Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Endpoint Stiffness of the Arm Is Directionally Tuned to Instability in the Environment

It has been shown that humans are able to selectively control the endpoint impedance of their arms when moving in an unstable environment. However, directional instability was only examined for the case in which the main contribution was from coactivation of biarticular muscles. The goal of this study was to examine whether, in general, the CNS activates the sets of muscles that contribute to selective control of impedance in particular directions. Subjects performed reaching movements in three differently oriented unstable environments generated by a robotic manipulandum. After subjects had learned to make relatively straight reaching movements in the unstable force field, the endpoint stiffness of the limb was measured at the midpoint of the movements. For each force field, the endpoint stiffness increased in a specific direction, whereas there was little change in stiffness in the orthogonal direction. The increase in stiffness was oriented along the direction of instability in the environment, which caused the major axis of the stiffness ellipse to rotate toward the instability in the environment. This study confirms that the CNS is able to control the endpoint impedance of the limbs and selectively adapt it to the environment. Furthermore, it supports the idea that the CNS incorporates an impedance controller that acts to ensure stability, reduce movement variability, and reduce metabolic cost.
Semantic integration of web services and peertopeer networks to achieve fault-tolerance

One fundamental property that critical Web services need to provide is a high level of availability. Along with the development of Web services, considerable technological advances are being made to use the semantic Web to achieve the automated processing and integration of data and applications. This paper describes the implementation of the Whisper architecture. This architecture semantically integrates Web services with a peer-to-peer infrastructure to increase service availability. Whisper achieves transparent fault-tolerance by automatically forwarding Web service requests to semantically equivalent peers that are dynamically located, selected, and invoked.
Microextraction by Packed Sorbent (MEPS) and Solid-Phase Microextraction (SPME) as Sample Preparation Procedures for the Metabolomic Profiling of Urine

For a long time, sample preparation was unrecognized as a critical issue in the analytical methodology, thus limiting the performance that could be achieved. However, the improvement of microextraction techniques, particularly microextraction by packed sorbent (MEPS) and solid-phase microextraction (SPME), completely modified this scenario by introducing unprecedented control over this process. Urine is a biological fluid that is very interesting for metabolomics studies, allowing human health and disease characterization in a minimally invasive form. In this manuscript, we will critically review the most relevant and promising works in this field, highlighting how the metabolomic profiling of urine can be an extremely valuable tool for the early diagnosis of highly prevalent diseases, such as cardiovascular, oncologic and neurodegenerative ones.
Design and Implementation of a Cloud Computing Adoption Decision Tool: Generating a Cloud Road

Migrating to cloud computing is one of the current enterprise challenges. This technology provides a new paradigm based on “on-demand payment” for information and communication technologies. In this sense, the small and medium enterprise is supposed to be the most interested, since initial investments are avoided and the technology allows gradual implementation. However, even if the characteristics and capacities have been widely discussed, entry into the cloud is still lacking in terms of practical, real frameworks. This paper aims at filling this gap, presenting a real tool already implemented and tested, which can be used as a cloud computing adoption decision tool. This tool uses diagnosis based on specific questions to gather the required information and subsequently provide the user with valuable information to deploy the business within the cloud, specifically in the form of Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions. This information allows the decision makers to generate their particular Cloud Road. A pilot study has been carried out with enterprises at a local level with a two-fold objective: to ascertain the degree of knowledge on cloud computing and to identify the most interesting business areas and their related tools for this technology. As expected, the results show high interest and low knowledge on this subject and the tool presented aims to readdress this mismatch, insofar as possible.
Faster cascading menu selections with enlarged activation areas

