Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prognostic value of ECG findings for total, cardiovascular disease, and coronary heart disease death in men and women

Objective To study abnormalities in the resting ECG as independent predictors for all cause, cardiovascular disease (CVD), and coronary heart disease (CHD) mortality in a population based random sample of men and women, and to explore whether their prognostic value is different between sexes. Design and subjects An age and sex stratified random sample was selected from the total Belgian population aged 25 to 74 years. Baseline data were gathered and resting ECGs were classified according to Minnesota code criteria. The sample was then followed for at least 10 years with respect to cause specific death. Results are based on observations from 5208 men and 4746 women free from prevalent CHD at the start of the follow up period. Results Although the prevalence of major abnormalities in general was comparable between sexes, women had more ischaemic findings, ST segment changes, and abnormal T waves on their baseline ECG, while men showed more arrhythmias, bundle branch blocks, and left ventricular hypertrophy. Fitting the multiplicative effect on subsequent mortality between all ECG classifications under study and sex indicated that the prognostic value of ECG changes was equal in women and men. Independently of other risk factors and other major ECG changes, almost all ECG classifications were significantly related to all cause, CVD, and CHD mortality. The most predictive ECG findings for CVD death were ST segment depression (risk ratio (RR) 4.71), major ECG findings (RR 3.26), left ventricular hypertrophy (RR 2.79), bundle branch blocks (RR 2.58), T wave flattening (RR 2.47), ischaemic ECG findings (RR 2.35), and arrhythmias (RR 2.15). The prognostic value of major ECG findings for CVD and CHD death was more powerful than well established cardiovascular risk factors. Conclusions Abnormalities in the baseline ECG are strongly associated with subsequent all cause, CVD, and CHD mortality. Their predictive value was similar for men and women.
Real-time continuous identification system using ECG signals

This paper presents a prototype biometric system that performs real time human identification using the ECG signal. Cardiac signals have been lately suggested for biometric deployment, since they carry subject specific information and at the same time allow for inherent liveness detection. The HeartID is the first system to continuously authenticate individuals who are conveniently wearing a portable, wireless ECG sensor. The AC/LDA algorithm is used for biomet-ric template design because of its computational and performance advantages. The performance of the prototype testbed was evaluated over 10 subjects at the University of Toronto with very promising results.
Moving visual focus in salient object segmentation

Saliency detection plays an important role in image segmentation, object detection and retrieval, which attracts more attention in the field of computer vision recently. Most existing saliency detection algorithms have not considered the influence of visual focus (VF) shifting yet. In this study, a novel algorithm named moving region contrast (MRC) is proposed to analyse image saliency. The algorithm MRC is built on a novel concept of moving VF. The initial VF is defined as the geometric centre of the image. Then the VF is calculated iteratively by focus-moving technique where a saliency gravitation model is employed to determine the moving direction. The salient region is obtained according to the final VF. The experiments are conducted on the dataset with 1000 images released by Achanta. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm achieves marked improvements in performance and outperforms other 11 popular algorithms.
Symptomatic Patients without Epidemiological Indicators of HIV Have a High Risk of Missed Diagnosis: A Multi-Centre Cross Sectional Study

Objectives One quarter of HIV-1 positive individuals in Sweden present for care with HIV or AIDS associated conditions without an HIV test (missed presentations) and 16% report neglect of such symptoms. The objective of this study was to identify risk factors for these missed opportunities of HIV-1 diagnosis. Methods A national study, recruiting 409 newly diagnosed HIV-1 infected adults over a 2.5-year period, was performed. Logistic regression models tested the relationship between missed presentation and patient’s neglect versus socio-demographic and behavioural risk factors. Additionally the initiator of the HIV test was assessed. Results The odds for a missed presentation was lower for migrants (from East Europe, Asia, and Pacific (East): OR 0.4 (0.2–0.8); Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA): 0.3 (0.2–0.6); other: 0.5 (0.2–1.0)), compared to patients born in Sweden, just as symptoms neglected by the patient (East (0.3 (0.1–1.0); SSA (0.4 (0.2–0.8)). The latter was also lower for men who have sex with men (0.5 (0.2–1.0)), compared to patients infected heterosexually. Patients infected in the East, with present/previous substance use or a previous negative HIV test were more likely to take the initiative to test on their own, whereas those >50 years and with a previously missed presentation had significantly reduced odds, p<0.05. Conclusions Individuals without epidemiological indicators of HIV are more likely to have a history of missed presentations, to neglect symptoms and are less prone to take an initiative to test for HIV themselves. It is important to further implement testing to include all patients with symptoms and conditions indicative of HIV.
Discovering novel ingredient pairings in molecular gastronomy using network analysis

