Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Design Evolution of a Sensing and Force-Feedback Exoskeleton Robotic Glove for Hand Rehabilitation Application

This paper presents the design and application of the SAFER glove with applications in the field of hand rehabilitation. Preliminary results of the new hand grasping rehabilitation learning system are presented that is designed to gather kinematic and force information of the human hand and to playback the motion to assist a user in common hand grasping movements, such as grasping a bottle of water. Twelve research volunteers performed grasping experiments where fingertip contact forces were measured by the SAFER Glove. These forces were then modeled based on machine learning approach to obtain the learned force distributions. Using these distributions, fingertip force trajectories were generated with a Gaussian Mixture Regression (GMR) method. To demonstrate the glove's effectiveness to manipulate the hand, experiments were performed using the glove to demonstrate grasping capabilities on various objects. Instead of defining a grasping force, contact force trajectories were used to control the SAFER Glove to actuate/assist a user's hand while carrying out a learned grasping task. To prove that the hand can be driven safely by the haptic mechanism, force sensor readings placed between each finger and the mechanism have been plotted.
The Customer Engagement Effect on Customer Satisfaction and Brand Trust and Its Impact on Brand Loyalty

Research aims: The research purpose is to determine the influence of customer engagement on brand loyalty through customer satisfaction and brand trust.Design/Methodology/Approach: The population in this research was customers who made purchases from December 2019 until February 2020. The sampling technique employed purposive sampling to decide on 200 respondents. The data had been examined for reliability and validity. The data analysis method used quantitative and descriptive. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was utilized in the quantitative analysis.Research findings: The research results uncovered that customer engagement significantly influenced customer satisfaction. Customer engagement gave a significant influence on brand trust. Customer engagement gave a significant influence on brand loyalty. Customer satisfaction gave a significant influence on brand trust. The brand trust gave a significant influence on brand loyalty. Customer engagement gave an indirect influence on brand trust through customer satisfaction. Also, customer engagement indirectly influenced brand loyalty through brand trust and customer satisfaction.Theoretical contribution/Originality: The study gives contribution to the growth of brand literature.Practitioner/Policy implication: The study has implications for researchers and sellers on how to improve the brand.Research limitation/Implication: The limitation of this study is that it only used one clothing entrepreneurship business brand that utilized Instagram as a promotional medium for further research. Developing the research object further by using more similar brands is recommended.
The Relationship between Thyroid-Stimulating Hormone and Insulin Resistance in Incipient Elderly Type 2 Diabetics with Normal Thyroid Function

Objective To explore correlations between serum thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) concentration within the normal range and insulin resistance and its possible mechanism in incipient type 2 diabetes in elderly patients. Methods 453 elderly patients with type 2 diabetes were divided into four groups by the quartile of TSH. Body mass index (BMI), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), fasting plasma glucose (FPG), fasting insulin (FINS), homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) and homeostasis model assessment of insulin secretion (HOMA-β), blood lipids, and other indicators were compared among all groups, and correlation and regression analysis were conducted. 3T3-L1 preadipocytes were induced into mature adipocytes in vitro, and different concentrations of bovine TSH were used to stimulate adipocytes. The levels of TNF-α in the culture medium were detected by ELISA. Results (1) With the increase of TSH, TC showed an increasing trend. Compared with the G1 group (4.80 ± 1.08), G2 group (5.13 ± 1.16), G3 group (5.14 ± 1.39), and G4 group (5.38 ± 1.16), the difference was statistically significant (P < 0.05 or P < 0.01). The LDL also showed an increasing trend. Compared with the G4 group (3.47 ± 0.89), the G1 (3.12 ± 0.82) and G2 groups (3.14 ± 1.05) had a lower LDL, and the difference was statistically significant (P < 0.01). The BMI increased between the G4 group (26.7 ± 3.97) and the G1 group (25.6 ± 3.54), and the difference was statistically significant (P < 0.05). (2) The serum TSH level was positively correlated with FPG, FINS, HOMA-IR, TC, and LDL (R = 0.292, 0.271, 0.394, 0.195, and 0.178, all P < 0.01). (3) TSH is the dependent variable, other indicators are independent variables, and multiple stepwise regression analysis is performed; the results show that only HOMA-IR, TC, and LDL enter the regression equation. (4) The TSH stimulated TNF-α secretion of 3T3-L1 adipocytes in a dose-dependent manner. Conclusion The TSH level was positively correlated with the insulin resistance and LDL in the elderly incipient type 2 diabetic patients. Higher levels of TSH may be involved in the development of insulin resistance in the elderly incipient type 2 diabetic patients.
Experimental study on the similarity of gas discharge in low-pressure Argon gaps

