Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cost-utility analysis of telemedicine and ophthalmoscopy for retinopathy of prematurity management.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the cost-effectiveness of telemedicine and standard ophthalmoscopy for retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) management. METHODS Models were developed to represent ROP examination and treatment using telemedicine and standard ophthalmoscopy. Cost-utility analysis was performed using decision analysis, evidence-based outcome data from published literature, and present value modeling. Visual outcome data were converted to patient preference-based time trade-off utility values based on published literature. Costs of disease management were determined based on 2006 Medicare reimbursements. Costs per quality-adjusted life year gained by telemedicine and ophthalmoscopy for ROP management were compared. One-way sensitivity analysis was performed on the following variables: discount rate (0%-7%), incidence of treatment-requiring ROP (1%-20%), sensitivity and specificity of ophthalmoscopic diagnosis (75%-100%), percentage of readable telemedicine images (75%-100%), and sensitivity and specificity of telemedicine diagnosis (75%-100%). RESULTS For infants with birth weight less than 1500 g using a 3% discount rate for costs and outcomes, the costs per quality-adjusted life year gained were $3193 with telemedicine and $5617 with standard ophthalmoscopy. Sensitivity analysis resulted in ranges of costs per quality-adjusted life year from $1235 to $18,898 for telemedicine and from $2171 to $27,215 for ophthalmoscopy. CONCLUSIONS Telemedicine is more cost-effective than standard ophthalmoscopy for ROP management. Both strategies are highly cost-effective compared with other health care interventions.
Identity location decoupling in pervasive computing networks

Advances in ubiquitous computing applications depend heavily on developments in supporting technologies, including network communications. Recent research in Internet addressing has pointed towards a need for a more generic approach to the definition of endpoint identity and a change in the traditional communication model. This change defines one or more thin layers of resolution between network, transport, or application level identifiers. In this paper we advocate the concept of endpoint identity location decoupling in the context of ubiquitous computing. We provide an analysis of the general network security issues affecting ubiquitous computing in terms of the identity/location decoupled naming scheme approach.
Beş Faktör Kişilik Özelliklerinin Kişilerarası Çatışma Çözme Yaklaşımlarıyla İlişkisi

The purpose of this research was to determine the personality characteristics that infl uence interpersonal confl ict resolution approaches. Accordingly, it was explored how the big fi ve personality characteristics predict confl ict resolution approaches that focus on communication processes. The sample was composed of 302 university students and ranged 18 and 26 ages, receiving education in Ankara. Adapted for the national culture, Interpersonal Confl ict Resolution Approaches Scale and Big Five Inventory Scale were used as instruments. The results showed that, openness to experience and agreeableness personality characteristics predicted all confl ict resolution approaches. In addition, extraversion and conscientiousness personality characteristics played important roles in confl ict resolution process. On the other hand, it was not established any relationship between neuroticism characteristic and confl ict resolution approaches. Moreover, gender emerged as an important factor in explaining adopted approach in confl ict processes. All these fi ndings supported that personal characteristics played an important role in interpersonal confl ict resolution processes.
Effect of school based physical activity programme (KISS) on fitness and adiposity in primary schoolchildren: cluster randomised controlled trial

Objective To assess the effectiveness of a school based physical activity programme during one school year on physical and psychological health in young schoolchildren. Design Cluster randomised controlled trial. Setting 28 classes from 15 elementary schools in Switzerland randomly selected and assigned in a 4:3 ratio to an intervention (n=16) or control arm (n=12) after stratification for grade (first and fifth grade), from August 2005 to June 2006. Participants 540 children, of whom 502 consented and presented at baseline. Intervention Children in the intervention arm (n=297) received a multi-component physical activity programme that included structuring the three existing physical education lessons each week and adding two additional lessons a week, daily short activity breaks, and physical activity homework. Children (n=205) and parents in the control group were not informed of an intervention group. For most outcome measures, the assessors were blinded. Main outcome measures Primary outcome measures included body fat (sum of four skinfolds), aerobic fitness (shuttle run test), physical activity (accelerometry), and quality of life (questionnaires). Secondary outcome measures included body mass index and cardiovascular risk score (average z score of waist circumference, mean blood pressure, blood glucose, inverted high density lipoprotein cholesterol, and triglycerides). Results 498 children completed the baseline and follow-up assessments (mean age 6.9 (SD 0.3) years for first grade, 11.1 (0.5) years for fifth grade). After adjustment for grade, sex, baseline values, and clustering within classes, children in the intervention arm compared with controls showed more negative changes in the z score of the sum of four skinfolds (−0.12, 95 % confidence interval −0.21 to −0.03; P=0.009). Likewise, their z scores for aerobic fitness increased more favourably (0.17, 0.01 to 0.32; P=0.04), as did those for moderate-vigorous physical activity in school (1.19, 0.78 to 1.60; P<0.001), all day moderate-vigorous physical activity (0.44, 0.05 to 0.82; P=0.03), and total physical activity in school (0.92, 0.35 to 1.50; P=0.003). Z scores for overall daily physical activity (0.21, −0.21 to 0.63) and physical quality of life (0.42, −1.23 to 2.06) as well as psychological quality of life (0.59, −0.85 to 2.03) did not change significantly. Conclusions A school based multi-component physical activity intervention including compulsory elements improved physical activity and fitness and reduced adiposity in children. Trial registration Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN15360785.
Statistical Power Analysis of Neutrality Tests Under Demographic Expansions, Contractions and Bottlenecks With Recombination

