Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Correlation between safety climate and contractor safety assessment programs in construction.

BACKGROUND Contractor safety assessment programs (CSAPs) measure safety performance by integrating multiple data sources together; however, the relationship between these measures of safety performance and safety climate within the construction industry is unknown. METHODS Four hundred and one construction workers employed by 68 companies on 26 sites and 11 safety managers employed by 11 companies completed brief surveys containing a nine-item safety climate scale developed for the construction industry. CSAP scores from ConstructSecure, Inc., an online CSAP database, classified these 68 companies as high or low scorers, with the median score of the sample population as the threshold. Spearman rank correlations evaluated the association between the CSAP score and the safety climate score at the individual level, as well as with various grouping methodologies. In addition, Spearman correlations evaluated the comparison between manager-assessed safety climate and worker-assessed safety climate. RESULTS There were no statistically significant differences between safety climate scores reported by workers in the high and low CSAP groups. There were, at best, weak correlations between workers' safety climate scores and the company CSAP scores, with marginal statistical significance with two groupings of the data. There were also no significant differences between the manager-assessed safety climate and the worker-assessed safety climate scores. CONCLUSIONS A CSAP safety performance score does not appear to capture safety climate, as measured in this study. The nature of safety climate in construction is complex, which may be reflective of the challenges in measuring safety climate within this industry. Am. J. Ind. Med. 56:1463-1472, 2013. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Low-frequency characterization of PWM converters

Low-frequency components of states or outputs in PWM dc and ac converters can be characterized by differential equations called describing equations. These equations are derived by inspection of converter topology and use of switching functions and duty ratios. Their steady-state and small-signal dynamic solution shows how energy-storage elements in a converter/load system shape the frequency response of conversion functions established by the switches.
Behavioural laterality as a factor in emotional regulation

Individuals who perform a variety of tasks using one side of their bodies (i.e., high-dominance people) are thought to differ from individuals who perform a variety of tasks with both sides of their body (i.e., low-dominance people) in several neurological and cognitive characteristics. We examined whether behavioural laterality predicted the efficacy of different emotional regulation strategies. Specifically, we thought that behavioural laterality would influence verbal strategies (associated with left hemisphere activation) when regulating anxiety (associated with right hemisphere activation). In three studies participants presented in front of small audiences. Behavioural laterality (as measured by a modified handedness inventory) positively correlated with presentation anxiety, such that “low-dominance” participants reported less anxiety than “high-dominance” participants, but only when using cognitive reappraisal (a verbal strategy), not attention deployment or response modulation (behavioural strategies). These results provide preliminary evidence that individual differences in behavioural laterality mediate the efficacy of certain emotional regulation strategies.
Chips, Architectures and Algorithms: Reflections on the Exponential Growth of Digital Signal Processing Capability

The celebrated 1965 prediction by Gordon Moore regarding exponential improvements in integrated circuit density is so widely known, and has proven so accurate, that it has been elevated to the status of a “law”. Some pundits have even touted the unprecedented growth in IC performance as a major contributor to the sustained economic boom of the late twentieth century. Less well known and appreciated is the fact that many areas of computation have benefited equally from progress in algorithms. In this paper we compare and contrast the contributions to progress in signal processing capability of “hardware” (integrated circuits and computer architectures) and “software” (functionality and algorithms). While acknowledging the enormous impact that Moore’s Law growth in hardware performance has had on signal processing applications, we make the case that algorithm improvements, in the form of improved functionality and implementation, have contributed significantly to past progress as well. We discuss important differences in the ways that progress in the hardware and software realms contribute to signal processing capability, and describe how signal processing application developers tend to draw successively on each different domain of improvement as their product designs evolve over time. Finally, we argue that sustaining exponential growth in signal processing applications in the future depends more than ever on sustaining innovation in software and algorithm development.
Introduction to Network Analysis in Systems Biology

