Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pasienters opplevelse av informasjon i forbindelse med en operasjon. — En kvalitativ studie

This paper presents a qualitative study focusing on how patients experience the information they receive in connection with an operation. The study seeks knowledge about which topics the patients receive information about, and the significance of information for mastering the role as surgical patient. The study also investigates to what extent the patients find their need for information fulfilled. Data were collected in semistructured interviews with eight strategically sampled patients who had had elective gastrointestinal surgery in a Norwegian hospital. The interviews were audio-taped and transcribed, before a cross case analysis was carried out to identify recurrent themes. The informants express that most important was the information's influence on the experience of safety and hope. The results of this study show that patients wish for more information that enable them to interpret their own experiences and reactions in a situation of uncertainty with regards to their condition. Lack of such knowledge creates uncertainty and fear. The patients are also poorly prepared for discharge. The study indicates that the patients have largely varying needs concerning information, which implies that it is difficult to approach the problem with standardized information programmes alone. A supplement of individual information is therefore recommended. Further studies to chart the nurses' appraisal of this group of patients' need for information are recommended together with further similar studies of different groups of patients.
Effects of a Dietary Supplement Containing Kurozu Concentrate on Body Fat and Energy Metabolism

Effects of a Dietary Supplement Containing Kurozu Concentrate on Bbody Fat and Energy Metabolism Naobumi HAMADATE, Kayoko SETO, Kazunaga YAZAWA 1 Department of Research and Development, Egao Co. Ltd. 2 Laboratory of Nutraceuticals and Functional Foods Science, Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology Objectives: Kurozu has long been used as a traditional fermented food product mainly in East Asia, including Japan; various health functions of Kurozu have been reported. This study examined its effects on body fat and energy metabolism by a double-blind placebo-controlled trial. Methods: Mildly obese adults took a dietary supplement containing Kurozu concentrate for 12 weeks with approximately 10 min of
Coronary Heart Disease in a Remote Area

A study on coronary heart disease (CHD) in a remote area, Ceningan Island,was conducted.The nutrition states based on BMI were underweight,19.3%; normoweight, 54.9%; and overweight at risk, 13.3%; obese I, 9.5%; and obese II, 3.0%. The prevalence of impaired fasting glycemia (IFG), 15.1%; diabetes mellitus (DM), 6.9%; metabolic syndrome (MetS), 6.8%; and CHD, 11.5%. Age, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, levels of total cholesterol; low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, apolipoprotein (Apo)A, ApoB, Apo B/A ratio were found higher among subjects with old myocardial infarction (OMI) than subjects without CHD; while BMI and waist circumference were lower among subjects with OMI than subjects without CHD. Conclusion: traditional risk factors such as age, blood pressure, and cholesterol, and Apo were related to CHD in the remote area.
Characterization, molecular modeling and phylogenetic analysis of a long mammalian neurotoxin from the venom of the Iranian scorpion Androctonus crassicauda

Scorpion venoms are highly complex polypeptides with a wide spectrum of bioactivities. A long chain peptide with eight cysteine residues and four disulfide bonds isolated from the venom of the Iranian scorpion Androctonus crassicauda, a dangerously venomous species belongs to the Buthidae family. Toxin was purified using size exclusion and reverse phase chromatography and was characterized by molecular weight determination and amino acid sequence. The primary structure analysis shows that AnCra1 is a long peptide with 64 amino acid residues and 7255.23 Da. as molecular weight. This toxic peptide, causing severe paralysis and leading to dead. It shows highest homology with voltage-gated sodium channel alpha toxins isolated from Middle-East and North-Africa scorpions. Phylogenetic relationship of AnCra1 and other ion channel toxins from Buthidae family suggested that, separation between these families of scorpions caused by the geographical conditions led to evolutionary alterations in these venoms polypeptide sequences. Homology modeling and three-dimensional structure of AnCra1 indicated that binding residues on exposed part of the peptide have high affinity for receptor residues in Na+V ion channel, site-3. The contact surfaces characteristics and charges may be eventuate to interaction between toxin peptide and targeted channel. Molecular homology between AnCra1 with structure of Na+V neurotoxic peptides illustrated that, AnCra1 can act as novel functional putative Alpha-mammal voltage-gated sodium channel toxin.
The effect of information access effort and metacognition on doctors’ information access behaviors and performances during pre-handover

Qualitative observations of healthcare practitioners’ activities during pre-handover phase suggest that they follow a variety of information retrieval strategies when collecting handover information. Some of them collect patient information from various written documents whereas others follow a rather memory intensive strategy, resonating the dichotomy of “Knowledge in the World” versus “Knowledge in the Head”. This paper examines the effect of information access effort and metacognition on doctors’ information retrieval behaviors and performances during pre-handover phase. An experiment simulating real handover preparation scenarios is being undertaken, with junior physicians as participants.
Co-Design of Sparse Coding and Dictionary Learning for Real-Time Physiological Signals Monitoring

