Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Predicting Child Restraint Device Use: A Comparison of Two Models1

This study's first objective was to apply Ajzen's theory of planned behavior (TPB) in the context of automobile child restraint device use to identify determinants of that behavior. A second objective was to test two specific hypotheses regarding the predictive role of perceived behavioral control: (a) Its inclusion should increase the proportion of variance already explained in intention by the attitudinal and normative components included in the theory of reasoned action; and (b) given the behavior under study, a model in which perception of behavioral control's influence on behavior is entirely mediated by intention, should fit the data. Subjects (N = 590) were parents driving with their 3- to 5-year-old children intercepted while entering or leaving parking lots of different public settings. The behavior of interest, child restraint device use, was rated by two independent observers. A self-report questionnaire assessing all constructs of Ajzen's model was given to the parent, who was instructed to return it by mail. Data were analyzed using LISREL VII. Results showed that perceived behavioral control and, to a lesser extent, attitude, emerged as the main determinants of behavioral intention which was itself predictive of child restraint device use. In addition, both hypotheses regarding the relation between perceived behavioral control on the one hand and intention and behavior, on the other, were supported. Discussion centered first on the mechanism through which perceived behavioral control exerts its influence, and second on the implications of the present results for the theory of reasoned action as well as for the theory of planned behavior.
A Community-based RCT for Oral Cancer Screening with Toluidine Blue

Early detection of oral premalignant lesions (OPMLs) by visual inspection with toluidine blue has not been addressed. We conducted a community-based randomized controlled trial to assess whether using toluidine blue as an adjunctive tool for visual screening had a higher detection rate of OPMLs and could further reduce the incidence of oral cancer. In 2000, in Keelung, we randomly assigned a total of 7975 individuals, aged 15 years or older and with high-risk oral habits, to either the toluidine-blue-screened (TBS) group or the visual screening group. Results showed 5% more oral premalignant lesions and 79% more oral submucous fibrosis detected in the TBS group than in the control group. After a five-year follow-up ascertaining oral cancer development through linkage to the National Cancer Registry, the incidence rate in the TBS group (28.0 x 10−5) was non-significantly 21% lower than that in the control group (35.4 x 10−5).
Classifying Affective States Using Thermal Infrared Imaging of the Human Face

In this paper, time, frequency, and time-frequency features derived from thermal infrared data are used to discriminate between self-reported affective states of an individual in response to visual stimuli drawn from the International Affective Pictures System. A total of six binary classification tasks were examined to distinguish baseline and affect states. Affect states were determined from subject-reported levels of arousal and valence. Mean adjusted accuracies of 70% to 80% were achieved for the baseline classifications tasks. Classification accuracies between high and low ratings of arousal and valence were between 50% and 60%, respectively. Our analysis showed that facial thermal infrared imaging data of baseline and other affective states may be separable. The results of this study suggest that classification of facial thermal infrared imaging data coupled with affect models can be used to provide information about an individual's affective state for potential use as a passive communication pathway.
Mast cell deficiency exacerbates inflammatory bowel symptoms in interleukin-10-deficient mice.

AIM To test the role of mast cells in gut inflammation and colitis using interleukin (IL)-10-deficient mice as an experimental model. METHODS Mast cell-deficient (Kit (W-sh/W-sh) ) mice were crossbred with IL-10-deficient mice to obtain double knockout (DKO) mice. The growth, mucosal damage and colitis status of DKO mice were compared with their IL-10-deficient littermates. RESULTS DKO mice exhibited exacerbated colitis compared with their IL-10-deficient littermates, as shown by increased pathological score, higher myeloperoxidase content, enhanced Th1 type pro-inflammatory cytokines and inflammatory signaling, elevated oxidative stress, as well as pronounced goblet cell loss. In addition, deficiency in mast cells resulted in enhanced mucosal damage, increased gut permeability, and impaired epithelial tight junctions. Mast cell deficiency was also linked to systemic inflammation, as demonstrated by higher serum levels of tumor necrosis factor α and interferon γ in DKO mice than that in IL-10-deficient mice. CONCLUSION Mast cell deficiency in IL-10-deficient mice resulted in systematic and gut inflammation, impaired gut barrier function, and severer Th1-mediated colitis when compared to mice with only IL-10-deficiency. Inflammation and impaired gut epithelial barrier function likely form a vicious cycle to worsen colitis in the DKO mice.
Physicians' utilization and charges for outpatient diagnostic imaging in a Medicare population.