Molecular gastronomy is a distinct sub-discipline of food science that takes an active role in examining chemical and physical properties of ingredients and as such lends itself to more scientific approaches to finding novel ingredient pairings. With thousands of ingredients and molecules, which participate in the creation of each ingredient's flavour, it can be difficult to find compatible flavours in an efficient manner. Existing literature is focused mainly on analysis of already established cuisine based on the flavour profile of its ingredients, but fails to consider the potential in finding flavour compatibility for use in creation of completely new recipes. Expressing relationships between ingredients and their molecular structure as a bipartite network opens up this problem to effective analysis with methods from network science. We describe a series of experiments on a database of food using network analysis, which produce a set of compatible ingredients that can be used in creation of new recipes. We expect this approach and its results to dramatically simplify the creation of new recipes with previously unseen and fresh combinations of ingredients.
A Navigation Aid for the Blind Using Tactile-Visual Sensory Substitution

The objective of this study is to improve the quality of life for the visually impaired by restoring their ability to self-navigate. In this paper we describe a compact, wearable device that converts visual information into a tactile signal. This device, constructed entirely from commercially available parts, enables the user to perceive distant objects via a different sensory modality. Preliminary data suggest that this device is useful for object avoidance in simple environments
Fiscal Policy in Sweden: An Analysis of the Budget Over the Business Cycle

The paper is partly devoted to analysing the responses of public finances to an unbalanced growth using model simulation. The results, according to which the cyclical sensitivity of the budget balance is strongly dependent on the underlying shocks that cause the cyclical change, are used to complement the assessment provided by a cyclically-adjusted budget indicator which takes into account the fluctuations in GDP. The paper also discusses alternative procedures to the “gaps elasticity” approach for estimating structural budget balances.
Supporting Development of Synchronous Collaboration Tools on the Web with GroCo

The system support needed to implement even prototypical Electronic Meeting Systems (EMS) or, more generally, synchronous collaboration tools is not commonly provided by today’s programming environments. New ideas in user interface design or application-level concurrency control in EMS should be incorporated into reasonably reliable prototype systems in order to gain valuable practical experiences. To facilitate the experimental design and realisation of EMS, the GroCo project aims at the definition and integration of an appropriate group communications basis into an environment flexibly supporting all aspects of implementing EMS. The GroCo prototype realises programming support for developers of synchronous collaboration tools following a generic design model. Using the Java language, these tools are integrated into pages on the World-Wide Web allowing for easy access and smooth integration into existing technologies. GroCo has been used to implement a text-based, floor-controlled multi-user chat and a shared whiteboard.
The organization of orientation selectivity throughout macaque visual cortex.

A double-label deoxyglucose technique was used to study orientation columns throughout visual cortex in awake behaving macaques. Four macaques were trained to fixate while contrastreversing, stationary gratings or one-dimensional noise of a single orientation or an orthogonal orientation were presented, during uptake of [14C]deoxyglucose ([14C]DG) or [3H]DG, respectively. The two orthogonal stimulus orientations produced DG-labeled columns that were maximally separated in the two isotope maps (inter-digitated) in four areas: V1, V2, V3 and VP. The topographic change from interdigitated to overlapping columns occurred abruptly rather than gradually, at corresponding cortical area borders (e.g. VP and V4v, respectively). In addition, the data suggest that orientation column topography systematically changes with retinotopic eccentricity. In V1, the orientation columns systematically avoided the cytochrome oxidase blobs in the parafoveal representation, but converged closer to the blobs in the foveal representation. A control experiment indicated that this was unlikely to reflect eccentricity-dependent differences in cortical spatial frequency sensitivity. A similar eccentricity-dependent change in the topography of orientation columns occurred in V2. In parafoveal but not foveal visual field representations of V2, the orientation columns were centered on the thick cytochrome oxidase stripes, extended into the adjacent interstripe region, but were virtually absent in the thin stripes.
A Novel Role for Protein Synthesis in Long-Term Neuronal Plasticity: Maintaining Reduced Postburst Afterhyperpolarization

