Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Operator Performance with Alternative Manual Control Modes in Teleoperation

Recent experiments conducted at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) comparing alternative manual control modes using the JPL Advanced Teleoperator (ATOP) System are described in this paper. Of particular interest were control modes that provide force reflection to the operator. The task selected for the experiment is a portion of the Solar Maximum Satellite Repair (SMSR) procedure we developed to demonstrate the repair of the Solar Maximum Satellite with teleoperators. SMSR had been successfully performed by NASA astronauts in 1984 and it was selected as a task to demonstrate the ATOP system capability for space applications. The seven manual control modes evaluated in the experiment are combinations of manual position or resolved motion rate control with alternative control schemes for force reflection and remote manipulator compliance. Performance measures used were task completion times, average force and torque exerted during the execution of the task, and cumulative force and torque exerted. The results were statistically analyzed and they show that, in general, force reflection significantly improves operator performance and indicate that a specific force-reflecting scheme may yield the best performance among the control modes we tested. Also, our experiment showed that, for the selected task, the position control modes were preferable to the rate control modes and slave manipulator compliance reduced task interaction forces and torques.
Using online data sources to make query suggestions for children

Existing popular web search engines have been widely used for retrieving information of interests by their users and offer query suggestions (QS) to assist them in exploring the wealth of information online. These search tools, however, are designed without any specific group of users in mind and thus are not tailored towards the specific needs of children, which can diminish their usability and design objectives when they are employed by children. Given the increasing use of the Web for educational and entertainment purposes by children, there is an urgent need to help them search the Web effectively. In this paper, we present a QS module, denoted CQS, which assists children in finding appropriate query keywords to capture their information needs by (i) analyzing content written for/by children, (ii) examining phrases and other metadata extracted from reputable (children’s) websites, and (iii) using a supervised learning approach to rank suggestions that are appealing to children. CQS offers suggestions with vocabulary that can be comprehended by children and with topics of interest to them. We conducted a number of empirical studies using keyword queries initiated by children, besides gathering feedback on the usefulness of CQSgenerated suggestions through crowdsourcing. The performance evaluation of CQS revealed the effectiveness of the methodology of CQS. In addition, it demonstrated that CQS-generated suggestions were preferred over suggestions provided by Bing and Yahoo! and at least as comparable to queries suggested by Google.
Contact dermatitis and quality of life: a structured review of the literature

Quality of life (QoL) assessment has rapidly become an important outcome variable in dermatology research. Even though the importance of the patient's personal morbidity is generally accepted as being important by dermatologists, scepticism and confusion remain about the usefulness of QoL in dermatological research and how it should be measured. QoL assessments in individuals with contact dermatitis are few. A structured review of the literature is presented. All studies reviewed found that contact dermatitis is associated with impaired health‐related QoL. Hand eczema appears to be as equally impairing as generalized eczema and an early, confirmed diagnosis is associated with improved QoL. Disease duration, atopic dermatitis, age and gender do not seem to have a major impact on QoL, although contradictory findings exist. Assessment of QoL in contact dermatitis is required for future clinical research and may be a valuable tool to the clinician to evaluate new treatments. A combination of dermatology‐specific (e.g. Dermatology Life Quality Index) and generic questionnaires (e.g. the Short Form‐36) is supported.
Context-Based Error Correction Scheme Using Recurrent Neural Network for Resilient and Efficient Intra-Chip Data Transmission

An error correction scheme utilizing a brain-inspired learning algorithm, called Recurrent Neural Network (RNN), is proposed for resilient and efficient intra-chip data transmission. RNN has a feature to find partially-clustered time-series data stream from an input data stream and predict the next input data from previous input data stream, which can be utilized for realizing an error correction corresponding to the "context" of the data stream. Through the evaluation of intra-chip data transmission in a general-purpose 32-bit microprocessor, it is demonstrated that the proposed scheme performs 95.9% error reduction with 2-times better data transfer efficiency and 94.2% error reduction with 4-times better data transfer efficiency compared with a conventional error correction scheme.
Hospice Use by Older Adults Knocking on the Door of the Nursing Facility

