Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Effects of Sexual Expectancies on Early Sexualized Behavior Among Urban Minority Youth

This study examines the effects of different types of sexual expectancies on early sexual behavior among racial/ethnic minority young adolescents. African American and Latino participants between 11 and 13 years old were recruited through schools and community-based agencies in the South Bronx, New York (N = 223). Multiple logistic regression analyses were used to predict early sexual behavior outcomes, which included engagement in sexual possibility situations, kissing, and sexual touching. The moderating effect of gender was examined using multiplicative interaction terms. Higher expectations categorized as personal/parental and romantic/peer expectancies related to the negative consequences of sexual intercourse decreased the odds of engagement in early sexual behavior; whereas higher academic/career and sexual health expectancies did not. Gender moderated the relationships between personal/parental expectancies and engagement in sexual possibility situations and romantic/peer expectancies and kissing. Social workers formulating sexual health promotion and HIV prevention programs for racial/ethnic minority young adolescents should focus on personal/parental and romantic/peer expectancies in favor of negative expectancies regarding academic/career achievement, pregnancy, and HIV. Social work interventions to delay sexual debut should include a family-based component and should be sensitive to gender differences in sexual expectancies.
A consistent pixel-wise blur measure for partially blurred images

Despite numerous efforts on blur measurement of partially blurred images, there still lacks an effective blur measure that is both pixel-wise and locally sharp consistent. The paper proposes a novel method with two contributions to overcome this limitation: 1) A new pixel-based blur metric, Multi-resolution Singular Value (MSV), which leverages the average singular value of high frequency bands to measure the blur of each pixel, and 2) a locally continuous strategy, maximum-likelihood estimation (MLE) based refinement, that ensures local continuity by imposing the local sharp consistency on pixel blur in a local correcting process. Experimental results show that our method is effective to smoothly measure the partially blurred images without local discontinuity.
Agile software development: it's about feedback and change

Underlying values In February 2001, 17 of these practitioners and authors met in Snowbird, Utah, to discuss the fundamental similarities of their experiences and their then-called lightweight methodologies. Finding that their work habits had much in common, they recognized that the lightness in their work process provided a means to achieve the more relevant end: customer satisfaction and high quality. They categorized their methodologies as “agile”—a term with a decade of use in flexible manufacturing practices. The participants wrote the “Manifesto for Agile Software Development” (www.agilemanifesto.org), which describes the four comparative values underlying the agile position:
ERAD inhibitors integrate ER stress with an epigenetic mechanism to activate BH3-only protein NOXA in cancer cells

The ubiquitin-proteasome system has recently emerged as a major target for drug development in cancer therapy. The proteasome inhibitor bortezomib has clinical activity in multiple myeloma and mantle cell lymphoma. Here we report that Eeyarestatin I (EerI), a chemical inhibitor that blocks endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-associated protein degradation, has antitumor and biologic activities similar to bortezomib and can synergize with bortezomib. Like bortezomib, EerI-induced cytotoxicity requires the up-regulation of the Bcl-2 homology3 (BH3)-only pro-apoptotic protein NOXA. We further demonstrate that both EerI and bortezomib activate NOXA via an unanticipated mechanism that requires cooperation between two processes. First, these agents elicit an integrated stress response program at the ER to activate the CREB/ATF transcription factors ATF3 and ATF4. We show that ATF3 and ATF4 form a complex capable of binding to the NOXA promoter, which is required for NOXA activation. Second, EerI and bortezomib also block ubiquitination of histone H2A to relieve its inhibition on NOXA transcription. Our results identify a class of anticancer agents that integrate ER stress response with an epigenetic mechanism to induce cell death.
Development of Mobile Electronic Health Records Application in a Secondary General Hospital in Korea

Objectives The recent evolution of mobile devices has opened new possibilities of providing strongly integrated mobile services in healthcare. The objective of this paper is to describe the decision driver, development, and implementation of an integrated mobile Electronic Health Record (EHR) application at Ulsan University Hospital. This application helps healthcare providers view patients' medical records and information without a stationary computer workstation. Methods We developed an integrated mobile application prototype that aimed to improve the mobility and usability of healthcare providers during their daily medical activities. The Android and iOS platform was used to create the mobile EHR application. The first working version was completed in 5 months and required 1,080 development hours. Results The mobile EHR application provides patient vital signs, patient data, text communication, and integrated EHR. The application allows our healthcare providers to know the status of patients within and outside the hospital environment. The application provides a consistent user environment on several compatible Android and iOS devices. A group of 10 beta testers has consistently used and maintained our copy of the application, suggesting user acceptance. Conclusions We are developing the integrated mobile EHR application with the goals of implementing an environment that is user-friendly, implementing a patient-centered system, and increasing the hospital's competitiveness.
Contouring Discrete Indicator Functions

