Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Disease Management von Diabetes mellitus Typ 2 und Hypertonie: Welche Medikation führt zum Ziel?

Disease Management in Type-2Diabetes and Hypertension: Which Medication Helps to Reach Blood Pressure Goals? Arterial hypertension is extremely common in patients with diabetes and has a major negative impact on their prognosis. Specifically, the risk of cardiovasular events, the most important cause of death in diabetes, is strongly increased with hypertension. Adequate blood pressure control reduces cardiovascular risk in diabetes significantly. However, recent trials show that overly aggressive blood pressure lowering to systolic values < 120 mmHg is not beneficial. We suggest a systolic blood pressure target of 130 mmHg. For most patients with diabetes an ACE inhibitor or an angiotensin receptor blocker is an adequate initial therapy. The majority of diabetic patients require combination therapy for hypertension. In the ACCOMPLISH trial, the combination of an ACE inhibitor with amlodipin was superior to the combination of ACE inhibitor plus hydrochlorothiazide with respect to the incidence of cardiovascular events. J Klin Endokrinol Stoffw 2012; 5 (1): 7–9.
Algorithms for Memory Hierarchies: Advanced Lectures

Memory Hierarchies - Models and Lower Bounds. - Basic External Memory Data Structures. - A Survey of Techniques for Designing I/O-Efficient Algorithms. - Elementary Graph Algorithms in External Memory. - I/O-Efficient Algorithms for Sparse Graphs. - External Memory Computational Geometry Revisited. - Full-Text Indexes in External Memory. - Algorithms for Hardware Caches and TLB. - Cache Oblivious Algorithms. - An Overview of Cache Optimization Techniques and Cache-Aware Numerical Algorithms. - Memory Limitations in Artificial Intelligence. - Algorithmic Approaches for Storage Networks. - An Overview of File System Architectures. - Exploitation of the Memory Hierarchy in Relational DBMSs. - Hierarchical Models and Software Tools for Parallel Programming. - Case Study: Memory Conscious Parallel Sorting.
“A Makerspace Is More Than Just a Room Full of Tools”: What Learning Looks Like for Female Students in Makerspaces

Postulating that the act of making stimulates learning, a widespread effort prompted the integration of makerspaces on college campuses. From community colleges to research-based higher education institutions, large investments were and still are being made to advance the making spirit and encourage non-traditional learning in academic settings. While optimistic that students are taking advantage of the makerspace resources and are in fact learning from their experiences, there needs to be a more direct effort to understand the learning, if any, that is occurring in the makerspace. The makerspace is labeled as an open, learning environment where students are able to design, create, innovate, and collaborate [1, 2]. In response, we investigate the claims of this statement through the research question: how is learning experienced by female students in an academic makerspace? Female students in STEM, especially those engaged in makerspaces, have unique and uncharacteristic experiences that can lend way to various learning and pedagogical implications. The purpose of this paper is to highlight our methodological process for incorporating in-depth phenomenologically based interviewing and for utilizing open and axial coding methods to establish grounded theory. We interview five female students through purposeful maximum variation sampling and snowball sampling. Through a rigorous and iterative data analysis process of the ten-percent of the overall, we created a preliminary coding scheme that articulates how learning is occurring, what design skills are being learned, and what life skills are being learned. These preliminary findings show that not only are these female students learning by doing and learning how to problem solve in design, but they are also overcoming fears, developing patience, and communicating ideas in these design-oriented makerspaces.
Hardware-Accelerated Silhouette Matching

A hardware-accelerated algorithm is presented to compute the error between a silhouette in an image and the silhouette of a projected 3D model to estimate the camera position. Since rendering algorithms have become more sophisticated in the last years also the demand for realistic models has been increased, especially for models of real world objects. Hereby, not only the 3D shape but also the surface color or reflectance is of major interest. The 3D model is commonly obtained by a scanning device producing for example a triangle mesh. Color information is frequently collected during a second process using a camera. Generating the entire model then requires to combine the 3D shape and the 2D images/textures. The camera position and orientation relative to the 3D mesh must be computed for each image in order to stitch the textures onto the 3D surface. In previous work [1, 2] the camera settings are determined by minimizing the error between the outline of the object in the 2D image and the outline of the projected 3D model. In contrast to previous algorithms where the error is estimated by a sum of pixel to outline distances, our approach directly measures the area enclosed by the two outlines. Since the projection of the 3D model can be computed using graphics hardware it is very easy and efficient to obtain this area measurement: as a preprocessing step the 2D image is segmented into pixels belonging to the background (black) and those covered by the object (white). For each camera position at first the 3D model is rendered colored white in front of a black background and the result is combined with the segmented image using a per pixel XOR-operation. Now, exactly the pixel between the outlines remain white and their number can be counted by simply evaluating a histogram. Since all these steps can be executed in hardware the non-linear optimization for the camera parameters is significantly accelerated. Further, the optimization is done hierarchically on different image resolutions to decrease the rendering effort. Given the focal length of the camera and a rough estimate for the object distance it is even possible to obtain the camera position and rotation without any user interaction in a few minutes.
HCI studies in Management Information Systems

