Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Understanding the Antecedents of Korean High School Students’ Drinking Refusal Self-Efficacy: Parental Influence, Peer Influence, and Behavior

The current study examined the factors that influence Korean adolescents’ drinking refusal self-efficacy, which is known to be associated with alcohol use and drinking intentions. Specifically, this study considered parental monitoring, parent-child communication satisfaction, peer influence, and prior alcohol use as possible antecedents of Korean high school students’ drinking refusal self-efficacy. High school students (n = 538) in South Korea responded to the current study. The data revealed that parent-child communication satisfaction facilitated parental monitoring, and these factors indirectly predicted adolescents’ drinking behavior through peer influence. We also found that prior drinking, parental monitoring, and peer influence were directly associated with drinking refusal self-efficacy, and the self-efficacy, in turn, was associated with drinking intentions. These results not only suggest that drinking refusal self-efficacy are related to drinking behavior and intentions, but they also provide a theoretical explanation for how parental and peer influences are associated with adolescents’ drinking refusal self-efficacy.
Impact of ambulatory blood pressure monitoring on daily activity

We evaluated the impact of wearing an ambulatory blood pressure (ABP) monitor on the usual daily activity of 16 healthy men and women. Daily ABP and heart rate (HR) were recorded on 2 days using the DynaPulse 5000 A system. Daily HR and activity were recorded on two further days using a dedicated HR monitoring system. All four sets of measurements were made for 8 h during which time the volunteers kept a simultaneous diary record of their physical activity. There was no detectable difference in physical activity records on any day. Mean daily HR was lower during ABP monitoring than during the dedicated HR monitoring carried out on different occasions (73 ± 7 versus 81 ± 7 beats min–1, P<0·001). The lower mean HR observed during ABP monitoring compared with dedicated HR monitoring may reflect subtle differences in the physical behaviour of subjects being monitored, which could not be detected from the diary records.
A Gestural Interface to Free-Form Deformation

We present a gesture-based user interface to Free-Form Deformation (FFD). Traditional interfaces for FFD require the manipulation of individual points in a lattice of control vertices, a process which is both time-consuming and error-prone. In our system, the user can bend, twist, and stretch/squash the model as if it were a solid piece of clay without being unduly burdened by the mathematical details of FFD. We provide the user with a small but powerful set of gesture-based “ink stroke” commands that are invoked simply by drawing them on the screen. The system automatically infers the user’s intention from the stroke and deforms the model without any vertex-specific input from the user. Both the stroke recognition and FFD algorithms are executed in real-time on a standard PC.
Role of Oxidative Stress Response and Trehalose Accumulation in the Longevity of Fission Yeast

Background: Glucose is the preferred carbon and energy source in most organisms and plays an active role in the regulation of many biological processes. However, an excess of glucose leads to such undesirable conditions as diabetes and age-related diseases. Since Schizosaccharomyces pombe homologous of many human genes, it offers several advantages for the investigation of the molecular mechanisms underlying human disease and aging studies. We have identified two glucose-repression-resistant mutants (ird5 and ird11) of S. pombe. Objectives: We aimed to investigate the possible relationship between lifespan extension and oxidative stress response induced by exposure to hydrogen peroxide alongside the trehalose accumulation level by using the two S. pombe mutants (i.e. ird5 and ird11), which are repressed by glucose and are resistant to oxidative stress. Materials and Methods: We employed trehalose accumulation measurement and colony-forming unit (CFU) counting using the ird mutants in exponential and stationary phases and compared them to the wild type grown in repressed, de-repressed, and stressed conditions to clarify the possible relationship between glucose signaling, oxidative stress response, and lifespan in S. pombe. Results: The lifespan of the ird5 mutant was significantly longer that of either the ird11 mutant or the wild type cells. Under repressed condition, the trehalose content was increased remarkably on the 3rd day of the study in the ird11 mutant and the wild type. Under de-repressed condition, the level of intracellular trehalose was notably increased on the 3rd day in ird11. Under stressed condition, the trehalose level in ird11 was increased on the 3rd day as a pattern similar to that observed in the wild type. Conclusions: Our results demonstrated no significant correlation between the ird5 lifespan and the trehalose concentration. Likewise, the correlation between lifespan extension, trehalose accumulation, and cellular resistance to hydrogen peroxide was not significant.
HITSZ-ICRC: Exploiting Classification Approach for Answer Selection in Community Question Answering

This paper describes the participation of the HITSZ-ICRC team on the Answer Selection Challenge in SemEval-2015. Our team participated in English subtask A, English subtask B and Arabic task. Two approaches, ensemble learning and hierarchical classification were proposed for answer selection in each task. Bag-of-words features, lexical features and non-textual features were employed. For the Arabic task, features were extracted from both Arabic data and English data that translated from the Arabic data. Evaluation demonstrated that the proposed methods were effective, achieving a macro-averaged F1 of 56.41% (rank 2 nd ) in English subtask A, 53.60 % (rank 3 rd ) in English subtask B and 67.70% (rank 3 rd ) in Arabic task, respectively.
The Effects of Texture and Doping on The Young's Modulus of Polysilicon