We present a method for calculating the boundary of objects from Discrete Indicator Functions that store 2‐material volume fractions with a high degree of accuracy. Although Marching Cubes and its derivatives are effective methods for calculating contours of functions sampled over discrete grids, these methods perform poorly when contouring non‐smooth functions such as Discrete Indicator Functions. In particular, Marching Cubes will generate surfaces that exhibit aliasing and oscillations around the exact surface. We derive a simple solution to remove these problems by using a new function to calculate the positions of vertices along cell edges that is efficient, easy to implement, and does not require any optimization or iteration. Finally, we provide empirical evidence that the error introduced by our contouring method is significantly less than is introduced by Marching Cubes.
Hydraulic Extrusion of the Spinal Cord and Isolation of Dorsal Root Ganglia in Rodents

Traditionally, the spinal cord is isolated by laminectomy, i.e. by breaking open the spinal vertebrae one at a time. This is both time consuming and may result in damage to the spinal cord caused by the dissection process. Here, we show how the spinal cord can be extruded using hydraulic pressure. Handling time is significantly reduced to only a few minutes, likely decreasing protein damage. The low risk of damage to the spinal cord tissue improves subsequent immunohistochemical analysis. By performing hydraulic spinal cord extrusion instead of traditional laminectomy, the rodents can further be used for DRG isolation, thereby lowering the number of animals and allowing analysis across tissues from the same rodent. We demonstrate a consistent method to identify and isolate the DRGs according to their localization relative to the costae. It is, however, important to adjust this method to the particular animal used, as the number of spinal cord segments, both thoracic and lumbar, may vary according to animal type and strain. In addition, we illustrate further processing examples of the isolated tissues.
Effective bandwidth shaping in TCP networks

For the handling of resource dimensioning and traffic management questions the effective bandwidths theory turned out to be an attractive method. Nevertheless effective bandwidths have been used only ’passive’ in the past, i.e. effective bandwidths have been used as a description of a process that already lies in the past. We suggest an ’active’ and ’interactive’ use of effective bandwidth estimation in order to give traffic flows a certain property that is easily characterized and that does not change on the flow’s path through the network, and thereby give network providers a powerful tool at hand for providing quality of service guarantees.
Retrieval of aerosol properties over the ocean using Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment measurements: Method and applications to test cases

Satellite monitoring of aerosol properties using passive techniques is widely considered a crucial tool for the study of climatic effects of atmospheric particulate [Kaufman et al., 1997]. Only space-based observations can provide the required global coverage information on spatial distribution and temporal variation of the aerosol field. This paper describes a method for deriving aerosol optical thickness at 500 nm and aerosol type from Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME) data over the ocean under cloud-free conditions. GOME, flying on board the second European Remote Sensing satellite (ERS 2) since April 1995, is a spectrometer that measures radiation reflected from Earth in the spectral range 240–793 nm. The features of the instrument relevant to the aerosol retrieval task are its high relative radiometric accuracy (better than 1%), its spectral coverage, and its spectral resolution, which allows wavelengths in spectral regions free of molecular absorption (atmospheric windows) to be selected. The method presented is based on a pseudo-inversion approach in which measured reflectance spectra are fitted to simulated equivalents computed using a suitable radiative transfer model. The crucial aspects of this method are the high accuracy and the nonapproximate nature of the radiative transfer model, which simulates the spectra during the fitting procedure, and careful selection of candidate aerosol classes. A test application of the proposed method to a Saharan dust outbreak which occurred in June 1997 is presented, showing that in spite of the instrument's low spatial resolution, information on both optical thickness and spectral characterization of the aerosol can be retrieved from GOME data. Preliminary comparisons of the results with independent estimates of the aerosol content show that a good correlation exists, encouraging planning of a systematic application of the method.
Research on Classification Management for Branch Post Offices Supplying Insurance Based on TwoStep Cluster

Under the adverse conditions occurring in global economy at present, how to boost branch post offices marketing insurance is a difficulty confronted to all the management decision-makers in China Post because supplying insurance is an important operation for them. To break away from the plight, it is a key to evaluate the ability of the branch offices in supplying insurance and data-mining technology is an effective means. In this study, based on analyzing the data of insurance business occurred in the branch post offices, the data which could describe the characteristics of the branch offices were picked up; then the analysis of clustering was completed through using clustering technique which is one of the most important technologies in data mining, moreover, the effect of the feature selection and variables standardizing on the clustering results were analyzed; finally, some advices of management were brought out based on the results of clustering.
Nanostructural investigation of whiskers and hillocks of Al-based metallization in thin-film transistor liquid crystal displays

