Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparing Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein (GFAP) in Serum and Plasma Following Mild Traumatic Brain Injury in Older Adults

Objective: Identification and validation of blood-based biomarkers for the diagnosis and prognosis of mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is of critical importance. There have been calls for more research on mTBI in older adults. We compared blood-based protein marker glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) concentrations in serum and in plasma within the same cohort of older adults and assessed their ability to discriminate between individuals based on intracranial abnormalities and functional outcome following mTBI. Methods: A sample of 121 older adults [≥50 years old with head computed tomography (CT), n = 92] seeking medical care for a head injury [Glasgow Coma Scale scores of 14 (n = 6; 5.0%) or 15 (n = 115; 95.0%)] were enrolled from the emergency department (ED). The mean time between injury and blood sampling was 3.4 h (SD = 2.1; range = 0.5–11.7). Serum GFAP concentration was measured first using the Human Neurology 4-Plex Assay, while plasma GFAP concentration was later measured using the GFAP Discovery Kit, both on an HD-1 Single molecule array (Simoa) instrument. Glasgow Outcome Scale-Extended was assessed 1 week after injury. Results: Both serum and plasma GFAP levels were significantly higher in those with abnormal CT scans compared to those with normal head CT scans (plasma: U = 1,198, p < 0.001; serum: U = 1,253, p < 0.001). The ability to discriminate those with and without intracranial abnormalities was comparable between serum (AUC = 0.814) and plasma (AUC = 0.778). In the total sample, GFAP concentrations were considerably higher in plasma than in serum (Wilcoxon signed-rank test z = 0.42, p < 0.001, r = 0.42). Serum and plasma GFAP levels were highly correlated in the total sample and within all subgroups (Spearman's rho range: 0.826–0.907). Both serum and plasma GFAP levels were significantly higher in those with poor compared to good functional outcome (serum: U = 1,625, p = 0.002; plasma: U = 1,539, p = 0.013). Neither plasma (AUC = 0.653) nor serum (AUC = 0.690) GFAP were adequate predictors of functional outcome 1 week after injury. Conclusions: Despite differences in concentration, serum and plasma GFAP levels were highly correlated and had similar discriminability between those with and without intracranial abnormalities on head CT following an mTBI. Neither serum nor plasma GFAP had adequate discriminability to identify patients who would have poor functional outcome.
Longitudinal motion control for high-speed trimaran based on computational fluid dynamics and predictive control

This article investigates a model predictive control (MPC) with disturbance observer (DOB) for a trimaran longitudinal motion control. Firstly, to design the trimaran longitudinal motion stability controller, the mathematical model of the trimaran requires to be obtained. The hydrodynamic coefficients in the mathematical model are obtained by the computational fluid dynamics simulation. Secondly, a T-foil with the fixed attack angle is selected as an antipitching appendage. It is verified that the T-foil is effective in restraining the longitudinal motion of the trimaran through numerical simulation. Lastly, to enhance the ability of the T-foil for restraining the severe longitudinal motion, a controller based on the MPC method with DOB is designed to control the attack angle. The effect of the proposed algorithm is verified by theoretical analysis and simulation.
Screening and Diagnosis for Colorectal Cancer: Present and Future

Aims and background Colon cancer is the third most common cause of cancer diagnosed in the United States, and the second leading cause of cancer death. Although rates of the disease have been going down in recent years, results can be further improved. About 90% of people whose colon cancer is caught before it has spread to nearby lymph nodes or organs survive more than 5 years after diagnosis. However, only 10% of patients whose cancer has spread to distant parts of the body survive 5 years. Diagnosis at an early stage aims to reduce the incidence of tumors in an advanced stage and hence mortality. Methods and study design We analyzed the literature to understand what new tests to use and new directions to take. Results There is evidence to support the screening of average-risk individuals over the age of 50 years to detect and prevent colon cancer. Screening of these people can only reduce mortality rates, not incidence, identifying cancer at an early stage and through the removal of clinically significant adenomas. Patient preferences and availability of resources play an important role in the selection of screening tests, because each test presents specific risks and specific benefits. Conclusions The American Cancer Society has added two new screening methods, CT colonography, also known as virtual colonoscopy, and stool DNA tests to the list of options. A small revolution in screening for colon cancer is in the making. The availability of these less invasive tests should increase the number of people who undergo regular screening. Free full text available at www.tumorionline. it
European trade union cooperation, union density and employee attitudes to unions

