Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Kinect Project: Group motion-based gaming for people living with dementia

Engaging in enjoyable activities is an essential part of well-being, but people with dementia can find participation increasingly difficult. Motion-based technologies can provide meaningful engagement in a wide range of activities, but for people with dementia to take advantage of these devices requires a good understanding of how best to select and present these activities to this population. The objective of this study was to explore the use of motion-based technology (Xbox Kinect) as a group activity for people with dementia who attend adult day programmes. This qualitative study took place in an adult day programme for older adults with age-related challenges. Participants (n = 23) were observed while playing a digital bowling game presented on Xbox Kinect one hour per week for a period of 20 weeks, to capture naturalistic data. Field notes generated through observations were transcribed and analysed to identify emerging themes. The findings revealed three predominant themes which illustrate the potential of motion-based technology as a group activity for people with dementia who attend adult day programmes: (a) the importance of having a trained trainer, (b) learning versus mastery and (c) playing ‘independently together’. People with dementia can learn to play games presented on motion-based technology and enjoy doing so. Furthermore, using the technology in a group setting fostered an encouraging and supportive environment which further contributed to the leisure experience. However, to be used most effectively, staff must be trained to set-up and interact with the technology, as well as introduce, teach and support people with dementia to use it.
Reducing the drive signal bandwidths of EER microwave power amplifiers

High efficiency and linearity can be achieved using Kahn's envelope elimination and restoration (EER) technique. However, when used with modulation schemes such as CDMA and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), the resulting polar drive signals suffers from expanded bandwidth. Rudolph has shown that the bandwidth of the polar drive signals can be reduced by hole punching (limiting the minimum envelop of the modulated signal). This paper quantifies the error vector magnitude (EVM) caused by the ensuing distortion and compares the performance to a distortionless method based on the well known partial transmit sequence (PTS) method for OFDM. Although the hole punch process performs better than the PTS approach in terms of spectrum improvement, its EVM will limit the data throughput of the transmission.
COGNITIVE-BEHAVIOUR THERAPY FOR CHRONIC PAIN : CURRENT STATUS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS

Cognitive-behaviour therapies have been demonstrated effective in reducing psychological distress, physical disability, and pain in individuals with a variety of pain problems. Behaviour therapies, which began to be developed in the 1950s, are based on the assumption that maladaptive behaviours are learned and therefore can be modified through new learning experiences. Behaviour therapies aim to modify behaviours directly through the application of techniques based on learning theory principles. It involves identifying specific maladaptive behaviours and the factors maintaining them, and setting and working towards specific treatment goals. Fordyce (1976) described the application of behaviour therapy techniques to patients with chronic pain, and this approach has since been widely applied to the treatment of patients in multidisciplinary pain management programmes.
Real-Valued Compact Genetic Algorithms for Embedded Microcontroller Optimization

Recent research on compact genetic algorithms (cGAs) has proposed a number of evolutionary search methods with reduced memory requirements. In cGAs, the evolution of populations is emulated by processing a probability vector with specific update rules. This paper considers the implementation of cGAs in microcontroller-based control platforms. In particular, to overcome some problems related to the binary encoding schemes adopted in most cGAs, this paper also proposes a new variant based on a real-valued solution coding. The presented variant achieves final solutions of the same quality as those found by binary cGAs, with a significantly reduced computational cost. The potential of the proposed approach is assessed by means of an extensive comparative study, which includes numerical results on benchmark functions, simulated and experimental microcontroller design problems.
Acyclovir‐resistant chronic cutaneous herpes simplex in Wiskott‐Aldrich syndrome

A 28‐year‐old man with Wiskott—Aldrich syndrome presonied with ulcerative‐proliferative lesions on his face from which herpes simplex type 1 (HSV‐1) was isolated. He was initially treated with 10 mg/kg of acyclovir (Zovirax®) intravenously every 8h, but his skin lesions worsened. Clinical resistance to acyclovir was suspected, and therapy with this drug was intensified. The dosage of acyclovir was increased to 45 mg/kg, administered by continuous infusion, and the lesions subsequently resolved. The strain of HSV recovered from the patient showed acyclovir‐resistance in vitro, using the colorimetric method with neutral red.
Relative and Absolute Risks of Cigarette Smoking on Major Histologic Types of Lung Cancer in Korean Men

