Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Changing Adolescent Smoking Prevalence : Impact of Advertising Interventions

INTRODUCTION The U.S. federal and state governments are increasingly using paid mass-media advertising to communicate with the U.S. public. The U.S. Congress has allocated $1.2 billion—$200 million per year for 5 years—to fund an advertising campaign to keep youths from using illicit drugs (Fairclough, 1999). The U.S. Census Bureau has, for the first time, used advertising to increase mail-in response rates to the dicennial census; its advertising budget was roughly $100 million (U.S. Census Bureau, 1999). The American Legacy Foundation (http://www.americanlegacy.org), which is funded by the national U.S. tobacco settlement, is overseeing an antismoking advertising and promotional campaign amounting to $300 million in expenditures per year. U.S. states are currently trying to decide if they should run state-level antismoking campaigns (Brull, 1999). Several states, including Arizona, California, Florida, and Massachusetts, have already begun multi-year campaigns. California spends roughly $0.40 per capita ($12 million) per year while Massachusetts spends considerably more, or roughly $2.33 per capita ($14 million), per year on campaigns (Pechmann, 1997; Pechmann and Reibling, 2000a; Goldman and Glantz, 1998). Many other states are currently trying to decide if they should run state-level antismoking campaigns and are uncertain that antismoking advertising will pay off in terms of reduced smoking prevalence and lower health care costs (Brull, 1999).
Effect of soil disturbance and biocides on nematode communities and extracellular enzyme activity in soybean cyst nematode suppressive soil

Summary – Soybean cyst nematode (SCN), Heterodera glycines, remains a major yield-limiting pathogen of soybean. Natural suppression of SCN exists and becomes increasingly attractive; however, ecological mechanisms leading to the suppressive state are rarely studied. A glasshouse experiment was performed to determine the effects of soil disturbance and biocides on nematode community and extracellular enzyme activities in the SCN-suppressive soil collected in 2007 and 2008. Soil disturbance was simulated by passing soil through a sieve (aperture 5 mm) and compared with no-disturbance (non-sieve) treatment. Composition of microbial communities was manipulated by applying captan (fungicide), streptomycin (bactericide), captan plus streptomycin, or no biocide. SCN egg population density, proportion of second-stage juveniles (J2) parasitised by fungi, nematode communities in the soil, and plant weight in each pot were determined 70 days after planting soybean. In addition, the activities of six selected hydrolytic and oxidative extracellular enzymes representing cellulase, chitinase, serine protease, collagenase and peroxidase were measured. Soil disturbance resulted in an increase in SCN egg population density and reduction in the proportion of J2 parasitised by fungi. Biocide treatments increased SCN egg population density and the proportion of J2 parasitised by fungi at the end of experiment. Values of nematode community diversity index decreased and dominance and maturity indices increased in the disturbed soil compared with the nodisturbance treatment. Biocide treatments reduced maturity index values exclusively. With soil disturbance, the activity of extracellular enzyme L-proline aminopeptidase activity declined to less than half of that under no-disturbance in 2007. This experiment showed that both bacteria and fungi were potentially involved in the soil suppressiveness to SCN: soil disturbance and biocide application may reduce natural soil suppressiveness that was potentially associated with soil nematode community diversity and microbial enzyme activities.
A high CMRR analog front-end IC for wearable physiological monitoring

This paper presents a High Common Mode Rejection Ratio(CMRR) Instrumentation Amplifier(IA) with Driven Right Leg(DRL) circuitry for Electrocardiogram(ECG) signal acquisition. The circuit is based on the current feedback topology. The high pass and lowpass filters are integrated into the IA. DRL is implemented to minimise the common mode noise. The present design is fabricated at UMC on 0. 18μm CMOS process technology. The measured CMRR of the circuit is 122dB. The bandwidth of the amplifier is 0.05-125Hz. The integrated input referred noise is 2. 3μV. the ICMR is 0-1.65V and the dynamic range is ±4.5mV. The power of the total circuit(IA+DRL) is 132μW with a 3.3V supply. The instrumentation amplifier is tested with simulators and patients also.
Improving radiopeptide pharmacokinetics by adjusting experimental conditions for bombesin receptor-mediated imaging of prostate cancer.