Through experiments and theoretical analysis, we investigated the similarity of gas discharge in low-pressure Argon gaps between two plane-parallel electrodes. We found that the breakdown voltages depended not only on gap length and the product of gas pressureand gap length but also on the aspect ratio of the gap, i.e. Ub = f (pd, d/r). When we considered similar discharge gaps, the radius r, gap length d, and gas pressure p fulfilled the conditions of p1 r1 = p2 r2 and p1d1 = p2 d2. In this situation, the reduced field E/p was also constant. The voltage-current characteristic curves of similar gaps were approximately the same, which is a novel experimental result. Comparison of the discharge physical parameters of the scaled-down gap and prototype gap shows that the proportional relations can be derived from the similarity law. Our experimental results provide some instructions on extrapolating two similar gaps and their discharge properties. Application of the similarity law is straightforward when we scale the discharges up or down if they are too small or large.
Temporal Characterization of Microglia-Associated Pro- and Anti-Inflammatory Genes in a Neonatal Inflammation-Sensitized Hypoxic-Ischemic Brain Injury Model

Hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) mainly affects preterm and term newborns, leading to a high risk of brain damage. Coexisting infection/inflammation and birth asphyxia are key factors associated with intracerebral increase of proinflammatory cytokines linked to HIE. Microglia are key mediators of inflammation during perinatal brain injury, characterized by their phenotypic plasticity, which may facilitate their participation in both the progression and resolution of injury-induced inflammation. The purpose of this study was to investigate the temporal expression of genes associated with pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines as well as the nucleotide-binding domain, leucine-rich repeat protein (NLRP-3) inflammasome from microglia cells. For this purpose, we used our established neonatal rat model of inflammation-sensitized hypoxic-ischemic (HI) brain injury in seven-day-old rats. We assessed gene expression profiles of 11 cytokines and for NLRP-3 using real-time PCR from sorted CD11b/c microglia of brain samples at different time points (3.5 h after LPS injection and 0, 5, 24, 48, and 72 hours post HI) following different treatments: vehicle, E. coli lipopolysaccharide (LPS), vehicle/HI, and LPS/HI. Our results showed that microglia are early key mediators of the inflammatory response and exacerbate the inflammatory response following HI, polarizing into a predominant proinflammatory M1 phenotype in the early hours post HI. The brains only exposed to HI showed a delay in the expression of proinflammatory cytokines. We also demonstrated that NLRP-3 plays a role in the inflammatory resolution with a high expression after HI insult. The combination of both, a preinfection/inflammation condition and hypoxia-ischemia, resulted in a higher proinflammatory cytokine storm, highlighting the significant contribution of acute inflammation sensitizing prior to a hypoxic insult on the severity of perinatal brain damage.
Inflammation and Prostate Cancer: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Identifying Opportunities for Treatment and Prevention

Simple Summary Prostatitis, or the inflammation of the prostate, is frequently observed in the clinic and by research studies, but its relevance to a man’s risk of being diagnosed with prostate cancer, or to his survival after the diagnosis, is not completely understood. In this review, we summarize the current knowledge on the causes of prostate inflammation, as well as the relationship with prostate cancer, with a particular focus on aggressive, defined as a high Gleason score or clinical stage, and lethal stages of disease. We also describe the strengths and weaknesses of the various technologies used to evaluate prostate inflammation in human studies, and we consider the potential of immune therapy and lifestyle interventions to prevent lethal disease and improve outcomes for prostate cancer patients. Future research is needed to better understand the role of prostate inflammation in lethal prostate cancer, and to provide evidence to guide the development of new treatment and prevention strategies to reduce prostate inflammation and improve survival. Abstract Prostate cancer is a major cause of disease for men globally. Inflammation, an established hallmark of cancer, is frequently observed in the prostate, though its contribution to prostate cancer risks and outcomes is not fully understood. Prostate cancer is biologically and clinically heterogeneous, and there is now evidence that inflammation and immunological characteristics vary by the genomic and mutational landscape of the tumor. Moreover, it is now recognized that risk factor profiles vary between tumor subgroups, as defined by histopathological and molecular features. Here, we provide a review centered around the relationship between inflammation and prostate cancer, with a consideration of molecular tumor features and a particular focus on the advanced and lethal stages of disease. We summarize findings from epidemiological studies of the etiology and role of inflammation in prostate cancer. We discuss the pathology of prostate inflammation, and consider approaches for assessing the tumor immune microenvironment in epidemiological studies. We review emerging clinical therapies targeting immune biology within the context of prostate cancer. Finally, we consider potentially modifiable risk factors and corresponding lifestyle interventions that may affect prostate inflammation, impacting outcomes. These emerging insights will provide some hints for the development of treatment and prevention strategies for advanced and lethal prostate cancer.
Exploring Visualization Strategies to Support Product Family Design Optimization

