Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Predictors of diurnal blood pressure changes in 2042 subjects with essential hypertension

Objective To determine the independent predictors of day-night blood pressure changes in a large population of subjects with essential hypertension. Methods We studied 2042 white untreated subjects with essential hypertension (mean age 52 years, range 17-93, 1052 men) who underwent 24 h ambulatory blood pressure monitoring on an outpatient basis. Night-time workers were excluded from analysis. Results For both sexes, the changes in systolic and diastolic blood pressures from day to night decreased progressively with age and increased with the reported duration of sleep. The 1207 employed subjects who underwent ambulatory blood pressure monitoring during a usual working day had greater day-night blood pressure differences than did those who did not work (16.2 versus 14.0%). By using multiple regression analysis we assessed the independent association of several variables with the diurnal blood pressure changes. Age and diabetes for both sexes, and clinic blood pressure in men, were inversely associated with the nocturnal fall in blood pressure. The duration of sleep and the occurrence of blood pressure monitoring during a normal work day predicted a greater day-night blood pressure difference for both sexes; smoking predicted a greater nocturnal fall in blood pressure for women. Conclusions Age is associated with an important and progressive attenuation of the day-night blood pressure difference in untreated and unrestricted subjects with essential hypertension. Other factors influencing diurnal blood pressure variations include clinic blood pressure, diabetes, the reported duration of sleep, smoking habits and working activity during blood pressure monitoring. These factors should be treated as potential confounders in the analysis of the relationship between diurnal blood pressure changes and target organ damage or prognosis.
Mothers' employment in wealthy countries: how do cultural and institutional factors shape the motherhood employment and working hours gap?

Existing research shows that women’s employment patterns are not so much driven by gender, as by gendered parenthood, with childless women and men (including fathers) employed at substantially higher levels than mothers in most countries. We focus on the cross-national variation in the gap in employment participation and working time between mothers and women without children in the same household. This variation remains salient, even when we control for individual and household-level factors, such as human capital, partnered status, and household income. We provide evidence that institutional and cultural contexts shape their opportunities in important ways: more generous paid leaves, publicly supported childcare services for very young children, and cultural support for maternal employment predict lower differences in employment participation and working hours between mothers and childless women, while the length of job protected leave is associated with larger motherhood employment gaps.
Embracing A Culture Of Evidence: A Phenomenological Study Of Faculty Experience Within A Transitioning Assessment Culture

This phenomenological study sought to give voice to the lived experiences of faculty within a transitioning assessment culture at an institution of higher education accredited by the New England Association of Colleges and Schools (NEASC). Current literature concerning outcomes assessment (OA) in higher education is highly focused on the need for campuses to foster a robust and pervasive culture around assessment, often termed a culture of evidence. The study site provided a unique opportunity to examine this phenomenon as it was at the mid-point of a multi-year initiative focused on transforming institutional assessment culture. During the study, full-time faculty at the non-tenure, non-union institution who self-identified as being more engaged in OA than in the past, were recruited as study participants and asked to share their perspectives during hour long semi-structured interviews. Data resulting from the interviews were analyzed using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Analysis of findings revealed that participants shared a deep sense of investment in their roles as educators, linking their work with OA to the refinement of their professional practice and to efforts to ensure continuous improvement of academic programs and the institution as a whole. Participants cited collaborative opportunities with peers, leadership of the change initiative, and availability of resources, as critical to fostering their own growing sense of engagement with OA and the continuing assessment culture change initiative.
Driving Factors of Smart City Construction in China—An Exploratory Method by Grounded Theory and Empirical Research

Driving factors of smart city construction are exploratively studied by grounded theory method based on text sources from journal papers in SCI and CSSCI databases. Initial scale of driving factors about smart city construction is obtained on the basis of above analyses. This paper modifies measuring items of the initial scale with a small sample pretest and reliability test, then forms final items by exploratory factor analysis. According to the above scale, questionnaires are designed to obtain empirical data, and confirmatory factor analysis is used to verify further validity and reliability of the scale. The results show that driving factors of smart city construction include three main dimensions: problem-oriented factors, businessor technology-driven factors and endogenous development requirements.
Predicted thermal stresses in a bow-free electronic assembly for automotive and potential aerospace applications

