Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Habitual Physical Activity and Vascular Aging in a Young to Middle-Age Population at Low Cardiovascular Risk

Background and Purpose— Regular endurance exercise has been shown to reduce the age-related increase in arterial stiffness that is thought to contribute to cardiovascular risk. The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of age and habitual physical activity on carotid artery wall thickness and stiffness in a population of young to middle-age subjects at low cardiovascular risk. Methods— The study population consisted of 432 healthy subjects (166 men; mean±SD age, 43±8 years; range, 30 to 60 years) free of carotid atherosclerosis and with low coronary heart disease risk, as determined by the Framingham prediction score sheet. All subjects underwent B-mode ultrasonography of the extracranial carotid arteries and physical activity assessment by actigraph, an accelerometer capable of monitoring the intensity and duration of body movements. The intima-media thickness of the common carotid artery was measured on ultrasound images, along with systodiastolic changes in luminal diameter, and indices of carotid stiffness were calculated. Results— Intima-media thickness and carotid stiffness increased with age in both men and women (r=0.24 to 0.52, P<0.001). The magnitude of objectively assessed daily physical activity was negatively related to indices of carotid stiffness (r from −0.20 to −0.25, P<0.001) but not to intima-media thickness. In multivariate regression analyses that included several cardiovascular risk factors such as obesity, blood pressure, plasma lipids, and smoking habits, age and physical activity were independently related to carotid stiffness. Conclusions— This study provides cross-sectional evidence that habitual physical activity is inversely related to the age-dependent increase in carotid wall stiffness in a young to middle-age population at low risk.
Adaptive video streaming over HTTP using stochastic bitrate prediction in 4G wireless networks

Video streaming over Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) used in multifarious applications creating a multimedia environment faces a challenge in 4G wireless network due to the fluctuating nature of internet traffic and variable capacity ofwireless channel over time. The existing Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH), though works well for stored video up to some extent, poses a complication in live transmission thereby depreciating the streaming quality due to high link bit rate fluctuation. In this paper, we have proposed an efficient ARIMA Based Bit Rate Adaptation (ABBA) model in the receiver/client side that estimate the link traffic based on the incoming packet bit rate to predict the subsequent future link capacity in order to notify the sender/server. Based on the response from the receiver the server adapt its outgoing stream as per forecasted link data rate, and hence eliminate the degradation of video due to channel throughput variations. The proposed ABBA algorithm was implemented on IP over 4G wireless network and the streaming quality was evaluated on several full reference metrics of video quality. The test result outperformed an existing buffer based approach and also a fuzzy based adaptation algorithm. For example, the ABBA algorithm exhibited an average increase of 22 % in PSNR and 9% in SSIM than a buffer based method.
Using Improved GHSOM for Intrusion Detection

Self-organizing Maps (SOM) have been shown to be successful for intrusion detection. However, the static architecture and the lack of representation of hierarchical relations often results in low detection rates. The Growing Hierarchical SOM (GHSOM) addresses these limitations of SOM. In this paper, in order to obtain higher detection rate and improve the stability of intrusion detection, some improvements on GHSOM algorithm are made: (1) we introduce a new metric that includes both numerical and symbolic data as input patterns. (2) by using Tension and Mapping Ratio (TMR) instead of parameter τ1, the growth of a map is automatically controlled. This improved GHSOM is implemented and applied to intrusion detection. The validity of this approach is confirmed through experiments on KDD Cup 99 datasets. Our experimental results show that the detection rate has been increased by employing the improved GHSOM compared to the original SOM and GHSOM.
Unilateral Anesthesia Does Not Affect the Incidence of Urinary Retention After Low-Dose Spinal Anesthesia for Knee Surgery

We evaluated whether unilateral low-dose spinal anesthesia may reduce the likelihood of postoperative urinary retention. Forty patients scheduled for knee arthroscopy randomly received bilateral (n = 20) or unilateral (n = 20) spinal anesthesia with 6-mg hyperbaric bupivacaine 0.5%. The incidence of urinary retention (>500 mL) assessed with an ultrasound device (Bladderscan) and subsequent temporary catherization was 7/20 patients in the bilateral versus 6/20 in the unilateral group (not significant). We concluded that unilateral low-dose spinal anesthesia does not further decrease the likelihood of urinary retention. Our results demonstrate the value and necessity of monitoring bladder volume postoperatively.
The Soft Shadow Occlusion Camera

