Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The use of transfer function models, intervention analysis and related time series methods in epidemiology.

In epidemiology, data often arise in the form of time series e.g. notifications of diseases, entries to a hospital, mortality rates etc. are frequently collected at weekly or monthly intervals. Usual statistical methods assume that the observed data are realizations of independent random variables. However, if data which arise in a time sequence have to be analysed, it is possible that consecutive observations are dependent. In environmental epidemiology, where series such as daily concentrations of pollutants were collected and analysed, it became clear that stochastic dependence of consecutive measurements may be important. A high concentration of a pollutant today e.g. has a certain inertia i.e. a tendency to be high tomorrow as well. Since the early 1970s, time series methods, in particular ARIMA models (autoregressive integrated moving average models) which have the ability to cope with stochastic dependence of consecutive data, have become well established in such fields as industry and economics. Recently, time series methods are of increasing interest in epidemiology. Since these methods are not generally familiar to epidemiologists this article presents their basic concepts in a condensed form. This may encourage readers to consider the methods described and enable them to avoid pitfalls inherent in time series data. In particular, the following topics are discussed: Assessment of relations between time series (transfer function models). Assessment of changes of time series (intervention analysis), forecasting and some related time series methods.
Inversión de la función de fuente y cálculo de la frecuencia de esquina para sismos en el centro de México usando un modelo tridimensional.

V ÍNDICE . VI LISTA DE FIGURAS. VIII LISTA DE TABLAS. XIV 1. INTRODUCCIÓN. 1 2.ANTECEDENTES. 5 2.1. GEOLOGÍA Y TECTÓNICA DE LAS ZONAS DE ESTUDIO. 5 2.1. 1.El bloque Jalisco y la subducción de la placa de Rivera. 7 2.1. 2.Bloque Michoacán. 9 2.1. 3.Bloque Guerrero. 12 2.1. 4.Bloque Oaxaca. 14 2.2. CÁLCULOS DE LA FUNCIÓN DE FUENTE. 17 2.3. ESTIMACIONES DE LA FRECUENCIA DE ESQUINA. 19 3.FUNDAMENTOS TEÓRICOS. 23 3.1. LA FUENTE SÍSMICA. 23 3.2. ECUACIÓN DE MOVIMIENTO. 24 3.3. ONDAS DE CUERPO (P Y S). 25 3.3.1Ondas superficiales. 26 3.4. TEOREMA DE RECIPROCIDAD. 27 3.4.1Teorema de Betti. 27 3.4.2.Funciones de Green. 28 3.4. 3.Teorema de Representación. 30 3.4. 5.Momento Sísmico. 31 3.4. 6.Tensores de Deformación de Green o Receptores de Green. 34 3.5DESPLAZAMIENTO EN EL CAMPO LEJANO. 36 3.6. ESPECTRO DE FUENTE. 38 3.6. 1.La frecuencia de esquina. 41 3.7. LA FUNCIÓN DE FUENTE. 43 3.8. MÉTODOS NUMÉRICOS. EL MÉTODO DE LOS ELEMENTOS FINITOS. 46 4. METODOLOGÍA. 48 4.1. INTRODUCCIÓN. 48 4.2. PRE-PROCESAMIENTO DE DATOS. 48 4. 3INVERSIÓN DE LA FUNCIÓN DE FUENTE. 51 4.4. VALIDACIÓN DEL MÉTODO DE INVERSIÓN. 56 4.5MODELO DE CAPAS 3D. CÁLCULO DE SISMOGRAMAS SINTÉTICOS. 59 5. APLICACIÓN DE LA METODOLOGÍA Y ANÁLISIS DE RESULTADOS. 61
Work empowerment as experienced by head nurses.

