Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Wearable Devices for Health and Wellbeing: Design Insights from Twitter

Wearable devices are increasingly recognized for their potential to improve health and wellbeing. However, challenges remain for wide-scale adoption and use. This paper explores perception and reactions towards wearable devices with a particular emphasis on factors that influence the adoption and use to improve health and well-being and which can also inform their design as components of a behavioral change system. We use social media analytics to analyze and categorize tweets related to major manufacturers of consumer wearable devices from June 1, 2017 – May 31, 2018. We used extant literature on the design of persuasive systems to inform the definition of pertinent categories. The findings confirmed the relevance of persuasive design features such as Dialog, credibility, and social support, though to various degrees. The analysis sheds light on other user priorities pertaining to device characteristics, integration with other systems, issues surrounding actually wearing these devices on a regular basis.
Transactionism in Person-Environment Theory

Environmental psychology is described as a sub-field of psychology which busies itself with the analysis of relationships between human activity and the external contexts in which it takes place. A brief overview of personologist, interactionist and situationist positions in person-environment theorizing is provided. The recent development of transactionism as an offshoot from interactionist views is illuminated by providing a synopsis of the basic assumptions of a transactional approach to person-environment relations. In conclusion it is suggested that this approach also emphasizes the role of change, human use of technology and the psychological nature of artifacts as central to the study of human-environment relations.
Modeling manufacturing yield and reliability

In this paper, we introduce the concept of reliability defect, present the time-dependent defect growth model during operations based on a defect-related gate oxide breakdown mechanism, and build the yield-reliability relation model. Discussions presented here can also be applicable to other device failures when different physics-of-failure mechanisms are found. Through the relation model, it is possible to find a minimum level of latent defect screening to assure the required level of reliability and predict reliability for new products when it is combined with a yield prediction model.
The FUS3 gene of Arabidopsis thaliana is a regulator of gene expression during late embryogenesis

The fus3 mutation of Arabidopsis thaliana affects several aspects of seed development. Mutant seeds are desiccation intolerant, viviparous and accumulate anthocyanins. Two major classes of storage proteins, the 12S cruciferins and the 2S albumins, are nearly absent, storage lipids are reduced and their composition is changed. The transcription of heterologous storage protein gene promoters in a fus3 genetic background is similarly affected. Our data suggest that the FUS3 gene is together with other genes like ABI3 and LEC1 central to the regulation of developmental processes during late embryogenesis.
Experience, representations and the production of second language allophones

In this study we examined the effect of language experience on the production of second language (L2) allophones. We analysed production data of the Spanish stop—approximant alternation (b d g ~ β ð ) from Low Intermediate and High Intermediate level native English/Spanish L2 speakers and five native Mexican Spanish speakers. This allophonic alternation is conditioned primarily by position in the word and lexical stress. We examined the use of two cues to the alternation — consonant intensity and the presence of a release burst — and analysed how these cues varied in participants’ productions in distinct contexts. Results show that the use of these cues differs with experience; that is, learners with greater language experience exhibit cue use that is closer to the native speakers’ cue use. Results further suggest that Low Intermediate learners may be using a basic rule for producing the alternation, but that over time shift to a more nuanced production pattern. These results indicate that more experienced learners’ ability to use these phonetic cues in a native-like fashion emerges over the course of allophone acquisition.
Food insecurity is associated with compromised dietary intake and quality among Lebanese mothers: findings from a national cross-sectional study

