Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Susceptibility to e-cigarette initiation among tobacco product naïve adolescents in Malaysia: Findings from the tobacco and e-cigarette survey among Malaysian adolescents (TECMA)

INTRODUCTION Predicting susceptibility to e-cigarette (EC) initiation among adolescents is crucial to optimize preventive measures before the health risk behavior persists through adulthood. The identification of susceptible groups is needed in response to the surge of EC use. This study aimed to determine the prevalence and determinants associated with EC susceptibility among tobacco product naïve (never users of any single tobacco product) school-going adolescents in Malaysia. METHODS Data were derived from the Tobacco and EC Survey among Malaysians (TECMA), which recruited a total of 13162 school-going adolescents aged 10– 19 years from 138 randomly selected schools via a two-stage stratified cluster sampling design. A validated self-administered questionnaire adapted from the Global Youth Tobacco Survey was utilized as the study instrument. The data were analyzed using SPSS version 22.0 descriptively and with multivariable logistic regression to determine the associated factors of EC susceptibility. RESULTS About 15.7% of the tobacco naïve adolescents were susceptible to EC initiation, with the proportion of susceptibility significantly higher among males, mid-adolescents, rural adolescents, those reporting exposure to tobacco advertisement and those not taught in school about the danger of tobacco use. Multivariable logistic regression revealed that the male students (AOR=2.20; 95% CI: 1.86–2.59) from a rural locality (AOR=1.45; 95% CI: 1.23–1.71), those reporting no lessons on the danger of tobacco use at school (AOR=1.66; 95% CI: 1.39–1.99) and those exposed to tobacco advertisement (AOR=1.67; 95% CI: 1.07–2.61), were more susceptible to EC initiation, while no significant association was found between secondhand smoke exposure and EC susceptibility. CONCLUSIONS Comprehensive EC preventive strategies are critically needed together with the implementation of targeted, gender, and culturally impressionable interventions. In addition, future studies should focus on the evaluation of the impacts of the preventive and control efforts to ensure their effectiveness in preventing EC initiation among Malaysian adolescents.
What We Talk About When We Talk About Virtual Learning Environments

This is a literature review analysing articles published on virtual learning environments (VLEs), otherwise known as learning management systems, in higher education in the years 2014–2018. The Web of Science database was used to identity relevant articles over this five-year period. The sample comprises 99 peer-reviewed, academic journal articles. A coding sheet is used to analyse each article, identifying the research method, the classification of research (macro, meso, or micro), the focus of research (students, instructors, or both), and, where applicable, the specific brand of VLE. Most output on VLEs is found to be quantitative, to focus on students and on the micro level of learning and teaching, to not have a clear theoretical focus, to not specify which brand of VLE is used, and to be produced in affluent countries. This article adds to the understanding of VLE research by identifying the most frequent foci of research on VLEs, as well as identifying areas that have been under-researched.
Fine-tuning the cutpoint T-score as an epidemiological index with high specificity for osteoporosis: methodological considerations for the Chinese population.

Quant Imaging Med Surg 2022;12(2):882-885 | https://dx.doi. org/10.21037/qims-21-845 Osteoporosis is a skeletal disease characterized by low bone mass and microarchitectural deterioration of bone tissue with a consequent increase in bone fragility and susceptibility to fracture. The clinical significance of osteoporosis lies in the fractures which occur, and the most important fracture is hip fracture. Among Caucasian women, the lifetime risk of hip fracture at the age of 50 years is considered to be around 16%, while 30% is a conservative estimate of the risk of any osteoporotic fractures (1). According to the WHO criteria, T-score is defined as: (BMDpatient – BMDyoung normal mean)/SDyoung normal population, where BMD is bone mineral density and SD is the standard deviation. In adult women, the cutpoint value of patient BMD 2.5 SD below BMDyoung normal mean satisfies that, when the femoral neck is measured, osteoporosis prevalence is about 16.2% for those age ≥50 years, the same as the lifetime risk of hip fragility fracture (1,2). If other sites are also considered, this cutpoint value identifies approximately 30% of postmenopausal women as having osteoporosis, which is approximately equivalent to the lifetime risk of fragility fracture at the spine, hip, or forearm. It is considered that this portion of the population has a faster bone mass loss, and interventions should be taken ideally before a fragility fracture occurs. Therefore, the original WHO classification was intended for a populationbased prevalence with a classification of osteoporotic patients having T-score ≤–2.5 (1). The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) provides a reference population for proximal femur BMD of Caucasians. East Asians generally have lower measured BMD; thus, various region-specific reference databases have been published. The osteoporotic fracture prevalence is substantially lower among Chinese compared to that of Caucasians, both for men and women. For example, Bow et al. (3) reported that the hip fracture rates for Hong Kong women aged 65 to 69 years old were 33% of those of the Caucasian women in the same age group. In the study of Shin et al. (4), the prevalence of self-reported non-traumatic fracture was US Caucasian men: 17.1%; US Asian men: 10.5%; and Hong Kong Chinese men: 5.6%. Lauderdale et al. (5) estimated US national nontraumatic hip fracture incidence rates, Editorial
Representing Their Former District: Do Members Do It and Do They Admit It?