Objectives: Most prospective cohort studies of lung cancer focus on the relative risk rather than the absolute risk of smoking. Methods: This prospective study included 437,976 Korean men (cohort for the National Health Insurance Cooperation Study), ≥40 years old, who were free of cancer and smoking-related chronic disease at the time of enrollment. Based on new incidence cases, relative risk and excess risk, and their 95% confidence intervals (95% CI), were estimated with the standard Poisson regression model after adjustment for age or other demographic factors and other confounders. Results: During the 6-year follow-up period of 3,142,451 person-years, 1,357 new lung cancer cases were identified. Based on the multivariate-adjusted relative risk for current smokers, the strongest association with smoking was shown for small-cell lung cancer (relative risk, 21.7; 95% CI, 8.0-58.5) followed by squamous cell carcinoma (relative risk, 11.7; 95% CI, 7.1-19.4) and then adenocarcinoma (relative risk, 2.1; 95% CI, 1.6-2.7). In current smokers with ≥40 pack-years of exposure, excess risk was highest for squamous cell carcinoma (excess risk, 33.8; 95% CI, 10.2-109.8) followed by adenocarcinoma (excess risk, 26.7; 95% CI, 10.3-64.4), and then small-cell carcinoma (excess risk, 16.3; 95% CI, 1.8-144.3). Conclusions: In Korean men, cigarette smoking was as important a risk factor for adenocarcinoma as it was for squamous cell and small-cell lung cancer.
Unraveling the mechanism of action of thiazolidinediones.

Thiazolidinediones (TZDs) are a new class of antidiabetic agents and include three compounds that have come to clinical use — troglitazone (Rezulin®), rosiglitazone (Avandia®), and pioglitazone (Actos®) — as well as several others that have been limited to pre-clinical study. TZDs were initially discovered by screening compounds for a hypoglycemic action in the ob/ob mouse (1), and subsequently they were shown to improve insulin action in a variety of obese and diabetic animal models with insulin resistance (2). In these model systems, TZDs reduce plasma glucose and insulin levels and improve some of the abnormalities of lipid metabolism. Consistent with animal studies, clinical studies have shown that treatment of type 2 diabetic patients with TZDs can lower serum glucose and insulin levels, increase peripheral glucose uptake, and decrease triglyceride levels (3). In euglycemic clamp studies, this is associated with an increase in insulin sensitivity in peripheral tissues (mainly represented by muscle in clamp studies), with relatively little effect on hepatic glucose output (4).
Assesing the distribution of household financial contributions to the health system: Concepts and empirical application

In the past decade, there has been considerable interest in analysing and understanding the distribution of health system contributions across households (1–11). The fairness in financial contribution measure presented in The World Health Report 2000 (12) contributed to this heightened attention towards health system financing arrangements (9;13–19). Protecting households from excessively large or catastrophic health payments has also played a prominent role recently in national policy debates in a number of countries (20–23). The analysis of the consequences of household health system contributions can be divided into two broad approaches: the income approach and the burden approach. The former examines the effect of health system payments in the space of income. The key concern is the marginal effect of health systems financing arrangements on the broader construct of total household income. The effects in the space of income have been measured in terms of changes in its distribution (5–7;18) and more recently on changes in levels of poverty (10). The latter examines health system payments in terms of the impact or disutility experienced by households because of these payments. The WHO measures of the fairness in financial contribution (2;11) and studies of catastrophic health payments (24) are examples of the burden approach. To further clarify the conceptual distinction between the income and the burden approaches, Table 38.1 summarizes the main approaches and types of measurements that are possible. The effects of health system payments on households in the space of income can be assessed in terms of changes in the full distribution of income, most commonly reported using the redistributive effect (RE), or in terms of differences in the number of households falling below the poverty line (DH) before and after health system payments. In the burden space, the complete distribution of disutility or impact of financial payment on households requires a distributional measure analogous to the ones used in the income space; the WHO fairness in financial contribution index (FFC) was developed for this purpose. The fraction of households facing a burden above a fixed threshold (%CAT), considered to involve catastrophic payments, is analogous to the DH in the income space and focuses attention on one tail of the distribution of household financial burden. The purpose of this chapter is to use household survey data from 59 countries to illustrate the two different approaches to analysing the consequences
Efficacy of UK-109496, a new azole antifungal agent, in an experimental model of invasive aspergillosis

