Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Memory-Hierarchical and Mode-Adaptive HEVC Intra Prediction Architecture for Quad Full HD Video Decoding

This paper presents a high-throughput and areaefficient VLSI architecture for intra prediction in the emerging high efficiency video coding standard. Three design techniques are proposed to address the complexity systematically: 1) a hierarchical memory deployment that stores neighboring samples in 4.9 Kb of static RAM (SRAM) instead of 43.2-k gates of registers and increases throughput by processing reference samples in registers; 2) a mode-adaptive scheduling scheme for all prediction units, which provides at least 2 samples/cycle throughput while using low-throughput SRAM and can achieve 2.46 samples/cycle on the average based on the experimental results; and 3) resource sharing for multipliers and the readout circuits of reference sample registers, which can save 2.5-k gates. These techniques can efficiently reduce area by 40% but induce more power because of additional signal transitions. Signal-gating circuits are then applied to reduce 69% of SRAM power and 32% of logic power, which cost only 1.0-k gates. When synthesized at 200 MHz with 40-nm process, the proposed architecture needs only 27.0-k gates and 4.9 Kb of single-port SRAM. The layout core area is 0.036 mm2, and the power consumption is 2.11 mW in the postlayout simulation. The corresponding performance can support quad full high-definition (HD) (3840 × 2160) video decoding at 30 frames/s.
Effects of socioeconomic status and acculturation on accelerometer-measured moderate-to-vigorous physical activity among Mexican American adolescents: findings from NHANES 2003-2004.

BACKGROUND Socioeconomic status (SES) and acculturation are potential contributors of adolescent physical activity disparity among ethnic groups in the U.S. However, studies relying on self-report physical activity measures have reported inconsistent findings regarding sociocultural predictors of physical activity. Therefore, the current study examined the main and interactive effects of SES and acculturation on accelerometer-measured moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity (MVPA) among Mexican American adolescents. METHODS The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2003-2004 was analyzed. Samples of 153 and 169 Mexican American boys and girls, respectively, were analyzed. SES was indicated by poverty-to-income ratio (PIR); and acculturation was measured by 5-item English preference scales and adolescent and parental country of birth. Regression models were tested separately for boys and girls. RESULTS U.S.-born boys compared with immigrants did more MVPA (β = .48, P < .01). On the contrary, the effect of English preference on MVPA in boys was negative (β = -.05, P < .01) and amplified by higher SES (β = -.02, P < .01). For girls, none of the tested variables were significant. CONCLUSIONS Higher SES was a risk factor for physical inactivity in Mexican American adolescents, by a moderating mechanism. In addition, physical activity promotion efforts need to consider English speaking and immigrant Mexican American adolescent boys as a target population.
Acquisition and use of mental operators: effects of type of practice.

Planning interactions with the physical world requires knowledge about operations; in short, mental operators. Abstractness of content and directionality of access are two important properties to characterize the representational units of this kind of knowledge. Combining these properties allows four classes of knowledge units to be distinguished that can be found in the literature: (a) rules, (b) mental models or schemata, (c) instances, and (d) episodes or chunks. The influence of practicing alphabet-arithmetic operators in a prognostic, diagnostic, or retrognostic way (A + 2 = ? , A? = C, or ? + 2 = C, respectively) on the use of that knowledge in a subsequent test was used to assess the importance of these dimensions. At the beginning, the retrognostic use of knowledge was worse than the prognostic use, although identical operations were involved (A + 2 = ? vs. ? - 2 = A). This disadvantage was reduced with increased practice. Test performance was best if the task and the letter pairs were the same as in the acquisition phase. Overall, the findings support theories proposing multiple representational units of mental operators. The disadvantage for the retrognosis task was recovered in the test phase, and may be evidence for the importance of the order of events independent of the order of experience.
Comparison of CO(2) stunning with manual electrical stunning (50 Hz) of pigs on carcass and meat quality.

