI and CR after treatment. The helmet therapy group had significantly better improvements in CVAI and CR after treatment compared with the postural correction training group (CVAI difference: 6.0±1.9 vs 0.7±0.8, P=0.001; CR difference: 0.047±0.009 vs 0.008±0.005, P<0.001). There was no significant difference in head circumference growth between the two groups (P=0.55). CONCLUSIONS Helmet therapy has a significantly better effect in the treatment of moderate-severe positional head deformity than postural correction training in infants. Helmet therapy does not limit head circumference growth.