Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hamiltonian closures for two-moment fluid models derived from drift-kinetic equations

We derive the conditions under which the fluid models obtained from the first two moments of Hamiltonian drift-kinetic systems of interest to plasma physics, preserve a Hamiltonian structure. The adopted procedure consists of determining closure relations that allow to truncate the Poisson bracket of the drift-kinetic system, expressed in terms of the moments, in such a way that the resulting operation is a Poisson bracket for functionals of the first two fluid moments. The analysis is carried out for a class of full drift-kinetic equations and also for drift-kinetic systems in which a splitting between an equilibrium distribution function and a perturbation is performed. In the former case we obtain that the only closure that leads to a Poisson bracket, without involving operators or an explicit dependence on the spatial coordinates, corresponds to that of an ideal adiabatic gas made of molecules possessing one degree of freedom. In the latter case, Hamiltonian closures turn out to be those in which the second moment is a linear combination of the first two moments, which can be seen as a linearization of the Hamiltonian closure of the full drift-kinetic case. A number of weakly-3D Hamiltonian-reduced fluid models of interest, for instance for tokamak plasmas, can be derived in this way and, viceversa given a fluid model with a Hamiltonian structure of a certain type, a parent Hamiltonian drift-kinetic model can then be identified. We make use of this correspondence to identify the drift-kinetic models from which Hamiltonian fluid models for magnetic reconnection and compressible plasma dynamics in the presence of a static but inhomogeneous magnetic field can be derived. The Casimir invariants of the Poisson brackets of the derived fluid models are also discussed. It is also shown that the Poisson structure for the fluid model derived from the full drift-kinetic system coincides with that of a reduced fluid model, when using the fluid velocity instead of the momentum as a dynamical variable.
In vitro and in vivo comparison of the abilities of purine and pyrimidine 2',3'-dideoxynucleosides to inhibit duck hepadnavirus

Four purine and two pyrimidine 2',3'-dideoxynucleosides were studied for their ability to inhibit duck hepadnavirus replication. The purine 2',3'-dideoxynucleosides were more potent antiviral agents than the pyrimidine 2',3'-dideoxynucleosides. The concentration for 50% inhibition of viral replication (IC50) was determined for each of the effective agents. Two drugs with low IC50s, 2,6-diaminopurine 2',3'-dideoxyriboside and 2',3'-dideoxyadenosine, were chosen for in vivo studies. Animals received 10 mg/kg intramuscularly twice daily. Rapid clearance of hepadnavirus DNA from the sera of the animals was seen as a result of treatment with 2,6-diaminopurine 2',3'-dideoxyriboside; however, treatment with 2',3'-dideoxyadenosine did not clear the virus.
Information Security Policy Compliance: An Empirical Study on Escalation of Commitment

This study aims to facilitate a new understanding on employees’ attitude towards compliance with the requirements of their information security policy (ISPs) through the lens of escalation. Escalation presents a situation in which employees must decide whether to persist in or withdraw from a non-performing task. Drawing on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and Agency Theory, our model delineates three mediating factors in explaining attitude: work impediment, information asymmetry, and safety of resources. We also propose information security awareness as an independent variable having an indirect effect on attitude through mediating factors. The proposed model is tested using the data collected from 376 employees working in the banking industry. The results of the PLS analyses show that while information asymmetry and safety of resources have significant impacts on attitude, work impediment does not. The results also show that ISA has significant impact on all three mediating factors.
Determinants of under-five Mortality in Nigeria : An application of Cox proportional hazard and Cox frailty models .

