Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cardiovascular function in multi-ethnic study of atherosclerosis: normal values by age, sex, and ethnicity.

OBJECTIVE MRI provides accurate and high-resolution measurements of cardiac anatomy and function. The purpose of this study was to describe the imaging protocol and normal values of left ventricular (LV) function and mass in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA). SUBJECTS AND METHODS Eight hundred participants (400 men, 400 women) in four age strata (45-54, 55-64, 65-74, 75-84 years) were chosen at random. Participants with the following known cardiovascular risk factors were excluded: current smoker, systolic blood pressure > 140 mm Hg, diastolic blood pressure > 90 mm Hg, fasting glucose > 110 mg/dL, total cholesterol > 240 mg/dL, and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol < 40 mg/dL. Cardiac MR images were analyzed using MASS software (version 4.2). Mean values, SDs, and correlation coefficients in relationship to patient age were calculated. RESULTS There were significant differences in LV volumes and mass between men and women. LV volumes were inversely associated with age (p < 0.05) for both sexes except for the LV end-systolic volume index. For men, LV mass was inversely associated with age (slope = -0.72 g/year, p = 0.0021), but LV mass index was not associated with age (slope = -0.179 g/m2/year, p = 0.075). For women, LV mass (slope = -0.15 g/year, p = 0.30) and LV mass index (slope = 0.0044 g/m2/year, p = 0.95) were not associated with age. LV mass was the largest in the African-American group (men, 181.6 +/- 35.8 [SD] g; women, 128.8 +/- 28.1 g) and was smallest in the Asian-American group (men, 129.1 +/- 20.0 g; women, 89.4 +/- 13.3 g). CONCLUSION The normal LV differs in volume and mass between sexes and among certain ethnic groups. When indexed by body surface area, LV mass was independent of age for both sexes. Studies that assess cardiovascular risk factors in relationship to cardiac function and structure need to account for these normal variations in the population.
Examining Food Store Scanner Data: A Comparison of the IRI InfoScan Data With Other Data Sets, 2008–2012

USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) has purchased proprietary retail scanner data (InfoScan) since 2008 to examine food policy questions. To determine how representative the data are, this report compares the number of stores and sales revenue reported in the InfoScan data with the same information from other datasets. The InfoScan data purchased by ERS are limited to a subset of stores that agree to release their data and cover only food sales, while many of the other sources cover total sales. In addition, InfoScan includes only grocery stores having annual sales greater or equal to $2 million, while some of the other sources are not so limited. The subset of InfoScan stores in the ERS dataset results in a lower store count relative to other datasets, and coverage varies geographically. However, the sales reported in the ERS subset of InfoScan better align with sales reported in other datasets than do estimates of store counts, since InfoScan encompasses larger retail stores. The report discusses implications for using InfoScan for food economics research.
Social Capital in Mangrove Utilization for Silvofishery: Case Study in Kutai National Park, Indonesia

Social capital has an important role in mangrove management on conservation areas. Utilization of mangrove forest with silvofishery system can be an alternative developed for the community around the conservation areas. The purpose of this research is to know the strength of social capital in supporting the utilization of mangrove for silvofishery. This research adopted Social Capital Assessment Tool method and data analysis with Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modeling. The results of the study found that there were several elements of social capital in five study villages that have not supported silvofishery in Kutai National Park (KNP), East Kalimantan, Indonesia. The overall analysis of the respondents showed that there were five elements of social capital have significant effect on silvofishery. The other two elements were insignificant and should be of particular concern to be improved, i.e. social networks and social norms. Indicators to be aware of were the increased knowledge of communities on park-related regulations, increased involvement of individuals in the community, and the strengthening of public figures who can be role models for the community. Mangrove forest of KNP should be kept as conservation area, but it should still pay attention to the socio-economic conditions of the surrounding community. The strength of social capital is expected to realize conservation-based economic development.
Antigen-specific versus Antigen-nonspecific Immunotherapeutic Approaches for Human Melanoma: The Need for Integration for Optimal Efficacy?

Due to its immunogenecity and evidence of immune responses resulting in tumor regression, metastatic melanoma has been the target for numerous immunotherapeutic approaches. Unfortunately, based on the clinical outcomes, even the successful induction of tumor-specific responses does not correlate with efficacy. Immunotherapies can be divided into antigen-specific approaches, which seek to induce T cells specific to one or several known tumor associated antigens (TAA), or with antigen-nonspecific approaches, which generally activate T cells to become nonspecifically lytic effectors. Here the authors critically review the different immunotherapeutic approaches in melanoma.
Relationship between Information Communication Technology Adoption in Microfinance Institutions and Access to Financial Services