European trade unions have much to gain from cooperating with each other. Such cooperation does exist, but it is still fairly limited and many obstacles need to be overcome if cooperation is to be improved. According to our survey data, higher-level union officials regard differences concerning financial resources and national labour market regulations to be particularly substantial barriers to cooperation. The enormously varying union density across Europe, and its general decrease, also creates barriers. Therefore, employee attitudes to unions are examined using data from the International Social Survey Programme. As expected, union members tend to be more positive about trade unions than non-members. The most interesting finding, however, is that employees in some countries with low union density exhibit fairly positive views or at least views that are not less positive than what we find among employees in many countries with higher density rates. This suggests that there is potential for recruiting members.
Analysis and experiments with a 3D printed walking robot to improve climbing obstacle

The purpose of this work is to investigate the possibilities of climbing higher obstacles while maintaining the overall dimensions of a walking robot through design improvements and experiments. An original concept for the design of a walking robot with a minimum number of motors is presented. Geometric and force constraints for overcoming an obstacle and the conditions for maintaining static stability are determined. Experiments for overcoming a vertical obstacle are conducted with a 3D printed model. The 3D printed robot feet with different shapes and materials are used. The results of the experiments are presented graphically as a percentage of success against a baseline model. In this study, a dimensionless index to compare the height of the overcome obstacle and the dimensions of the robot is introduced. It allows to objectively compare the possibilities of overcoming obstacles between various types of mobile robots. Conclusions and guidelines for design improvements are made.
Book Review: Capital and Ideology

easily be referenced. That said, this is an excellent book which should be used as a blueprint for fundamental gender equality transformation by every trade union and labour institution. What is more, it has emerged at a critical juncture for the global economy, its workforce and worldwide trade unionism as COVID19 wreaks its deathly havoc. Women in particular face immense challenges as frontline health and care workers, as carers of children and vulnerable adults and as income earners for their families. The need for collective bargaining which secures gender equality will never be greater once the world begins to return to ‘normal’ and efforts are made to reconstruct buoyant economies. Previous global crises have seen women forced out of the labour market and back into economic dependence on men or the state. Collective bargaining for gender equality is about to face its greatest test and this book should be a reminder that it can – and must – be done.
Addressing Human Factor Challenges in Paediatric Home Care: Development and Evaluation of a Mobile Home Care Communication App

Children with medical complexities have chronic conditions and functional limitations that require medical technology and significant use of healthcare services (Dewan & Cohen, 2013). They represent less than 1% of children in Canada, but account for one-third of all healthcare spending on child health. In Ontario, approximately 36% of children with medical complexities receive healthcare services in their home (Cohen et al., 2012). This includes nurses, personal support workers and other caregivers. When a breakdown in communication occurs between caregivers, these children are put at risk for the incorrect administration of a medication and errors in care performance that often involve the use of medical technology (Dewan & Cohen, 2013). A lack of understanding the best practices for a specific child’s medical condition can result in further variability of the child’s treatment and comfort. In home care for children with medical complexities, it has been identified that the communication between caregivers is challenging because a standardized method for the exchange of information currently does not exist.
Late Cretaceous and Cenozoic History of North American Vegetation: North of Mexico

This book is a unique and integrated account of the history of North American vegetation and paleoenvironments over the past 70 million years. It includes discussions of the modern plant communities, causal factors for environmental change, biotic response, and methodologies. The history reveals a North American vegetation that is vast, immensely complex, and dynamic.
The Effects of Fast and Slow Yoga Breathing on Cerebral and Central Hemodynamics