Scholars have long thought members prioritize the goal of re-election by accommodating district preferences. But other goals-such as achieving congressional power and seniority or crafting good public policy-may also drive members. Few have investigated how the tension between these goals plays out in actual legislative behavior. I capitalize on exogenous changes in the composition of districts to empirically evaluate how members respond when their district changes. Specifically, do members' engagement with military issues change when their district gains or loses a base? Using a wealth of data on legislative behavior as well as on military base location and staffing, I show members generally do not change their behavior, even in the wake of relatively sizable changes. Moreover, using emails sent by members to their constituents before and after the 2012 redistricting period, I demonstrate that members who gain a base in their district substantively increase the amount they discuss military issues despite the fact that they do not change their behavior in Congress. This camouflaging of actual activities in Congress may help explain the high rates of re-election for incumbents even as the quality of representation falls.
Strategies to improve sorafenib efficacy during image-guided treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the third most frequent source of deaths associated with cancer after lung cancer in the world despite recent innovative treatment techniques. Liver transplantation, hepatic resection, and percutaneous ablation techniques hold great promise as potentially curative treatments for patients at early stages. Nevertheless, most of the patients are not suitable for these curative treatments due to their advanced disease stages at the time of diagnosis. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved tyrosine kinase inhibitor, sorafenib is a standard therapy for advanced-stage HCC patients which extends overall survival for several months. However, its therapeutic efficacy is restricted by adverse events and drug resistance which limits the number of patients benefiting from this systemic chemotherapeutic drug. During the last decade, novel approaches including but not limited to immunotherapies, ablation methods, and chemotherapeutic drugs were proposed to enhance sensitivity to sorafenib, improve therapeutic efficacy, and prohibit adverse events through novel delivery routes, utilization of nanoparticle carriers, and combination with other therapeutic agents. However, studies are still being conducted to optimize the efficiency of sorafenib and reduce its adverse events. In this review paper, we examine research studies evaluating novel delivery methods to reduce drug-related cytotoxicity to improve patient tolerance to sorafenib and its therapeutic efficacy in patients with HCC. Moreover, therapeutic approaches with the synergistic potential to combine with sorafenib are briefly summarized.
Breast tissue mimicking phantoms for combined ultrasound and microwave imaging

We present a new formulation for a breast tissue-mimicking phantom for combined microwave and ultrasound imaging to assist breast cancer detection. Formulations based on coconut oil, canola oil, agar and glass beads were used to mimic skin and fat tissues. First, 36 recipes were fabricated, and properties were measured to determine the relationship and possible interaction between ingredients with the ultrasound and microwave properties. Based on these results, the formulae were developed to mimic different tissues found in breast, including skin, fat, fibroglandular, and tumour tissues. All phantoms contained a base of agar and glass beads at different proportions depending on the tissue mimicked. Tumour and fibroglandular tissues were best mimicked by adding polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), while using coconut oil for skin and canola oil for fat produced the best results. Five final phantoms with different internal structures were fabricated and imaged using B-mode ultrasound and a microwave transmission system. Microwave permittivity maps were obtained from the microwave system and compared to ultrasound images. The structure and composition of the phantoms were all confirmed through this microwave and ultrasound imaging.
Improving robustness of a deep learning-based lung-nodule classification model of CT images with respect to image noise

Objective. Robustness is an important aspect to consider, when developing methods for medical image analysis. This study investigated robustness properties of deep neural networks (DNNs) for a lung nodule classification problem based on CT images and proposed a solution to improve robustness. Approach. We firstly constructed a class of four DNNs with different widths, each predicting an output label (benign or malignant) for an input CT image cube containing a lung nodule. These networks were trained to achieve Area Under the Curve of 0.891–0.914 on a testing dataset. We then added to the input CT image cubes noise signals generated randomly using a realistic CT image noise model based on a noise power spectrum at 100 mAs, and monitored the DNNs output change. We defined SAR 5(%) to quantify the robustness of the trained DNN model, indicating that for 5% of CT image cubes, the noise can change the prediction results with a chance of at least SAR 5(%). To understand robustness, we viewed the information processing pipeline by the DNN as a two-step process, with the first step using all but the last layers to extract representations of the input CT image cubes in a latent space, and the second step employing the last fully-connected layer as a linear classifier to determine the position of the sample representations relative to a decision plane. To improve robustness, we proposed to retrain the last layer of the DNN with a Supporting Vector Machine (SVM) hinge loss function to enforce the desired position of the decision plane. Main results. SAR 5 ranged in 47.0%–62.0% in different DNNs. The unrobustness behavior may be ascribed to the unfavorable placement of the decision plane in the latent representation space, which made some samples be perturbed to across the decision plane and hence susceptible to noise. The DNN-SVM model improved robustness over the DNN model and reduced SAR 5 by 8.8%–21.0%. Significance. This study provided insights about the potential reason for the unrobustness behavior of DNNs and the proposed DNN-SVM model improved model robustness.
Effect of Train Live Load on Railway Bridge Abutments

