Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Modified Perturbation Method for Three-dimensional Time Harmonic Impedance Tomography

A reconstruction algorithm for three dimensional time harmonic impedance imaging based on the Modified Perturbation Method (MPM), [1], is proposed. Both the object conductivity (σ) and permittivity (e) are reconstructed. The original Perturbation method developed for static problems was modified in order to apply in time harmonic problem in higher frequency. In this case complex permittivity and complex voltages are involved. So, major modifications have been made in order to achieve accepted results. The jacobian matrix is expressed in complex form and the modified perturbation reconstruction algorithm formulated accordingly. A number of successful reconstructions were carried out for different complex permittivity profiles, but all of them based on a computer phantom approach.
The Practical Relevance of Accountability Systems for School Improvement: A Descriptive Analysis of California Schools

In search for the practical relevance of accountability systems for school improvement, the authors ask whether practitioners traveling between the worlds of system-designated high- and low-performing schools would detect tangible differences in educational quality and organizational effectiveness. In comparing nine exceptionally high and low performing California middle schools, the authors conclude that if such travelers expected to encounter visible signs of an overall higher quality of students’ educational experience at the high-performing schools, they would be disappointed. Rather, they would have to settle on a narrower definition of quality that is more proximate to the effective acquisition of standards-aligned and test-relevant knowledge. High-growth schools tended to generate internal commitment for accountability and consider it an impetus for raising standards.
Impact of Ploidy Change on Secondary Metabolites and Photochemical Efficiency in Solanum Bulbocastanum

Plants are well known for producing a wide diversity of natural compounds and several strategies have been proposed to enhance their production. Among them, somatic chromosome doubling may represent an effective and inexpensive method. The objective of the current study was to investigate the effect of polyploidization on the leaf metabolic profile and content of tetraploids produced from a wild diploid (2n=2x=24) potato species, Solanum bulbocastanum Dun. Photochemical efficiency of tetraploids was also analyzed. Results from HPLC-DAD and LC/MS analyses provided evidence that tetraploid genotypes displayed either a similar or a lower phenylpropanoids, tryptophan, tyrosine and α-chaconine content compared with the diploid parent. Similarly, no significant differences were found among genotypes both for measures of gas and for chlorophyll fluorescence, except for non-photochemical quenching (NPQ). Steroidal saponins content revealed superiority of some tetraploids with respect to the diploid parent, suggesting perturbations in the mechanism regulating the biosynthesis of such compounds following polyploidization. Lack of superiority may be attributed to the time required for adjustment, adaptation and evolution after the genomic shock induced by polyploidization, as well as the fact that an optimum ploidy level for each species may be crucial. Our results suggest that polyploidization as a strategy to enhance metabolite production cannot be generalized.
Two different motor learning mechanisms contribute to learning reaching movements in a rotated visual environment

Practice of movement in virtual-reality and other artificially altered environments has been proposed as a method for rehabilitation following neurological injury and for training new skills in healthy humans. For such training to be useful, there must be transfer of learning from the artificial environment to the performance of desired skills in the natural environment. Therefore an important assumption of such methods is that practice in the altered environment engages the same learning and plasticity mechanisms that are required for skill performance in the natural environment. We test the hypothesis that transfer of learning may fail because the learning and plasticity mechanism that adapts to the altered environment is different from the learning mechanism required for improvement of motor skill. In this paper, we propose that a model that separates skill learning and environmental adaptation is necessary to explain the learning and aftereffects that are observed in virtual reality experiments. In particular, we studied the condition where practice in the altered environment should lead to correct skill performance in the original environment. Our 2-mechanism model predicts that aftereffects will still be observed when returning to the original environment, indicating a lack of skill transfer from the artificial environment to the original environment. To illustrate the model prediction, we tested 10 healthy participants on the interaction between a simple overlearned motor skill (straight hand movements to targets in different directions) and an artificially altered visuomotor environment (rotation of visual feedback of the results of movement). As predicted by the models, participants show adaptation to the altered environment and after-effects on return to the baseline environment even when practice in the altered environment should have led to correct skill performance. The presence of aftereffect under all conditions that involved changes in environment demonstrates separation of environmental adaptation and skill learning. Our results support the existence of two distinct learning modules with different adaptation properties. Therefore we suggest that adaptation to an altered environment may not be useful for training new skills.
Beauveria bassiana (Hyphomycetes) as a possible agent for biological control of Chagas disease vectors.