The efficacy of UK-109496, a new azole antifungal agent, was evaluated in an immunosuppressed, temporarily leukopenic rabbit model of invasive aspergillosis. Oral therapy with UK-109496 at a dosage of 10 or 15 mg/kg of body weight every 8 h was begun 24 h after a lethal or sublethal challenge, and results were compared with those for amphotericin B therapy and untreated controls. UK-109496 eliminated mortality and also reduced the tissue burden of Aspergillus fumigatus 10- to 100-fold in liver and kidney tissues and to a lesser degree in lung tissue, and at the higher dose, no viable organisms were recovered from brain tissue from these animals. Both dosages of UK-109496 decreased or eliminated circulating antigen. The half-life of UK-109496 in rabbits was 2.5 to 3 h, and no accumulation of drug was seen even after 15 doses in either uninfected or infected animals. Thus, UK-109496 shows activity in this rabbit model of invasive aspergillosis. Additional studies are needed to determine the potential of the drug for use in the treatment of this infection.
Combined use of intracervical foley catheter and vaginal misoprostol for termination of second trimester pregnancy: a three-year observational study

Objectives: To assess the effectiveness, safety and acceptability of intracervical foley catheter and vaginal misoprostol versus vaginal misoprostol for termination of second trimester pregnancy. Methods: This clinical study was conducted on 200 pregnant patients intended for termination of pregnancy between 13-24 gestational weeks for any indication. Enrolled women were equally allocated into two groups: Group I (Misoprostol group): a standard regimen of moistened misoprostol tablets (400 μg) 4 hourly inserted vaginally. Group II (Combined group): intracervical Foley catheter inserted with a standard regimen of moistened misoprostol tablets (400 μg) 4 hourly intravaginally was used. Procedure efficacy (defined as complete abortion performed on site), safety and acceptability were assessed. Results: The induction to abortion interval was 8.16 ± 1.52 hours in the combined group compared to 12.76 ± 1.63 hours in the misoprostol group (P value<0.001) with success rate of 96% in the combined group and no major complications reported. Conclusions: Combined use of intracervical foley catheter and vaginal misoprostol is a novel safe, effective and acceptable method for termination of second trimester pregnancy. Correspondence to: Mohamed Rezk, MD, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Faculty of Medicine, Menoufia University, Menoufia, Egypt, Tel: 00201006237186, E-mail : m_rezk9207@yahoo.com; Mohamed.abdallah1975@yahoo.com
Single-Structure Micromachined Three-Axis Gyroscope With Reduced Drive-Force Coupling

This letter presents a micromachined silicon three-axis gyroscope based on a triple tuning-fork structure utilizing a single vibrating element. The mechanical approach proposed in this letter uses a secondary “auxiliary” mass rather than a major “proof” mass to induce motion in the proof mass frame for Coriolis force coupling to the sense mode. These auxiliary masses reduce the unwanted mechanical coupling of force and motion from the drive mode to the three sense modes. The experimental data show that the bias error due to coupling is reduced by a factor up to 10, and the bias instability of each sense axis is reduced by a factor of up to 3 when the gyroscope is actuated using the auxiliary masses rather than the major masses. The gyroscope exhibits a bias instability of 0.016°/s, 0.004°/s, and 0.043°/s for the x-, y-, and z-sense modes, respectively. Furthermore, initial temperature characterization results show that the gyroscope actuated by the auxiliary masses ensures a better bias instability performance in each sense axis over a temperature range from 10 °C to 50 °C in comparison with the gyroscope actuated by the major masses.
Multi-Agent Task Assignment for Mobile Crowdsourcing under Trajectory Uncertainties

