Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multiple-particle interference and quantum error correction

The concept of multiple-particle interference is discussed, using insights provided by the classical theory of error correcting codes. This leads to a discussion of error correction in a quantum communication channel or a quantum computer. Methods of error correction in the quantum regime are presented, and their limitations assessed. A quantum channel can recover from arbitrary decoherence of x qubits if K bits of quantum information are encoded using n quantum bits, where K /n can be greater than 1 - 2H(2x/n), but must be less than 1 - 2H(2x/n) This implies exponential reduction of decoherence with only a polynomial increase in the computing resources required. Therefore quantum computation can be made free of errors in the presence of physically realistic levels of decoherence. The methods also allow isolation of quantum communication from noise and evesdropping (quantum privacy amplification).
Influenza vaccination in patients with diabetes: disparities in prevalence between African Americans and Whites

Background Patients with diabetes who contract influenza are at higher risk of complications, such as hospitalization and death. Patients with diabetes are three times more likely to die from influenza complications than those without diabetes. Racial disparities among patients with diabetes in preventive health services have not been extensively studied. Objective To compare influenza vaccination rates among African Americans and Whites patients with diabetes and investigate factors that might have an impact on racial disparities in the receipt of influenza vaccinations. Methods A secondary data analysis of 47,283 (unweighted) patients with diabetes from the 2011 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey (BRFSS) (15,902,478 weighted) was performed. The survey respondents were asked whether they received an influenza vaccination in the last twelve months. We used logistic regression to estimate the odds of receiving the influenza vaccine based on race. Results The results indicated a significantly lower proportion of African Americans respondents (50%) reported receiving the influenza vaccination in the last year when compared with Whites respondents (61%). Age, gender, education, health care coverage, health care cost, and employment status were found to significantly modify the effect of race on receiving the influenza vaccination. Conclusions This study found a significant racial disparity in influenza vaccination rates in adults with diabetes with higher rates in Whites compared to African Americans individuals. The public health policies that target diabetes patients in general and specifically African Americans in the 65+ age group, women, and homemakers, may be necessary to diminish the racial disparity in influenza vaccination rates between African Americans and Whites diabetics.
Critical Factors for Knowledge Management in Project Business

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to identify and examine various factors that influence the success or failure of knowledge management (KM) initiatives in project‐based companies.Design/methodology/approach – Following a literature review, the study proposes a conceptual model of six factors of potential importance to the success of KM initiatives. The model is then examined through an online survey of project managers and assistant managers from project‐based businesses in Finland.Findings – The study finds that a lack of incentives and the absence of an appropriate information system are the most significant barriers to successful KM initiatives in projects.Research limitations/implications – The findings of the study may be restricted in terms of generalisability because of the limited empirical study.Practical implications – Project managers should formulate an attractive incentive package to encourage project members to participate in KM initiatives and to suggest ideas for new KM opportunities.
[Lung ultrasonography for the diagnosis of neonatal respiratory distress syndrome: a pilot study].

OBJECTIVE The diagnosis of respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) is usually based on clinical manifestations, arterial blood gas analysis and chest x-ray. Lung ultrasounds are typically not included in the diagnostic work-up of neonatal RDS. Recently, ultrasounds have been used extensively and successfully in the diagnosis of many kinds of lung diseases, but few studies have addressed neonatal RDS. This study aimed to evaluate the value of lung ultrasound in the diagnosis of neonatal RDS. METHOD From May, 2012 to September, 2012, 45 newborn infants with RDS and 30 neonates without lung disease were enrolled into this study. Lung ultrasound was performed at bedside by a single expert physician in the first 24 h of life before exogenous pulmonary surfactant administration. The transthoracic approach was performed with longitudinal scans of the anterior, lateral and posterior chest walls. A conventional antero-posterior chest X rag was performed at bedside in the patients immediately when lung ultrasound was finished. RESULT The ultrasound signs of lung consolidation, pleural line abnormalities, bilateral "white lung" and A-line disappearance were seen in 100% of RDS patients while they were not found in any of the controls (P < 0.001). Lung pulse was 80% in RDS patients and in 0% of controls, respectively (P = 0.001). The pleural effusion were 13.3% in RDS patients and 0% in controls, respectively (P < 0.001). B-lines existed in 4.4% of RDS patients and in 26.7% of controls (P = 0.012). Both the sensitivity and specificity were 100% when ultrasonic signs of lung consolidation, pleural line abnormalities and bilateral "white lung" coexisted or when lung consolidation, pleural line abnormalities and A-line disappearance coexisted. The presence of lung pulse demonstrated a sensitivity of 80% and a specificity of 100% in diagnosis of RDS. CONCLUSION The main ultrasound imaging features of neonatal RDS include lung consolidation with air bronchograms, pleural line abnormalities, lung pulse and bilateral "white lung" or alveolar-interstitial syndrome. It is accurate and reliable that using ultrasound to diagnose neonatal RDS, which also has many other advantages including non-ionizing, can be performed at bedside, easy-operatinng, can be repeated several times in a day without hazards to the operators and the patients. Therefore, it deserves to be carried out in the neonatal ward.
A deterministic model for the sublayer streaks in turbulent boundary layers for application to flow control

