Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Daily Physical Activity in Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: A Systematic Review

Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are often limited in their daily physical activity. However, the level, type and intensity of daily physical activity are not known, nor there is a clear insight in the contributing factors. The aim of this review is to describe daily physical activity of COPD patients, and to examine its relationship with demographic factors, pulmonary function, physical fitness, systemic inflammation and quality of life. A systematic literature search was conducted, including studies assessing daily physical activity in all stages of COPD by various different types of measurement techniques. In total, 47 studies were selected; 17 performance-, 20 questionnaire-, and 12 interview-based. Two studies used both a performance- and questionnaire-based method. Overall, COPD patients have a lower level and intensity of daily physical activity compared to healthy controls. This was reported by performance- as well as questionnaire-based studies, yet with a large variation (42–86% and 28–97%, respectively). Reduced daily physical activity is associated with higher levels of airway obstruction, higher levels of systemic inflammation, and lower levels of physical fitness. The association between daily physical activity and quality of life is less clear. In conclusion, this is the first review that examined the level, type and determinants of daily physical activity in COPD. It demonstrates that reduced daily physical activity frequently occurs in COPD patients, yet with a large variation. Methods of measuring and reporting daily physical activity should be more standardized.
Organic nanostructured thin film devices and coatings for clean energy

Thin Film Solar Cells Based on the Use of Polycrystalline Thin Film Materials, R.W. Miles, G. Zoppi, K.T. Ramakrishna Reddy, and I. Forbes Anodized Titania Nanotube Array and its Application in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells, L. Sun, S. Zhang, X.W. Sun, and X. He Progress and Challenges of Photovoltaic Applications of Silicon Nanocrystalline Materials, J.K. Rath Semiconductive Nanocomposite Films for Clean Environment, J.H. Hsieh Thin Coating Technologies and Applications in High-Temperature Solid Oxide Fuel Cells, S.P. Jiang Nanoscale Organic Molecular Thin Films for Information Memory Applications, J.C. Li, D.C. Ba, and Y.L. Song Index
Candidate selection algorithms in opportunistic routing based on distance progress

Opportunistic routing OR is a new class of routing protocols that selects the next-hop forwarder on-the-fly. In contrast to traditionally routing, OR does not select a single node as the next-hop forwarder, but a set of forwarder candidates. When a packet is transmitted, the candidates coordinate such that the best one receiving the packet will forward it, while the others will discard the packet. The selection and prioritisation of candidates, referred to as candidate selection algorithm CSA, has a great impact on OR performance. In this paper we propose and study two new candidate selection algorithms based on the geographic position of nodes. This information is used by the CSAs in order to maximise the distance progress DP towards the destination. We compare our proposals with other well-known CSAs proposed in the literature through mathematical analysis and simulation. We show that candidate selection algorithms based on DP achieve almost the same performance as the optimum algorithms proposed in the literature, while the computational cost is dramatically reduced.
Distribution of developmental myosin heavy chains in adult rabbit extraocular muscle: identification of a novel embryonic isoform absent in fetal limb.

PURPOSE To identify embryonic and neonatal/fetal myosin heavy chains (MyHCs) in rabbit extraocular muscle (EOM) by electrophoretic and immunochemical analyses and to describe the distribution of these two MyHC isoforms in the endplate zone (EPZ) and the distal and proximal segments of EOM fibers. METHODS SDS-PAGE and Western blot analysis using monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) against embryonic and neonatal/fetal MyHCs were performed on MyHC isoforms from rabbit adult and neonatal EOM and fetal limb muscles. Immunohistochemical analysis was performed along the entire length of the rabbit superior rectus muscles, using these and other mAbs. RESULTS Western blot analysis showed that adult rabbit EOM had two embryonic MyHC bands: a weakly stained band that comigrated with the embryonic MyHC from fetal limb muscles, and a strongly stained band of lower electrophoretic mobility for which there was no limb counterpart. Three anti-embryonic MyHC mAbs stained muscle fibers, predominantly in the orbital layer, and staining was localized distal and proximal to the EPZ but not in the EPZ itself. There, most fibers expressed the EOM-specific fast MyHC, although some fibers expressed alpha-cardiac MyHC. Anti-neonatal/fetal MyHC mAb failed to stain in Western blot analysis but stained scattered fibers predominantly in the global layer, and there was no specific absence of staining at the EPZ. CONCLUSIONS There are two electrophoretically distinct isoforms of embryonic MyHCs in adult rabbit EOM. These isoforms are expressed in orbital fibers but are excluded from the EPZ, where EOM-specific fast MyHC is strongly expressed. Neonatal and fetal MyHC is weakly expressed in the EOM, but is not excluded from the EPZ.
HMM-Based Fast Detection of False Data Injections in Advanced Metering Infrastructure