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) is gaining momentum in many IT fields as computing technology increasingly impacts individuals, businesses, society, commerce and government throughout the world. More recently, the Association for Information Systems (AIS) recognized the need to promote HCI in the Management Information Systems (MIS) field. The first step taken by AIS was to approve the creation of the Special Interest Group on HumanComputer Interaction (AIS SIGHCI). This group was established in 2001 and has run successful tracks and workshops at major MIS conferences since then. A recent conference was the Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS’03) at which the organizers of the HCI mini-track proposed publishing extended versions of the best papers in this special issue.
Trend or no trend : a novel nonparametric method for classifying time series

In supervised classification, one attempts to learn a model of how objects map to labels by selecting the best model from some model space. The choice of model space encodes assumptions about the problem. We propose a setting for model specification and selection in supervised learning based on a latent source model. In this setting, we specify the model by a small collection of unknown latent sources and posit that there is a stochastic model relating latent sources and observations. With this setting in mind, we propose a nonparametric classification method that is entirely unaware of the structure of these latent sources. Instead, our method relies on the data as a proxy for the unknown latent sources. We perform classification by computing the conditional class probabilities for an observation based on our stochastic model. This approach has an appealing and natural interpretation — that an observation belongs to a certain class if it sufficiently resembles other examples of that class. We extend this approach to the problem of online time series classification. In the binary case, we derive an estimator for online signal detection and an associated implementation that is simple, efficient, and scalable. We demonstrate the merit of our approach by applying it to the task of detecting trending topics on Twitter. Using a small sample of Tweets, our method can detect trends before Twitter does 79% of the time, with a mean early advantage of 1.43 hours, while maintaining a 95% true positive rate and a 4% false positive rate. In addition, our method provides the flexibility to perform well under a variety of tradeoffs between types of error and relative detection time. Thesis Supervisor: Prof. Devavrat Shah Title: Jamieson Career Development Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Thesis Supervisor: Dr. Satanjeev Banerjee Title: Engineer, Twitter Inc.
A Question of Birthing Philosophy:A Qualitative Study of Maternity Care Decision-Making Paradigms

BACKGROUND: Medicalization has led to the standardization of American maternity care and limited the choices of pregnant women by restricting their access to alternative types of care. While there is evidence that women are dissatisfied with this trend, very little is known about how pregnant women make decisions in the current maternity care environment. OBJECTIVE: To describe the conceptual frameworks women use in making maternity care and birth decisions by exploring the context in which these choices are made. METHODS: In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 22 women between March and December of 2010. RESULTS: Three major themes emerged from the data. The first theme is that women take an active role in their own maternity care through the formation of goals, some of which were better served by the maternity care system than others. Second, women articulated underlying birth philosophies and discussed the philosophies of their caregivers. Dissonance between a patient's birth philosophy and that of her provider led to tension and mistrust. The final theme is a discussion of choice and barriers in maternity care. The lack of choice that many women experienced led to difficulties in receiving the type and amount of maternity care that was most appropriate for them and resulted in frustration and dissatisfaction with the provision of their care. CONCLUSION: These findings call for expanded access to nonstandard maternity care, the removal of barriers to alternative care, and more vigilant observation of fully informed consent. Quality maternity care must provide support for meaningful choices whether or not those decisions reflect current maternity care norms. PUBLIC HEALTH SIGNIFICANCE: Over four million women become pregnant and give birth in the United States each year. Pregnancy and birth account for one in every five female hospitalizations and a quarter of all hospital stays. Given its magnitude, the quality of maternity care services is an important measure of overall healthcare quality and thus a critical public health concern.
Ferrugem asiática: uma ameaça à sojicultura brasileira.

Sintomatologia; Semelhanca com outras doencas da soja; Condicoes ambientais favoraveis; Outros hospedeiros; Disseminacao; Danos; Resistencia varietal; Efeito da epoca de semeadura e do ciclo das cultivares; Controle quimico; Momento do controle; Monitoramento para deteccao precoce.
Prognostic Value of the Persistence or Change in Pericardial Effusion Status on Serial Echocardiograms in Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension

Background: Pericardial effusion in pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is an indicator of right heart failure and a marker of poor prognosis; its significance on serial transthoracic echocardiograms (TTE) is not clear. Methods: We examined our database for PAH patients followed at our center (10/99-11/07). Baseline and follow-up TTE (1.0±0.5y) and outcomes were studied (N=200). The presence of pericardial effusion was evaluated at baseline and follow-up. The persistence or change in pericardial effusion status was categorized into four categories. Kaplan Meier methods were used to estimate survival functions of the various categories. Cox proportional hazards modeling was used to adjust for other covariates and identify independent predictors. Results: Over a mean follow-up of 4.6 ± 2.6 y, 53% (n=106) patients died. Pericardial effusion was present in 20% (n=40) at baseline and 22% (n=44) during follow up. Patients with pericardial effusion at baseline or follow-up had significantly higher creatinine, pulmonary vascular resistance, lower cardiac output, and were more likely to be treated with prostanoids. During follow-up, there was significantly increased prostanoids (58% vs. 28%) and combination therapy (8% vs. 2%) use compared to baseline. New or persistence of pericardial effusion was associated with worse outcomes (p<0.001) and an independent predictor of survival after adjusting for age, creatinine, sodium, cardiac output, mean right atrial pressure, New York Heart Association (NYHA ) functional class, and presence of connective tissue disease as the etiology of PAH (p-value<0.001). Conclusion: New or persistent pericardial effusion in PAH despite vasoactive therapy predicts worse outcomes; absence or resolution of pericardial effusion with therapy suggests better prognosis. Its public health significance is the ability to identify patients that may benefit from closer follow-up for reassessment and consideration of more aggressive medical therapy or referral for lung transplant to prevent worsening health and/or death.
Discrete-time neural net controller with guaranteed performance

A two-layer discrete-time neural net (NN) controller is presented for the control of an mnth order multi-input and multi-output (MIMO) dynamical system, so that linearity in the parameters holds, but the 'net reconstruction error' is considered to be nonzero. The NN controller exhibits learning-while-functioning-features instead of learning-then-control so that control is immediate with no explicit learning phase is needed. The structure of the NN controller is derived using a filtered error notion. It is indicated that delta rule-based weight tuning, when employed for closed-loop control, can yield unbounded NN weights if: (1) the net cannot exactly reconstruct a certain required function, or (2) there are bounded unknown disturbances acting on the dynamical system. A novel improved weight tuning algorithm is proposed to overcome the above problems.
Factores pronósticos para secuelas y mortalidad de la tuberculosis meníngea en niños: prognostic features for sequelae and mortality

The tuberculous meningitis (TBM) is the most common manifestation of extra-pulmonary disease by Mycobacte-rium tuberculosis and it is a serious public health problem in developing countries. The risk of progression from primary tuberculosis through tuberculous meningitis is higher in children than adults, mainly in children under 5 years old. This disease represents 20 - 40% of all types of tuberculosis in children, compared with 2.9 - 5.9% in adults. Mortality and neurological sequelae associated with TBM are very frecuent although antituberculous therapy. The available literature on prognostic factors in developing countries is limited.The main risk factors described for poor prognosis, including mortality, are stage III disease, deep coma and age less than 2 years, other factors reported, although not consistently in most of the series, are proteins in cerebrospinal fluid greater than 100 mg / dL, hypertonia, the late management of hydrocephalus, the presence of stroke, or focal deficit on admission, cranial nerve palsy and seizures. In the published series of TBM in children, mortality ranges between 7.5% and 22%. Colombia has reported a mortality of 17%.
A Tutorial on the Performance Assessment of Stochastic Multiobjective Optimizers

Aims Main goal: how to evaluate/compare the approximation sets from multiple runs of two or more stochastic multiobjective optimizers We recommend two complementary approaches: Empirical attainment function Dominance-compliant quality indicators • Applies statistical tests directly to the samples of approximation sets • Gives detailed information about how and w here performance differences occur • First, reduces each approximation set to a single value of quality • Applies statistical tests to the samples of quality values 2 3/80 Scope • Do provide: – Description of the empirical attainment function – Recommendations for quality indicators to use – Software for indicators and empirical attainment function approaches – Statistical testing procedures/software for both EAFs and indicators – Case study giving a worked example, using the software provided • Do not consider: – Number of alternative solutions found in decision space – Time or computational cost of optimizer – Test function choice – Scalability of optimizers to number of objectives / decision variables – …And many other issues! Overview • Part 1-Introduction – Aims and scope – Definitions and basics of Pareto dominance – The limitations of dominance relations • Part 2 – Methods – Special case: nondominated sorting of approximation sets – 1 st approach – empirical attainment functions – 2 nd approach – (dominance-compatible) quality indicators • Part 3 – In Practice – Software guide – (PISA framework) – Case study " And what is good, Phaedrus, and what is not good? Need we as k any one to tell us these things? " – Socr at es 6/80 B A Both But on right, A is much better But A better to " most decision-makers in most situations ". Summary of Part 1 • Pareto dominance relations extend from objective vectors to approximation sets • Dominance is scaling (linear or non-linear) independent, enabling comparison of vectors/sets even when objectives are non-commensurable • Dominance does not use or account for preference information – It cannot detect degrees of " better " (it is just a binary relation) – It cannot detect differences between non-comparable sets • Algorithms are stochastic – different sets are attained with different frequencies. How can this be measured? • Using dominance relations only to compare stochastic optimizers – a special case • Empirical attainment functions – describing the frequency distribution of attained regions • Quality indicators – reducing the dimension of approximation sets but still respecting dominance – …
Feeding practices of goats adopted by the farmers of Mewar region of Southern Rajasthan