Access to financial services is limited to the large population worldwide. This study mainly intended to examine a relationship between ICT adoption in microfinance institutions and access to financial services, particularly availability, convenience and affordability in Tanzania. A cross-section study design was conducted in two regions on 11 selected microfinance institutions. An exploratory factor analysis was employed to reduce variables to a manageable size, while retaining original information. The study used structural equation modelling with the help of Analysis of Moment Structures version 21. SEM was used to determine multiple relationships between ICT adoption and access to financial service variables simultaneously. The analysis included 303 customers from 77 microfinance institutions from Kilimanjaro and Dar es Salaam regions. Five factors were grouped from 29 variables. Only one path leading from ICT adoption to availability of financial services was found statistically significant. This implies ICT plays a key role in financial service delivery to clients via electronic delivery channels. Hence, services become available to everybody regardless of location and time.
A Q 2 P : Discovering Query Templates via Autocompletion

We present Q2P, a system that discovers query templates from search engines via their query autocompletion services. Q2P is distinct from the existing works in that it does not rely on query logs of search engines that are typically not readily available. Q2P is also unique in that it uses a trie to economically store queries sampled from a search engine and employs a beam-search strategy that focuses the expansion of the trie on its most promising nodes. Furthermore, Q2P leverages the trie-based storage of query sample to discover query templates using only two passes over the trie. Q2P is a key part of our ongoing project Deep2Q on a template-driven data integration on the Deep Web, where the templates learned by Q2P are used to guide the integration process in Deep2Q. Experimental results on four major search engines indicate that (1) Q2P sends only a moderate number of queries (ranging from 597 to 1135) to the engines, while obtaining a significant number of completions per query (ranging from 4.2 to 8.5 on the average); (2) a significant number of templates (ranging from 8 to 32 when the minimum support for frequent templates is set to 1%) may be discovered from the samples.
A Dynamic Synchrophasor Estimation Algorithm for Online Application

A new algorithm for synchrophasor estimation is proposed to improve estimation accuracy under dynamic conditions. The real component of a constantly rotating vector and a low-frequency band-limited vector, which is linearized by Taylor series, is employed to model supplied signals in power systems. And dynamic characteristics of power systems are described in form of Taylor series' derivatives, which are calculated through consecutive phasors. The accuracy of phasor estimation was dramatically improved by the reassignment of estimation of short-time Fourier transform (STFT) with knowledge of these derivatives. Simulation results allow us to make the conclusion that the proposed algorithm improves the accuracy of phasor estimations under dynamic conditions dramatically, such as frequency ramping, low frequency oscillation, etc., at the cost of the calculation burden is a minimal increase whilst still meeting the requirements of the application for power systems.
Effect of apparel brands’ sustainability efforts on consumers’ brand loyalty

ABSTRACT The goal of this research was to test to what extent sustainability efforts (vs. lack of sustainability efforts) moderate the relationships among consumers’ brand attractiveness, customer-brand (C-B) identification, brand attitude, and brand loyalty. In addition, we examined the impact of apparel brands’ sustainability efforts on consumers’ brand loyalty with three different brand types. A 3 × 2 between subjects experiment with three levels of apparel brand (luxury, fast fashion, moderate) and two levels of sustainability efforts (present, absent) was conducted. A sample of 1297 adults was used to test the model. In the proposed model, consumers’ perception of an apparel brand’s sustainability efforts played an important role in the positive effect of C-B identification on brand loyalty. Apparel brand type did not moderate the relationships between sustainability efforts and brand loyalty. Significant findings could inform apparel brands’ decision making in the development of effective and profitable sustainable strategies.
The effect of exercise-induced muscle damage on isometric and dynamic knee extensor strength and vertical jump performance

In this study, we assessed the effect of exercise-induced muscle damage on knee extensor muscle strength during isometric, concentric and eccentric actions at 1.57 rad · s -1 and vertical jump performance under conditions of squat jump, countermovement jump and drop jump. The eight participants (5 males, 3 females) were aged 29.5 - 7.1 years (mean - s ). These variables, together with plasma creatine kinase (CK), were measured before, 1 h after and 1, 2, 3, 4 and 7 days after a bout of muscle damaging exercise: 100 barbell squats (10 sets 2 10 repetitions at 70% body mass load). Strength was reduced for 4 days ( P ≪ 0.05) but no significant differences ( P > 0.05) were apparent in the magnitude or rate of recovery of strength between isometric, concentric and eccentric muscle actions. The overall decline in vertical jump performance was dependent on jump method: squat jump performance was affected to a greater extent than countermovement (91.6 - 1.1% vs 95.2 - 1.3% of pre-exercise values, P ≪ 0.05) and drop jump (95.2 - 1.4%, P ≪ 0.05) performance. Creatine kinase was elevated ( P ≪ 0.05) above baseline 1 h after exercise, peaked on day 1 and remained significantly elevated on days 2 and 3. Strength loss after exercise-induced muscle damage was independent of the muscle action being performed. However, the impairment of muscle function was attenuated when the stretch-shortening cycle was used in vertical jumping performance.
The NAF domain defines a novel protein–protein interaction module conserved in Ca2+‐regulated kinases

