Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
2D LiDAR Map Prediction via Estimating Motion Flow with GRU

It is a significant problem to predict the 2D LiDAR map at next moment for robotics navigation and path-planning. To tackle this problem, we resort to the motion flow between adjacent maps, as motion flow is a powerful tool to process and analyze the dynamic data, which is named optical flow in video processing. However, unlike video, which contains abundant visual features in each frame, a 2D LiDAR map lacks distinctive local features. To alleviate this challenge, we propose to estimate the motion flow based on deep neural networks inspired by its powerful representation learning ability in estimating the optical flow of the video. To this end, we design a recurrent neural network based on gated recurrent unit, which is named LiDAR-FlowNet. As a recurrent neural network can encode the temporal dynamic information, our LiDAR-FlowNet can estimate motion flow between the current map and the unknown next map only from the current frame and previous frames. A self-supervised strategy is further designed to train the LiDAR-FlowNet model effectively, while no training data need to be manually annotated. With the estimated motion flow, it is straightforward to predict the 2D LiDAR map at the next moment. Experimental results verify the effectiveness of our LiDAR-FlowNet as well as the proposed training strategy. The results of the predicted LiDAR map also show the advantages of our motion flow based method.
Oncolytic Bacteria and their potential role in bacterium-mediated tumour therapy: a conceptual analysis

As the human microbiota has been confirmed to be of great significance in maintaining health, the dominant bacteria in them have been applied as probiotics to treat various diseases. After the detection of bacteria in tumours, which had previously been considered a sterile region, these bacteria have been isolated and genetically modified for use in tumour therapy. In this review, we sum up the main types of bacteria used in tumour therapy and reveal the mechanisms of both wild type and engineered bacteria in eliminating tumour cells, providing potential possibilities for newly detected, genetically modified, tumour-associated bacteria in anti-tumour therapy.
Conflicts between traditional pastoralism and conservation of Himalayan ibex (Capra sibirica) in the Trans‐Himalayan mountains

There is recent evidence to suggest that domestic livestock deplete the density and diversity of wild herbivores in the cold deserts of the Trans‐Himalaya by imposing resource limitations. To ascertain the degree and nature of threats faced by Himalayan ibex (Capra sibirica) from seven livestock species, we studied their resource use patterns over space, habitat and food dimensions in the pastures of Pin Valley National Park in the Spiti region of the Indian Himalaya. Species diet profiles were obtained by direct observations. We assessed the similarity in habitat use and diets of ibex and livestock using Non‐Metric Multidimensional Scaling. We estimated the influence of the spatial distribution of livestock on habitat and diet choice of ibex by examining their co‐occurrence patterns in cells overlaid on the pastures. The observed co‐occurrence of ibex and livestock in cells was compared with null‐models generated through Monte Carlo simulations. The results suggest that goats and sheep impose resource limitations on ibex and exclude them from certain pastures. In the remaining suitable habitat, ibex share forage with horses. Ibex remained relatively unaffected by other livestock such as yaks, donkeys and cattle. However, most livestock removed large amounts of forage from the pastures (nearly 250 kg of dry matter/day by certain species), thereby reducing forage availability for ibex. Pertinent conservation issues are discussed in the light of multiple‐use of parks and current socio‐economic transitions in the region, which call for integrating social and ecological feedback into management planning.
A Multinomial Logit Model of Attrition that Distinguishes between Stopout and Dropout Behavior.

Studies of college attrition typically assume that all attrition is either permanent or temporary. We use data from the 1990/94 Beginning Postsecondary Survey to distinguish between long-term dropout and short-term stopout behavior, and to test this assumption. We find significant differences between those who stop out and those who drop out in the first year. Failure to recognize these differences biases the results of naive attrition models and may cause policy initiatives aimed at reducing attrition to target the wrong populations. The type of financial aid received is also found to have a substantial impact on stopout versus dropout probabilities.
Robots for Elderly Care Institutions: How They May Affect Elderly Care

“Welfare robots” are supposed to help maintain the quality of elderly care in institutions, while a dramatic demographic shift will lead to a significant problem attracting a sufficient number of caregivers. We give a status on the state of the art of welfare robots with a focus on the technical challenges that will constrain the development of robots in the next two decades. From this it follows, that robots will be recognizable as machines in the near future. To stay in concrete grounds, we will describe three use cases that are currently addressed in a project in which we design robots that will be applied in elderly care centers. These serve as examples of the kind of welfare robots that could realistically built in the near future. In the last section, we discuss the role such robots could take and how they could change elderly care in the near future.
GEOELECTRICAL RESISTIVITY SURVEY FOR GROUNDWATER POTENTIAL – A CASE STUDY OF NANDI RIVER BASIN , TAMIL NADU , INDIA