A fundamental challenge for existing shadow map based algorithms is dealing with partially illuminated surfaces. A conventional shadow map built with a pinhole camera only determines a binary light visibility at each point, and this all-or-nothing approach to visibility does not capture penumbral regions. We present an interactive soft shadow algorithm based on a variant of the depth discontinuity occlusion camera, a non-pinhole camera with rays that reach around blockers to sample normally hidden surfaces. Our soft shadow occlusion camera (SSOC) classifies a fragment on a continuum from fully visible to fully hidden, as seen from the light. The SSOC is used directly in fragment illumination computation without building an explicit "soft shadow map. " This method renders plausible soft shadows at interactive speeds under fully dynamic conditions.
Study on the influential mechanism of monetary policy fluctuation and internal control on firm financial constraints

Using the data of A-share enterprises in the years between 2004 and 2012, this study investigates the relationship among the fluctuation of monetary policies, internal control, and financial constraints. The results show that although financial constraints are common among the firms, financial constraints tend to be strengthened by monetary contractions, and internal control could mitigate the positive effect of monetary contractions of financial constraints. After distinguishing between firms in different external environments and internal characteristics, we find that under monetary contractions, internal control could have greater mitigating effect on financial constraints in the enterprises which are located in areas with low degree of marketization and in private enterprises than in the enterprises which are located in areas with high degree of marketization and in state-owned enterprises. This study confers a new perspective on the determinants of financial constraints, provides evidence for the credit transmit channel of monetary policy, and gives empirical support to the internal control building of companies in our country.
Promoting Young Children's Social Competence through the Preschool PATHS Curriculum and MyTeachingPartner Professional Development Resources

Research Findings: Children's (n = 980) social competence during prekindergarten was assessed as a function of their teachers’ (n = 233) exposure to the Preschool Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies (PATHS) curriculum and 2 levels of support through MyTeachingPartner, a Web-based approach to professional development. Children in classrooms that implemented PATHS had increased levels of teacher-reported social competence over the course of the year. There were no associations between the use of PATHS and reductions in teacher-reported social problems. The results also suggested that teachers who used the MyTeachingPartner website more often reported greater gains in children's social competence. Practice or Policy: These findings have implications for the development and dissemination of social-emotional learning curricula and the provision of effective implementation supports for teachers. Continued work on the best ways to integrate technology into the professional development of teachers, both in service and preservice, is likely to enhance the accessibility and quality of supports for teachers.
Up-regulation of bone morphogenetic proteins in cultured murine bone cells with use of specific electric fields.

BACKGROUND Capacitively coupled electric stimulation has been successfully used in the treatment of bone nonunions and to effect spinal fusions. However, the pathway of biologic events whereby this is accomplished has not been fully elucidated. To determine whether bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) could be involved, the effect of electrical stimulation on BMP gene expression was investigated. METHODS Postconfluent cultures of MC3T3-E1 bone cells were exposed to a series of capacitively coupled signals in which the duration, amplitude, frequency, and duty cycle were sequentially and systematically varied. The cellular response was measured by quantifying the mRNA levels of BMP-2 through BMP-8, as well as the BMP antagonists gremlin and noggin, with use of reverse transcription followed by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction. BMP-2 protein was measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and alkaline phosphatase activity was measured by a specific colorimetric assay. RESULTS The results showed that BMP-2 through BMP-8, gremlin, and noggin were all normally expressed by MC3T3-E1 cells, and could be significantly up-regulated by specific and selective capacitively coupled electric fields (p < 0.05). However, mRNA expression for BMP-2, 4, 5, 6, and 7 was consistently up-regulated several times higher than that for BMP-3 and BMP-8, gremlin, and noggin under identical conditions. Concomitantly, BMP-2 protein production and alkaline phosphatase activity were both significantly increased in the same electrically stimulated cultures (p = 0.001 and p < 0.01, respectively). CONCLUSIONS These data clearly show that our optimal capacitively coupled signal (60 kHz, 20 mV/cm at a 50% duty cycle for twenty-four hours) can specifically, selectively, and simultaneously up-regulate the expression of a number of osteoinductive BMPs; other BMPs and antagonists are only moderately affected.
A dimensional approach to developmental psychopathology

The expression psychopathology in general and child psychopathology in particular, is affected by multiple sources of variance. Some of these sources include gender differences, informant differences, and age‐related differences. In this paper, we discuss how these sources of variance complicate both research and clinical management. We argue that the current diagnostic system would be aided by the inclusion of a quantitative axis that can take these sources of variance into account. We reason that the fields of genomics and neuroscience are prepared to move the field of developmental psychopathology forward, but need a diagnostic system that allows for these sources of variance to be controlled. We demonstrate how in Conduct Disorder, inclusion of dimensional information would allow the clinician or researcher to demonstrate not only the presence or absence of pathology, but also the degree to which the disorder is manifested in a particular individual. Because dimensional approaches are already used widely as an alternative measure of psychopathology, we argue that there is reason to consider dimensionalizing some aspects of the DSM. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Stabilizing model predictive control of time-varying non-linear systems using linear matrix inequalities

