Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fabrication And Measurement Techniques Of Wearable And Flexible Antennas

When compared with other antenna types, flexible and wearable antennas are gen erally characterized by compactness, reconfigurability, flexibility, and durability. Therefore, the fabrication processes and materials used in flexible and wearable antennas are quite unconventional and need to be addressed and evaluated. Moreover, additional measurement setups and tuning methods are often required in wearable and flexible applications to reflect a realistic setup and to yield a practical design and optimal performance. In this chapter, the fabrication and measurement techniques and related issues of flexible and wearable antennas are introduced and discussed in detail.
Aggression and the Big Five Personality Factors of Grades and Attendance

The focus of this study was to determine whether aggression adds incremental validity above and beyond the big five personality factors in predicting academic success. An archival data analysis was used in this study. The data \vas consisted of all of the eight grade students who were present when the data was collected in a middle school in the SoutheasteIl1 region of the United States. The students completed the Personal Style Inventory-Adolescent (PSI-A), which is a 120 item survey instrument designed to measure the big five personality factors and aggression. Results from this study indicated that aggression does in fact add incremental validity above and beyond the big five personality factors in a sample of middle school students. The results of the study also indicated that the big five personality factors are significantly correlated with academic performance. More specifically, conscientiousness, openness, agreeableness, and emotional stability are significantly correlated with grades in the current sample. When aggression is added into the statistical model, conscientiousness~ openness and aggression are significantly cOITelated with grades. The limitations, Inlplications and conclusions are
Effects of a Recruitment Workshop on Selected Urban High School Students' Self-Efficacy and Attitudes toward Agriculture as a Subject, College Major, and Career.

The purpose of this study was to determine if selected high school students’ participation in a summer agricultural communications workshop affected their self–efficacy and attitudes toward agriculture as a subject, college major, and/or as a career. Data were gathered from an accessible population (N = 145), from which a purposive sample (n = 94) was derived. Data were collected with researcher–developed questionnaires, adapted from Mitchell’s (1993) study of Ohio State University minority students’ knowledge, perceptions, and career aspirations related to agriculture. Results indicated that urban students’ pre–workshop attitudes were positive toward agriculture as a subject, college major, and as a career, and were significantly more positive after participation in the summer agricultural communications workshops. Students may be more likely to study agriculture, pursue college majors in agriculture, and choose agricultural careers if they favorably viewed teachers’ workshop participation and/or their friends successfully completing workshop tasks. Additional research should be conducted on the importance of teacher influence on a student’s self–efficacy in agricultural science subjects.
An Exploratory Study of Brand Success: Evidence From the Food Industry

The goal of this research is to identify drivers that influence the brand success, in order to develop a more effective business strategy. An abductive theory approach is adopted and food managers from Italy and Sweden were questioned. The authors modeled the eight correlated first-order factors, using seven independent variables and the dependent variable brand success. The variance-based structural equation modeling approach (partial least square [PLS] algorithm) have been applied. This study provides insight and empirical evidence on brand success. The findings can be employed as more effective brand strategies in a sector that has been under-investigated in academic literature and practice.
β1 integrin expression on endothelial cells is required for angiogenesis but not for vasculogenesis

Integrins are a family of cell adhesion receptors that are involved in cell–matrix and cell–cell communications. They facilitate cell proliferation, migration, and survival. Using the Cre‐Lox system, we deleted β1 integrin on Tie2‐positive (Tie2‐cre β1 Int fl/fl) vascular endothelial cells. Deletion of β1 integrin on vascular endothelial cells results in embryonic lethality. Blood vessel defects are encountered in the Tie2‐Cre β1 Int fl/fl embryos at embryonic age (E9.5), and embryos die before reaching E10.5. The embryos exhibit growth retardation and both histological evaluation and PECAM‐1 staining of E9.5 embryos revealed defects in angiogenic sprouting and vascular branching morphogenesis. Large and medium‐size vessel formation is not affected in these embryos. Angiogenic defects were observed in several regions of the embryo and yolk sacs. These results indicate that β1 integrin expression on vascular endothelial cells is crucial for embryonic angiogenesis but dispensable for vasculogenesis. Developmental Dynamics 237:75–82, 2008. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
#TwitterforTeachers: The Implications of Twitter as a Self-Directed Professional Development Tool for K–12 Teachers