Ground water plays a vital role in the development of human activities. The supply of groundwater is limited and understanding the groundwater system is important to ensure sustainable use. In the present study Geoelectrical resistivity survey was carried out to assess groundwater potential zones in Nandi river basin, Tamil Nadu, India. The Vertical Electrical Soundings (VES) of Schlumberger configuration survey was conducted at 27 locations up to a depth of 150 m. The results of VES data were interpreted using IPI2WIN software. The resultant VES curves show different layers of sub-surface true resistivity and subsequent thickness are generated for understanding the lithology and hydrogeological conditions of the study area. The natural resources of groundwater potential zones are identified from the true resistivity and its thickness of sub surface layer.
Gait initiation for a biped robot

In the last decade great progress is made in the field of biped walking robots. Developing and studying biped robots is done for several reasons, such as understanding how humans walk, creating assistive robots to fulfill household tasks or for commercial reasons. At the Delft Biorobotics Laboratory (DBL) various biped robots are built and studied to get a better understanding of how humans walk. The goal of DBL is to develop a humanoid robot with low energy consumption, high versatility and the ability to deal with large disturbances during active dynamic walking. In 2007 research started on 3D stability in limit cycle walking, for this purpose a humanoid biped robot named Flame was built. At the start of the current study, the biped robot Flame was able to walk, the problem was that the biped was not able to start walking from a standstill. Flame has to be "launched" by hand to get in a stable walking cycle. With automatic stable gait initiation the biped robot Flame would be able to function more autonomously and thereby provide better test circumstances for different stability analyses. This is mainly due to constant initial conditions for every walking cycle. The goal of this study is to develop a gait initiation procedure where, after the gait initiation (at the first heelstrike), the biped robot is within the basin of attraction and will thus perform a stable walking motion. A performance measure is defined to analyze the performance of the gait initiation procedure in the biped robot Flame. This measure shows some variation in the different gait initiation trials, but Flame can reach a stable walking motion from a standstill by using a falling trajectory. Now the biped robot Flame is able to automatically start walking from a standstill.
Who benefits more in osteoporotic fractures: Pedicle screw instrumentation or kyphoplasty for American Society of Anesthesiologists II/III patients?

Purpose: Osteoporotc fractures with posterior wall injury are commonly treated with a pedicle srcrew instrumentation (PSI) or a ballonkyphoplasty (BKP). A predictor for complications for these patients is the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) class. Clinical results in ASA II/III patients who underwent BKP and PSI due to OF were evaluated to find the optimal treatment regimen. Materials and Methods: In a retrospective study design, ASA Class II and III patients with OF type OF 2 and OF 3 according to the German Society of Orthopedics and Trauma Surgery classification who underwent surgery between 2011 and 2016 were enrolled. Perioperative data such as time of surgery, cement leakage, adjacent level fractures, screw loosening, wound infections, and segmental kyphosis correction were measured and a statistical analysis was conducted. Results: Ninety-nine patients met the inclusion criteria, 17 were classified as ASA II and 82 patients were classified as ASA III. Twenty-eight individuals were treated by PSI, whereas 71 underwent BKP. Not only a longer average operation (120 min) and hospital stay (21 days) were documented in the PSI group but also a better kyphosis correction (7.5°). In comparison, the BKP group required an average operation time of 35.5 min with a mean kyphosis correction of 2.1°. A statistical analysis revealed the surgical procedure and not the ASA class to be a relevant factor for complication and revision surgery. Conclusions: BKP is a safe and effective therapy including also fractures with posterior wall defects while PSI showed advantages in restoring the sagittal realignment but higher complication and revision risk.
Nutritional Status and Life Style among Rheumatoid Arthritis Clients at Zagazig University Hospitals

Background: Rheumatic diseases are a usual cause of disability and a large public health burden. Good nutrition and healthy lifestyle lead to improving pain and symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis. Aim of the study: was to assess nutritional status and lifestyle among rheumatoid arthritis clients attending the outpatient rheumatoid clinic at Zagazig University Hospitals. Subjects & Methods: Research design: A cross sectional descriptive design was utilized. Setting: The study was conducted in rheumatoid out client clinic at Zagazig university hospitals. Subjects: The study sample included of 150 rheumatoid arthritis clients, aged from (18 to 60), both sexes, first degree and free from chronic diseases. Tools of data collection: Tool (I) Client interview questionnaire for collecting data pertaining to socio-demographic characteristics, medical history, and food frequency questionnaire. Tool (II): Rheumatoid Arthritis Lifestyle questionnaire and tool (III), psychological distress scale. Results: The highest recommended dietary intake is the legumes (63.3%), while the lowest is the meat (2.0%). Meanwhile the most had unbalanced diet (94.7%). Overall, 80% of them had poor total lifestyle habits and 88.7% of them had high abilities and 84.7% independent in activities of daily life. Additionally, 48% among rheumatoid arthritis clients were high stress. Conclusion: the highest recommended dietary intake is the legumes, while the lowest is the meat. The most of them had unbalanced diet. Additionally, less than half of them were obese. Moreover, the clients with rheumatoid arthritis had poor total lifestyle habits. Furthermore, the findings showed that their highest independency is in the areas of activities of daily life and abilities, and about half of them had stress. Recommendation: Develop an educational program on nutritional status, lifestyle modifications, and psychological support to reduce stress among clients with rheumatoid arthritis.
A New Era of Extended Time Window Acute Stroke Interventions Guided by Imaging