BACKGROUND Head nurses have in the past few decades gained both more power and more responsibilities in their job. Their experience of work empowerment is not known. AIM The aim of this study was to describe the verbal, behavioural and outcome empowerment experienced by head nurses. METHODS Data were collected using a structured questionnaire, which was sent to 259 head nurses. The data were analysed using statistical methods. RESULTS The results suggest that head nurses experience quite strong verbal and behavioural empowerment. They feel less confident in terms of outcome empowerment. Various factors, including stress and the capacity to handle the head nurse's job, were found to correlate with the empowerment experience. CONCLUSION It seems that head nurses do not have enough power to influence the effectiveness of their organization.
Rank-deficient APES filter for complex spectral estimation

In this paper, a new spectral estimation method, which is based on the rank-deficient sample covariance matrix, is proposed. The new method applies the amplitude and phase estimation (APES) filter and the Capon weight simultaneously on the data matrix to obtain the complex amplitude estimate of the spectral line of interest. Because the sample covariance matrix is singular, a rank-deficient version of the APES filter is derived. For obtaining the unique filter, an additional constraint is under considered, which minimizes the noise gain of the design filter. Also considering only fewer snapshots available, the traditional Fourier weight can not sufficiently suppressed the components of the interference plus noise. By minimizing the norm of the weighted snapshot, the Capon weight is selected as the optimal weight. The simulation results demonstrate that the new method has excellent estimation performance for estimating the spectrum in case of sample covariance matrix singular.
Safety testing of infracyanine green using retinal pigment epithelium and glial cell cultures.

PURPOSE To undertake safety testing of infracyanine green (IFCG) in a cell culture model. METHODS Experiments were undertaken in a cell culture model used previously to perform safety testing of indocyanine green (ICG). Human retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) and Müller cells were exposed to IFCG for 5 minutes, over a range of concentrations up to 0.5%. Experiments were repeated, using double-staining with trypan blue. Cell viability was measured at days 1, 5, and 15 using a mitochondrial dehydrogenase assay and a fluorescent live-dead probe containing calcein and ethidium homodimer-1. Viability was measured after exposure to 0.5% IFCG and 5 minutes of illumination with a vitrectomy endolight powered by a xenon light source. RESULTS RPE viability was not reduced over the range of concentrations and follow-up intervals. RPE cells exposed to IFCG and illumination had reduced viability relative to the negative control (cells exposed to saline), but not relative to those exposed to saline and illumination. Glial cells showed reduced viability at days 1 and 5, but not day 15. Illumination did not further reduce viability. CONCLUSIONS IFCG has been advocated as a safer macular vital stain than ICG. These results suggest that it is less likely to produce phototoxicity, but despite being nearly iso-osmolar, IFCG also produces damage in cultured glial cells.
Signal-to-noise ratio criterion for the optimization of dual-energy acquisition using virtual x-ray imaging: application to glass wool

Dual-energy techniques are used to carry out selective and quantitative imaging of materials consisting of two components. We present a technique that takes advantage of a deterministic simulation tool to find the optimal x-ray spectra used in a dual-energy system and to calibrate the measurement protocol. To optimize the choice of energy spectra, a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) criterion on the estimated thickness of the materials is established. To further study the reliability of the SNR criterion, it is first compared to the measurement quality, expressed by a contrast-to-noise ratio, which characterizes the input images. Then, the numerical conditioning of the linear dual-energy system of equations is investigated to probe the stability of the inversion. Once the choice of energy spectra is settled, the reconstructed values of the thickness are modeled as third-order polynomials expressed in terms of dual-energy measurements. An application to glass-wool materials is presented.
Time-Saving Approach for Optimal Mining of Association Rules

Data mining is the process of analyzing data so as to get useful information to be exploited by users. Association rules is one of data mining techniques used to detect different correlations and to reveal relationships among data individual items in huge data bases. These rules usually take the following form: if X then Y as independent attributes. An association rule has become a popular technique used in several vital fields of activity such as insurance, medicine, banks, supermarkets… Association rules are generated in huge numbers by algorithms known as Association Rules Mining algorithms. The generation of huge quantities of Association Rules may be time-and-effort consuming this is the reason behind an urgent necessity of an efficient and scaling approach to mine only the relevant and significant association rules. This paper proposes an innovative approach which mines the optimal rules from a large set of Association Rules in a distributive processing way to improve its efficiency and to decrease the running time.
The need for littermate controls

