Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evaluation of Outcomes in Patients Given Dexmedetomidine in Functional Endoscopic Sinus Surgery

Objectives: We aimed to evaluate the effects of dexmedetomidine hydrochloride (DEX) on hemodynamic parameters and on surgeon and patient satisfaction during functional endoscopic sinus surgery (FESS). Methods: Forty patients who were to undergo FESS were enrolled in this randomized, prospective, controlled study. In the DEX group, conscious sedation was induced with an infusion of 1 μg/kg of DEX 10 minutes before surgery, followed by an infusion of DEX at 0.2 μg/kg per hour. A control group was given identical amounts of saline solution. During the procedure, hemodynamic data were recorded. The patients evaluated their pain on a visual analog scale (VAS). Intraoperative bleeding was rated on a 6-point scale for evaluation of operative field visibility. Results: We observed that the DEX group had lower bleeding scores (p = 0.019). The heart rates were lower in the DEX group at the time of induction (p = 0.052) and in the 1st (p = 0.009) and 20th minutes (p = 0.039) of induction. The mean blood pressure values were lower in the DEX group in the 5th (p < 0.001), 45th (p = 0.003), and 60th (p = 0.05) minutes of induction. The VAS score was lower in the DEX group in the 30th postoperative minute (p = 0.001); however, the VAS score was lower in the control group after the 12th hour (p < 0.001). Postoperative side effects such as nausea, tachycardia, hypotension, and vomiting were significantly less frequent in the DEX group (p < 0.001). Conclusions: We observed that the intraoperative bleeding, hemodynamic stability, and VAS scores were better and the side effects were less frequent in the DEX group.
Respiratory airflow estimation from lung sounds based on regression

The aim of this work is the estimation of respiratory flow from lung sound recordings, i.e. acoustic airflow estimation. With a 16-channel lung sound recording device, we simultaneously record the respiratory flow and the lung sounds on the posterior chest from six lung-healthy subjects in supine position. For the recordings of four selected sensor positions, we extract linear frequency cepstral coefficient (LFCC) features and map these on the airflow signal. We use multivariate polynomial regression to fit the features to the airflow signal. Compared to most of the previous approaches, the proposed method uses lung sounds instead of trachea sounds. Furthermore, our method masters the estimation of the airflow without prior knowledge of the respiratory phase, i.e. no additional algorithm for phase detection is required. Another benefit is the avoidance of time-consuming calibration. In experiments, we evaluate the proposed method for various selections of sensor positions in terms of mean squared error (MSE) between estimated and actual airflow. Moreover, we show the accuracy of the method regarding a frame-based breathing-phase detection.
Query-Based Comparison of Mappings in Ontology-Based Data Access

An ontology-based data access (OBDA) system is composed of one or more data sources, an ontology that provides a conceptual view of the data, and declarative mappings that relate the data and ontology schemas. In order to debug and optimize such systems, it is important to be able to analyze and compare OBDA specifications. Recent work in this direction compared specifications using classical notions of equivalence and entailment, but an interesting alternative is to consider query-based notions, in which two specifications are deemed equivalent if they give the same answers to the considered query or class of queries for all possible data sources. In this paper, we define such query-based notions of entailment and equivalence of OBDA specifications and investigate the complexity of the resulting analysis tasks when the ontology is formulated in (fragments of) DL-LiteR.
Is It Rational to Assume that Infants Imitate Rationally A Theoretical Analysis and Critique

It has been suggested that preverbal infants evaluate the efficiency of others’ actions (by applying a principle of rational action) and that they imitate others’ actions rationally. The present contribution presents a conceptual analysis of the claim that preverbal infants imitate rationally. It shows that this ability rests on at least three assumptions: that infants are able to perceive others’ action capabilities, that infants reason about and conceptually represent their own bodies, and that infants are able to think counterfactually. It is argued that none of these three abilities is in place during infancy. Furthermore, it is shown that the idea of a principle of rational action suffers from two fallacies. As a consequence, is it suggested that it is not rational to assume that infants imitate rationally.
Temporal organization of syllable production

A lamp housing having an upper portion defining a vent for ventilating the interior of the housing. The upper portion comprises a hollow dome section and a hollow cover section. A portion of the wall of the cover section is indented inwardly from a corresponding portion of the wall of the dome section to define the vent, while other portions of the walls of the dome and cover sections are continuous.
Generation of fault-tolerant static scheduling for real-time distributed embedded systems with multi-point links

