Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Testosterone and 17beta-oestradiol secretions in children and adolescents. Assay development, levels for comparison and clinical applications

Accurate measurements of 17beta-oestradiol and testosterone are important in clinical settings of pubertal disorders and hormone replacement therapy among children. Most assays for measurement of these steroids are optimised for fertility investigations in adults and are not sensitive enough for quantification in children. The primary aim of this thesis was to optimise the immunoassays available for measurement of these hormones in children and to develop reference ranges for healthy prepubertal and pubertal children. A second aim was to use the methods for improving induction of puberty with 17beta-oestradiol in girls.To increase the sensitivity of the original Spectria Estradiol Radioimmunoassay (RIA), the serum volume was increased and an extraction step using diethyl ether was added. These steps increased the sensitivity of the 17beta-oestradiol assay to 4.5 pmol/L. Twice the serum volume in the Spectria Testosterone RIA increased the sensitivity to 0.03 nmol/L.Using these methods for quantifying 17beta-estradiol and testosterone, reference ranges for healthy prepubertal and pubertal children have been established. Both girls (n=56) and boys (n=55) showed increasing levels of 17beta-oestradiol and testosterone throughout pubertal development. Girls demonstrated a diurnal secretion of the hormones prior to puberty. This diurnal secretion remains until one year after menarche. Boys demonstrated a similar diurnal secretion of serum testosterone before puberty and throughout puberty, but their diurnal rhythm of 17beta-oestradiol was not present until mid/late puberty. The diurnal rhythm of both hormones showed high levels in the morning and low levels in the evening. The patient group consisted of 15 girls with hypogonadism. A matrix patch containing natural 17beta-oestradiol was divided into parts for individual doses and attached on the girl s buttock nocturnally and serum 17beta-oestradiol was quantified. All girls in whom samples were taken during an 17beta-oestradiol dose of 0.08 - 0.12 µg/kg had serum concentrations that simulated the spontaneous levels as well as the diurnal pattern of serum 17beta-oestradiol in early pubertal girls. In conclusion, the changes in serum concentrations of 17beta-estradiol and testosterone, and the diurnal rhythm in healthy children have been assessed. With these new data it is possible to induce puberty in hypogonadal girls with physiological replacement therapy.
Dimensionality Reduction of Partially Labeled Multimodal Data

sionality reduction method. Our approach is to combine LFDA and LPP in order to trade between-class separation with locality preservation. The proposed method includes FDA, LFDA, and LPP as special cases. Furthermore, the proposed method inherits the computational advantage of FDA, LFDA, and LPP, i.e., an analytic solution is available and can be computed based on the eigendecomposition. Thus the proposed method is computationally e‐cient and reliable. The usefulness of the proposed method is illustrated by experiments.
Fuzzy Adaptive Control Design Strategy of Nonlinear Switched Large-Scale Systems

The decentralized adaptive fuzzy control problem for switched nonstrict-feedback nonlinear large-scale systems is investigated in this paper. Fuzzy logic systems are adopted to identify the unknown nonlinear system functions and unknown interconnected nonlinearities. A linear state observer is designed to solve the problem of unmeasured states, and a new observer-based output-feedback decentralized control scheme is developed based on adaptive fuzzy control principle and bacsktepping design technique. The proposed control strategy not only solves the control design problem of more general form nonlinear switched systems in nonstrict-feedback form, but also does not require the switched signals to meet the restriction of average dwell time. The stability of fuzzy control systems under arbitrary switchings is proven based on the common Lyapunov function method. Simulation results of numerical examples are presented to further demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy.
The meaning of patient satisfaction : re-assessing a qualitative psychological research methodology

In a move towards a more informed understanding of the concept of satisfaction, this study aims to explore how thirty dermatology patients describe what it means to be satisfied with their healthcare. This was undertaken by adopting a qualitative research approach, using an in-depth semi-structured interview methodology. It was conducted within the context of a randomised controlled trial of telemedicine in dermatology (RCT). A secondary aim was to evaluate the extent to which the methodological approach of the study (interpretative phenomenological analysis) was successful in eliciting such descriptions. The findings reveal patient satisfaction as being a complex and fluid construct underpinned by a range of values, beliefs, attitudes and experiences. Individual participant descriptions of satisfaction emphasise the importance of 1) receiving a diagnosis treatment and cure, 2) minimum waiting time for appointments and treatment 3) the need to receive adequate information and explanations 4) receiving individualised personal care and 5) the need for participants to feel as though they were being taken seriously and 6) the importance of practitioner characteristics/good communication. Perhaps the most significant observation was the sequential nature of satisfaction, which was defined, redefined and re-evaluated by participants throughout the interview process. This study also identified a continuum of satisfaction across patients' definitions of being 'satisfied' as opposed to 'very satisfied' with healthcare. The method of data analysis (interpretative phenomenological analysis-IPA) was a useful approach to guide the analysis identifying and exploring themes relevant to eliciting the meaning of satisfaction. However, limitations to this methodology were apparent over the course of the study, and alternative methodology, contextualised interpretative phenomenological analysis has been postulated. It is suggested that the journey for a definitive notion of patient satisfaction, can only be meaningfully directed by accepting some form of refinement of phenomenological methods as a means of adding sophistication to existing quantitative studies.
Creating an Evidence-Based Framework for Selecting and Evaluating Mathematics Apps