We present a relatively simple, deterministic, theoretical model for the sublayer streaks in a turbulent boundary layer based on an analogy with Klebanoff modes. Our approach is to generate the streamwise vortices found in the buffer layer by means of a vorticity source in the form of a fictitious body force. It is found that the strongest streaks correspond to a spanwise wavelength that lies within the range of the experimentally observed values for the statistical mean streak spacing. We also present results showing the effect of streamwise pressure gradient, Reynolds number and wall compliance on the sublayer streaks. The theoretical predictions for the effects of wall compliance on the streak characteristics agree well with experimental data. Our proposed theoretical model for the quasi-periodic bursting cycle is also described, which places the streak modelling in context. The proposed bursting process is as follows: (i) streamwise vortices generate sublayer streaks and other vortical elements generate propagating plane waves, (ii) when the streaks reach a sufficient amplitude, they interact nonlinearly with the plane waves to produce oblique waves that exhibit transient growth, and (iii) the oblique waves interact nonlinearly with the plane wave to generate streamwise vortices; these in turn generate the sublayer streaks and so the cycle is renewed.
Frequency, intensity and topicality in online learning: An exploration of the interaction dimensions that contribute to student satisfaction in online learning

This article analyzes dimensions of interaction that contribute to student satisfaction in Web-supported courses. Researchers examined chat logs and discussion board postings for eight graduate courses in fall 2000 at the Florida State University School of Information Studies, and conducted focus group interviews in spring 2001 with 14 online and local students. Interaction was examined along three dimensions: frequency, intensity and topicality (FIT). Of the eight courses, one received a FIT ranking of high, three received a FIT ranking of low, and four received a FIT ranking of medium. Dimensions of interaction contributing positively toward online learning in master's courses in library and information studies (LIS) were explored to help LIS educators design, develop, and implement online courses that are both more effective in their support of learning and more satisfying to students and instructors.
Mandatory Disclosure Reform and Executive Compensation : Is CFO Pay Higher After the Mandatory Adoption of IFRS ? a

We find that CFOs receive higher compensation following the mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). We propose two potential explanations: improved monitoring and increased responsibility. Consistent with improved monitoring, we find that the increase is positively associated with the loss of private benefits and is negatively associated with existing shareholder monitoring. Consistent with increased responsibility, we find compensation started to increase after the announcement of adoption and increased further after actual adoption. The fact that these increases in compensation are not found for other non-CEO/CFO executives provides assurance that they are related to IFRS adoption.
Analysis on the Globally Exponent Synchronization of Chua's Circuit Using Absolute Stability Theory

In this paper, the absolute stability theory and methodology for nonlinear control systems are employed to study the well-known Chua's circuit. New results are obtained for the globally exponent synchronization of two Chua's circuits. The explicit formulas can be easily applied in practice. With the aid of constructing Lyapunov functions, sufficient conditions are derived, under which two (drive-response) Chua's circuits are globally and exponentially synchronized, even if the motions of the systems are divergent to infinity. Numerical simulation results are given to illustrate the theoretical predictions.
Efficient, guaranteed search with multi-agent teams

Here we present an anytime algorithm for clearing an environment using multiple searchers. Prior methods in the literature treat multi-agent search as either a worst-case problem (i.e., clear an environment of an adversarial evader with potentially infinite speed), or an average-case problem (i.e., minimize average capture time given a model of the target’s motion). We introduce an algorithm that combines finite-horizon planning with spanning tree traversal methods to generate plans that clear the environment of a worst-case adversarial target and have good average-case performance considering a target motion model. Our algorithm is scalable to large teams of searchers and yields theoretically bounded average-case performance. We have tested our proposed algorithm through a large number of experiments in simulation and with a team of robot and human searchers in an office building. Our combined search algorithm both clears the environment and reduces average capture times by up to 75% when compared to a purely worst-case approach.
The European Adolescent Assessment Dialogue (EuroADAD): A Psychometric Evaluation