Many researchers in Nigeria have made efforts during the past decades to determine the significant demographic characteristics associated with child mortality using multiple linear regression, logistics model, Cox proportional hazard model and so on but little has been done using Frailty Models which incorporates the term frailty which measures the unobserved heterogeneity among under-five children at individual level.Using the 2008 NDHS, this study is aimed at investigating frailty among individuals, determining those demographic characteristics responsible for under-five child mortality and hazard rates in Nigeria. The Traditional Cox Proportional hazard model and Cox Frailty model were employed. The results indicate the presence of frailty by p-value 0.000. Differential of mother’s age and education were significant determinants of under-five mortality with a significance level of 0.01. Mothers who are of age group less than 20 years have the highest hazard ratio of 121%. This study therefore recommends that mothers should be educated on child care and younger women of age group 20-24 should give birth at such ages since they have lower risk of child death.
The association between bone mineral density, quality of life, quality of sleep and fatigue

Objectives:: This study was undertaken to examine quality of life (QoL), the quality of sleep and fatigue level in postmenopausal women with osteoporosis (OP) but without fractures, to assess the associations between these parameters and to compare the results with those for subjects who have osteopenia or normal bone mineral density (BMD). Methods:: In this study, 113 postmenopausal osteoporosis (PMO) subjects without fractures, 172 subjects with osteopenia and 102 subjects with normal BMD were included. The severity of pain, QoL, quality of sleep and fatigue were assessed using the visual analogue scale (VAS), the QoL Questionnaire of the European Foundation for Osteoporosis (QUALEFFO-41), the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and the Checklist of Individual Strength (CIS) questionnaire. Results:: No statistically significant differences between the three groups were found in terms of VAS and QUALEFFO-41 total scores (p > 0.05). On the other hand, PSQI and CIS total scores were significantly different in the PMO and osteopenia groups (P = 0.015 and 0.007, respectively) compared to the group with normal BMD. Conclusions:: During the follow-up and treatment of women with PMO or osteopenia, QoL, quality of sleep and fatigue should be assessed and incorporated into treatment decisions, even in the absence of fractures.
Immunodominant epitopes of the adhesin of Mycoplasma pneumoniae

Overlapping octapeptides from the amino acid sequence of the adherence protein of Mycoplasma pneumoniae were synthesized and used as the antigen in an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay with serum samples from M. pneumoniae-infected patients. Of a sequence of 338 amino acids positioned between leucine 801 and leucine 1139, only two regions with immunodominant continuous epitopes were detected. The immunoglobulin G and immunoglobulin M antibodies of child and adult patients reacted especially with the NH2-(810)-W-I-G-N-G-Y-R-Y peptide but also reacted with the NH2-(1124)-F-T-D-F-V-K-P-R peptide.
Using research to inform healthcare managers' and policy makers' questions: from summative to interpretive synthesis.

This paper highlights the importance of research synthesis for healthcare managers' and policy makers' questions and the difficulty of generalizing from the methods used to answer clinicians' questions. Social science research has a central role in such syntheses because of the context-dependent nature of managers' and policy makers' questions, which generally encompass a far broader spectrum than the circumscribed "what works? " questions of clinically oriented reviews. A major challenge is in moving from purely researcher-driven processes, which summarize research, to co-production processes, which allow managers and policy makers to join with researchers in interpreting implications for the healthcare system. Additional challenges lie in clearly defining the function, role and objective of the synthesis; handling flexibility around finalizing the question; harnessing a manageable scope of literature to review; adopting rules to select the final sample of research; creating useful messages; and developing a format that is responsive to the needs and preferences of the audience. One inevitable conclusion is that research synthesis for managers and policy makers will, compared to that for clinicians, leave much discretion in the hands of the synthesiser(s). This raises the interesting issue of how to engender, in the absence of "methodological checklists," trust and credibility in both the people doing the synthesis and the processes they use.
Diagnostic performance of whole body dual modality 18F-FDG PET/CT imaging for N- and M-staging of malignant melanoma: experience with 250 consecutive patients.

