Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Using Social Information to Compose a Similarity Function Based on Friends Attendance at Events

The analysis of affinity or similarity between people is an important task in the study of social dynamics. Traditional methods for determining similarity depends on considerable amount of data regarding people's preferences and features. Those methods present limitations when the data is scarce and/or changes constantly. This paper introduces a new method for determining people similarity that does not suffer from the same problems. The method can learn a customized similarity function based on social variables of friends that attend the same events (concerts, parties, conferences etc), collected from social networks. Two types of optimization algorithms for learning a similarity function are presented: The universal function approximator modelling, which relays on the relationship of social attributes and a friends' importance ranking; and the populational evolutionary modelling, which linearly combines social variables. Both models were tested in a generalist and in a specialist approach. The results show that the specialist approach exceeded in almost 38 % the generalist approach using populational evolutionary methods and in almost 69 % when using the universal function approximator methods. Among the implemented optimization algorithms employed inside the methods for learning similarity, Genetic Algorithm and Particle Swarm Optimization presented better performance for the populational evolutionary methods and the Artificial Neural Network presented the best performance overall using the universal function approximator modelling.
Obtenção do coeficiente de cultura da goiabeira com a utilização do balanço de energia e estações agrometeorológicas convencional e automática.

The crop evapotranspiration (ETc) and crop coefficient (Kc) of guava cv. Paloma irrigated by microsprinkler were estimated during one growing season (June 2001 to December 2001) at Petrolina, Pernambuco State, Brazil. The ETc and the reference evapotranspiration (ET0) were estimated by Bowen ratio and Penman-Monteith methods, respectively, by using Bowen Ratio System and Conventional and Automatic Agrometeorological stations. The acummulated ETc between pruning and harvest was 906 mm, which corresponds to an average of 4,53 mm/day. Crop coefficient varied from 0,76 to 1,25 when was used the conventional station, and from 0,66 to 1,07 when was used the automatic station.
Epstein‐Barr virus, but not human cytomegalovirus, is associated with a high‐grade human papillomavirus–associated cervical lesions among women in North Carolina

Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is known to contribute to cervical carcinogenesis, yet other cofactors that may contribute to oncogenesis are poorly understood. Herein, we examine whether the Epstein‐Barr virus (EBV) and human cytomegalovirus (CMV), two oncomodulatory viruses, are associated with HPV‐mediated cervical neoplastic progression.
Modular Knowledge-Based Decision Support System Dedicated to a Cooperative Decision to Prevent Cardiovascular Diseases

Despite the success of artificial intelligence solutions in the recent years, physicians are still reticent to use integrated functionalities to support their decision. Methods used to create these functionalities can be divided into two groups, each being associated to different questions. Data-based methods are seen as black boxes for which it is impossible to understand how the decision is taken; knowledge-based methods need to rely on formalized knowledge sources on the basis of evidence, which can be discussed and criticized by physicians for their use in real life. This paper presents a new modular decision support system for the prevention of cardiovascular diseases, based on knowledge and on cooperative decision between the patient and the physician. The decision support system is based on two layers: (i) the first layer is a knowledge-based module which generates automatically patient profile, and prevention strategies associated to the profile; (ii) the second layer is a dynamic collaborative graphic user interface which displayed information about the risks of treatment adherence failure, personalized motivation and follow-up strategies. In the future, we aim at assessing the platform in real life.
Surface Structuring and Water Interactions of Nanocellulose Filaments Modified with Organosilanes toward Wearable Materials

Colloidal dispersions of cellulose nanofibrils (CNFs) are viable alternatives to cellulose II dissolutions used for filament spinning. The porosity and water vapor affinity of CNF filaments make them suitable for controlled breathability. However, many textile applications also require water repellence. Here, we investigated the effects of postmodification of wet-spun CNF filaments via chemical vapor deposition (CVD). Two organosilanes with different numbers of methyl substituents were considered. Various surface structures were achieved, either as continuous, homogeneous coating layers or as three-dimensional, hairy-like assemblies. Such surface features reduced the surface energy, which significantly affected the interactions with water. Filaments with water contact angles of up to 116° were obtained, and surface energy measurements indicated the possibility of developing amphiphobicity. Dynamic vapor sorption and full immersion experiments were carried out to inquire about the interactions with water, whether in the liquid or gas forms. Mechanical tests revealed that the wet strength of the modified filaments were almost 3 times higher than that of the unmodified precursors. The hydrolytic and mechanical stabilities of the adsorbed layers were also revealed. Overall, our results shed light on the transformation of aqueous dispersions of CNFs into filaments that are suited for controlled interactions with water via concurrent hydrolysis and condensation reactions in CVD, while maintaining the moisture buffering capacity and breathability of related structures.
Mixing two Unsupervised estimators for Event-Related potential decoding: an Online Evaluation