Background: Yoga breathing has shown to impose significant cardiovascular and psychological health benefits. Objective: The mechanism (s) responsible for these health benefits remain unclear. The aim of the present study was to assess the differences in cerebral and central hemodynamic responses following fast breathing (FB) and slow breathing (SB) protocols compared to breathing awareness (BA) as a control. Methods: Twenty healthy participants (10 males and 10 females) volunteered to take part in the study. Participants were between ages 18–55 years (group mean: 24 ± 5 years), with a height of 168.7 ± 9.8 cm and a weight of 70.16 ± 10.9 kg. A familiarization trial including FB and SB protocols were performed by each participant at least 24 h before the testing day. The breathing protocols were designed to achieve 6 breath/min for SB and ~ 120 breaths/min for FB. Results: FB resulted in an increase in both right prefrontal cortex (RPFC) and left prefrontal cortex (LPFC) hemoglobin difference (Hbdiff) (brain oxygenation) compared to BA (P < 0.05). FB resulted in an increased Hbdiff in LPFC compared to RPFC SB (P < 0.05). FB resulted in an increased Hbdiff in LPFC compared to SB (P < 0.05). Conclusion: FB may be an effective yoga breathing technique for eliciting cerebral brain oxygenation indicated by increased Hbdiff. These results may be applicable to both healthy and clinical populations.
Effect of Curly Top-Infective Beet Leafhoppers on Watermelon Plants in Different Stages of Development

Curly top-infective beet leafhoppers ( Circulifer tenellus (Baker)) were placed on watermelon plants in different stages of development. Growth was severely retarded when plants were infested in the cotyledon stage but were apparently unaffected when infested in the two-leaf stage. Therefore little damage can be expected from curly top in watermelons except where plants in the cotyledon stage are heavily infested.
Neural Sequences as an Optimal Dynamical Regime for the Readout of Time

Converging evidence suggests that the brain encodes time through dynamically changing patterns of neural activity, including neural sequences, ramping activity, and complex spatiotemporal dynamics. However, the potential computational significance and advantage of these different regimes have remained unaddressed. We combined large-scale recordings and modeling to compare population dynamics between premotor cortex and striatum in mice performing a two-interval timing task. Conventional decoders revealed that the dynamics within each area encoded time equally well; however, the dynamics in striatum exhibited a higher degree of sequentiality. Analysis of premotor and striatal dynamics, together with a large set of simulated prototypical dynamical regimes, revealed that regimes with higher sequentiality allowed a biologically constrained artificial downstream network to better read out time. These results suggest that, although different strategies exist for encoding time in the brain, neural sequences represent an ideal and flexible dynamical regime for enabling downstream areas to read out this information.
JiStar Rastreabilidade Entre Código Java e Modelos de Metas i

Resumo. Nos últimos anos, a engenharia de requisitos orientada a metas tem sido extensivamente pesquisada e os resultados indicam diversas vantagens sobre outras abordagens para a modelagem de requisitos. Uma vez que o software foi construído sob outras perspectivas e paradigmas, como compreender suas metas para fins de evolução? Na literatura, existem heurísticas de rastreabilidade que podem auxiliar no resgate das metas do software quando aplicadas no sentido código-requisitos. Entretanto, a rastreabilidade para trás, aplicada a sistemas construídos sob outros paradigmas pode gerar modelos extensos e com um nível de abstração muito baixo. Esta pesquisa visa definir um modelo de rastreabilidade para trás entre o código da aplicação e o modelo de metas através do uso de metadados de código. Em particular entre sistemas desenvolvidos em Java e modelos i*. Embora existam pesquisas sobre o mapeamento de modelos i* para representações OO, a rastreabilidade para trás é menos frequente na literatura. Desenvolvemos o framework JiStar que é composto por: (A) um conjunto de anotações de código Java para elementos do framework i* com vistas a viabilizar uma rastreabilidade entre os artefatos de código Java e modelos i*, e; (B) um exportador de modelos i* com vistas a permitir a geração automática de modelos de metas nos formatos HTML e PiStar. Avaliamos a viabilidade da nossa abordagem usando o código fonte de um sistema real chamado RioBus visando reconciliá-lo com suas metas. Nossos resultados indicam a adequação dessa rastreabilidade para fins de evolução do software.
Descrevendo requisitos de User eXperience em Critérios de Aceitação de User Stories

