Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Psychosocial influences on safety climate: evidence from community pharmacies

Objective To examine the relationship between psychosocial job characteristics and safety climate. Design Cross-sectional survey. Setting Community pharmacies in Great Britain. Participants A random sample of community pharmacists registered in Great Britain (n=860). Survey instruments Effort–reward imbalance (ERI) indicator and Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ). Main outcome measures Pharmacy Safety Climate Questionnaire (PSCQ). Results The profile of scores from the ERI indicated a relatively high risk of adverse psychological effects. The profile of scores from the JCQ indicated both high demand on pharmacists and a high level of psychological and social resources to meet these demands. Path analysis confirmed a model in which the ERI and JCQ measures, as well as the type of pharmacy and pharmacist role, predicted responses to the PSCQ (χ2(36)=111.38, p<0.001; Tucker–Lewis index=0.96; comparative fit index=0.98; root mean square error of approximation=0.05). Two general factors (effort vs reward and control vs demand) accounted for the effect of job characteristics on safety climate ratings; each had differential effects on the PSCQ scales. Conclusions The safety climate in community pharmacies is influenced by perceptions of job characteristics, such as the level of job demands and the resources available to meet these demands. Hence, any efforts to improve safety should take into consideration the effect of the psychosocial work environment on safety climate. In addition, there is a need to address the presence of work-related stressors, which have the potential to cause direct or indirect harm to staff and service users. The findings of the current study provide a basis for future research to improve the safety climate and well-being, both in the pharmacy profession and in other healthcare settings.
What can I say?: evaluating a spoken language interface to Email

ABSlXACT This paper presents experimental results comparing two different designs for a spoken language interface to entail. We compare a mixed-initiative dialogue style, in which users can flexibly control the dialogue, to a systemiuitiative dialogue style, in which the system controls the dialogue. Our results show that even though the mixedinitiative system is more eflicient, as measured by number of turns, or elapsed time to complete a set of email tasks, users prefer the system-initiative interface. We posit that these preferences arise from the fact that the system initiative inter&e is easier to learn and more predictable.
Anti‐Inflammatory Peptides From Cardiac Progenitors Ameliorate Dysfunction After Myocardial Infarction

Background Cardiac cell therapy has been proposed as one of the new strategies against myocardial infarction. Although several reports showed improvement of the function of ischemic heart, the effects of cell therapy vary among the studies and the mechanisms of the beneficial effects are still unknown. Previously, we reported that clonal stem cell antigen‐1–positive cardiac progenitor cells exerted a therapeutic effect when transplanted into the ischemic heart. Our aims were to identify the cardiac progenitor‐specific paracrine factor and to elucidate the mechanism of its beneficial effect. Methods and Results By using an antibody array, we found that soluble junctional adhesion molecule‐A (JAM‐A) was abundantly secreted from cardiac progenitor cells. Pretreatment of neutrophils with conditioned medium from cultured cardiac progenitor cells or soluble JAM‐A inhibited transendothelial migration and reduced motility of neutrophils. These inhibitory effects were attenuated by anti–JAM‐A neutralizing antibody. Injection of cardiac progenitor cells into infarct heart attenuated neutrophil infiltration and expression of inflammatory cytokines. Injection of soluble JAM‐A–expressing, but not of JAM‐A siRNA–expressing, cardiac progenitor cells into the infarct heart prevented cardiac remodeling and reduced fibrosis area. Conclusions Soluble JAM‐A secreted from cardiac progenitor cells reduces infiltration of neutrophils after myocardial infarction and ameliorates tissue damage through prevention of excess inflammation. Our finding may lead to a new therapy for cardiovascular disease by using the anti‐inflammatory effect of JAM‐A.
Competition Between Exchanges: Lessons from the Battle of the Bund