Product platforms and platform-based product development provide a cost-effective means for generating sufficient product variety for the market to suit the varied demands of today’s customers. A genetic algorithm (GA)-based approach for product family design is adopted in this research for optimizing a product family to help resolve the inherent tradeoff between platform commonality and individual product performance within the family. One of the challenges encountered in our work is the enormous amount of information that is generated from the GA-based approach. In particular, the GA-based approach allows us to explore multiple families based on multiple platforms, and effective visualization strategies are needed to help identify the best solution. In such situations, multi-dimensional visualization becomes an effec tive method to synthesize large numbers of complex designs in a short time without losing any essential information. In this paper we explore visualization strategies are presented to support the product family design optimization process and their applications are demonstrated with a General Aviation Aircraft example.
Research development of application mode of wireless sensor networks in military field

On the basis of typical applications of wireless sensor networks in military field,the evolution of application mode of wireless sensor network in military is analyzed.It is found out that the application of wireless sensor networks in military field is evolving from sensing equipments to attack weapons.On the basis of above analysis,the next generation application mode of wireless sensor networks in military field,which is called "the combat of wireless sensor networks"is proposed.Both characters and key problems of the battle of wireless sensor networks are analyzed.
Broadband and Compact Circularly Polarized MIMO Antenna with Concentric Rings and Oval Slots for 5G Application

A broadband and compact size circularly polarized (CP) two-port multiple input multiple output (MIMO) antenna with a footprint of 25 mm × 20 mm is investigated. The designed oval-shaped MIMO antenna employs concentric rings with oval slots (CROS), along with a circular radiator and two open-ended parallel protruded stubs. The CP radiation is achieved by embedding three oval slots, in which two of them are deployed at the left and right side of the concentric rings, whereas the third one is deployed at the top section of the concentric rings. The measured 10-dB impedance bandwidth of the proposed MIMO antenna was 46.30% (3.12–5.00 GHz), and its corresponding 3-dB axial ratio bandwidth (ARBW) was 41.34% (3.30–5.02 GHz). Furthermore, very wide beamwidths of 137°±0.2 and 154°±0.2 were measured in the right-hand circular polarization (RHCP) and left-hand circular polarization (LHCP) radiation patterns, respectively. The minimum achieved isolation between the antenna elements is 18.50 dB without using any additional decoupling structure, and the calculated envelope correlation coefficient (ECC) < 0.03.
IFGAN: Information fusion generative adversarial network for knowledge base completion

Knowledge base completion (KBC) aims to predict missing information in a knowledge base. From a data governance perspective, KBC is an important task not only in knowledge management but also in downstream knowledge base applications. The prosperity of mobile applications and online systems enables devices to generate an enormous volume of data containing valuable knowledge. However, these data are vast and contain noise, so utilizing them in KBC requires particular skill. In this paper, we propose information fusion generative adversarial network (IFGAN) to handle heterogeneous data. We design a bidirectional learning architecture including a graph convolutional neural network and graph attention network to learn contextual embeddings that fuse knowledge from a knowledge base and data generated by an application. For efficient negative sampling, we employ different kinds of convolution structures, such as depthwise separable convolution and involution in the generator of the network. The convolution structure is known to be suitable for collaborative computing and promises great potential with the progress of technology since the structure is extensible. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model on KB4Rec dataset, the evaluation metrics MRR and H@10 were improved compared with previous models; the code is available at https://github.com/Tianchen627/IFGAN.
The CITIDEMAGE Study: Combined Treatment with a Cholinergic Precursor in Dementia Patients

Certain previous studies have demonstrated the benefits of the addition of citicoline, a cholinergic precursor, to acetylcholinesterase inhibitors (AchEIs) or memantine in patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The present study showed the effectiveness of oral citicoline plus AchEIs plus memantine in outpatients with AD. This was a retrospective case-control study involving 169 patients aged 65 years old or older having AD (mean age: 78.7 ±4.9 years). In addition, 84 patients were treated with AchEIs plus memantine plus citicoline 1 g/day given orally (group A), and 85 patients were treated with AchEIs plus memantine (group B). In both groups, memantine and AchEIs were used at the highest dosage tolerated. Tests were administered at baseline (T0), after 6 (T1), and 12 months (T2) and included MMSE, ADL, IADL, NPI, CIRS, GDS-short form, the EuroQoL, and the Sleep questionnaire. The primary outcomes were the effects of combined treatment versus AchEIs plus memantine on cognitive functions assessed by MMSE. The secondary outcomes were possible side effects of treatment in both groups, the influence on daily life functions, behavioral symptoms, quality of life, and sleep. Patients in group A showed a mild increase in MMSE at 6 (15.85 ±2.86 vs. 16.39 ±2.93) and 12 months (16.39 ±2.93 vs. 16.43 ±3.08). On comparing the two groups, the difference in MMSE score was significant, both at T1 (p = 0.003) and T2 (p = 0.011). Moreover, a significant improvement in GDS and EuroQoL scores was observed. No differences in secondary outcomes, including side effects, were observed between the two groups. This study strengthens the role of citicoline plus AchEIs plus memantine in patients with AD.
Characterization of Antioxidant Activity of Heated Mycosporine-like Amino Acids from Red Alga Dulse Palmaria palmata in Japan