In many today's and future electronic and optoelectronic packaging systems (assemblies), including those intended for aerospace, automotive and other vehicular applications, the package (core), the assembly's inner component containing embedded active and passive devices and interconnects, is placed (sandwiched) between two insulated metal substrates (outer components), which, in an approximate stress analysis, could be considered identical. Such assemblies, when subjected to the temperature change, are bow-free, provided, of course, that the induced stresses remain elastic during testing and actual operation. But “bow-free” does not mean “low-stress”: the stresses in bow-free assemblies could be appreciably higher than in assemblies whose bow is not restricted. The induced stresses are caused by the thermal contraction mismatch of the dissimilar materials of the assembly components, as well as of the bulk of the inner (encapsulating) component's material with the material of the embedded devices. The highest stresses occur at low temperature conditions, when the temperature change from the fabrication temperature is the largest, and include normal stresses acting in the cross-sections of the components and the embedded devices, and the interfacial shearing and peeling stresses. The stresses of the first category determine the short- and long-term reliability of the components' materials, while the interfacial stresses affect the adhesive and the cohesive strength, i.e., the integrity, of the assembly and the package (core). It is noteworthy that although the assembly as a whole is bow-free, the peeling stresses at the core/substrates and the device/core interfaces are not necessarily low: the substrates might exhibit appreciable warpage with respect to the core, and the layers of the core material (FR-4) above and below the device could bow with respect to the horizontal mid-plane of the assembly (core). The objective of the analysis is to obtain simple, easy-to-use, physically meaningful and practically useful closed form analytical solutions for the evaluation of stresses arising in, and at the interfaces of, the assembly components. Then the stresses in the embedded devices (this effort is beyond the scope of this analysis) could be easily determined as well. The developed models consider the role of the compliant attachments, if any, that act as strain buffers between the dissimilar materials. These attachments could be particularly comprised of silver sintered layers. The developed model can be used at the design and failure oriented accelerated testing (FOAT) stages of electronic and optoelectronic products of the type in question. The study is a continuation, modification and extension of the previous analyses of bow-free assemblies employed in electronic and optoelectronic engineering.
Flexible Minimum Variance weights estimation using principal component analysis

Minimum Variance (MV) beamforming has been studied for high resolution ultrasonic imaging. However, it is not easy for the MV beamformer to be implemented into a real time diagnostic system, because it requires too much computation time in calculating covariance matrix inversion. This paper introduces a flexible MV weight estimation that can dynamically reduce the matrix dimension using principal component transform. Principal components are estimated offline from pre-calculated conventional MV weights. It is assumed that all MV weights can be approximated by a linear combination of selected principal vectors. In this paper, flexible MV weight estimation is introduced by deriving a linearly approximated minimum variance criterion with a constraint using Lagrange multiplier. Our method does not directly calculate the MV weights but estimates the weights in the linear combination of the selected principal components. The combinational weights are a function of the inversion of a transformed covariance matrix whose dimension is identical to the number of the selected component vectors. Delay-and-sum (DAS), conventional MV, and flexible MV method were experimented on Field II simulation using point targets and cysts. Our method can reduce the dimension of the covariance matrix down to 2 × 2 while maintaining the good image quality of the minimum variance.
Selenium and selenoproteins in the brain and brain diseases

Over the past three decades, selenium has been intensively investigated as an antioxidant trace element. It is widely distributed throughout the body, but is particularly well maintained in the brain, even upon prolonged dietary selenium deficiency. Changes in selenium concentration in blood and brain have been reported in Alzheimer's disease and brain tumors. The functions of selenium are believed to be carried out by selenoproteins, in which selenium is specifically incorporated as the amino acid, selenocysteine. Several selenoproteins are expressed in brain, but many questions remain about their roles in neuronal function. Glutathione peroxidase has been localized in glial cells, and its expression is increased surrounding the damaged area in Parkinson's disease and occlusive cerebrovascular disease, consistent with its protective role against oxidative damage. Selenoprotein P has been reported to possess antioxidant activities and the ability to promote neuronal cell survival. Recent studies in cell culture and gene knockout models support a function for selenoprotein P in delivery of selenium to the brain. mRNAs for other selenoproteins, including selenoprotein W, thioredoxin reductases, 15‐kDa selenoprotein and type 2 iodothyronine deiodinase, are also detected in the brain. Future research directions will surely unravel the important functions of this class of proteins in the brain.
Cognitive Radio Rides on the Cloud

Cognitive Radio (CR) is capable of adaptive learning and reconfiguration, promising consistent communications performance for C4ISR1 systems even in dynamic and hostile battlefield environments. As such, the vision of Network-Centric Operations becomes feasible. However, enabling adaptation and learning in CRs may require both storing a vast volume of data and processing it fast. Because a CR usually has limited computing and storage capacity determined by its size and battery, it may not be able to achieve its full capability. The cloud2 can provide its computing and storage utility for CRs to overcome such challenges. On the other hand, the cloud can also store and process enormous amounts of data needed by C4ISR systems. However, today's wireless technologies have difficulty moving various types of data reliably and promptly in the battlefields. CR networks promise reliable and timely data communications for accessing the cloud. Overall, connecting CRs and the cloud overcomes the performance bottlenecks of each. This paper explores opportunities of this confluence and describes our prototype system.
Exploiting Serial Access and Asymmetric Read/Write of Domain Wall Memory for Area and Energy-Efficient Digital Signal Processor Design