Ischemic stroke is one of the most debilitating and deadliest conditions worldwide. Intravenous t-PA is the current standard treatment within 4 hours after onset of symptoms. Recent randomized controlled trials have demonstrated the efficacy of neurointerventional intra-arterial treatment in acute ischemic stroke. About 20% of acute ischemic stroke are classified as wake-up strokes, which falls out of the conventional treatment time window. New evidence suggests that some patients with longer time from symptom onset (up to 24 hours) may benefit from thrombectomy, probably in part due to variations in collateral circulation among individual patients. Advanced imaging can play a crucial role in identifying patients who could benefit from endovascular intervention presenting within extended treatment time windows. In this article, we review the advanced imaging algorithm for ischemic stroke workup in the multiple studies published to date and summarize the results of the clinical trials for late ischemic stroke that can be clinically useful.
Effect of Adding L-Carnitine to Clomiphene Resistant PCOs Women on the Ovulation and the Pregnancy Rate

Background: polycystic ovary (PCO) syndrome is an endocrionologic disorder that affecting about 6-10% of women in their reproductive age. Conception rate with clomiphene citrate treated cycles is about 40% only and the number of ovulated oocyte decrease significantly with repeated cycles of ovulation. Objective: evaluation of the effectiveness of usage of clomiphene citrate with L-carnitine (LC) in induction of ovulation in clomiphene citrate resistant patients. Patients and Methods: Randomized controlled study included a total number of 50 women with clomiphene-resistant PCOs. They were divided into 2 groups, group (A) where patients received 100 to 150 mg clomiphene citrate from day three until day seven of the cycle and L-carnitine (LC) 3g daily till positive pregnancy test and group (B) received 100 to 150 mg clomiphene citrate with placebo. Results: There was statistically significant difference (p-value 17 mm and E2 on day of HCG injection. Conclusion: Adding L-carnitine to clomiphene from the follicular phase and extending through the luteal phase in patients with clomiphene-resistant PCOS, at the given dose and duration, may be of beneficial to the quality of ovulation and the clinical pregnancy rate.
Enhanced Mechanical Performance for Nacre-Inspired Polyimine Composites with Calcium Carbonate Particles

Polyimine is a novel functional thermoset material with several attractive functions. Yet the mechanical properties of polyimine-based composites have been rarely investigated. In this work, calcium carbonate (CaCO3), a cheap and commonly used reinforcing material, has been chosen as the reinforcing filler to form composites with polyimine through heat-pressing under mild conditions to mimic natural nacre. Elemental mapping shows that CaCO3 particles are evenly distributed in the continuous network of the polyimine matrix. Then thermal analyses and mechanical measurements of hardness, tensile strength, toughness, bending strength, and impact strength have been conducted to characterize the properties of the resultant polyimine composites. The fracture surfaces of the specimens after tensile testing have also been examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The polyimine composites with CaCO3 particles demonstrate remarkable enhancement on multiple mechanical features, especially on tensile properties. More importantly, the polyimine composites fabricated with 6 wt% of CaCO3 particles show simultaneous increases of tensile strength and toughness, which are 56% (from 35.75 to 55.79 MPa) and 110% (from 112.82 to 236.54 MJ/m 3) respectively in comparison with the polyimine matrix. The work presented herein affords a facile and low-cost approach to enhance the mechanical properties of polyimine material for more practical applications.
Spinal code: automatic code extraction for near-user computation in fogs

