Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Robust Receive Diversity Scheme for Spatially Correlated Multiple-Antenna Systems Using Second-Order Channel Statistics

We consider a simple reduced-complexity receive diversity scheme for spatially correlated multiple-antenna systems, which consists of an inner decorrelation stage based on the Karhunen-Lomueve transform and an outer selection stage. The task of the selection stage is to provide an optimal trade-off between complexity and performance, by selecting an appropriate subset of the eigenvalues/ eigenvectors of the receiver correlation matrix for further processing. The considered receive diversity scheme is solely based on second-order channel statistics. The main focus of the paper is to analyze the complexity-performance trade-off offered by the reduced-dimension receiver and to study the impact of estimation errors concerning the receiver correlation matrix. By means of numerical results, it is shown that the considered receive diversity scheme provides quite a robust performance. We also consider a statistical transmit power allocation scheme, which might be employed in conjunction with the reduced-dimension receiver so as to improve performance.
Effects of Losses and Nonlinearities on the Generation of Polarization Entangled Photons

We investigate the effects of waveguide loss and nonlinearities on the generation of polarization entangled photon-pairs through spontaneous four-wave mixing (FWM) in X(3) materials. We quantify those effects through the analysis of the coincidence-to-accidental ratio (CAR), and through the Clauser, Horne, Shimony, and Holt (CHSH) inequality. Two distinct cases are analyzed. First, we consider a fixed fiber length. Second, we admit that the fiber length decreases with the increase of the waveguide loss coefficient. Results show that for the first case, for a fixed value of waveguide loss the CHSH parameter tends to decrease with the increase of the nonlinear parameter. This is due to the increase generation of multiphotons on the signal and idler fields, which leads to an increase on the rate of accidental counts. This is also verified by the analysis of the CAR. Results also show that for a fixed value of nonlinear parameter, increasing the value of the loss coefficient leads to a strong violation of the CHSH inequality. In the second scenario, results show that a strong violation of the CHSH inequality is observed for short waveguide lengths. Our findings also show that a high value of coincidence counting rate does not necessarily leads to a strong violation of the CHSH inequality.
Effect of treadmill training on fatigue in multiple sclerosis: a pilot study

People with multiple sclerosis (PwMS) tend to be less physically active than the general population. Limited physical activity increases fatigue, possibly affecting other functions such as balance. Treadmill training is a promising method to ameliorate these symptoms. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of treadmill training on fatigue and balance. Thirty PwMS were recruited; the mean age was 47.6 (SD 9.2). The median EDSS score was 5.5 (range 3–6.5). Individuals were randomized into a control group receiving 12 sessions of conventional therapy and an experimental group receiving conventional therapy including 15 min of treadmill training. Rate of perceived exertion (RPE), heart rate (HR), the Fatigue Severity Scale, and the Berg Balance Scale were assessed before and after rehabilitation. Despite a low HR (107 beats/min), the RPE score was high (15.8) at baseline assessment. In the experimental group, RPE decreased significantly to 12.8 (P=0.04) after training. Treadmill training also had a positive effect on HR, but no changes in the Fatigue Severity Scale and balance were observed. In conclusion, PwMS showed a high level of exertion before treatment. Treadmill training was effective in reducing the level of perceived fatigue, with no impact on balance.
Occupancy Pattern Recognition with Infrared Array Sensors: A Bayesian Approach to Multi-body Tracking

Thermal vision systems based on low-cost IR array sensors are becoming attractive in many smart living scenarios. This paper proposes a Bayesian framework for recognition and discrimination of body motions based on real-time analysis of thermal signatures. Unlike conventional frame-based methods, the proposed approach exploits a statistical model for the extraction of body-induced thermal signatures and a mobility model for tracking multi-body motions inside an indoor area. This approach prevents typical detection problems and can be also used in presence of interfering thermal sources such as heaters, radiators and other thermal devices. The Bayesian method is verified experimentally for ceiling mounted sensors and shows high accuracy and robustness even in cases where thermal signatures are closer to the ambient temperature.
To expand coverage, or increase frequency: Quantifying the tradeoffs between equity and efficiency facing cervical cancer screening programs in low‐resource settings

