Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Self-regulation following prostatectomy: phase-specific self-efficacy beliefs for pelvic-floor exercise.

OBJECTIVE Beliefs in one's ability to perform a task or behaviour successfully are described as self-efficacy beliefs (Bandura, 1977). Since individuals have to deal with differing demands during a behaviour-change process, they form phase-specific self-efficacy beliefs directed at these respective challenges. The present study, based on the Health Action Process Approach (Schwarzer, 2001), examines the theoretical differentiation, relative importance, and differential effects of four phase-specific self-efficacy beliefs, including task self-efficacy, preactional self-efficacy, maintenance self-efficacy, and recovery self-efficacy. DESIGN In a prospective longitudinal study, 112 prostatectomy-patients received questionnaires at 2 days, 2 weeks, 1 month, and 6 months post-surgery. METHODS Participants provided data on phase-specific self-efficacies as well as phase indicators of health-behaviour change, that is, intentions, planning, and pelvic-floor exercise. Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to test the study hypotheses. RESULTS Task self-efficacy was not uniquely associated with intentions. Preactional self-efficacy was related to action planning. Maintenance self-efficacy did not predict behaviour. Recovery self-efficacy was associated with re-uptake of pelvic-floor exercise after relapses only. CONCLUSION Findings underline the importance of differentiating between task self-efficacy and preactional self-efficacy during early phases of behaviour change as well as of considering the occurrence of relapses as a moderator of potential effects of recovery self-efficacy on the maintenance of behaviour change. Advanced knowledge on distinct, phase-specific self-efficacy beliefs may facilitate the design of effective tailored interventions for behaviour change.
Study of Hummingbird Cryptographic Algorithms based on FPGA Implementation

Cryptographic algorithms are ubiquitous in modern communication systems where they have a central role in ensuring information security. This thesis studies efficient implementation of certain widely-used cryptographic algorithms. Cryptographic algorithms are computationally demanding and software-based implementations are often too slow or power consuming which yields a need for hardware implementation. Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) are programmable logic devices which have proven to be highly feasible implementation platforms for cryptographic algorithms because they provide both speed and programmability.The most Important and the advanced one out of FPGA implementations is the Hummingbird Algorithm.Hummingbird is a novel ultra-lightweight cryptographic algorithm aiming at resource-constrained devices. In this work, an enhanced hardware implementation of the Hummingbird cryptographic algorithm for low-cost Spartan-3 FPGA family is described. Keywords— Hummingbird Algo, PGA,Encryption,Decryption.
Resource Allocation in Multiuser OFDMA System: Feasibility and Optimization Study

This paper studies resource allocation problem in downlink multiuser Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) system. The problem is formulated as sum-rate (cell throughput) maximization problem with strict data rate constraints imposed by the users and peak power constraint by the base station. We discuss the feasibility of the problem and propose two algorithms when the feasibility conditions are met. In the first algorithm subcarrier and power allocation decisions are made by jointly considering all the constraints. In the second algorithm subcarrier allocation decisions are based on data rate constraints and transmit power constraint is achieved on the allocated subcarrier set. The second algorithm although sub-optimal has almost identical performance compared to the first algorithm. The reduction in complexity is huge compared to the first algorithm.
Ghostbuster: a tool for simplifying and converting GADTs

Generalized Algebraic Dataypes, or simply GADTs, can encode non-trivial properties in the types of the constructors. Once such properties are encoded in a datatype, however, all code manipulating that datatype must provide proof that it maintains these properties in order to typecheck. In this paper, we take a step towards gradualizing these obligations. We introduce a tool, Ghostbuster, that produces simplified versions of GADTs which elide selected type parameters, thereby weakening the guarantees of the simplified datatype in exchange for reducing the obligations necessary to manipulate it. Like ornaments, these simplified datatypes preserve the recursive structure of the original, but unlike ornaments we focus on information-preserving bidirectional transformations. Ghostbuster generates type-safe conversion functions between the original and simplified datatypes, which we prove are the identity function when composed. We evaluate a prototype tool for Haskell against thousands of GADTs found on the Hackage package database, generating simpler Haskell'98 datatypes and round-trip conversion functions between the two.
Real-time Alarm Model Adaptation Based on User Feedback

This paper presents real-time adaptation of alarm detection models in a remote health monitoring system based on user feedback. Real-time adaptation enables systems to fine-tune to the needs and preferences of the user and changes in the environment. This way, the system performance is improved in terms of technical accuracy and subjective user wishes. Two types of alarm detection models were used: (1) models in the form of rules created by domain expert and (2) models induced by machine learning. The problem of adaptation for the rule-based models is defined as Markov decision process. Machine-learning models are adapted by rebuilding the model every time new data is obtained. We tested the adaptation capabilities of the two types of alarm detection models based on their accuracy and time-to-alarm (needed length of possibly critical activity, such as lying on the ground, which causes the models to raise an alarm). Both types of models achieved 90% alarm detection accuracy. The rule-based models decreased time-to-alarm when user-triggered alarms were raised and increased it when the user indicated false alarm. We did not observe this process for the machine-learning models. 1
Clinical, Biological and Genetic Analysis of Anorchia in 26 Boys