Memory consolidation, the process of transformation of short-term to long-term memory, has been shown to be protein synthesis dependent in a variety of different learning paradigms, brain structures, and species. At the cellular level, protein synthesis was shown to be crucial for induction of long-term synaptic plasticity; application of protein synthesis inhibitors prevents the transformation of early long-term potentiation (LTP) to late LTP. Thus, protein synthesis has been traditionally thought to affect long-term memory consolidation by stabilizing synaptic transmission. However, long-term memory is not supported only by modulation of synaptic strength; modifications in intrinsic neuronal properties also subserve learning-related behavioral changes. Learning-induced reduction in the postburst afterhyperpolarization (AHP), which results with enhanced neuronal excitability and decreased spike frequency adaptation, is apparent in hippocampal and cortical pyramidal neurons. Such postburst AHP reduction lasts for days after training completion and is implicated in maintaining learned skills. Short-term modulation of intrinsic neuronal excitability can be also induced in vitro. Intense synaptic activation induces AHP reduction and enhanced neuronal excitability in hippocampal pyramidal neurons. Here, we show that synaptic activation-induced short-term postburst AHP reduction can be transformed to long-term AHP reduction, such that persists for prolonged time periods. This long-lasting AHP reduction is protein synthesis dependent for up to 1 h after induction. We suggest that, much like synaptic plasticity, activity-induced long-lasting modulation of intrinsic neuronal excitability requires molecular consolidation. It would appear that both synaptic and intrinsic modifications and maintenance are activated jointly to enable long-lasting memories.
Bayesian Networks for the Human Element

Introduction Bayesian networks are powerful tools for knowledge representation and inference under conditions of uncertainty. Bayesian networks provide a traceable means of leveraging contextual expert knowledge to identify the causal structures surrounding two of the most elusive challenges currently facing the modeling, simulation and analysis community: the representation of human cognition and the representation of attitudes and behavior of the civilian population. The data to populate these structures is obtainable via knowledge elicitation methodologies or other sources of data like human experimentation.
The missing link between indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase mediated antibacterial and immunoregulatory effects

The interferon (IFN)–γ‐inducible tryptophan degrading enzyme indoleamine 2,3‐dioxygenase (IDO) has not only been recognized as a potent antimicrobial effector molecule for the last 25 years but was recently found also to have potent immunoregulatory properties. In this study, we provide evidence that both tryptophan starvation and production of toxic tryptophan metabolites are involved in the immunoregulation mediated by IDO, whereas tryptophan starvation seems to be the only antibacterial effector mechanism. A long‐studied controversy in the IDO research field is the seemingly contradictory effect of IDO in the defence against infectious diseases. On the one hand, IFN‐γ‐induced IDO activity mediates an antimicrobial effect, while at the same time IDO inhibits T‐cell proliferation and IFN–γ production. Here, we suggest that both effects, dependent on the threshold for tryptophan, cooperate in a reasonable coherence. We found that the minimum concentration of tryptophan required for bacterial growth is 10‐40‐fold higher than the minimum concentration necessary for T‐cell activation. Therefore, we suggest that during the first phase of infection the IDO‐mediated tryptophan depletion has a predominantly antimicrobial effect whereas in the next stage, and with ongoing tryptophan degradation, the minimum threshold concentration of tryptophan for T‐cell activation is undercut, resulting in an inhibition of T‐cell growth and subsequent IDO activation.
A Novel Nonlinear Regression Approach for Efficient and Accurate Image Matting

Current image matting approaches are often implemented based upon color samples under various local assumptions. In this letter, a novel image matting algorithm is investigated by treating the alpha matting as a regression problem. Specifically, we learn spatially-varying relations between pixel features and alpha values using support vector regression. Via the learning-based approach, limitations caused by local image assumptions can be greatly relieved. In addition, the computed confidence terms in learning phase can be conveniently integrated with other matting approaches for the matting accuracy improvement. Qualitative and quantitative evaluations are implemented with a public matting benchmark. And the results are compared with some recent matting algorithms to show its advantages in both efficiency and accuracy.
A 200PS differential CMOS delay element for 10 GHz ultra wideband wireless receivers