Cervical cancer is a leading cause of cancer death worldwide, with 85% of the disease burden residing in less developed regions. To inform evidence‐based decision‐making as cervical cancer screening programs are planned, implemented, and scaled in low‐ and middle‐income countries, we used cost and test performance data from the START‐UP demonstration project in Uganda and a microsimulation model of HPV infection and cervical carcinogenesis to quantify the health benefits, distributional equity, cost‐effectiveness, and financial impact of either (1) improving access to cervical cancer screening or (2) increasing the number of lifetime screening opportunities for women who already have access. We found that when baseline screening coverage was low (i.e., 30%), expanding coverage of screening once in a lifetime to 50% can yield comparable reductions in cancer risk to screening two or three times in a lifetime at 30% coverage, lead to greater reductions in health disparities, and cost 150 international dollars (I$) per year of life saved (YLS). At higher baseline screening coverage levels (i.e., 70%), screening three times in a lifetime yielded greater health benefits than expanding screening once in a lifetime to 90% coverage, and would have a cost‐effectiveness ratio (I$590 per YLS) below Uganda's per capita GDP. Given very low baseline coverage at present, we conclude that a policy focus on increasing access for previously unscreened women appears to be more compatible with improving both equity and efficiency than a focus on increasing frequency for a small subset of women.
Prenatal exposure to antidepressants and persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn: systematic review and meta-analysis

Objective To examine the risk for persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn associated with antenatal exposure to antidepressants. Design Systematic review and meta-analysis. Data sources Embase, Medline, PsycINFO, and CINAHL from inception to 30 December 2012. Eligibility English language studies reporting persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn associated with exposure to antidepressants. Two independent reviewers extracted data and assessed the quality of each article. Results Of the 3077 abstracts reviewed, 738 papers were retrieved and seven included. All seven studies were above our quality threshold. Quantitative analysis was only possible for selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Although exposure to SSRIs in early pregnancy was not associated with persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn (odds ratio 1.23, 95% confidence interval 0.58 to 2.60; P=0.58), exposure in late pregnancy was (2.50, 1.32 to 4.73; P=0.005). Effects were not significant for any of the moderator variables examined, including study design, congenital malformations, and meconium aspiration. It was not possible to assess for the effect of caesarean section, body mass index, or preterm delivery. The absolute risk difference for development of persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn after exposure to SSRIs in late pregnancy was 2.9 to 3.5 per 1000 infants; therefore an estimated 286 to 351 women would need to be treated with an SSRI in late pregnancy to result in an average of one additional case of persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn. Conclusions The risk of persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn seems to be increased for infants exposed to SSRIs in late pregnancy, independent of the potential moderator variables examined. A significant relation for exposure to SSRIs in early pregnancy was not evident. Although the statistical association was significant, clinically the absolute risk of persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn remained low even in the context of late exposure to SSRIs.
Research on Several Problems in BP Neural Network Application

Four problems existing in BP neural network practical application are discussed in this paper: slow converging speed, converging at local minimum, overtraining and poor extrapolating capacity. Comparing advantages and disadvantage of several acceleration algorithms, the paper provides the suggestions of solving those problems. The paper also advances a forecasting model of monthly irrigation return flow based on BP neural network is advanced as a case study.
Lipid-lowering effect of fluvastatin in relation to cytochrome P450 2C9 variant alleles frequently distributed in the Czech population

Summary Background CYP2C9*3 allele has been reported to correlate with increased plasma concentration of fluvastatin active form in healthy volunteers. We analyzed the correlation between the CYP2C9 genotype and cholesterol-lowering effect of fluvastatin in human hypercholesterolemic patients. Material/Methods The study was prospective, without any interventions to standard procedures of hypolipidemic treatment. CYP2C9 genotype was determined by PCR–RFLP assay in 87 patients on concomitant fluvastatin therapy, in 48 patients on monotherapy, and in a control group of 254 healthy volunteers of Czech nationality. Biochemical and clinical data were collected before the initiation of fluvastatin treatment and 12 weeks later. Results The frequency of CYP2C9 alleles did not differ significantly among groups of patients and volunteers. The most frequently observed allele was CYP2C9*2. Treatment with 80 mg of fluvastatin daily of 48 patients on monotherapy for 12 weeks resulted in mean low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) reduction by 25%, mean serum total cholesterol (TC) reduction by 21%, and mean triglyceride (TG) reduction by 28%. The CYP2C9*1/*3 genotype was associated with a decrease in LDL-C levels (by 40.0% for CYP2C9*1/*3, but only by 22.4% for CYP2C9*1/*1), and with the reduction of TC (by 28.6% in CYP2C9*1/*3 versus 20.2% in CYP2C9*1/*1). Conclusions In hypercholesterolemic patients, LDL-C serum concentration was decreased more significantly in fluvastatin-treated subjects bearing the CYP2C9*1/*3 genotype compared to CYP2C9*1/*1 genotype. However, due to rare occurrence of some CYP genotypes, it was impossible to report a definitive positive genotype-fluvastatin effect association.
Solid Fuel Use for Household Cooking: Country and Regional Estimates for 1980–2010