Compressive sensing (CS) is a novel technique to reduce overall transmission power in wireless sensors. For physiological signals telemonitoring of wearable devices, chip area and power efficiency need to be considered simultaneously. There are many prior studies aim to develop algorithms that applied to CS reconstruction chips with reconfigurable architecture. However, representative dictionaries are also important when these CS reconstruction chips are verified in real-time physiological signals monitoring tasks. That is, a more representative dictionary can not only enhance the reconstruction performance of these chips but also alleviate memory overhead. In this paper, we apply the concept of co-design between sparse coding algorithms and learned dictionaries. We also explore the representativeness and compatibility of each learned dictionary. In addition, the computational complexity of each reconstruction algorithm is provided through simulations. Our results show that the dictionaries trained by fast iterative shrinkage-thresholding algorithm (FISTA) are more representative according to the quality of reconstruction for physiological signals monitoring. Besides, FISTA reduces more than 90% of the computational time compared with other hardware-friendly reconstruction algorithms.
Conservation decisions under pressure: Lessons from an exercise in rapid response to wildlife disease

Novel outbreaks of emerging pathogens require rapid responses to enable successful mitigation. We simulated a 1‐day emergency meeting where experts were engaged to recommend mitigation strategies for a new outbreak of the amphibian fungal pathogen Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans. Despite the inevitable uncertainty, experts suggested and discussed several possible strategies. However, their recommendations were undermined by imperfect initial definitions of the objectives and scope of management. This problem is likely to arise in most real‐world emergency situations. The exercise thus highlighted the importance of clearly defining the context, objectives, and spatial–temporal scale of mitigation decisions. Managers are commonly under pressure to act immediately. However, an iterative process in which experts and managers cooperate to clarify objectives and uncertainties, while collecting more information and devising mitigation strategies, may be slightly more time consuming but ultimately lead to better outcomes.
Image-Space Metaballs Using Deep Learning

Metaballs are a type of implicit surface that are used to model organic-looking shapes and fluids. Accurate rendering of three-dimensional metaballs is typically done using raycasting, which is computationally expensive and not suitable for real-time applications, therefore different approximate methods for rendering metaballs have been developed. In this thesis, the foundations of metaballs and neural networks are discussed, and a new approach to rendering metaballs using Deep Learning that is fast enough for use in real-time applications is presented. The system uses an image-to-image translation approach. For that, first the metaballs are rendered using a very simplified representation to an image. This image is then used as input to a neural network that outputs a depth, normal and base color buffer that can be combined using a deferred shading renderer to produce a final image.
Anaerobic expression of nitric oxide reductase from denitrifying Pseudomonas stutzeri

NO reductase synthesis was investigated immunochemically and by activity assays in cells of Pseudomonas stutzeri ZoBell grown in continuous culture at discrete aeration levels, or in Oz-limited batch cultures supplemented with N oxides as respiratory substrate. Under aerobic conditions, NO reductase was not expressed in P. stutzeri. Oxygen limitation in combination with the presence of nitrate or nitrite derepressed NO reductase synthesis. On transition from aerobic to anaerobic conditions in continuous culture, NO reductase was synthesized below 3% air saturation and reached maximum expression under anaerobic conditions. By use of mutant strains defective in nitrate respiration or nitrite respiration, the inducing effect of individual N oxides on NO reductase synthesis could be discriminated. Nitrite caused definite, concentrationdependent induction, while nitrate promoted moderate enzyme synthesis or amplified effects of nitrite. Exogenous nitric oxide (NO) in concentrations < 25 laM induced trace amounts of NO reductase; in higher concentrations it arrested cell growth. Nitrite reductase or NO reductase were not detected immunochemically under these conditions. NO generated as an intermediate appeared not to induce NO reductase significantly. Antiserum raised against the P. stutzeri NO reductase showed crossreaction with cell extracts from P. stutzeri JM300, but not with several other denitrifying pseudomonads or Paracoccus denitrificans.
Multistage robust convex optimization problems: A sampling based approach

In this paper, we consider multistage robust convex optimization problems of the minimax type. We approximate the given robust problem by a sampled subproblem, where instead of looking for the worst case among the infinite and typically uncountable set of uncertain parameters, we consider only the worst case among a randomly selected subset of parameters. By adopting such a strategy, two main questions arise: (1) Can we quantify the error committed by the random approximation, especially as a function of the sample size? (2) If the sample size tends to infinity, does the optimal value converge to the “true” optimal value? Both questions will be answered in this paper. An explicit bound on the probability of violation is given and chain of lower bounds on the original multistage robust optimization problem provided. Numerical results dealing with a multistage inventory management problem show the efficiency of the proposed approach.
Robot Learning for Autonomous Assembly