AbstractAssessment of lateral excess pressure attributable to train live load on the backfill embankment is one of the main subjects in railway bridge abutment and retaining wall design. Relevant design codes usually define a uniform infinite surcharge on the surface of the embankment to evaluate the lateral live load–induced pressure on the bridge abutments. This simplified method does not consider the actual pattern of operational live load and its induced pressure distribution on the width and height of the wall. In the current study, the operational railway live load pattern LM71 was applied to accurately calculate the laterally induced pressure on the abutment. In this regard, the elasticity-based equations of the laterally induced pressure caused by rectangular area and strip loads were utilized to evaluate the lateral pressure distribution on the abutment attributable to the railway live load. For evaluating the resultant lateral force and moment on the wall, a numerical integration was conducted o.
Influence of acid activation on the NH3-adsorption properties of a Turkish bentonite

Abstract In this study, the adsorption of NH3 gas on a bentonite from Ünye (Turkey) in its natural state and after acid treatments, was investigated experimentally at 298 K and up to 100 kPa. Bentonite was treated with HCl solutions of various concentrations (0.5–2.5 M) at 75°C for 4 h. X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), N2 adsorption and thermogravimetric/differential thermal analysis (TG/DTA) were used to characterize the bentonite before and after acid treatment. The quantitative XRD analysis demonstrated that the bentonite sample was composed predominantly of smectite (75%), with abundant feldspar (20%) and minor opal-CT, analcime and quartz (5%). Increasing gas adsorption values of acid-treated bentonites were analysed depending on the structural changes of the clay. The NH3-adsorption capacities of the bentonite samples (3.801–5.068 mmol g–1) were also compared with previously studied clay-based materials (0.828–4.000 mmol g–1) in terms of their textural and structural differences.
Analysis and modelling of tyre in–plane time domain simulation with modal parameter tyre model

Virtual proving ground simulation is important in vehicle product development, which requires tyre dynamic simulation in the time domain. This paper uses the modal parameter tyre model (MPTM) to obtain the static vertical properties that match the experimental results well and then presents a complete analytical model based on MPTM for in-plane time domain simulation that involves tyre rolling movement, tyre mechanics and typical working conditions. The computational method is also proposed. Results show that the steady state result is consistent with the convergent result of dynamic simulation. Further, this article presents simulation results in both time and frequency domains and compares them with experimental results, calculating rolling resistance, etc. The model and its computational method can be applied for more complex theoretical analysis and simulation in tyre mechanics.
Impacts of Interpersonal Interaction on Creative Performance: The Moderating Effect of Goal Orientation

Abstract This study adopted a social perspective to explore the relationships of interpersonal interaction on creative performance and the moderating effect of goal orientation based on the social exchange theory and social capital theory. Interpersonal interaction was divided into two types, expressive relations and instrumental relations. Goal orientation was differentiated as learning goal orientation and performance goal orientation. Creative performance was divided into three facets, namely creative thinking, creative proposals, and creative applications. Data were collected from research and development engineers. The results show that expressive relations have positive effects on all aspects of creative performance, whereas instrumental relations have positive effects on creative applications. Learning goal orientation moderates the relationship between instrumental relations and creative proposals. Performance goal orientation has moderating effects on the relationship between interpersonal relations (both expressive and instrumental) and creative performance. This study addresses a gap in research into types of interpersonal interaction and goal orientation as these relate to creative performance. Keywords: Interpersonal interaction, Goal orientation, Creative performance.
Study of the effect of current rise time on the formation of the precursor column in cylindrical wire array Z pinches at 1 MA

The limited understanding of the mechanisms driving the mass ablation rate of cylindrical wires arrays is presently one of the major limitations in predicting array performance at the higher current levels required for inertial confinement fusion (ICF) ignition. Continued investigation of this phenomenon is crucial to realize the considerable potential for wire arrays to drive both ICF and inertial fusion energy, by enabling a predictive capability in computational modeling. We present the first study to directly compare the mass ablation rates of wire arrays as a function of the current rise rate. Formation of the precursor column is investigated on both the MAPGIE (1 MA, 250ns [Mitchell et al., Rev. Sci. Instrum. 67, 1533 (1996)]) and COBRA (1 MA, 100ns [Greenly et al., Rev. Sci. Instrum. 79, 073501 (2008)]) generators, and results are used to infer the change in the effective ablation velocity induced by the rise rate of the drive current. Laser shadowography, gated extreme ultraviolet (XUV) imaging, a.
Assessment of Students Nutritional Consumer Preferences and Behavior