The effects of carbon dioxide stunning on carcass and pork quality attributes were compared with the effects of manual electrical stunning using either head-only or head-to-brisket electrodes. A total of 30 Large White×Landrace boars (homozygous dominant for the halothane gene) were randomly allocated immediately prior to slaughter to one of three stunning treatments: carbon dioxide (90% CO(2)), head only (HO; 1.3 A for 4 s at a frequency of 50 Hz) or head to brisket (HBR; 1.3 A for 4 s at a frequency of 50 Hz) electrical stunning. The pH of the M. longissimus thoracis (LT) muscle measured at two sites [between the fifth and sixth thoracic vertebrae (Site 1) and the last thoracic rib (Site 2)] at 40 min post-slaughter was lower (P<0.001) in HBR stunned pigs compared with both CO(2) and HO stunned pigs. No differences in ultimate pH of the LT at either measurement site were found due to stunning method. However, a faster (P<0.05) relative rate of pH decline was found in the LT at Site 1 from HBR stunned pigs compared with CO(2) stunned pigs. No difference in the relative rate of muscle pH decline (P>0.05) between stunning methods was found in the LT muscle at Site 2. Pork from HBR stunned pigs was paler (P<0.05) and had a higher (P<0.001) percentage drip loss compared with pork from HO and CO(2) stunned pigs. LT muscles from HBR stunned pigs had lower (P<0.001) WB shear force values compared with pork from HO stunned pigs (6.57 vs. 8.12 kg, S.E.D. 0.49). Carcass quality was improved by CO(2) stunning, with less (P<0.05) ecchymosis-affected pork trimmed from shoulder primals compared with electrically stunned pigs. These results indicate that manual electrical stunning of pigs using HO tongs and CO(2) stunning reduced percentage drip loss, reduced muscle lightness and reduced the rate of muscle pH decline compared with pigs manually electrically stunned using HBR tongs.
Paper Substrate Spread Function and the MTF of Photographic Paper

Although the effect of light diffusion in paper on halftone reproduction, as captured in the optical point spread function or its Fourier Transform (MTF), has been known for about half a century, that effect on the microstructure of an image on photographic printing paper in particular, has not been widely studied. The purpose of this work is to construct a simple MTF model of photographic printing paper that specifically includes the effect of the optical MTF of the paper itself and the photographic layer MTF. The MTF for the paper substrate influences the overall MTF at two different stages in the process of exposing and measuring the print MTF. The first influence is during the exposing stage, where the paper substrate MTF acts in a linear manner. In the second, or measurement stage, the process is nonlinear. Because of this nonlinear stage, a Contrast Transfer Function (CTF) descriptor of model component parameters is developed. Model predictions show that it is the paper substrate MTF that dominates the normalized CTF of the resulting photographic print, and not the MTF of the photographic emulsion forming the image. Results from the model are compared with published data, and show good agreement.
English /z/ in 1930s Korean

In this paper, I examine the adaptation of English /z/ in 1930s Korean based on a loanword dictionary published in 1937 (Lee 1937). The key findings are that the adaptation pattern in the 1930s is much more variable and shows sensitivity to multiple factors present in the input language, including allophonic details, orthographic representation, and morphological structure. I discuss the implications of these findings for the debate on the nature of the input in loanword adaptation and the effects of sociolinguistic context on the pattern of adaptation. The paper is organized as follows: Section 2 provides a brief background on Korean phonology. Section 3 presents the data from 1930s Korean. Section 4 provides a discussion of the data and its implications and section 5 concludes the paper.
An Sfi1p-Like Centrin-Binding Protein Mediates Centrin-Based Ca2+-Dependent Contractility in Paramecium tetraurelia