In a famous episode of financial history which lasted over eight years, the market for the future on the Bund moved entirely from LIFFE, the incumbent London-based derivatives exchange, to DTB, the entering Frankfurt-based exchange. This paper studies the determinants of traders' exchange choice, using a novel panel dataset that contains individual trading firms' membership status at each exchange together with other firms characteristics and pricing, marketing and product portfolio strategies by each exchange. Our data allows us to evaluate different sources of heterogeneity among trading firms and thus distinguish between different explanations for the observed phenomenon. The story the data tells is one of horizontal differentiation and vertical differentiation through liquidity. As a result, DTB attracted a different set of traders than LIFFE, and those traders contributed to the market share reversal.
A refined discrete triangular Mindlin element for laminated composite plates

Based on the Mindlin plate theory, a refined discrete 15-DOF triangular laminated composite plate finite element RDTMLC with the re-constitution of the shear strain is proposed. For constituting the element displacement function, the exact displacement function of the Timoshenko`s laminated composite beam as the displacement on the element boundary is used to derive the element displacements. The proposed element can be used for the analysis of both moderately thick and thin laminated composite plate, and the convergence for the very thin situation can be ensured theoretically. Numerical examples presented show that the present model indeed possesses the properties of higher accuracy for anisotropic laminated composite plates and is free of locking even for extremely thin laminated plates.
Minimum k-way cut of bounded size is fixed-parameter tractable

We consider a the minimum k-way cut problem for unweighted graphs with a size bound s on the number of cut edges allowed. Thus we seek to remove as few edges as possible so as to split a graph into k components, or report that this requires cutting more than s edges. We show that this problem is fixed-parameter tractable (FPT) in s. More precisely, for s=O(1), our algorithm runs in quadratic time while we have a different linear time algorithm for planar graphs and bounded genus graphs. Our tractability result stands in contrast to known W[1] hardness of related problems. Without the size bound, Downey et al.[2003] proved that the minimum k-way cut problem is W[1] hard in k even for simple unweighted graphs. Downey et al. asked about the status for planar graphs. Our result implies tractability in k for the planar graphs since the minimum k-way cut of a planar graph is of size at most 6k (more generally, we get tractability in k for any graph class with k-way cuts of size limited by is a function of k, e.g., bounded degree graphs, or simple graphs with an excluded minor). A simple reduction shows that vertex cuts are at least as hard as edge cuts, so the minimum k-way vertex cut is also W[1] hard in terms of k. Marx [2004] proved that finding a minimum k-way vertex cut of size s is also W[1] hard in s. Marx asked about the FPT status with edge cuts, which we prove tractable here. We are not aware of any other cut problem where the vertex version is W[1] hard but the edge version is FPT.
No Apparent Reduction in Schistosome Burden or Genetic Diversity Following Four Years of School-Based Mass Drug Administration in Mwea, Central Kenya, a Heavy Transmission Area

Background Schistosomiasis is a debilitating neglected tropical disease that infects over 200 million people worldwide. To combat this disease, in 2012, the World Health Organization announced a goal of reducing and eliminating transmission of schistosomes. Current control focuses primarily on mass drug administration (MDA). Therefore, we monitored transmission of Schistosoma mansoni via fecal egg counts and genetic markers in a typical school based MDA setting to ascertain the actual impacts of MDA on the targeted schistosome population. Methods For 4 years, we followed 67 children enrolled in a MDA program in Kenya. Infection status and egg counts were measured each year prior to treatment. For 15 of these children, for which there was no evidence of acquired resistance, meaning they became re-infected following each treatment, we collected microsatellite genotype data from schistosomes passed in fecal samples as a representation of the force of transmission between drug treatments. We genotyped a total of 4938 parasites from these children, with an average of 329.2 parasites per child for the entire study, and an average of 82.3 parasites per child per annual examination. We compared prevalence, egg counts, and genetic measures including allelic richness, gene diversity (expected heterozygosity), adult worm burdens and effective number of breeders among time points to search for evidence for a change in transmission or schistosome populations during the MDA program. Findings We found no evidence of reduced transmission or schistosome population decline over the course of the program. Although prevalence declined in the 67 children as it did in the overall program, reinfection rates were high, and for the 15 children studied in detail, schistosome egg counts and estimated adult worm burdens did not decline between years 1 and 4, and genetic diversity increased over the course of drug treatment. Interpretation School based control programs undoubtedly improve the health of individuals; however, our data show that in an endemic area, such a program has had no obvious effect on reducing transmission or of significantly impacting the schistosome population as sampled by the children we studied in depth. Results like these, in combination with other sources of information, suggest more integrated approaches for interrupting transmission and significantly diminishing schistosome populations will be required to achieve sustainable control.
Effect of fly ash–gypsum blend on porosity and pore size distribution of cement pastes