Abstract This mixed-methods study explores how K–12 teachers use Twitter. An online survey was disseminated via Twitter to gauge their usage of, access to, and perceptions of Twitter. The results indicated that teachers highly value Twitter as a means of self-directed professional development. Respondents who reported using Twitter multiple times a day were more likely to use it for professional purposes than personal ones. Chief among the reported perceived benefits were professional development and meaningful relationships that teachers formed with other teachers who use Twitter. Implications for practice, including the ability for teachers to seek professional development for their specific needs, are discussed.
Surveillance of Fistula Function by Frequent Recirculation Measurements During High Efficiency Dialysis

Native fistulae are assumed to remain patent even with low access flows and are likely to cause access recirculation in high efficiency treatments done with high extracorporeal blood flows. We tested whether frequent recirculation measurements could be used to identify fistulae at risk to fail because of low access flow. High efficiency hemodialysis was delivered by 2008H machines equipped with blood temperature monitors (BTM) to measure recirculation within the first hour of every hemodialysis treatment. Access flow was measured when two consecutive BTM recirculation measurements exceeded a threshold of 15%. If access flow was < 500 ml/min, patients were referred for fistula revision. Eighty patients with native AV fistulae were studied for a period of 6 months. Nine of 11 interventions performed during the whole observation period were triggered by a BTM recirculation above the threshold. Two fistulae thrombosed in spite of a BTM recirculation below the threshold. One fistula with a BTM recirculation above the threshold had an access flow of 1,550 ml/min and was not referred for revision. BTM recirculation to detect fistulae for revision is sensitive (81.8%) and specific (98.6%) in the presence of cardiopulmonary recirculation and can be done with minimum intervention and without loss of efficient treatment time.
COMPADRE: an R and web resource for pathway activity analysis by component decompositions

UNLABELLED The analysis of biological networks has become essential to study functional genomic data. Compadre is a tool to estimate pathway/gene sets activity indexes using sub-matrix decompositions for biological networks analyses. The Compadre pipeline also includes one of the direct uses of activity indexes to detect altered gene sets. For this, the gene expression sub-matrix of a gene set is decomposed into components, which are used to test differences between groups of samples. This procedure is performed with and without differentially expressed genes to decrease false calls. During this process, Compadre also performs an over-representation test. Compadre already implements four decomposition methods [principal component analysis (PCA), Isomaps, independent component analysis (ICA) and non-negative matrix factorization (NMF)], six statistical tests (t- and f-test, SAM, Kruskal-Wallis, Welch and Brown-Forsythe), several gene sets (KEGG, BioCarta, Reactome, GO and MsigDB) and can be easily expanded. Our simulation results shown in Supplementary Information suggest that Compadre detects more pathways than over-representation tools like David, Babelomics and Webgestalt and less false positives than PLAGE. The output is composed of results from decomposition and over-representation analyses providing a more complete biological picture. Examples provided in Supplementary Information show the utility, versatility and simplicity of Compadre for analyses of biological networks. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION Compadre is freely available at http://bioinformatica.mty. itesm.mx:8080/compadre. The R package is also available at https://sourceforge.net/p/compadre.
Scaling Social Impact: A Governance Explanation Model