ABSTRACT The previous characterization and structural analyses of Sfi1p, a Saccharomyces cerevisiae centrin-binding protein essential for spindle pole body duplication, have suggested molecular models to account for centrin-mediated, Ca2+-dependent contractility processes (S. Li, A. M. Sandercock, P. Conduit, C. V. Robinson, R. L. Williams, and J. V. Kilmartin, J. Cell Biol. 173:867-877, 2006). Such processes can be analyzed by using Paramecium tetraurelia, which harbors a large Ca2+-dependent contractile cytoskeletal network, the infraciliary lattice (ICL). Previous biochemical and genetic studies have shown that the ICL is composed of diverse centrin isoforms and a high-molecular-mass centrin-associated protein, whose reduced size in the démaillé (dem1) mutant correlates with defective organization of the ICL. Using sequences derived from the high-molecular-mass protein to probe the Paramecium genome sequence, we characterized the PtCenBP1 gene, which encodes a 460-kDa protein. PtCenBP1p displays six almost perfect repeats of ca. 427 amino acids (aa) and harbors 89 potential centrin-binding sites with the consensus motif LLX11F/LX2WK/R, similar to the centrin-binding sites of ScSfi1p. The smaller (260-kDa) protein encoded by the dem1 mutant PtCenBP1 allele comprises only two repeats of 427 aa and 46 centrin-binding sites. By using RNA interference and green fluorescent protein fusion experiments, we showed that PtCenBP1p forms the backbone of the ICL and plays an essential role in its assembly and contractility. This study provides the first in vivo demonstration of the role of Sfi1p-like proteins in centrin-mediated Ca2+-dependent contractile processes.
The Stock Return - Trading Volume Relationship in European Countries: Evidence from Asymmetric Impulse Responses

We investigate non-linearities in the stock return - trading volume relationship by using daily data for 16 European countries in an asymmetric vector autoregressive model. In this framework, we test for asymmetries and analyze the dynamic relationship using a simulation based procedure for computing asymmetric impulse response functions. We find that stock returns have a significant influence on trading volume, but there is no evidence for the influence of trading volume on returns. Our analysis indicates that responses of trading volume to return shocks are non-linear and the sign of the response depends on the absolute size of the shock. Thus, using linear VAR models may lead to wrong conclusions concerning the return - volume relationship. We also find that after stock markets go up (down), investors trade significantly more (less) in small and mid cap stocks, supporting evidence for the theories of overconfidence, market participation, differences of opinion, and disposition effect.
Synthesis for multiple input wires replacement of a gate for wiring consideration

The alternative wire technique attempts to replace a target wire by another wire without changing the logic functionality. In this paper we propose two new transformations of replacing wires. One transformation simultaneously replaces multiple input wires of a gate by a new set of input wires and the other performs gate decomposition during the alternative wire process. To accomplish such complex transformations, we discuss some theoretical foundations for replacing multiple wires. Understanding how wires/gates can be replaced by other wires/gates allows us to speedup the process tremendously.
Analysis of mortality trends due to cardiovascular diseases in Panama, 2001–2014

Objective Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are still the leading cause of death worldwide despite the recent decline in mortality rates attributable to CVD in Western Europe and the Americas. The aim of this study is to investigate mortality trends due to ischaemic heart disease (IHD) and stroke in Panama from 2001 to 2014, as well as the mortality differences by sex and age groups. Methods Data were obtained from the National Mortality Register. The International Classification of Diseases 10th revision codes (ICD-10) I20–I25 and I60–I69 were used for IHD and stroke, respectively. Age-adjusted mortality rates were calculated using the world population of the WHO as standard. Trends were analysed using Joinpoint Regression Program and annual percentage changes (APC) were estimated. Results From 2010, the IHD mortality trend began to decline in the whole population of Panama (APC −4.7%, p<0.05). From 2001 to 2014, a decline in the trend for IHD mortality was observed (APC −1.7%, p<0.05) in women, but not in men. Stroke mortality showed a significant annual decline during the study period (APC −3.8%, p<0.05) and it was more pronounced in women (APC −4.5%, p<0.05) than in men (APC −3.3%, p<0.05). Conclusions In Panama, the mortality rates from IHD and stroke have declined in recent years. Better access to healthcare, improved treatment of acute IHD and stroke, low tobacco consumption and better control of hypertension probably account for a significant part of this mortality reduction.
Broadband Availability and Economic Growth

