Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A customizable grammar-based framework for user-intent text classification

In real-life classification problems, prior information about the problem and expert knowledge about the domain are often used to obtain reliable and consistent solutions. This is especially true in fields where the data is ambiguous, such as text, in which the same words can be used in seemingly similar texts but have a different meaning. Many of the proposed approaches rely on the bag-of-words representation, which loses the information about the structure of the text. In this thesis, a literature review of related works in text classification is provided which includes an overview of text classification methods. In addition, detailed review of related works of two text classification domains; search engines and question answering systems. The core contribution is divided into three main parts. The first contribution is the Customizable Grammar Framework for user-intent text classification (CGF) which employs a formal grammar approach and exploits domain-related information in a new way to represent text as a series of syntactic categories forming syntactic patterns. In addition, the proposed framework has been applied to different domains which resulted in the second and third contribution. The second contribution is the Grammar-Based Framework for Query Classification (GQC) which helped in the improvement of query identification and classification. The third contribution is the Grammar-Based Framework for Question Categorization and Classification (GQCC) which helped in the enhancement of question identification and classification. In addition, using different machine learning algorithms the overall results show that the proposed approach outperforms previous ones in terms of classification performance for query and question classifications. Finally, comparison of the classification performance with the state-of-the-art approaches has been conducted, results validate that the proposed approach improves the classification accuracy and the identification of the different types of queries and questions.
A model-driven framework for enabling flexible and robust mobile data collection applications

In the light of the ubiquitous digital transformation, smart mobile technology has become a salient factor for enabling large-scale data collection scenarios. Structured instruments (e.g., questionnaires) are frequently used to collect data in various application domains, like healthcare, psychology, and social sciences. In current practice, instruments are usually distributed and filled out in a paper-based fashion (e.g., paper-and-pencil questionnaires). The widespread use of smart mobile devices, like smartphones or tablets, offers promising perspectives for the controlled collection of accurate data in high quality. The design, implementation and deployment of mobile data collection applications, however, is a challenging endeavor. First, various mobile operating systems need to be properly supported, taking their short release cycles into account. Second, domain-specific peculiarities need to be flexibly aligned with mobile application development. Third, domain-specific usability guidelines need to be obeyed. Altogether, these challenges turn both programming and maintaining of mobile data collection applications into a costly, time-consuming, and error-prone endeavor. The Ph.D. thesis at hand presents an advanced framework that shall enable domain experts to transform paper-based instruments to mobile data collection applications. The latter, in turn, can then be deployed to and executed on heterogeneous smart mobile devices. In particular, the framework shall empower domain experts (i.e., end-users) to flexibly design and create robust mobile data collection applications on their own; i.e., without need to involve IT experts or mobile application developers. As major benefit, the framework enables the development of sophisticated mobile data collection applications by orders of magnitude faster compared to current approaches, and relieves domain experts from manual tasks like, for example, digitizing and analyzing the collected data.
Temporal and spatial regulation of protein cross-linking by the pre-assembled substrates of a Bacillus subtilis spore coat transglutaminase