A survey was carried to study the feeding practices of goats adopted by the farmers of Mewar region of southern Rajasthan. Information was collected from 360 farmers of Mewar region belonging to Udaipur, Rajasamand, Chittorgarh and Bhilwara districts. Two tehsils from each district, 3 villages from each tehsil and 15 goat rearers from each of village were randomly selected. Eighty seven per cent goat keepers adopted semi-stall feeding system and grazed their goats on community pasture land for more than 5 hours daily. Most of the goat rearers neither protected pasture land nor preserved the tree leaves. The green fodder was fed by 60.28% goat rearers. Lopping of trees was a routine practice for goats during grazing. Majority of goat keepers provided 100–200 g concentrate to their goats prior to milking and 79.72% respondents used single ingredient concentrate. Majority of the respondents provided concentrate to their male kids for early maturity. Sixty nine per cent goat rearers provided common salt while only 3.61% provided mineral mixture to their goats. Significant effect of flock size was observed on grazing site, protection of pasture land, green fodder provided to different category of animals, type of green fodder and feeding of common salt.
FUSÃO DE REDES CONVOLUCIONAIS HETEROGÊNEAS PARA DETECÇÃO DE NOVIDADES EM REDES SOCIAIS

Deteccao de novidades e uma tarefa de classificacao que tenta identificar dados que diferem em alguns aspectos em relacao aos dados disponiveis durante o treinamento. E assumida que a classe normal e muito bem amostrada, enquanto outras classes sao pouco amostradas ou nao tem amostras. O desafio de automatizar a deteccao de novidades fica ainda maior quando os dados da classe normal sao provenientes na forma de um fluxo continuo de dados. Dessa forma, a quantidade de dados nao e apenas enorme, mas devem tambem ser processados em pouco tempo. Quando se trata de dados de fluxo continuo das redes sociais, ainda se tem outro agravante: a baixa qualidade dos dados produzidos. Para tratar esse problema, neste trabalho e proposta a fusao dos resultados de duas redes convolucionais heterogeneas, uma projetada para classificacao de imagens e outra para textos. Alem disso, e apresentada e disponibilizada uma nova base de dados rotulada com imagens e textos provenientes da rede social Facebook para a tarefa de deteccao de novidades. Em resultados experimentais foram alcancados uma precisao media de 80,18% e um recall medio de 88,00%, o que indica que o metodo apresentado e promissor.
Sensor Fusion for Real-time Gap Tracking and Vehicle Trajectory Estimation at Rural Intersections

Components, usually but not exclusively gaseous components, are removed in a liquid medium from gas streams and chemically converted into an insoluble phase or physically removed. Specifically, hydrogen sulfide may be removed from streams by oxidation in aqueous chelated transition metal solution in a modified agitated flotation cell. A gas-liquid contact apparatus, generally a combined chemical reactor and solid product separation device, comprising such modified agitated flotation cell also is described. In order to effect efficient mass transfer and rapid reaction, gas bubbles containing hydrogen sulfide and oxygen are formed by rotating an impeller at a blade tip velocity of at least about 350 in/sec. to achieve the required shear. To assist in the reaction, a surrounding shroud has a plurality of openings, generally of aspect ratio of approximately 1, of equal diameter and arranged in uniform pattern, such as to provide a gas flow therethrough less than about 0.02 lb/min/opening in the shroud. In general, the gas velocity index is at least about 18 per second per opening, preferably at least about 24 per second per opening. Each of the openings has an area corresponding to an equivalent diameter less than about one inch.
A vertical beamforming design approach for increased area coverage rate for synthetic aperture sonar

The authors present a design approach for increasing the area coverage rate for a bottom mapping synthetic aperture sonar (SAS). The approach uses dual acoustic data channels which are established by vertical beamforming from a single phase-shifted transducer array. An SAR (synthetic aperture radar) image quality criterion known as the ambiguity ratio, which affects image contrasts, is applied to the SAS problem to establish design constraints for beam patterns and pulse repetition frequency. Relationships between transducer array size, spacing of individual elements of the array, sonar Doppler sampling rates, and geometry parameters are presented for an illustrative data collection scenario. Achievement of increased area coverage rate by a factor of 3 is demonstrated within the constraints imposed by the image quality performance criterion. <<ETX>>