We describe a solution to automatically produce distributed and fault-tolerant code for real-time distributed embedded systems. The failures supported are processor failures, with fail-stop behavior. Our solution is grafted on the “Algorithm Architecture Adequation” method (AAA), used to obtain automatically distributed code. The heart of AAA is a scheduling heuristic that produces automatically a static distributed schedule of a given algorithm onto a given distributed architecture. We design a new heuristic in order to obtain a static, distributed and fault-tolerant schedule. The new heuristic schedules supplementary replicas for each computation operation of the algorithm to be distributed and the corresponding communications, where is the number of processor failures intended to be supported. In the same time, the heuristic statically computes the main replica after each failure, such that the execution time is minimized. The analysis of this heuristic shows that it gives better results for distributed architectures using multi-point, reliable links. This solution corresponds to a software implemented fault-tolerance, by mean of software redundancy of algorithm’s operations and timing redundancy of communications.
Imbalanced Oxidative Stress Causes Chlamydial Persistence during Non-Productive Human Herpes Virus Co-Infection

Both human herpes viruses and Chlamydia are highly prevalent in the human population and are detected together in different human disorders. Here, we demonstrate that co-infection with human herpes virus 6 (HHV6) interferes with the developmental cycle of C. trachomatis and induces persistence. Induction of chlamydial persistence by HHV6 is independent of productive virus infection, but requires the interaction and uptake of the virus by the host cell. On the other hand, viral uptake is strongly promoted under co-infection conditions. Host cell glutathione reductase activity was suppressed by HHV6 causing NADPH accumulation, decreased formation of reduced glutathione and increased oxidative stress. Prevention of oxidative stress restored infectivity of Chlamydia after HHV6-induced persistence. We show that co-infection with Herpes simplex virus 1 or human Cytomegalovirus also induces chlamydial persistence by a similar mechanism suggesting that Chlamydia -human herpes virus co-infections are evolutionary shaped interactions with a thus far unrecognized broad significance.
Applications of robot navigation based on artificial landmark in large scale public space

This paper presents the navigation technique for service mobile robots in large scale environment using artificial landmark. The robot navigation is comprised of three major components; localization, mapping, and path planning. To implement the stable navigation system of mobile robots, many developers could use the artificial landmark to measure the accurate position of robot in large scale environment. When the mobile robots obtains the position based on the artificial landmark, they need to have the map which contains information about the positions of artificial landmarks. In this paper, Grid-based Simultaneous Localization And Mapping (Grid SLAM) method is employed to construct the map of artificial landmark using a specially made mapping cart. The artificial landmark map has been used for the real operation of four kinds of robots; patrol, guidance, delivery, cafeteria serving, relying on the artificial landmark map for their navigation at the large scale indoor environment named Tomorrow City (T-City) where the artificial landmark system is installed for the robotic technologies. The implementation results show that it is possible for mobile robots to provide various services based on the artificial landmark in large indoor environment.
Radiographic assessment of osteoarthritis.

Osteoarthritis is one of the most prevalent and disabling chronic conditions affecting older adults and a significant public health problem among adults of working age. As the bulk of the U.S. population ages, the prevalence of osteoarthritis is expected to rise. Although the incidence of osteoarthritis increases with age, the condition is not a normal part of the aging process. More severe symptoms tend to occur in the radiographically more advanced stage of the disease; however, considerable discrepancy may exist between symptoms and the radiographic stage. Roentgenograms of involved joints may be useful in confirming the diagnosis of osteoarthritis, assessing the severity of the disease, reassuring the patient and excluding other pathologic conditions. The diagnosis of osteoarthritis is based primarily on the history and physical examination, but radiographic findings, including asymmetric joint space narrowing, subchondral sclerosis, osteophyte formation, subluxation and distribution patterns of osteoarthritic changes, can be helpful when the diagnosis is in question.
Analysis, Modification, and Implementation (AMI) of Scheduling Algorithm for the IEEE 802.116e (Mobile WiMAX)

Mobile WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) is being touted as the most promising and potential broadband wireless technology. And the popularity rate has been surging to newer heights as the knowledge-backed service era unfolds steadily. Especially Mobile WiMAX is being projected as a real and strategic boon for developing counties such as India due to its wireless coverage acreage is phenomenally high. Mobile WiMAX has spurred tremendous interest from operators seeking to deploy high-performance yet cost-effective broadband wireless networks. The IEEE 802.16e standard based Mobile WiMAX system will be investigated for the purpose of Quality of Service provisioning. As a technical challenge, radio resource management will be primarily considered and main is the costly spectrum and the increasingly more demanding applications with ever growing number of subscribers. It is necessary to provide Quality of Service (QoS) guaranteed with different characteristics. As a possible solution the scheduling algorithms will be taken into main consideration and the present well known algorithms will be described. In this paper, we have highlighted the following critical issues for Mobile WiMAX technologies. This paper specifically discussed about the below mentioned in detail. - QoS Requirements For IEEE 802.16 Service Classes, Achieving efficient radio resource management. - Deficit Round Robin (DRR) Scheduling algorithm. - Modified Deficit Round Robin (MDRR) scheduling algorithm's attributes, properties and architecture. System Model And Scenarios Using OPNET Modeler Software. - Simulation Limitations And Constraints.
Towards Continuous Security Certification of Software-as-a-Service Applications Using Web Application Testing Techniques