Abstract Since 1983, federal funding has been available for hospice services. However, research studies have found that hospice is underutilized by people with terminal illnesses and their families. Low-income older adults are particularly at risk for underutilization. This study examined utilization of hospice services by nursing home applicants in one Midwestern state. Characteristics of users and non-users, and potential barriers to hospice use were examined. Findings further document that hospice is underutilized, especially by the Medicaid population, and point to barriers to hospice utilization. Specific recommendations are made to help practitioners increase hospice access.
avrPto enhances growth and necrosis caused by Pseudomonas syringae pv.tomato in tomato lines lacking either Pto or Prf.

AvrPto was introduced into three tomato genotypes with two biotic agents to study its role in compatible interactions. avrPto enhanced the capacity of the Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato strain T1 to induce necrotic symptoms on tomato plants that lacked either Pto or Prf genes. The enhanced necrosis correlated with a small increase in bacterial growth. In planta expression of avrPto in isolation did not elicit necrosis in the absence of a functional Prf gene.
GeoSpark : A Cluster Computing Framework for Processing Spatial Data

This paper introduces GeoSpark an in-memory cluster computing framework for processing large-scale spatial data. GeoSpark consists of three layers: Apache Spark Layer, Spatial RDD Layer and Spatial Query Processing Layer. Apache Spark Layer provides basic Spark functionalities that include loading / storing data to disk as well as regular RDD operations. Spatial RDD Layer consists of three novel Spatial Resilient Distributed Datasets (SRDDs) which extend regular Apache Spark RDD to support geometrical and spatial objects. GeoSpark provides a geometrical operations library that accesses Spatial RDDs to perform basic geometrical operations (e.g., Overlap, Intersect). The system users can leverage the newly defined SRDDs to effectively develop spatial data processing programs in Spark. The Spatial Query Processing Layer efficiently executes spatial query processing algorithms (e.g., Spatial Range and Join) on SRDDs. GeoSpark adaptively decides whether a spatial index needs to be created locally on an SRDD partition to strike a balance between the run time performance and memory/cpu utilization in the cluster. Extensive experiments show that GeoSpark achieves better run time performance (with reasonable memory/CPU utilization) than its Hadoop-based counterparts (e.g., SpatialHadoop) in various spatial data processing applications.
Effect of Postural Variations on Carbon Monoxide Diffusing Capacity in Healthy Subjects and Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Background: The scientific literature does not supply enough information about the effects of postural changes on diffusing lung capacity for carbon monoxide (DLCO) in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), in particular regarding the prone position. Objectives: We evaluated posture-related changes in DLCO in healthy subjects and in COPD patients in order to especially assess how prone posture affects gas exchange. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, DLCO was measured in 10 healthy subjects and 30 COPD patients in standing, seated, supine and prone positions. Results: In healthy individuals, DLCO tended to improve from the upright to the supine position (21.42 ± 2.90 and 26.07 ± 5.11 ml/min/mm Hg, respectively); in the same group, changing the position from upright to prone also caused significant improvements in DLCO (absolute value, 21.42 ± 2.90 vs. 24.80 ± 4.39 ml/min/mm Hg, p < 0.05, or percent of predicted, 78.58 ± 11.12 vs. 91.44 ± 13.23, p < 0.05) and in DLCO proportional to alveolar volume (DLCO/VA; 4.52 ± 0.57 vs. 5.66 ± 1.48 ml/min/mm Hg/l, p < 0.05). No significant differences in DLCO have been observed in COPD patients from the standing to the prone position. Multivariate linear regression models showed that the posture-related changes in DLCO, DLCO expressed as percent of predicted and in DLCO/VA are directly correlated with the transition from upright/sitting to supine/prone. Conclusions: In healthy subjects, the effect of postural changes on DLCO could be explained by a more homogeneous perfusion, whereas the lack of variations in COPD patients could be attributed to the increased rigidity of lung capillaries, which could represent an early sensitive marker of damage of the alveolar capillary interface in these patients.
Hitos de la evaluación perceptual auditiva de la voz: ¿Hay evidencia?