Background: The Adolescent Drug Abuse Diagnosis (ADAD) has been a gold standard for assessing drug use and associated problems in adolescents. Criticism of the instrument has been increasing. A new instrument, the European Adolescent Assessment Dialogue (EuroADAD) that builds on ADAD’s strengths but seeks to address its limitations is now available, but has not been subjected to comprehensive psychometric evaluation. Objective: To examine the psychometric properties of the EuroADAD across various settings in adolescent populations who developed or were at a high risk of developing substance use and psychosocial adaptation problems. Participants and Settings: Three of the samples were collected in Hungary, including: institutionalized youths from juvenile residential facility (n = 295); adolescents from outpatient psychiatry facility (n = 278), and controls (n = 59). An additional sample was collected in the Netherlands, and consisted of adolescent boys from an independent residential institution for youth with severe behavioral problems (n = 51). Procedure: The EuroADAD was administered by trained interviewers. Data were collected through face-to-face interviews and self-report questionnaires. Results:Reliability: the intraclass correlation was high for all domains of the EuroADAD; reliability analyses indicated good test-retest reliability, and internal consistency. Validity: difference among study samples was significant (p < 0.05) for the majority of the domains, with juvenile institution and psychiatric outpatient subjects exhibiting higher severity in most areas compared to controls. The Hungarian and Dutch samples were comparable, expect for the legal domain, due to the higher severity of behavioral problems in the Dutch sample. Several domains of the instrument, including ‘alcohol’, ‘drugs’ and ‘legal’ showed an association with trait aggression as measured by the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire and with Novelty Seeking on the Cloninger Temperament and Character Inventory. Conclusion: Based on the pattern and significance of group differences, and correlations with other measures, the scale has good criterion, and convergent and discriminant construct validity. The EuroADAD is a reliable and valid tool for the assessment of alcohol and drug use, and related psychosocial problems in adolescents.
Broad‐host‐range plasmid replication: an open question

Many factors can influence the ability of plasmids to colonize different hosts, efficient replication probably being the most critical one. Two major strategies seem to facilitate promiscuous plasmid replication: (i) initiation independent of host initiation factors; and (ii) versatile communication between plasmid and host initiation factors. Appropriate communication between a replicon and the different hosts, which becomes crucial at the initation of plasmid replication, plays a major role in plasmid promiscuity. Fused replicons or mechanisms that rescue collapsed replication forks may increase the efficiency of plasmid propagation. However, their contribution to plasmid promiscuous replication remains to be fully evaluated. Several examples of host‐specific adaptation of promiscuous plasmids point to an enormous flexibility of these replicons.
Multi-scale Deep Learning Architectures for Person Re-identification

Person Re-identification (re-id) aims to match people across non-overlapping camera views in a public space. It is a challenging problem because many people captured in surveillance videos wear similar clothes. Consequently, the differences in their appearance are often subtle and only detectable at the right location and scales. Existing re-id models, particularly the recently proposed deep learning based ones match people at a single scale. In contrast, in this paper, a novel multi-scale deep learning model is proposed. Our model is able to learn deep discriminative feature representations at different scales and automatically determine the most suitable scales for matching. The importance of different spatial locations for extracting discriminative features is also learned explicitly. Experiments are carried out to demonstrate that the proposed model outperforms the state-of-the art on a number of benchmarks.
Video Quality Estimation for Mobile H.264/AVC Video Streaming

The scope of this paper is the estimation of subjective video quality for low-resolution video sequences as they are typical for mobile video streaming. Although the video quality experienced by users depends on spatial (edges, colors, .) and more considerably on temporal (movement speed, direction, .) features of the video sequence, most of the well-known methods are based on spatial features. This paper presents a new reference-free approach for quality estimation based on motion characteristics. The character of motion is determined by the amount and direction of the motion between two scene changes. In this paper, two methods are presented. The first method, presents the design of a quality metric based on content adaptive parameters, allowing for content dependent video quality estimation. The second method estimates video quality in two steps. Firstly, the content classification with character sensitive parameters is carried out. Finally, based on the content class, frame rate and bitrate, the video quality is estimated. The performance of the proposed methods is evaluated and compared to the ANSI T1.801. 03 metric. The results show that the motion-based approach provides powerful means of estimating the video quality experienced by users for low resolution video streaming services.
Mutational Analyses of the Influenza A Virus Polymerase Subunit PA Reveal Distinct Functions Related and Unrelated to RNA Polymerase Activity

