Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Equal Employment Opportunity in the Federal Government: A Comparative Analysis

Equal employment opportunity is a major personnel program in the federal government. It has rapidly developed from insignificant statements of policy on nondiscrimination to an affirmative action program intended to insure equality of opportunity. By analyzing the historical development of equal employment opportunity in the federal government, we will show that policies of nondiscrimination and affirmative action programs have been followed by changes in the employment and advancement of minority employees. Since the federal government is one of the leaders in equal employment opportunity, its experience should represent an excellent model for other government agencies and private firms. This is not to imply they should simply emulate the federal experience. Rather, the federal model provides both a basis for comparison and insights into the effect of different strategies.
Energy and macronutrient intakes in Belgium: results from the first National Food Consumption Survey

Belgium until recently lacked a systematic survey of dietary habits of its inhabitants. The present study evaluated dietary composition in Belgium with respect to energy and macronutrient intakes. Information on food intake was collected using a repeated non-consecutive 24 h recall (2–8 weeks apart) with the validated software package EPIC-SOFT, in combination with a FFQ (self-administered) covering sixty food items. The database of consumed food items was linked to food composition data. Usual macronutrient intake was estimated by the Nusser method. A representative sample of the Belgian population was randomly selected from the national register following a multi-stage procedure. Information on dietary intake was obtained from 3245 subjects aged 15 years and older. Mean energy percentage (E %) of total fat (37·9 E %) and SFA (16·0 E %) was higher than the dietary reference intakes (DRI). Mean E % of total carbohydrates (45·8 E %) was lower than the DRI, while mean E % of mono/disaccharides was 20·3. Total fat and SFA intakes were higher and total carbohydrate and sugar intakes were lower in the older age categories than in the younger age categories. The percentage of energy from SFA intake was lower and that from carbohydrates was higher than that found in an earlier Belgian study. Further efforts are necessary to improve dietary macronutrient intake, taking into account differences in age categories. In addition, it will be important to monitor its changes regularly using trend analyses.
Analyzing injury crashes using random-parameter bivariate regression models

ABSTRACT This paper proposes a random-parameter bivariate zero-inflated negative binomial (RBZINB) regression model for analyzing the effects of investigated variables on crash frequencies. A Bayesian approach is employed as the estimation method, which has the strength of accounting for the uncertainties related to models and parameter values. The modeling framework has been applied to the bivariate injury crash counts obtained from 1000 intersections in Tennessee over a five-year period. The results reveal that the proposed RBZINB model outperforms other investigated models and provides a superior fit. The proposed RBZINB model is useful in gaining new insights into how crash occurrences are influenced by the risk factors. In addition, the empirical studies show that the proposed RBZINB model has a smaller prediction bias and variance, as well as more accurate coverage probability in estimating model parameters and crash-free probabilities.
Predicting and modifying substance use in childhood cancer survivors: application of a conceptual model.

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES To identify factors that predict or modify substance use in childhood cancer survivors and to describe how a risk-counseling intervention reduced young survivors' substance use. DESIGN Secondary analysis of clinical trial data and primary analysis of medical record data. SETTING Outpatient clinic. SAMPLE 149 females and 118 males 12-18 years of age whose cancer had been in remission for at least two years were randomly assigned to intervention (n = 132) and standard care (n = 135) groups. METHODS Self-report questionnaires, abstracted medical record data, confirmatory factor analysis, and structural equation modeling. MAIN RESEARCH VARIABLES Smoking, alcohol consumption, knowledge, risk perceptions, motivation, and worry about cancer and treatment effects. FINDINGS Three factors directly predicted substance use at baseline: being in a higher grade in school (independent of age), feelings of being more susceptible to late effects of cancer therapy, and worrying more about cancer and its treatment. At follow-up a year later, grade in school and worry predicted increased substance use. In addition, a desire to change health behavior, influenced by the intervention and gender, predicted decreased substance use. The mechanism of influence of the intervention was evident: The intervention led to a need to change, which precipitated a desire to change and ultimately resulted in decreased substance use. CONCLUSIONS Young survivors' worries and concerns about their cancer and treatment-related late effects are a new intervention target. Motivation is sensitive to behavioral change interventions and positively affects risk reduction. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING Two new intervention strategies to address the impact of survivors' concerns about their cancer and its treatment are implied: (a) Replace substance use with new coping methods to reduce fear and anxiety, and (b) tailor motivation-based interventions to age and gender to communicate graphically and realistically to survivors the personal importance of behavioral change in modifying the risks of late effects.
Determination of Dynamics of Plant Plasma Membrane Proteins with Fluorescence Recovery and Raster Image Correlation Spectroscopy