Nanostructure of whiskers and hillocks in various aluminum (Al)-based thin films for thin-film transistor (TFT) on glass substrates has been investigated. We developed a novel technique to fabricate whiskers and hillocks artificially, using nanoindentation technique and annealing in a vacuum furnace. During the annealing, some Al whiskers and hillocks are formed, particularly on the edges of indentation marks. The high degree of whisker formation in this technique correlated to the weak hillock formation resistance in actual TFT arrays. Nanostructure of these thin films was investigated by cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy (X-TEM). The surface morphology of as-deposited films was also investigated by atomic force microscopy (AFM).
Dominant Rio1 kinase/ATPase catalytic mutant induces trapping of late pre-40S biogenesis factors in 80S-like ribosomes

During eukaryotic ribosome biogenesis, members of the conserved atypical serine/threonine protein kinase family, the RIO kinases (Rio1, Rio2 and Rio3) function in small ribosomal subunit biogenesis. Structural analysis of Rio2 indicated a role as a conformation-sensing ATPase rather than a kinase to regulate its dynamic association with the pre-40S subunit. However, it remained elusive at which step and by which mechanism the other RIO kinase members act. Here, we have determined the crystal structure of the human Rio1–ATP–Mg2+ complex carrying a phosphoaspartate in the active site indicative of ATPase activity. Structure-based mutations in yeast showed that Rio1's catalytic activity regulates its pre-40S association. Furthermore, we provide evidence that Rio1 associates with a very late pre-40S via its conserved C-terminal domain. Moreover, a rio1 dominant-negative mutant defective in ATP hydrolysis induced trapping of late biogenesis factors in pre-ribosomal particles, which turned out not to be pre-40S but 80S-like ribosomes. Thus, the RIO kinase fold generates a versatile ATPase enzyme, which in the case of Rio1 is activated following the Rio2 step to regulate one of the final 40S maturation events, at which time the 60S subunit is recruited for final quality control check.
AFM LITHOGRAPHY IN CONSTANT CURRENT MODE

An organosilane monolayer consisting of trimethylsilyl ([ - ) groups prepared on the native oxide of a silicon substrate effectively served as a resist material for AFM-based nanolithography. The patterning of this resist was performed through its electrochemical degradation locally induced around the contact point of a conductive AFM probe while biasing the sample substrate positively. In the region where the probe passed, the monolayer resist was degraded and the underlying silicon oxide surface was selectively uncovered. The number of electrons injected into the probe-scanned region was controlled by conducting the AFM lithography in constant current mode. By means of this constant current AFM lithography a sufficient amount of electrons could be injected even at high probe-scan rates faster than . It was demonstrated that the TMS monolayer resist was sensitive enough to allow line drawing at a probe scan rate of .
Moment-of-fluid interface reconstruction

We designed a new volume-conservative interface reconstruction method. An input data set for the interface reconstruction algorithm consists of volumes and centroids of the cell fractions occupied by different materials. Compared to pure volume fractions, traditionally used by volume-of-fluid (VoF) methods, this choice of the input data allows to define a linear interface approximation per mixed cell (i.e. offers Piecewise-Linear Interface Calculation or Construction (PLIC)) even without exchanging information between neighboring elements. The location of linear interface in each mixed cell is chosen to preserve the volumes and provide the best approximation to the centroids of the cell fractions. The technique proposed yields a second order accurate approximation to interfaces given by simple C2 curves and is shown to be more accurate than known VoF-PLIC methods.
Impaired endothelial function in arterial hypertension and hypercholesterolemia: potential mechanisms and differences

This review focuses on the role of impaired endothelial function for the developement of atherosclerosis in human arterial hypertension and hypercholesterolemia in vivo. Potential mechanisms underlying impaired endothelial function and decreased bioavailability of nitric oxide under these clinical conditions are discussed and potential differences in these mechanisms between arterial hypertension and hypercholesterolemia are outlined. It further addresses therapeutic strategies aiming to improve the bioavailability of nitric oxide in these patients. The overall conclusion is that the bioavailability of nitric oxide is probably impaired not by a single defect, but by various mechanisms affecting nitric oxide synthesis as well as nitric oxide breakdown. In both diseases, increased superoxide anion production and oxidative stress represents a major mechanism. However, potential differences in the underlying mechanisms of superoxide production or nitric oxide synthesis are evident between arterial hypertension and hypercholesterolemia. Decreased bioavailability of nitric oxide does not only impair endothelium-dependent vasodilation, but also activates other mechanisms that play an important role in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. Thus, therapeutic strategies should aim to restore bioavailability of nitric oxide, which has been demonstrated for lipid-lowering therapy in hypercholesterolemia. The mechanisms by which nitric oxide bioavailability can be improved by any drug therapy remain to be elucidated and may provide further insights into the mechanisms that are involved in impaired endothelial function and atherogenesis.
Assessment of thermal history of niobium modified HP50 reformer tubes by microstructural methods