The auditory perceptual evaluation is the oldest andmost used tool to determine the suitability of the humanvoice. As a result of a thorough review in PubMed itis identified that this approach has evolved in theconceptual and the methodological framed in threemoments: the first characterized by the indiscriminateuse of particular labels, the second focused on theconstruction and refinement of scales with intra- andinter-evaluator reliability, and in future, its positioningas a gold standard that exalts the human and socialdeterminants of the voice. The scales most used inthe reports were GRBAS and CAPE-V. Additionally, thesuitability of the most suitable words in Spanish languageis argued for the denomination of “voice quality”comparable to “cualidad vocal” (multidimensionaldescriptive indicator) or “calidad vocal” (severityestimate) as appropriate
An Approach for Telugu Numeral Recognitionby Moment Invariants in Wavelet TransformDomain

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is the task of recognizing the characters which are present in a digital image of text, whose domain can be machine print or handwriting. OCR is one of the most fascinating and challenging areas of pattern recognition with various practical application potentials. The present paper proposes a method for recognizing the Telugu Numerals from zero to nine by using the Moment Invariants. For this, the proposed method uses boundary based shape representation scheme. The input Telugu numeral is decomposed in to one level Haar wavelet transformed sub bands and the Boundary Moment Invariants are measured for each of these four sub bands. The experimental results show the superiority of the proposed method to recognize the Telugu numerals.
Function and activation of NF-kappa B in the immune system.

NF-kappa B is a ubiquitous transcription factor. Nevertheless, its properties seem to be most extensively exploited in cells of the immune system. Among these properties are NF-kappa B's rapid posttranslational activation in response to many pathogenic signals, its direct participation in cytoplasmic/nuclear signaling, and its potency to activate transcription of a great variety of genes encoding immunologically relevant proteins. In vertebrates, five distinct DNA binding subunits are currently known which might extensively heterodimerize, thereby forming complexes with distinct transcriptional activity, DNA sequence specificity, and cell type- and cell stage-specific distribution. The activity of DNA binding NF-kappa B dimers is tightly controlled by accessory proteins called I kappa B subunits of which there are also five different species currently known in vertebrates. I kappa B proteins inhibit DNA binding and prevent nuclear uptake of NF-kappa B complexes. An exception is the Bcl-3 protein which in addition can function as a transcription activating subunit in th nucleus. Other I kappa B proteins are rather involved in terminating NF-kappa B's activity in the nucleus. The intracellular events that lead to the inactivation of I kappa B, i.e. the activation of NF-kappa B, are complex. They involve phosphorylation and proteolytic reactions and seem to be controlled by the cells' redox status. Interference with the activation or activity of NF-kappa B may be beneficial in suppressing toxic/septic shock, graft-vs-host reactions, acute inflammatory reactions, acute phase response, and radiation damage. The inhibition of NF-kappa B activation by antioxidants and specific protease inhibitors may provide a pharmacological basis for interfering with these acute processes.
Stabilization for a class of uncertain nonlinear systems based on CMAC method

In this paper, we focus on the stabilization problem for a class of second-order uncertain nonlinear systems via the sampled-data output feedback, where the systems may contain strong nonlinearities. A characteristic model is developed by virtue of some constructive modeling method, and then the golden-section adaptive control based on this characteristic model is given. Also, the closed-loop characteristic model is shown to be stable. Our results improve upon the findings of previous works in removing the globally Lipschitz condition of the controlled plant, expanding the application scope of the golden-section adaptive control to some extend.
Oxidative Stress–Dependent Release of Mitochondrial Cytochrome c after Traumatic Brain Injury