Abstract Objective: Examine the associations between household food insecurity (HFI) with sociodemographic, anthropometric and dietary intakes of mothers. Design: Cross-sectional survey (2014–2015). In addition to a sociodemographic questionnaire, data collection included the validated Arabic version of the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale, which was used to evaluate HFI. Dietary intake was assessed using 24-h dietary recall of a single habitual day, and maternal BMI was calculated based on weight and height measurements. Associations between HFI and maternal dietary intake (food groups, energy and macronutrients’ intake) were examined. Simple and multiple logistic regression analyses were conducted to explore the associations between HFI status with odds of maternal overweight and measures of diet quality and diversity (Healthy Eating Index (HEI) and Minimum Dietary Diversity for Women of Reproductive Age (MDD-W)). Setting: Lebanon. Participants: Mothers, nationally representative sample of Lebanese households with children (n 1204). Results: HFI was experienced among almost half of the study sample. Correlates of HFI were low educational attainment, unemployment and crowding. Significant inverse associations were observed between HFI and dietary HEI (OR 0·64, 95 % CI 0·46, 0·90, P = 0·011) and MDD-W (OR 0·6, 95 % CI 0·42, 0·85, P = 0·004), even after adjusting for socioeconomic correlates. No significant association was observed between HFI and odds of maternal overweight status. Conclusions: HFI was associated with compromised maternal dietary quality and diversity. Findings highlight the need for social welfare programmes and public health interventions to alleviate HFI and promote overall health and wellbeing of mothers.
Oxidative stress and nitrate/nitrite (NOx) status following citrulline supplementation in type 2 diabetes: a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial.

BACKGROUND The pathogenesis of diabetes is accompanied by oxidative stress. Citrulline can be considered as a potent antioxidant. The present study aimed to examine the effects of citrulline supplementation on the status of oxidative stress and serum levels of nitrite/nitrate (NOx) in patients suffering from type 2 diabetes (T2DM). METHODS The present study comprises a double-blind placebo-controlled randomised clinical trial. The study subjects include 54 patients with T2DM chosen from specialised clinics of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences. The patients were allocated to one of the placebo or intervention groups. The patients in the placebo and the intervention group received one sachet of microcrystalline cellulose or l-citrulline (3 g), respectively, every day for 2 months. Malondialdehyde (MDA), glutathione peroxidase (GPx), total antioxidant capacity (TAC), superoxide dismutase (SOD), serum levels of fasting blood sugar (FBS), citrulline and NOx were assessed before and after the intervention. RESULTS Forty-five patients completed the trial. Significant decreases were found in serum levels of FBS and MDA. Serum levels of TAC, citrulline and NOx in the intervention group increased compared to those of the placebo group, after adjusting the data for the baseline values and confounders. Differences between and within the two groups were statistically nonsignificant for GPx and SOD at the end of the study. Body mass index and energy intake were not changed significantly after the intervention. CONCLUSIONS The results of the present study show the positive effects of citrulline supplementation with respect to attenuating FBS levels and oxidative stress, as well as boosting NOx status, in patients with T2DM.
Safety of Intravenous Push Lacosamide Compared With Intravenous Piggyback at a Tertiary Academic Medical Center

Background: There are limited data regarding the incidence of adverse events associated with administering lacosamide by intravenous push (IVP) compared with IV piggyback (IVPB). Objective: The objective of this analysis was to compare the safety profile, including cardiovascular effects, sedative effects, and IV site reactions of IVP and IVPB lacosamide administration. Methods: A retrospective pre/post cohort analysis comparing patients who received lacosamide via IVP and IVPB was conducted. Safety end points included hypotension, bradycardia, medication-related sedation, and IV site reactions. The relationship between patient characteristics and the incidence of safety end points was analyzed using the Student t-test and χ2 test as appropriate. Results: Bradycardia occurred after 0.19% of IVP administrations and 1.09% of IVPB administrations assessed (P = 0.07). Hypotension was observed in 3.16% of IVP administrations compared to 1.59% in the IVPB cohort (P = 0.12). Post lacosamide-related sedation was noted in 11.32% and 11.68% of the IVP and IVPB cohorts, respectively (P = 0.87). Infusion site reaction rates of 1.80% and 0.84% were documented in the IVP and IVPB cohorts, respectively (P = 0.33). Of note, only 1 adverse event required clinical intervention. One 200-mg dose in the IVP cohort required a fluid bolus postadministration. Conclusion and Relevance: IVP lacosamide was associated with a similar incidence of cardiovascular, neurological, and infusion site–related adverse events compared with IVPB, in which nearly every adverse event was deemed clinically insignificant. Lacosamide administered via IVP may be considered a safe alternative method of administration in the acute care setting.
Computer Aided Optical Disc Detection in Fundus Images: A Review