Cascading menus are used in almost all graphical user interfaces. Most current cascade widgets implement an explicit delay between the cursor entering/leaving a parent cascade menu item and posting/unposting the associated menu. The delay allows users to make small steering errors while dragging across items, and it allows optimal diagonal paths from parent to cascade items. However, the delay slows the pace of interaction for users who wait for the delay to expire, and it demands jerky discrete movements for experts who wish to pre-empt the delay by clicking. This paper describes Enlarged activation area MenUs (EMUs), which have two features: first, they increase the area of the parent menu associated with each cascade; second, they eliminate the posting and unposting delay. An evaluation shows that EMUs allow cascade items to be selected up to 29% faster than traditional menus, without harming top-level item selection times. They also have a positive smoothing effect on menu selections, allowing continuous sweeping selections in contrast to discrete movements that are punctuated with clicks.
Stepwise searching for feature variables in high-dimensional linear regression

We investigate the classical stepwise forward and backward search methods for selecting sparse models in the context of linear regression with the number of candidate variables p greater than the number of observations n. In the noiseless case, we give definite upper bounds for the number of forward search steps to recover all relevant variables, if each step of the forward search is approximately optimal in reduction of residual sum of squares, up to a fraction. These upper bounds for the number of steps are of the same order as the size of a true sparse model under mild conditions. In the presence of noise, traditional information criteria such as BIC and AIC are designed for p < n and may fail spectacularly when p is greater than n. To overcome this difficulty, two information criteria BICP and BICC are proposed to serve as the stopping rules in the stepwise searches. The forward search with noise is proved to be approximately optimal with high probability, compared with the optimal forward search without noise, so that the upper bounds for the number of steps still apply. The proposed BICP is proved to stop the forward search as soon as it recovers all relevant variables and remove all extra variables in the backward deletion. This leads to the selection consistency of the estimated models. The proposed methods are illustrated in a simulation study which indicates that the new methods outperform a counterpart LASSO selector with a penalty parameter set at a fixed value.
Design of system-initiated digressive proposals for automated banking dialogues

System-initiated proposals may be used to introduce new and unsolicited information into the dialogue flow of an automated telephone service in order to advise callers about products in which they may be interested such as short-term loans or overdrafts. Important dialogue design issues surrounding the introduction of such digressive proposals include how to interrupt the callers and where in the dialogue flow it is most suitable to locate a proposal. This paper describes the results from two experiments using a spoken natural language telephone banking application where two delivery strategies and three contrasting locations were investigated. Results showed that the delivery strategy had a stronger effect than the location.
Time lag analysis between vegetation and climate change in Inner Mongolia

Relationship between vegetation and climate has been a hot spot in climate change researches since vegetation is a key component of land ecosystem that represents climate change. In this study, GIMMS NDVI data and meteorology data (precipitation and temperature) from 1982 to 2006 are used to do time lag analysis between NDVI and precipitation/temperature. First, whole time series NDVI and precipitation/temperature time lag analysis were done in two spatial scale- pixel and vegetation type districts. While in pixel scale, results show that NDVI has at least one month time lag with precipitation and temperature when they have significantly correlation. Different vegetation types response distinctly with climate conditions and Northern Temperate Meadow Steppe and Southern Cool Temperate Deciduous Needle-leaf Forest change immediately with climate, where maximum correlation coefficients appears between NDVI and climate factors at the same month. Comparatively, there are time lags in other regions. Second, we studied inter-annual time lag effects in growing season (from April to September) and accumulation effects of precipitation and temperature.
Representations of 3D visual space in human cortex: Population receptive field models of position-in-depth

We live in a three-dimensional world, but most studies of human visual cortex focus on 2D visual representations. The third dimension – depth – is critical for perception and behavior, yet we know relatively little about if/how position-in-depth is represented topographically in the brain, and importantly how it interacts with the wellestablished 2D spatial maps. We recently revealed that visual cortex gradually transitions from 2D-dominant representations to balanced 3D (2D plus depth) representations along the visual hierarchy (Finlayson, Zhang, & Golomb, 2017). Here, we ask whether this depth information is spatially organized into topographic maps, akin to 2D retinotopic maps. We employed the population receptive field modeling technique (pRF: Dumoulin & Wandell, 2008) to estimate each voxel’s preferred position-in-depth and depth tuning function. Subjects viewed two different types of 3D stimuli in the scanner: depth from disparity (while wearing red/green anaglyph glasses) or depth from relative motion. Depth maps were highly reliable within a subject but demonstrated considerable across-subject variability. Yet, nearly all subjects exhibited a systematic “map-like” progression of depth-from-disparity in the vicinity of the transverse occipital sulcus. Such “depth-otopic” maps represent a novel advance carrying exciting theoretical and methodological implications for our understanding of how the brain represents spatial information.
Applications of OralCDx ® methodology in the diagnosis of oral leukoplakia