In this work, we investigate the problem of mobile crowdsourcing, where workers are financially motivated to perform location-based tasks physically. Unlike current industry practice that relies on workers to manually browse and filter tasks to perform, we intend to automatically make task recommendations based on workers' historical trajectories and desired time budgets. However, predicting workers' trajectories is inevitably faced with uncertainties, as no one will take exactly the same route every day; yet such uncertainties are oftentimes abstracted away in the known literature. In this work, we depart from the deterministic modeling and study the stochastic task recommendation problem where each worker is associated with several predicted routine routes with probabilities. We formulate this problem as a stochastic integer linear program whose goal is to maximize the expected total utility achieved by all workers. We further exploit the separable structure of the formulation and apply the Lagrangian relaxation technique to scale up the solution approach. Experiments have been performed over the instances generated using the real Singapore transportation network. The results show that we can find significantly better solutions than the deterministic formulation.
Cardiorespiratory fitness relates more strongly than physical activity to cardiovascular disease risk factors in healthy children and adolescents: the European Youth Heart Study

Background Physical activity and cardiorespiratory fitness are closely related to health variables in adults, especially those considered to be among risk factors for cardiovascular diseases. The possible tracking of cardiovascular disease risk factors from childhood to adulthood makes it important to increase our understanding of the complex relationships between physical activity, cardiorespiratory fitness and cardiovascular risk factors early in life. Design A cross-sectional, school-based study on healthy children and adolescents, aged 9-10 years (295 girls, 295 boys) and 15-16 years (302 girls, 233 boys) was performed during a school year in Sweden and Estonia, as part of the European Youth Heart Study. Methods Total physical activity, and minutes spent in inactivity and activity of moderate or higher intensity were measured by accelerometry. A maximal ergometer bike test was used for estimation of cardiorespiratory fitness. The risk factors included blood pressure and fasting blood levels of insulin, glucose, triglycerides, total cholesterol and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol. Results Canonical correlations between physical activity and cardiorespiratory fitness versus cardiovascular disease risk factors showed significant associations in both age and sex groups (r c=0.46-0.61, P < 0.0001). The cardiorespiratory fitness was found to be the strongest contributor to these relationships. In girls high values of the physical activity variables were also associated with a favourable cardiovascular profile. Conclusions Cardiorespiratory fitness relates more strongly to cardiovascular risk factors than components of objectively measured physical activity in children and adolescents. Physical activity becomes more important in the 15-year-old adolescents, indicating that these modifiable lifestyle factors increase in importance with age.
Improving Performance by a Dynamic Adaptive Success-Collision Backoff Algorithm for Contention-Based Vehicular Network

The distributed coordination function (DCF) is the core of the IEEE 802.11 standard and is applied routinely to contention-based vehicular networks. Many existing backoff algorithms based on DCF are applied to develop the performance of wireless networks and most of them work in saturated traffic load conditions, which are unlikely to be valid in practical wireless network. The study of the backoff algorithm under unsaturated traffic load conditions is still an open issue. In this paper, a dynamic adaptive success-collision (DASC) backoff algorithm is proposed to improve the performance of contention-based vehicular network. As we know that the probability of collision reflects system performance, and the probability of collision is restricted by the variation of contention window (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$CW$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) size and it depends on the traffic loads. A threshold is defined to judge the low or high traffic loads. In addition, the DASC backoff algorithm takes proactive measures to optimize throughput and delay through decreasing <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$CW$ </tex-math></inline-formula> after “<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$S$ </tex-math></inline-formula>” times consecutive successful transmissions and increasing <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$CW$ </tex-math></inline-formula> after “<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$C$ </tex-math></inline-formula>” times consecutive collisions. The simulation results indicate that the proposed DASC backoff algorithm provides better performance in terms of throughput and delay than dynamic control backoff time algorithm, exponential linear backoff algorithm, and binary exponential backoff algorithm.
Mometasone furoate nasal spray for the treatment of asthma