Beauveria bassiana (Balsamo) Vuillemin (isolate CG306) was tested on 3rd instars of 9 Triatoma spp. , 4 Rhodnius spp. , 2 Panstrongylus spp. and Dipetalogaster maxima (Uhler) at 25 degrees C and 50% RH. Quantitative sporulation of the fungus on cadavers was studied at 25 degrees C and 97% RH. Mortality, estimates of survival time, and conidial production on cadavers differed significantly among the genera and species tested. Panstrongylus herreri Wygodzinsky, Dipetalogaster maxima, Triatoma picturata Usinger, Rhodnius robustus Larrousse, Rhodnius prolixus Stål, Triatoma infestans (Klug), and Triatoma brasiliensis Neiva were most susceptible to fungal infection. Most conidia per cadaver were produced on Triatoma williami Galvão, Souza & Lima and Triatoma lecticularia (Stål). Results indicate that B. bassiana (CG306) might be a candidate for control of important or potential vectors of Trypanosoma cruzi using the fungus as a bioinsecticide.
Delayed cerebrovascular consequences of therapeutic radiation. A clinicopathologic study of a stroke associated with radiation‐related carotid arteriopathy

A young woman, successfully treated for Hodgkin's disease with radiation and MOPP chemotherapy, incurred a devastating stroke months after radiation therapy to the neck and other areas. There was no premonitory clinical history of cerebrovascular attacks. Autopsy showed unilateral thrombotic occlusion of the internal carotid artery unassociated with neoplastic or fibrotic annular constriction of the vessel. There was medial thickening and fibroblastic proliferation within the carotid artery. Areas of focal elastic membrane degeneration involved the cervical portions of the carotid. Thrombus was organized to the damaged vessel wall and was propagated into the intracranial vessels. Aneurysm formation and arterial hemorrhages were absent. These vascular changes occurred in an area of extensive radiation (7200 rads). Pathoanatomical studies in this patient indicate that radiation‐induced vascular changes were associated with a “delayed” stroke.
IDENTIFYING MECHANISMS BEHIND POLICY INTERVENTIONS VIA CAUSAL MEDIATION ANALYSIS

Causal analysis in program evaluation has primarily focused on the question about whether or not a program, or package of policies, has an impact on the targeted outcome of interest. However, it is often of scientific and practical importance to also explain why such impacts occur. In this paper, we introduce causal mediation analysis, a statistical framework for analyzing causal mechanisms that has become increasingly popular in social and medical sciences in recent years. The framework enables us to show exactly what assumptions are sufficient for identifying causal mediation effects for the mechanisms of interest, derive a general algorithm for estimating such mechanism‐specific effects, and formulate a sensitivity analysis for the violation of those identification assumptions. We also discuss an extension of the framework to analyze causal mechanisms in the presence of treatment noncompliance, a common problem in randomized evaluation studies. The methods are illustrated via applications to two intervention studies on pre‐school classes and job‐training workshops.
Perceived risks of adverse effects and influenza vaccination: a survey of hospital employees.

BACKGROUND Many hospital employees shun influenza immunization because they want to avoid adverse reactions. We surveyed hospital employees to elucidate whether the conception of the adverse effects of vaccination stems from correct or misperceived incidence rates of vaccine adverse effects. METHODS We used an anonymous self-administered paper questionnaire at a tertiary-care university hospital in Germany, in 2006. Multiple-choice questions probed respondents' knowledge about influenza, influenza vaccine and about rates of 12 possible vaccine adverse effects. We correlated overestimation of each adverse effect with failure to obtain vaccination in 2005-06, stratified by professional group. RESULTS The overall response rate was 34% (652/1898). Of the 304 respondents unvaccinated in 2005-06, 127 (42%) attributed their vaccination status mainly to concerns about adverse effects. Among physicians, failure to obtain influenza vaccination was associated with the overestimation of both non-severe and severe adverse effects. Non-vaccinated nurses were significantly more likely than the vaccinated nurses to overestimate the rates of five of six non-severe adverse effects, but differed significantly in rates of overestimation of merely one of the six severe adverse effects. Overestimation of vaccine-caused absenteeism from work was negatively associated with vaccination rates among all professionals. CONCLUSIONS Overestimation of the actual low rates of influenza vaccine adverse effects was associated with non-receipt of the vaccine among hospital employees. Due to our finding of different misconceptions about adverse effects, educational and promotional programmes should be targeted differentially for nurses and physicians.
On efficient selection of binary classifiers for min-max modular classifier

Binary classifiers are fundamental components of multiclass pattern classifiers. How to construct a solution to a multiclass problem by efficiently combining the outputs of binary classifiers is a very important issue in neural network and machine learning research. In this paper, we present three different algorithms for selecting binary classifiers for min-max modular classifier to improve its response performance. We also give a theoretical performance estimation of the proposed algorithms. We prove that quadratic complexity of original min-max combination can be reduced to the level of linear complexity in the number of binary classifiers. The experimental results indicate that our proposed algorithms are efficient and effective.
Justice Perceptions as Predictors of Customer Satisfaction: The Impact of Distributive, Procedural, and Interactional Justice1