Given that there are over 80,000 educational apps in the Apple store alone (Apple, 2017), teachers need clear guidance on choosing the most useful tools possible. The purpose of this paper is to provide an evidence-based framework for selecting and evaluating math apps used in elementary school settings. Based on a comprehensive review of the literature, five app types (instructive, practice-based, constructive, productive, game-based) will be discussed in detail. Next, eight characteristics (learning value, content quality, learning goals, usability, engagement, challenge level, feedback, and collaboration) for evaluating the quality of math apps will be described. Finally, the role of the teacher in integrating math apps into the classroom will be explained.
Dynamic simulation of electric machinery : using MATLAB/SIMULINK

1. Introduction. 2. Introduction to MATLAB/SIMULINK. 3. Basics on Magnetics and Line Modeling. 4. Transformers. 5. Basics of Electric Machines and Transformations. 6. Three-Phase Induction Machines. 7. Synchronous Machines. 8. DC Machines. 9. Control of Induction Machines. 10. Synchronous Machines in Power Systems and Drives. Appendix A: Numerical Methods. Appendix B: Website. Bibliography. Index.
Concepts from Pythagoras

The Pythagoras project aims to enable the explicit representation and manipulation of rights, roles and responsibilities by information users within an organization. In this document we develop an interrelated set of concepts concerning rights, roles and responsibilities. The purpose of these concepts is to act as a catalyst in the formation of a common and clear terminology, useful both between different people and between people and machines.
Puna-apilalajikkeiden kasviestrogeenit

Tiivistelmä Puna-apila on käytetyin ja Suomen olosuhteissa parhaiten menestyvä nurmipalkokasvi. Puna-apila sisältää kasviestrogeeneista isoflavoneja biokaniini A:ta, genisteiiniä, daidtseiiniä ja formononetiinia. Isoflavonit pystyvät sitoutumaan elimistön estrogeenireseptoreihin. Yhdisteiden sitoutumiskyky vaihtelee suuresti ja vaatii hyvin korkeita pitoisuuksia. Estrogeenisesti aktiivisin on formononetiinin ja daidtseiinin metaboliatuote ekuoli. Hyvin runsas kasviestrogeenien saanti voi alentaa lampaiden hedelmällisyyttä tai aiheuttaa muita lisääntymiseen liittyviä häiriöitä. Tapausselostuksia kasviestrogeenien aiheuttamista lisääntymishäiriöistä naudoilla löytyy hyvin vähän, vaikka isoflavoneiden metabolia on todennäköisesti hyvin samankaltainen lampailla ja naudoilla. Puna-apilan virallisesta lajikekokeesta kerättiin kasviestrogeeninäytteet MTT:n Ekologisen tuotannon Mikkelin toimipaikasta ja Pohjois-Pohjanmaan tutkimusasemalta Ruukista vuosina 2003 ja 2004. Näytteet otettiin ruuduittain viidestä puna-apilalajikkeesta (Betty, Bjursele, Borealin linja [Bor], Ilte ja Jokioinen). Kasviestrogeenit biokaniini A, genisteiini, daidtseiini ja formononetiini analysoitiin eläinlääketieteellisen tiedekunnan Kotieläinhygienian laboratoriossa nestekromatografimenetelmällä. Tutkituista puna-apilalajikkeista eniten kasviestrogeeneja sisälsi Ilte, 1,4 % kuiva-aineesta. Betty ja Jokioinen sisälsivät kasviestrogeeneja 1,2 % kuiva-aineesta sekä Bjursele ja Bor keskimäärin 1,1 % kuivaaineesta. Pääosa isoflavoneista oli formononetiinia. Ilten formononetiinipitoisuus oli lajikkeista suurin, 0,8 % kuiva-aineesta. Kasviestrogeenien pitoisuus Suomessa viljellyssä puna-apilassa on vaihdellut välillä 1 – 2,5 % kuiva-aineesta. Kasvukauden olosuhteilla oli selvä vaikutus kasviestrogeenien pitoisuuksiin. Vuonna 2004 pitoisuus oli 1,3 % kuiva-aineesta ja vuonna 2003 1,1 %. Formononetiinia muodostui kesän 2004 aikana enemmän kuin 2003. Kasvupaikka vaikutti jonkin verran pitoisuuksiin. Kasviestrogeeneja oli Ruukista kerätyissä näytteissä vähän enemmän kuin Mikkelistä kerätyissä näytteissä. Kesän eri niittojen pitoisuudet erosivat selvästi toisistaan. Ensimmäisessä niitossa heinäkuun alussa kasviestrogeenien kokonaismäärä oli 1,1 % kuiva-aineesta ja toisessa niitossa syyskuun alussa vastaavasti 1,3 %.
The involvement of donor specific CTL in cardiac transplant rejection: relevance of avidity