Lecture notes, slides, and problem sets introduce applications of graph theory and network analysis in systems biology. This Teaching Resource provides lecture notes, slides, and a problem set for a set of three lectures from a course entitled “Systems Biology: Biomedical Modeling. ” The materials are from three separate lectures introducing applications of graph theory and network analysis in systems biology. The first lecture describes different types of intracellular networks, methods for constructing biological networks, and different types of graphs used to represent regulatory intracellular networks. The second lecture surveys milestones and key concepts in network analysis by introducing topological measures, random networks, growing network models, and topological observations from molecular biological systems abstracted to networks. The third lecture discusses methods for analyzing lists of genes and experimental data in the context of prior knowledge networks to make predictions.
Age and Fentanyl Pharmacokinetics

Fentanyl pharmacokinetics was compared in two groups of adult patients, one group (n = 5) aged <50 years, and one group (n = 4) aged > 60 years. Despite equivalent doses of fentanyl (10 μ/kg IV), serum drug concentrations were significantly higher in the older patient group. This was reflected by a prolonged terminal elimination half-life in the elderly compared with the younger patients (945 versus 265 minutes, respectively, p < 0.005). Volumes of the central compartment and volumes of drug distribution were similar in both patient groups. However, drug clearance was markedly decreased in the elderly (265 versus 991 ml/min, p < 0.005). These data suggest that a given dose of fentanyl will be clinically effective for a longer period in older patients than in younger patients.
Automatic removal of the eye blink artifact from EEG using an ICA-based template matching approach

Independent component analysis (ICA) proves to be effective in the removing the ocular artifact from electroencephalogram recordings (EEG). While using ICA in ocular artifact correction, a crucial step is to correctly identify the artifact components among the decomposed independent components. In most previous works, this step of selecting the artifact components was manually implemented, which is time consuming and inconvenient when dealing with a large amount of EEG data. We present a new method which automatically selects the eye blink artifact components based on the pattern of their scalp topographies, which can be exemplified as a template matching approach. The feasibility of using a fixed template for singling out the eye blink component after ICA decomposition was validated by an experiment in which 18 subjects among the 21 subjects involved exhibited a highly consistent pattern of eye blink scalp topographies. Since only the spatial feature is employed for singling out the eye blink component, the proposed method is very efficient and easy to implement. Objective evaluation of the real results shows that the proposed algorithm can remove the eye blink artifact from the EEG while causing little distortion to the underlying brain activities.
Optimal Sparse Linear Auto-Encoders and Sparse PCA

Principal components analysis (PCA) is the optimal linear auto-encoder of data, and it is often used to construct features. Enforcing sparsity on the principal components can promote better generalization, while improving the interpretability of the features. We study the problem of constructing optimal sparse linear auto-encoders. Two natural questions in such a setting are: i) Given a level of sparsity, what is the best approximation to PCA that can be achieved? ii) Are there low-order polynomial-time algorithms which can asymptotically achieve this optimal tradeoff between the sparsity and the approximation quality? In this work, we answer both questions by giving efficient low-order polynomial-time algorithms for constructing asymptotically \emph{optimal} linear auto-encoders (in particular, sparse features with near-PCA reconstruction error) and demonstrate the performance of our algorithms on real data.
The Impact of Cyber Conflict on International Interactions

Analysts suggest that the rise of the cyber domain of combat has led to a revolution in military affairs and have greatly changed how society interacts with the Internet. The structure and content of interactions on the battlefield have supposedly changed in light of this development. In the rush to note the changing face of conflict, few scholars have actually examined the impact of cyber conflict on foreign policy relationships. Here we use weekly events data to examine exactly what happens between countries when cyber conflict is utilized as a foreign policy choice. Using a previously constructed data set of cyber actions, we measure conflict and cooperation after a cyber operation to understand the true impact of this new way to arm a state and society. We find that only one method of cyber malice, denial of service, and one tactical goal, seeking a change in behavior in the opposing side, impacts conflict–cooperation dynamics between states.
Clinical characteristics and treatment outcome of infants with non‐Hodgkin lymphoma