In this paper, we try to understand the way governance mechanisms practically work in Social Entrepreneurial Ventures (SEVs) and to explain the link between governance and SEVs’ performance – i.e., social impact. Given their double bottom line, SEVs’ social impact is likely to depend on the type of stakeholders, theirs aims, their influence and the governance mechanisms set up to deal with them. In particular, the board of directors will play a key role in balancing various stakeholders’ objectives in line with the SEV’s social mission and in helping to develop organizational capabilities that enhance social impact. Therefore, we propose an integrated model of the mediating role of organizational SCALERS capabilities on the relationship between governance mechanisms and social impact.
Modelling the relationship between peripheral blood pressure and blood volume pulses using linear and neural network system identification techniques

The relationships between peripheral blood pressure and blood volume pulse waveforms can provide valuable physiological data about the peripheral vascular system, and are the subject of this study. Blood pressure and volume pulse waveforms were collected from 12 normal male subjects using non-invasive optical techniques, finger arterial blood pressure (BP, Finapres: Datex-Ohmeda) and photoelectric plethysmography (PPG) respectively, and captured to computer for three equal (1 min) measurement phases: baseline, hand raising and hand elevated. This simple physiological challenge was designed to induce a significant drop in peripheral blood pressure. A simple first order lag transfer function was chosen to study the relationship between blood pressure (system input) and blood volume pulse waveforms (system output), with parameters describing the dynamics (time constant, ) and input-output gain (K). and K were estimated for each subject using two different system identification techniques: a recursive parameter estimation algorithm which calculated and K from a linear auto-regressive with exogenous variable (ARX) model, and an artificial neural network which was trained to learn the non-linear process input-output relationships and then derive a linearized ARX model of the system. The identification techniques allowed the relationship between the blood pressure and blood volume pulses to be described simply, with the neural network technique providing a better model fit overall (p<0.05, Wilcoxon). The median falls in following the hand raise challenge were 26% and 31% for the linear and neural network based techniques respectively (both p<0.05, Wilcoxon). This preliminary study has shown that the time constant and gain parameters obtained using these techniques can provide physiological data for the clinical assessment of the peripheral circulation.
Probabilistic direction of arrival estimation through Bayesian compressive sensing

In this paper a class of recently introduced Bayesian approaches for the solution of directions-of-arrival (DoAs) estimation problems is illustrated and discussed. More in detail, the problem of the estimation of the DoAs of electromagnetic narrow-band signals impinging on an antenna array is addressed in this paper by means of a strategy based on the Bayesian Compressive Sensing (BCS). Firstly, the relation between the data (i.e. the measured voltages) and the unknown DoAs is formulated as a linear relationship with sparse solution. Successively, the problem is solved by applying the BCS in order to estimate the most probable sparse solution fitting the measured input data. Preliminary numerical examples aimed at assessing the effectiveness of the considered techniques are presented.
One-Year Stability of Diagnosis in First-Episode Nonaffective Psychosis: Influence of Sex

Objective: To determine whether sex influences the frequency and direction of diagnostic change 1 year after a first episode of nonaffective psychosis. Method: The subjects (n = 228) were individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia and other psychoses according to DSM-IV criteria at baseline and at 1 year. Results: When diagnostic shifts occurred, men mainly shifted toward schizophrenia (84.6%), which was associated with more severe symptoms. In contrast, 72% of women in whom a diagnostic shift occurred shifted away from a schizophrenia spectrum disorder toward mood disorder. A shift to mood disorder in women was associated with an early age of illness onset. Conclusions: At initial presentation, nonaffective first-episode psychosis studies may underestimate the number of men and overestimate the number of women who will eventually receive a schizophrenia diagnosis.
Security Visiting: RFID-Based Smartphone Indoor Guiding System

This paper presents a security visiting guiding system SVG composed of RFID, smart phone, and Wi-Fi signal widely available. The SVG system can provide visitors with the map of a given building, so that the visitor can easily find the target under its guide. It can also protect user's privacy location information by cryptographic two-dimension code and RFID. The two-dimension code can be easily obtained by a mobile phone and it authorizes a visitor to obtain the navigation service of SVG. The visitor receives the permission from his host and makes a date through SVG. Then, SVG will navigate both the persons to meet at any place in the building. Furthermore, this paper demonstrates and evaluates the SVG security scheme. We conduct an attacker model and test the ability of the scheme in protecting user's location security.
Statistical Analysis for Memristor Crossbar Memories