ABSTRACT Introduction: Asthma is a common respiratory disease characterized by airway inflammation, bronchoconstriction and airway hyperresponsiveness and symptoms such as coughing, wheezing, shortness of breath and chest tightness. Allergic rhinitis is a common comorbidity in asthma and glucocorticoids are the key stone in the treatment of both diseases. Mometasone furoate is a potent synthetic steroid with a very high receptor affinity and a low bioavailability and shown to be superior compared to other inhaled corticosteroids. It is not clear whether the use of mometasone furoate nasal spray (MFNS) is associated with an improvement in asthma control. Areas covered: This current paper reviews the current knowledge on the effect of mometasone furoate nasal spray in the treatment of asthma and includes clinical trials in which both subjective and objective outcomes are assessed. Expert opinion: To date, only few clinical studies have investigated the effect of nasal steroids in the treatment of asthma. The studies investigating the effect of MFNS report contradicting results, although the most well-designed study to answer this question finds no improvement in asthma control. Thus, it seems unlikely that asthma guidelines will be influenced by the current knowledge on the effect of MFNS in the treatment of asthma.
Role of Pili in the Virulence of Neisseria gonorrhoeae

Gonococci of the colonial types that are associated with virulence, types 1 and 2, have pili that enable the bacteria both to attach in vitro to human epithelial cells and to resist phagocytosis by polymorphonuclear leukocytes. These piliated gonococci also agglutinate various mammalian and chicken erythrocytes. Gonococci of an avirulent colonial type, i.e., type 4, have no pili and neither attach to epithelial cells or erythrocytes nor resist phagocytosis. Like the type 4 bacteria, mechanically or enzymatically (trypsin) depiliated type 1 gonococci failed to attach to epithelial cells and erythrocytes and were susceptible to phagocytosis. Pili of types 1 and 2 gonococci were antigenically similar. Both type 1 gonococci and pili isolated from them induced in rabbits antibody that (i) precipitated gonococcal pili in immunodiffusion, (ii) reacted with piliated gonococci as tested by indirect immunofluorescent analysis, (iii) inhibited attachment of piliated gonococci to both human epithelial cells and erythrocytes, and (iv) opsonized piliated gonococci.
Análise em componentes principais das condições atmosféricas em episódios de rajadas de vento na região metropolitana de Salvador.

O foco deste trabalho sao as rajadas de vento registradas no Aeroporto Internacional de Salvador no periodo 2003-2011. Variaveis meteorologicas observadas a superficie na area do aeroporto, imagens de satelites meteorologicos e dados em pontos de grade sao utilizados para analisar a variabilidade interanual, sazonal e horaria das rajadas, identificar escalas e fatores fisicos envolvidos atraves da analise em componentes principais, e diagnosticar as condicoes sinoticas de dois episodios selecionados. Foram contabilizadas 63 rajadas de vento, sendo 51% em 2003 e 2007. Ventos do setor sul sao os mais frequentes e a frequencia horaria e minima entre meia noite e 7 horas da manha. Nos meses de maio de 2007 e 2009 o numero de rajadas e maximo. Os fatores retidos na analise em componentes principais indicam a contribuicao das escalas de tempo sinotica e diaria nesses meses. O mes de maio de 2007 tem cinco registros de rajadas de vento, nos dias 10 e 11. Dentre elas esta a mais intensa do periodo 2003-2011 (68,5 km/h). No mes de maio de 2009 tambem ha cinco registros, todos no dia 22. A analise sinotica desses dias de rajadas evidencia o papel desempenhado por: (a) um sistema frontal austral no primeiro episodio (10-11 de maio de 2007), e (b) um cavado na area dos ventos alisios, no leste do Nordeste do Brasil, no segundo episodio (22 de maio de 2009). A excecao de uma, todas as rajadas de vento ocorreram na presenca de nuvens de conveccao profunda (cumulus congestus). A Coordenadoria da Defesa Civil de Salvador (CODESAL) registrou atendimentos nos dias das rajadas de vento associando a ocorrencia dos desastres a fatores meteorologicos como ventos fortes.