An ideal decoder in brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) would not require any calibration period and instead start with the actual online application right away. While we cannot reach this goal yet, two novel unsupervised classification methods for BCIs based on event-related potentials (ERPs) of the electroencephalogram (EEG) have recently been proposed which do not require a calibration session. The first method estimates the projection weights of the classifier heuristically using an expectation-maximization approach, while the second utilizes slight changes of the ERP paradigm and deterministically learns from label proportions. As both unsupervised methods have pros and cons, we propose to combine their strengths in a novel MIX approach. Under realistic unlabelled conditions, we compare the online performances of the mixed and the two original methods, finding that for our data recorded during visual spelling with 6 subjects, the mixed approach reveals strong performance gains. Users got perfect selection accuracy after an average of only 2 minutes of online usage.
Detection of tuberculosis: respiratory symptoms flow and results achieved.

OBJECTIVE to analyze the flow of care to the person with symptoms of tuberculosis and the results achieved in the detection of cases in Primary Health Care units of two municipalities of Rio Grande do Sul. METHOD descriptive of mixed methods, developed between 2013 and 2016. We used secondary data of 69 units and semi-structured interviews with 10 professionals. Descriptive statistical analysis and content analysis were used. RESULTS it was observed that the fragmented flow of attention to the respiratory symptoms in Pelotas resulted in low detection of cases by Primary Care, 8.8% of the diagnoses of the municipality. The Sapucaia do Sul flow presents continuity of care, and Primary Care performed 50% of the diagnoses of the municipality. CONCLUSION the organization of flows by municipal management was instrumental in promoting or limiting the commitment of Primary Health Care teams in coordinating care and consequently in achieving the goals of disease control.
Algebraic Operators for Processing Sets of Temporal Intervals in Relational Databases

The efficient management of temporal data has become increasingly important for many database applications. Most commercial systems already allow the management of temporal data but the operational support for processing this data is still rather limited. One particular reason is that many extension proposals typically require considerable modifications of the underlying database engine. In this paper, we propose a lightweight solution where temporal operators are realized using a library of user-defined functions. This way the complexity of temporal queries can be drastically reduced leading to more readable and less error-prone code without touching the database system. Our experiments show that the proposed operators significantly outperform temporal queries formulated in pure SQL. In addition, we investigate the possibility to incorporate algebraic optimization strategies directly into our operator definitions which allow for further performance improvements. 2012 ACM Subject Classification Information systems → Database management system engines, Information systems → Information systems applications
Predicting Training Gain for a 3 Week Period of Arm Ability Training in the Subacute Stage After Stroke

Background: Biomarkers for gains of evidence based interventions for upper limb motor training in the subacute stage following stroke have rarely been described. Information about these parameters might help to identify patients who benefit from specific interventions and to determine individually expected behavioral gains for a certain period of therapy. Objective: To evaluate predictors for hand motor outcome after arm ability training in the subacute stage after stroke selected from known potentially relevant parameters (initial motor strength, structural integrity of the pyramidal tract and functional motor cortex integrity). Methods: We applied the arm ability training (AAT) over 3 weeks to a subpopulation of stroke patients with mild arm paresis, i.e., in 14 patients on average 4 weeks after stroke. The following biomarkers were measured before therapy onset: grip strength on the affected hand, transcranial magnetic stimulation recruitment curve steepness over the primary motor hand area [slope ratio between the ipsilesional hemisphere (IH) and contralesional hemisphere (CH)], and diffusion weighted MRI fractional anisotropy (FA) in the posterior limb of the internal capsule (PLIC; determined as a lateralization index between IH and CH). Outcome was assessed as the AATgain (percentage improvement over training). The “Test d'Evaluation des Membres Supérieurs de Personnes Âgées” (TEMPA) was assessed before and after training to test for possible associations of AAT with activity of daily living. Results: A stepwise linear regression identified the lateralization index of PLIC FA as the only significant predictor for AAT-gain (R2 = 0.519; P = 0.029). AAT-gain was positively associated (r = 0.59; P = 0.028) with improvement in arm function during daily activities (TEMPA). Conclusions: While all mildly affected patients achieved a clinically relevant therapeutic effect, pyramidal tract integrity nevertheless had a modifying role for clinical benefit.
Race, psychosocial vulnerability and social support differences in inner-city women's symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder

ABSTRACT Background/Objectives: Inner-city Black women may be more susceptible to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than White women, although mechanisms underlying this association are unclear. Living in urban neighborhoods distinguished by higher chronic stress may contribute to racial differences in women's cognitive, affective, and social vulnerabilities, leading to greater trauma-related distress including PTSD. Yet social support could buffer the negative effects of psychosocial vulnerabilities on women's health. Methods/Design: Mediation and moderated mediation models were tested with 371 inner-city women, including psychosocial vulnerability (i.e., catastrophizing, anger, social undermining) mediating the pathway between race and PTSD, and social support moderating psychosocial vulnerability and PTSD. Results: Despite comparable rates of trauma, Black women reported higher vulnerability and PTSD symptoms, and lower support compared to White Hispanic and non-Hispanic women. Psychosocial vulnerability mediated the pathway between race and PTSD, and social support moderated vulnerability, reducing negative effects on PTSD. When examining associations by race, the moderation effect remained significant for Black women only. Conclusions: Altogether these psychosocial vulnerabilities represent one potential mechanism explaining Black women's greater risk of PTSD, although cumulative psychosocial vulnerability may be buffered by social support. Despite higher support, inner-city White women's psychosocial vulnerability may actually outweigh support's benefits for reducing trauma-related distress.
Association between undercarboxylated osteocalcin, bone mineral density, and metabolic parameters in postmenopausal women

ABSTRACT Objective: Osteocalcin has been associated with several effects on energy and glucose metabolism. However, the physiological role of undercarboxylated osteocalcin (U-osc; the hormonally active isoform of osteocalcin) is still controversial. To correlate the serum levels of U-osc with bone mineral density (BMD) values and metabolic parameters in postmenopausal women. Subjects and methods: Cross-sectional study including 105 postmenopausal women (age 56.5 ± 6.1 years, body mass index [BMI] 28.2 ± 4.9 kg/m2) grouped based on the presence of three or less, four, or five criteria of metabolic syndrome according to the International Diabetes Federation (IDF). The subjects underwent dualenergy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) for the assessment of body composition and BMD and blood tests for the measurement of U-osc and bone-specific alkaline phosphatase (BSAP) levels. Results: The mean U-osc level was 3.1 ± 3.4 ng/mL (median 2.3 ng/mL, range 0.0-18.4 ng/mL) and the mean BSAP level was 12.9 ± 4.0 ng/mL (median 12.1 ng/mL, range 73-24.4 ng/mL). There were no associations between U-osc and BSAP levels with serum metabolic parameters. Lower fasting glucose levels were observed in participants with increased values of U-osc/femoral BMD ratio (3.61 ± 4 ng/mL versus 10.2 ± 1.6 ng/mL, p = 0.036). When the participants were stratified into tertiles according to the U-osc/ femoral BMD and U-osc/lumbar BMD ratios, lower fasting glucose levels correlated with increased ratios (p = 0.029 and p = 0.042, respectively). Conclusion: Based on the ratio of U-osc to BMD, our study demonstrated an association between U-osc and glucose metabolism. However, no association was observed between U-osc and metabolic parameters.The U-osc/BMD ratio is an innovative way to correct the U-osc value for bone mass.
The MIS5 Pietersburg at ‘28’ Bushman Rock Shelter, Limpopo Province, South Africa

In the past few decades, a diverse array of research has emphasized the precocity of technically advanced and symbolic practices occurring during the southern African Middle Stone Age. However, uncertainties regarding the regional chrono-cultural framework constrain models and identification of the cultural and ecological mechanisms triggering the development of such early innovative behaviours. Here, we present new results and a refined chronology for the Pietersburg, a techno-complex initially defined in the late 1920’s, which has disappeared from the literature since the 1980’s. We base our revision of this techno-complex on ongoing excavations at Bushman Rock Shelter (BRS) in Limpopo Province, South Africa, where two Pietersburg phases (an upper phase called ‘21’ and a lower phase called ‘28’) are recognized. Our analysis focuses on the ‘28’ phase, characterized by a knapping strategy based on Levallois and semi-prismatic laminar reduction systems and typified by the presence of end-scrapers. Luminescence chronology provides two sets of ages for the upper and lower Pietersburg of BRS, dated respectively to 73±6ka and 75±6ka on quartz and to 91±10ka and 97±10ka on feldspar, firmly positioning this industry within MIS5. Comparisons with other published lithic assemblages show technological differences between the Pietersburg from BRS and other southern African MIS5 traditions, especially those from the Western and Eastern Cape. We argue that, at least for part of MIS5, human populations in South Africa were regionally differentiated, a process that most likely impacted the way groups were territorially and socially organized. Nonetheless, comparisons between MIS5 assemblages also indicate some typological similarities, suggesting some degree of connection between human groups, which shared similar innovations but manipulated them in different ways. We pay particular attention to the end-scrapers from BRS, which represent thus far the earliest documented wide adoption of such tool-type and provide further evidence for the innovative processes characterizing southern Africa from the MIS5 onwards.
Contributions to robust calibration methods in radio astronomy. (Contributions aux méthodes de calibration robuste en radioastronomie)