The inherent memory capabilities bound with compactness and scalability features pose the memristor as an ideal rival for conventional nonvolatile memories. Its use within a crossbar structure offers high-density storage and tight dimensionality. A fitting parameter in the midst of the trend towards nanoscale integration, where gateless memories are on the rise in an attempt to achieve further space savings. Nonetheless, the gate sacrifice comes at the expense of the fidelity and accuracy of the readout values. In which the sneak path phenomenon distorts the data and acts as a hindering factor to reliable detection and higher density attainment. In this work, a novel approach is adopted to accommodate the sneak path and counter its effect on the memory reading. In contrast to the alternative techniques, where spatial and temporal solutions are applied to alleviate the distortion limitation and set a dynamic threshold, statistical measures benefit from the prior read data within the array. It builds upon the noise reduction and estimation principles, mainly borrowing concepts of coding and detection theory to enhance the access time and accuracy of the reading process.
News-Driven Return Reversals: Liquidity Provision Ahead of Earnings Announcements

This study documents a six-fold increase in short-term return reversals during earnings announcements relative to non-announcement periods. Following prior research, we use reversals as a proxy for expected returns market makers demand for providing liquidity. Our findings highlight significant time-series variation in the magnitude of short-term return reversals and suggest that market makers demand higher expected returns prior to earnings announcements because of increased inventory risks that stem from holding net positions through the release of anticipated earnings news. Collectively, our findings suggest that uncertainty regarding anticipated information events elicits predictable increases in the compensation demanded for providing liquidity and that these increases significantly affect the dynamics and information content of market prices.
Calculating the risks and benefits of disclosure in African American women who have HIV.

OBJECTIVE To identify the processes involved in and the patterns of disclosure of their HIV diagnosis reported by African American women. DESIGN Qualitative descriptive. SETTING Southeastern United States; nurse visits in the homes of the participants. PARTICIPANTS Forty-eight African American women who were HIV-positive and were primary caretakers of young children. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE Field notes were analyzed using content analysis. RESULTS Once the women learned they had HIV, they were faced with the issue of determining "what is at stake" in telling others of their diagnosis. This dilemma was characterized by the threat of stigma, feelings of shame, and the concurrent need for support. The women determined a calculus of disclosure in determining to whom and when to reveal their HIV diagnosis. This calculus involved a careful evaluation of the risks and benefits involved in disclosing their illness. Risks of telling were fueled by societal and experienced stigma associated with HIV, whereas the benefits were primarily fueled by personal needs. The calculus of disclosure was a recursive process, with decisions made and remade over time. Disclosure patterns ranged from secretive to full disclosure. CONCLUSIONS Issues related to stigma and therefore to disclosure of a diagnosis of HIV are highly relevant to HIV-positive African American women. Nurses have an important role in supporting women regarding their disclosure decisions.
Localized role of CRMP1 and CRMP2 in neurite outgrowth and growth cone steering

Collapsin response mediator protein 1 (CRMP1) and CRMP2 have been known as mediators of extracellular guidance cues such as semaphorin 3A and contribute to cytoskeletal reorganization in the axonal pathfinding process. To date, how CRMP1 and CRMP2 focally regulate axonal pathfinding in the growth cone has not been elucidated. To delineate the local functions of these CRMPs, we carried out microscale‐chromophore‐assisted light inactivation (micro‐CALI), which enables investigation of localized molecular functions with highly spatial and temporal resolutions. Inactivation of either CRMP1 or CRMP2 in the neurite shaft led to arrested neurite outgrowth. Micro‐CALI of CRMP2 in the central domain of the growth cones consistently arrested neurite outgrowth, whereas micro‐CALI of CRMP1 in the same region caused significant lamellipodial retraction, followed by retardation of neurite outgrowth. Focal inactivation of CRMP1 in its half region of the growth cone resulted in the growth cone turning away from the irradiated site. Conversely, focal inactivation of CRMP2 resulted in the growth cone turning toward the irradiated site. These findings suggest different functions for CRMP1 and CRMP2 in growth cone behavior and neurite outgrowth. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Develop Neurobiol, 2012
Study of the Assembly of Vesicular Stomatitis Virus N Protein: Role of the P Protein