Aim: Prostate cancer (PC) is a major health problem. The Gastrin Releasing Peptide Receptor (GRPR) offers a promising target for staging and monitoring of PC since it is overexpressed in PC and not in normal prostatic tissue. To improve GRPR-mediated imaging we investigated the impact of various experimental conditions on pharmacokinetics using the 111In-labelled bombesin (BN) analogue DOTA-AMBA that binds to the GRPR with high affinity. Besides the frequently used PC-3 cell line, the androgen sensitive VCaP celline was used as human PC xenografts in nude mice. Methods: Non-purified [111In]DOTA-AMBA was compared with HPLC-purified [111In]DOTA-AMBA. Effect of specific activity was studied administrating a constant amount of activity (0.1 MBq) [111In]DOTA-AMBA supplemented with different amounts of DOTA-AMBA (1-3000 pmol). GRPR was saturated with Tyr4-Bombesin, 1 and 4h prior to injection of [111In]DOTA-AMBA. Results: GRPR-positive tumor tissue showed a significant 2 to 3-fold increase in absolute uptake after HPLC-purification while a stable tumor-to-pancreas ratio remained. Low peptide amounts (10 pmoles) resulted in a decline in uptake of 43% in tumor, 49% in kidney and 92% in pancreas. Tumor-to-pancreas ratio improved six-fold from 0.1±0 at 10 pmol up to 0.6±0.2 at 3000 pmol (P<0.01). GRPR saturation 4h prior to injection of [111In]DOTA-AMBA resulted in improvement of the tumor-to-pancreas ratio from 0.10±0.3 to 0.22±0.2 (P<0.01) and tumor-to-kidney ratio increased from 0.92±0.16 up to 3.45±0.5 (P<0.01). Conclusion: Besides specific peptide characteristics also the experimental conditions, such as HPLC-purification, variations in peptide mass and GRPR saturation prior to [111In]DOTA-AMBA administration affect radiopeptide pharmacokinetics. Experimental conditions therefore need to be carefully selected in order to compose standardised protocols for optimal targeting.
Hyperimmunoglobulinaemia in Babinga Pygmies is Present from Infancy

Pygmies, a population characterized by short stature, have high immunoglobulin (Ig) concentrations. In this study, we evaluated Ig levels in Cameroon's Babinga Pygmies from infancy to adulthood and the effects of a national health program on these Ig levels. We found that IgG and IgM levels were outside the normal range for Italians of the same age and were comparable to those measured in Babinga Pygmies living in the same region by Siccardi in 1975. In conclusion, the hypergammaglobulinaemia of Babinga Pygmies is already present in infants and is not affected by sanitation improvements, suggesting that it could be partly genetically-determined.
Liquid Dielectric Property Determination using Monopole Probes Operating at Microwave Frequencies

Determination of the dielectric properties of liquids has high practical potential in many industrial, medical, as well as environmental sectors. Hence, there is an increasing demand for efficient liquid dielectric properties measurement systems. In this paper, a microwave nondestructive evaluation (NDE) system intended to satisfy this need is proposed. The system utilizes a monopole antenna to transmit microwave signals into a liquid and monitors the reflected waves in the feeding coaxial line. The functional dependence of reflection coefficient, measured at the input of the monopole, on the dielectric property of the liquid surrounding the monopole will he employed in the measurement schema - i.e. the reflection coefficient will he measured and then the inverse problem will be solved. In general, this dependence is nonlinear in nature and requires multiple measurements. In this paper, a lookup table algorithm is utilized in conjunction with multi-frequency measurements to solve the inverse problem. The proposed inverse problem solution relies on diversity of measurements over operational frequencies. This is basically achievable in the broadband inspection schema proposed here
Mapping of the human plasmin domain recognized by the unique plasmin receptor of group A streptococci

