Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A verbal descriptor incremental pain scale developed by South African Tswana-speaking patients with low back pain

Background Measuring pain in patients whose home language is not English can be difficult as there may not be a scale available in their home language. Scales devised in other countries may also not be accurate after translation. Objectives The aim of this study was to develop and test a new verbal pain descriptor scale in a Tswana-speaking population in South Africa with low back pain. Method Two separate Tswana-speaking groups (20 males and 20 females) of patients with low back pain were asked to describe each of four categories of pain: mild, moderate, severe and worst. They then voted and descriptions obtaining more than 70% of the vote were taken to the next round of voting with both groups together. A final scale of one description for each category of pain (Tswana Verbal Pain Descriptor Scale – TVPDS) for both males and females was tested on a sample of 250 patients with low back pain and against three other non-verbal pain scales. Results All items on the final scale were approved by at least 70% of both male and female participants. The scores for the TVPDS correlated well with present pain perception (r = 0.729, p < 0.0001) measured on the numerical visual analogue scale. The TVPDS correlated well with the Wong–Baker FACES Pain Rating Scale (r = 0.695, p < 0.0001) and the Pakistani Coin Pain Scale (r = 0.717, p < 0.0001). Conclusion The TVPDS has the potential to be a useful clinical scale but more testing in other languages is still required. Clinical implications This pain scale has the potential to be a useful scale to use for Tswana-speaking persons with low back pain and could also be useful for persons of other languages, if translated.
Three-Dimensional Terahertz Tomography With Transistor-Based Signal Source and Detector Circuits Operating Near 300 GHz

In this paper, three-dimensional (3-D) terahertz (THz) tomography was demonstrated with a signal source and imagers based on transistor circuits fabricated with standard semiconductor technologies. For the signal source, a 300-GHz oscillator based on InP HBT technology was employed. For detection, two types of imagers operating near 300 GHz were employed, one direct and the other heterodyne, both realized with SiGe HBT technology. With a set of 2-D images taken from different angles, sinograms and tomograms were obtained, which led to a successful reconstruction of 3-D images of the target object based on the filtered back-projection algorithm. A systematic comparison was made for the direct imager and the heterodyne imager, for which the signal input power and the video bandwidth were varied for both imagers. The results revealed that the heterodyne imager shows a better sensitivity than the direct imager. However, a similar dynamic range of around 30 dB was achieved for both imagers because of a saturation observed for the heterodyne imager when the input power exceeds the threshold. The video bandwidth did not affect the image quality significantly for the bandwidth variation over four orders of magnitude for both imagers.
Executive Impairment Is Associated with Unawareness of Neuropsychiatric Symptoms in Premanifest and Early Huntington’s Disease

Objective: Unawareness of neuropsychiatric symptoms appears to be common in Huntington’s disease (HD), but the clinical correlates of unawareness are unclear. Identifying predictors of unawareness is important for improving diagnosis of neuropsychiatric symptoms, and cognitive impairment, specifically executive impairment, may be a potential important predictor of unawareness. The authors examined whether unawareness of neuropsychiatric symptoms is more common in early HD compared to premanifest HD, and whether executive task performance was associated with awareness, independent of demographic, motor or mood variables. Method: One hundred thirty-two gene-positive participants (60 premanifest and 72 early diagnosed) from the multicenter TRACK-HD study were included. Participants and their informants completed self and informant versions of the Frontal Systems Behavior Scale, which measures executive dysfunction, apathy, and disinhibition symptoms. Awareness was measured as the discrepancy between self- and informant-reports across premanifest and early HD groups. Participants’ executive task performance was then assessed as a predictor of unawareness across the whole group. Results: Premanifest participants reported higher levels of executive dysfunction, apathy and disinhibition than their informants, whereas early HD participants reported less executive dysfunction and apathy than their informants, indicating that unawareness is more common after diagnosis. Impaired executive task performance was related to unawareness of executive dysfunction and apathy, independent of demographic, motor and mood variables. Conclusions: Executive impairment is a useful early predictor of unawareness of neuropsychiatric symptoms in HD. Clinicians should closely monitor HD patients with executive impairment for unawareness, and consider this when assessing neuropsychiatric symptoms in HD and providing education to patients and families.
A Novel Automated Cloud Storage Tiering System through Hot-Cold Data Classification