We investigate autonomous assembly from a random initiation on Human Support Robot (HSR), with the aim of solving the Siemens Assembly Challenge. We formulate it as a Reinforcement Learning (RL) problem with sparse reward. A new learning paradigm, Scheduled Auxiliary Control (SAC), excels at sparse reward RL and appears to be a great fit to our problem. The key idea behind SAC is the high-level scheduling of auxiliary tasks and the execution of auxiliary policies to explore efficiently. We experiment in ROS-based Gazebo simulated environments built on top of the OpenAI Gym, with the potential of being extended to learn the same tasks on a real robot from scratch.
PAIRWISE TESTING FOR PLC EMBEDDED SOFTWARE

In this thesis we investigate the use of pairwise testing for PLC embedded software. We compare these automatically generated tests with tests created manually by industrial engineers. The tests were evaluated in terms of fault detection, code coverage and cost. In addition, we compared pairwise testing with randomly generated tests of the same size as pairwise tests. In order to automatically create test suites for PLC software a previously created tool called Combinatorial Test Tool (CTT) was extended to support pairwise testing using the IPOG algorithm. Once test suites were created using CTT they were executed on real industrial programs. The fault detection was measured using mutation analysis. The results of this thesis showed that manual tests achieved better fault detection (8% better mutation score in average) than tests generated using pairwise testing. Even if pairwise testing performed worse in terms of fault detection than manual testing, it achieved better fault detection in average than random tests of the same size. In addition, manual tests achieved in average 97.29% code coverage compared to 93.95% for pairwise testing, and 84.79% for random testing. By looking closely on all tests, manual testing performed equally good as pairwise in terms of achieved code coverage. Finally, the number of tests for manual testing was lower (12.98 tests in average) compared to pairwise and random testing (21.20 test in average). Interestingly enough, for the majority of the programs pairwise testing resulted in fewer tests than manual testing.
Modification of Immunological Parameters, Oxidative Stress Markers, Mood Symptoms, and Well-Being Status in CFS Patients after Probiotic Intake: Observations from a Pilot Study

The present study discusses about the effects of a combination of probiotics able to stimulate the immune system of patients affected by Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME). To this purpose, patients diagnosed according to Fukuda's criteria and treated with probiotics were analyzed by means of clinical and laboratory evaluations, before and after probiotic administrations. Probiotics were selected considering the possible pathogenic mechanisms of ME/CFS syndrome, which has been associated with an impaired immune response, dysregulation of Th1/Th2 ratio, and high oxidative stress with exhaustion of antioxidant reserve due to severe mitochondrial dysfunction. Immune and oxidative dysfunction could be related with the gastrointestinal (GI) chronic low-grade inflammation in the lamina propria and intestinal mucosal surface associated with dysbiosis, leaky gut, bacterial translocation, and immune and oxidative dysfunction. Literature data demonstrate that bacterial species are able to modulate the functions of the immune and oxidative systems and that the administration of some probiotics can improve mucosal barrier function, modulating the release of proinflammatory cytokines, in CFS/ME patients. This study represents a preliminary investigation to verifying the safety and efficacy of a certain combination of probiotics in CFS/ME patients. The results suggest that probiotics can modify the well-being status as well as inflammatory and oxidative indexes in CFS/ME patients. No adverse effects were observed except for one patient, which displayed a flare-up of symptoms, although all inflammatory parameters (i.e., cytokines, fecal calprotectin, ESR, and immunoglobulins) were reduced after probiotic intake. The reactivation of fatigue symptoms in this patient, whose clinical history reported the onset of CFS/ME following mononucleosis, could be related to an abnormal stimulation of the immune system as suggested by a recent study describing an exaggerated immune activation associated with chronic fatigue.
Ontology-based Data Integration

The data integration concept formalization issues have been considered within an XML-oriented data model. An ontology for data integration concept is proposed. Three kinds mechanisms are used to formalize the data integration concept: content dictionary, signature ﬁle and reasoning ﬁle (collections of reasoning rules). The reasoning rules are based on an algebra of integrable data and formalized by an XML DTD. The data translation mechanisms are non-sensitive to extension of the considered algebra. It is important that the considered data model is extensible and we use a computationally complete language to support the data integration concept.
The Estimation of Carrying Capacity for Lake Nazik with the Remote Sensing Method