Polysilicon films deposited by low pressure chemical deposition (LPCVD) are the most widely used structural material for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). However, the structural properties of LPCVD polysilicon films are known to vary significantly, depending on deposition conditions as well as post-deposition processes. This paper investigates the effects of phosphorus doping and texture on Young's modulus of polysilicon films. Polysilicon films are depostied at 585°C, 605"C, and 625°C to a thickness of 2µm. Specimens with varying phosphorus doping levels are prepared by diffusion doping at various temperatures and times using both POCl3 and phosphorsilicate glass (PSG) as the source. Texture is measured using an X-ray diffractometer. Young's modulus is calculated by taking the average of the values calculated from the resonant frequencies of four-different size lateral resonators. Our results show that Young's modulus of diffusion doped polysilicon films decreases with increasing doping concentration, and increases with increasing texture.
A Capacitor-Isolated LED Driver With Inherent Current Balance Capability

This paper presents a capacitor-isolated light-emitting diode (LED) driver with inherent current-balancing capability. Based on a series resonant converter, the resonant capacitor can be used both for safety isolation and the current balancing with the proposed two-output rectifier structure. Compared to the conventional current-sharing technique, the proposed LED driver circuit is simple and has low cost and high performance. Also, the capacitor-isolated structure is more efficient and compact compared to the conventional transformer isolation. The detailed theoretical analysis and design considerations of the proposed circuit are presented. The performance of the proposed circuit is validated by the experimental results from a 60-W prototype with two balanced outputs.
Partial characterization of a DNA restriction endonuclease from Ruminococcus flavefaciens FD-1 and its inhibition by site-specific adenine methylation

The principal DNA restriction-modification system of the cellulolytic ruminal bacterium Ruminococcus flavefaciens FD-1 is described. The restriction endonuclease RflFI could be separated from cell extracts by phosphocellulose and heparin-sepharose chromatography. Restriction enzyme digests utilizing RflFI alone or in combination with SalI, a restriction enzyme isolated from Streptomyces albus G, showed that the DNA sequence recognized by RflFI either overlapped or was the same as that recognized by SalI. DNA sequence analysis confirmed that RflFI was identical in activity to SalI, with the recognition sequence being 5'-GTCGAC-3' and cleavage occurring between G and T. Adenine methylation within this sequence can be catalyzed in vitro by TaqI methylase, and this inhibited the cleavage of plasmid DNA molecules by RflFI and SalI. Chromosomal DNA from R. flavefaciens FD-1 is also methylated within this DNA sequence because neither restriction endonuclease could degrade this DNA substrate. These findings provide a means to protect plasmid molecules from degradation prior to gene transfer experiments with R. flavefaciens FD-1.
A PDE Formalization of Retinex Theory

In 1964, Edwin H. Land formulated the Retinex theory, the first attempt to simulate and explain how the human visual system perceives color. His theory and an extension, the “reset Retinex” were further formalized by Land and McCann. Several Retinex algorithms have been developed ever since. These color constancy algorithms modify the RGB values at each pixel to give an estimate of the color sensation without a priori information on the illumination. Unfortunately, the Retinex Land-McCann original algorithm is both complex and not fully specified. Indeed, this algorithm computes at each pixel an average of a very large set of paths on the image. For this reason, Retinex has received several interpretations and implementations which, among other aims, attempt to tune down its excessive complexity. In this paper, it is proved that if the paths are assumed to be symmetric random walks, the Retinex solutions satisfy a discrete Poisson equation. This formalization yields an exact and fast implementation using only two FFTs. Several experiments on color images illustrate the effectiveness of the Retinex original theory.
A new species of Leiochrides from the Korean subtidal waters with notes on the taxonomic status of the genus Pseudomastus (Annelida, Capitellidae)

Abstract Leiochrides yokjidoensis sp. n. , collected from the sublittoral muddy bottom in southern Korea, is described as a new species. The taxonomic status of the monospecific genus Pseudomastus has been a subject of controversy for many years, as its characteristics overlap those given in recent generic definitions of Leiochrides. The results of a comprehensive review and comparison regarding the two genera, based on previous records showed minor differences. In this study, a detailed description of L. yokjidoensis sp. n. is given and a comparison with closely related species is tabulated and discussed.The taxonomic status of Pseudomastus is discussed and the genus placed in synonymy with Leiochrides.
DIMENSIONAL ROBUSTNESS & INSTABILITY OF SHEARED , SEMI-DILUTE , NANO-ROD DISPERSIONS