Influenza A viral polymerase is a heterotrimeric complex that consists of PA, PB1, and PB2 subunits. We previously reported that a di-codon substitution mutation (G507A-R508A), denoted J10, in the C-terminal half of PA had no apparent effect on viral RNA synthesis but prevented infectious virus production, indicating that PA may have a novel role independent of its polymerase activity. To further examine the roles of PA in the viral life cycle, we have now generated and characterized additional mutations in regions flanking the J10 site from residues 497 to 518. All tested di-codon mutations completely abolished or significantly reduced viral infectivity, but they did so through disparate mechanisms. Several showed effects resembling those of J10, in that the mutant polymerase supported normal levels of viral RNA synthesis but nonetheless failed to generate infectious viral particles. Others eliminated polymerase activity, in most cases by perturbing the normal nuclear localization of PA protein in cells. We also engineered single-codon mutations that were predicted to pack near the J10 site in the crystal structure of PA, and found that altering residues K378 or D478 each produced a J10-like phenotype. In further studies of J10 itself, we found that this mutation does not affect the formation and release of virion-like particles per se, but instead impairs the ability of those particles to incorporate each of the eight essential RNA segments (vRNAs) that make up the viral genome. Taken together, our analysis identifies mutations in the C-terminal region of PA that differentially affect at least three distinct activities: protein nuclear localization, viral RNA synthesis, and a trans-acting function that is required for efficient packaging of all eight vRNAs.
Defy or ally : Neuroendocrine regulation of human socio-emotional behavior

Evolution has created a human brain that is characterized by a layered, hierarchical organization. These superimposed layers have gradually evolved to generate ever more complex forms of socio-emotional behavior. The present thesis centers on the neurobiological substrates that generate this behavior, with a particular focus on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) and hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) neuroendocrine axes, and the autonomic nervous system. A multidisciplinary approach is taken that combines theory and methods from cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and psychopharmacology. The first part of the thesis concerns social aggression. In a series of studies, first, the feasibility of employing cognitive and physiological responses to facial expressions displaying social aggression is validated. Subsequently, these methods are used to provide evidence that within the well-established framework of lateralization of the prefrontal cortex, anger is lateralized to the left instead of the right hemisphere. This finding is consistent with recent theories based on an approach-avoidance framework of prefrontal lateralization. A subsequent study applied functional MRI to study the role of steroid hormones in regulating social aggression. It is shown that a profile of low basal levels of HPA axis regulated stress hormones, in combination with and high levels of the HPG axis regulated hormone testosterone, is predictive of a strong amygdala response to socially threatening facial expressions. Moreover, after elevation of testosterone levels through oral administration, this response increased. These findings provide one of the very few demonstrations of the putative relation between testosterone and reactive aggression in humans. The second part of the thesis centers on neuroendocrine regulation of fear circuits in humans using psychophysiological methods such as fear potentiated startle and electrodermal activity. In three studies, it is shown that testosterone has fear-reducing properties. Recent notions that the HPA axis may similarly exert negative feedback upon central fear circuitry through cortisol could not be supported. In the third part of the thesis two studies are reported that investigate empathy from the viewpoint that this socio-emotional capacity is rooted in perspective taking through imitation. The first of these demonstrates that volunteers that score high on a questionnaire assessing autistic traits have a reduced tendency to spontaneously mimic facial expressions. The final study again uses a manipulation of testosterone to show that spontaneous mimicry is decreased after administration, arguably due to a reduced tendency to empathize. In conclusion, this thesis endorses the view that an integrated account of functioning of the HPA and HPG axes and their influence upon socio-emotional processes, likely through altering neuropeptidergic transmission in limbic brain circuits, may contribute to finding new and more specific treatments of psychopathologies in the socio-emotional domain.
Comparison of Electrosurgical versus Scalpel Skin Incision in Inguinal Hernioplasty in Terms of Early Postoperative Pain

INTRODUCTION: Inguinal hernioplasty is a common surgical procedure. Scalpel is used traditionally for making skin incision, alternative is to use electrocautery for making this incision. The use of electrosurgical devices also added advantage of maintaining hemostasis, however most of the surgeons are still reluctant to use diathermy for making skin incision due the fear of postoperative pain and delayed wound healing. This reluctance, has been seriously challenged by newer research work. Electrosurgery is used clinically for