Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
"Usage-centered software engineering: new models, methods, and metrics"

For software engineering to fully meet the contemporary challenge of timely delivery of quality software solutions to real-world problems, it must be capable of engineering software for use. Usability is an important factor often neglected in software engineering. Improvements both in the education of new software engineers and the effectiveness of practicing engineers hinges on providing a better foundation to support engineering software for use. The conceptual basis of a usage-centered approach to software engineering is outlined, covering the core areas of modeling, methodology, and metrics. The role of essential models and design metrics in helping practicing software and applications developers learn how to design more usable systems is examined. By focusing on usage and the purposes of use, developers can better understand the real work of end users and design simpler systems that more fully support that work.
Las Competencias Gerenciales Desde Una Visión Estratégica de las Organizaciones: Un Procedimiento Para Su Identificación y Evaluación del Desempeño (Managerial Skills from a Strategic Viewpoint: A Procedure for Their Identification and Performance Assessment)

Spanish Abstract: A pesar de la gran difusion de las publicaciones sobre la gestion de competencias, desde diferentes enfoques y con diversos fines, quedan vacios tanto en la reflexion teorica como en la instrumentacion practica, que han dificultado su difusion en la vision estrategica de las organizaciones. Por ello el objetivo del trabajo es exponer las experiencias obtenidas en el proceso de identificacion y evaluacion de competencias gerenciales como una via de mejorar el desempeno personal y organizacional. La metodologia contemplo el analisis documental, el trabajo con academicos y empresarios con focus group, entrevistas y aplicacion de cuestionarios, procesadas mediante las tecnicas de la logica difusa compensatoria dada la complejidad del fenomeno. Sus resultados fueron la construccion de un arbol jerarquico de las competencias gerenciales, desde la perspectiva academica y profesional, con dos niveles: competencias de mayor y menor complejidad. La validacion de las competencias gerenciales identificadas se realizo a traves de la practica de la evaluacion del desempeno de una muestra de directivos con la tecnica 360 grados. En conclusion el procedimiento disenado tiene su aplicacion tanto en el ambito empresarial como para el rediseno curricular de la formacion de directivos basada en competencias.English Abstract: This study presents a model for identifying and assessing managerial skills as a way to improve both personal and organizational performance. Given the complex nature of the phenomenon, our method embraces the analysis of documents, applies focus group to academicians and entrepreneurs, and draws from interviews and questionnaires. The data is processed through diffuse compensatory logic. As a result we obtained a hierarchical tree of managerial skills from both professional and academic perspectives. The tree has two levels: higher and lesser complexity skills. The validation was performed using a 360 degrees technique. The proposed procedure or model has applications both for firms and for syllabus design for management courses.
Qualidade de vida em mulheres mastectomizadas: as marcas de uma nova identidade impressa no corpo

Experiencing a mastectomy is reconstructing an identity. Investigate the quality of life in women who had mastectomies without reconstruction of the breast is the aim of this work. Thus, we evaluated 30 women undergoing treatment at the outpatient chemotherapy, Santa Casa de Misericordia of Maceió (SCMM), aged between 30 and 68 years, using the following instruments: Interview Semi-directed; Social Readjustment Rating Scale, Anxiety Scale Depression (HADS) and Quality of Life Questionnaire SF-36. It was found that age, marital status, education, socioeconomic status, presence of depression and anxiety and the likelihood of illness showed a significant relevance with the index of quality of life below average (48.14) presented by the group studied. It was possible to conclude that the HADS can be used to indicate issues related to quality of life in this population, which may replace the SF-36 for brief results, as it demonstrated coincident effects in hospital practice.
A eficácia da reabilitação em disfagia orofaríngea