This paper reports results on the porosity and pore size distribution (PSD) of cement paste containing simulated desulphurised waste (SDW). The SDW was chosen due to the variability in chemical composition of real desulphurised waste. The SDW is a combination of fly ash and gypsum. The content of fly ash in the SDW changed from 0 to 100% by weight. The water to binder ratio was 0·5. The binder consists of cement and SDW. Cement in the pastes was partially replaced with 25 wt-% SDW. The porosity and PSD of cement pastes at 28 days of curing is reported. Increasing amount of gypsum does not seem to greatly change the pore volume; however, there is tendency of obtaining coarser pore structure in the presence of gypsum. The compressive strength increases with increasing amounts of gypsum. Correlation between strength and PSD is conducted.
Information Complexity Density and Simulation of Protocols

Two parties observing correlated random variables seek to run an interactive communication protocol. How many bits must they exchange to simulate the protocol, namely to produce a view with a joint distribution within a fixed statistical distance of the joint distribution of the input and the transcript of the original protocol? We present an information spectrum approach for this problem whereby the information complexity of the protocol is replaced by its information complexity density. Our single-shot bounds relate the communication complexity of simulating a protocol to tail bounds for information complexity density. As a consequence, we obtain a strong converse and characterize the second-order asymptotic term in communication complexity for independent and identically distributed observation sequences. Furthermore, we obtain a general formula for the rate of communication complexity, which applies to any sequence of observations and protocols. Connections with results from theoretical computer science and implications for the function computation problem are discussed.
Estimation of central aortic pressure waveform features derived from the brachial cuff volume displacement waveform

There is increasing interest in non-invasive estimation of central aortic waveform parameters in the clinical setting. However, controversy has arisen around radial tonometric based systems due to the requirement of a trained operator or lack of ease of use, especially in the clinical environment. A recently developed device utilizes a novel algorithm for brachial cuff based assessment of aortic pressure values and waveform (SphygmoCor XCEL, AtCor Medical). The cuff was inflated to 10 mmHg below an individual's diastolic blood pressure and the brachial volume displacement waveform recorded. The aortic waveform was derived using proprietary digital signal processing and transfer function applied to the recorded waveform. The aortic waveform was also estimated using a validated technique (radial tonometry based assessment, SphygmoCor, AtCor Medical). Measurements were taken in triplicate with each device in 30 people (17 female) aged 22 to 79 years of age. An average for each device for each individual was calculated, and the results from the two devices were compared using regression and Bland-Altman analysis. A high correlation was found between the devices for measures of aortic systolic (R2=0.99) and diastolic (R2=0.98) pressure. Augmentation index and subendocardial viability ratio both had a between device R2 value of 0.82. The difference between devices for measured aortic systolic pressure was 0.5±1.8 mmHg, and for augmentation index, 1.8±7.0%. The brachial cuff based approach, with an individualized sub-diastolic cuff pressure, provides an operator independent method of assessing not only systolic pressure, but also aortic waveform features, comparable to existing validated tonometric-based methods.
PARALLEL RADIATIONS IN THE PRIMARY CLADES OF BIRDS