A high-affinity surface receptor for human plasmin has been reported on certain group A streptococci. To map the region of the plasmin molecule that binds to the bacterial receptor, isolated domains of plasmin were tested for their ability to inhibit the binding of intact radiolabeled plasmin to receptor-positive bacteria. Complete inhibition of binding of labeled plasmin to bacteria by isolated heavy chains was achieved, but this inhibition was not as efficient on a molar basis when compared with that of unlabeled plasmin. By contrast, a conformationally altered form of native plasminogen was found to bind to bacteria and was as efficient a competitive inhibitor as intact plasmin was. The results of this study indicate that the selective binding of human plasmin to a group A streptococcus is dependent on structures present in the conformationally altered form of native plasminogen or plasmin that are not found on the native zymogen, the plasminogen with NH2-terminal glutamic acid.
Experimental allometry: effect of size manipulation on metabolic rate of colonial ascidians

The allometric scaling of metabolic rate of organisms, the three-quarters power rule, has led to a questioning of the basis for the relation. We attacked this problem experimentally for the first time by employing the modular organism, the ascidian that forms a single layered flat colony, as a model system. The metabolic rate and colony size followed the three-quarters power relation, which held even after the colony size was experimentally manipulated. Our results established that the three-quarters power relation is a real continuous function, not an imaginary statistical regression. The fact that all the hypotheses failed to explain why the two-dimensional organism adhered to the three-quarters power relation led us to propose a new hypothesis, in which the allometric relation derives from the self-organized criticality based on local interaction between modulus-comprising organisms.
Jukka Komulainen SOFTWARE-BASED COUNTERMEASURES TO 2 D FACIAL SPOOFING ATTACKS

Because of its natural and non-intrusive interaction, identity verification and recognition using facial information is among the most active areas in computer vision research. Unfortunately, it has been shown that conventional 2D face recognition techniques are vulnerable to spoofing attacks, where a person tries to masquerade as another one by falsifying biometric data and thereby gaining an illegitimate advantage. This thesis explores different directions for software-based face anti-spoofing. The proposed approaches are divided into two categories: first, low-level feature descriptors are applied for describing the static and dynamic characteristic differences between genuine faces and fake ones in general, and second, complementary attack-specific countermeasures are investigated in order to overcome the limitations of generic spoof detection schemes. The static face representation is based on a set of well-known feature descriptors, including local binary patterns, Gabor wavelet features and histogram of oriented gradients. The key idea is to capture the differences in quality, light reflection and shading by analysing the texture and gradient structure of the input face images. The approach is then extended to the spatiotemporal domain when both facial appearance and dynamics are exploited for spoof detection using local binary patterns from three orthogonal planes. It is reasonable to assume that no generic spoof detection scheme is able to detect all known, let alone unseen, attacks scenarios. In order to find out well-generalizing countermeasures, the problem of anti-spoofing is broken into two attack-specific sub-problems based on whether the spoofing medium can be detected in the provided view or not. The spoofing medium detection is performed by describing the discontinuities in the gradient structures around the detected face. If the display medium is concealed outside the view, a combination of face and background motion correlation measurement and texture analysis is applied. Furthermore, an open-source antispoofing fusion framework is introduced and its system-level performance is investigated more closely in order to gain insight on how to combine different anti-spoofing modules. The proposed spoof detection schemes are evaluated on the latest benchmark datasets. The main findings of the experiments are discussed in the thesis.
Applications of Virtualization for Server Management and Security

Servers are often under-utilized in their computing capacity by the applications hosted on them. Unpredictable demands due to peak hour usage, and a need for dynamic allocation of computing resources in a server farm, necessitate the use of virtual hosted clients. This paper will review the IT scenarios in Indian industry, and then look at some popular SW virtualization solutions, followed by a brief introduction to Intel's new Hardware Virtualization Technology and its benefits. We will conclude by looking at some server management and security applications enabled by Intel's new Virtualization Technology.
Effect of Preoperative Geriatric Evaluation on Outcomes After Elective Surgery: A Population‐Based Study

Randomized and nonrandomized single‐center studies suggest that preoperative geriatric evaluation improves postoperative outcomes in older adults. The generalizability and population‐level effect of preoperative geriatric evaluation has not been determined. Our objective was to measure the adjusted association between preoperative geriatric evaluation and postoperative outcomes.
A distributed BIST technique for diagnosis of MCM interconnections