Continuous security certification of software-as-a-service (SaaS) aims at continuously, i.e. repeatedly and automatically validating whether a SaaS application adheres to a set of security requirements. Since SaaS applications make heavy use of web application technologies, checking security requirements with the help of web application testing techniques seems evident. However, these techniques mainly focus on conducting discrete security tests, that is, mostly manually triggered tests whose results are interpreted by human experts. Thus these techniques are not per se suited to support continuous security certification of SaaS applications and have to be adapted accordingly. In this paper, we report on our current status of developing methods and tools to support test-based, continuous security certification of SaaS applications which make use of web application testing techniques. To that end, we describe major challenges to overcome and present experimental test results of using SQLMap to continuously test for SQL injection vulnerabilities.
A multi-scale view of skin thermal pain: from nociception to pain sensation

All biological bodies live in a thermal environment, including the human body, where skin is the interface with a protecting function. When the temperature is out of the normal physiological range, skin fails to protect, and the pain sensation is evoked. Furthermore, in medicine, with advances in laser, microwave and similar technologies, various thermal therapeutic methods have been widely used to cure disease/injury involving skin tissue. However, the corresponding problem of pain relief has limited further application and development of these thermal treatments. Skin thermal pain is induced through both direct (i.e. an increase/decrease in temperature) and indirect (e.g. thermomechanical and thermochemical) ways, and is governed by complicated thermomechanical–chemical–neurophysiological responses. However, a complete understanding of the underlying mechanisms is still far from clear. In this article, starting from an engineering perspective, we aim to recast the biological behaviour of skin in engineering system parlance. Then, by coupling the concepts of engineering with established methods in neuroscience, we attempt to establish multi-scale modelling of skin thermal pain through ion channel to pain sensation. The model takes into account skin morphological plausibility, the thermomechanical response of skin tissue and the biophysical and neurological mechanisms of pain sensation.
New Algorithm of Automation Fingerprint Recognition

A new method of fingerprint minutiae extraction was proposed. After acquired binary image, the ridges of fingerprint image were thinned, then ridge bifurcations were extracted as the key minutiae for recognition. The AFIS working principle was analyzed and achieved on single-chip microcomputer. The experimental results show that it is an effective algorithm with high recognition rate and robustness. Keywords-fingerprint recognition; fingerprint image process; minutiae extraction
DYBS: A Lightweight Dynamic Slicing Framework for Diagnosing Attacks on x86 Binary Programs

Nowadays, applications are usually large-scale, this making tasks of comprehending and debugging software rather complicated. As a dynamic reduction technique for simplifying programs, dynamic program slicing is an effective and important approach for locating and diagnosing software attacks. However, most of the existing dynamic slicing tools perform slicing at the source code level, but the source code of most software is hard to acquire in practice. In order to cope with this issue, a novel lightweight dynamic slicing framework---DYBS, is proposed for diagnosing attacks on x86 binary programs. During the execution, DYBS first gathers the runtime profile information of the target program. Once the attack is encountered and set as the slicing criterion, the normal execution terminates, and a backward program slicing is started to locate the vulnerabilities. Furthermore, a Function Call Filtration optimization mechanism is proposed to improve the performance of the framework. It is proved in the experiments that DYBS can diagnose software attacks with much lower overhead than many other similar analyzing systems.
Avoiding the under-diagnosis of low bone mineral density in Egyptian children with chronic medical conditions affecting bone health

Introduction The International Society for Clinical Densitometry recommended that the lumbar spine and total body less head (TBLH) are the most accurate and reproducible skeletal sites for performing areal bone mineral density (BMD) measurements. Our objective is to evaluate the role of measurement of femoral neck BMD in avoiding the under-diagnosis of low BMD being a risk for fractures in subjects with chronic medical conditions that might affect bone health. Material and methods Subjects with chronic medical conditions that might affect bone health were studied (n = 468) and 36 healthy children were recruited as control subjects. Physical examinations, height, weight measurements and BMI were calculated. Dual-energy radiographic absorptiometry of the lumbar spine and femoral neck were measured. Results Bone mineral density z scores in both sites were significantly reduced in chronic patients, compared with control subjects. Prevalence of very low BMD z scores (–2 or more) using lumbar DXA, femoral DXA, and either of the sites were 1.38%, 3.37%, and 3.96%, respectively, while low BMD Z scores (–1 to less than –2) were 9.52%, 18.05% and 21.14% respectively. Conclusions We identified a significant decrease in both lumbar and femoral BMDs in studied children. Sometimes femoral BMD is decreased while lumbar BMD is still within the normal range. For this reason we recommend that, when technically feasible and there is no facility to measure TBLH, all those patients should have lumbar spine and femoral neck bone mineral density measurements to avoid under-diagnosis of low BMD being a risk for fractures.
Making places: visualization, interaction and experience in urban space