Mitochondrial cytochrome c translocation to the cytosol initiates the mitochondrial-dependent apoptotic pathway. This event has not been previously reported in traumatic brain injury (TBI). The authors determined the expression of cytochrome c in cytosolic and mitochondrial fractions after severe TBI produced by the controlled cortical impact model in the mouse. One hour after trauma there was an increase in cytosolic cytochrome c immunoreactivity. The increases in cytosolic cytochrome c preceded DNA fragmentation, which started at 4 hours. Western blots of mitochondrial and cytosolic fractions confirmed that there was a translocation of cytochrome c from the mitochondria after TBI. Mice deficient in manganese superoxide dismutase (MnSOD) showed an increased loss of mitochondrial cytochrome c after trauma, but less apoptotic cell death 4 and 24 hours after injury compared with wild-type control mice. However, the overall cell death was increased in MnSOD mice, as illustrated by a larger cortical lesion in these animals. The results show that cytochrome c is released from the mitochondria after severe TBI partly by a free radical–dependent mechanism, and that massive mitochondrial cytochrome c release is a predictor of necrotic cell death rather than apoptosis.
Isolation haute tension sous vide

Le caractere dielectrique du vide est avere, mais les eventuelles charges electriques libres peuvent s'y transporter sans encombre. En pratique, l'application des hautes tensions entre les electrodes sous vide engendre la liberation d'electrons, donc des charges libres. C'est ainsi qu'un courant peut s'etablir entre les electrodes, conduisant au claquage sous vide. Ces phenomenes sont introduits et discutes sur le plan fondamental (experimental, theorique et de modelisation numerique) et sur celui des applications.
Determinants of endotoxin levels in living environments of farmers' children and their peers from rural areas

Background Lower frequencies of asthma and hayfever have been observed in children with contact to livestock. At school age, the amount of endotoxin measured in the dust of children's mattresses is inversely related to the occurrence of atopic asthma, hayfever and atopic sensitization both in children from farming and non‐farming households.
Feedback corretivo na interação oral : uma pesquisa-ação colaborativa com duas professoras de língua inglesa

O feedback corretivo oral, em uma perspectiva sociocultural, e entendido como um elemento central para professores de linguas estrangeiras ajudarem o aprendiz a alcancar a autorregulacao. Uma vez que o feedback corretivo possibilita a construcao conjunta de uma zona de desenvolvimento proximal (ZDP), enfatiza-se a importância de variar os tipos de feedback oferecidos, reformuladores e elicitativos, favorecendo a estes, pois ajudam o aprendiz a assumir a responsabilidade pela correcao de seus proprios erros. Este estudo objetiva contribuir para o desenvolvimento profissional de docentes de ingles como lingua estrangeira e, conforme a perspectiva sociocultural, abordar e desenvolver conceitos cientificos sobre o feedback corretivo oral. A investigacao envolveu duas professoras de lingua inglesa de uma escola publica em uma pesquisa-acao colaborativa, durante um semestre letivo. O estudo explora a pesquisa-acao colaborativa, estreitamente relacionada aos conceitos socioculturais da mediacao e da ZDP, e propoe a zona de desenvolvimento proximal de docentes de lingua estrangeira (ZDPD-LE), definida como a distância entre o que um professor de lingua estrangeira faz em sua sala de aula e o que pode fazer quando estrategicamente mediado. A pesquisa fez uso da triangulacao para a coleta e a analise dos dados, os quais foram coletados por meio de entrevistas individuais semi-estruturadas, observacoes em sala de aula, gravacoes em audio e video das aulas observadas, sessoes autoscopicas e uma entrevista em grupo nao estruturada. A analise dos dados foi orientada pela analise de conteudo e pela analise da interacao. Os resultados evidenciaram que, antes da pesquisa-acao colaborativa, as duas professoras utilizavam, predominantemente, feedback reformulador, especialmente recast, e eram contrarias ao fornecimento de feedback corretivo imediato. Alem disso, elas ofereciam apenas alguns dos varios tipos de feedback corretivo. Os resultados do estudo revelaram que as professoras participantes internalizaram conceitos cientificos e, como consequencia, alteraram suas compreensoes e o modo como fornecem feedback corretivo oral. Os resultados desta investigacao ressaltam a importância da implementacao de oportunidades, tais como as propiciadas por uma pesquisa-acao colaborativa, para professores em servico se engajarem e refletirem sobre suas praticas de feedback corretivo oral, como forma de apoiar e promover o desenvolvimento profissional de professores de ingles como lingua estrangeira.
Utilização de Estudos Empíricos em Engenharia de Software