PURPOSE To assess the diagnostic performance of positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) using (18)F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) for N- and M-staging of cutaneous melanoma. PATIENTS AND METHODS This is a retrospective and blinded study of 250 consecutive patients (105 women, 145 men; age 58 +/- 16 years) who underwent FDG-PET/CT for staging of cutaneous melanoma at different time points in the course of disease. Whole-body FDG-PET/CT was performed 101 +/- 21 minutes postinjection of 371 +/- 41 MBq FDG. Diagnostic accuracy for N- and M-staging was determined for CT alone, PET alone, and PET/CT. RESULTS PET/CT detected significantly more visceral and nonvisceral metastases than PET alone and CT alone (98.7%, 88.8%, and 69.7%, respectively). PET/CT imaging thus provided significantly more accurate interpretations regarding overall N- and M-staging than PET alone and CT alone. Overall N- and M-stage was correctly determined by PET/CT in 243 of 250 patients (97.2%; 95% CI, 95.2% to 99.4%) compared with 232 patients (92.8%; 95% CI, 89.6% to 96.0%) by PET, and 197 patients (78.8%; 95% CI, 73.7% to 83.9%) by CT. All differences were significant. Accuracy of PET/CT was significantly higher than that of PET and CT for M-staging (0.98 v 0.93 and 0.84) and significantly higher than that of CT for N-Staging (0.98 v 0.86). Change of treatment according to PET/CT findings occurred in 121 patients (48.4%). CONCLUSION The diagnostic performance of FDG-PET/CT for N- and M-staging of melanoma patients suggests its use for whole-body tumor staging, especially for detection or exclusion of distant metastases.
Toward Condition Monitoring of Damper Windings in Synchronous Motors via EMD Analysis

Failures in damper windings of synchronous machines operating in real facilities have been recently reported by several authors and companies. These windings are crucial elements of synchronous motors and generators, playing an important role in the asynchronous startup of these machines as well as in their stability during load transients. However, the diagnosis of failures in such elements has barely been studied in the literature. This paper presents a method to diagnose the condition of damper bars in synchronous motors. It is based on the capture of the stator current of the machine during a direct startup and its further analysis in order to track the characteristic transient evolution of a particular fault-related component in the time-frequency map. The fact that the damper only carries significant current during the startup and little or no current, when the machine operates in steady state, makes this transient-based approach specially suited for the detection of such failure. The Hilbert-Huang transform (based on the empirical mode decomposition method) is proposed as a signal-processing tool. Simulation and experimental results on laboratory synchronous machines prove the validity of the approach for condition monitoring of such windings.
Sex Differences in Public Restroom Handwashing Behavior Associated with Visual Behavior Prompts

Handwashing after using the restroom is generally poor across the population, and one common method used to increase the frequency of handwashing is to place signs reminding individuals to wash their hands. The current study examined the association between the absence and presence of signs reminding one to wash their hands and handwashing in public restrooms. Signs prompting handwashing behavior remind restroom patrons of acceptable behavior, and the presence of these signs is hypothesized to be associated with an increase in handwashing. Observation of 175 individuals (95 women and 80 men) using public restrooms on a university campus indicated that 61% of the women and 37% of the men observed washed their hands, e.g., washing hands with soap, in the absence of the sign, and 97% of the women and 35% of the men observed washed their hands in the presence of the sign. Further, 53% of the men and 38% of the women observed rinsed their hands, e.g., washing hands without soap, in the absence of the sign, and 55% of the men and 2% of the women observed rinsed their hands in the presence of the sign. Results are discussed in terms of possible factors associated with sex differences in handwashing and the absence and presence of visual prompts for handwashing behavior.
Transformation Optics and Subwavelength Control of Light

Transforming Optical Transformations Recent developments in optics and materials have seen interactions between light and matter move to the subwavelength regime. Pendry et al. (p. 549) review how transformation optics has provided a general platform for controlling and manipulating light, literally transforming the field of optics. The coordinate system that the electric and magnetic components of the light field “feel” can be transformed through materials design by giving rise to exotic optical phenomena such as cloaking, negative refraction, and energy harvesting. Our intuitive understanding of light has its foundation in the ray approximation and is intimately connected with our vision. As far as our eyes are concerned, light behaves like a stream of particles. We look inside the wavelength and study the properties of plasmonic structures with dimensions of just a few nanometers, where at a tenth or even a hundredth of the wavelength of visible light the ray picture fails. We review the concept of transformation optics that manipulates electric and magnetic field lines, rather than rays; can provide an equally intuitive understanding of subwavelength phenomena; and at the same time can be an exact description at the level of Maxwell’s equations.
Conversion of the Amazon rainforest to agriculture results in biotic homogenization of soil bacterial communities