Background: Exposure to household air pollution from cooking with solid fuels in simple stoves is a major health risk. Modeling reliable estimates of solid fuel use is needed for monitoring trends and informing policy. Objectives: In order to revise the disease burden attributed to household air pollution for the Global Burden of Disease 2010 project and for international reporting purposes, we estimated annual trends in the world population using solid fuels. Methods: We developed a multilevel model based on national survey data on primary cooking fuel. Results: The proportion of households relying mainly on solid fuels for cooking has decreased from 62% (95% CI: 58, 66%) to 41% (95% CI: 37, 44%) between 1980 and 2010. Yet because of population growth, the actual number of persons exposed has remained stable at around 2.8 billion during three decades. Solid fuel use is most prevalent in Africa and Southeast Asia where > 60% of households cook with solid fuels. In other regions, primary solid fuel use ranges from 46% in the Western Pacific, to 35% in the Eastern Mediterranean and < 20% in the Americas and Europe. Conclusion: Multilevel modeling is a suitable technique for deriving reliable solid-fuel use estimates. Worldwide, the proportion of households cooking mainly with solid fuels is decreasing. The absolute number of persons using solid fuels, however, has remained steady globally and is increasing in some regions. Surveys require enhancement to better capture the health implications of new technologies and multiple fuel use.
Accumulated lifecourse adversities and depressive symptoms in later life among older men and women in England: a longitudinal study

Abstract This paper investigates the association between accumulated major lifecourse adversities and later-life depressive symptoms among older people in England, both at a single point in time (prevalence) and the onset over time during later life (incidence), using data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Using retrospective data on the experience of major life adversities from childhood onwards, five latent classes were identified: no/few lifecourse adversities (58.6%), lost relationship (27.0%), chained adversities (2.4%), childhood adversities (6.3%) and war-related adversities (5.7%). Older people who had experienced ‘chained adversities’, ‘childhood adversities’ and ‘a lost relationship’ had higher odds of presenting current depressive symptoms in 2006, even after controlling for socio-demographic characteristics, health-risk behaviours and social resources. Longitudinal analysis indicated that amongst respondents who were clear of depression in 2006, those older people who had experienced childhood adversities, a lost relationship and war-related adversities experienced a higher risk of having a new case of depressive symptoms. Results further indicate that women's mental health in later life is more sensitive to earlier life adversities than men's. The study shows that intervention earlier in the lifecourse may have benefits for the individual both contemporaneously and over the longer term.
New antibacterial treatment of nosocomial infections.

IN considering the topic assigned me, I was rather confused by the title "New Antibacterial Treatment of Nosocomial Infections. " It sounds as if nosocomial infections were somehow different from all other kinds and required some special approaches to chemotherapy to which I might address myself. We are all aware that this is not the case; there is virtually no aspect of the treatment of nosocomial infections that will not be covered by other speakers in this symposium. Therefore, I intend to broaden my comments somewhat in order to take up the only other thing we can do about nosocomial infections, that is, to prevent them. The past two decades have produced so much literature on the subject that we all should be well aware of the general problem of nosocomial infection. For the record, however, let us establish a baseline of information from which to proceed. A nosocomial infection is simply an institutional or hospital-associated infection. Whether or not the hospital or its staff was in any way responsible for the development of the infection, or whether the infection was exogenous or endogenous, is not the issue. The mere fact that an infection occurred in a patient during hospitalization establishes that infection as nosocomial in origin. An appreciation of the magnitude of the over-all problem can be gained from Table I, which summarizes the prevalence and incidence of hospital infections as reported in selected studies during the past eight years. '-7 The prevalence of hospital infections at the Boston City Hospital in each of three separate surveys has been i2% or more.14 Lest anyone think that such problems are confined to municipal hos-
Finding High-Level Topics and Tweet Labeling Using Topic Models

Making sense of Twitter data streams is challenging due to the extremely high volume of data. One way to address this challenge is to consider these data streams as containing a set of high-level topics. In this research we address the problem of: given a collection of tweets about K high-level topics, how to find topic words that describe these topics as well as how to label each tweet with one of the K topics using a topic modeling approach. Current research has shown that applying topic modeling algorithms directly on tweets does not lead to good results. Hence one approach is to group related tweets together, so as to form a single “pseudo-document”, which is more informative than a single tweet. In this paper we evaluate different grouping schemes found in the literature and propose a new grouping scheme utilizing named entities and word collocations. Results show that our proposed scheme performs better than the existing approaches, to a some extent for all the test cases, and for both finding high-level topics and tweet labeling.
Effect of hyperbaric oxygen therapy on bone prefabrication in rats.