Background Anorchia is defined as the absence of testes in a 46,XY individual with a male phenotype. The cause is unknown. Methods We evaluated the clinical and biological presentation, and family histories of 26 boys with anorchia, and sequenced their SRY, NR5A1, INSL3, MAMLD1 genes and the T222P variant for LGR8. Results No patient had any associated congenital anomaly. At birth, testes were palpable bilaterally or unilaterally in 13 cases and not in 7; one patient presented with bilateral testicular torsion immediately after birth. The basal plasma concentrations of anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH, n = 15), inhibin B (n = 7) and testosterone (n = 19) were very low or undetectable in all the patients evaluated, as were the increases in testosterone after human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG, n = 12). The basal plasma concentrations of follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) were increased in 20/25, as was that of luteinising hormone in 10/22 cases. Family members of 7/26 cases had histories of primary ovarian failure in the mother (n = 2), or sister 46,XX, together with fetal malformations of the only boy with microphallus and secondary foot edema (n = 1), secondary infertility in the father (n = 2), or cryptorchidism in first cousins (n = 2). The sequences of all the genes studied were normal. Conclusion Undetectable plasma concentrations of AMH and inhibin B and an elevated plasma FSH, together with 46,XY complement are sufficient for diagnosis of anorchia. The hCG test is unnecessary. NR5A1 and other genes implicated in gonadal development and testicle descent were not mutated, which suggests that other genes involved in these developments contribute to the phenotypes.
A M-ary biorthogonal code SS multicarrier CDMA transmission scheme

In this paper a M-ary biorthogonal code spread-spectrum (SS) multicarrier code division multiple access (CDMA) transmission scheme is proposed. This scheme uses quadrature BPSK modulation and biorthogonal SS code to take data; channel estimation eliminates the ambiguities of amplitude and phase generated by channel fading, and avoids the identification problem of the single/dual SS code. In comparison with conventional multicarrier CDMA system, this scheme highly increases the data rate of up to 2 log/sub 2/ M times. Meanwhile, simulations are performed with the improved subspace tracking and least squares (LS) channel estimation algorithm in the case of different combining schemes, and show good system performance.
SVMs classification based on Insitu melanoma

This paper presents a comparative study of Support Vector Machines (SVMs) which is classified based on melanoma imaging technique. After the preprocessing and segmentation of a set of distinct 35 images, the extracted features were Asymmetry, Border, Color, Diameter,(ABCD) Entropy and Correlations respectively. Further the resultant data was fed into five different SVM classifiers namely linear, poly, quadratic, radial basic function and Multilayer Preceptor, which classifies different aspects of Insitu melanoma. Among these 35 images the most consistent result which was obtained stood unmatched at an accuracy of 77.77%. Finally each stage of pigmented skin lesion is represented by a histogram plot which further enriches the data quite significantly.
Dynamic delay-constrained minimum-energy dissemination in wireless sensor networks

Disseminating data generated by sensors to users is one of useful functions of sensor networks. In probable real-time applications of sensor networks, multiple mobile users should receive data within their end-to-end delay constraint. In this paper, we propose a dynamic DElay-constrained minimum-Energy Dissemination (DEED) scheme. A dissemination tree (d-tree) is updated in a distributed way without regenerating the tree from scratch, such that energy consumption of the tree is minimized while satisfying end-to-end delay constraints. The d-tree is adjusted using delay estimation based on geometric distance. DEED increases the probability that packets arrive at users within an upper-bound end-to-end delay (UBED) and minimizes energy consumption in both building the d-tree and disseminating data to mobile sinks. Evaluation results show that DEED makes each node consume small energy resources and maintains fewer UBED misses when compared to Directed Diffusion and other baselines for sensor networks.
Community education for social change: the development of driver licensing educational strategies in north Queensland Indigenous communities

There is a pressing need for education in remote Indigenous communities around road safety and driver licensing to address high levels of incarceration and road trauma resulting from unlicensed driving. This paper outlines a program to identify, educate, resource and support community members to be road safety and driver licence educators and coordinators, and to develop appropriate educational materials and strategies. The program is developed on a community-by community basis through negotiations between government agencies and self-selected communities. It aims to ensure that each community's program is fully embedded in community aspirations and programs, and is financially self-supporting. Self selection and negotiation are designed to ensure community ownership, and the linkages between the program and community economic needs and development potentials are crucial to ensuring sustainability of the program in each community. Community ownership is crucial to ensuring that the program is not dismissed as just another government imposed development. The program has potential to contribute to social change by enhancing community capacity, including increased capacity to take advantage of employment opportunities, and the reduction of disruptions to family and community life through incarceration and road trauma.
Are Mindfulness and Self-Compassion Associated with Sleep and Resilience in Health Professionals?