We recently demonstrated the monthly variation and antioxidant activity of mycosporine-like amino acids (MAAs) from red alga dulse in Japan. The antioxidant activity of MAAs in acidic conditions was low compared to that in neutral and alkali conditions, but we found strong antioxidant activity from the heated crude MAA fraction in acidic conditions. In this study, we identified and characterized the key compounds involved in the antioxidant activity of this fraction. We first isolated two MAAs, palythine, and porphyra-334, from the fraction and evaluated the activities of the two MAAs when heated. MAAs possess absorption maxima at around 330 nm, while the heated MAAs lost this absorption. The heated MAAs showed a high ABTS radical scavenging activity at pH 5.8–8.0. We then determined the structure of heated palythine via ESI-MS and NMR analyses and speculated about the putative antioxidant mechanism. Finally, a suitable production condition of the heated compounds was determined at 120 °C for 30 min at pH 8.0. We revealed compounds from red algae with antioxidant activities at a wide range of pH values, and this information will be useful for the functional processing of food.
Heavy Metals in the Sediment of the Islands of Lastovo and Mljet and the City of Dubrovnik

The content of heavy metals (Fe, Mn, Zn, Cu, Cr, Hg, As, Pb and Cd) in the sediment of the marine aquatoriumof the islands of Lastovo and Mljet, and the city of Dubrovnik was examined in order to determine their impact on the environment. Divers collected the samples in a layer of 10 cm and 5 cm at the planned locations. The sample preparation was performed in the laboratory in an autoclave with acids in teflon vessels at elevated temperature. Determination of the concentration of elements was made on an atomic absorption spectrophotometer (AAS), by the method of flame, cold and hot vapors, and nickel vessels. The marine aquatorium of the islands of Lastovo and Mljet are not polluted with ecotoxic elements, while an increased concentration of mercury, arsenic and lead has been found in the marine aquatoriumof the city of Dubrovnik at several locations.
Complex Spherical Fuzzy Decision Support System Based on Entropy Measure and Power Operator

The objectives of this paper are to define novel aggregation operators (AOs) for aggregating different complex spherical fuzzy numbers (CSFNs) under the influence of their membership grades. The uncertainties included in the information are dealt with in contemporary studies of the fuzzy set and its extensions by membership grades, which are a subset of real numbers that lose some relevant information and hence alter the decision results. The conversion to these complex spherical fuzzy sets addresses the classes’ uncertainty, whose ranges differ from the specific subset of the complex subset of the unit disk. For this purpose, we defined new CSF power AOs. Some of the desirable properties of these operators have also been investigated. A multiattribute group decision-making (MAGDM) approach is implemented in the structure developed by the CSFNs on the basis of these operators. A numerical example concerning the selection of the best alternatives is given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the defined method and is tested by comparing its results with the various methods.
Enough is enough: how much intonation is needed in the vocal delivery of audio description?

ABSTRACT In this article we report on an experiment examining audience experience when two different audio description (AD) intonation types are used. Following the classification put forward by Cabeza-Cáceres (2013), we tested twenty participants with vision loss who were asked to listen to twenty film clips with AD voiced following the adapted and emphatic intonation. All clips were rated as evoking emotions, either positive or negative. Participants’ experience was measured through heart rate variability, a self-assessment emotional response (Self-Assessment Manikin), a self-assessment presence questionnaire (ITC-SOPI) and an interview. Results show that participants strongly preferred adapted intonation, particularly when presented clips were evoking negative emotions. Higher rating of intonation type was also linked to greater intensity of the emotional experience and immersion, both self-reported and measured as psychophysiological reaction. The qualitative analysis of the participants’ reports on their experience indicated that adapted intonation is considered a golden mean between emotionless and melodramatic intonation. Film genre, voice type and emotional valence can be influencing factors. Emphatic intonation could be beneficial for certain genres, but a poorly-matched voice can distract the audiences.