OBJECTIVES This experimental study aimed to create a prefabricated vascularized bone graft using the interconnected porous coralline hydroxyapatite ceramic by combining vascular bundle implantation, mesenchymal stem cells, and hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) administration in a rat model. METHODS Forty-five male Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into three groups, each containing 15 rats. The hydroxyapatite ceramics were vascularized by the superficial inferior epigastric artery and vein in all groups. These vessels passed through the hole of the hydroxyapatite blocks. In Group 2, mesenchymal stem cells were administered into the hydroxyapatite. In Group 3, both mesenchymal stem cells and HBOT were administered. The presence and density of any new bone formation and neovascularization were evaluated by radiography, microangiography, scintigraphy, biochemical analysis, and histomorphometry. RESULTS Neovascularization and bone formation were significantly greater in Group 3, in which both mesenchymal stem cells and HBOT were applied, than the other groups. CONCLUSION HBOT enhances neovascularization and osteogenesis, thus HBOT can provide optimal and faster prefabrication of a vascularized bone graft.
A Locally Weighted Learning Method for Nonaffine-in-Control Systems

This article is concerned with tracking control problems for nonlinear systems that are not affine in the control signal and that contain unknown nonlinearities in the system dynamic equations. This paper develops a piecewise linear approximation to the unknown functions during system operation. New control and parameter adaptation algorithms are designed and analyzed using Lyapunov-like methods. The objectives are to achieve global stability of the state, accurate tracking of bounded reference signals contained within a known domain Dx, and at least boundedness of the function approximation parameter estimates
Low-dose dynamic myocardial perfusion CT image reconstruction using pre-contrast normal-dose CT scan induced structure tensor total variation regularization

Dynamic myocardial perfusion CT (DMP-CT) imaging provides quantitative functional information for diagnosis and risk stratification of coronary artery disease by calculating myocardial perfusion hemodynamic parameter (MPHP) maps. However, the level of radiation delivered by dynamic sequential scan protocol can be potentially high. The purpose of this work is to develop a pre-contrast normal-dose scan induced structure tensor total variation regularization based on the penalized weighted least-squares (PWLS) criteria to improve the image quality of DMP-CT with a low-mAs CT acquisition. For simplicity, the present approach was termed as ‘PWLS-ndiSTV’. Specifically, the ndiSTV regularization takes into account the spatial-temporal structure information of DMP-CT data and further exploits the higher order derivatives of the objective images to enhance denoising performance. Subsequently, an effective optimization algorithm based on the split-Bregman approach was adopted to minimize the associative objective function. Evaluations with modified dynamic XCAT phantom and preclinical porcine datasets have demonstrated that the proposed PWLS-ndiSTV approach can achieve promising gains over other existing approaches in terms of noise-induced artifacts mitigation, edge details preservation, and accurate MPHP maps calculation.
Improving Children Speech Recognition through Feature Learning from Raw Speech Signal

Children speech recognition based on short-term spectral features is a challenging task. One of the reasons is that children speech has high fundamental frequency that is comparable to formant frequency values. Furthermore, as children grow, their vocal apparatus also undergoes changes. This presents difficulties in extracting standard short-term spectral-based features reliably for speech recognition. In recent years, novel acoustic modeling methods have emerged that learn both the feature and phone classifier in an end-to-end manner from the raw speech signal. Through an investigation on PF-STAR corpus we show that children speech recognition can be improved using end-to-end acoustic modeling methods.
First-order queries on structures of bounded degree are computable with constant delay

A relational structure is <i>d</i>-degree-bounded, for some integer <i>d</i>, if each element of the domain belongs to at most <i>d</i> tuples. In this paper, we revisit the complexity of the evaluation problem of not necessarily Boolean first-order (<b>FO</b>) queries over <i>d</i>-degree-bounded structures. Query evaluation is considered here as a dynamical process. We prove that any <b>FO</b> query on <i>d</i>-degree-bounded structures belongs to the complexity class constant-Delay<inf><i>lin</i></inf>, that is, can be computed by an algorithm that has two separate parts: it has a precomputation step of time linear in the size of the structure and then, it outputs all solutions (i.e., tuples that satisfy the formula) one by one with a constant delay (i.e., depending on the size of the formula only) between each. Seen as a global process, this implies that queries on <i>d</i>-degree-bounded structures can be evaluated in total time <i>f</i>(|ϕ|). (|<i>S</i>| + |ϕ(<i>S</i>)|) and space <i>g</i>(|ϕ|). |<i>S</i>| where <i>S</i> is the structure, ϕ is the formula, ϕ(<i>S</i>) is the result of the query and <i>f</i>, <i>g</i> are some fixed functions. Among other things, our results generalize a result of Seese on the data complexity of the model-checking problem for <i>d</i>-degree-bounded structures. Besides, the originality of our approach compared to related results is that it does not rely on the Hanf's model-theoretic technique and is simple and informative since it essentially rests on a quantifier elimination method.