Objective: We aim to evaluate the effectiveness of the brush biopsy technique using OralCDx ® (OralScan Laboratories Inc., Suffern, NY) as a new method for early diagnosis and control of a “potentially malignant disorder” such as oral leukoplakia. Design of the study: We performed a study in which samples were taken using OralCDx ® on 24 patients who visited the Master of Oral Medicine, Oral Surgery and Implantology of the University of Santiago de Compostela between February 2009 and May 2010. These patients presented clinical and histological lesions that were consistent with oral leukoplakia. We evaluated the relationship between the keratinization degree of the lesions and cell representation; the diagnosis obtained through OralCDx ® and biopsies; and sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV). Results: 50% of patients were men and 50% women with an average age of 62.38 years. The Kappa coefficient relating keratinization of lesions and cell representation was 0.33, the OralCDx ® - biopsy diagnostic rate reached a Kappa value of 0.66, recording 72.7%,sensitivity and 92.3% specificity, PPV was 88.8%, while NPV reached 80%. Conclusions: cytology sampling with OralCDx ® showed high sensitivity and specificity values, which make it a good tool for monitoring oral leukoplakia, but nowadays the most reliable method that allows us to confirm the exact diagnosis of the lesions and their anatomical and pathological characteristics still is conventional biopsy using a surgical scalpel. Key words: OralCDx®, brush biopsy, oral leukoplakia.
Silicon integrated waveguide technology for mm-wave frequency scanning array

We present a Bi-CMOS compatible technology based on potassium hydroxide wet etching and employing only two lithography masks for the integration of silicon filled waveguides with continuous metallic walls. The realized waveguides present a trapezoidal cross-section and provide very low losses (0.2 dB/mm at 100 GHz) and cross-talk. A coplanar to waveguide transition based on resonating slots is described, achieving 0.87 dB of insertion loss at 100 GHz. Finally, to showcase the capability of this technology to enable mm-wave system integration, a frequency scanning array at 93 GHz based on uniform offset slots is integrated. The array provides a beam steering capability of 92° within a 20.8 GHz band and a maximum half power beam-width of 9°.
PENGEMBANGAN KAWASAN PESISIR YANG BERKELANJUTAN DI KABUPATEN MINAHASA UTARA