Smart grids not only provide "intelligence" to the next generation power systems, but also potentially introduce vital security and privacy issues. Particularly, as a core part of the smart grids, advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) is suffering widespread disputes in terms of security and privacy concerns. This paper proposes a novel hidden Markov model (HMM) based method to detect false data injection attacks in AMI. In this method, a global-state HMM of the whole-house appliances is built and trained by sufficient historical meter data in an offline mode. Then, a new fast Viterbi algorithm is devised to decode the hidden states of the HMM. The decoded states are then verified via the partial sub-meter data in an online mode, by which false data can be detected. The effectiveness and efficiency of our method are verified by a public dataset AMPds with one- year real-time meter data.
Team AnnieWAY’s entry to the Grand Cooperative Driving Challenge 2011

—In this paper we present the concepts and methods developed for the autonomous vehicle AnnieWAY, our winning entry to the Grand Cooperative Driving Challenge of 2011. We describe algorithms for sensor fusion, vehicle-to-vehicle communication and cooperative control. Furthermore, we analyze the performance of the proposed methods and compare them to those of competing teams. We close with our results from the competition and lessons learned.
Time-lined TCP for the TCP-friendly delivery of streaming media

This paper introduces time-lined TCP (TLTCP). TLTCP is a protocol designed to provide TCP-friendly delivery of time-sensitive data to applications that are loss-tolerant, such as streaming media players. Previous work on unicast delivery, of streaming media over the Internet proposes using UDP and performs congestion control at the user level by regulating the application's sending rate. TLTCP, on the other hand is intended to be implemented at the transport level, and is based on TCP with modifications to support time-lines. Instead of treating all data as a byte stream TLTCP allows the application to associate data with deadlines. TLTCP sends data in a similar fashion to TCP with the deadline for a section of data has elapsed; at which point the now obsolete data is discarded in favor of new data. As a result, TLTCP supports TCP-friendly delivery of streaming media by retaining much of TCP's congestion control functionality. We describe an API for TLTCP that involves augmenting the recvmsg and sendmsg socket calls. We also describe how streaming media applications that use various encoding schemes like MPEG-1 can associate data with deadlines and use TLTCP's API. We use simulations to examine the behavior of TLTCP under a wide range of networks and workloads. We find that it indeed performs time-lined data delivery and under most circumstances the bandwidth is shared equally, among completing TLTCP and TCP flows. Moreover those scenarios under which TLTCP appears to be unfriendly are those under which TCP flows competing only with other TCP flows do not share bandwidth equitably.
Implementation of a telemetry system for neurophysiological signals

With an ever increasing need for assessment of neurophysiological activity in connection with injury and basic research, the demand for an efficient and reliable data acquisition system rises. Brain-machine interfaces is one class of such systems that targets the central nervous system. A necessary step in the development of a brain-machine interface is to design and implement a reliable and efficient measurement system for neurophysiological signals. The use of telemetric devices increases the flexibility of the devices in terms of subject mobility and unobtrusiveness of the equipment. In this paper, we present a complete system architecture for a wearable telemetry system for the acquisition of neurophysiological data. The system has been miniaturized and implemented using surface-mount technology. System performance has been successfully verified and bottlenecks in the architecture have been identified.
An Intelligent Video Surveillance Framework with Big Data Management for Indian Road Traffic System

Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) and Advanced Traveller Information Systems (ATIS) are the emerging areas of research. They focus with keen interest to solve the issues in traffic management and planning and designing infrastructure to meet the demanding needs of the general public. Many research articles focus on developing video surveillance algorithms for processing video data captured at real-time traffic scenes, but as there is a huge demand for more sophisticated software systems, complexity of the algorithms gets increased in terms of data storage and large scale processing. This research article focuses on refining a framework for large scale video analytics while incorporating the simple, light-weight aspects of a video surveillance algorithm, and makes an insight by adopting blob tracking based video surveillance algorithm for large scale video analytics. The proposed system uses hadoop’ map-reduce function to clean and pre-process the hours of traffic video captured in the local site stores. It summarizes and transmits the key frames of the video data to the central computing server to analyses the video frames. The key frame differencing method has been justified as a pronouncing method for data preprocessing and cleaning. Further this system follows the Blob detection, Identification and Tracking using connected components algorithm to determine the correlation between the vehicles moving in the real road scene.
Adaptive path planning for depth‐constrained bathymetric mapping with an autonomous surface vessel

This paper describes the design, implementation, and testing of a suite of algorithms to enable depth‐constrained autonomous bathymetric (underwater topography) mapping by an autonomous surface vessel (ASV). Given a target depth and a bounding polygon, the ASV will find and follow the intersection of the bounding polygon and the depth contour as modeled online with a Gaussian process (GP). This intersection, once mapped, will then be used as a boundary within which a path will be planned for coverage to build a map of the bathymetry. Efficient methods are implemented enabling online fitting, prediction and hyperparameter optimization within the GP framework on a small embedded PC. New algorithms are introduced for the partitioning of convex polygons to allow efficient path planning for coverage. These algorithms are tested both in simulation and in the field with a small twin hull differential thrust vessel built for the task.
Genomic regions affecting backfat thickness and cannon bone circumference identified by genome-wide association study in a Duroc pig population.