O processo experimental subsidia na compreensao e no avanco no campo de conhecimento atraves do aprendizado iterativo, no entanto a sua aplicacao nas pesquisas em engenharia de software tem sido largamente questionada. O madurecimento na area pressupoe uma maior adocao de estudos empiricos na validacao das pesquisas realizadas. Este artigo apresenta uma analise dos trabalhos publicados na Conferencia Internacional de Engenharia de Software (ICSE), evento considerado referencia na area de Engenharia de Software, avaliando de forma qualitativa e quantitativa a evolucao da utilizacao de avaliacoes empiricas nos trabalhos publicados nos ultimos dez anos. Embora a quantidade e a qualidade dos estudos empiricos venham evoluindo ao longo do tempo, os dados levantados apontam para falhas na utilizacao dos metodos empiricos, e espaco para melhoria.
Autaptic inhibitory currents recorded from interneurones in rat cerebellar slices

1 While the presence of autapses in the brain is indicated by a large body of morphological evidence, the functional role of these structures has remained unclear. To probe for autaptic currents, we have recorded current responses following short somatic depolarizing pulses in Cl−‐loaded interneurones (stellate and basket cells) from rat cerebellar slices (animals aged 27‐39 days). 2 In ≈20 % of the recordings, fluctuating inward current transients were obtained with a latency of 1.15‐2.45 ms (measured from the peak of the depolarization‐induced Na+ current; n= 10). 3 These transients were blocked by bicuculline and were sensitive to the extracellular Ca2+ concentration. 4 Assuming low release probability, as suggested by the high failure rate (0.65‐0.92, n= 10), quantal sizes ranging from 21 to 178 pA (‐70 mV; n= 10) were calculated from a variance analysis of autaptic current amplitudes. 5 We conclude that ≈20 % of interneurones have a functional autapse. Autaptic currents may inhibit firing of interneurones during high frequency discharges.
Immunology and vaccines and nanovaccines for Helicobacter pylori infection

Helicobacter pylori infection is very common worldwide and is an important cause of gastritis, peptic ulcer disease, gastric mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue lymphoma, and gastric adenocarcinoma. Since the eradication requires treatment with multidrug regimens, prevention of primary infection by a suitable vaccine is attractive. Developing vaccines on the spot when and where an infection is breaking out might be possible, thanks to engineered nanoparticles. In this review, the nature of the host immune response to H. pylori infection is considered. We explain recent candidate vaccines and prophylactic or therapeutic immunization strategies for use against H. pylori. We also describe identification of different types of immune responses that may be related to protection against H. pylori infection. Thus, it seems that there is still a strong need to clarify the main protective immune response against H. pylori.
Modelado de Sistemas de control de un robot manipulador basado en procesamiento digital de Imágenes

El desarrollo de esta investigacion consiste, en aplicar conocimiento de algoritmos matematicos estadisticos y deterministas, asi como evaluacion de modelos propuestos en diversas aplicaciones en el tratamiento de imagenes, las cuales son obtenidas desde una camara de video para controlar los movimientos de un robot manipulador en ambientes con objetos u obstaculos. El planteamiento se lleva a cabo en forma de etapas ya que se trata de una investigacion modular, donde cada modulo emplea distintos metodos y procesos, pero que manejan una ejecucion coordinada en conjunto. Los principales modulos son el de procesamiento y manipulacion de imagenes digitales el cual obtiene una la informacion grafica desde una camara de video, el modulo de control y planeacion de movimientos articulados del robot manipulador, donde se utiliza un robot de 3 grados de liberta, de tipo Lego MindStorms, el modulo que integra estas aplicaciones y demuestra a traves de una aplicacion como es el juego del tic-tac-toe, donde esta implementado un algoritmo de Minimax para tener una competencia mas inteligente.