Several tests have been proposed to detect departures of nucleotide variability patterns from neutral expectations. However, very different kinds of evolutionary processes, such as selective events or demographic changes, can produce similar deviations from these tests, thus making interpretation difficult when a significant departure of neutrality is detected. Here we study the effects of demography and recombination upon neutrality tests by analyzing their power under sudden population expansions, sudden contractions, and bottlenecks. We evaluate tests based on the frequency spectrum of mutations and the distribution of haplotypes and explore the consequences of using incorrect estimates of the rates of recombination when testing for neutrality. We show that tests that rely on haplotype frequencies—especially Fs and ZnS, which are based, respectively, on the number of different haplotypes and on the r2 values between all pairs of polymorphic sites—are the most powerful for detecting expansions on nonrecombining genomic regions. Nevertheless, they are strongly affected by misestimations of recombination, so they should not be used when recombination levels are unknown. Instead, class I tests, particularly Tajima's D or R2, are recommended.
OPERATORS FOR QUANTIZED DIRECTIONS

Inspired by the spin geometry theorem, two operators are defined which measure angles in the quantum theory of geometry. One operator assigns a discrete angle to every pair of surfaces passing through a single vertex of a spin network. This operator, which is effectively the cosine of an angle, is defined via a scalar product density operator and the area operator. The second operator assigns an angle to two `bundles' of edges incident to a single vertex. While somewhat more complicated than the earlier geometric operators, there are a number of properties that are investigated including the full spectrum of several operators and, using results of the spin geometry theorem, conditions to ensure that semiclassical geometry states replicate classical angles.
A sample of southern Compact Steep Spectrum radio sources: the VLBI observations

A small sample of 7 southern Compact Steep Spectrum (CSS) radio sources has been selected as part of the study of a larger flux-limited complete sample of radio sources. High resolution images, using the VLBI network in the southern hemisphere and the high resolution MERLIN array, are presented for all sources in the CSS sample. The overall morphology of each source consists of well-defined double lobes but with substantial diffuse and extended components present. In the majority of cases only a fraction of the total flux density is detected on the VLBI baselines, indicating the presence of larger extended radio structures. However, all sources are unresolved at arcsecond scales and are of sub-galactic size, with linear size in the range 0.1-2 kpc. The radio properties of the sources agree well with CSS sources in other samples.
Modeling an accretion disc stochastical variability

Hot spots residing on the surface of an accretion disc have been considered as a model of short-term variability of active galactic nuclei. In this paper we apply the theory of random point processes to model the observed signal from an ensemble of randomly generated spots. The influence of general relativistic effects near a black hole is taken into account and it is shown that typical features of power spectral density can be reproduced. Connection among spots is also discussed in terms of Hawkes' process, which produces more power at low frequencies. We derive a semi-analytical way to approximate the resulting power-spectral density.
Improved Laplacian Factor Estimation for Noisy Speech Enhancement

Two novel approaches for Laplacian factor estimation are proposed for noisy speech enhancement employing Laplasian-Gaussian mixture model in discrete cosine transform domain. Based on the property of generalized Gaussian distribution model, the proposed approaches indirectly attain the estimation of Laplacian factor using its relationship with the variance of clean speech components under the Laplacian distribution assumption. The estimated results for Laplacian factor are accurate and uneffected by the noise energy, while keeping the resulting method simple. In simulations with speech signals degraded by different kinds of noise, the experimental results show the improved performance of the proposed algorithms.
The velocity dispersion‐temperature correlation from a limited cluster sample

Most studies of correlations between X‐ray and optical properties of galaxy clusters have used the largest samples of data available, regardless of the morphological types of clusters included. Given the increasing evidence that morphology is related to a cluster’s degree of dynamical evolution, we approach the study of X‐ray and optical correlations differently. We evaluate the relationship between velocity dispersion and temperature for a limited set of galaxy clusters taken from Bird (1994), which all possess dominant central galaxies and which have been explicitly corrected for the presence of substructure. We find that σr∝T0.69±0.13, significantly steeper than the σr∝T0.5 relationship predicted by the virial theorem. The protogalactic winds model of White (1991) reproduces the observed relationship between σr and T.
Efficient Charging of Supercapacitors for Extended Lifetime of Wireless Sensor Nodes