This article attempts to extend prior research by testing the effects of justice components (distributive, procedural, and interactional) on customer satisfaction beyond the expectancy disconfirmation paradigm. To this end, two separate field survey studies were conducted. A total of 568 customers were surveyed in 38 hotels and 40 restaurants. The results showed that distributive justice was critical in predicting customer satisfaction, while the influence of procedural and interactional justice was secondary. Justice concepts were also robust against the simultaneous inclusion of disconfirmation and performance in the satisfaction equation. The article concludes with theoretical and managerial implications, as well as opportunities for future research.
The HEART Pathway Randomized Trial: Identifying Emergency Department Patients With Acute Chest Pain for Early Discharge

Background—The HEART Pathway is a decision aid designed to identify emergency department patients with acute chest pain for early discharge. No randomized trials have compared the HEART Pathway with usual care. Methods and Results—Adult emergency department patients with symptoms related to acute coronary syndrome without ST-elevation on ECG (n=282) were randomized to the HEART Pathway or usual care. In the HEART Pathway arm, emergency department providers used the HEART score, a validated decision aid, and troponin measures at 0 and 3 hours to identify patients for early discharge. Usual care was based on American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association guidelines. The primary outcome, objective cardiac testing (stress testing or angiography), and secondary outcomes, index length of stay, early discharge, and major adverse cardiac events (death, myocardial infarction, or coronary revascularization), were assessed at 30 days by phone interview and record review. Participants had a mean age of 53 years, 16% had previous myocardial infarction, and 6% (95% confidence interval, 3.6%–9.5%) had major adverse cardiac events within 30 days of randomization. Compared with usual care, use of the HEART Pathway decreased objective cardiac testing at 30 days by 12.1% (68.8% versus 56.7%; P=0.048) and length of stay by 12 hours (9.9 versus 21.9 hours; P=0.013) and increased early discharges by 21.3% (39.7% versus 18.4%; P<0.001). No patients identified for early discharge had major adverse cardiac events within 30 days. Conclusions—The HEART Pathway reduces objective cardiac testing during 30 days, shortens length of stay, and increases early discharges. These important efficiency gains occurred without any patients identified for early discharge suffering MACE at 30 days. Clinical Trial Registration—URL: http://www.clinicaltrials. gov. Unique Identifier: NCT01665521.
Copeptin as a Serum Biomarker of Febrile Seizures

Background and Objectives Accurate diagnosis of febrile seizures in children presenting after paroxysmal episodes associated with fever, is hampered by the lack of objective postictal biomarkers. The aim of our study was to investigate whether FS are associated with increased levels of serum copeptin, a robust marker of arginine vasopressin secretion. Methods This was a prospective emergency-setting cross-sectional study of 161 children between six months and five years of age. Of these, 83 were diagnosed with febrile seizures, 69 had a febrile infection without seizures and nine had epileptic seizures not triggered by infection. Serum copeptin and prolactin levels were measured in addition to standard clinical, neurophysiological, and laboratory assessment. Clinical Trial Registration: NCT01884766. Results Circulating copeptin was significantly higher in children with febrile seizures (median [interquartile range] 18.9 pmol/L [8.5-36.6]) compared to febrile controls (5.6 pmol/L [4.1-9.4]; p <0.001), with no differences between febrile and epileptic seizures (21.4 pmol/L [16.1-46.6]; p = 0.728). In a multivariable regression model, seizures were the major determinant of serum copeptin (beta 0.509; p <0.001), independently of clinical and baseline laboratory indices. The area under the receiver operating curve for copeptin was 0.824 (95% CI 0.753-0.881), significantly higher compared to prolactin (0.667 [0.585-0.742]; p <0.001). The diagnostic accuracy of copeptin increased with decreasing time elapsed since the convulsive event (at 120 min: 0.879 [0.806-0.932] and at <60 min: 0.975 [0.913-0.997]). Conclusions Circulating copeptin has high diagnostic accuracy in febrile seizures and may be a useful adjunct for accurately diagnosing postictal states in the emergency setting.
Risk measure estimation for $\beta$-mixing time series and applications

In this paper, we discuss the application of extreme value theory in the context of stationary $\beta$-mixing sequences that belong to the Fr\'echet domain of attraction. In particular, we propose a methodology to construct bias-corrected tail estimators. Our approach is based on the combination of two estimators for the extreme value index to cancel the bias. The resulting estimator is used to estimate an extreme quantile. In a simulation study, we outline the performance of our proposals that we compare to alternative estimators recently introduced in the literature. Also, we compute the asymptotic variance in specific examples when possible. Our methodology is applied to two datasets on finance and environment.
F Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory FERMILAB-Conf-98 / 379 MARS Code Developments