Kegiatan pengelolaan wisata pantai secara terpadu dan berkelanjutan diperlukan untuk dapat memberi kontribusi pada peningkatan pendapatan baik pada masyarakat maupun pemerintah daerah setempat. Penelitian ini dilaksanakan untuk memperoleh strategi pengembangan kawasan wisata pantai yang merupakan sebuah konsep yang akan menjadi acuan dalam pengembangan kawasan pariwisata pantai di Minahasa Utara. kegiatan – kegiatan yang dilaksanakan antara lain mengidentifikasi dan menganalisis kondisi pesisir serta potensi wisata pesisir yang berada di Minahasa Utara dan membuat strategi pengembangan wisata pesisir yang berkelanjutan di Kabupaten Minahasa Utara. Metode yang digunakan meliputi pengumpulan data primer melalui observasi dengan cara pengamatan secara langsung di kawasan wisata dan melaksanakan wawancara langsung kepada setiap responden (pengunjung) serta Dinas Pariwisata. Pengumpulan data sekunder melalui Dinas Kebudayaan, Pemuda Olah Raga dan Pariwisata, Badan Perencanaan Pembangunan Daerah serta Badan Pusat Statistik Kabupaten Minahasa Utara. Teknik analisis data dilakukan dengan pendekatan analisis Deskriptif kualitatif dan Analisa SWOT. Berdasarkan Hasil analisis dapat disimpulkan bahwa di Minahasa Utara memiliki klasifikasi wisata, yaitu wisata bahari, wisata buatan, wisata alam dan wisata agro. Potensi-potensi kawasan wisata yang dimiliki sangat banyak, dan yang menjadi fokus dalam kawasan pengembangan pariwisata yaitu wisata bahari/pantai. Kondisi eksiting kawasan periwisata di Kabupaten Minahsa Utara cukup baik. Faktor kurangnya aksesbilitas merupakan salah satu kendala dalam sektor pengembangan pariwisata, sehingga perlu adanya penambahan prasarana untuk dermaga sandaran kapal pada 11 titik lokasi wisata, serta penambahan jalur untuk trayek bus jalur laut maupun untuk trayek bus jalur darat. Prioritas pembangunan menjadi hal yang sangat penting dalam pengembangan kawasan pariwisata di Kabupaten Minahasa Utara khususnya kawasan wisata pesisir agar pembangunan dan pengelolaan pariwisata bisa berjalan dengan baik. Kata Kunci : Pengembangan, Wisata Pesisir, Berkelanjutan
Visualizing author attribution using Blobby objects

In this paper, we propose a set of distinct features that endeavors to recognize the author of the text documents, independent of the theme of the document. The features are used to distinguish the unique style of every author. The features proposed are independent of the theme, so the features are suitable for any type of text document. Thus, it will be useful for systems that train themselves to particular users in order to identify the author automatically. Blobby objects are modeled based on the author attribution information and the objects depict authors features, author feature weight ages and the author identification for each and every document. The visual display of author attribution is useful in depicting the differences or similarities in the style of author, based on the features as a measure. The blobby objects are implicitly modelled and they move and join together showing the author of the document with the authors feature set values. Gestalt laws were applied to the perceived visual output to visualize author attribution.
Extracting descriptive noun phrases from conversational speech

Information extraction on conversational speech presents a number of challenges. The casual speaking style and lower “fact density” typical of spontaneous conversations make named entity extraction less effective than in other domains and leads us to consider extraction of descriptive noun phrases as a more powerful generalization of named entities. We describe a system for finding semantically important noun phrases that combines our conversational speech recognizer with a probabilistic model of syntax and semantics. We present preliminary experiments on a subset of the Switchboard corpus.
Use of botulinum toxin in stroke patients with severe upper limb spasticity.

OBJECTIVES--Spasticity can contribute to poor recovery of upper limb function after stroke. This is a preliminary evaluation of the impact of botulinum toxin treatment on disability caused by upper limb spasticity after stroke. METHODS--Seventeen patients with severe spasticity and a non-functioning arm were treated with intramuscular botulinum A neurotoxin (median age at treatment 54.5 years; median time between onset of stroke and treatment 1.5 years). Baseline and assessments two weeks after treatment were compared to assess efficacy. The duration of improvement in disability was documented. Outcome measures used were; passive range of movement at the shoulder, elbow, wrist, and fingers; modified Ashworth scale to assess spasticity of biceps and forearm finger flexors; an eight point scale to assess the degree of difficulty experienced by the patient or carer for each functional problem defined before treatment; the presence of upper limb pain. The biceps, forearm finger flexors, and flexor carpiulnaris were treated with intramuscular botulinum toxin. Up to a total dose of 400-1000 mouse units (MU) of Dysport (Speywood) or 100-200 MU of BOTOX (Allergan) was used in each patient. RESULTS--Functional problems reported by the patients before treatment were difficulty with cleaning the palm, cutting fingernails, putting the arm through a sleeve, standing and walking balance, putting on gloves, and rolling over in bed. Hand hygiene improved in 14 of 17 patients; difficulty with sleeves improved in four of 16; standing and walking balance improved in one of four; shoulder pain improved in six of nine; wrist pain improved in five of six. Passive range of movement at shoulder, elbow, and wrist improved after treatment. Benefit was noted within two weeks and lasted one to 11 months. No adverse effects occurred. CONCLUSION--This preliminary study suggests that intramuscular botulinum toxin is a safe and effective treatment for reducing disability in patients with severe upper limb spasticity.
Feedback Inhibition of the Unfolded Protein Response by GADD34-Mediated Dephosphorylation of eIF2α