Abstract A number of fluorescence microscopy techniques are described to study dynamics of fluorescently labeled proteins, lipids, nucleic acids, and whole organelles. However, for studies of plant plasma membrane (PM) proteins, the number of these techniques is still limited because of the high complexity of processes that determine the dynamics of PM proteins and the existence of cell wall. Here, we report on the usage of raster image correlation spectroscopy (RICS) for studies of integral PM proteins in suspension-cultured tobacco cells and show its potential in comparison with the more widely used fluorescence recovery after photobleaching method. For RICS, a set of microscopy images is obtained by single-photon confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM). Fluorescence fluctuations are subsequently correlated between individual pixels and the information on protein mobility are extracted using a model that considers processes generating the fluctuations such as diffusion and chemical binding reactions. As we show here using an example of two integral PM transporters of the plant hormone auxin, RICS uncovered their distinct short-distance lateral mobility within the PM that is dependent on cytoskeleton and sterol composition of the PM. RICS, which is routinely accessible on modern CLSM instruments, thus represents a valuable approach for studies of dynamics of PM proteins in plants.
Dynamic analysis of glioma cells: Looking into “movement phenotypes”

One of the major obstacles to the successful treatment of diffuse gliomas is their highly infiltrative property. It is one of the important therapeutic strategies to inhibit infiltration of glioma cells and make it possible to locally control a lesion. To achieve this, we first need to observe and describe detailed movement profiles of glioma cells in the brain tissue at the cellular level. Then we further need to determine extra and intracellular molecules that play a key role in glioma cell invasion. Live cell imaging is a powerful technique to investigate the basic movement pattern of glioma cells as well as the effects of therapeutic interventions on their migration. In this review, we describe a technical aspect of live cell imaging with special regard to time‐lapse video imaging and discuss the relevance of the methods to glioma studies.
Surgical Peritonitis in Patients on Peritoneal Dialysis

In this short review we highlight the diagnostic challenge presented by surgical peritonitis in peritoneal dialysis patients, giving attention to etiology, clinical presentation, diagnosis, and management. Despite improvements in medical imaging and a reduction in overall rates of peritonitis in peritoneal dialysis, the mortality of surgical peritonitis has not changed in recent years and remains a challenge for the clinical team.
Document summarization using dictionary learning

Document summarization is a strategy, intended to extract information from multiple documents, deliberating the same subject. Many software applications handle document summarization, helping people grab the main thought, from a collection of documents, within a short time. Automatic summaries present information algorithmically extracted from multiple sources, without any impressionistic human intervention mediation. Experiments have resulted in ingenious algorithms, surmount the task of creating a short and salient summary. One such technique suggested in this paper is Dictionary Learning. This paper focuses on Document summarization, using dictionary learning and sparse coding techniques, considering the ordering of sentences and redundancy of documents. We use Singular Value Decomposition(SVD) for dictionary learning and Orthogonal Matching Pursuit(OMP) for sparse coding. The application of SVD augments the semantics of the generated summary. The order of sparsity in the final sparse code is used in ordering the sentences in the final summary. Verification of our proposed methodology have shown 75% precision.
COG1410, a novel apolipoprotein‐E mimetic, improves functional and morphological recovery in a rat model of focal brain ischemia

Apolipoprotein E (apoE) is the primary apolipoprotein synthesized in the brain in response to injury with known neuroprotective effects exerted through antioxidant, antiinflammatory, antiexcitotoxic, and neurotrophic mechanisms. We have previously demonstrated that COG1410, an apoE mimetic peptide, exerts neuroprotective and antiinflammatory effects in a murine model of traumatic brain injury (TBI). As in TBI, ischemia‐reperfusion injury is a component of acute stroke, which displays a pharmacogenetic association with the APOE4 gene. Using an intraluminal middle cerebral occlusion (MCAO) model in rats, we found that a single intravenous injection of COG1410 at 120 min post‐MCAO significantly improved vestibulomotor function, decreased poststroke locomotor asymmetry, and decreased infarct volume of the ipsilateral hemisphere. These results support further exploration of a novel apoE‐mimetic peptide, COG1410, as a therapeutic treatment for stroke. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Hepatocyte Growth Factor Promotes Cancer Cell Migration and Angiogenic Factors Expression: A Prognostic Marker of Human Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinomas

Purpose: Hepatocyte growth factor/scatter factor (HGF/SF) and its receptor, c-Met, play important roles in tumor development and progression. In this study, we measured the serum HGF levels in patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) to evaluate its relationships with clinicopathologic features and the role of HGF in ESCC. Experimental Design: One hundred and forty-nine patients with ESCC were studied. Pretherapy serum was collected and ELISA was used to detect the concentrations of HGF, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), and interleukin 8 (IL-8). The function of HGF was shown by invasion chamber assay. Results: Pretherapy serum HGF was found to be significantly higher in patients with ESCC than in control subjects. The levels of HGF correlated significantly with advanced tumor metastasis stage and survival. Multivariate analyses showed that serum HGF level in cell migration was an independent prognostic factor. Increased HGF serum levels correlated positively with serum levels of VEGF and IL-8. Our results also showed that HGF was overexpressed in ESCC tissues and cell lines. In vitro study showed that HGF could stimulate ESCC cell to express VEGF and IL-8 and markedly enhance invasion and migration of ESCC cells. Furthermore, HGF-induced IL-8 and VEGF expression was dependent on extracellular signal-regulated kinase signaling pathways. The inhibition of extracellular signal-regulated kinase activation reduced HGF-mediated IL-8 and VEGF expression. Conclusions: Our results suggest that serum HGF may be a useful biomarker of tumor progression and a valuable independent prognostic factor in patients with ESCC. HGF may be involved in the progression of ESCC as an autocrine/paracrine factor via enhancing angiogenesis and tumor cell invasion and migration.
Effect of vitamin e and selenium supplement on paraoxonase-1 activity, oxidized low density lipoprotein and antioxidant defense in diabetic rats.

INTRODUCTION The aim of the present study was to assess the effects of vitamin E and selenium supplementation on serum paraoxonase (PON1) activity, lipid peroxidation and antioxidant defense in streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats. METHODS Thirty two female Sprague Dawley rats were divided into 3 groups: the control group (n=8) received a standard diet; streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetic rats (n=12), received corn oil and physiological solution; and vitamin E and selenium supplemented diabetic rats (n=12) were treated with oral administration of vitamin E (300 mg/kg) and sodium selenite (0.5 mg/kg) once a day for 4 weeks. RESULTS Significantly lower total antioxidant status (TAS), PON1and erythrocyte SOD activities and a higher fasting plasma glucose level were observed in the diabetic rats compared to the control. A significant increase in SOD and GPX activities in vitamin E and selenium supplemented diabetic group was observed after 5 weeks of the experiment. Compared to the normal rats, malondialdehyde (MDA) and oxidized LDL (Ox-LDL) levels were higher in the diabetic animals; however, these values reduced significantly following vitamin E and selenium supplementation. CONCLUSION Vitamin E and selenium supplementation in diabetic rats has hypolipidemic, hypoglycemic and antioxidative effects and may slow down the progression of diabetic complications through its protective effect on PON1 activity and lipoproteins oxidation.
Segmentation of 3D tubular objects with adaptive front propagation and minimal tree extraction for 3D medical imaging

We present a new fast approach for segmentation of thin branching structures, like vascular trees, based on Fast-Marching (FM) and Level Set (LS) methods. FM allows segmentation of tubular structures by inflating a “long balloon” from a user given single point. However, when the tubular shape is rather long, the front propagation may blow up through the boundary of the desired shape close to the starting point. Our contribution is focused on a method to propagate only the useful part of the front while freezing the rest of it. We demonstrate its ability to segment quickly and accurately tubular and tree-like structures. We also develop a useful stopping criterion for the causal front propagation. We finally derive an efficient algorithm for extracting an underlying 1D skeleton of the branching objects, with minimal path techniques. Each branch being represented by its centerline, we automatically detect the bifurcations, leading to the “Minimal Tree” representation. This so-called “Minimal Tree” is very useful for visualization and quantification of the pathologies in our anatomical data sets. We illustrate our algorithms by applying it to several arteries datasets.
Labor Markets in Heterogenous Sectors

I expand the standard model with labor frictions and matching function, to account to the endogenous decision to either leave the labor market or migrate to a different sector, after a stochastic training period. Sectors (manufacturing and services) are asymmetric, firms are subject to price stickiness, have specific labor force, post vacancies advertisement and explore both the intensive as the extensive margin of labor. After estimating the model with 13 quarterly data from the goods and labor market, from 2003:Q1 to 2014:Q4, I show that the estimated version of this model is able to account for the heterogeneous dynamics of the labor and goods market in Brazil
Observed-Based Adaptive Fuzzy Decentralized Tracking Control for Switched Uncertain Nonlinear Large-Scale Systems With Dead Zones

In this paper, the problem of adaptive fuzzy decentralized output-feedback control design is investigated for a class of switched nonlinear large-scale systems in strict-feedback form. The considered nonlinear large-scale systems contain the unknown nonlinearities and dead zones, the switching signals with average dwell time, and without the direct requirement of the states being available for feedback. Fuzzy logic systems are utilized to approximate the unknown nonlinear functions, a fuzzy switched decentralized state observer is designed and thus via it the immeasurable states are obtained. By applying the adaptive decentralized backstepping design technique, an adaptive fuzzy decentralized output-feedback tracking control approach is developed for the switched subsystems. The stability of the whole closed-loop system is proved by using the Lyapunov function and the average dwell-time methods. Satisfactory tracking performance is achieved under the switching signals with average dwell time. The simulation example is provided to indicate the effectiveness of the proposed control method.
On-line subspace algorithms for tracking moving sources