Recent developments in the physical model of 1 MeV to 100 TeV hadron and lepton interactions with nuclei and atoms are described. These include a new nuclear cross section library, a model for soft pion production, the cascade-exciton model, the dual parton model, deuteron-nucleus and neutrino-nucleus interaction models, detailed description of μ−, π− and p absorption and a unified treatment of muon and charged hadron electromagnetic interactions with matter. New algorithms are implemented into the MARS13(98) Monte Carlo code and benchmarked against experimental data. The code capabilities to simulate cascades and generate a variety of results in complex media have been also enhanced.
On Knowledge , Awareness and Attitude Related To First Aid Among University Students

1 Department of Medical Surgical Nursing, Kulliyyah of Nursing, International Islamic University Malaysia, Jalan Hospital Campus, 25100, Kuantan, Pahang, Malaysia. 2 Kulliyyah of Nursing, International Islamic University Malaysia, Jalan Hospital Campus, 25100 Kuantan, Pahang. 3 Department of Medical Surgical Nursing, Kulliyyah of Nursing, International Islamic University Malaysia, Jalan Hospital Campus, 25100, Kuantan, Pahang, Malaysia. 4 Department of Nursing Science, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, 50603, Wilayah Persekutuan, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Annular Column Loaded Cylindrical Dielectric Resonator Antenna for Wideband Conical Radiation

A wideband cylindrical dielectric resonator antenna (CDRA)-loaded with an annular column, namely the LCDRA, is proposed and analyzed. The antenna comprises two components-an inner cylindrical dielectric and a loaded concentric column dielectric. The proposed antenna is centrally fed by a coaxial probe, and has a low profile of 0.175 λ<sub>0</sub> (λ<sub>0</sub> is the wavelength of the center frequency). Four conical radiation pattern modes (TM<sub>01δ</sub>, TM<sub>02δ</sub>, TM<sub>03δ</sub>, and TM<sub>04δ</sub> modes) are excited and merged, providing an impedance bandwidth of 56% (3.14-5.56 GHz). A prototype of the proposed antenna is built and tested. Good agreement between the simulated and measured results, including the reflection coefficient and radiation patterns, is achieved.
Automated Anomaly Detector Adaptation using Adaptive Threshold Tuning

Real-time network- and host-based Anomaly Detection Systems (ADSs) transform a continuous stream of input data into meaningful and quantifiable anomaly scores. These scores are subsequently compared to a fixed detection threshold and classified as either benign or malicious. We argue that a real-time ADS’ input changes considerably over time and a fixed threshold value cannot guarantee good anomaly detection accuracy for such a time-varying input. In this article, we propose a simple and generic technique to adaptively tune the detection threshold of any ADS that works on threshold method. To this end, we first perform statistical and information-theoretic analysis of network- and host-based ADSs’ anomaly scores to reveal a consistent time correlation structure during benign activity periods. We model the observed correlation structure using Markov chains, which are in turn used in a stochastic target tracking framework to adapt an ADS’ detection threshold in accordance with real-time measurements. We also use statistical techniques to make the proposed algorithm resilient to sporadic changes and evasion attacks. In order to evaluate the proposed approach, we incorporate the proposed adaptive thresholding module into multiple ADSs and evaluate those ADSs over comprehensive and independently collected network and host attack datasets. We show that, while reducing the need of human threshold configuration, the proposed technique provides considerable and consistent accuracy improvements for all evaluated ADSs.
INTERFERENCE SUPPRESSION OF LINEAR ANTENNA ARRAYS BY AMPLITUDE-ONLY CONTROL USING A BACTERIAL FORAGING ALGORITHM

This paper presents a bacterial foraging algorithm (BFA) for null steering of linear antenna arrays by controlling only the element amplitudes. The BFA is a new evolutionary computing technique based on the foraging behavior of Escherichia (E.) coli bacteria in human intestine. To show the accuracy and flexibility of the proposed BFA, several examples of Chebyshev array pattern with the imposed single, multiple and broad nulls are given. It is found that the nulling method based on BFA is capable of steering the array nulls precisely to the undesired interference directions.
p38 MAPK Signaling in Osteoblast Differentiation

The skeleton is a highly dynamic tissue whose structure relies on the balance between bone deposition and resorption. This equilibrium, which depends on osteoblast and osteoclast functions, is controlled by multiple factors that can be modulated post-translationally. Some of the modulators are Mitogen-activated kinases (MAPKs), whose role has been studied in vivo and in vitro. p38-MAPK modifies the transactivation ability of some key transcription factors in chondrocytes, osteoblasts and osteoclasts, which affects their differentiation and function. Several commercially available inhibitors have helped to determine p38 action on these processes. Although it is frequently mentioned in the literature, this chemical approach is not always as accurate as it should be. Conditional knockouts are a useful genetic tool that could unravel the role of p38 in shaping the skeleton. In this review, we will summarize the state of the art on p38 activity during osteoblast differentiation and function, and emphasize the triggers of this MAPK.