The increase in information gathered and processed by large-scale urban sensors networks has generated a corresponding rise in interest in information visualization and interaction design. Creative initiatives in urban space explore how to translate complex data streams into engaging and meaningful outputs for experiencing and interacting with information. This one-day workshop will bring together practitioners and researchers who are interested in the organisation of human activities in urban space, and how these can be supported by technology in a positive way. This event is intended to share and stimulate an interdisciplinary discussion on the topic, with a view to contributing towards more consistent and creative forms of experiencing urban information.
At-Speed Testing with Timing Exceptions and Constraints-Case Studies

In order to generate correct at-speed scan patterns, the effect of timing exceptions and constraints needs to be considered during test generation. A path-oriented approach to handle timing exception paths during at-speed ATPG has been presented in (Vorisek et al., 2006). The new method has been applied to and tested on many example circuits at Semiconductor Technology Academic Research (STARC). This paper presents a sample of these test cases, and illustrates how the proposed method generates correct-by-construction at-speed patterns on these circuits without pessimism
Subjective sleep quality in the elderly: relationship to anxiety, depressed mood, sleep beliefs, quality of life, and hypnotic use

The complaint of insomnia in older adults is associated with the use of hypnotics. This study was aimed at exploring possible differences between self-categorised good sleepers and poor sleepers on a range of variables, and the factors associated with the use of hypnotic medication amongst the elderly. Participants in the current study were aged 60 to 98 years old. A total of 74 (28 males, 46 females) older adult hostel residents participated in the current study. Twenty-two participants were self-reported good sleepers, and 52 participants were self reported poor sleepers, with 21 using benzodiazepine hypnotic medication regularly and 31 not using hypnotics. The measures used included the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS), The Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), Sleep Beliefs Questionnaire (SBQ), and World Health Organisation Quality of Life-Brief (WHOQoL). The findings demonstrated that self-categorised good sleepers had significantly better sleep quality and habitual sleep efficiency, and significantly shorter sleep latency, regardless of hypnotic use. It was also found that good sleepers and poor sleepers taking benzodiazepines had significantly longer sleep duration than poor sleepers not taking benzodiazepine hypnotics. The prediction that self-classified good sleepers would have lower depressed mood than their self-classified poor sleeping counterparts, whether they were taking benzodiazepine hypnotics or not, was supported. The findings suggested that while self-classified good sleepers had lower anxiety levels than poor sleepers using hypnotic agents, these poor sleepers had significantly lower anxiety levels when compared to their counterparts not using benzodiazepines. Further variables of difference between good and poor sleepers included the psychological and social relationships domains of quality of life. Interestingly, the results indicated that the main role benzodiazepine hypnotic agents have for poor sleepers appears to be longer sleep duration. Benzodiazepine use did not have a significant ameliorative effect on any of the other sleep variables measured in the current sample of hostel dwelling, older adults. The findings indicated that sleep duration and habitual sleep efficiency demonstrated good predictive validity for whether subjective poor sleepers take benzodiazepine hypnotics. It was concluded that an alternative to managing poor sleep needs to be education programs, such as education delivered by nurses or evidence based self-help programs (eg. Morawetz, 2003)
Musical activities of young listeners

•Previous studies indicate that pitch discrimination is less accurate in adults with CIs than in NH adults. However rhythm perception is reported as being similar (Gfeller & Lansing, 1991). It is interesting to note that in the age group studied here, rhythm accuracy within singing production is perceived by parents as being less accurate for the CI group. References Forgeard, M. , Winner, E. , Norton, A. & Schlaug, G. (2008) Practising a musical instrument in childhood is associated with enhanced verbal ability and nonverbal reasoning. PLoS ONE 3(10): e3566. doi:10.1371/journal.pone. 0003566 Gfeller, K. & Lansing, C. (1991) Melodic, rhythmic, and timbral perception of adult cochlear implant users. J Speech Hear Res, 34:916-920 Acknowledgements We would like to thank all those parents who completed a questionnaire for this study and the nurseries, pre-schools, schools and playgroups who enabled us to distribute the questionnaires.
A computer-aided environment for generating multiple-choice test items

This paper describes a novel computer-aided procedure for generating multiple-choice test items from electronic documents. In addition to employing various Natural Language Processing techniques, including shallow parsing, automatic term extraction, sentence transformation and computing of semantic distance, the system makes use of language resources such as corpora and ontologies. It identifies important concepts in the text and generates questions about these concepts as well as multiple-choice distractors, offering the user the option to post-edit the test items by means of a user-friendly interface. In assisting test developers to produce items in a fast and expedient manner without compromising quality, the tool saves both time and production costs.