This paper describes an efficient charging method for a supercapacitor-operated, solar-powered wireless sensor node called Everlast. Unlike traditional wireless sensors that store energy in batteries, Everlast's use of supercapacitors enables the system to operate for an estimated lifetime of 20 years without any maintenance. The novelty of this system lies in the feed-forward, pulse frequency modulated converter and open-circuit solar voltage method for maximum power point tracking (MPPT), enabling the solar cell to efficiently charge the supercapacitor and power the node. Experimental results show that by its low-complexity MPPT, Everlast can achieve over 89% conversion efficiency with lower power overhead than the state-of-the-art by two orders of magnitude, while enabling charging a supercapacitor up to 400% faster than direct charging. This makes Everlast particularly applicable to miniature-scale, high-impedance energy harvesting systems.
Primary Education in Crisis : Why South African schoolchildren underachieve in reading and mathematics, Brahm Fleisch : book review

Brahm Fleisch's recent book - 'Primary Education in Crisis' - is centred on a consideration of the nature and pattern of under achievement in reading and mathematics in South African primary schools. Having provided a detailed outline of this under achievement, the book moves onto a wide ranging analysis that cuts across educational, economic, political, health and cultural sectors, presenting factors that, according to significant bodies of evidence, suggest contribute to this pattern of under achievement in primary schools.
Performance Analysis of Adaptive Filtering Algorithms for System Identification

The paper presents a comparative study of NLMS (Normalized Least Mean Square), NVSS (New Variable Step Size) LMS (Least Mean Square), RVSS (Robust Variable Step Size) LMS, TVLMS (Time Varying Least Mean Square) and IVSS (Improved Variable Step Size) LMS adaptive filter algorithms. Four performances criterion are utilized in this study: Minimum Mean Square Error (MSE), Convergence Speed, Algorithm Execution Time, and Tracking Capability. The comparisons of all algorithms are demonstrated using uncorrelated and correlated input data in both stationary and nonstationary environments. The Step Size Parameter (μ) in all algorithms is chosen to obtain the same exact value of Misadjustment (M) equal to 2% for white Gaussian input and 6% for correlated input in stationary environment. Simulation Plots are obtained by ensemble averaging of 200 independent simulation runs. The simulation results show that RVSS algorithm has fastest convergence speed and superior tracking capability. The algorithm execution time is lowest in case of IVSS algorithm in stationary environment. For nonstationary environment the performance of all algorithms is equivalent.
How Do Nonprofits Respond to Quality Disclosure? Evidence from Nonprofit Nursing Homes

This paper uses a disclosure policy, the Nursing Home Quality Initiative, which mandates the public reporting of quality information on selected dimensions, to investigate the theories of nonprofits. My main finding is that nonprofits are as responsive as for-profits to quality disclosure: quality improves along the disclosed dimensions and diminishes along the less disclosed ones. I also find (1) nonprofit status is correlated with fewer deficiency citations; (2) total bed days insignificantly increase in nonprofits after disclosure; and (3) nonprofits with higher percent of revenue coming from donations are more likely to perform worse along the unreported dimensions. Additional tests reject “mimicking for-profits” as an explanation for these results. Overall, the Newhouse model plausibly explains these findings better than the other well-established nonprofit theories. JEL: L31, L15, I18
Gradually Releasing Private Data under Differential Privacy

Aggregating individuals’ data and computing statistics over a population are key ingredients to enable the Internet of Things [1]. Constructing traffic maps from individuals’ GPS traces [2] and performing demand response in smart grids [3], [4] are two examples that involve such data aggregation. Using these statistics, individuals can perform their activities more efficiently; they may choose to avoid heavily congested routes or charge their electric vehicle during non-peak hours. However, accessing private data for the purpose of performing data aggregation has raised serious privacy concerns. An adversary can potentially extract information about individuals’ data from aggregate statistics, especially when side information is available [5]. The framework of differential privacy was developed in order to mitigate these concerns and provide strong privacy guarantees [6], [7]. Given a desired privacy level, a noisy version of the aggregated value is publicly released to prevent an adversary from confidently extracting information about the private data. For a fixed privacy level, [8] provides tools to build a private mechanism that approximates the desired aggregate quantity. Using these tools as primitives, applications of privacy-aware data aggregation have emerged [9], [10]. In these applications, the privacy level, parametrized by the constant ∈ [0,∞), is assumed to be constant; parameter is a designer’s choice and is set to a fixed value throughout the life of the aggregation system. Lower values of the parameter correspond to stronger privacy guarantees. Therefore, the value = 0 translates to total privacy and the value = ∞ means no privacy. Forever fixing the privacy level is a severe limitation. In practice, a varying privacy level can be useful as motivated by the following examples. For instance, limited techniques exist for choosing a reasonable privacy budget . For small values of , substantial amounts of noise are injected and the performance of the resulting privacy-aware mechanism ∗This work was supported in part by the TerraSwarm Research Center, one of six centers supported by the STARnet phase of the Focus Center Research Program (FCRP) a Semiconductor Research Corporation program sponsored by MARCO and DARPA.
Planning meets Data Cleansing