Colour fundus images of the human retina are increasingly used in the diagnosis and treatment of several eye related pathologies and in ailments such as arteriosclerosis, diabetes, and hypertension. The effectiveness of treatment for many eye related diseases lies in the early detection through regular screenings. But, screening a large number of patients is a significant problem faced by medical practitioners in populous developing countries like India. In addition, there are extensive influences of human blunders and subjectivity on the consequences of assessment by a human master. This opens up the probability of applying propelled image processing techniques in fundus images to support and improve determination in different ways. Thus, automatic detection of pathologies and computer aided analysis in retinal images play a important role in modern diagnostic procedures and screening systems. Reliable and robust extraction of retinal features like optic disc, macula and vasculature is an essential for ensuing retinal image analysis and handling since these are the overwhelming and most stable structures showing up in the retina. However, automatic segmentation of retinal images is a complicated affair since retinal images are often poorly contrasted noisy, and there are a wide variations in orientation. This paper presents a review on algorithms or methods to detect optic disc automatically.
HIGH QUALITY TEXTURE MAPPING PROCESS AIMED AT THE OPTIMIZATION OF 3D STRUCTURED LIGHT MODELS

Abstract. This article presents the evaluation of a pipeline to develop a high-quality texture mapping implementation which makes it possible to carry out a semantic high-quality 3D textured model. Due to geometric errors such as camera parameters or limited image resolution or varying environmental parameters, the calculation of a surface texture from 2D images could present several color errors. And, sometimes, it needs adjustments to the RGB or lightness information on a defined part of the texture. The texture mapping procedure is composed of mesh parameterization, mesh partitioning, mesh segmentation unwraps, UV map and projection of island, UV layout optimization, mesh packing and mesh baking. The study focuses attention to the mesh partitioning that essentially assigns a weight to each mesh, which reveals a mesh’s weight calculated by considering the flatness and distance of the mesh with respect to a chart. The 3D texture mapping has been developed in Blender and implemented in Python. In this paper we present a flowchart that resumes the procedure which aims to achieve a high-quality mesh and texture 3D model starting from the 3D Spider acquire, integrated with the SfM texture and using the texture mapping to reduce the color errors according to a semantic interpretation.
An efficient algorithm for computer tomography in low radiation images

Computer Tomography (CT) is one of the efficient imaging techniques employed in medical field for the past few decades. In CT Scanning, image quality has influenced by several factors like noise, slice thickness, minimum and maximum contrast resolution, radiation dose etc., Radiation dose is one among important and challenging issues taken to optimize the reconstruction algorithm in CT. The radiation dose is controlled by tube current*time product (mAs), pitch or table speed, slice thickness, beam energy (kVp) and number of patients. In this paper, Landweber algorithm is used to check the improvement in quality of image in low radiation dose. The projected algorithm is compared with existing iterative reconstruction algorithm in Test Phantom, Head image and Thorax image and shows better results. The proposed methods will be useful to optimize an iterative reconstruction algorithm with adequate level of quality in computer tomography.
Analysis of Lolium temulentum geographical differentiation by microsatellite and AFLP markers