We performed a genome-wide association study using the porcine 60K SNP array to detect QTL regions for nine traits in a three-generational Duroc samples (n = 651), viz. generations 1, 2 and 3 from a population selected over five generations using a closed nucleus breeding scheme. We applied a linear mixed model for association mapping to detect SNP effects, adjusting for fixed effects (sex and season) and random polygenic effects (reflecting genetic relatedness), and derived a likelihood ratio statistic for each SNP using the efficient mixed-model association method. We detected a region on SSC6 for backfat thickness (BFT) and on SSC7 for cannon bone circumference (CANNON), with a genome-wide significance of P < 0.01 after Bonferroni correction. These regions had been detected previously in other pig populations. Six genes are located in the BFT-associated region, while the CANNON-associated region includes 66 genes. In the future, significantly associated SNPs, derived by sequencing the coding regions of the six genes in the BFT region, can be used in marker-assisted selection of BFT, whereas haplotypes constructed from the SSC7 region with strong LD can be used to select for the CANNON trait in our resource family.
Factors associated with lobar vs. non‐lobar intracerebral hemorrhage

Matsukawa H, Shinoda M, Fujii M, Takahashi O, Yamamoto D, Murakata A, Ishikawa R. Factors associated with lobar vs. non‐lobar intracerebral hemorrhage. Acta Neurol Scand: 2012: 126: 116–121. © 2011 John Wiley & Sons A/S.
A Semantic-Based Approach to Noun-Noun Compound Interpretation

In this project, we have studied Chinese noun-noun compounds (NNCs) and have found that N1 and N2 are linked either by semantic roles assigned by events (complex relations) or by static relations (simple relations), including meronymy, conjunction, and the host-attribute-value relation. Using data from the Frame Net and E-How Net, we have found that, for NNCs of either type, the major semantic relations between the two components are limited enough to allow computational implementation. Regarding simple relations, most conjunction pairs have been listed in E-How Net, and so are host-attribute-value sets. The E-How Net Taxonomy also makes identification of meronymy possible. As for NNCs involving complex relations, each component's semantic role, along with the events that assign these roles, can be restored through mappings to corresponding frame elements (FEs) in entity and to event frames and lexical units (LUs) in Frame Net's frames, respectively, that represent the concept the NNC conveys.
Effect of Fluoride-containing Restorative Materials on Dentin Adhesion and Demineralization of Hard Tissues Adjacent to Restorations.

PURPOSE This study evaluated (1) the dentin bond strength of fluoridated restorative systems following aging and (2) the enamel/dentin microhardness around restorations after a pH-cycling regimen. MATERIALS AND METHODS Sixty-four human third molars and four restorative systems were used. A resin-modified glass ionomer (GC Fuji II LC) was used as a fluoride-containing material in the positive control group, while Adper Easy Bond adhesive and Filtek Z350 XT composite resin, which are not fluoridated, were used together in the negative control group. Beautifil II composite resin and FL-Bond II adhesive, both fluoride-containing materials, were compared to Bond Force and Estelite Sigma Quick restorative system, which only contain fluoride in the adhesive. For dentin bond strengths, specimens of each material were fabricated for two test groups (n=8): group 1: tested after 24 h; group 2: tested after 1 year of storage in artificial saliva. Both groups were tested using a microtensile method. For the cross-sectional microhardness test, standardized Class V cavities were prepared and filled with the different restorative systems. After experiencing repeated thermocycling and being subjected to pH-cycling, the teeth were sectioned. The microhardness was measured in enamel and dentin at 50 μm from the cavity wall and at six depths in relation to the surface subjected to pH cycling. RESULTS None of the restorative systems showed decreased bond strength after storage for one year in artificial saliva. No significant differences in microhardness were observed among the restorative materials on enamel and dentin. CONCLUSION All the restorative systems evaluated presented stable bond strength after one year of storage. The pH cycling caused a reduction in the superficial enamel microhardness close to the cavity wall. In dentin, the demineralization affected the superficial and sub-surface areas.
Equilibrium-Point Control Hypothesis Examined by Measured Arm Stiffness During Multijoint Movement