In many digital signal processing (DSP) applications, static random access memory (SRAM) based embedded memory and flip-flop based shift registers consume a significant portion of area and power. These DSP units are dominated by sequential memory access where SRAM-based memory or flip-flop based shift registers are inefficient in terms of area and power. We propose spintronic domain wall memory (DWM) based embedded memories for DSP building blocks such as survivor-path memories and last-in first-out (LIFO) in Viterbi decoder, first-in-first-out (FIFO) register files in FFT processor and bitonic sorter, and input register of distributed arithmetic (DA) based FIR filter that exploit the unique serial access mechanism, non-volatility and small footprint of the memory for area and power saving. Simulations using 65 nm technology show that the DWM based design achieves significant area and power savings over the conventional SRAM and spin-transfer-torque RAM (STTRAM) based design approach. For 8 k-point FFT processor and Viterbi decoder, the DWM-based design shows 60.6% (8.4%) and 66.4% ( -1.7%) area and 60.3% (44.3%) and 60.0% (37.8%) power savings over the conventional SRAM (STTRAM) based design, respectively. For DA-based FIR filter, it achieves 15.7% area and 15.5% power savings over shift register based design.
Relativistic Third-Harmonic Generation of a Laser in a Self-Sustained Magnetized Plasma Channel

Relativistic third-harmonics of a laser in a magnetized plasma channel is studied. Due to relativistic self-focusing in plasma, a high-intensity laser pulse pushes the plasma electrons radially outward to create a plasma channel. The relativistic mass effect and the magnetic field contribute to the nonlinear dielectric response of plasma and create a plasma channel due to the laser self-focusing. Self-sustained plasma channel is very important and may affect the efficiency of harmonic generation of the interacting laser beam. The velocity and density perturbation associated with the self-focused laser beam can generate a nonlinear current at triple fold frequency of the fundamental laser. Our results show the significant effect of the self-sustained magnetized plasma channel on the efficiency of third-harmonic generation of the laser beam.
[Biomarkers of workers exposed to manganese].

目的 探讨锰接触工人个体实际接触剂量与生物指标之间的关系,以寻找合适的早期生物学监测指标. 方法 选择济南市某机车车辆厂电焊作业工人270名,收集其血液和尿液. 原子吸收光谱法测定血锰、尿锰和个体锰接触剂量;高效液相色谱荧光法测定尿中高香草酸(HVA)和香草扁桃酸(VMA);对各指标进行相关性分析. 结果 个体锰接触剂量(CTWA)为0. 005 5～1.957 7mg/m3,平均浓度为(0.25±0.31)mg/m3;接锰工人尿锰浓度为0.011 2～2.447 2μg/mg Cr,平均(0.22±0.31)μg/mg Cr;血锰浓度为0. 06～38.70 μg/ml,平均(3.94±6.66)μg/ml;尿HVA浓度为0. 102～4.780 μg/mg Cr,平均(1.01±0.78)μg/mg Cr;VMA浓度为0. 032～2.768 μg/mg Cr,平均(0.61±0.35)μg/mg Cr. 个体锰接触剂量与血锰、尿锰、尿中VMA之间均无相关性(P＞0.05);个体锰接触剂量与尿中HVA呈负相关,差异有统计学意义(r=-0.168,P＜0.01). 结论 血锰、尿锰、尿中VMA均不能作为评价锰接触的接触生物标志物;尿中HVA可以作为评价锰接触的效应生物标志物。
Markovian-Based Fault-Tolerant Control for Wheeled Mobile Manipulators

In this brief, we develop a methodology via Markovian control theory to evaluate fault- tolerant wheeled mobile manipulators. The transition rate uncertainties are allowed within an uncertainty domain. Since the velocity signals are generally not available and indirectly obtained from the measured positions, we are concerned with the output feedback H∞ control based on a high-gain observer for wheeled mobile manipulators. The objective is to design a mode-dependent dynamic output feedback controller for wheeled mobile manipulators which guarantees not only the robust stochastic stability but also a prescribed disturbance attenuation level for the resulting closed-loop system, irrespective of the transition rate uncertainties. A sufficient condition for the solvability of this problem is obtained and the expression of the desired controller is given in terms of a set of linear matrix inequalities.
Analyzing Concerns on Companies through Statistics of Search Engine Suggests and its Correlation to Market Share