In many cases protein assemblies are stabilized by covalent bonds, one example of which is the formation of intra- or intermolecular ε-(γ-glutamyl)lysil cross-links catalyzed by transglutaminases (TGases). Because of the potential for unwanted cross-linking reactions, the activities of many TGases have been shown to be tightly controlled. Bacterial endospores are highly resilient cells in part because they are surrounded by a complex protein coat. Proteins in the coat that surrounds Bacillus subtilis endospores are crosslinked by a TGase (Tgl). Unlike other TGases, however, Tgl is produced in an active form, and efficiently catalyzes amine incorporation and protein cross-linking in vitro with no known additional requirements. The absence of regulatory factors raises questions as to how the activity of Tgl is controlled during spore coat assembly. Here, we show that substrates assembled onto the spore coat prior to Tgl production govern the localization of Tgl to the surface of the developing spore. We also show that Tgl residues important for substrate recognition are crucial for its localization. We identified the glutamyl (Q) and lysil (K) substrate docking sites and we show that residues on the Q side of Tgl are more important for the assembly of Tgl than those on the K side. Thus, the first step in the reaction cycle, the interaction with Q-substrates and formation of an acyl-enzyme intermediate, is also the determinant step in the localization of Tgl. Consistent with the idea that Tg exerts a “spotwelding” activity, cross-linking pre-formed assemblies, we show that C30 is an oblong hexamer in solution that is cross-linked in vitro into high molecular weight forms. Moreover, during the reaction, Tgl becomes part of the cross-linked products. We suggest that the dependency of Tgl on its substrates is used to accurately control the time, location and extent of the enzyme´s activity, directed at the covalent fortification of pre-assembled complexes at the surface of the developing spore.
Effectiveness of Isolated Hip Exercise, Knee Exercise, or Free Physical Activity for Patellofemoral Pain: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Background: Exercise for patellofemoral pain (PFP) is traditionally knee focused, targeting quadriceps muscles. In recent years, hip-focused exercise has gained popularity. Patient education is likely an important factor but is underresearched. Purpose: To compare 3 treatment methods for PFP, each combined with patient education: hip-focused exercise, knee-focused exercise, or free physical activity. Study Design: Randomized controlled trial; Level of evidence, 1. Methods: A single-blind randomized controlled trial was performed with 112 patients who were 16 to 40 years old (mean, 27.6 years) and had a symptom duration >3 months (mean, 39 months) with a clinical diagnosis of PFP and no radiograph or magnetic resonance evidence of other pathology. Patients were randomized to a 6-week intervention consisting of patient education combined with isolated hip-focused exercise (n = 39), traditional knee-focused exercise (n = 37), or free physical activity (n = 36). The primary outcome was Anterior Knee Pain Scale (0-100) at 3 months. Secondary outcomes were visual analog scale for pain, Tampa Scale for Kinesiophobia, Knee Self-efficacy Scale, EuroQol, step-down, and isometric strength. Results: There were no between-group differences in any primary or secondary outcomes at 3 months except for hip abduction strength and knee extension strength. Between-group differences at 3 months for Anterior Knee Pain Scale were as follows: knee versus control, 0.2 (95% CI, –5.5 to 6.0); hip versus control, 1.0 (95% CI, –4.6 to 6.6); and hip versus knee, 0.8 (95% CI, –4.8 to 6.4). The whole cohort of patients improved for all outcomes at 3 months except for knee extension strength. Conclusion: The authors found no difference in short-term effectiveness in combining patient education with knee-focused exercise, hip-focused exercise, or free training for patients with PFP. Registration: NCT02114294 (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier).
Advance Care Planning Improves Psychological Symptoms But Not Quality of Life and Preferred End-of-Life Care of Patients With Cancer.

BACKGROUND This study was conducted to examine whether a longitudinal advance care planning (ACP) intervention facilitates concordance between the preferred and received life-sustaining treatments (LSTs) of terminally ill patients with cancer and improves quality of life (QoL), anxiety symptoms, and depressive symptoms during the dying process. PATIENTS AND METHODS Of 795 terminally ill patients with cancer from a medical center in Taiwan, 460 were recruited and randomly assigned 1:1 to the experimental and control arms. The experimental arm received an interactive ACP intervention tailored to participants' readiness to engage in this process. The control arm received symptom management education. Group allocation was concealed, data collectors were blinded, and treatment fidelity was monitored. Outcome measures included 6 preferred and received LSTs, QoL, anxiety symptoms, and depressive symptoms. Intervention effectiveness was evaluated by intention-to-treat analysis. RESULTS Participants providing data had died through December 2017. The 2 study arms did not differ significantly in concordance between the 6 preferred and received LSTs examined (odds ratios, 0.966 [95% CI, 0.653-1.428] and 1.107 [95% CI, 0.690-1.775]). Participants who received the ACP intervention had significantly fewer anxiety symptoms (β, -0.583; 95% CI, -0.977 to -0.189; P= .004) and depressive symptoms (β, -0.533; 95% CI, -1.036 to -0.030; P= .038) compared with those in the control arm, but QoL did not differ. CONCLUSIONS Our ACP intervention facilitated participants' psychological adjustment to the end-of-life (EoL) care decision-making process, but neither improved QoL nor facilitated EoL care honoring their wishes. The inability of our intervention to improve concordance may have been due to the family power to override patients' wishes in deeply Confucian doctrine-influenced societies such as Taiwan. Nevertheless, our findings reassure healthcare professionals that such an ACP intervention does not harm but improves the psychological well-being of terminally ill patients with cancer, thereby encouraging physicians to discuss EoL care preferences with patients and involve family caregivers in EoL care decision-making to eventually lead to patient value-concordant EoL cancer care.
Stress-sign-tunable Poisson’s ratio in monolayer blue phosphorus oxide

Negative Poisson’s ratio (NPR) materials have attracted tremendous interest due to their unusual physical properties and potential applications. Certain two-dimensional (2D) monolayer materials have also been found to exhibit NPR and the corresponding deformation mechanism varies. In this study, we found, based on first-principles calculations, that the Poisson’s ratio (PR) sign of monolayer blue phosphorus oxide (BPO) can be tuned by strain: the PR is positive under uniaxial strain but becomes negative under > 0. The deformation mechanism for BPO under strain depends on the mutual competition between the P–P attraction and P–O repulsion effect, and these two factors induce two different deformation pathways (one with positive PR, and the other with NPR). Moreover, with increasing of strain, both the decreased strength of P–P attraction and the increased strength of P–O repulsion effect modulates the PR of BPO from positive to negative.
Hoarding: A meta‐analysis of age of onset