With information technology growing and rapidly increasing ICT equipment, a massive amount of data have been generated and stored in the cloud. However, the majority of them are infrequently accessed data. Data temperature describes the frequency of data access. Hot storage is dedicated to storing frequently accessed data while cold storage is designed for infrequently accessed data. To cope with the issue of exponential data growth in cloud, it is essential to allocate different categories of data to proper storage media. In this research, we propose an automated cloud storage tiering system for the task of data temperature prediction through hot-cold data classification and data migration, which allocates the predicted categorized data to the corresponding storage media. There are three major contributions in this paper. Firstly, the feasibility: by successfully predicting the infrequent access data and moving them to the cold storage, we obtain significant cost savings. Secondly, the reliability: while having the benefit of storage-cost saving, our proposed system also ensures customers satisfaction by enhancing the ratio of data access through hot storage. Lastly, the flexibility: operational strategy varies from cloud storage service providers. Our system characterizes different scenarios and provides the customized optimal solution.
Migrating VM Workloads to Containers: Issues and Challenges

Virtualization technologies such as KVM and XEN have served the purpose of workload consolidation while providing required isolation. With the advent of Linux Docker platform, micro-service architectures have gained popularity. Adaptation of containers have changed the way, the applications are architected, developed, deployed and managed. Compared to Virtualization, containers provide lightweight alternative to co-host multiple applications on single server at the cost of isolation. This paper highlights the issues and challenges associated with migrating VM based workloads to Container platforms. A systematic analysis, illustrated through a representative application benchmark chosen from a real-life e-commerce private cloud setup is used to present these aspects. Specifically, the application workflow that is currently hosted on VMs is chosen and re-casted on to containers platform and a critical study is conducted based on resource sharing, concurrency, isolation and dependability parameters.
Steps toward the New Horizons of Immunopathology Continuing from of My Research Career

I started my academic life in 1954 soon after graduating from the Kyoto University Faculty of Medicine. After spending one year of internship at Kyoto University Hospital, I joined the Department of Pathology at Kyoto University as a graduate student. I started my scientific career with both practical training to become a clinical pathologist and basic studies to establish immunofluorescence techniques. I learned basic procedure of autopsy from professors Shigeyasu Amano and Yasuaki Nishizuka. They taught me a kind of central dogma in doing autopsies which can be summarized that a pathologist should try to show why and how the disease proceeded, after making a definite pathological diagnosis, what was it ? In addition, I learned through the basic training of histopathology the fact that the appearance of cells was quite variable depending on their functional statuses, and that not only inflammations but all diseases were processes, not statuses. These notions mean that the final objective of pathology is to seek the cause of disease or pathogenesis, as we have tried to show in my earlier papers (Hamashima et al. 1956; Kyogoku and Hamashima 1959; Kyogoku and Maekawa 1960; Kyogoku 1966; Haebara et al. 1969; Kyogoku et al. 1972, 1977; Hattori et al. 1979). Since then this fundamental attitude has always existed as the basis of my academic life. As a researcher, I joined the group of Dr. Yoshihiro Hamashima under the auspices of Prof. Kitasu Suzue. At that time Dr. Hamashima was directing a project to establish independently the methods of immunofluorescence. We chemically synthesized aminofluorescein, introduced an isocyanate group into the fluorochrome molecule, and conjugated it with a protein, in most cases immunoglobulins. After five years of innumerable failures, we finally succeeded to make it work (Hamashima et al. 1955, 1959; Mitsui et al. 1959; Kyogoku and Hamashima 1961; Kyogoku 1962). We went through the pains and joys of pioneers and had personal experiences to understand the Japanese proverb, "Failures are mothers of success" (success comes after many failures). All of the
Comparative study of different PWM Strategies for Three Phase three-level Diode Clamped Multi-level Inverter