The dramatic increase in the amount of research data being produced necessarily leads to higher demands on statistical thresholds and on experimental planning. This is to avoid positive selection of multiple tested data. Here we would like to highlight the need for including littermate controls in animal experiments, in particular when genetically modified strains are analysed for quantitative phenotypes. Thus, this suggestion will have impact on most immunological experiments performed today.
The DC-link capacitor current in pulsed single-phase H-bridge inverters

In case of controlling a pulsed single-phase H-bridge inverter with two and three voltage levels the capacitor currents in the DC-link circuit are calculated analytically. For these calculations first a sinusoidal modulated voltage and sinusoidal current at the output of the inverter are presupposed. Afterwards the additional load of the DC-link capacitors caused by harmonic currents of the output filter circuit is examined. For this reason the individual harmonics of the DC-link current with sinusoidal and with overlaid harmonic output currents are calculated with help of spectral analysis. At last the influence of the switching processes to the DC-link circuit load is discussed. The theoretically determined currents in the DC-link capacitors are compared with several practical measurements
Sparse fitness evaluation for reducing user burden in interactive genetic algorithm

Interactive evolutionary computation is a technique that performs optimization based on human evaluation, and we have proposed an image retrieval method based on the emotion using interactive genetic algorithm. This approach allows to search images not only with explicitly expressed keyword but also abstract keyword such as "cheerful impression image" and "gloomy impression image". It searches the goal with a small population size and generates fewer number of generations than that of conventional genetic algorithm to reduce user's burden. But this property may derive local minimum and sometimes more poor solution than random search method owing to relatively small size population. In order to solve this problem, we suggest an idea of sparse fitness evaluation method using clustering method and fitness allocation method. This aims to allow not only to keep the advantages of interactive GA but also to improve the performance by utilizing large population.
Getting IT Together

The dearth of women choosing information technology (IT) careers has been identified as a national problem in the United States. Efforts have been made to combat this by educating girls at a young age about technology. Recent research demonstrates that exposure to technology is insufficient to change young girls’ attitudes towards IT careers and that interventions must explicitly tie technology activities to careers. Faculty and staff of a Midwestern university modified an IT summer camp for middle school girls to include career specific programming. The camp deployed the Girls Educating Themselves about Information Technology (GET IT) program to garner interest among middle school girls in IT careers. This article describes the impact of this summer camp and other social influence factors on girls’ interest in pursuing careers in IT, immediately after camp completion and one year in the future.
Development of antilock braking controller using hardware in-the-loop simulation and field test

This paper presents the control principles and algorithms for the antilock brake system (ABS) with pneumatic brake. Also a new simulation method, the hardware in-the-loop simulation (HILS), which includes hardware in the control and simulation loop, is presented. It includes pneumatic brake hardware between the controller input and simulated vehicle dynamics output. How to construct the HILS for antilock brake system of a vehicle is described. Also how to evaluate the antilock brake algorithms and electronic control unit (ECU) in laboratory is explained. If the HILS is used, functional tests of the newly developed antilock brake controller can be made in a short time using repeated experiments. As a result, times and costs needed for developing the new antilock brake controller can be reduced. Also the developed controller was equipped in a real vehicles and tested in the real test road for comparison. It can be said that the HILS is a good method for developing a new system especially in automotive applications, in which many trial and errors are required for practical implementation.
Statistical Tests for Spatial Nonstationarity Based on the Geographically Weighted Regression Model