The Arabidopsis calcineurin B‐like calcium sensor proteins (AtCBLs) interact with a group of serine‐threonine protein kinases (AtCIPKs) in a calcium‐dependent manner. Here we identify a 24 amino acid domain (NAF domain) unique to these kinases as being required and sufficient for interaction with all known AtCBLs. Mutation of conserved residues either abolished or significantly diminished the affinity of AtCIPK1 for AtCBL2. Comprehensive two‐hybrid screens with various AtCBLs identified 15 CIPKs as potential targets of CBL proteins. Database analyses revealed additional kinases from Arabidopsis and other plant species harbouring the NAF interaction module. Several of these kinases have been implicated in various signalling pathways mediating responses to stress, hormones and environmental cues. Full‐length CIPKs show preferential interaction with distinct CBLs in yeast and in vitro assays. Our findings suggest differential interaction affinity as one of the mechanisms generating the temporal and spatial specificity of calcium signals within plant cells and that different combinations of CBL–CIPK proteins contribute to the complex network that connects various extracellular signals to defined cellular responses.
Varieties of developmental dyslexia in Greek children

The current study aimed to investigate in a group of nine Greek children with dyslexia (mean age 9.9 years) whether the surface and phonological dyslexia subtypes could be identified. A simple regression was conducted using printed word naming latencies and nonword reading accuracy for 33 typically developing readers. Ninety per cent confidence intervals were established and dyslexic children with datapoints lying outside the confidence intervals were identified. Using this regression-based method three children with the characteristic of phonological dyslexia (poor nonword reading), two with surface dyslexia (slow word naming latencies) and four with a mixed profile (poor nonword reading accuracy and slow word naming latencies) were identified. The children were also assessed in spelling to dictation, phonological ability, rapid naming, visual memory and multi-character processing (letter report). Results revealed that the phonological dyslexia subtype children had difficulties in tasks of phonological ability, and the surface subtype children had difficulties in tasks of multi-character simultaneous processing ability. Dyslexic children with a mixed profile showed deficits in both phonological abilities and multi-character processing. In addition, one child with a mixed profile showed a rapid naming deficit and another showed a difficulty in visual memory for abstract designs. Overall the results confirm that the surface and phonological subtypes of developmental dyslexia can be found in Greek-speaking children. They also indicate that different subtypes are associated with different underlying disorders.
DISCOVERY OF VERY HIGH ENERGY GAMMA RAYS FROM PKS 1424+240 AND MULTIWAVELENGTH CONSTRAINTS ON ITS REDSHIFT

We report the first detection of very-high-energy (VHE) gamma-ray emission above 140 GeV from PKS 1424+240, a BL Lac object with an unknown redshift. The photon spectrum above 140 GeV measured by VERITAS is well described by a power law with a photon index of 3.8 +- 0. 5_stat +- 0. 3_syst and a flux normalization at 200 GeV of (5.1 +- 0.9_stat +- 0.5_syst) x 10^{-11} TeV^-1 cm^-2 s^-1, where stat and syst denote the statistical and systematical uncertainty, respectively. The VHE flux is steady over the observation period between MJD 54881 and 55003 (2009 February 19 to June 21). Flux variability is also not observed in contemporaneous high energy observations with the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT). Contemporaneous X-ray and optical data were also obtained from the Swift XRT and MDM observatory, respectively. The broadband spectral energy distribution (SED) is well described by a one-zone synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) model favoring a redshift of less than 0.1. Using the photon index measured with Fermi in combination with recent extragalactic background light (EBL) absorption models it can be concluded from the VERITAS data that the redshift of PKS 1424+240 is less than 0.66.
The Haemophilus ducreyi cytolethal distending toxin induces DNA double‐strand breaks and promotes ATM‐dependent activation of RhoA