Resumo User Stories (US) complementadas por critérios de aceitação (ACAcceptance Criteria) são amplamente utilizadas no desenvolvimento ágil de software. Usualmente, USs e ACs descrevem requisitos funcionais, e poucas vezes são encontradas descrições de requisitos sobre a experiência do usuário (UX User eXperience). Este artigo apresenta os resultados de uma investigação sobre quais elementos de UX (aqueles inerentes à interação do usuário) desenvolvedores descrevem nos ACs. Foi realizado um estudo junto a 30 desenvolvedores de software, no qual os participantes receberam um conjunto de artefatos de apoio à UX que deram subsídios para a elaboração das USs e ACs. Através de uma análise qualitativa em um total de 79 USs e 261 ACs gerados pelos participantes, examinou-se quais elementos de UX eram reportados nestes artefatos. Os resultados mostram que os elementos relacionados a design de interação e arquitetura da informação foram os mais reportados nos ACs analisados. Adicionalmente, constatou-se que as Heurísticas de Nielsen foi o artefato de UX mais utilizado durante a elaboração. Estes resultados contribuem para que equipes de desenvolvimento de software desenvolvam a consciência sobre quais artefatos podem influenciar na escrita de requisitos de UX e estimular desenvolvedores a descreverem requisitos de UX desde as etapas iniciais do desenvolvimento.
Controlled evaluation of a multimodal system to improve oral presentation skills in a real learning setting

Developing oral presentation skills requires both practice and expert feedback. Several systems have been developed during the last 20 years to provide ample practice opportunities and automated feedback for novice presenters. However, a comprehensive literature review discovered that none of those systems have been adequately evaluated in real learning settings. This work is the first randomised controlled evaluation of the impact that one of these systems has in developing oral presentation skills during a real semester-long learning activity with 180 students. The main findings are that (1) the development of different dimensions of the oral presentations are not affected equally by the automated feedback and (2) there is a small but statistically significant effect of the use of the tool when a subsequent presentation is evaluated by a human expert.
Adaptive dynamic programming-based controller with admittance adaptation for robot–environment interaction

The problem of optimal tracking control for robot–environment interaction is studied in this article. The environment is regarded as a linear system and an admittance control with iterative linear quadratic regulator method is obtained to guarantee the compliant behaviour. Meanwhile, an adaptive dynamic programming-based controller is proposed. Under adaptive dynamic programming frame, the critic network is performed with radial basis function neural network to approximate the optimal cost, and the neural network weight updating law is incorporated with an additional stabilizing term to eliminate the requirement for the initial admissible control. The stability of the system is proved by Lyapunov theorem. The simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.
Automatic assessment of cognitive and emotional states in virtual reality-based flexibility training for four adolescents with autism

Tracking students? learning states to provide tailored learner support is a critical element of an adaptive learning system. This study explores how an automatic assessment is capable of tracking learners? cognitive and emotional states during virtual reality (VR)-based representational-flexibility training. This VR-based training program aims to promote the flexibility of adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in interpreting, selecting and creating multimodal representations during STEM-related design problem solving. For the automatic assessment, we used both natural language processing (NLP) and machine-learning techniques to develop a multi-label classification model. We then trained the model with the data from a total of audio- and video-recorded 66 training sessions of four adolescents with ASD. To validate the model, we implemented both k-fold cross-validations and the manual evaluations by expert reviewers. The study finding suggests the feasibility of implementing the NLP and machine-learning driven automatic assessment to track and assess the cognitive and emotional states of individuals with ASD during VR-based flexibility training. The study finding also denotes the importance and viability of providing adaptive supports to maintain learners? cognitive and affective engagement in a highly interactive digital learning environment.
Who will land and stay? Page-specific antecedents of news engagement on social media