BACKGROUND: efficacy of rehabilitation in oropharyngeal dysphagia. In our country the practice of speech-language pathology in oropharyngeal dysphagia has increased significantly and, at this moment, deserves attention since practice needs to be based on scientific evidence. Therapeutic techniques and the outcome of rehabilitation in oropharyngeal dysphagia have been studied since the 70s, reaching its high point during the 80s and 90s. Few studies have investigated the efficacy of therapy in the rehabilitation of oropharyngeal dysphagia, the vast majority have tried to prove the effects of therapy on the dynamics of swallowing. In Brazil, the studies about oropharyngeal dysphagia have, in great part, investigated assessment procedures, and only a few have worried about rehabilitation. AIM: to present a critical analysis about the efficacy of rehabilitation in oropharyngeal dysphagia. CONCLUSION: this review of the literature indicates that non-randomized studies have compromised the results, once the casuistic of the researches are very heterogeneous - they include neurogenic and mechanical oropharyngeal dyshagia caused by different etiologies. Besides that, therapeutic programs which are used are not sufficiently described, compromising the reproduction of the methodology by other researchers. These results suggest the need for more randomized studies, which can be initially developed as case studies in order to exclude the control variables of therapy efficacy. Another suggestion is, as proposed by present researches, to use scales that can measure the impact of swallowing training in the nutritional and pulmonary condition of dysphagic patients. An important research area, related to the control of therapeutic efficacy and efficiency, are the studies that aim to establish the decrease in hospital and home care costs as a consequence of speech-language intervention with patients with oropharyngeal dyspahgia.
Schrödinger's Cybersecurity

Both law and cybersecurity prize accuracy. Cyberattacks, such as Stuxnet, demonstrate the risks of inaccurate data. An attack can trick computer programs into making changes to information that are technically authorized but incorrect. While computer science treats accuracy as an inherent quality of data, law recognizes that accuracy is fundamentally a socially constructed attribute. This Article argues that law has much to teach cybersecurity about accuracy. In particular, law’s procedural mechanisms and contextual analysis can define concepts such as authorization and correctness that are exogenous to code. The Article assesses why accuracy matters, and explores methods law and cybersecurity deploy to attain it. It argues both law and cybersecurity have but two paths to determining accuracy: hierarchy, and consensus. Then, it defends the controversial proposition that accuracy is constructed through social processes, rather than emerging from information itself. Finally, it offers a proposal styled on the common law to evaluate when accuracy matters, and suggests that regulation should bolster technological mechanisms through a combination of mandates and funding. Like the cat of Schrodinger’s famous thought experiment, information is neither accurate nor inaccurate until observed in social context.
ASSESSMENT OF THE TREATMENT EFFICACY OF LOCKING COMPRESSION PLATES IN HUMERUS SHAFT FRACTURES

Introduction : In this study, we evaluated the efficacy of osteosynthesis by using locking plate in the treatment of humerus shaft fractures. Material and Methods : The mean age of 30 patients (19 male, 11 female) operated for humerus shaft fractures was 36.2 (23-66) years. A 3.5 locking compression plate was applied to all patients. We found radial nerve damage in 4 patients preoperatively. These lesions were considered neuropraxia and a dynamic splint was applied in order to keep wrist and fingers in extension after operation. Functional evaluation based on Stewart-Hundley criteria. The mean follow up period was 32 months (12-60 months). Results : Except 1 patient, all patients showed radiological healing in 14 weeks on average (10 week-24 week). Two patients showed union retardation, and the mean union time of these patients was 21 weeks. These were class C1 fractures with larger soft tissue damage and multifragments. One patient developed pseudoarthrosis. Besides primary surgery, this patient underwent a pseudoarthrosis surgery with plate-screw and iliac grafting. Radiological union was achieved at the 18th week. Four patients with preoperative radial nerve damage underwent early radial nerve exploration and plate-screw fixation. Then, dynamic wrist splint was applied. All of them healed in 4 months. Based on Stewart-Hundley criteria, the result was good in 27 (90%) cases, moderate in 2 (6.6%) patients, and bad in 1 (3.3%) patient. Radial nerve damage due to surgery occurred in 1 patient who achieved full recovery 3 months after surgery. A superficial skin infection was developed in 1 patient and it was managed with oral antibiotic therapy. None of the patients developed deep soft tissue infection which requires removal of the implant. Conclusion : In the treatment of humerus shaft fractures, osteosynthesis with locking plate may result in satisfactory radiologic and functional outcomes providing sufficient fixation and early mobilization when used with correct technique in adequate patient.
Canola oil intake, oxidative status and lifespan in SHRSP rats