textabstractWhen a micro-organism penetrates the body, defensive mechanisms of the non-specific innate immune system come into play, such as soluble chemical factors (bactericidal lysozyme, acute phase proteins, interferons), extracellular killing (NK cells, eosinophils), and phagocytosis (macrophages, polymorphonuclear neutrophils). This innate immune system is supported by the specific acquired immune system which comprises of B- and Tlymphocytes. These lymphocytes are educated to distinguish between self (host) and non-self (foreign) molecules by means of specific receptors on their cell surface and are further endowed with specific memory. B lymphocytes, called so because they differentiate in the bone marrow, participate in the immune response by producing antibodies that fix to antigen by their specific recognition site. These antibodies can mediate different functions, including opsonization, complement activation, antibody-dependent cell mediated cytolysis and neutrophil, basophil, or eosinophil activation. T cells, designated thus because they differentiate in the thymus, control the activation of cells of the innate and acquired immune system by producing lymphokines and playa role in killing aberrant cells such as virally infected cells and some tumour cells. Although we generally benefit from the actions of the immune system, there is an other side of the coin. When a diseased organ is replaced by a healthy transplant of another individual (not being the recipients identical twin-brother or sister), the cells of this transplant are regarded as non-self by the immune system of the recipient. As a result, the recipient's immune system will bring all its power into play to get rid of this "intruder". To prevent allograft rejection, the immunity of the transplant recipient is reduced with immunosuppressive drugs which must be taken throughout the patient's life.
Design-time and Run-time Reconfigurable Clustered ?-VEX VLIW Softcore Processor

The ? -VEX processor is a parameterized reconfigurable Very Large Instruction Word (VLIW) softcore processor. It can be reconfigured in the issue-width, number and type of functional units (FUs), width of memory buses and number of registers in the multi- ported register file. The current design of the ? -VEX processor supports single cluster processor organization. The design also provides run-time dynamic reconfigurability between different processor architectures. As the issue-width of the processor increases, the number of read and write ports from the FUs to the register file increases which enlarges its area utilization. This increase in the number of read and write ports is not scalable with the interconnect wires available in the current IC technology. From literature, we know that clustering the FUs of the processor and splitting up the register file into a smaller subsets significantly reduces the area overhead and power consumption. In this thesis, we have developed all the necessary hardware and software components to enable the design-time and run-time reconfigurable ? -VEX processors to support clustered organization. Those development are the design and implementation of inter- cluster communication FUs, inter-cluster path and local register file per cluster and the adaptation of the compiler toolchain. As an inter-cluster communication model (ICC), copy operation and dedicated issue slot ICC model are implemented. The cycle count and total operations of different benchmark applications are measured and analyzed on the clustered organization of ? -VEX processors. The cycle count for most of the benchmarks is higher in clustered organization except for applications with high instruction level parallelism such as matrix and adpcm. A speedup of 3.04× is achieved by matrix benchmark. On the other hand, an increase in code size of the benchmark applications is measured for the clustered processor by a maximum of 38%. The area utilization of the 4-issue and 8-issue design-time reconfigurable ? -VEX processors are significantly reduced by up to 74% by clustering them into two clusters. In addition, a speedup of 1.55× is obtained on the clock frequency of the processor. Similarly, the run-time reconfigurable clustered ? -VEX processor occupies 61.3% less area, consumes up to 41.6% less dynamic power than the single clustered processor and has a reduced energy delay product (EDP).
Koblinger mellem økonomi og uddannelse

Public administration of education systems after World War Two has been characterized by the increasing involvement of various forms of evaluation and performance measurement. By taking up such a central role, the various forms have had considerable impact on school pedagogy. At the same time, education systems have more and more come to be seen as levers for economic growth and prosperity, which in turn has strengthened and expanded these practices of evaluation and performance measurement. We argue that post-war educational accountability practices have taken on a new character where quantification, in light of economic concerns, gradually have taken pride of place. Paradoxically, the emerging welfare states have been committed to democratic ideals about inclusion and equal access to education. Such ideals are naturally followed by questions about social differentiation; and in that sense, they question whether an economistic approach to education in fact challenges the democratic values and processes expressed in the very purpose of education. Using Denmark as an example, the article explores these processes and questions by looking at the development and historical roots of the Danish public-school system.
Routing and Packet Forwarding