Among bacterial protein toxins, the cytolethal distending toxins (CDTs) are unique in their ability to activate the DNA damage checkpoint responses, causing cell cycle arrest or apoptosis in intoxicated cells. We provide direct evidence that natural intoxication of cells with the Haemophilus ducreyi CDT (HdCDT) holotoxin induces DNA double‐strand breaks similarly to ionizing radiation. Upon DNA damage, epithelial cells and fibroblasts promote the formation of actin stress fibres via activation of the small GTPase RhoA. This phenomenon is not toxin specific, but is part of the ATM‐induced cellular responses to genotoxic stresses, including ionizing radiation. Activation of RhoA is associated with prolonged cell survival, as HdCDT‐treated epithelial cells expressing a dominant‐negative form of RhoA detach and consequently die faster than cells expressing a functional RhoA. Our data highlight several novel aspects of CDT biology: (i) we show that a member of the CDT family causes DNA double‐strand breaks in naturally intoxicated cells, acting as a true genotoxic agent; and (ii) we disclose the existence of a novel signalling pathway for intracellularly triggered activation of the RhoA GTPase via the ATM kinase in response to DNA damage, possibly required to prolong cell survival.
Fast and Accurate Refinement Method for 3D Reconstruction from Stereo Spherical Images

Realistic 3D models of the environment are beneficial in many fields, from natural or man-made structure inspection and volumetric analysis, to movie-making, in particular, special effects integration to natural scenes. Spherical cameras are becoming popular in environment modelling because they capture the full surrounding scene visible from the camera location as a consistent seamless image at once. In this paper, we propose a novel pipeline to obtain fast and accurate 3D reconstructions from spherical images. In order to have a better estimation of the structure, the system integrates a joint camera pose and structure refinement step. This strategy proves to be much faster, yet equally accurate, when compared to the conventional method, registration of a dense point cloud via iterative closest point (ICP). Both methods require an initial estimate for successful convergence. The initial positions of the 3D points are obtained from stereo processing of pair of spherical images with known baseline. The initial positions of the cameras are obtained from a robust widebaseline matching procedure. The performance and accuracy of the 3D reconstruction pipeline is analysed through extensive tests on several indoor and outdoor datasets.
Benefits of variation of large scale fading across large antenna arrays

Massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) antenna arrays are being studied for 5G due to their ability to focus energy towards desired receiver, reducing interference to other users, giving rise to higher spectral and energy efficiencies. Conventional analysis assumes that the large scale fading component of the channel model is constant across the entire Massive MIMO antenna array. However, when the number of Massive MIMO antennas is divided among remote antenna sites, each site experiences independent small and large scale fading. Massive MIMO channel measurements show that large scale fading is not constant but varies across a large antenna array. In this paper, a closed-form expression for the downlink received signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) is derived to evaluate cell spectral efficiency, assuming that large scale fading varies across a large antenna array. Higher cell spectral efficiency results for a downlink multi-user MIMO system is obtained for the new channel model compared with the conventional channel model.
Kernel-based metric for performance evaluation of video infrared target tracking

A kernel-based metric measuring tracking reliability that is based on discriminative components of a kernel target model and kernel mutual information is presented. The discriminative components of the kernel target model are selected by computing the log-likelihood ratios of class-conditional sample densities of these components from a target region and background sampled region. The components selection process is embedded in a metric with kernel mutual information of the target regions of the initial frame and current frame in video infrared target tracking for online evaluation of the tracking reliability. Experimental results have shown that the metric can effectively characterize target tracking results as good or bad.
Resonant Response of Deep Convection to Surface Hot Spots

Abstract Observations show substantial variations of the intensity of tropical and/or summertime deep convection on land that are not explained by standard measures of convective instability. One feature that distinguishes land surfaces is their heterogeneity. The possible importance of this is investigated here by calculating the response of a nonrotating atmosphere to localized, transient surface heating using both the linearized equations of motion and a cloud-resolving configuration of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) numerical model with moist physics, each in 2D. Both models predict that the depth of the resulting surface heat low near storm center will be greatest for a particular horizontal scale of heating. The linear model reveals that this is a resonant scale determined by the product of the environmental buoyancy frequency, characteristic heating time scale, and thickness of the thermal boundary layer, and the resonance occurs when the aspect ratio of the applied heating matches the .
Green business and environmental issues: family versus non-family business

The aim of the study was to understand whether family businesses and non-family business differ from one another regarding green business and environmental issues. Green business issues are of global importance for the continued existence of business within the world. Businesses do not exist in isolation but within the context of the environment within which they function. Business has an impact on the environment and the environment has an impact on business. Furthermore, family businesses constitute a large part of the world economy and estimates range from 60-90% of GDP contributed by family businesses. In the South African context family businesses also form a significant part of the business environment. A literature study was conducted. The study identified five factors and considered each of these factors in the study. The five factors are: • Green Business; • Values; • Stewardship; • Succession; and • Stakeholders. In addition to a literature, primary research was conducted and data were collected by means of a questionnaire that collected data on the factors identified as well as some biographical information, including race, age and the sectors in which the respondents operated. The study’s findings correspond with the literature study, although no clear difference was found between family business and non-family business relating to green business and environmental issues. Family businesses do however believe that they are stewards of the environment and need to care for the environment. ii