The results from the thesis confirm that canola oil ingestion shortens the lifespan of stroke prone rats. This life shortening effect associated with canola oil may be due to negative changes in the level of free radicals, antioxidants and blood fats. The situation is even worse when canola oil and salt are combined in the diet as blood vessel function is impaired.
Bi-dimensional Signal Compression Based on Linear Prediction Coding

The big data phenomenon has gained much attention in the wireless communications field. Addressing big data is a challenging and time-demanding task that requires a large computational infrastructure to ensure successful data processing and analysis. In such a context, data compression helps to reduce the amount of data required to represent redundant information while reliably preserving the original content as much as possible. We here consider Compressed Sensing (CS) theory for extracting critical information and representing it with substantially reduced measurements of the original data. For CS application, it is, however, required to design a convenient sparsifying basis or transform. In this work, a large amount of bi-dimensional (2D) correlated signals are considered for compression. The envisaged application is that of data collection in large scale Wireless Sensor Networks. We show that, using CS, it is possible to recover a large amount of data from the collection of a reduced number of sensors readings. In this way, CS use makes it possible to recover large data sets with acceptable accuracy as well as reduced global scale cost. For sparsifying basis search, in addition to conventional sparsity-inducing methods, we propose a new transformation based on Linear Prediction Coding (LPC) that effectively exploits correlation between neighboring data. The steps of data aggregation using CS include sparse compression basis design and then decomposition matrix construction and recovery algorithm application. Comparisons to the case of one-dimensional (1D) reading and to conventional 2D compression methods show the benefit from the better exploitation of the correlation by herein envisaged 2D processing. Simulation results on both synthetic and real WSN data demonstrate that the proposed LPC approach with 2D scenario realizes significant reconstruction performance enhancement compared to former conventional transformations.
Risk Factors among Participants in a Community Health Worker Led Infant Mortality Prevention Home-visiting Program

Background: Complex behavioral, environmental, and medical risks need to be managed to reduce the risk of infant mortality. The Ohio infant mortality reduction initiative (OIMRI) program is attempting to reduce infant mortality by providing prenatal home visits to mothers at high risk for poor birth outcomes. Objective: The purpose of this study was to compare the risk factors assessed by community health workers (CHWs) to those in birth records and Medicaid data to evaluate the risk factors for infant mortality among high-risk Black mothers enrolled in the OIMRI program. Methods: OIMRI program data collected by CHWs were matched to birth records and Medicaid data for 2,812 participants between 2010 and 2015. Proportion tests, Chi-square tests, and confidence intervals were calculated to compare risk factors between time periods, datasets, and program participants and Black mothers in Ohio. Results: The most common risk factors included unwanted pregnancy, homelessness or poor living conditions, or other (including low income, low support, or stress). Mothers in OIMRI reported smoking, anemia, and no prenatal care in the first 3 months to CHWs at statistically significantly lower rates than were reported in birth record or Medicaid data. Compared to all Black mothers in Ohio, OIMRI participants were significantly more likely to smoke before and during pregnancy, use alcohol or drugs, be enrolled in women, infants, and children, or have a diagnosis or receive services for mental health disorders. Conclusion: Participants in OIMRI had multiple risk factors for infant mortality; it is important that infant mortality prevention efforts similar to OIMRI intervene on high-risk women to efficiently focus their efforts.
Performance Analysis of Improved Glowworm Swarm Optimization Algorithm and the Application in Coverage Optimization of WSNs