Hoarding disorder is present in 2–6% of the population and can have an immense impact on the lives of patients and their families. Before its inclusion the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition, pathological hoarding was often characterized as a symptom of obsessive–compulsive disorder, and several different diagnostic assessment methods were used to identify and characterize it. Although the age of onset of pathological hoarding is an important epidemiological measure, as clarifying the age of onset of hoarding symptoms may allow for early identification and implementation of evidence‐based treatments before symptoms become clinically significant, the typical age of onset of hoarding is still uncertain. To that end, this study is a systematic review and meta‐analysis of research published in English between the years 1900 and 2016 containing information on age of onset of hoarding symptoms. Twenty‐five studies met inclusion criteria. The mean age of onset of hoarding symptoms across studies was 16.7 years old, with evidence of a bimodal distribution of onset. The authors conclude by discussing practice implications for early identification and treatment.
Inhibition of STAT3 activation mediated by toll‐like receptor 4 attenuates angiotensin II‐induced renal fibrosis and dysfunction

Hypertension adversely affects the kidney and is the second leading cause of kidney failure. Overproduction of angiotensin II greatly contributes to the progression of hypertensive kidney disease. Angiotensin II has recently been shown to activate STAT3 in cardiovascular cells. However, the underlying mechanisms of STAT3 activation by angiotensin II and downstream functional consequences in the kidneys are not fully understood.
Dapivirine Bioadhesive Vaginal Tablets Based on Natural Polymers for the Prevention of Sexual Transmission of HIV

Young sub-Saharan women are a group that is vulnerable to the sexual transmission of HIV. Pre-exposure prophylaxis through vaginal microbicides could provide them an option for self-protection. Dapivirine has been demonstrated to have topical inhibitory effects in HIV, and to provide protection against the sexual transmission of this virus. This paper reports on the studies into swelling behaviour, bioadhesion and release carried out on dapivirine tablets based on chitosan, locust bean gum and pectin, to select the most suitable formulation. The modified simulated vaginal fluid led to a high solubility of dapivirine and allowed the dapivirine release profiles to be characterized in sink conditions; this aqueous medium is an alternative to organic solvents, which are not a realistic option when evaluating systems whose behaviour varies in aqueous and organic media. Of the formulations evaluated, dapivirine/pectin tablets containing 290 mg of polymer and 30 mg of dapivirine present the most moderate swelling, making them the most comfortable dosage forms. Their high bioadhesive capacity would also allow the formulation to remain in the action zone and release the drug in a sustained manner, pointing to this formulation as the most promising candidate for future evaluations of vaginal microbicides for the prevention of HIV.
Exploring Matrix Effects on Binding Properties and Characterization of Cotinine Molecularly Imprinted Polymer on Paper-Based Scaffold

Commercially available sorbent materials for solid-phase extraction are widely used in analytical laboratories. However, non-selective binding is a major obstacle for sample analysis. To overcome this problem, molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) were used as selective adsorbent materials prior to determining target analysts. In this study, the use of non-covalent molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) for cotinine adsorption on a paper-based scaffold was studied. Fiberglass paper was used as a paper scaffold for cotinine-selective MIP adsorption with the use of 0.5% agarose gel. The effects of salt, pH, sample matrix, and solvent on the cotinine adsorption and extraction process were investigated. Under optimal conditions, the adsorption isotherm of synthesized MIPs increased to 125.41 µg/g, whereas the maximum adsorption isotherm of non-imprinted polymers (NIPs) was stable at 42.86 µg/g. The ability of the MIP paper scaffold to absorb cotinine in water medium was approximately 1.8–2.8-fold higher than that of the NIP scaffold. From Scatchard analysis, two dissociation constants of MIPs were calculated to be 2.56 and 27.03 µM. Nicotine, myosmine, and N-nitrosonornicotine were used for selectivity testing, and the calculated selectivity factor of cotinine to nicotine, myosmine, and N-nitrosonornicotine was 1.56, 2.69, and 2.05, respectively. Overall, the MIP paper scaffold is promising for simple onsite sampling of cotinine and can be used to assess tobacco smoke exposure.
Confidant Network and Interpersonal Communication Associations with Depression in Older Adulthood