Proposes a class of subspace-based methods for estimating the direction-of-arrival (DOA) of plane waves impinging on an array of sensors. The proposed methods estimate the DOA using only linear operations on the data, and can hence be implemented in a very efficient manner. Furthermore, these methods can accommodate more general noise models than the spatially white noise model commonly used in the literature. Large sample expressions are derived for the variance of the estimates obtained by using the proposed techniques. A comparative statistical study is performed in which comparisons against MUSIC are considered. It is found that usually MUSIC offers slightly more accurate DOA estimates at the cost of an increased computational burden and a more restrictive noise model. The paper includes simulation results lending support to the theoretical results obtained. >
Biomechanical Study on the Sensorial Epithelium of Otolithic Organs for Creating a Biomimetic Sensor

This paper presents a biomechanical model of the sensorial cells in otolithic organs and a design of a 3D device that imitates the biological system. Starting from anatomical and physiological data, mechanical and structural parameters have been identified and a mechanical model has been formulated, by considering the cilia and kinocilium as a interconnected structure. The mechanical model was used to simulate the behavior of the system under known conditions. Furthermore, the behavior of a proximal link to the kinocilium were investigated for a better comprehension regarding the polymeric materials that could be used to model and manufacture the biological organs. The results obtained from the models were used to design a biomimetic organ.
Diffusion imaging of the in vivo heart using spin echoes–considerations on bulk motion sensitivity

Cardiac diffusion MRI based on stimulated‐echo acquisition mode (STEAM) techniques is hampered by its inherent low signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR) efficiency. Diffusion imaging using standard spin‐echo (SE) techniques, on the other hand, offers higher SNRs but has been considered impractical for the beating heart due to excessive signal attenuation from cardiac bulk motion. In this work the effect of systolic cardiac motion on different diffusion‐encoding schemes was studied in detail. Numerical simulations based on in vivo motion data (acquired by MRI tagging techniques) demonstrate an up to 10‐fold decrease in bulk motion sensitivity of the diffusion encoding if the first‐order moment of the diffusion‐encoding gradients is nullified. It is shown that the remaining systolic phase pattern on the myocardium does not influence the magnitude images if the spatial resolution is chosen to be higher than 4 mm. Given these relatively low resolution requirements, we obtained in vivo diffusion‐weighted (DW) short‐axis images from four healthy volunteers using an SE‐based diffusion‐encoding sequence with excitation and refocusing in orthogonal planes for field of view (FOV) reduction. The results showed no significant signal loss due to cardiac motion, and the direction of the principal eigenvalues was found to be in good agreement with known myocardial fiber orientation. Magn Reson Med 57:331–337, 2007. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Correct the QT Interval Correctly: Should QTc be Expressed in the Same Units as the QT Interval?

The title of this editorial is intentionally very similar to that of another editorial recently published in PACE by Dr. Arthur J. Moss. ^ We should state from the outset that we agree with many conclusions made by Dr. Moss and we do not dispute his point of view. Indeed, if we were in the Parliament, we would certainly be addressing Arthur as our honourable friend. * However, the problem raised by Dr. Moss deserves a detailed discussion, especially since the view presented by Dr. Moss in his 1996 editorial not only contradicts the view published by our group in 1993,^ but also the view published by Dr. Moss himself in 1993. ^
Modelling, simulation and performance analysis of a PV array in an embedded environment

Photovoltaic (PV) generation involves the direct conversion of sunlight into electrical energy. In recent years it has proved to be a cost-effective method for generating electricity with minimum environmental impact. Due to the environmental and economic benefits PV generation is now being deployed worldwide as an embedded renewable energy source and extensive research is being performed in order to study and assess the effectiveness of PV arrays in Distributed Generation (DG) systems either as a potential energy source or as energy reserve in combination with other types of distributed energy resources. This paper presents the modeling and MATLAB simulation of a stand-alone polycrystalline PV Array system and investigates load following performance efficiency under various loading and weather conditions as well as suitability with regard to enhancing power supply reliability to critical loads. The modeling of the PV array that has been performed in this research using MATLAB Simulink is based on the calculation of parameters for the Thevenin's equivalent circuit of each cell of the array. The standard double exponential polycrystalline cell model has been adopted for this research with solar irradiance E and ambient temperature T as the input and Thevenin's voltage Vthar and Thevenin's resistance Rthar as the output.