The performance of improved glowworm swarm optimization (GSO) algorithm and its application in coverage optimization of WSNs are analyzed in this paper. The global convergence analysis of basic GSO is made. In order to improve the GSO convergence efficiency, an improved GSO (IGSO) is presented, and it is proved to be guaranteed to the global optimization with probability one. Further, a new coverage optimization algorithm for WSNS, based on IGSO, is presented according to the analysis of GSO. A model of coverage optimization in WSNS is built up by taking node uniformity and network coverage rate as the criterion, and the relationship between node redundancy and network coverage rate and the node dormancy strategy are presented. Then the deployment of nodes is divided into different stages, and the IGSO is used to solve the model in each stage. Through testing classical test functions and optimizing the problems of coverage in WSNS, the simulation results show that the IGSO achieves more reasonable results and can effectively provide the optimal solution of network coverage. Copyright © 2014 IFSA Publishing, S. L.
Attitudes towards prenatal diagnosis and termination in women who have a sibling with Down's syndrome

This study surveyed the views of 78 women who had a sibling with Down's syndrome towards using prenatal diagnosis and termination. Other data were collected, including participants' perceptions of the difficulty of caring for a child with Down's syndrome, perceived familial approval of selective termination, and the quality of the sibling relationship. Fifty‐four per cent of respondents said they would use diagnostic tests for Down's syndrome in a future pregnancy, 37% would not, and 9% were unsure. In contrast, 33% would consider terminating a pregnancy for Down's syndrome, 53% would not consider termination, and 14% were unsure. Logistic regression showed that the perceived difficulty of caring for a child with Down's syndrome and perceived parental approval of selective termination were the strongest overall predictors of both attitudes. However, women who were younger than their affected sibling were more likely to want to use prenatal diagnosis, and a generally favourable attitude towards abortion predicted a favourable view towards terminating a pregnancy for Down's syndrome. In general, a positive picture emerged of having a sibling with Down's syndrome although around one‐third of the women viewed the impact on themselves and their family as negative and this was reflected in their attitudes towards prenatal testing and termination.
Subscribing to publicity: Syndicated newspaper features for moviegoing in North America, 1911–15

This article charts how movies were integrated into the existing popular print culture of weekend newspapers in North America between 1911 and 1915. Neither the movie theatre nor the newspaper should be given priority as the primary site of cinema culture. The practice of reading a newspaper’s film page would be incomplete without a trip to join the mass audience at a movie theatre; conversely, a moviegoer’s pleasure could be whetted by the print supplement. Early, isolated experiments in metropolitan newspapers led to syndicates offering film pages for reproduction in small town papers. With the proliferation of moving picture publicity in newspapers throughout 1913, film studios began to collaborate with newspaper syndicates on a continental scale. Movie stories appeared in daily and weekly forms in various newspapers chains, well beyond the familiar ‘serial queen’ fiction tie-in. A subscription to the newspaper could become a commitment to engage with the mass market for movies. Insofar as a public is constituted through publicity, audiences are conjoined to readerships through the periodic call to participate in mass leisure with other readers.
Smart optoelectronic architecture for data/knowledge-base applications

A low power, high-performance optoelectronic computing (HPOC) module architecture, which exploits global (multidimensional), free space, smart optical interconnects is being developed for database processing. By leveraging the high fan-in and fan-out capabilities of the smart optical free space interconnects, the HPOC module offers a significant reduction in power consumption. The development of these optoelectronic integrated circuits (OEICs) evolved from a second generation digital optoelectronic computer (DOC II). This optoelectronic processor demonstrated relational text search applications using the N-bit equality detection algorithm. In addition, this algorithm can be extended and integrated into the HPOC module architecture. Designed to process information at speeds up to 10/sup 14/ bit operations per second, the HPOC modules combine the benefits of high algorithmic efficiency and high noise margins. The modules are fabricated from arrays of microlasers, diffractive optical interconnect elements, and smart pixel arrays (DANE cell arrays).
USING 3D MODELS TO GENERATE LABELS FOR PANOPTIC SEGMENTATION OF INDUSTRIAL SCENES