Geographically weighted regression (GWR) is a way of exploring spatial nonstationarity by calibrating a multiple regression model which allows different relationships to exist at different points in space. Nevertheless, formal testing procedures for spatial nonstationarity have not been developed since the inception of the model. In this paper the authors focus mainly on the development of statistical testing methods relating to this model. Some appropriate statistics for testing the goodness of fit of the GWR model and for testing variation of the parameters in the model are proposed and their approximated distributions are investigated. The work makes it possible to test spatial nonstationarity in a conventional statistical manner. To substantiate the theoretical arguments, some simulations are run to examine the power of the statistics for exploring spatial nonstationarity and the results are encouraging. To streamline the model, a stepwise procedure for choosing important independent variables is also formulated. In the last section, a prediction problem based on the GWR model is studied, and a confidence interval for the true value of the dependent variable at a new location is also established. The study paves the path for formal analysis of spatial nonstationarity on the basis of the GWR model.
Life Review Therapy as an Intervention to Manage Depression and Enhance Life Satisfaction in Individuals with Right Hemisphere Cerebral Vascular Accidents

This pilot study sought to determine if the use of Life Review Therapy would result in lower levels of depression and higher degrees of life satisfaction in individuals with right hemisphere cerebral vascular accidents (CVAs). Fourteen subjects in a southern rehabilitation center were randomly assigned to either an experimental or control group. The experimental group received three one-hour sessions of Life Review Therapy and the control group viewed three one-hour sessions of neutral video with a follow-up discussion. Following the third session of each group, subjects were administered the Zung Scale for Depression and the Life Satisfaction Index—Form Z. A one-way ANOVA revealed a significantly lower level of depression (p< .01) and a significantly higher degree of life satisfaction (p< .01) in the Life Review Therapy group.
Lack of Association Between Maternal or Neonatal Vitamin D Status and Risk of Childhood Type 1 Diabetes: A Scandinavian Case-Cohort Study

Studies on vitamin D status during pregnancy and risk of type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1D) lack consistency and are limited by small sample sizes or single measures of 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D). We investigated whether average maternal 25(OH)D plasma concentrations during pregnancy are associated with risk of childhood T1D. In a case-cohort design, we identified 459 children with T1D and a random sample (n = 1,561) from the Danish National Birth Cohort (n = 97,127) and Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (n = 113,053). Participants were born between 1996 and 2009. The primary exposure was the estimated average 25(OH)D concentration, based on serial samples from the first trimester until delivery and on umbilical cord plasma. We estimated hazard ratios using weighted Cox regression adjusting for multiple confounders. The adjusted hazard ratio for T1D per 10-nmol/L increase in the estimated average 25(OH)D concentration was 1.00 (95% confidence interval: 0.90, 1.10). Results were consistent in both cohorts, in multiple sensitivity analyses, and when we analyzed mid-pregnancy or cord blood separately. In conclusion, our large study demonstrated that normal variation in maternal or neonatal 25(OH)D is unlikely to have a clinically important effect on risk of childhood T1D.
Analyse du phénomène de la « sériation » à partir d'un tableau d'incidence

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Do Lesions Involving the Cortical Cholinergic Pathways Help or Hinder Efficacy of Donepezil in Patients with Alzheimer’s Disease?

Aims: To investigate the influences of vascular lesions detected by MRI, lesions involving the cortical cholinergic pathways and hippocampal thickness on therapeutic responsiveness to donepezil in patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Methods: The study cohort contained 67 patients with probable AD. We used the revised Hasegawa Dementia Rating (HDS-R) and the Clock Drawing Test (CDT) to evaluate drug efficacy for 24 months. The Cholinergic Pathways Hyperintensities Scale (CHIPS), a newly developed visual scale, was used to semiquantify lesions on the cholinergic pathways. Results: Over the 24-month period, the results of the CDT showed more apparent and constant association with white matter hyperintensities (WMH) and lesions on the cholinergic pathways than the HDS-R. WMH may enhance, while lesions on the cholinergic pathways may attenuate sensitivity to donepezil treatment when judged by the CDT. No apparent association between the thicknesses of hippocampi with baseline cognition or therapeutic responsiveness to donepezil was found. Conclusion: Donepezil may be more efficacious when further executive dysfunction caused by WMH is added to AD dementia and less so when cholinergic reserves are further impinged upon by lesions involving the cortical cholinergic pathways.
Interplay between proteins and metabolic syndrome–A review