OBJECTIVES AND RATIONALE For 10 common clinical presentations, we assessed differences in physicians' utilization of and charges for diagnostic imaging, depending on whether they performed imaging examinations in their offices (self-referral) or referred their patients to radiologists (radiologist-referral). METHODS Using previously developed methodologies, we generated episodes of medical care from an insurance claims database. Within each episode, we determined whether diagnostic imaging had been performed, and if so, whether by a self-referring physician or a radiologist. For each of the 10 clinical presentations, we compared the mean imaging frequency, mean imaging charges per episode of care, and mean imaging charges for diagnostic imaging attributable to self- and radiologist-referral. RESULTS Depending on the clinical presentation, self-referral resulted in 1.7 to 7.7 times more frequent performance of imaging examinations than radiologist-referral (P < .01, all presentations). Within all physician specialties, self-referral uniformly led to significantly greater utilization of diagnostic imaging than radiologist-referral. Mean imaging charges per episode of medical care (calculated as the product of the frequency of utilization and mean imaging charges) were 1.6 to 6.2 times greater for self-referral than for radiologist-referral (P < .01, all presentations). When imaging examinations were performed--including those performed in both physicians' offices and hospital outpatient departments--mean imaging charges were significantly greater for radiologists than for self-referring physicians in seven of the clinical presentations (P < .01). This result is related to the high technical charges of hospital outpatient departments; in office practice, radiologists' mean charges for imaging examinations were significantly less than those of self-referring physicians for seven clinical presentations (P < .01). CONCLUSIONS Nonradiologist physicians who operate diagnostic imaging equipment in their offices perform imaging examinations more frequently, resulting in higher imaging charges per episode of medical care. These results extend our previous research on this subject by their focus on a broader range of clinical presentations; a mostly elderly, retired population; and the inclusion of higher-technology imaging examinations.
Choose right carbohydrates and right fats (RCRF) - keys to optimal health.

These are my reflections after reading article from Dehghan et al. (1). It is increasing well documented that it is Industrial processing: fractionation, separation, condensation, drying, freezing, irradiation, burning, roasting, curing, microvawing, emulsifying, toasting, supplementing food additives but also plant breeding etc. which significantly destroys the nutritional and health-promoting effects of plant foods (Figure 1). Foods which have undergone such processes have to large extent lost their nutritional and health-promoting abilities. Such foods are for example Often unacceptably rich in calories particularly sugar and sugar-like foods (bread, pasta, pizza, cooked tubers, polished rice etc.) but also, which is often neglected, rich in long-chain triglycerides (LCT) contributed by meat, dairy products but also in increasing amounts of edible/ “cooking” oils. It is also well documented that processed refined carbohydrate products such as sugar and other sugarlike foods are quickly absorbed by the small intestine, and transported by the portal vein to the liver, where they are fast metabolized. Larger consumption of such molecules create a much increased burden to all internal organs, often referred to as postprandial inflammation, a state regularly lasting about 2–3 hours after each meal. Raw plant foods not fats should be alternative to refined carbohydrates
D-ADMM: A Communication-Efficient Distributed Algorithm for Separable Optimization

We propose a distributed algorithm, named Distributed Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (D-ADMM), for solving separable optimization problems in networks of interconnected nodes or agents. In a separable optimization problem there is a private cost function and a private constraint set at each node. The goal is to minimize the sum of all the cost functions, constraining the solution to be in the intersection of all the constraint sets. D-ADMM is proven to converge when the network is bipartite or when all the functions are strongly convex, although in practice, convergence is observed even when these conditions are not met. We use D-ADMM to solve the following problems from signal processing and control: average consensus, compressed sensing, and support vector machines. Our simulations show that D-ADMM requires less communications than state-of-the-art algorithms to achieve a given accuracy level. Algorithms with low communication requirements are important, for example, in sensor networks, where sensors are typically battery-operated and communicating is the most energy consuming operation.
Communication Network Patterns and the Re-invention of New Technology

This study examined the relationship between re-invention implementation and employee communication network variables (activity, size, diversity, and integrative ness) in a field study of 137 employees from a corporate office. In this organization, one employee discovered an improved method (a re-invention) for using a new computer system. Multiple regression analysis revealed significant positive relationships be tween three network factors (network diversity, network integrativeness and network size) and the speed with which employees implemented the re-invention.
Ectopic Expression of Pumpkin NAC Transcription Factor CmNAC1 Improves Multiple Abiotic Stress Tolerance in Arabidopsis