Abstract. Industrial companies often require complete inventories of their infrastructure. In many cases, a better inventory leads to a direct reduction of cost and uncertainty of engineering. While large scale panoramic surveys now allow these inventories to be performed remotely and reduce time on-site, the time and money required to visually segment the many types of components on thousands of high resolution panoramas can make the process infeasible. Recent studies have shown that deep learning techniques, namely deep neural networks, can accurately perform panoptic segmentation of things and stuff and hence be used to inventory the components of a picture. In order to train those deep architectures with specific industrial equipment, not available in public datasets, our approach uses an as-built 3D model of an industrial building to procedurally generate labels. Our results show that, despite the presence of errors during the generation of the dataset, our method is able to accurately perform panoptic segmentation on images of industrial scenes. In our testing, 80% of generated labels were correctly identified (non null intersection over union, i.e. true positive) by the panoptic segmentation, with great performance levels even for difficult classes, such as reflective heat insulators. We then visually investigated the 20% of true negative, and discovered that 80% were correctly segmented, but were counted as true negative because of errors in the dataset generation. Demonstrating this level of accuracy for panoptic segmentation on industrial panoramas for inventories also offers novel perspectives for 3D laser scan processing.
Neuroinformatics: Indian perspective

Current conception of information in terms of bits cannot accommodate the holistic nature of perceptual information. Category theory, which describes mathematical objects in terms of their relations to other objects, appears to be resourceful enough to capture the holistic nature of perception and memory. Recognizing the potential of category theory, National Brain Research Centre, India, has initiated a research program to bring category theory and higher dimensional algebra to bear on brain research. I will discuss a memory model called Form-Addressed Memory that we are developing. In this model, percepts and memories are modeled in terms of arrows f:A/spl rarr/B, an indivisible whole in category theory. I will also present the work of various Indian scientists: non-classical information theoretic analysis of sensory systems, applying stochastic resonance to neuroimaging and pattern recognition tools to neuroanatomical data, development of federated databases, and plans for databasing drug metabolism pathways and neuroactive drugs from Indian traditional medicine.
Security Chip Memory Bus for Resisting Invasive Analysis

In order to resist invasive analysis for the crypto chip,a hardware security bus on chip is proposed to protect the data in memory.General cat-map is adopted by address generator circuit to scramble the memory address,and a memory cell encryption circuit is used for encrypting data unit.The scrambling and encryption are under the control of a key.In this way,even if the invasive attacker can get data in the on-chip memory(such as RAM,ROM,EEPROM and Flash),the data still can not be understood.The product operation combined with scrambling and encrypting increases the difficulties of physical attack.
Efficient Width-Extended Convolutional Neural Network for Robust Face Spoofing Detection

Biometrics has been increasingly used as a safe and convenient technique for people identification. Despite the higher security of biometric systems, criminals have already developed methods to circumvent them, being the presentation of fake biometric information to the input sensor (spoofing attack) the easiest way. Face is considered one of the most promising biometric traits for people identification, including in mobile devices. However, face recognition systems can be easily fooled, for instance, by presenting to the sensor a printed photograph, a 3D mask, or a video recorded from the face of a legal user. Recently, despite some CNNs (Convolutional Neural Networks) based approaches have achieved state-of-the-art results in face spoofing detection, in most of the cases the proposed architectures are very deep, being unsuitable for devices with hardware restrictions. In this work, we propose an efficient architecture for face spoofing detection based on a width-extended CNN, which we called wCNN. Each part of wCNN is trained, separately, in a given region of the face, then their outputs are combined in order to decide whether the face presented to the sensor is real or fake. The proposed approach, which learns deep local features from each facial region due to its width-wide architecture, presented better accuracy than state-of-the-art methods, including the well-referenced fine-tuned VGG-Face, while being much more efficient regarding hardware resources and processing time.