The Amazon rainforest is the Earth’s largest reservoir of plant and animal diversity, and it has been subjected to especially high rates of land use change, primarily to cattle pasture. This conversion has had a strongly negative effect on biological diversity, reducing the number of plant and animal species and homogenizing communities. We report here that microbial biodiversity also responds strongly to conversion of the Amazon rainforest, but in a manner different from plants and animals. Local taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity of soil bacteria increases after conversion, but communities become more similar across space. This homogenization is driven by the loss of forest soil bacteria with restricted ranges (endemics) and results in a net loss of diversity. This study shows homogenization of microbial communities in response to human activities. Given that soil microbes represent the majority of biodiversity in terrestrial ecosystems and are intimately involved in ecosystem functions, we argue that microbial biodiversity loss should be taken into account when assessing the impact of land use change in tropical forests.
A nationwide survey on the epidemiology and clinical features of eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis (Churg-Strauss) in Japan

Abstract Objective. We conducted a cross-sectional nationwide survey to determine eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis (Churg-Strauss) (EGPA) prevalence and clinical features in Japan. Methods. Data for EGPA patients in 2008 were collected from 1,564 hospitals. In total, 965 patients were reported from 365 departments. In a second survey, clinical data for 473 patients were obtained. Results. We estimated that 1,866 (95% CI: 1,640–2,092) patients have EGPA in Japan (prevalence, 17.8/1,000,000). Of the 473 patients in the second survey, 315 fulfilled American College of Rheumatology (ACR) criteria or Lanham's criteria for EGPA. The mean age (± SD) of the 315 at onset was 55 ± 14 years, male to female ratio 1:2. 93% of patients had neurological manifestations, which were the organ system most frequently involved. Among 277 patients tested for myeloperoxidase (MPO)-/p anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA), 139 (50%) were positive, while only 6 of 238 were positive for proteinase3 (PR3)-/cANCA. MPO-ANCA-positive patients had renal involvement, mucous membrane or ophthalmological symptoms, and ENT symptoms more frequently, whereas cutaneous lesions and cardiovascular involvement were less common. Conclusion. The prevalence of EGPA and the frequency of MPO-/p-ANCA-positivity in Japanese EGPA patients were mostly similar to those of Western countries. However, female predominance and a high frequency of neurological manifestations characterized Japanese patients.
A rate-splitting non-orthogonal multiple access scheme for uplink transmission

In existing uplink non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) schemes, complicated user pairing schemes are required to ensure differentiated arriving power at the access point, which may incur considerable scheduling overhead. To address this issue, we propose a novel rate-splitting NOMA scheme in this paper. In particular, each user information is “split” into multiple flows, which equivalently form multiple virtual users. These information flows can be successively decoded with even the same arriving power, thus avoiding user paring and significantly reducing the scheduling complexity. We derive the exact closed-form expressions of the outage probability and achievable sum rate of the proposed scheme. Moreover, we provide a practical method to optimize the key parameters, i.e., rate splitting pattern and power spitting pattern, so as to further improve the performance. Finally, simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.
When It's Time to Upgrade: HVdc and FACTS Renovation in the Western Power System