This paper proposes to utilize a search engine as a social sensor which is to be used for predicting market shares. More specifically, this paper studies a task of comparing rates of concerns of those who search for Web pages among several companies which supply products, given a specific products domain. In this paper, we measure concerns of those who search for Web pages through search engine suggests. Then, we analyze whether rates of concerns of those who search for Web pages have certain correlation with actual market share. Furthermore, as an intermediate statistics between the rates of concerns of those who search for Web pages and market share, we also examine correlations between the page view statistics at the kakaku.com site and the other two statistics. The results of the analysis show that those three statistics have certain correlations among each other.
Distributed Protocol for Removal of Loop Backs with Asymmetric Digraph Using GMPLS in P-Cycle Based Optical Networks

Pre-configured protection cycles (p-cycles) have drawn many attentions due to the fully pre-connected cyclic structures, ring-like speed, mesh-like spare capacity efficiencies and fast switching characteristics. In this paper, we propose a novel removal of loop back (RLB) approach with standard protocol extension (the flooding based distributed cycle pre-configuration (F-DCPC)) to solve the resource inefficiency issue due to long restored paths for symmetric dynamic networks. Meanwhile, distributed cycle pre-configuration (DCPC) is a representative technique for automatic p-cycle configuration. But for the mesh network topology under asymmetric service distribution, it works especially with more network convergence time and larger amount of extra controlling overhead. So in our RLB approach, F-DCPC scheme using generalized multi-protocol label switching (GMPLS) protocol to solve the problems of configurations and reconfigurations with asymmetric digraph in high-speed optical mesh networks is presented. Additionally, to describe the basic idea of traffic splitting strategy in the unidirectional resource distribution, we present the mathematic model with a heuristic algorithm to accelerate resource configuration. We evaluate the performance of F-DCPC utilizing proposed RLB approach with various classical p-cycles enumeration algorithms and allocation strategies by experimental simulations implemented in OPNET modeler, and the simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.
Contain-ed: An NFV Micro-Service System for Containing e2e Latency

Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) has enabled operators to dynamically place and allocate resources for network services to match workload requirements. However, unbounded end-to-end (e2e) latency of Service Function Chains (SFCs) resulting from distributed Virtualized Network Function (VNF) deployments can severely degrade performance. In particular, SFC instantiations with inter-data center links can incur high e2e latencies and Service Level Agreement (SLA) violations. These latencies can trigger timeouts and protocol errors with latency-sensitive operations. Traditional solutions to reduce e2e latency involve physical deployment of service elements in close proximity. These solutions are, however, no longer viable in the NFV era. In this paper, we present our solution that bounds the e2e latency in SFCs and inter-VNF control message exchanges by creating micro-service aggregates based on the affinity between VNFs. Our system, Contain-ed, dynamically creates and manages affinity aggregates using light-weight virtualization technologies like containers, allowing them to be placed in close proximity and hence bounding the e2e latency. We have applied Contain-ed to the Clearwater IP Multimedia Subsystem and built a proof-of-concept. Our results demonstrate that, by utilizing application and protocol specific knowledge, affinity aggregates can effectively bound SFC delays and significantly reduce protocol errors and service disruptions.
Energy estimation and comparison for a dynamic trajectory planning mobile robot intercepting a moving target using Bezier curve

This paper presents a comparison between the power consumption estimate for a dynamic trajectory planning nonholonomic mobile robot intercepting a moving target with and without velocity and continuity constraints. The path is formulated using cubic Bezier curves. As the trajectory is modified with the moving target, the effect on the velocity profile and its impact on the power consumption are studied. Energy estimation is based on kinetic energy transformation and traction resistance. Simulation results are discussed and possible extensions for minimizing the consumption with a trade-off comparison are presented.
CD14 Employs Hydrophilic Regions to “Capture” Lipopolysaccharides

CD14 participates in the host innate inflammatory response to bacterial LPS obtained from Escherichia coli and other Gram-negative bacteria. Evidence from several laboratories suggests that different regions of the amino-terminal portion of the molecule may be involved in LPS binding. In this report a series of single-residue serine replacement and charge reversal mutations were generated to further elucidate the mechanism by which this protein may bind a multitude of different LPS ligands. Single-residue CD14 mutation proteins were examined for their ability to bind LPS obtained from E. coli, Porphyromonas gingivalis, and Helicobacter pylori and facilitate the activation of E-selectin from human endothelial cells. In addition, the single-residue CD14 mutation proteins were employed to perform monoclonal epitope-mapping studies with three LPS-blocking Abs that bound tertiary epitopes. Evidence that several different hydrophilic regions of the amino-terminal region of CD14 are involved in LPS binding was obtained. Epitope-mapping studies revealed that these hydrophilic regions are located on one side of the protein surface. These studies suggest that CD14 employs a charged surface in a manor similar to the macrophage scavenger receptor to “capture” LPS ligands and “present” them to other components of the innate host defense system.