Non‐Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) is rarely observed during infancy and data on its incidence, characteristics and outcome are scarce. The present study aimed to assess the prevalence, clinical presentation and treatment results of all infants who were diagnosed with NHL between October 1986 and December 2002 among 2084 patients treated according to the NHL‐BFM (Berlin‐Frankfurt‐Münster) multicentre trials 86, 90 and 95. We identified 20 (1%) infants with NHL including five with T‐cell lymphoblastic lymphoma (T‐cell LBL), seven with precursor B‐cell LBL (pB‐cell LBL), two with a mature Burkitt neoplasm, five with anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL) and one with peripheral T‐cell lymphoma (PTCL). The PTCL patient, 3/7 pB‐cell LBL and 1/5 ALCL patients relapsed. One patient each from the T‐cell LBL and Burkitt lymphoma groups suffered from a second malignancy and one patient each with ALCL and Burkitt leukaemia died from treatment‐related toxicity. The 5‐year event‐free survival rate was 53 ± 12% for the 20 cases. This study has provided preliminary evidence that infants with NHL have a dismal prognosis and showed that infant NHL differed to lymphomas in older patients with respect to the distribution of gender, histopathologic subtypes as well as the ratio of T‐ to pB‐cell LBL and the frequency of relapses of pB‐cell LBL.
Regulation of expression of sulfoglucuronyl carbohydrate (HNK‐1), Amphoterin and RAGE in retinoic acid‐differentiated P19 embryonal carcinoma cells

HNK‐1 antibody reactive sulfoglucuronyl carbohydrate (SGC) and SSEA‐1 antibody reactive Lewis X (Lex) epitope are expressed on several glycolipids, glycoproteins, and proteoglycans of the nervous system and have been implicated in cell–cell recognition, neurite outgrowth, and/or neuronal migration during development. Interaction of SGC with its binding protein Amphoterin and interaction of Amphoterin with a cell‐signaling molecule, receptor for advance glycation end product (RAGE) have been suggested to regulate neurite outgrowth and neuronal migration. The regulation of expression of SGC, Lex, Amphoterin, and RAGE was studied in embryonal carcinoma P19 cells after treatment with retinoic acid (RA). The untreated proliferating P19 cells strongly expressed the Lex epitope, which was mostly due to Lex‐glycoproteins. P19 cells, when differentiated into neuron‐like cells by RA, did not express the Lex epitope, but expressed increasing levels of SGC, with time in culture. Quantitative biochemical analyses showed that in the P19 cells after RA treatment, the amount of SGC‐glycoproteins increased at a significantly higher level than sulfoglucuronyl glycolipid‐1 (SGGL‐1). The increase in the levels of SGGL‐1 was due to 16‐fold upregulation in the activity of lactosylceramide: N‐acetylglucosaminyl‐transferase (Lc3 synthase), which synthesizes the key intermediate lactotriosylceramide (Lc3Cer), for lacto‐ and neolacto‐glycolipids. The large increase in the activity of Lc3 synthase appeared to regulate the levels of other neolacto glycolipids, such as Lc3Cer, nLc4Cer, nLc6Cer, disialosyl‐nLc4Cer (LD1), and Lex‐glycolipids. Strong upregulation of glucuronyl‐transferase and modest twofold enhancement in the activity of the glucuronyl‐sulfotransferase, which catalyze the final steps in the SGC synthesis, also would account for the large increase in the synthesis SGC‐glycoproteins. RA also upregulated the synthesis of Amphoterin and RAGE in P19 cells. SGC, RAGE, and Amphoterin were co‐localized in the RA‐differentiated neurons. The initiation of neurite outgrowth along with co‐ordinated upregulation of Amphoterin, RAGE, SGC‐glycoproteins, and SGGLs in RA‐treated P19 cells support the hypothesis that these molecules are involved in the neuronal process formation.
Gossiping in distributed systems