Abstract Knowledge of avian phylogeny is prerequisite to understanding the circumstances and timing of the diversification of birds and the evolution of morphological, behavioral, and life-history traits. Recent molecular datasets have helped to elucidate the three most basal clades in the tree of living birds, but relationships among neoavian orders (the vast majority of birds) remain frustratingly vexing. Here, we examine intron 7 of the β-fibrinogen gene in the most taxonomically inclusive survey of DNA sequences of nonpasserine bird families and orders to date. These data suggest that Neoaves consist of two sister clades with ecological parallelisms comparable to those found between marsupial and placental mammals. Some members of the putative respective clades have long been recognized as examples of convergent evolution, but it was not appreciated that they might be parts of diverse parallel radiations. In contrast, some traditional orders of birds are suggested by these data to be polyphyletic, with representative families in both radiations.
Revisiting Moment Invariants : Rapid Feature Extraction and Classification for Handwritten Digits

In this paper a feature extraction method based on moment invariants was applied to handwritten digits’ recognition. The features are computed using 15 special Summed-area Tables (SATs), which allows for fast computation at different positions and angles. The feature extraction method uses moments up to the 4 order, it can increase the number of features per set without the usual noise problems related to higher order moments. Classifiers for each digit were produced using AdaBoost. The classifiers were trained and tested using the MNIST handwritten digits database. The accuracy of classifiers were somewhat limited, as the features are not discriminative enough for this particular task. We discuss these limitations, showing that for the MNIST handwritten digits it is very difficult to avoid classifications mistakes using moment invariants for the feature extraction.
Correlation between the Glycan Variations and Defibrinogenating Activities of Acutobin and Its Recombinant Glycoforms

Acutobin isolated from Deinagkistrodon acutus venom has been used to prevent or treat stroke in patients. This defibrinogenating serine protease is a 39 kDa glycoprotein containing terminal disialyl-capped N-glycans. After sialidase treatment, the enzyme showed similar catalytic activities toward chromogenic substrate, and cleaved the Aα chain of fibrinogen as efficiently as the native acutobin did. However, the level of fibrinogen degradation products in mice after i.p.-injection of desialylated-acutobin was significantly lower than the level after acutobin injection, suggesting that the disialyl moieties may improve or prolong the half-life of acutobin. Two recombinant enzymes with identical protein structures and similar amidolytic activities to those of native acutobin were expressed from HEK293T and SW1353 cells and designated as HKATB and SWATB, respectively. Mass spectrometric profiling showed that their glycans differed from those of acutobin. In contrast to acutobin, HKATB cleaved not only the Aα chain but also the Bβ and γ chains of human fibrinogens, while SWATB showed a reduced α-fibrinogenase activity. Non-denaturing deglycosylation of these proteases by peptide N-glycosidase F significantly reduced their fibrinogenolytic activities and thermal stabilities. The in vivo defibrinogenating effect of HKATB was inferior to that of acutobin in mice. Taken together, our results suggest that the conjugated glycans of acutobin are involved in its interaction with fibrinogen, and that the selection of cells optimally expressing efficient glycoforms and further glycosylation engineering are desirable before a recombinant product can replace the native enzyme for clinical use.
Mammoth: A Peer-to-Peer File System

Peer-to-peer storage systems organize a collection of symmetric nodes to store data without the use of centralized data structures or operations. As a result, they can scale to many thousands of nodes and can be formed directly by clients. This paper describes the design and implementation Mammoth, which implements a traditional UNIX-like hierarchical (cid:2)le system in a peer-to-peer fashion. Each Mammoth node stores a potentially arbitrary collection of directories and (cid:2)les that may be replicated on multiple nodes. The only thing that links these nodes together is that each metadata object encodes the network addresses of the nodes that store it. Data is replicated by a background process whose operation is simpli(cid:2)ed by the fact that (cid:2)les are stored as journals of immutable versions. An optimistic replication technique is used to allow nodes to read and write whatever version of data they can access, while also ensuring consistency when nodes are connected. In the event of temporary failure, eventual consistency is achieved by ensuring that every replica of a directory or (cid:2)le metadata object receives all updates to the object, irrespective of delivery order. While an update is being propagated every node that receives it cooperates to ensure that the update is delivered, even if the original sender fails. Our prototype is implemented as a user-level NFS server. Its performance is comparable to a standard NFS server and it will be publicly available soon.
DEVELOPMENT OF A NEW SACRIFICIAL CATHODIC PROTECTION SYSTEM FOR STEEL EMBEDDED IN CONCRETE