This paper presents unipolar pulse width modulation technique with sinusoidal sampling and Space vector pulse width modulation are analyzed for three-phase Diode clamped multi-level inverter from the point of view of the Phase voltages, currents, voltage across the split capacitors and Total harmonic distortion. The necessary calculations for generation of PWM for the two modulation strategies have presented in detail. It is observed that the unipolar modulation ensures excellent,close to optimized pulse distributionresults but THD is high compared to SVPWM. Theoretical investigations were confirmed by the digital simulations using MATLAB/SIMULINK software.
FUNCTIONAL AND BIOCHEMICAL CONSEQUENCES OF SINGLE NUCLEOTIDE POLYMORPHISMS IN THE HUMAN VESICULAR MONOAMINE TRANSPORTER 1 GENE ( SLC 18 A 1 )

FUNCTIONAL AND BIOCHEMICAL CONSEQUENCES OF SINGLE NUCLEOTIDE POLYMORPHISMS IN THE HUMAN VESICULAR MONOAMINE TRANSPORTER 1 GENE (SLC18A1) By Sally Gamal Shukry, B.S. A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Biology at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2012 Major Advisor: Jennifer K. Stewart Associate Professor and Graduate Director, Department of Biology Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) in the human VMAT1 gene (SLC18A1) have been associated with schizophrenia in three different populations: Han Chinese, Western European and Japanese. Effects of these mutations on transport function of the hVMAT1 protein have not been reported. The goal of this study was to investigate functional and biochemical differences in human VMAT1 proteins with a threonine or proline at amino acid position 4 (Thr4Pro) and a serine or threonine at position 98 (Ser98Thr). COS1 cells were transfected with variant SNPs coding for 4Thr/98Ser, 4Pro/98Ser, or 4Thr98Thr. Western blotting demonstrated robust over expression of the genes and no differences in electrophoretic mobility of the proteins. Maximal transport of serotonin by the VMAT1 protein with 4Pro/98Ser was less than that of the 4Thr/98Ser or the 4Thr/98Thr. Response of the 4Pro/Ser98 to the VMAT inhibitor reserpine was lower than that of the 4Thr/98Thr. These findings suggest mechanisms for human VMAT1 links to
Part of Speech Tagging: Shallow or Deep Learning?

Deep neural networks have advanced the state of the art in numerous fields, but they generally suffer from low computational efficiency and the level of improvement compared to more efficient machine learning models is not always significant. We perform a thorough PoS tagging evaluation on the Universal Dependencies treebanks, pitting a state-of-the-art neural network approach against UDPipe and our sparse structured perceptron-based tagger, efselab. In terms of computational efficiency, efselab is three orders of magnitude faster than the neural network model, while being more accurate than either of the other systems on 47 of 65 treebanks.
Sensitivity of Fusarium graminearum causing head blight of wheat in Brazil to tebuconazole and metconazole fungicides

Fusarium head blight (FHB) of wheat, is caused by fungal populations belonging to the Fusarium graminearum species complex. Although triazole fungicides are widely used in FHB management, information about the sensitivity of F. graminearum populations to such fungicides is scarce, particularly in Brazil. This work aimed at determining the sensitivity of pathogenic populations of F. graminearum to metconazole and tebuconazole. Fungal isolates were obtained from diseased wheat heads collected in commercial fields at the northern region of Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, along the 2009 and 2010 growing seasons. Fifty isolates obtained from eleven locations were grown in media amended with increasing fungicide dosages and the effective concentration reducing mycelial growth to 50% (EC50) was determined. The median of the EC50 values was 0.001 mg/L (<0.001-0.152 mg/L) and 0.037 mg/L (<0.001-0.324), for tebuconazole and metconazole, respectively. Cross-resistance was detected based on significance of correlation analysis (rs = 0.46; P < 0.0001) between the log-transformed EC50 of the two triazoles. The mean EC50 for a group of ten isolates classified as "more sensitive" differed statistically from the ten isolates representing the "less sensitive" group. Nevertheless, these groups did not differ in terms of mycelial growth on PDA in the absence of fungicides. It was concluded that pathogenic populations of F. graminearum are sensitive to the triazoles at various levels due to the intrinsic characteristics of the isolates or to selection pressure by the increasing fungicide use.
Tdap Vaccine: Current Indications for Adolescent and Adult Patients in the United States