Gossip-based algorithms were first introduced for reliably disseminating data in large-scale distributed systems. However, their simplicity, robustness, and flexibility make them attractive for more than just pure data dissemination alone. In particular, gossiping has been applied to data aggregation, overlay maintenance, and resource allocation. Gossiping applications more or less fit the same framework, with often subtle differences in algorithmic details determining divergent emergent behavior. This divergence is often difficult to understand, as formal models have yet to be developed that can capture the full design space of gossiping solutions. In this paper, we present a brief introduction to the field of gossiping in distributed systems, by providing a simple framework and using that framework to describe solutions for various application domains.
Analysis and Design of Compact Bandpass Filter using SIW and CSRR

Recently, substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) based devices have attracted the attention of many researches due to low loss, low cost, lightweight, small size. The Substrate Integrated waveguide technology takes the advantages of both waveguides and planar transmission lines. The substrate integrated waveguides are fabricated in planar form using a standard printed circuit board or other planar processing techniques. In this paper SIW is analyzed using commercially available low cost FR4 material with thickness h=0.8mm to operate at 8GHz. The simulation results show that there is a good agreement between the response of SIW and conventional metallic waveguide. This paper also gives the analysis of bandpass filter using SIW and complimentary split ring resonators to operate at 6GHz. The simulated results show bandpass around 6GHz with very low insertion loss. Keywords— Substrate Integrated Waveguide (SIW), Microstrip Transition, Reflection Parameter, Rectangular waveguide, microwave components, via.
Image segmentation of MRI based on improved anttree clustering algorithm

In this paper, an improved method is proposed based on AntTree clustering algorithm to deal with MRI image. This algorithm uses a new tree-structure model to accelerate the calculation and combines greedy algorithm to update the cluster centre. Compared with K-means and FCM algorithms, the results in the experiment show that the improved AntTree clustering algorithm is a better method in image segmentation of MRI and it also significantly improves the clustering process.
Skeleton texture mapping

In the article an idea for a novel way of mapping of textures onto a surface of 3D model is introduced. Our technique is based on two interlocking mappings. The first one maps surface vertices onto a computed skeleton and the second one maps the surrounding area of each skeleton segment into a rectangle with size based on the surface properties around the segment. Furthermore, these rectangles are packed into a squared texture called skeleton texture map (STM) by approximately solving a palette loading problem. Our technique enables the mapping of a texture onto the surface without necessity to store texture coordinates with the model data and it is also suitable for surfaces with a topology non-homotopic to a sphere with higher order genus and unlimited structure branching.
Iceland: The Birth of the World's First Crowd-Sourced Constitution?

Following the country's devastating economic crash in 2008 and the liberal 'Pots and Pans Revolution' it precipitated, Iceland embarked on a novel, massively participatory constitutional drafting process in a bid to establish a new Constitution for the Nordic island nation. This involved a world-first use of 'crowd-sourcing' and social media to gather 'citizen generated content' in the final Draft Constitution. The Draft's current status is uncertain, however, as it has not yet been ratified by the Althingi, the Icelandic Parliament. This note, written from the perspective of a Reykjavik public lawyer and one of the 25 Members of the Constitutional Council, tells the saga of the world's first crowd-sourced constitution, the social and economic environment in which it was conceived, and speculates as to the circumstances which might lead to its revival.
Endoscopic retrieval of a proximally migrated biliary plastic stent using a guidewire loop technique