One of the motivations for research in data quality is to automatically identify cleansing activities, namely a sequence of actions able to cleanse a dirty dataset, which today are often developed manually by domain-experts. Here we explore the idea that AI Planning can contribute to identify data inconsistencies and automatically fix them. To this end, we formalise the concept of cost-optimal Universal Cleanser — a collection of cleansing actions for each data inconsistency — as a planning problem. We present then a motivating government application in which it has be used.
A Supervised Classification Approach for Measuring Relational Similarity between Word Pairs

Measuring the relational similarity between word pairs is important in numerous natural language processing tasks such as solving word analogy questions, classifying noun-modifier relations and disambiguating word senses. We propose a supervised classification method to measure the similarity between semantic relations that exist between words in two word pairs. First, each pair of words is represented by a vector of automatically extracted lexical patterns. Then a binary Support Vector Machine is trained to recognize word pairs with similar semantic relations to a given word pair. To train and evaluate the proposed method, we use a benchmark dataset that contains 374 SAT multiple-choice word-analogy questions. To represent the relations that exist between two word pairs, we experiment with 11 different feature functions, including both symmetric and asymmetric feature functions. Our experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms several previously proposed relational similarity measures on this benchmark dataset, achieving an SAT score of 46.9.
An Efficient One-Way Enciphering Algorithm

Although there is some computing literature available dealing with the topic of encryption and security transformations, the subject IS relatively new to most computation centers, and because of the nature of security perhaps, few implemented algorithms seem to be available. A one-way enciphering algorithm is described which evaluates a family of mathematically sound functions with known theoretmal deciphering times. The algorithm is intended to be a model system utility for rrreverslbly enciphering passwords or similar kinds of input keys Based on a family of functions it is easily parameterlzed for individual applications and may be implemented for any reasonable length keys on any computer system. The algorithm presented is shown to be considerably more efficient than a straightforward approach to evaluating this class of functions
Importance of ticks and their chemical and immunological control in livestock

The medical and economic importance of ticks has long been recognized due to their ability to transmit diseases to humans and animals. Ticks cause great economic losses to livestock, and adversely affect livestock hosts in several ways. Loss of blood is a direct effect of ticks acting as potential vector for haemo-protozoa and helminth parasites. Blood sucking by large numbers of ticks causes reduction in live weight and anemia among domestic animals, while their bites also reduce the quality of hides. However, major losses caused by ticks are due to their ability to transmit protozoan, rickettsial and viral diseases of livestock, which are of great economic importance world-wide. There are quite a few methods for controlling ticks, but every method has certain shortcomings. The present review is focused on ticks importance and their control.
Parking control based on nonlinear trajectory control for low speed vehicles

A control law for guiding a car from any position to an appointed parking position (parking control) has been studied through trajectory simulations. The nonlinear control proposed by M. Sampei and K. Furuta (1986, 1991) has shown the best convergence of the car to a straight guideline compared with an LQ and a driver model control based on Kondo's driver model. In order to apply the nonlinear control to all the posture angles, a method of changing guidelines according to the position and the posture angle has been devised. This corresponds to changing coordinates during control. With the parking control combining the changing coordinates with the nonlinear control, the car can be guided to an appointed parking position from any car position and posture angle. In order to compensate for uncertainty, model following control has been devised where a car follows the nominal model controlled by the nonlinear control without the integrator. <<ETX>>
Polynomial-Delay Enumeration of Monotonic Graph Classes

Algorithms that list graphs such that no two listed graphs are isomorphic, are important building blocks of systems for mining and learning in graphs. Algorithms are already known that solve this problem efficiently for many classes of graphs of restricted topology, such as trees. In this article we introduce the concept of a dense augmentation schema, and introduce an algorithm that can be used to enumerate any class of graphs with polynomial delay, as long as the class of graphs can be described using a monotonic predicate operating on a dense augmentation schema. In practice this means that this is the first enumeration algorithm that can be applied theoretically efficiently in any frequent subgraph mining algorithm, and that this algorithm generalizes to situations beyond the standard frequent subgraph mining setting.
Interplay: Dispersed Activation in Neural Networks

This paper presents a multi-point stimulation of a Hebbian neural network with investigation of the interplay between the stimulus waves through the neurons of the network. Equilibrium of the resulting memory is achieved for recall of specific memory data at a rate faster than single point stimulus. The interplay of the intersecting stimuli appears to parallel the clarification process of recall in biological systems.