Abstract Despite the availability of a tetanus toxoid, reduced diphtheria toxoid, and acellular pertussis (Tdap) vaccine in the United States since 2005, the vaccine remains underutilized and perhaps misunderstood by many physicians. Pertussis continues to be a major public health problem, with adults being the primary source of infectious transmission to unprotected infants. Consequently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has expanded the indications for the Tdap vaccine. In addition, the vaccine can be safely administered regardless of the time since the patient's last tetanus-diphtheria booster. Widespread use of the Tdap vaccine—especially in health-care workers, adolescents, and adults aged 19 to 64 years—should greatly reduce the incidence of Bordetella pertussis infection in the United States. The recent Food and Drug Administration approval of the Tdap vaccine for individuals aged 65 years or older should increase the use of this vaccine.
News-Driven Uncertainty Fluctuations

Abstract We investigate the channels through which news influences the subjective beliefs of economic agents, with a particular focus on their subjective uncertainty. The main insight of the article is that news that is more at odds with agents’ prior beliefs generates an increase in uncertainty; news that is more consistent with their prior beliefs generates a decrease in uncertainty. We illustrate this insight theoretically and then estimate the model empirically using data on U.S. output and professional forecasts to provide novel measures of news shocks and uncertainty. We then estimate impulse responses from the identified shocks to show that news shocks can affect macroeconomic variables in ways that resemble the effects of uncertainty shocks. Our results suggest that controlling for news can potentially diminish the estimated effects of uncertainty shocks on real variables, particularly at longer horizons.
Robust optimization for models with uncertain SOC and SDP constraints

In this paper we consider uncertain second-order cone (SOC) and semidefinite programming (SDP) constraints with polyhedral uncertainty, which are in general computationally intractable. We propose to reformulate an uncertain SOC or SDP constraint as a set of adjustable robust linear optimization constraints with an ellipsoidal or semidefinite representable uncertainty set, respectively. The resulting adjustable problem can then (approximately) be solved by using adjustable robust linear optimization techniques. For example, we show that if linear decision rules are used, then the final robust counterpart consists of SOC or SDP constraints, respectively, which have the same computational complexity as the nominal version of the original constraints. We propose an efficient method to obtain good lower bounds. Moreover, we extend our approach to other classes of robust optimization problems, such as nonlinear problems that contain waitand-see variables or linear problems that contain bilinear uncertainty. Numerically, we apply our approach to reformulate the problem on finding the minimum volume circumscribing ellipsoid of a polytope, and solve the resulting reformulation with linear and quadratic decision rules as well as Fourier-Motzkin elimination. We demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed approach by comparing it with the state-ofthe-art copositive approach. Moreover, we apply the proposed approach to a robust regression problem and a robust sensor network problem, and use linear decision rules to solve the resulting adjustable robust linear optimization problems, which solves the problem to (near) optimality.
HRTF Modeling using Physical Features

In headphone listening, a head-related transfer function (HRTF) is sometimes used to achieve spatial hearing, whereby a sound image can be localized at an arbitrary point. Each HRTF depends on the listener and the direction of the sound source. Since fine sound localization cannot be obtained with an unsuitable HRTF, it is crucial to establish a suitable one, though there is no way to do this without measuring the HRTF’s of all listeners and sound directions. Ideally, a suitable HRTF could be effectively estimated by using a simple and inexpensive measurement technique. This paper proposes a simpler and more useful method for finding a suitable HRTF by employing multiple regression analysis to investigate the relationship between HRTF and physical size of body parts. The estimated HRTF’s are evaluated by objective and subjective measures. In the objective results, the average spectral distortion score is 4.0 dB in a frequency range of 0 to 8 kHz. The subjective results indicate no significant difference between the measured and estimated HRTF’s in this frequency range. These results demonstrate that the proposed method effectively estimates HRTF.
SPH-based simulation of liquid wetting across textile materials