The western United States and Canada, bounded roughly by the Continental Divide and the Pacific Ocean and Mexico, form a large interconnected power system overseen by the Western Electric Coordinating Council (WECC). This interconnected system of approximately 210,000 MW has five high-voltage dc (HVdc) transmission systems dating from 1970 to 2014. Two new HVdc transmission schemes have been completed recently in Alberta, and several HVdc lines are being planned for the southwest to move power to southern California. There are also eight back-to-back converters that tie the western system to the eastern interconnection and to Texas. Other power electronic installations include a number of large transmission scale static var converters (SVCs) and two thyristor controlled series capacitors (TCSCs). These installations date from 1970, when the Vancouver Island HVdc transmission was installed.
High-cycle fatigue damage evaluation for micro-nanoscale single crystal silicon under bending and tensile stressing

This paper proposes a new high-cycle fatigue parameter for correlating fatigue lives of micro/nanoscale single crystal silicon (SCS) structures under bending and tensile stressing. The authors have reported the bending fatigue lives of nanoscale fixed-fixed SCS beams at MEMS 2003, and discussed the effects of specimen size, temperature and frequency on the fatigue lives. This research carried out fatigue tests of micro/nanoscale SCS structures under bending/tensile stressing for revealing the influence of deformation mode on SCS fatigue lives. Consequently, we enabled to propose an effective fatigue damage parameter for predicting fatigue lives of SCS structures ranging from micro-to nanoscale, regardless of deformation mode and specimen size. The fatigue damage parameter can be used for design of MEMS components subjected to fluctuating stressing.
Screening of HIV-1 Isolates by Reverse Heteroduplex Mobility Assay and Identification of Non-B Subtypes in Italy

ObjectiveThe increasing prevalence of HIV-1 transmission through heterosexual contacts and the growing number of immigrants from non-Western countries, where non-B subtypes and recombinant forms are prevalent, suggest the possible emergence in Italy of a new epidemic wave of HIV-1 non-B subtypes as well as recombinant forms. MethodsThe distribution of HIV-1 subtypes has been evaluated in 63 seropositive individuals residing in Italy, most of whom were infected through a sexual route during the last 5 years. A modified heteroduplex mobility assay (HMA) strategy, reverse HMA (rHMA), has been developed in our laboratory, allowing rapid identification of divergent-from-B-subtype isolates, which have been subsequently characterized by detailed molecular and phylogenetic analyses. ResultsFive samples show, on rHMA, an electrophoretic pattern compatible with a non-B subtype classification. Their phylogenetic analysis, performed on both env and gag regions, confirms the rHMA subtyping prediction, given that 3 samples fall into the “A-family” subtype and 2 into the G subtype. The 5 non-B-subtype HIV-1 isolates have been identified among 23 variants (prevalence, 21.74%) isolated during the 2000 to 2001 period in heterosexuals. In parallel, B-subtype isolates show high levels of intrasubtype nucleotide divergence, compatible with a constant HIV-1 molecular diversification. ConclusionThe Italian HIV-1 epidemic is still mostly attributable to the B subtype, which shows an increasing nucleotide heterogeneity. Heterosexual transmission and the interracial blending, however, are slowly introducing novel HIV-1 subtypes, and the data indicate that rHMA represents a powerful tool for HIV-1 biomolecular screening in epidemics characterized by a mono-/dual-subtype predominance.
Gradual Alterations in Cell Wall Structure and Metabolism in Vancomycin-Resistant Mutants ofStaphylococcus aureus

ABSTRACT In five vancomycin-resistant laboratory step mutants selected from the highly and homogeneously methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus strain COL (MIC of methicillin, 800 μg/ml; MIC of vancomycin, 1.5 μg/ml), the gradually increasing levels of resistance to vancomycin were accompanied by parallel decreases in the levels of methicillin resistance and abnormalities in cell wall metabolism. The latter included a gradual reduction in the proportion of highly cross-linked muropeptide species in peptidoglycan, down-regulation of the production of penicillin-binding protein 2A (PBP2A) and PBP4, and hypersensitivity to β-lactam antibiotics each with a relatively selective affinity for the various staphylococcal PBPs; the PBP2-specific inhibitor ceftizoxime was particularly effective.