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of page-specific factors such as page language, posting frequency and community size on online engagement in the context of social media pages of news channels in Pakistan.Design/methodology/approachFor this research, official Facebook pages of news channels in Pakistan were defined as the target population. Secondary data were obtained from the Facebook pages of 28 news channels in Pakistan. For the selected period between August and September 2019, a total of 420 cases were obtained and manually entered in SPSS 21 for analysis. Tweedie estimation was run to check the proposed hypotheses.FindingsResults show that English pages are more engaging than Urdu. Additionally, posting frequency and community size have a negative relationship with online engagement.Practical implicationsThe findings of the study suggest that administrators of social media pages of news channels should target English news readers more than Urdu news readers. Additionally, they should manage a low posting frequency so that readers may not get irritated. Administrators should not sponsor their pages to expand community size on a single page. Instead, they may opt to build a separate page for each news category with smaller community size.Originality/valueWhile previous studies have discussed the post-specific factors of engagement, this study has checked the impact of page-specific factors such as page language, posting frequency and community size on online engagement.
The Origin of Competence for Lens Formation in the Amphibia

1. Presumptive ectoderm of Triton alpestris was removed from the young gastrula and cultivated in Holtfreter solution at 25° C. until control embryos had developed open neural plates. 2. Presumptive eye material from neural plate embryos, with some attached archenteron roof, was then implanted into the isolated fragments of ectoderm. 3. The grafted tissue formed single complete eyes, and bilaterally symmetrical portions of the brain, although the implant contained asymmetrical portions of the neural plate. 4. In some of the explants the competence for neural differentiation was retained even to this late stage, and neural tubes were induced. In other specimens the inner layer of ectoderm consists of long, cylindrical, regularly arranged cells, like those of the sensory inner layer of ectoderm in the mouth region of a normal larva. Still other specimens formed thin-walled vesicles with no sensorisation, and others again differentiated into the compact masses of tissue normally formed by isolated gastrula ectoderm. 5. Lenses were induced in all types of explant mentioned above except the last. 6. It is concluded that the formation of lens competence is not dependent on the presence of non-axial mesoderm or on the previous occurrence of a process of neural induction, but is dependent on the differentiation of the ectoderm into a thin layer, which differentiation may be brought about in various ways, and perhaps purely mechanically. The formation of a thin layer of ectoderm is probably a sufficient as well as a necessary condition for the origin of lens competence.
Genetic Variation in the Date of Budburst in Scottish Birch Populations: Implications for Climate Change

To estimate the heritability of budburst, seedlings from up to 10 birch trees at each of 10 sites in Scotland (seven of Betula pubescens Ehrh. and three of B. pendula Roth) were grown together in a randomized field experiment near Penicuik, Scotland (550 51'N, 198m). Using a nine-stage scale, budburst and leaf elongation were assessed in late April 1984 and 1986. Heritability of budburst varied from 0 00 to 0 65. The potential for dates of budburst to evolve within birch populations in response to climatic warming depends on the amount of additive genetic variation and on the rate at which the environment is changing. The selection differentials needed for populations to change in response to climatic warming of 2 0C over a period of 60 years show that, even in the most genetically variable populations, the rate of change in temperature (assuming an increase in mean annual temperature of 0 70C every 20 years) is too rapid for native populations to evolve in the absence of gene flow from birch populations with earlier dates of budburst. Key-words: Betula pubescens, B. pendula, budburst, climate change, heritability