This paper presents a simulation framework for liquid wetting across porous textiles with anisotropic inner structure. The textile is composed by intersected fibers and forms capillary pores in the void space, which provides an important force to drive the diffusion by capillary action. The influence of the properties of the textile on the wetting process, such as contact angle, hygroscopicity and porosity, is considered into the liquid wetting process in detail. By liquid-textile coupling, the wetting process is simulated through liquid absorption/desorption by fiber and liquid diffusion in the means of inner fiber, intersected fibers and capillary action. The second Fick’s law is used to describe the non-steady wetting process. Based on the SPH method for fluid simulation, this framework can simulate the liquid wetting across the porous textile by dripping single or multiple drops of water. We also demonstrate the wetting process with the influence of different properties of the textile.
Effect of Brassinosteroids on Germination and Seedling Growth of Radish (Raphanus sativus L.) under PEG-6000 Induced Water Stress

Effect of 24-epibrassinolide and 28-homobrassinolide on the germination and seedling growth of radish (Raphanus sativus) subjected to water stress being imposed by 15% (w/v) polyethylene glycol (equivalent to -2.95 bars of osmotic pressure) was studied. Brassinosteroids supplementation reduced the inhibitory effect of water stress on seed germination and seedling growth. The growth stimulation in radish seedlings by brassinosteroids under desiccation stress was associated with elevated levels of nucleic acids and soluble proteins and lowered activities of RNase. The mitigation of osmotic stress imposed by PEG was associated with increased scavenging of reactive oxygen species as reflected in elevated activities of superoxide dismutase, catalase and ascorbate peroxidase. Brassinosteroids also enhanced the accumulation of the osmolyte free proline in radish seedlings challenged with drought stress. The two brassinosteroids also maintained membrane integrity under water deficiency conditions as indicated by lowered lipid peroxidation reflecting in reduced MDA content. The results of present study demonstrate the protective role of brassinosteroids against PEG imposed water stress in radish seedlings.
ANÁLISE DE CONSISTÊNCIA DE UMA REGRA DE COMUTAÇÃO SUBÓTIMA PARA SISTEMAS COM COMUTAÇÃO EM TEMPO DISCRETO

This paper introduces the concept of consistency for discrete-time switched linear systems having the switching function as a primary control signal to be designed, and also proposes a certification of how consistent is such switching function. A state feedback switching control strategy is strictly consistent whenever it improves performance compared to the one of each isolated subsystem. It is proven that a min-type switching strategy is strictly consistent for classes of H2 and H∞ performance indexes. This property makes clear the importance of switching systems control design in both theoretical and practical application frameworks. The theory is illustrated by means of academic examples. Keywords— Switched linear systems, Optimality, Stabilization methods Resumo— Este artigo introduz o conceito de consistência para sistemas lineares com comutação em tempo discreto, sendo a função de comutação um sinal de controle a ser projetado, e propõe uma certificação de quão consistente é a referida função. Uma estratégia de controle com comutação dependente do estado é estritamente consistente sempre que ela melhorar o desempenho do sistema global, quando comparado ao desempenho de cada subsistema isolado. É provado que uma estratégia de comutação do tipo mı́nimo é estritamente consistente para classes de ı́ndices de desempenho H2 e H∞. Esta propriedade coloca em evidência a importância de se realizar o projeto de controle para sistemas com comutação sob ambos os contextos, teórico e de aplicação prática. A teoria é ilustrada através de vários exemplos acadêmicos. Keywords— Sistemas com comutação, Otimalidade, Métodos de estabilização