OBJECTIVES To describe the relationship between trainable qualities (mindfulness and self-compassion), with factors conceptually related to burnout and quality of care (sleep and resilience) in young health professionals and trainees. DESIGN Cross-sectional survey. SETTING Large Midwestern academic health center. PARTICIPANTS 213 clinicians and trainees. OUTCOME MEASURES Sleep and resilience were assessed by using the 8-item PROMIS Sleep scale and the 6-item Brief Resilience Scale. Mindfulness and self-compassion were assessed using the 10-item Cognitive and Affective Mindfulness Scale, Revised and the 12-item Self-Compassion Scale. Health was assessed with Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) Global Health measures, and stress was assessed with the 10-item Perceived Stress Scale. After examination of descriptive statistics and Pearson correlations, multiple regression analyses were done to determine whether mindfulness and self-compassion were associated with better sleep and resilience. RESULTS Respondents had an average age of 28 years; 73% were female. Professions included dieticians (11%), nurses (14%), physicians (38%), social workers (24%), and other (12%). Univariate analyses showed normative values for all variables. Sleep disturbances were significantly and most strongly correlated with perceived stress and poorer health, but also with less mindfulness and self-compassion. Resilience was strongly and significantly correlated with less stress and better mental health, more mindfulness, and more self-compassion. CONCLUSIONS In these young health professionals and trainees, sleep and resilience are correlated with both mindfulness and self-compassion. Prospective studies are needed to determine whether training to increase mindfulness and self-compassion can improve clinicians' sleep and resilience or whether decreasing sleep disturbances and building resilience improves mindfulness and compassion.
Pictorial depth cues: a new slant.

Pictorial depth cues such as perspective projection, aspect ratio, and texture gradients can specify mathematically the slant of a planar surface. We performed experiments to measure the accuracy of human perception of surface slant from these cues. We calculated the perceived slant from judgments of the relative lengths of a pair of orthogonal lines embedded in the surface. Our results indicate that slant judgments are accurate to within 3 deg. This level of accuracy was achieved whether the cues were luminance differences or equiluminous color differences. We found no evidence of the recession to the frontal plane that has been reported by Gibson [J.J. Gibson, The Perception of the Visual World (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, Mass., 1950]) and others. We did find evidence suggesting that subjects do not make accurate depth estimates of disconnected surfaces. This may be the source of the discrepancy between our measures and those of Gibson and others. This research, combined with previous findings, supports a model of perception that involves at least two and possibly more representations of space: one local veridical representation of surface orientation derived primarily from pictorial cues and another global representation of observer-centered distance derived primarily from binocular disparity and motion parallax.
BlueMesh : A Proactive Routing Protocol over a Mesh Network , Implemented with Text-Chat and Tic-Tac-Toe

Mobile phones have become a global product, serving the need for communication. There are currently many routing algorithms that tackle with routing in ad-hoc networks. However, applying these algorithms to mobile phone devices incurs problem due to their reduced battery power, bandwidth and processing power. In this paper we propose BlueMesh, an ad-hoc routing protocol over Bluetooth for mobile devices. It is self-starting and free from any type of central administration. The BlueMesh protocol utilises a proactive, table driven algorithm creating a mesh network that distributes routing tables across all nodes to share knowledge of the best end to end routes. We also develop a text messaging and Tic-Tac-Toe applications to operate over BlueMesh
Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism

Carter and Brezhnev in the Valley of Decision Anwar al-Sadat Zia al-Haq Deng Xiaoping recruiters, trainers, trainees and assorted spooks donors, bankers and profiteers poppy fields, killing fields and druglords Russia - bitter aftertaste and reluctant return the Contagion Spreads: 1 - Egypt and the Maghreb the Contagion Spreads: 2 - the assault on America.
Combining systems pharmacology, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics to dissect the therapeutic mechanism of Chinese herbal Bufei Jianpi formula for application to COPD