The history of the internet and Peer-to-Peer networks starts in the 60s with the ARPANET (Advanced Research Project Agency Network). Back then, when computers were expensive and linked to several terminals, the aim of ARPANET was to establish a continuous network inbetween mainframe computers in the U.S. Starting with only three computers in 1969, mainly universities were involved in establishing the ARPANET. The ARPANET became a network inbetween networks of mainframe computes and therefore was called inter-net. Today it became the internet which links millions of computers. For a long time nobody knew what use such a Wide Area Netwok (WAN) could have for the population. The internet was used for e-mails, newsgroups, exchange of scientific data and some special software, all in all services that were barely known in public. The spread of
Topologically-based animation for describing geological evolution

This paper presents a topologically-based animation system which aims at representing the topological evolution of structured objects over time. Its robustness and versatility both relie on the n-dimensional generalised map formalism. The animation is modelled as a series of maps ordered in time and represents each topological modification of the structure. We define several dedicated topological operations, which are translated into a script defining the animation. We finally show the usefulness of the approach by means of a specific application in geology, namely representation of a subsoil evolution in 2D.
Prevention of Recurrent Laryngeal Nerve Injury in ThyroidSurgery: Are Neuromonitoring Techniques Needed?

Background: Identification of the recurrent laryngeal nerve is the most essential in thyroid surgery. Positive identification of the nerve is essential for preservation of nerve integrity and function. Some authors recommend using of nerve monitoring techniques. Methods: 359 thyroid surgeries with obligatory exposure of the RLN were reviewed. Meticulous dissection and exploration of the nerve was the main technique in our study. Results: The nerve was identified in 97% of cases, Temporary RLN palsy was found in 6 patients and permanent palsy was found in 1 case. No neuromonitoring techniques were used. Discussion: Our results and the literature review showed that the nerve can be clearly identified and protected in thyroid surgery without using any neuromonitoring techniques. In cases without identification, capsular dissection is the safest way to protect the nerve. Neuromonitoring techniques are time consuming, have never been a substitute to meticulous dissection and were never with better results than conventional meticulous dissection.
Neutral to Emotional Speech Conversion by Pitch Contour Modification for Marathi

In this paper, we have used pitch contour models for modifying prosody of the neutral speech, generated from a TextTo-Speech synthesis system for Marathi. A pitch target model is applied to model and modify the prosody of the Marathi words in the form of interrogate. The proposed approach starts with the existing pitch contour of words that are needed to be stressed while adding expressivity into it. The proposed algorithms initiate with an existing approach of Gaussian Normalization for pitch mapping. Later, scatter plot pitch modeling and nth order polynomials are used to model and modify the prosody. Results of the subjective experiments show the effectiveness of the system. Keywords— Text-to-speech, Expressive Speech Synthesis, Prosody
AN E-COLLABORATION TUTORIAL FOR SHARING DIGITAL WORK WITH GEOGRAPHICALLY DISPERSED COLLABORATORSDIGITAL WORK WITH GEOGRAPHICALLY AN E-COLLABORATION TUTORIAL FOR SHARING DIGIAL WORK WITH GEOGRAPHICALLY DISPERSED COLLABORATORS

Recent statistics show that the number of online courses and degree programs have significantly grown over the last decade. In addition, online collaboration and teamwork in organizations has increased. As a result, numerous conferencing and collaboration tools have been developed to facilitate these activities. In this hands-on tutorial we will demonstrate the use and applications of Marratech desktop videoconferencing, Blackboard course Management System, and Elluminate Live with an emphasis of connecting dispersed collaborators. Time permitting, we will also cover innovative applications of Google Documents and Yahoo! Groups file repository features and the use of podcasting.
Learning Analytics for Online Discussions: Embedded and Extracted Approaches

This paper describes an application of learning analytics that builds on an existing research program investigating how students contribute and attend to the messages of others in asynchronous online discussions. We first overview the E-Listening research program and then explain how this work was translated into analytics that students and instructors could use to reflect on their discussion participation. Two kinds of analytics were designed: some e mbedded in the learning environment to provide students with real-time information on their activity in-progress; and some extracted from the learning environment and presented to students in a separate digital space for reflection. In addition, we describe the design of an intervention though which use of the analytics can be introduced as an integral course activity. Findings from an initial implementation of the application indicated that the learning analytics intervention supported changes in students’ discussion participation. Five issues for future work on learning analytics in online discussions are presented. One, unintentional versus purposeful change; two, differing changes prompted by the same analytic; three, importance of theoretical buy-in and calculation transparency for perceived analytic value; four, affective components of students’ reactions; and five, support for students in the process of enacting analytics-driven changes.