Design of a novel selective band delay element and its performance gain over nominal low pass LC ladder based delay element is demonstrated. The delay element uses three 2nd order all pass filter as its core element and achieves a delay of 200 ± 10 ps within 6.8 GHz to 12.9 GHz range. The circuit is implemented using 130 nm RF CMOS technology. Total area of the circuit is 0.88mm × 0.86mm without bondpad and 0.88mm × 1.06mm with bondpad. The circuit uses only passive elements, thus there is no static power consumption. Maximum dynamic power consumption is found to be 6μW.
Sampling Method in Traffic Logs Analyzing

In this paper, we aim to quantify the amount of degradation and bias that sampling introduces with respect to the non-sampled traffic data taking into account different sampling rates, different sampling policies, different sampling population, and different analysis tasks. First, we analyze the impact of sampling on summation task. Second, we apply sampling method to aggregation by a particular dimension task. We find that the relative error of different keys in aggregation are very different which will greatly limit the effect of sampling method on data compression when the application has strict limit to maximum relative error. So we implement a novel reservoir sampling policy based on our application and furthermore optimize it by combine static sampling policy with reservoir sampling policy. The results demonstrate that the proposed method can effectively control the maximum relative error while maintain data compression rate comparable to existing static sampling methods. Finally we analyze the user loss rate as a function of sampling step under system sampling policy. Through deeply inspect the number of logs for each user, we find the reason why large user loss rate occurs. Our results can provide useful reference for quick approximate analysis using sampling method in traffic logs analyzing area.
Efficient Algorithms for Time- and Cost-Bounded Probabilistic Model Checking

In the design of probabilistic timed systems, bounded requirements concerning behaviour that occurs within a given time, energy, or more generally cost budget are of central importance. Traditionally, such requirements have been model-checked via a reduction to the unbounded case by unfolding the model according to the cost bound. This exacerbates the state space explosion problem and significantly increases runtime. In this paper, we present three new algorithms to model-check time- and cost-bounded properties for Markov decision processes and probabilistic timed automata that avoid unfolding. They are based on a modified value iteration process, on an enumeration of schedulers, and on state elimination techniques. We can now obtain results for any cost bound on a single state space no larger than for the corresponding unbounded or expected-value property. In particular, we can naturally compute the cumulative distribution function at no overhead. We evaluate the applicability and compare the performance of our new algorithms and their implementation on a number of case studies from the literature.
Methodologies for evaluation of collaborative systems

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Reliable block based cryptosystem: Combination of Merkle-Hellman and RSA for secured image transmission

In the recent years, internet multimedia has made life easy and at the same time added complexity in terms of security. Robust and secured transmission strategy for high-quality image is considered a great challenge. However majority of image encryption techniques do not consider reliability during transmission and this issue is considered a problem that should be handled by an efficient cryptosystem. Apart from above mentioned the design of the system should fulfill extremes of Scalability, Usability and accountability of digital data. Valuable multimedia content such as digital images, however is vulnerable to unauthorized access while in storage and during transmission over a network. As the computers are more and more integrated via the network the distribution of digital media is becoming faster. For effective protection of intellectual properties like security, integrity, confidentiality of the organization's data is an important issue. In this paper a new approach to encrypt the image using the concept of Merkle - Hellman Knapsack Cryptosystem and RSA for better reliability is being proposed. Experimental results show that the proposed approach based on block replacement code algorithm reduces the number of encrypted blocks drastically.
Analyzing the Impact of Frequency and Diverse Path Delays in the Time Vulnerability Factor of Master-Slave D Flip-Flops

Soft errors are becoming a major concern in integrated circuits fabricated in nanometer technology working in dependable applications. The goal of this paper is to determine the dependency of soft errors in integrated circuits with its operating frequency and variety of delays in the combinational logic paths. Each circuit flip-flop has a different Time Vulnerability Factor (TVF) that can be measured by electrical simulations based on the delay of the combinational logic path that is connected to that flip-flop. The TVF values of the master and slave latches can vary from 50% to 0% of the clock period according to the logic propagation delay and slack presented in the circuit, the operating frequency and technology process. In this work, the analysis was performed by electrical simulation using sequential designs described in 16nm, 22nm and 32nm nanometer technologies. Results show that the probability of SEU occurrence decreases with the increase of frequency and flips-flops connected to the critical paths present the lowest TVFs. This information can be easily integrated in design tools to help identifying the most vulnerable flip-flops in circuits before mitigate or replace the flip-flops by radiation hardened ones.