Summary The genetic diversity and relationships of 48 Lolium temulentum accessions derived from eight countries (Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia, Italy, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Nepal and Japan) were analysed using seven microsatellite and 44 AFLP polymorphic loci to investigate the origin and distribution of genetic variation. Cluster analysis was performed using the unweighted pair-group method with arithmetic averages (UPGMA) based on the simple matching coefficient of similarity. Nei's gene diversity (h) and the coefficient of gene differentiation (Gst) were calculated. The results from microsatellite analysis indicated that accessions from the same country did not always cluster together, probably because of the limited number of loci used. In contrast, AFLP clearly separated clusters between countries and/or regions; Pakistan–Nepal complex, the Mediterranean region, Ethiopia and Japan. The h value was much higher for microsatellite than for AFLP analysis, indicating that microsatellites are the more variable markers. For AFLP analyses, h values were highest in accessions from Pakistan–Nepal complex, and from the Mediterranean region. These are in agreement with proposals that the origin of L. temulentum lies between the South-western Asia and the Mediterranean basin. The clear groupings of accessions from each country and/or region with high Gst (0.688) indicate that exchange of seeds between them is limited.
Soil microbes alter seedling performance and biotic interactions under plant competition and contrasting light conditions.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Growing evidence suggests that the net effect of soil microbes on plants depends on both abiotic and biotic conditions, but the context-dependency of soil feedback effects remains poorly understood. Here we test for interactions between the presence of conspecific soil microbes, plant competition and light availability on tree seedling performance. METHODS Seedlings of two congeneric tropical tree species, Bauhinia brachycarpa and Bauhinia variegata, were grown in either sterilized soil or soil conditioned by conspecific soil microorganisms in a two-phase, greenhouse feedback experiment. We examined the interactive effects of soil treatment (live, sterilized), light availability (low, high) and plant competition (no competition, intraspecific and interspecific competition) on tree seedling biomass. We also investigated the linkages between the outcomes of soil feedback effects and soil microbial community structure. KEY RESULTS The outcomes of soil feedback effects on seedling biomass varied depending on both competition treatment and light availability. Under low light conditions, soil feedback effects were neutral irrespective of competition treatment and plant species. Soil feedback effects were negative in high light for seedlings with interspecific competition, but positive for seedlings growing alone or with intraspecific competition. Soil feedback effects for seedlings were driven by variation in the Gram positive-Gram negative bacteria ratio. Light and conspecific soil microbes had interactive effects on the competitive environment experienced by tree species; in low light, the presence of conspecific soil microbes decreased plant competition intensity, whereas in high light, both the intensity and the importance of competition increased for seedlings in the presence of soil microbes, irrespective of plant species. CONCLUSIONS Our findings underline the importance of light and plant competition for the outcomes of soil feedback effects on young tree seedlings, and suggest that reduced light availability may reduce the influence of conspecific soil microbes on plant-plant interactions.
Vulnerability analysis: protecting information in the IoT

The research was designed to study IoT security vulnerabilities and how to better protect IoT communications. By researching the system a Fitbit uses for communications, this research analyzes and reveals security defects in the IoT architecture. The research first uses a man-in the middle (MITM) attack to intercept and analyze the Fitbit system traffic to identify security weakness. Then uses a replay attack to further validate these flaws. Finally, countermeasures against these security threats are proposed. The research findings show the Fitbit’s IoT communication architecture has serious information security risks. Firstly, the Fitbit tested does not encrypt the raw data between the mobile app and Fitbit servers. It uses HTTPS to secure communication between the mobile phone and the Fitbit servers. Once HTTPS is broken, all raw data can be read and tampered with. Secondly, Fitbit uses Base64 credentials to associate the Fitbit tracker, and Fitbit app with the Fitbit user account. Base64 can be easily broken on the Internet or using other tools. Attackers can generate fake Base64 credentials to hack a user account. According to the experimental results from the study, the IoT should secure every node in its architecture. It is also necessary to encrypt the raw data and not just rely on HTTPS. It is recommended to replace the Base64 algorithm with AES and hashing.
Newer Modalities in the Treatment of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: Focus on Technology

This chapter will focus on the technological advances for individuals with Type 2 diabetes mellitus and their effect on treatment, control of blood glucoses and possible improvement in lifestyle and decreasing complications. This is a general overview of technological improvements and not an outline for specific patient care. Various technologies will be discussed and the outlook for future improvements outlined.
Attended, or unattended blood pressure, that is the question.