Endoscopic biliary stent placement is a well-established technique for various indications including biliary drainage. However, it has been shown that approximately 5% of plastic stents placed in the biliary tract migrate proximally [1]. Endoscopic retrieval of proximally migrated biliary stents is technically challenging and occasionally unsuccessful. Several techniques for retrieving proximally migrated plastic stent have been reported [2,3]. We report a novel technique of retrieving a proximally migrated biliary stent using a guidewire loop technique. A 65-year-old woman visited our institution because of acute cholangitis. She had undergone cholecystectomy 2 years before this admission. Physical examination revealed fever, jaundice, and mild tenderness over the right upper quadrant. Murphy’s sign was negative. Laboratory studies demonstrated a white blood cell count of 23000/μL (normal, 4500–10000/μL), and a total bilirubin concentration of 2.7mg/dL (normal, 0.2–1.2mg/dL). The patient underwent emergent endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) for biliary decompression. The ERCP image revealed common bile duct (CBD) dilatation with small filling defects in the distal CBD. A 7-cm, 7-Fr biliary stent was inserted. However, 2 months after the initial ERCP, the patient presented at the emergency department with fever and abdominal pain. Contrast-enhanced computed tomography of the abdomen revealed that the biliary stent had migrated proximally into the CBD (●" Fig.1). A second ERCP was undertaken to retrieve the migrated stent. A retrieval basket (FG-23Q1; Olympus Medical Systems Corporation, Tokyo, Japan) grasping the distal end of a 0.035-inch straight guidewire (Jagwire; Boston Scientific Corporation, Natick, MA, USA) was used to retrieve the migrated stent (●" Fig.2). After successful biliary cannulation, the guidewire was slightly pushed forward to form a loop within the CBD (●" Fig.3). By simultaneously pulling the retrieval basket and the guidewire backward, the distal side flap of the biliary stent was caught by the guidewire loop and the stent was successfully retrieved.
Bridging the digital divide between research and home networks

Computer networking testbeds have made it easier for researchers to conduct realistic evaluations of new network protocols or services. However, it is challenging for users to configure testbeds or other experimental networks so that they are representative of typical home broadband links. To address this issue, we have developed a tool with which experimenters can configure links whose characteristics are drawn from a dataset of over 8,000 profiles of home Internet links in the United States, including fiber, cable, DSL, and satellite Internet connections from a range of speed and cost tiers. This paper describes our tool, and explains how it may be used with a variety of experimental platforms. We hope to make it easier for researchers to mimic networks that are representative of a variety of home users, so as to potentially increase the relevance of their experiments to this population.
High-field strong-focusing undulator designs for X-ray Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) applications

Linac-driven X-ray Free Electron Lasers (e.g., Linac Coherent Light Sources (LCLSs)), operating on the principle of single-pass saturation in the Self-Amplified Spontaneous Emission (SASE) regime typically require multi-GeV beam energies and undulator lengths in excess of tens of meters to attain sufficient gain in the 1/spl Aring/-0.1/spl Aring/ range. In this parameter regime, the undulator structure must provide: (1) field amplitudes B/sub 0/ in excess of 1T within periods of 4 cm or less, (2) peak on-axis focusing gradients on the order of 30 T/m, and (3) field quality in the 0.1%-0.3% range. In this paper we report on designs under consideration for a 4.5-1.5 /spl Aring/ LCLS based on superconducting (SC), hybrid/PM, and pulsed-Cu technologies.
Current knowledge of the human sperm proteome

The knowledge of the mature sperm proteome is undoubtedly the basis for understanding sperm function, the mechanisms responsible for fertilization, the reasons for infertility and possible treatments. The methods of sperm protein extraction depend mainly on the proteins of interest and the protein separation techniques that will be employed. The isolation of the membrane proteins appears to be most problematic step. Nevertheless, two-dimensional electrophoresis and mass spectrometry have become the main techniques used in human sperm protein analysis. We outline the present techniques used to examine the sperm proteome and data generated from studies on the human sperm and different types of male infertility. We present the most characteristic proteins that are involved in sperm function. Their value as biomarkers for diagnosis and treatment of infertility would require further validation. We focus on selected and critical studies of the human sperm proteome to present our subjective view of this fast-moving field.