The paper presents a stabilizing model predictive control (MPC) scheme for time-varying non-linear systems subject to input constraints. A state-feedback MPC law is computed by minimizing an upper bound of infinite horizon performance objective, which is formulated as a convex optimization involving linear matrix inequalities constraints. Time-varying linear dynamic approximation is used to derive the stability of the closed-loop system. In particular, a suboptimal algorithm of stabilizing MPC for timevarying non-linear systems is provided to decrease the online computation burden. The performance and effectiveness of the proposed approaches is illustrated by some comparisons with MPC algorithms based on linear polytopic descriptions.
Particle size and fraction of wheat bran influence short-chain fatty acid production in vitro

Whole grains are associated with decreased risk of chronic disease and decreased risk of obesity. Several mechanisms may be involved including SCFA production via fibre fermentation in the colon. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the role of wheat bran particle size (large/coarse v. small/fine) and wheat bran fraction (whole bran v. aleurone v. aleurone by-product) in SCFA production using a batch in vitro fermentation system with human faecal inoculum. Five samples were compared: large-particle bran, small-particle bran, aleurone, coarse by-product, fine by-product. Fine by-product produced the greatest SCFA concentrations. By-product (both coarse and fine) produced greater SCFA concentrations than bran (both large and small particle sizes). Aleurone produced SCFA concentrations similar to small-particle bran. The molar percentage of butyrate at 24 h was significantly greater for large-particle bran than the other samples. Small/fine particle size and by-product fraction of bran increased SCFA production compared with large/coarse particle size, and aleurone and whole bran. Bran characteristics and composition should be considered when manufacturing foods due to the diversity of physiological effects.
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised Block Design Broken Configuration Errors in Nonpenetrating Traumatic Brain Injury

Final broken configuration errors on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R; Wechsler, 1981) Block Design subtest were examined in 50 moderate and severe nonpenetrating traumatically brain injured adults. Patients were divided into left (n = 15) and right hemisphere (n = 19) groups based on a history of unilateral craniotomy for treatment of an intracranial lesion and were compared to a group with diffuse or negative brain CT scan findings and no history of neurosurgery (n = 16). The percentage of final broken configuration errors was related to injury severity, Benton Visual Form Discrimination Test (VFD; Benton, Hamsher, Varney, & Spreen, 1983) total score and the number of VFD rotation and peripheral errors. The percentage of final broken configuration errors was higher in the patients with right craniotomies than in the left or no craniotomy groups, which did not differ. Broken configuration errors did not occur more frequently on designs without an embedded grid pattern. Right craniotomy patients did not show a greater percentage of broken configuration errors on nongrid designs as compared to grid designs.
Growth of thrombus may be a better predictor of rupture than diameter in patients with abdominal aortic aneurysms.

OBJECTIVES to investigate the relationships between diameter, surface and thrombus area in abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) <5 cm. METHODS AND MATERIAL sixty-seven patients with AAA underwent at least 2 CT examinations. At the point of maximal diameter, surface area and thrombus area were calculated and related to rupture, or impending rupture, during follow-up. RESULTS the mean increase in measured diameter, surface area and thrombus area were 3.4 mm, 1.9 cm(2)and 1.7 cm(2)per year respectively. Patients with AAA >4 cm and whose thrombus area increased >1.5 cm(2)/year were more likely to rupture (6/24 vs 1/23). CONCLUSIONS a rapid increase of thrombus area may be a better predictor of AAA rupture than increase in maximal diameter.
A New Forward-Secure Threshold Signature Scheme

In the most of the existing threshold scheme, a group member can't accomplish signature independently. To this limitation, we propose a new type threshold signature scheme based on Strong-RSA assumption. The prominent trait is that it realizes signing independently and forward security at the same time. The analysis indicated that the scheme has auditability; security problems such as external attack, conspiracy attack also can be solved. Compared with the existing threshold scheme, our scheme is convenient in key distribution, dynamical in adding and deleting group members.
Two Plants Are Better Than One?