ABSTRACT Social networks contribute to the well-being and longevity of older adults, yet very little research to date has attempted to identify communicative mechanisms that explain the link between social networks and health. This study identified and tested two communicative mechanisms, openness and criticism, as mediators between confidant network size, confidant network density, and depression in a sample of 2,249 Americans over the age of 60. The data suggest that openness with friends and family mediate the relationship between network factors (size and density) and depression, while criticism from friends and family also mediate the relationship between network properties (size and density) and depression but less consistently (e.g., friend criticism only mediated the relationship with density). In general, network size appears to increase exposure to the positive outcomes of openness but also increase the negative outcomes of criticism; the role of network density is more complicated. The varied direction of the mediation associations are discussed along with implications for network and communication theorists and those who work with older adults.
A workload-specific performance brokerage for infrastructure clouds

Major Cloud providers offer a seemingly unlimited supply of compute resources for rent on-demand, with instances (virtual machines) being particularly popular amongst a range of service offerings. However, variation in performance across supposedly identical instances, supported by heterogeneous hardware, sold at the same price leads to variation in workload execution costs. Indeed, users pay more to have work delivered slower whilst missing out on the concomitant benefits of completing work faster and receive no performance assurances. To address price, performance, and assurance, we propose and evaluate a broker that re-prices cloud provider instances according to measured performance levels to offer performance-assured instances. Such a broker does not impose changes on Cloud provider business models, but to be viable the broker must be profitable and yet profitable Cloud brokers seem not to exist in the literature. We investigate broker profitability through simulations that model a commodity exchange analogously to extant financial exchanges, with sellers characterised in accordance with extant major Cloud providers and the broker modelled as a so-called Zero Intelligence (ZI) trading agent. Instance performance data are drawn from extensive benchmarking of Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), and a Google workload trace comprising some 650,000 jobs provides for buyer willingness. The maximum profit margin that could be achieved by the proposed broker across multiple demand profiles is 4%, and achieving this requires 4 different types of hardware that exhibit an average performance degrade of 52% from best to worst. A loss is made under a variety of other conditions. At best, such a broker would support a low margin high volume business, leaving it sensitive to market competition, vagaries in demand, exchange transaction fees and gaming strategies that clients may be able to employ. As such, we question the viability of brokers proposed elsewhere which claim to offer performance services of various kinds, despite profitability not having been evaluated and, worse, without operational costs addressed. Original contributions from this research include: (1) quantification and characterisation of performance variation amongst Cloud instances; (2) a model of instance performance that is qualitatively similar to results found empirically in both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies; (3) an exposition of the underestimation of risk in extant performance improvement strategies; (4) a Cloud broker offering performance-assured instances and the set of assumptions to be met for profitability; and (5) a strategy for minimising risks to performance due to correlated instance usage.
Time-Dependent Disk Accretion in Binary Systems

The analytic investigation of time-dependent accretion in disk is carried out. We consider a disk in a binary system at outburst which has (cid:12)xed tidally truncated outer radius. The standard model (Shakura{Sunyaev 1973) of the disk is considered. The fully analytic solutions in two di(cid:11)erent opacity regimes are characterized by power{law variations of accretion rate with time. The solutions supply asymptotic de-scription of the disk evolution after the peak of outburst while the disk is fully ionized. The X-ray (cid:13)ux of multicolor (black-body) (cid:11) -disk is obtained to vary quasi-exponentially. The application to X-ray novae is brie(cid:13)y discussed concerning observed faster-than-power decays of X-ray light curves. The case of time-dependent advective disk is mentioned.
Investigating Risk of Suboptimal Macro and Micronutrient Intake and Their Determinants in Older Danish Adults with Specific Focus on Protein Intake—A Cross-Sectional Study

Suboptimal intake of nutrients is associated with adverse health outcomes. The current study investigated the risk of suboptimal macro and micronutrient intake and their potential determinants in a cross-sectional study of community-dwelling older Danish adults (65–81 years). Nutrient intake was obtained through a 3-day weighted dietary record and information on personal characteristics and attitudes towards specific foods and dietary habits and nutrition through questionnaires. Dietary Reference Values (DRV) from the Nordic Nutrition Recommendations were used for the assessment. Among 157 participants, 68% and 66% had risk of suboptimal intake of dietary fiber and saturated fatty acids (SFA). For mono-unsaturated fatty acids (MUFA) and poly-unsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), the numbers were 47% and 62%, respectively. Increased risk of suboptimal protein intake was estimated in 3 to 45% of the participants, depending on the criteria used for the DRV and of the mode of expressing protein intake. Fifty percent had intakes of alcohol above the maximum recommended intake. Risk of micronutrient inadequacy was particularly high for vitamin D and thiamine (80 and 45%, respectively). Total energy intake and attitude regarding healthy eating were associated with lower nutrient intake. The current study illustrates that there is room for improvements in the dietary quality of community dwelling older Danish adults.