AbstractThe rate at which microstructural features in H P50 (niobium modified) change with time and temperature has been studied in an attempt to allow evaluation of the thermal history of reformer tubes. The as cast microstructure consists of an austenite matrix and an interdendritic distribution of primary niobium and chromium carbides. After short exposures to service temperatures, a fine distribution of secondary carbides is generated. Samples of HP50 (modified) were aged at a range of temperatures both with and without the application of stress, and the population density of niobium carbide particles in the material was determined. The rate of change of the population of niobium carbide particles in the microstructure was found to vary according to first order rate kinetics, with an activation energy of 473 kJ mol−1. This suggests that a structured programme of microstructural examination of tubes at maintenance shutdowns would yield valuable information on the temperature profile in a reformer furna.
Output regulation of large-scale T-S fuzzy-model-based decentralized control systems with unknown interconnection terms

This paper considers a regulation problem of non-linear large-scale systems. To do this, a Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy model is adopted for fuzzy modeling of the nonlinear large-scale systems, which has unknown interconnection terms. An output-feedback decentralized fuzzy controller with integral action is employed to drive the system outputs to reach a reference value and minimize the steady-state error. Sufficient conditions for the output regulation are derived from Lyapunov stability and these are formulated in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMI). Finally, a numerical simulation example is given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed design procedures and regulation conditions.
Real-time volume caustics with adaptive beam tracing

Caustics are detailed patterns of light reflected or refracted on specular surfaces into participating media or onto surfaces. In this paper we present a novel adaptive and scalable algorithm for rendering surface and volume caustics in single-scattering participating media at real-time frame rates. Motivated by both caustic mapping and triangle-based volumetric methods, our technique captures the specular surfaces in light-space, but traces beams of light instead of single photons. The beams are adaptively generated from a grid projected from the light source onto the scene's surfaces, which is iteratively refined according to discontinuities in the geometry and photon distribution. This allows us to reconstruct sharp volume caustic patterns while reducing sampling resolution and fill-rate at defocused regions. We demonstrate our technique combined with approximate ray tracing techniques to render surfaces with two-sided refractions as well as multiple caustic light bounces.
Nitrosylation of Nitric‐Oxide‐Sensing Regulatory Proteins Containing [4Fe‐4S] Clusters Gives Rise to Multiple Iron–Nitrosyl Complexes

Abstract The reaction of protein‐bound iron–sulfur (Fe‐S) clusters with nitric oxide (NO) plays key roles in NO‐mediated toxicity and signaling. Elucidation of the mechanism of the reaction of NO with DNA regulatory proteins that contain Fe‐S clusters has been hampered by a lack of information about the nature of the iron‐nitrosyl products formed. Herein, we report nuclear resonance vibrational spectroscopy (NRVS) and density functional theory (DFT) calculations that identify NO reaction products in WhiD and NsrR, regulatory proteins that use a [4Fe‐4S] cluster to sense NO. This work reveals that nitrosylation yields multiple products structurally related to Roussin's Red Ester (RRE, [Fe2(NO)4(Cys)2]) and Roussin's Black Salt (RBS, [Fe4(NO)7S3]. In the latter case, the absence of 32S/34S shifts in the Fe−S region of the NRVS spectra suggest that a new species, Roussin's Black Ester (RBE), may be formed, in which one or more of the sulfide ligands is replaced by Cys thiolates.
Performance of hybrid system for fluorescence and micro-computed tomography in synchronous mode

Fluorescence diffuse optical tomography (FDOT) plays an important role in studying physiological and pathological processes of small animals in vivo. The low spatial resolution, however, limits the ability of FDOT in resolving the biodistributions of fluorescent markers. The anatomical information provided by X-ray computed tomography (CT) can be used to improve the image quality of FDOT. However, in most hybrid FDOT/CT systems, the projection data sets of optics and X-ray are acquired sequentially, which increases the acquisition time and bring in the unwanted soft tissue displacement. In this paper, we evaluate the performance of a synchronous FDOT/CT system, which allows for faster and concurrent imaging. Compared with previous FDOT/CT systems, the two subsystems (FDOT and CT) acquire projection images in synchronous mode, so the body position can keep consistent in the same projection data acquired by both subsystems. The experimental results of phantom and in vivo experiments suggest that the reconstruction quality of FDOT can be significantly improved when structural a priori information is utilized to constrain the reconstruction process. On the other hand, the synchronous FDOT/CT system decreases the imaging time.