Cannabis cultivation is a thriving business, whether for profit or personal use. The reasons for engaging in illegal drug growing and the effects of drug policy on it are mostly unexplored. This paper tries to shed some light on the impact of cannabis policy on this phenomenon through two models that predict first, the kilograms of marijuana herbs seized as an outcome variable and second, the number of cannabis plants eradicated. We found a significant policy effect on the number of cannabis plants eradicated while controlling for favorable outdoor (temperature) and indoor (electricity consumption) growing conditions, exports, land area, the rural population, corruption, and neighboring countries that have previously decriminalized cannabis. However, the effect on the amount of marijuana herbs seized was merely weakly significant and only in a reduced sample of developed countries.
Modeling User Mobility for Location Promotion in Location-based Social Networks

With the explosion of smartphones and social network services, location-based social networks (LBSNs) are increasingly seen as tools for businesses (e.g., restaurants, hotels) to promote their products and services. In this paper, we investigate the key techniques that can help businesses promote their locations by advertising wisely through the underlying LBSNs. In order to maximize the benefit of location promotion, we formalize it as an influence maximization problem in an LBSN, i.e., given a target location and an LBSN, which a set of k users (called seeds) should be advertised initially such that they can successfully propagate and attract most other users to visit the target location. Existing studies have proposed different ways to calculate the information propagation probability, that is how likely a user may influence another, in the settings of static social network. However, it is more challenging to derive the propagation probability in an LBSN since it is heavily affected by the target location and the user mobility, both of which are dynamic and query dependent. This paper proposes two user mobility models, namely Gaussian-based and distance-based mobility models, to capture the check-in behavior of individual LBSN user, based on which location-aware propagation probabilities can be derived respectively. Extensive experiments based on two real LBSN datasets have demonstrated the superior effectiveness of our proposals than existing static models of propagation probabilities to truly reflect the information propagation in LBSNs.
Stimulus Context and View Dependence in Object Recognition

The effect of stimulus factors such as interobject similarity and stimulus density on the recognition of objects across changes in view was investigated in five experiments. The recognition of objects across views was found to depend on the degree of interobject similarity and on stimulus density: recognition was view dependent when both interobject similarity and stimulus density were high, irrespective of the familiarity of the target object. However, when stimulus density or interobject similarity was low recognition was invariant to viewpoint. It was found that recognition was accomplished through view-dependent procedures when discriminability between objects was low. The findings are discussed in terms of an exemplar-based model in which the dimensions used for discriminating between objects are optimised to maximise the differences between the objects. This optimisation process is characterised as a perceptual ‘ruler’ which measures interobject similarity by stretching across objects in representational space. It is proposed that the ‘ruler’ optimises the feature differences between objects in such a way that recognition is view invariant but that such a process incurs a cost in discriminating between small feature differences, which results in view-dependent recognition performance.
Conservation of Ribosomal and Messenger Ribonucleic Acid Cistrons in Bacillus Species

Doi, Roy H. (Syracuse University, Syracuse, N.Y.), and Richard T. Igarashi. Conservation of ribosomal and messenger ribonucleic acid cistrons in Bacillus species. J. Bacteriol. 90:384–390. 1965. —Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA) fractions from various Bacillus species were tested for interspecies DNA-RNA hybrid formation. DNA preparations from B. subtilis, B. cereus, B. megaterium, B. stearothermophilus, and B. macerans, whose base composition varied from 33 to 50% guanylate + cytidylate content, were used in the hybrid annealing mixtures with pulse-labeled RNA from sporulating cells and from log-phase cells of B. subtilis and B. cereus. Efficient hybridization in these cases was obtained only in homologous annealing situations. When heterologous DNA and RNA preparations were tested for hybrid formation, only 1 to 6% of the homologous hybridization was obtained. Although the efficiency of hybrid formation was low, the results were reproducible. No difference in efficiency of hybrid formation was observed between the messenger RNA from sporulating cells and that from log-phase cells. When B. subtilis ribosomal RNA was placed in annealing mixtures with heterologous DNA, 47.5 to 62.9% of the homologous hybridization was obtained. These results suggest that a small number of identical sequences are present among the Bacillus species. Furthermore, the ribosomal RNA cistrons appear to be more highly conserved relative to other genetic sequences.
Notice of RetractionThe blind watermarking model of the vector geospatial data based on DFT of QIM

For the characteristics of digital watermarking of the vector geospatial data, the DFT (discrete Fourier transform) blind watermarking model is put forward based on QIM(quantized index modulation) idea. First vector geospatial data carries on DFT. The watermark data are embedded in the magnitude of DFT through quantification, then inverse DFT transform, the embedded watermark vector geospatial data is obtained, The experiment results show that the watermark model has good availability, not visibility, as well as format conversion, data translation, rotation has good robustness.