BACKGROUND: Malnutrition is an important risk factor for the development of many diseases. Medical examinations reveal that 80–85% of students have health disorders. The incidence of sickness among students has increased by 35% over the past 10 years, which is due to the malnutrition of students of higher educational institutions. AIM: The objective of the study was to study the peculiarities and socio-organizational aspects of students’ nutritional consumer preferences. MATERIALS AND RESEARCH METHODS: The assessment of the characteristics of students’ eating behavior was carried out on the base of the questionnaire survey data among students (n = 333) at the age of 18–24 years. Data were presented as arithmetic mean and standard deviation (M ± SD). The distribution normality was determined by the Kolmogorov – Smirnov test. The Mann – Whitney test was used to compare the groups (p < 0.05). RESULTS: About 77% of students save money on food. Only about 22% of students receive the desired food, 64% of men have to save money on food, while the share of women was 78%. 67% of the surveyed group regularly and at least 1–2 times a week visit catering establishments. Assessed by type of food service, 24% of students gave their marks to a fast-food establishment, while only 12% of students gave marks to a traditional canteen. Men consume fast food per day 1.6 times more than women. The relationship between material well-being and nutritional quality was analyzed (r = 0.72). Evaluation of nutritional status showed that 25% of girls and 17% of boys were underweight, overweight and obesity – in 10 and 18% respectively. CONCLUSIONS: More than 50% of the participants do not have an idea of a rational and balanced diet; do not have the skills of preliminary planning and organization of meals. Therefore, we propose to improve the organizational and economic mechanisms of the public catering system of universities to solve the problem of nutrition improving in students.
Competing 3D Mechanisms in Compressor Flows

Even though three-dimensional design is central to all modern compressor design systems, many of these methods still rely, at the their core on a two-dimensional, sectional, view of blade aerodynamics. This paper argues that this view fundamentally limits design by not correctly considering the way in which pressure gradient transverse to the flow direction affects both separation and loss.The first part of the paper details how 3D blade stacking and the transverse pressure gradient fundamentally alters the behaviour of the corner separations and trailing edge separations. By controlling this design parameter it is possible to switch between the two. The transverse pressure gradient is also shown to be responsible for a substantial increase in profile loss.In the second part this understanding is used to explore the uncertainty of the design space by simultaneously varying pitch-chord ratio and 3D stacking. It is shown that the design space is split in half by two different levels of risk.Copyright © 2015 by ASME
The Limitations of Campus Wireless Networks: A Case Study of University of Nigeria, Nsukka[Lionet]

This work studied the effects of physical environment (trees and buildings) obstructions on the Lionet in Nsukka campus of the University of Nigeria. The effects of these obstructions were measured by the variation in path loss and received signal strength as functions of distance using computer simulation and field measurement. The simulation results were compared with the field measurement results, conducted under free space condition and where the Lionet signal was obstructed by trees and buildings. The results show that trees and buildings have significant effects on the path loss and the received signal strength of the Lionet. The study therefore recommends that the power level of the Lionet should be improved for efficient performance, more access points should be deployed at locations where obstructions are prevalent, and Lionet should possibly migrate from wireless to fibre optic network.
Revisiting the Relationship between Poverty and Environmental Sustainability in Sub-Saharan African Countries using Dynamic Econometric Models

Sustainable development remains an important issue in the quest to achieve a safe and a better world. The expansion of the 8 millennium development goals into the 17 sustainable development goals is a testament of the conscious desire to improve the human environment to ensure better quality of life for its citizens. This study assembles a collection of four sophisticated econometric models to determine the impact of poverty and other variables on two indicators of environmental sustainability. Beside, economic development, the study confirmed the negative impact of poverty on both indicators of sustainable development. The results prove that poverty in sub-Saharan Africa is a threat to environmental quality and its consequential challenges. The call to promote environmentally responsible behaviours should not be focused on developed countries alone. Poverty is also associated with high levels of pollution and poor countries including countries in sub-Saharan Africa contributes must equally restrategise for effective environmental goals. The study further discloses that poverty is one of the strongest factors that affect environmental sustainability. This observation is not a contradiction to the well-established fact that prosperity or economic growth is a major precursor of unsustainable environment. On the contrary the evidence in this paper amplifies a consequence of a social crisis if they fester at both ends. In one breath, whereas economic growth or economic prosperity can compromise the quality of the environment. In conclusion, this result implies that African countries in their pursuit of economic growth, education and effective healthcare to ameliorate poverty must incorporate other aggressive strategies to hasten poverty reduction.