Bufei Jianpi formula (BJF) has long been used as a therapeutic agent in the treatment of COPD. Systems pharmacology identified 145 active compounds and 175 potential targets of BJF in a previous study. Additionally, BJF was previously shown to effectively prevent COPD and its comorbidities, such as ventricular hypertrophy, by inhibition of inflammatory cytokine production, matrix metalloproteinases expression, and other cytokine production, in vivo. However, the system-level mechanism of BJF for the treatment of COPD is still unclear. The aim of this study was to gain insight into its system-level mechanisms by integrating transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics together with systems pharmacology datasets. Using molecular function, pathway, and network analyses, the genes and proteins regulated in COPD rats and BJF-treated rats could be mainly attributed to oxidoreductase activity, antioxidant activity, focal adhesion, tight junction, or adherens junction. Furthermore, a comprehensive analysis of systems pharmacology, transcript, protein, and metabolite datasets is performed. The results showed that a number of genes, proteins, metabolites regulated in BJF-treated rats and potential target proteins of BJF were involved in lipid metabolism, cell junction, oxidative stress, and inflammatory response, which might be the system-level therapeutic mechanism of BJF treatment.
Impact of Openness on Growth in Different Country Groups

This paper evaluates the impact of openness on growth in different country groups using a panel of 79 countries over the period 1970-98. It distinguishes itself from many existing studies in three aspects: Firstly, both trade and FDI are included as measures of openness. Secondly, countries are classified into high-, middle- and low-income groups to compare the roles of trade and FDI in these groups. Thirdly, the possible problems of endogeneity and multicollinearity of trade and FDI are carefully dealt with in a panel data setting. The main findings are as follows. Total trade has a general positive impact on growth in all country groups, although the impact from imports is not significant in high-income countries. FDI has a positive impact on growth in high- and middle-income countries, but not in low-income countries. With the existing absorptive capabilities, low-income countries can benefit from both exports and imports, but not from FDI. These findings suggest that trade and FDI affect growth through different channels and under different conditions. The paper also discusses important policy implications. Copyright 2004 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Slow intramural heating with diffused laser light: A unique method for deep myocardial coagulation.

BACKGROUND Catheter ablation of postinfarction ventricular tachycardia (VT) may be limited by insufficient myocardial coagulation or excessive endocardial or epicardial damage. We propose that volumetric heating restricted to intramural sites may improve the outcome and safety of this procedure, especially if delivered at rates that enhance heat conduction and forestall adverse tissue changes. METHODS AND RESULTS A novel optical fiber with a diffusing tip for direct intramural, volumetric laser heating was tested via thoracotomy and percutaneously in normal dogs. Low-power (2.0- to 4.5-W) diode laser light (805 nm) diffused within tissue induced large lesions but no visible surface damage, mural thrombi, or transmural perforation. Mean lesion depth approximated tip length (10 mm). Mean lesion widths in the thoracotomy and percutaneous groups were 5.8+/-0.5 to 9.1+/-0.84 mm and 5.2+/-0.85 to 7.9+/-1.1 mm, respectively, depending on the light dose. Mean volumes in the percutaneous group were 1006+/-245 to 2471+/-934 mm. ST-segment depression, appearing in unfiltered bipolar electrograms recorded from the guiding catheter, was specific for lesion induction. All dogs survived the protocol, which included a 1-hour observation period. In cross section, lesions were elliptical to spherical and characterized by extensive contraction-band necrosis abruptly bordering viable tissue. No platelets or fibrin adhered to the endocardium. CONCLUSIONS Slow, volumetric, and direct intramyocardial heating induces large, deep lesions without hazardous tissue damage. Such heating might cure postinfarction VT more successfully and safely than present techniques. Further testing and development of this method seem warranted.
A Climate Based Mosquito Population Model

A climate based model for predicting mosquito population abundance of the West Nile Culex spp. vectors has been developed. The population dynamics are driven by major environmental factors including temperature, rainfall, evaporation and photoperiod. Results show good correlations for timing of early population increases (as early warning of West Nile virus risk) and ending. The parameter space has been explored for model optimization. The relevance of the different parameters has been discussed. This is the first climate based model to simulate population dynamics of each mosquito life stage form West Nile vectors and may have direct applications for mosquito control and West Nile prevention programs.
PeopleWhere: Platform for reality mining applications

In this paper we describe both the concept and implementation of a prototype application that makes use of RFID technology, in particular LogiSphere Intelligent Tags and Transponders, to track person location within a small area such as office floors, storehouses, conference halls, market squares. The prototype implements two algorithms for evaluation position and exposes results as a REST-style service allowing further development of reality mining applications for digital a business ecosystem.
Conservative and Liberal Views of Science, Does Trust Depend on Topic?

Summary Conservative distrust of scientists regarding climate change and evolution has been widely expressed in public pronouncements and surveys, contributing to impressions that conservatives are less likely to trust scientists in general. But what about other topics, where some liberals have expressed misgivings too? Nuclear power safety, vaccinations, and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are three often-mentioned examples. For this report, five similarly worded survey questions were designed to test the hypothesis that, depending on the issue, liberals are just as likely to reject science as conservatives. The five questions were included along with many unrelated items in telephone surveys of over 1,000 New Hampshire residents.