Phosphorylation of the α subunit of eukaryotic translation initiation factor 2 (eIF2α) on serine 51 integrates general translation repression with activation of stress-inducible genes such as ATF4, CHOP, and BiP in the unfolded protein response. We sought to identify new genes active in this phospho-eIF2α–dependent signaling pathway by screening a library of recombinant retroviruses for clones that inhibit the expression of a CHOP::GFP reporter. A retrovirus encoding the COOH terminus of growth arrest and DNA damage gene (GADD)34, also known as MYD116 (Fornace, A.J., D.W. Neibert, M.C. Hollander, J.D. Luethy, M. Papathanasiou, J. Fragoli, and N.J. Holbrook. 1989. Mol. Cell. Biol. 9:4196–4203; Lord K.A., B. Hoffman-Lieberman, and D.A. Lieberman. 1990. Nucleic Acid Res. 18:2823), was isolated and found to attenuate CHOP (also known as GADD153) activation by both protein malfolding in the endoplasmic reticulum, and amino acid deprivation. Despite normal activity of the cognate stress-inducible eIF2α kinases PERK (also known as PEK) and GCN2, phospho-eIF2α levels were markedly diminished in GADD34-overexpressing cells. GADD34 formed a complex with the catalytic subunit of protein phosphatase 1 (PP1c) that specifically promoted the dephosphorylation of eIF2α in vitro. Mutations that interfered with the interaction with PP1c prevented the dephosphorylation of eIF2α and blocked attenuation of CHOP by GADD34. Expression of GADD34 is stress dependent, and was absent in PERK−/− and GCN2−/− cells. These findings implicate GADD34-mediated dephosphorylation of eIF2α in a negative feedback loop that inhibits stress-induced gene expression, and that might promote recovery from translational inhibition in the unfolded protein response.
Caenorhabditis elegans expressing the Saccharomyces cerevisiae NADH alternative dehydrogenase Ndi1p, as a tool to identify new genes involved in complex I related diseases

Isolated complex I deficiencies are one of the most commonly observed biochemical features in patients suffering from mitochondrial disorders. In the majority of these clinical cases the molecular bases of the diseases remain unknown suggesting the involvement of unidentified factors that are critical for complex I function. The Saccharomyces cerevisiae NDI1 gene, encoding the mitochondrial internal NADH dehydrogenase was previously shown to complement a complex I deficient strain in Caenorhabditis elegans with notable improvements in reproduction and whole organism respiration. These features indicate that Ndi1p can functionally integrate the respiratory chain, allowing complex I deficiency complementation. Taking into account the Ndi1p ability to bypass complex I, we evaluate the possibility to extend the range of defects/mutations causing complex I deficiencies that can be alleviated by NDI1 expression. We report here that NDI1 expressing animals unexpectedly exhibit a slightly shortened lifespan, a reduction in the progeny, and a depletion of the mitochondrial genome. However, Ndi1p is expressed and targeted to the mitochondria as a functional protein that confers rotenone resistance to those animals without affecting their respiration rate and ATP content. We show that the severe embryonic lethality level caused by the RNAi knockdowns of complex I structural subunit encoding genes (e.g., NDUFV1, NDUFS1, NDUFS6, NDUFS8, or GRIM-19 human orthologs) in wild type animals is significantly reduced in the Ndi1p expressing worm. All together these results open up the perspective to identify new genes involved in complex I function, assembly, or regulation by screening an RNAi library of genes leading to embryonic lethality that should be rescued by NDI1 expression.