Semi-dilute nano-rod dispersions interact nonlocally and nonlinearly through excluded-volume and distortional elasticity potentials. When driven by steady shear with confinement boundary conditions, remarkable behavior of the rod orientational distribution ensues: strong anisotropy; steady and unsteady responses; and gradient structure on (thus far) unpredictable lengthscales. Extreme variability and sensitivity of these features to experimental controls, coupled with nano-rod measurement limitations, continue to confound materials processing strategies. Thus, modeling and simulation play a critical role. In this paper, we present a hierarchy of 0-d, 1-d and 2-d physical space simulations of steady parallel-plate shear experiments, using a mesoscopic tensor model for the rod orientational distribution [45, 8] and a spectral-Galerkin numerical algorithm [52]. We impose steady shear to focus on the orientational response of the nano-rod ensemble to two experimental controls: the Deborah number (De), or normalized imposed shear rate; and physical plate anchoring conditions on the rod ensemble. Our results yield dimensional robustness versus instability of sheared, semi-dilute, nano-rod dispersions: To begin, we present 0-d and 1-d phase diagrams that are consistent with results of the modeling community. Next, we present the first study of numerical stability (for all attractors in the phase diagrams) to 2-d perturbations in the flow-gradient and vorticity directions. The key findings are: time-periodic 1-d structure attractors at low-to-moderate De are robust to 2-d perturbations; period-doubling transitions at intermediate De to chaotic attractors in 0 and 1 space dimension are unstable to coherent 2-d morphology, but remain chaotic; as De increases, chaotic dynamics becomes regularized, first to periodic and then to steady structure attractors, along with a return to robust 1-d morphology; and finally, logrolling (vorticity-aligned) anchoring selects the most distinct attractors and De cascade with respect to other anchoring conditions.
System-on-an-FPGA Design for Real-time Particle Track Recognition and Reconstruction in Physics Experiments

In particle physics experiments, the momenta of charged particles are studied by observing their deflection in a magnetic field. Dedicated detectors measure the particle tracks and complex algorithms are required for track recognition and reconstruction. This CPU-intensive task is usually implemented as off-line software running on PC clusters. In this paper, we present a system-on-chip design for the track recognition and reconstruction based on modern FPGA technologies. The basic principle of the algorithm is ported from software into the FPGA fabric. The fundamental architecture of the tracking processor is described in detail. Working as processing engines in compute nodes, the tracking processor contributes to recognize potential track candidates in real-time and promotes the selection efficiency of the data acquisition and trigger system. Our design study shows that the tracking module can be integrated in a single Xilinx Virtex-4 FX60 FPGA. The processing capability of the design is about 16.7K sub-events per second per module with our experimental setup, which achieves 20 times speedup compared to the software implementation.
Discovery of Enhancers of the Secretion of Leukemia Inhibitory Factor for the Treatment of Multiple Sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune neurodegenerative disease that involves activation of T cells, microglia, and astrocytes. There is a clear unmet medical need for MS, as current therapies reduce the relapse rate, but are unable to prevent the neurological deterioration. Leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) is a proinflammatory cytokine that can also positively modulate the immune response, by inducing the inhibition of myelin-reactive TH17 differentiation, and by promoting oligodendrocyte-mediated myelination. The aim of this project was to find central nervous system (CNS)–permeable and orally available small molecules that upregulate production of endogenous LIF. We describe here the development of a phenotypic assay and screening of 1.7 million compounds to identify LIF enhancers using U87 MG cells. Five chemically tractable series of compounds and a few singletons were selected for further progression. Some of them were also active in a different LIF-expressing cell line and in primary rat astrocytes. Although further studies would be required to deconvolute the targets involved in LIF induction and to confirm activity of hits in more disease-relevant assays, our results have demonstrated the potential of the phenotypic approach to identify specific and chemically tractable small molecules that trigger the production of LIF in relevant cell lines.
Influence of alkali treatment and layering pattern on the tensile and flexural properties of Palmyra palm leaf stalk fiber (PPLSF)/jute fiber polyester hybrid composites

During the current investigation, alkali treated Palmyra palm leaf stalk fiber (PPLSF) and jute fibers were chosen as reinforcement for the unsaturated polyester matrix. Layering patterns such as bi-layer (PPLSF/jute) and tri-layer (PPLSF/jute/PPLSF and jute/PPLSF/jute) were chosen, and composites were fabricated by hand layup followed by compression molding process. The tensile and flexural properties of the hybrid composites with different layering pattern were determined and compared with pure PPLSF and jute unsaturated polyester composites. It was observed that the bi-layer composites had higher tensile properties, while the tri-layer (jute/PPLSF/jute) composites had higher flexural properties in comparison with PPLSF composites. Seventeen percent improvement in tensile strength, 51% improvement in tensile modulus for bi-layer composites and 45% improvement in flexural strength, 60% improvement in flexural modulus for jute/PPLSF/jute composites were observed in comparison with the PPLSF composites. Fractographic studies on the tensile fractured surfaces were performed using scanning electron microscopy that showed the evidence of interface adhesion between the fiber and matrix.
Coadministration of Angiopoietin-1 and Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Enhances Collateral Vascularization