A general description of an enhanced scheme for designing completely self-testable MCMs is given. It allows performance testing and diagnosis of MCM interconnections for dynamic effects. This scheme is based on embedding of cascadable test pattern generators and reconfigurable signature analyzers into the design of MCM dies. A theory of partitioning of linear registers is applied to devise a two phase distributed diagnosis strategy The design of a novel MISR reconfiguration scheme that enables high diagnosis resolution, is presented. Simulation results obtained confirm the effectiveness of our BIST technique.
Fuzzy decision tree function approximation in reinforcement learning

Recent results on reinforcement learning regarding the convergence of control algorithms with function approximators, have shown that decision tree based reinforcement learning provides good learning performance and more reliable convergence than the neural network approach. It scales better to larger input spaces with lower memory requirements, and can solve problems that are infeasible using table lookup. However, decision tree based reinforcement learning can deal with only discrete actions. In realistic applications, it is imperative to deal with continuous states and actions. In this paper, we have proposed fuzzy decision tree based reinforcement learning that takes care of the limitations of decision tree based learning. We compare our approach with decision tree based function approximator on two bench mark problems: inverted pendulum stabilisation problem and two-link robot manipulator tracking problem.
De l’activation au comportement : une contribution à l’étude des processus sous-jacents aux effets d’amorçage comportemental

Les effets d’amorcage comportemental ont fait l’objet de nombreuses recherches. Ces travaux ont revele que l’activation incidente de concepts pouvait orienter le comportement des individus et que cette influence pouvait avoir lieu en dehors de la conscience. Toutefois, des critiques ont emerge a propos de ce champ de recherche, remettant en question la robustesse de certains types d’effets d’amorcage et la veracite de ces effets. L’identification des processus sous-jacents aux effets d’amorcage comportemental s’est alors imposee comme indispensable afin de mieux comprendre sous quelles conditions ils apparaissent et ainsi pourquoi ils font l’objet de difficultes de replication. Ce travail de these a pour objectif d’apporter une contribution a l’identification des processus sous-jacents aux effets d’amorcage. A travers neuf experiences, nous avons teste d’une part, l’idee selon laquelle des caracteristiques methodologiques (e.g., la duree d’exposition aux amorces) etaient propices a l’emergence de ces effets, d’autre part le role moderateur de certains facteurs (i.e., le concept de soi) dont une partie de la litterature suppose qu’ils sont impliques dans ces effets. Les resultats montrent que le concept de soi pourrait etre un determinant de l’ampleur et de la direction des effets d’amorcage comportemental, selon l’implication de la conscience de soi ou de l’estime de soi. De plus, le niveau de perception des amorces semble etre un candidat privilegie des moderateurs de l’amorcage comportemental. Dans l’ensemble, ces resultats fournissent des elements afin de poursuivre l’investigation des mecanismes sous-jacents aux effets d’amorcage comportemental.
Quasiguided modes and optical properties of photonic crystal slabs

We formulate a scattering-matrix-based numerical method to calculate the optical transmission properties and quasiguided eigenmodes in a two-dimensionally periodic photonic crystal slab (PCS) of finite thickness. The square symmetry (point group C4v) is taken for the illustration of the method, but it is quite general and works for any point group symmetry for one-dimensional (1D) and 2D PCS’s. We show that the appearance of well-pronounced dips in the transmission spectra of a PCS is due to the interaction with resonant waveguide eigenmodes in the slab. The energy position and width of the dips in transmission provide information on the frequency and inverse radiative lifetime of the quasiguided eigenmodes. We calculate the energies, linewidths, and electromagnetic fields of such quasiguided eigenmodes, and analyze their symmetry and optical activity. The electromagnetic field in such modes is resonantly enhanced, which opens possibilities for use in creating resonant enhancement of different nonlinear effects.
Role of GTP Hydrolysis in Fission of Caveolae Directly from Plasma Membranes