Drought, cold and salinity are the major environmental stresses that limit agricultural productivity. NAC transcription factors regulate the stress response in plants. Pumpkin (Cucurbita moschata) is an important cucurbit vegetable crop and it has strong resistance to abiotic stress; however, the biological functions of stress-related NAC genes in this crop are largely unknown. This study reports the function of CmNAC1, a stress-responsive pumpkin NAC domain protein. The CmNAC1-GFP fusion protein was transiently expressed in tobacco leaves for subcellular localization analysis, and we found that CmNAC1 is localized in the nucleus. Transactivation assay in yeast cells revealed that CmNAC1 functions as a transcription activator, and its transactivation domain is located in the C-terminus. CmNAC1 was ubiquitously expressed in different organs, and its transcript was induced by salinity, cold, dehydration, H2O2, and abscisic acid (ABA) treatment. Furthermore, the ectopic expression (EE) of CmNAC1 in Arabidopsis led to ABA hypersensitivity and enhanced tolerance to salinity, drought and cold stress. In addition, five ABA-responsive elements were enriched in CmNAC1 promoter. The CmNAC1-EE plants exhibited different root architecture, leaf morphology, and significantly high concentration of ABA compared with WT Arabidopsis under normal conditions. Our results indicated that CmNAC1 is a critical factor in ABA signaling pathways and it can be utilized in transgenic breeding to improve the abiotic stress tolerance of crops.
Consumer Selection of Food‐Safety Information Sources

The aim of this study is to examine the preferences of consumers for different information sources when they have a question about food safety. On the basis of a nationally representative survey conducted in the Netherlands, five distinct consumer groups are identified that not only differ on the reported use of information sources but also regarding several personality characteristics and sociodemographic variables. The empirical results show that two‐thirds of the consumers are selective in their use of information sources and prefer either institutional or social sources. So, multiple information‐acquisition patterns exist among the general public. The study illustrates how these findings can help to develop effective risk communication strategies.
Colorado River sediment transport: 2. Systematic Bed‐elevation and grain‐size effects of sand supply limitation

The Colorado River in Marble and Grand Canyons displays evidence of annual supply limitation with respect to sand both prior to [Topping et al, this issue] and after the closure of Glen Canyon Dam in 1963. Systematic changes in bed elevation and systematic coupled changes in suspended‐sand concentration and grain size result from this supply limitation. During floods, sand supply limitation either causes or modifies a lag between the time of maximum discharge and the time of either maximum or minimum (depending on reach geometry) bed elevation. If, at a cross section where the bed aggrades with increasing flow, the maximum bed elevation is observed to lead the peak or the receding limb of a flood, then this observed response of the bed is due to sand supply limitation. Sand supply limitation also leads to the systematic evolution of sand grain size (both on the bed and in suspension) in the Colorado River. Sand input during a tributary flood travels down the Colorado River as an elongating sediment wave, with the finest sizes (because of their lower settling velocities) traveling the fastest. As the fine front of a sediment wave arrives at a given location, the bed fines and suspended‐sand concentrations increase in response to the enhanced upstream supply of finer sand. Then, as the front of the sediment wave passes that location, the bed is winnowed and suspended‐sand concentrations decrease in response to the depletion of the upstream supply of finer sand. The grain‐size effects of depletion of the upstream sand supply are most obvious during periods of higher dam releases (e.g., the 1996 flood experiment and the 1997 test flow). Because of substantial changes in the grain‐size distribution of the bed, stable relationships between the discharge of water and sand‐transport rates (i.e., stable sand rating curves) are precluded. Sand budgets in a supply‐limited river like the Colorado River can only be constructed through inclusion of the physical processes that couple changes in bed‐sediment grain size to changes in sand‐transport rates.
Diagnosis of Thoracic Aortic Dissection: Magnetic Resonance Imaging Versus Transesophageal Echocardiography

BackgroundAortic dissection requires prompt and reliable diagnosis to reduce the high mortality. The purpose of this study was to assess the reliability of both ECG-triggered magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and transesophageal two-dimensional echocardiography combined with color-coded Doppler flow imaging (TEE) for the diagnosis of thoracic aortic dissection and associated epiphenomena. Methods and ResultsFifty-three consecutive patients with clinically suspected aortic dissection were subjected to a dual noninvasive imaging protocol in random order; imaging results were compared and validated against the independent morphological “gold standard” of intraoperative findings (n=27), necropsy (n=7), and/or contrast angiography (n=53). No serious side effects were encountered with either imaging method. In contrast to a precursory screening transthoracic echogram, the sensitivities of both MRI and TEE were 100% for detecting a dissection of the thoracic aorta irrespective of its location. The specificity of TEE, however, was lower than the specificity of MRI for a dissection (TEE, 68.2% versus MRI, 100%; p<0.005), which resulted mainly from false-positive TEE findings confined to the ascending segment of the aorta (TEE, 78.8% versus MRI, 100%; p<0.01). In addition, MRI proved to be more sensitive than TEE in detecting the formation of thrombus in the false lumen of both the aortic arch (p<0.01) and the descending segment of the aorta (p<0.05). There were no discrepancies between the two imaging techniques in detecting the site of entry to a dissection, aortic regurgitation, or pericardial effusion. ConclusionsBoth MRI and TEE are atraumatic, safe, and highly sensitive methods to identify and classify acute and subacute dissections of the entire thoracic aorta. TEE, however, is associated with lower specificity for lesions in the ascending aorta. These results may still favor TEE as a semi-invasive diagnostic procedure after a precursory screening transthoracic echogram in suspected aortic dissection, but they establish Mil as an excellent method to avoid false-positive findings. Anatomic mapping by MRI may emerge as the most comprehensive approach and morphological standard to guide surgical interventions.
Stereo Vision Based Robot Controller