Using growth factors to induce vasculogenesis is a promising approach in the treatment of ischemic legs and myocardium. Because the vasculogenesis requires a cascade of growth factors, their receptors, and intracellular signals, such therapies may require the application of more than a single growth factor. We examined the effect of 2 endothelial cell–specific growth factors, angiopoietin-1 (Ang1) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), on primary cultured porcine coronary artery endothelial cells. VEGF, but not Ang1, increased DNA synthesis and cell number. Ang1 or VEGF induced migration and sprouting activity, increased plasmin and matrix metalloproteinase-2 secretion, and decreased tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinase type 2 secretion. A combination of the submaximal doses of Ang1 and VEGF enhanced these effects and was more potent than the maximal dose of either alone. In a rabbit ischemic hindlimb model, a combination of Ang1 and VEGF gene delivery produced an enhanced effect on resting and maximal blood flow and capillary formation that was greater than that of either factor alone. Angiographic analyses revealed that larger blood vessels were formed after gene delivery of Ang1 or Ang1 plus VEGF than after VEGF gene delivery. These results suggest that combined treatment of Ang1 and VEGF could be used to produce therapeutic vascularization.
User-Centered Design and Usability Testing of an Innovative Health-Related Quality of Life Module

Summary Objectives: Various computerized health risk appraisals (HRAs) are available, but few of them assess health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in a goal-directed framework. This study describes the user-centered development and usability testing of an innovative HRQoL module that extends a validated HRA tool in primary care settings. Methods: Systematic user-centered design, usability testing, and qualitative methods were used to develop the HRQoL module in primary care practices. Twenty two patients and 5 clinicians participated in two rounds of interactive technology think-out-loud sessions (TOLs) and semi-structured interviews (SSIs) to iteratively develop a four-step, computerized process that collects information on patient goals for meaningful life activities and current level of disability and presents a personalized and prioritized list of preventive recommendations linked to online resources. Results: Analysis of TOLs and SSIs generated 5 categories and 11 sub-categories related to facilitators and barriers to usability and human-technology interaction. The categories included: Understanding the Purpose, Usability, Perceived Value, Literacy, and Participant Motivation. Some categories were inter-connected. The technology was continually and iteratively improved between sessions until saturation of positive feedback was achieved in 4 categories (addressing motivation will require more research). Usability of all screen units of the module was improved substantially. Clinician feedback emphasized the importance of the module’s ability to translate the patient-centered HRQoL Report into actionable items for clinicians to facilitate shared decision-making. Complete integration of the HRQoL module into the existing HRA will require further development and testing. Conclusions: Systematic application of user-centered design and human factors principles in technology development and testing may significantly improve the usability and clinical value of health information systems. This more sophisticated approach helped us translate complex clinical concepts, goal-setting steps, and decision-support processes into an accepted and value-added technology. Citation: Nagykaldi ZJ; Jordan M; Quitoriano J; Ciro CA; Mold JW. User-centered design and usability testing of an innovative health-related quality of life module. Appl Clin Inf 2014; 5: 958–970 http://dx.doi. org/10.4338/ACI-2014-08-RA-0067
An Islanding Microgrid Power Sharing Approach Using Enhanced Virtual Impedance Control Scheme

In order to address the load sharing problem in islanding microgrids, this paper proposes an enhanced distributed generation (DG) unit virtual impedance control approach. The proposed method can realize accurate regulation of DG unit equivalent impedance at both fundamental and selected harmonic frequencies. In contrast to conventional virtual impedance control methods, where only a line current feed-forward term is added to the DG voltage reference, the proposed virtual impedance at fundamental and harmonic frequencies is regulated using DG line current and point of common coupling (PCC) voltage feed-forward terms, respectively. With this modification, the impacts of mismatched physical feeder impedances are compensated. Thus, better reactive and harmonic power sharing can be realized. Additionally, this paper also demonstrates that PCC harmonic voltages can be mitigated by reducing the magnitude of DG unit equivalent harmonic impedance. Finally, in order to alleviate the computing load at DG unit local controller, this paper further exploits the band-pass capability of conventionally resonant controllers. With the implementation of proposed resonant controller, accurate power sharing and PCC harmonic voltage compensation are achieved without using any fundamental and harmonic components extractions. Experimental results from a scaled single-phase microgrid prototype are provided to validate the feasibility of the proposed virtual impedance control approach.