I t has been known for a long time that conditions under which blood pressure (BP) is measured are very important. Alam and Smirk were the first to study the effect of rest on blood pressure; they found that during 30 min of rest, SBP dropped by 15–20 mmHg. They wrote that ‘basal blood pressures cannot be obtained by repeated measurements made in a hospital ward, with or without screens around the bed; nor in individuals who suspect that the blood pressure measurements are only a prelude to further procedures. The environment of the individual must be entirely unstimulating. Restlessness on the part of the observer, noises outside the room, and displays of medical equipment may invalidate the result’ [1]. The presence of staff is one of the most important factors, which contributes to the BP increase. In the 1980s, Mancia et al. studied its effect, using invasive measurement in the radial artery [2]. When a physician unknown to the patient entered the room, BP increased by 27/15mmHg whereas the increase of BP was about half when a nurse entered [3]. More recently, finger BP was measured noninvasively by the beat-to-beat method during the presence of a physician, and a smaller increase was found: by 12/6 mmHg in untreated grade 1 hypertensive individuals [4]. A new approach to measuring BP in the office was made possible when the devices for repeated automated measurements appeared in the market after the year 2000 [5]. Myers and Valdivieso [6] were among the first to show that blood pressure readings taken by the automated device (BpTRU) were lower than those taken by a physician. Since that time, a large number of studies with automated office blood pressure (AOBP), including those without presence of staff, have been done and they brought new insights on blood pressure measurement. Most of them show that unattended AOBP gives lower values than
Fasting serum total bile acid levels are associated with insulin sensitivity, islet β-cell function and glucagon levels in response to glucose challenge in patients with type 2 diabetes.

Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is characterized by islet β-cell dysfunction and impaired suppression of glucagon secretion of α-cells in response to oral hyperglycaemia. Bile acid (BA) metabolism plays a dominant role in maintaining glucose homeostasis. So we evaluated the association of fasting serum total bile acids (S-TBAs) with insulin sensitivity, islet β-cell function and glucagon levels in T2D. Total 2,952 T2D patients with fasting S-TBAs in the normal range were recruited and received oral glucose tolerance tests for determination of fasting and postchallenge glucose, C-peptide and glucagon. Fasting and systemic insulin sensitivity were assessed by homeostasis model assessment (HOMA) and Matsuda index using C-peptide, i.e., ISHOMA-cp and ISIM-cp, respectively. Islet β-cell function was assessed by the insulin-secretion-sensitivity-index-2 using C-peptide (ISSI2cp). The area under the glucagon curve (AUCgla) was used to assess postchallenge glucagon. The results showed ISHOMA-cp, ISIM-cp and ISSI2cp decreased, while AUCgla notably increased, across ascending quartiles of S-TBAs but not fasting glucagon. Moreover, S-TBAs were inversely correlated with ISHOMA-cp, ISIM-cp and ISSI2cp (r = -0.21, -0.15 and -‍0.25, respectively, p < 0.001) and positively correlated with AUCgla (r = 0.32, p < 0.001) but not with fasting glucagon (r = 0.033, p = 0.070). Furthermore, after adjusting for other clinical covariates by multiple linear regression analyses, the S-TBAs were independently associated with ISHOMA-cp (β = -0.04, t = -2.82, p = 0.005), ISIM-cp (β = -0.11, t = -7.05, p < 0.001), ISSI2cp (β = -0.15, t = -10.26, p < 0.001) and AUCgla (β = 0.29, t = 19.08, p < 0.001). Increased fasting S-TBAs are associated with blunted fasting and systemic insulin sensitivity, impaired islet β-cell function and increased glucagon levels in response to glucose challenge in T2D.