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a model to measure the effect of broadband availability on economic growth in developed OECD countries.Design/methodology/approach – The effect of the broadband availability‐related variables on economic growth is analyzed by using cross‐country panel data for 34 OECD countries over the years 1998‐2009. The robustness of the results by the six econometric estimation approaches is compared. The preferable dynamic panel model with the system of Generalized Method of Moments is selected.Findings – The access channels per inhabitant and total broadband per inhabitant have improved over time, but vary across the analysed OECD countries. The improved access channels per inhabitant and gross capital growth (investment) play a positive and significant role in the per‐capita gross domestic product (GDP) growth. Labour productivity growth has encouraged economic growth positively. These results are robust independently of the estimation procedure.Research limitation.
Energy-aware data-centric routing in microsensor networks

Large-scale wireless sensors are expected to play an increasingly important role in future civilian and military settings where collaborative microsensors could be very effective in monitoring their operations. However, low power and in-network data processing make data-centric routing in wireless sensor networks a challenging problem.In this paper, we propose a novel and efficient energy-aware distributed heuristic, which we refer to as EAD, to build a special rooted broadcast tree with many leaves that is used to facilitate data-centric routing in wireless microsensor networks. Our EAD algorithm makes no assumption on local network topology, and is based on residual power. It makes use of a neighboring broadcast scheduling and distributed competition among neighboring nodess. We discuss the implementation of our scheme, and present an extensive simulation experiments to study the its performance. Our experimental results indicate clearly that our EAD scheme outperforms previous schemes.
Choroidal blood flow in AMD.

In a recent article in this journal, Grunwald et al. 1 quantified foveolar choroidal blood flow using a Laser Doppler flowmeter in patients with nonexudative age-related macular degeneration (AMD). They found that choroidal blood volume and choroidal blood flow in patients with AMD were significantly reduced. However, they found no statistically significant difference for the choroidal blood velocity. In interpreting the results of this study, it has to be kept in mind that laser Doppler flowmetry cannot be used for absolute blood flow measurements because of uncertainty in knowing the volume sampled by the incident laser light and the multiple lightscattering properties of tissue. This results in a lack of specificity in volume examined that is caused by the variable penetration depths of the laser. It is known that eyes with AMD display a thick layer of basal laminar (linear) deposit (BLD). It cannot be excluded that this thick layer of tissue—with unknown optical properties— overlying and within Bruch's membrane affects the sampled volume and alters the scattering behavior of the laser light and thus changes the "Doppler shift power spectrum. " This may, after all, result in an inaccurate measurement of flow, which is estimated using the "velocity" and the "volume. "
National Veterans Health Administration inpatient risk stratification models for hospital-acquired acute kidney injury

OBJECTIVE Hospital-acquired acute kidney injury (HA-AKI) is a potentially preventable cause of morbidity and mortality. Identifying high-risk patients prior to the onset of kidney injury is a key step towards AKI prevention. MATERIALS AND METHODS A national retrospective cohort of 1,620,898 patient hospitalizations from 116 Veterans Affairs hospitals was assembled from electronic health record (EHR) data collected from 2003 to 2012. HA-AKI was defined at stage 1+, stage 2+, and dialysis. EHR-based predictors were identified through logistic regression, least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (lasso) regression, and random forests, and pair-wise comparisons between each were made. Calibration and discrimination metrics were calculated using 50 bootstrap iterations. In the final models, we report odds ratios, 95% confidence intervals, and importance rankings for predictor variables to evaluate their significance. RESULTS The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) for the different model outcomes ranged from 0.746 to 0.758 in stage 1+, 0.714 to 0.720 in stage 2+, and 0.823 to 0.825 in dialysis. Logistic regression had the best AUC in stage 1+ and dialysis. Random forests had the best AUC in stage 2+ but the least favorable calibration plots. Multiple risk factors were significant in our models, including some nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, blood pressure medications, antibiotics, and intravenous fluids given during the first 48 h of admission. CONCLUSIONS This study demonstrated that, although all the models tested had good discrimination, performance characteristics varied between methods, and the random forests models did not calibrate as well as the lasso or logistic regression models. In addition, novel modifiable risk factors were explored and found to be significant.
Gender: In World Perspective