This paper presents the stereo vision component of the stereo vision based robot controller (SVBRC). The SVBRC is a multi-component project, integrating a stereo vision component (presented here) with a basic mapping and path-finding component on a mobile robot base. The stereo vision component is a winner-take-all (WTA) method. It implements various error-filters to explicitly deal with various types of stereo correspondence errors. However, overly stringent error filtering leads to very sparse depth map output; conversely, lenient filtering provides a dense output map with a high percentage of pixels in error. In this paper, error filtering techniques from various research papers are examined and implemented concurrently in two stages, a stringent stage and a lenient stage. A unique match-pixel-growing method is then utilized with the aim of using stringent error filters as a base from which to dasiagrowpsila a dense depth map. The SVBRC has been implemented and tested in the laboratories of Monash University Malaysia for stereo-vision based obstacle avoidance and target-finding. The results of the SVBRC's stereo vision component are presented here.
Discriminative features for identifying and interpreting outliers

We consider the problem of outlier detection and interpretation. While most existing studies focus on the first problem, we simultaneously address the equally important challenge of outlier interpretation. We propose an algorithm that uncovers outliers in subspaces of reduced dimensionality in which they are well discriminated from regular objects while at the same time retaining the natural local structure of the original data to ensure the quality of outlier explanation. Our algorithm takes a mathematically appealing approach from the spectral graph embedding theory and we show that it achieves the globally optimal solution for the objective of subspace learning. By using a number of real-world datasets, we demonstrate its appealing performance not only w.r. t. the outlier detection rate but also w.r. t. the discriminative human-interpretable features. This is the first approach to exploit discriminative features for both outlier detection and interpretation, leading to better understanding of how and why the hidden outliers are exceptional.
Political and Demographic Foundations for Sectionalism in State Politics

Defined in terms of partisanship, substate sectionalism remains pervasive within many states, although it is probably not a constant, even in the short term. Here we ask about the forces that are responsible for producing substate sectionalism as evidenced by support for the two major parties. Using a geographic statistic as our indicator, we evaluate the degree of sectionalism over time in Connecticut presidential and gubernatorial elections. Population trends have increased the extent of sectionalism in the state mainly by exacerbating inequalities between deindustrializing cities in Central Connecticut and prosperous, growing ones in Fairfield County. The growth of the Black population is associated with increasing regionalism in both sets of elections given that the African American population remains concentrated in the largest cities. The study of sectionalism in Connecticut helps us to specify how population growth and redistribution contribute to the political geography of state politics.
Urocanate reductase: identification of a novel anaerobic respiratory pathway in Shewanella oneidensis MR‐1

Interpretation of the constantly expanding body of genomic information requires that the function of each gene be established. Here we report the genomic analysis and structural modelling of a previously uncharacterized redox‐metabolism protein UrdA (SO_4620) of Shewanella oneidensis MR‐1, which led to a discovery of the novel enzymatic activity, urocanate reductase. Further cloning and expression of urdA, as well as purification and biochemical study of the gene's product UrdA and redox titration of its prosthetic groups confirmed that the latter is indeed a flavin‐containing enzyme catalysing the unidirectional reaction of two‐electron reduction of urocanic acid to deamino‐histidine, an activity not reported earlier. UrdA exhibits both high substrate affinity and high turnover rate (Km << 10 μM, kcat = 360 s−1) and strong specificity in favour of urocanic acid. UrdA homologues are present in various bacterial genera, such as Shewanella, Fusobacterium and Clostridium, the latter including the human pathogen Clostridium tetani. The UrdA activity in S. oneidensis is induced by its substrate under anaerobic conditions and it enables anaerobic growth with urocanic acid as a sole terminal electron acceptor. The latter capability can provide the cells of UrdA‐containing bacteria with a niche where no other bacteria can compete and survive.
Model Matching and Filter Design using Orthonormal Basis Functions

Affine model parametrizations using orthonormal basis functions have been widely used in system identification and adaptive signal processing. The main advantage of using orthonormal basis functions in a (generalized) orthonormal finite impulse response (FIR) filter lies in the possibility of incorporating prior knowledge of the system dynamics into the filter design and approximation process. As a result, more accurate and simplified models can be obtained with a limited number of basis functions. In this paper the linear parameter structure of a generalized FIR filter is used to formulate analytic solutions for model matching problems. Several construction methods of orthonormal basis functions are discussed and a case study using the generalized FIR filter to approximate the dynamics of an optimal feed-forward filter is presented