For the last 20 years, it has been hypothesized that well-coordinated, multijoint movements are executed without complex computation by the brain, with the use of springlike muscle properties and peripheral neural feedback loops. However, it has been technically and conceptually difficult to examine this “equilibrium-point control” hypothesis directly in physiological or behavioral experiments. A high-performance manipulandum was developed and used here to measure human arm stiffness, the magnitude of which during multijoint movement is important for this hypothesis. Here, the equilibrium-point trajectory was estimated from the measured stiffness, the actual trajectory, and the generated torque. Its velocity profile differed from that of the actual trajectory. These results argue against the hypothesis that the brain sends as a motor command only an equilibrium-point trajectory similar to the actual trajectory.
Differences in osteonal micromorphology between tensile and compressive cortices of a bending skeletal system: Indications of potential strain‐specific differences in bone microstructure

Background: It has been hypothesized that bone has the capacity to accommodate regional differences in tension and compression strain mode and/or magnitude by altering its osteonal microstructure. We examined a simple cantilevered bone to determine whether regional differences in particular strain‐related features are reflected in the microstructural organization of compact bone.
Costs of egg-laying and offspring provisioning: multifaceted parental investment in a digger wasp

Nest-building Hymenoptera have been a major testing ground for theories of parental investment and sex allocation. Investment has usually been estimated by the likely costs of offspring provisioning, ignoring other aspects of parental care. Using three experimental treatments, we estimated the costs of egg-laying and provisioning separately under field conditions in a digger wasp Ammophila pubescens. In one treatment, we increased the provisioning effort required per offspring by removing alternate prey items as they were brought to the nest. In two other treatments, we reduced parental effort by either preventing females from provisioning alternate nests or preventing them from both ovipositing and provisioning. Our results indicate that both egg-laying and provisioning represent significant costs of reproduction, expressed as differences in productivity but not survival. A trade-off-based model suggests that other components of parental care such as nest initiation may also represent significant costs. Costs of egg production and nest initiation are probably similar for male and female offspring, so that taking them into account leads to a less male-biased expected sex ratio. Mothers compensated only partially for prey removal in terms of the total provisions they gave to individual offspring.
Sudden Cardiac Death Epidemiology and Genetics of Sudden Cardiac Death

Sudden cardiac death (SCD) generally refers to an unexpected death from a cardiovascular cause in a person with or without preexisting heart disease. The specificity of this definition varies depending on whether the event was witnessed; however, most studies include cases that are associated with a witnessed collapse, death occurring within 1 hour of an acute change in clinical status, or an unexpected death that occurred within the previous 24 hours.1–3 Further, sudden cardiac arrest describes SCD cases with resuscitation records or aborted SCD cases in which the individual survived the cardiac arrest. The incidence of SCD in the United States ranges between 180 000 and 450 000 cases annually.4 These estimates vary owing to differences in SCD definitions and surveillance methods for case ascertainment.4,5 In recent prospective studies using multiple sources in the United States,6,7 Netherlands,8 Ireland,9 and China,10 SCD rates range from 50 to 100 per 100 000 in the general population.3 Despite the need for multiple sources of surveillance to provide a more accurate estimate of SCD incidence, it is clear that the overall burden in the population remains high. Although improvements in primary and secondary prevention have resulted in substantial declines in overall coronary heart disease (CHD) mortality over the past 30 years,11,12 SCD rates specifically have declined to a lesser extent.13–16 SCD still accounts for 50% of all CHD deaths and 15% to 20% of all deaths.17,18 For some segments of the population, rates are not decreasing19 and may actually be increasing.14,19 As a result, SCD prevention represents a major opportunity to further reduce mortality from CHD. Despite major advances in cardiopulmonary resuscitation20 and postresuscitation care, survival to hospital discharge after cardiac arrest in major metropolitan centers remains poor.21 Survival to hospital discharge was recently estimated to be only 7.9% among out-of-hospital cardiac arrests that were treated by emergency medical services personnel.6 In addition, the majority of SCDs occur at home, often where the event is unwitnessed.8,22 As a result, automated external defibrillators, which improve resuscitation rates for witnessed arrests,21 may have limited effectiveness on reducing overall mortality from SCD. Therefore, substantial reductions in SCD incidence will require effective primary preventive interventions. Since the majority of SCDs occur in the general population, an in-depth understanding of the epidemiology of SCD may lead to possible low-risk interventions that could be applied broadly to populations. In addition, recent data emerging related to the genetics of SCD may eventually aid in the identification of high-risk subsets within the general population or provide new molecular targets for intervention.