Accurate calibration is of critical importance for new advanced interferometric systems in radio astronomy in order to recover high resolution images with no distortions. This process consists in correcting for all environmental and instrumental effects which corrupt the observations. Most state-of-the-art calibration approaches assume a Gaussian noise model and operate mostly in an iterative manner for a mono-frequency scenario. However, in practice, the Gaussian classical noise assumption is not valid as radio frequency interference affects the measurements and multiple unknown weak sources appear within the wide field-of-view. Furthermore, considering one frequency bin at a time with a single centralized agent processing all data leads to suboptimality and computational limitations. The goal of this thesis is to explore robustness of calibration algorithms w.r. t. the presence of outliers in a multi-frequency scenario. To this end, we propose the use of an appropriate noise model, namely, the so-called coumpound-Gaussian which encompasses a broad range of different heavy-tailed distributions. To combine limited computational complexity and quality of calibration, we designed an iterative calibration algorithm based on the maximum likelihood estimator under the compound-Gaussian modeling. In addition, a computationally efficient way to handle multiple sub-frequency bands is to apply distributed and decentralized strategies. Thus, the global operational load is distributed over a network of computational agents and calibration amounts to solve a global constrained problem thanks to available variation models or by assuming smoothness across frequency.
Influence of speaker de-identification in depression detection

Depression is a common mental disorder that is usually addressed by outpatient treatments that favour patients’ inclusion in the society. This raises the need for tools to remotely monitor the emotional state of the patients, which can be carried out via telephone or the Internet using speech processing approaches. However, these strategies lead to privacy concerns caused by the transmission of the patients’ speech and its subsequent storage in servers. The use of speech de-identification to protect the privacy of these patients seems straightforward, but the influence of this procedure in the manifestation of the disease in the patients’ speech has not been addressed yet. Hence, this study evaluates the performance of an automatic depression level estimation system when dealing with original and de-identified speech, in order to analyse the influence of the de-identification procedure in the detection of depression. Two de-identification approaches based on voice transformation via frequency warping and amplitude scaling are assessed, which can be applied to any speaker without additional training. Experiments carried out in the framework of the audio/visual emotion challenge 2014 show that the proposed de-identification approaches achieve promising de-identification results at the expense of a slight degradation of depression detection.
Effect of social distance on outcome evaluation in self–other decision-making: evidence from event-related potentials

Previous studies have shown that social distance influences one’s judgment at the decision-making stage, although its impact in the outcome evaluation stage, which is a vital stage in the decision-making process, is ignored. Using event-related potentials, we examined the influence of social distance on outcome feedback by requiring participants to make decisions for themselves, their friends, or strangers. Increased social distance reduced the feedback-related negativity amplitude in the early stage of outcome evaluation and reduced the P300 amplitude in the late stage of outcome evaluation. These results provide evidence for the power of social distance in decreasing motivation, emotional arousal, and cognitive investment in the outcome evaluation stage.
Prenatal Maternal Anxiety in South Asia: A Rapid Best-Fit Framework Synthesis

Background: Most research efforts toward prenatal maternal anxiety has been situated in high-income countries. In contrast, research from low- and middle-income countries has focused on maternal depression and prenatal maternal anxiety in low- and middle-income countries remains poorly understood. Objectives: To examine whether dimensions and attributes of current maternal anxiety assessment tools appropriately capture South Asia women's experiences of perinatal distress during pregnancy. Design: We conducted a rapid review with best fit framework synthesis, as we wished to map study findings to an a priori framework of dimensions measured by prenatal maternal anxiety tools. Data Sources: We searched MEDLINE, PsycINFO, and CINAHL and gray literature in November 2016. Studies were included if published in English, used any study design, and focused on women's experiences of prenatal/antenatal anxiety in South Asia. Review Methods: Study quality was assessed using the Effective Public Health Practice Project Quality Assessment Tool and Critical Appraisal Skills Programme Qualitative Checklist. Study findings were extracted to an a priori framework derived from pregnancy-related anxiety tools. Results: From 4,177 citations, 9 studies with 19,251 women were included. Study findings mapped to the a priori framework apart from body image. A new theme, gender inequality, emerged from the studies and was overtly examined through gender disparity, gender preference of fetus, or domestic violence. Conclusions: Gender inequality and societal acceptability of domestic violence in South Asian women contextualizes the experience of prenatal maternal anxiety. Pregnancy-related anxiety tools should include domains related to gender inequality to better understand their influence on pregnancy outcomes.
Sequential sensor placement in two-dimensional passive source localisation using time difference of arrival measurements

: This study presents a new approach to sensor placement strategy in emitter localisation problems based on time difference of arrival measurements. The method addresses a flexible procedure which is capable of positioning the sensors in constrained environments or non-stationary situations where the positions of the sensors are restricted to certain parts of the space and/or need to be changed repeatedly. This method is sequential and has lower computation burden compared to other methods. The validity of the proposed algorithm is assessed by many different numerical scenarios and the results verify its proper operation.