Lake Nazik is located in 1816 m above sea level and in 38 0 51’ N 42 0 14’ E coordinates. In this study, to identify the value of monthly chlorophyll-a, ENVISAT/MERIS satellite images were used. On the other hand, MODIS/Aqua satellite images were also used to identify the value of monthly surface water temperature. Carrying capacity of lake was identified as 24100.21 tons/year, and an annual average chlorophyll-a value was found out as 7.12 mg/m 3 . Using data on ENVISAT/MERIS satellite images, it has been observed that the chlorophyll-a concentration in Lake Nazik reached its highest value of 30.071 mg/m 3 in September, while dropping to its lowest value of 3.727 mg/m 3 in January. Using data on MODIS/Aqua satellite images, it has been observed that the maximum value of water surface temperaturewas 22.89 C 0 in August, while the minimum value was2.33 C 0 in December. Furthermore, it was found out that theannual average value for water surface temperature during the study was 14.9 C 0 .
BENHA@IDAT: Improving Irony Detection in Arabic Tweets using Ensemble Approach

This paper describes the methods and experiments that have been used in the development of our model submitted to Irony Detection for Arabic Tweets shared task. We submitted three runs based on our model using Support Vector Machines (SVM), Linear and Ensemble classiﬁers. Bag-of-Words with range of n-grams model have been used for feature extraction. Our submissions achieved accuracies of 82.1%, 81.6% and 81.1% for ensemble based, SVM and linear classiﬁers respectively.
CRANIAL ONTOGENY IN NEANDERTAL CHILDREN: EVIDENCE FROM NEUROCRANIUM, FACE AND MANDIBLE

This study aims to integrate the child Neandertal craniofacial morphology of Dederiyeh 1 and 2 into the developmental context of Neandertals and modern humans, and check two inconsistent hypotheses on the postnatal developmental trajectories between the two groups, a common parallel pattern or a different directional pattern. Craniofacial morphology is considered as a complex of three anatomically separated modules of neurocranium, face and mandible. These modules roughly correspond to separate developmental units and thus convey different functional demands. We first compare growth profiles (changes in size) of each module, which discloses the general growth pattern of the cranium, and then investigate shape changes expressed in the form of ratio of the module sizes. Allometric relationship of the size describes the direction of the shape change, i.e. a major vector of developmental shifts. The general growth of the Neandertal cranium is categorized into two patterns; one is found in the neurocranium and the face, approximately parallel to that of modern humans, the other is found in the mandible, showing accelerated growth in two to fouryear-old Neandertals. The accelerated growth of the mandible in Neandertals is confirmed in the shape changes and supported with the significant difference in the allometric slopes. Considering the mandibular measurements as those expressive of robustness, the accelerated pattern of mandibular growth may relate to masticatory function. Although the basic ontogenetic pattern of Neandertal cranium seems common with that in modern humans, the different developmental modules may indicate a minor shift in rate or timing of any developmental events and accumulation of these minor shifts would result into differences in adult morphology. Osamu Kondo et al. 244
Phase model for the mode transition at a critical frequency in hand tracking task

GraduateSchoolof InformationSystems, University of Electro-Communications 1-5-1Chofu-ga-oka,Chofu,Tokyo, Japan Phone:+81-424-43-5648, Fax:+81-424-43-5681, Email:ishida@hi.is. u ec.ac. jp Departmentof Physics,Graduate Schoolof Sciences, Kyoto University, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto,Japan Phone/Fax:+81-75-753-3742, Email:kuramoto@ton. scphys.kyoto-u.ac. jp TohokuInstituteof Technology, Taihaku-ku,Sendai,Japan Phone/Fax:+81-22-305-5080, Email:sawada@tohtech.ac. jp
On deliberation in mass public space: When are provocations deliberative acts?

There are fundamental controversies over the defining elements of deliberation in the public sphere. Our aim is to contribute to this discussion by tackling the topical issue if provocations can function as legitimate deliberative acts. By examining provocative artworks including Mohammed cartoons, picturing Jesus as a homosexual, graffiti painting a subway car, and faking a psychosis, we argue that seemingly anti-deliberative provocations may be deliberative, if they contain elements of serious efforts to engage in dialogues. It illustrates how provocations can be deliberative by assessing it as part of a social exchange in which – in addition to reason-giving – openness and respectful conduct are given a more prominent position than hitherto.
Active surveillance: a cautionary tale

Objective To determine if the practice of active surveillance for prostate cancer (PCa) at the District General Hospital (DGH) level produces outcomes in keeping with those published from clinical trials. Subjects A cohort of 47 patients started on active surveillance for prostate cancer in 2002–2003. Methods Retrospective review of case notes, electronic records and the regional cancer register. Results This cohort of patients had significantly higher disease-specific mortality and greater progression to palliative forms of management compared to previously published studies. Conclusion The implementation of AS in routine clinical practice may be inconsistent, potentially leading to compromised patient outcomes.