Caveolae are specialized invaginated cell surface microdomains of undefined function. A cell-free system that reconstituted fission of caveolae from lung endothelial plasma membranes was developed. Addition of cytosol and the hydrolysis of guanosine triphosphate (GTP) induced caveolar fission. The budded caveolae were isolated as vesicles rich in caveolin and the sialoglycolipid GM1 but not glycosyl-phosphatidylinositol (GPI)-anchored proteins. These vesicles contained the molecular machinery for endocytosis and transcytosis. In permeabilized endothelial cells, GTP stimulated, whereas GTPγS prevented, caveolar budding and endocytosis of the cholera toxin B chain to endosomes. Thus, caveolae may bud to form discrete carrier vesicles that participate in membrane trafficking.
RPFuzzer: A Framework for Discovering Router Protocols Vulnerabilities Based on Fuzzing

How to discover router vulnerabilities effectively and automatically is a critical problem to ensure network and information security. Previous research on router security is mostly about the technology of exploiting known flaws of routers. Fuzzing is a famous automated vulnerability finding technology; however, traditional Fuzzing tools are designed for testing network applications or other software. These tools are not or partly not suitable for testing routers. This paper designs a framework of discovering router protocol vulnerabilities, and proposes a mathematical model Two-stage Fuzzing Test Cases Generator(TFTCG) that improves previous methods to generate test cases. We have developed a tool called RPFuzzer based on TFTCG. RPFuzzer monitors routers by sending normal packets, keeping watch on CPU utilization and checking system logs, which can detect DoS, router reboot and so on. RPFuzzer’ debugger based on modified Dynamips, which can record register values when an exception occurs. Finally, we experiment on the SNMP protocol, find 8 vulnerabilities, of which there are five unreleased vulnerabilities. The experiment has proved the effectiveness of RPFuzzer.
Design of waveguide narrow-wall 3dB coupler for 3mm-wave frequency band

A wideband waveguide narrow-wall short-slot 3dB directional coupler is proposed for 3mm-wave frequency band. It is based on the optimized oversized coupling region length and impedance matching block size with as few as possible parameters and without using waveguide transformers, so the coupler has a low fabrication cost and compact size. Design result has achieved an over 15% bandwidth at center 92GHz with a coupling variation of less than 0.25dB, -30 dB isolation and return loss, and result of the tolerance analysis is shown that the proposed coupler is applicable to engineering applications.
Analysis of Collided Signal Waveform on the Long Transmission Line of UART-CSMA/CD Control Network

In this paper, waveforms of collided digital signal bits are analyzed by superposition of step responses of a distributed constant circuit for a transmission line. Our analysis indicates narrow voltage spike on the leading edge of bit pulses in collided waveforms. The width and peak of the spike calculated by our analysis were matched with those of experiments. Since the spike might cause signal collision detection failure and cause deterioration of communication performance, our analysis is effective to estimate the allowable maximum length and/or bit rate of a transmission line for control communication network.
Emergency department surge: models and practical implications.

BACKGROUND Emergency Department crowding has long been described. Despite the daily challenges of managing emergency department volume and acuity; a surge response during a disaster entails even greater challenges including collaboration, intervention, and resourcefulness to effectively carry out pediatric disaster management. Understanding surge and how to respond with appropriate planning will lead to success. To achieve this, we sought to analyze models of surge; review regional and national data outlining surge challenges and factors that impact surge; and to outline potential solutions. METHODS We conducted a systemic review and included articles and documents that best described the theoretical and practical basis of surge response. We organized the systematic review according to the following questions: What are the elements and models that are delineated by the concept of surge? What is the basis for surge response based on regional and national published sources? What are the broad global solutions? What are the major lessons observed that will impact effective surge capacity? RESULTS Multiple models of surge are described including public health, facility-based and community-based; a 6-tiered response system; and intrinsic or extrinsic surge capacity. In addition, essential components (4 S's of surge response) are described along with regional and national data outlining surge challenges, impacting factors, global solutions, and lesions observed. CONCLUSIONS There are numerous shortcomings regionally and nationally affecting our ability to provide an effective and coordinated surge response. Planning, education, and training will lead to an effective pediatric disaster management response.