ABSTRACT To derive structural information about the vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) nucleocapsid (N) protein, the N protein and the VSV phosphoprotein (P protein) were expressed together in Escherichia coli. The N and P proteins formed soluble protein complexes of various molar ratios when coexpressed. The major N/P protein complex was composed of 10 molecules of the N protein, 5 molecules of the P protein, and an RNA. A soluble N protein-RNA oligomer free of the P protein was isolated from the N/P protein-RNA complex using conditions of lowered pH. The molecular weight of the N protein-RNA oligomer, 513,879, as determined by analytical ultracentrifugation, showed that it was composed of 10 molecules of the N protein and an RNA of approximately 90 nucleotides. The N protein-RNA oligomer had the appearance of a disk with outer diameter, inner diameter, and thickness of 148 ± 10 Å, 78 ± 9 Å, and 83 ± 8 Å, respectively, as determined by electron microscopy. RNA in the complexes was protected from RNase digestion and was stable at pH 11. This verified that N/P protein complexes expressed in E. coli were competent for encapsidation. In addition to coexpression with the full-length P protein, the N protein was expressed with the C-terminal 72 amino acids of the P protein. This portion of the P protein was sufficient for binding to the N protein, maintaining it in a soluble state, and for assembly of N protein-RNA oligomers. With the results provided in this report, we propose a model for the assembly of an N/P protein-RNA oligomer.
Urine Output Assessment as a Clinical Quality Measure

Urine output (UO) is a relevant marker of kidney function and an independent marker of serum creatinine. Although oliguria can be the result of transitory changes in volume status or due to external influences, such as drug administration, UO is currently included as a criterion to diagnose and stage acute kidney injury (AKI). In clinical practice, the potential of earlier alert of kidney injury with frequent assessment of UO can help patient screening and risk assessment. In this review, we will discuss recent studies applying UO for AKI diagnosis and prognostication and propose methods to assess UO and improve quality of care.
Nasogastric feeding in children and adolescents with eating disorders: toward good practice.

OBJECTIVE This study aimed to provide an insight into the subjective experiences of nasogastric feeding from the perspective of patients with eating disorders and their parents. METHOD A semistructured self-report questionnaire was completed by patients from two specialist eating disorders units who had received nasogastric feeding. Parents' views were also assessed via a similar self-report questionnaire. RESULTS Diverse views were expressed by both patients and parents. Some regarded the experience of nasogastric feeding as wholly negative, but acknowledged the lack of suitable alternatives. Others had a more positive view and identified several helpful aspects. CONCLUSION Reactions were generally more positive than had been anticipated. A number of useful suggestions were made regarding how to improve the procedure. These have informed the development of guidelines for good practice.
Close-quarters Quadrotor flying for a pole inspection with position based visual servoing and high-speed vision

This paper presents a 100 Hz monocular position based visual servoing system to control a quadrotor flying in close proximity to vertical structures approximating a narrow, locally linear shape. Assuming the object boundaries are represented by parallel vertical lines in the image, detection and tracking is achieved using Plücker line representation and a line tracker. The visual information is fused with IMU data in an EKF framework to provide fast and accurate state estimation. A nested control design provides position and velocity control with respect to the object. Our approach is aimed at high performance on-board control for applications allowing only small error margins and without a motion capture system, as required for real world infrastructure inspection. Simulated and ground-truthed experimental results are presented.