Preface Chapter 1. The Question of Gender Chapter 2. Gender Research: Five Examples Chapter 3. Gender Theorists and Gender Theory Chapter 4. Sex Differences and Gendered Bodies Chapter 5. Gender Relations and Gender Politics Chapter 6. Gender in Personal Life Chapter 7. Gender and Environmental Change Chapter 8. Economies, States and Global Gender Relations Coda References
Influence du milieu d'évaluation sur la réalisation de tâches liées à la préparation de repas auprès de personnes âgées fragiles

This thesis aims to advance the state of knowledge about the impact of assessment settings (home versus clinic) on meal preparation task performance in frail older adults. The thesis has three specific objectives and the results are presented in five articles. The first specific objective aims to review current knowledge about the concept of frailty in occupational therapy and the impact of assessment settings in frail older adults. First, a critical review about frailty was conducted. The results (article 1) demonstrate that a better understanding of the concept of frailty may help occupational therapists provide health care and services better tailored to the specific needs of this population. Second, a review of studies comparing performance of instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) between assessment settings was performed. The results (article 2) reveal that older adults without significant cognitive impairments tend to perform better in IADL tasks when assessed at home. Some factors, such as familiarity with the environment, may explain this difference. Based on this review, similar results might be expected with frail elders. The second specific objective aims to compare meal preparation task performance in home and clinical settings in a population of frail older adults. Thirty-seven frail older adults were thus assessed in home and clinical settings with the Assessment of Motor and Process Skills (AMPS) and the Performance Assessment of Self-Care Skills (PASS), using a counterbalanced design. The results (articles 3, 4, 5) globally demonstrate significantly better performance of participants when assessed at home. The third specific objective aims to identify demographic, physical, cognitive, psychological and environmental factors that may explain differences between assessment settings. The results (articles 3, 4, 5) indicate that a better performance in the home setting was mostly related to a decline in certain executive functions. Other cognitive, demographic, psychological, physical and environmental factors also contribute to explain the differences between assessment settings but to a lesser extent.
An analytical GC-MS method to quantify methyl dihydrojasmonate in biocompatible oil-in-water microemulsions: physicochemical characterization and in vitro release studies

Abstract Microemulsions (MEs) loaded with methyl dihydrojasmonate (MJ) were developed to improve the aqueous solubility of this drug. The composition of the formulations ranged according to the oil/surfactant ratio (O/S). The MEs were characterized according to diameter of droplets, X-ray diffraction and polarized light microscopy. The MJ identification and quantification was performed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The MJ showed a retention time of ∼16.7 min for all samples. The obtained correlation coefficient from the calibration graph was 0.991. The developed analytical method was effective enough to quantify low and high concentrations of MJ. The increase of the O/S ME ratio led to a reduction of the droplet diameter. All formulations showed an amorphous structure and the behavior varied between isotropic and anisotropic systems. A decrease in the release of MJ with the increase of the O/S ratio in the formulations was observed. The analytical method developed for the quantitative determination of MJ is suitable to detect and quantify the drug compound from different compositions of MEs in the in vitro release test, and by analogy in other prolonged effects related to the drug reservoir effect of these systems was observed, revealing that ME can be a promising nanocarrier for MJ delivery to tumor cells.