ABSTRACT Metabolic syndrome is characterized by hypertension; hyperglycemia; hypertriglyceridemia; reduced high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels and abdominal obesity. Abundant data suggest that, compared with other people, patients meeting these diagnostic criteria have a greater risk of having substantial clinical consequences, the two most prominent of which are the development of diabetes mellitus and coronary heart disease. The metabolic syndrome is a health issue of epidemic proportions. Its prevalence in the world continues to increase, hand in hand with that of obesity. Protein, on the other hand, is the foundation of cell-building, especially in muscle tissue. The body needs protein to build not only muscle cells, but the cells of major organs, skin and red blood cells. For people with metabolic syndrome, one of the other functions of protein is to slow down the absorption of carbohydrates. When proteins are consumed with carbohydrates, it takes longer for the digestive system to break down that meal. This means that the sugar created from those carbohydrates is released at a slower rate, preventing spikes in both blood sugar and insulin. As the understanding of the metabolic syndrome evolves, it is likely that more comprehensive therapeutic options will become available.
Making Mechanistic Connections between Cell Signaling Pathways and Pathological Endpoints

Cell signaling is a term used to describe a complex interactive system of signals that act to regulate or mediate a cellular response. Therapies that target cell signaling pathways have the potential to effectively reverse molecular deregulation underlying disease. The inherent complexity of cell signaling presents a major challenge to designing such therapies however, because perturbation of pathways has the potential to produce dramatic adverse effects. Pathologists are in the primary position of detecting adverse responses in drug development and are essential members of teams whose goal is to determine the mechanisms underlying tissue responses. The pathologist therefore will be expected to integrate morphologic interpretation with data obtained from several laboratory-based methods and data derived from novel technologies. Approaches being used include several in silico tools that provide access to public databases and signal pathway visualization that can serve to focus on key mechanistic hypotheses. The main objective of this article is to discuss a basic mechanistic approach and methods that can be used to associate modulation of cell signaling pathways with pathologic endpoints. The approach suggested begins with diagnostic pathology and uses global gene expression analysis in conjunction with transcription factor profiling and confirmatory protein technologies, to elucidate pathways relevant to the biological mechanism. Another important objective is to highlight the use of in silico technologies to prioritize laboratory efforts and focus these efforts on key hypotheses.
The beat goes on: diastolic noise that just won't quit.

See related article, pages 979–987 In this issue Bogdanov et al1 show how late diastolic depolarization in rabbit SA-node pacemaker (SAN) cells may be driven largely by stochastic local SR Ca2+ release events (LCRs), consequent pulses of inward Na/Ca2+ exchange current ( I NCX) and small jumps in membrane potential (Em). This group has published a comprehensive series of studies (see their reference list) and have made a compelling case for the importance of SR Ca2+ release in SAN pacemaker rate, and response to β-adrenergic activation. The mechanism is as follows (Figure 1). SAN cells have relatively high basal levels of cAMP and phospholamban phosphorylation,2 resulting in highly active SR Ca2+ uptake. After a prior beat, as SR Ca2+ content rises and the ryanodine receptor (RyR) recovers its triggerability, the high luminal [Ca2+] causes activation of a cluster of RyRs to produce an LCR or Ca2+ spark. The rise in local [Ca2+]i near the Na/Ca2+ exchanger activates Ca2+ extrusion via inward I NCX causing depolarization. In particular, these Ca sparks (or LCRs) are known to be very brief stochastic local releases of a bolus of Ca2+, which induce an almost simultaneous bolus of inward I NCX (because of the high local submembrane [Ca2+]i near the NCX). 3 Note the simultaneous spikes on the RyR release and I NCX traces in Figure 2. The high membrane impedance of SAN cells (because of minimal inward rectifier K current I K1)4 allows this brief pulse of inward current to cause a small jump in Em. As more and more of these stochastic events occur during late diastole the diastolic depolarization steepens, bringing Em to the threshold …