This is the interim report for a study to evaluate the use of sacrificial cathodic protection for reinforced and prestressed concrete bridge members. Cathodic protection (CP) using impressed current is an accepted and common method used to provide corrosion protection to steel in concrete. Sacrificial cathodic protection, however, is relatively easy to apply, does not require that the anode be electrically isolated from the steel, and does not require an external power supply. Attempts to apply sacrificial anode CP to bridge structures have met with limited success because conventional sacrificial anode alloys operate at a low fixed potential and the conductivity of concrete often does not permit satisfactory current output. The Florida Department of Transportation has applied arc-sprayed zinc to several bridges in the marine environment. This study examined the performance of existing sacrificial alloys in different environments for sacrificial CP, and developed new sacrificial alloys for protecting steel in concrete. The study consisted of both laboratory and field tasks. The first task consisted of tests to identify suitable environments for sacrificial alloys. In this task, test blocks with and without a sprayed zinc coating were exposed to northern marine, northern semi-rural, and southern marine environments; a laboratory environment; and seawater splash zone exposure. The results indicate that a sprayed zinc anode can reduce the corrosion of embedded steel in concrete. In the second task, two bridges with a zinc sacrificial anode in the Florida Keys were inspected and tested. Data on anode current output, anode and cathode potential, and anode and cathode depolarization were recorded. The results indicate that pure zinc does not provide long-term protection because of eventual passivation in non-wet areas. The third task tested existing sacrificial alloys for their performance when applied to concrete. The laboratory studies into existing commercial sacrificial alloys did not produce favorable results and so further laboratory work to develop new alloys was conducted. The above studies indicated the need to identify a sacrificial alloy or alloys that could provide adequate CP current for the long term. The fourth task consisted of this developmental study. The result was a series of aluminum-zinc-indium alloys that are capable of maintaining reasonably high potentials and current output under a range of concrete conditions for longer than pure zinc or aluminum. Field testing on a bridge structure is scheduled.
On soft predicates in subdivision motion planning

We propose to design new algorithms for motion planning problems using the well-known Domain Subdivision paradigm, coupled with "soft" predicates. Unlike the traditional exact predicates in computational geometry, our primitives are only exact in the limit. We introduce the notion of resolution-exact algorithms in motion planning: such an algorithm has an "accuracy" constant K> 1, and takes an arbitrary input "resolution" parameter ε>0 such that: if there is a path with clearance Kε, it will output a path with clearance ε/K; if there are no paths with clearance ε/K, it reports "no path". Besides the focus on soft predicates, our framework also admits a variety of global search strategies including forms of the A* search and probabilistic search. Our algorithms are theoretically sound, practical, easy to implement, without implementation gaps, and have adaptive complexity. Our deterministic and probabilistic strategies avoid the Halting Problem of current probabilistically complete algorithms. We develop the first provably resolution-exact algorithms for motion-planning problems in SE(2)=R2 x S1. To validate this approach, we implement our algorithms and the experiments demonstrate the efficiency of our approach, even compared to probabilistic algorithms.
Dissipativity of θ-methods and one-leg methods for nonlinear neutral delay integro-differential equations

In this paper we study the dissipativity of a special class of nonlinear neutral delay integro-differential equations. The dissipativity of three kinds of important numerical methods, the linear θ-methods, one-leg θmethods, and the one-leg methods is obtained when they are applied to these problems. Numerical experiments are presented to check our findings. Key–Words: Linear θ-methods, One-leg θ-methods, One-leg methods, Nonlinear neutral delay integro-differential equations, Dissipativity, Absorbing set