In the Internet of Things (IoT) environments, cloud servers integrate various IoT devices including sensors and actuators, and provide new services that assist daily lives of users interacting with the physical world. While response time is a crucial factor of quality of the services, supporting short response time is challenging for the cloud servers due to a growing number and amount of connected devices and their communication. To reduce the burden of the cloud servers, fog computing is a promising alternative to offload computation and communication overheads from the cloud servers to fog nodes. However, since existing fog computing frameworks do not extract codes for fog nodes fully automatically, programmers should manually write and analyze their applications for fog computing. This work proposes Spinal Code, a new compiler-runtime framework for near-user computation that automatically partitions an original cloud-centric program into distributed sub-programs running over the cloud and fog nodes. Moreover, to reduce response time in the physical world, Spinal Code allows programmers to annotate latency sensitive actuators in a program, and optimizes the critical paths from required sensors to the actuators when it generates the sub-programs. This work implements 9 IoT programs across 4 service domains: healthcare, smart home, smart building and smart factory, and demonstrates that Spinal Code successfully reduces 44.3% of response time and 79.9% of communication on the cloud compared with a cloud-centric model.
Genomic Characteristics of Desulfonema ishimotonii Tokyo 01T Implying Horizontal Gene Transfer Among Phylogenetically Dispersed Filamentous Gliding Bacteria

Desulfonema ishimotonii strain Tokyo 01T is a filamentous sulfate-reducing bacterium isolated from a marine sediment. In this study, the genome of this strain was sequenced and analyzed with a focus on gene transfer from phylogenetically distant organisms. While the strain belongs to the class Deltaproteobacteria, hundreds of proteins encoded in the genome showed the highest sequence similarities to those of organisms outside of the class Deltaproteobacteria, suggesting that more than 20% of the genome is putatively of foreign origins. Many of these proteins had the highest sequence identities with proteins encoded in the genomes of filamentous bacteria, including giant sulfur oxidizers of the orders Thiotrichales, cyanobacteria of various genera, and uncultured bacteria of the candidate phylum KSB3. As mobile genetic elements transferred from phylogenetically distant organisms, putative inteins were identified in the GyrB and DnaE proteins encoded in the genome of strain Tokyo 01T. Genes involved in DNA recombination and repair were enriched in comparison to the closest relatives in the same family. Some of these genes were also related to those of organisms outside of the class Deltaproteobacteria, suggesting that they were acquired by horizontal gene transfer from diverse bacteria. The genomic data suggested significant genetic transfer among filamentous gliding bacteria in phylogenetically dispersed lineages including filamentous sulfate reducers. This study provides insights into the genomic evolution of filamentous bacteria belonging to diverse lineages, characterized by various physiological functions and different ecological roles.
Prognostic value of natriuretic peptides in intensive care units

Saniye Goknil Calik1, Mustafa Calik2, Zerrin Defne Dundar3, Basar Cander3 1Department of Emergency and First Aid, KTO Karatay University Vocational School of Health, 2Department of Thoracic Surgery, Health Sciences University, Konya Training and Research Hospital, 3Department of Emergency Medicine, Necmettin Erbakan University Meram Faculty of Medicine, Konya, Turkey Natriuretic peptides in intensive care units Prognostic value of natriuretic peptides in intensive care units
RehWave: A Real-Time Tele-Rehabilitation Haptic Device for Massage Therapy

This article describes the design, development, and experimental evaluation of a real-time tele-rehabilitation device for whole body massage therapy. The proposed haptic device is developed according to the recommendations of specialists. Its features includes: (i) vibration feedback in neck, shoulder, and upper, middle, and lower back areas, (ii) temperature feedback in upper arm, upper back, and leg muscles, (iii) individual vibration and temperature control of each zone, and (iv) wireless connection with other devices. A pilot experimental evaluation suggests that the device generates a suitable and safe haptic feedback in main areas.
A comparison of mathematical modelling approaches for stability analysis of supply chains

Production and transportation processes along a supply chain are dynamic. In particular they are subject to perturbations (e.g., breakdown of a resource) that can destabilise the network. Stability is a major property of a supply chain that is essential for a sustainable relationship to its customers. In order to verify the stability of a given supply chain different criteria have been developed. This paper addresses the problem of choosing a proper mathematical modelling approach for a real world network in order to investigate stability. For this reason we discuss different modelling approaches. Each of these approaches can model different characteristics of a supply chain and features a specific stability criterion. By comparing these approaches the paper supports choosing a proper modelling approach for a real world supply chain.
Cross-layer Stack Design Framework in OMNeT++

While networking applications are getting more comprehensive, the information required to perform the algorithms running upon such applications is increasing. Even though the modular design of network stacks provides an important abstraction between layers, it is now necessary to use all layer-specific information in cooperation. Therefore, cross-layer applications are designed for years. However, implementing and testing them in network simulators are still complex. In this study, we implemented a cross-layer design onto TCP/IP stack and gave a guide to design this architecture in OMNeT++. We also investigated the design in an example use case that is a clustering algorithm for ad-hoc networks.