Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The measurement of problem drinking in young adulthood.

OBJECTIVE Researchers and clinicians have been struggling for more than 20 years to define problem drinking. This study focuses on young adults and aims to examine the construct validity of three dimensions of problem drinking and to empirically determine appropriate cutpoints for problem drinking along these dimensions. METHOD A stratified sample of 1,269 young adults who reported drinking alcohol in the year prior to 1995 was used in these analyses. Respondents were originally interviewed in 1985 in middle schools in a southeastern U.S. county. RESULTS Symptoms of dependency and drunkenness were relatively common in this sample, but adverse consequences were rare. Results of analyses using the Chi-squared Automatic Interaction Detector (CHAID) and the SUrvey DAta ANalysis (SUDAAN) software suggest that drunkenness and adverse consequences are the most significant predictors of problems in other areas of life. Symptoms of dependency were significant only in interaction with drunkenness, although the analyses were limited to only lifetime measures of dependency. Appropriate cutpoints, based on these analyses, appear to be (1) drunk at least six times in the past year, (2) four or more lifetime symptoms of dependency and (3) one or perhaps two or more adverse consequences in the past year. CONCLUSIONS Results suggest that frequency of drunkenness may be the single best indicator of problem drinking among young adults and that adverse consequences may indicate a more serious form of problem drinking than do symptoms of dependency. In addition, appropriate cutpoints on these dimensions for young adults appear to be similar to those that have been used in studies of adolescents. Further study of both adolescents and young adults is suggested.
Segmentation and outlier removal in 3D line identification based on fuzzy clustering

In this paper, we present a novel method based on clustering for identifying 3D line from point clouds, called “self-organizing fuzzy k-means algorithm”. The algorithm automatically finds the optimal number of cluster and self organizes the clusters based on inter/intra-cluster distances and cluster's performance evaluation. The self-organizing fuzzy k-means is applied in 3D line identification from point clouds. We use the point clouds provided by Stereo camera and 2D images. The 3D point clouds of each line is clustered by clustering algorithm, then we perform eigen-analysis on clusters and estimate the final 3D lines; the 3D lines can be cut off into several segments. In addition, to increase the accuracy of detection, the error evaluation is invoked to analyze the error of the 3D candidate lines. Our algorithm was evaluated on the real test scenes, which content noisy point clouds, and shows the high performance and robust results.
Inducible Nitric Oxide Synthase (iNOS) is Not Required for IL-2–induced Hypotension and Vascular Leak Syndrome in Mice

Dose limiting side effects of interleukin-2 (IL-2) include severe hypotension and vascular leak syndrome (VLS). Previous studies have shown that nitric oxide (NO) synthesis is strongly induced after IL-2 treatment of C3H/HeN mice (180,000 IU b.i.d. for 5 d). We employed knockout mice (on C57BL/6 background) to test the role of the inducible NO synthase (iNOS) in mediating IL-2 toxicity. In contrast to C3H/HeN mice, which developed hypotension and VLS after 10 doses of only 180,000 IU IL-2, C57BL/6 mice were far more resistant requiring increased doses of 800,000 IU IL-2 (b.i.d., 5 d) to induce hypotension and VLS. Serum interferon-γ levels were significantly more elevated by IL-2 treatment in C3H/HeN mice than in C57BL/6, correlating with the severity of hypotension and VLS. Urinary excretion of NO metabolites was markedly reduced in iNOS knockout mice (C57BL/6 iNOS−/−) after IL-2 treatment. A surprising finding was that these mice still developed profound hypotension and VLS. Similar findings were observed after administration of a iNOS specific inhibitor, L-N[6]-(1-iminoethyl)lysine (L-NIL). In contrast, a general NOS inhibitor, NG-monomethyl-L-arginine, prevented both hypotension and vascular leak. The superoxide dismutase mimetic, M40403, reversed IL-2–induced hypotension but not VLS in knockout mice. Thus, peroxynitrite-mediated mechanisms are likely responsible for hypotension, whereas NO-induced changes in vascular permeability result in VLS. The iNOS enzyme is not necessary for pathogenesis of IL-2–induced cardiovascular toxicity. These results imply that other NOS isoforms, such as endothelial NOS, may play a major role in the development of IL-2–induced cardiovascular toxicity.
Beery VMI performance in autism spectrum disorder

Few studies have examined the visuomotor integration (VMI) abilities of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). An all-male sample consisting of 56 ASD participants (ages 3–23 years) and 36 typically developing (TD) participants (ages 4–26 years) completed the Beery-Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration (Beery VMI) as part of a larger neuropsychological battery. Participants were also administered standardized measures of intellectual functioning and the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS), which assesses autism and autism-like traits. The ASD group performed significantly lower on the Beery VMI and on all IQ measures compared to the TD group. VMI performance was significantly correlated with full scale IQ (FSIQ), performance IQ (PIQ), and verbal IQ (VIQ) in the TD group only. However, when FSIQ was taken into account, no significant Beery VMI differences between groups were observed. Only one TD participant scored 1.5 standard deviations (SDs) below the Beery VMI normative sample mean, in comparison to 21% of the ASD sample. As expected, the ASD group was rated as having significantly higher levels of social impairment on the SRS compared to the TD group across all major domains. However, level of functioning on the SRS was not associated with Berry VMI performance. These findings demonstrate that a substantial number of individuals with ASD experience difficulties compared to TD in performing VMI-related tasks, and that VMI is likely affected by general cognitive ability. The fact that lowered Beery VMI performance occurred only within a subset of individuals with ASD and did not correlate with SRS would indicate that visuomotor deficits are not a core feature of ASD, even though they present at a higher rate of impairment than observed in TD participants.
High risk or low: how location on a "risk ladder" affects perceived risk.

Efforts to explain risk magnitude often rely on a "risk ladder" in which exposure levels and associated risk estimates are arrayed with low levels at the bottom and high ones at the top. Two experiments were conducted to test the hypothesis that perceived threat and intended mitigation vary with the location of the subject's assigned level on the risk ladder. Subjects were New Jersey homeowners, asked to assume a particular level of radon or asbestos contamination in their homes, to read a brochure explaining the risk, and then to complete a questionnaire. Both studies found that the difference between an assigned level one-quarter of the way up the ladder and the same level three-quarters of the way up the ladder significantly affected threat perception; the effect on mitigation intentions was significant in only one of the studies. Variations in assigned risk also affected threat perception and mitigation intentions. Variations in test magnitude (e.g., 15 fibers per liter vs. 450 fibers per cubic foot, roughly equivalent risks) had no effect, nor did the distinction between radon and asbestos affect the dependent variables. These findings suggest that communicators can design risk ladders to emphasize particular risk characteristics.
Cryptosporidium p30, a Galactose/N-Acetylgalactosamine-specific Lectin, Mediates Infection in Vitro*

Cryptosporidium sp. cause human and animal diarrheal disease worldwide. The molecular mechanisms underlying Cryptosporidium attachment to, and invasion of, host cells are poorly understood. Previously, we described a surface-associated Gal/GalNAc-specific lectin activity in sporozoites of Cryptosporidium parvum. Here we describe p30, a 30-kDa Gal/GalNAc-specific lectin isolated from C. parvum and Cryptosporidium hominis sporozoites by Gal-affinity chromatography. p30 is encoded by a single copy gene containing a 906-bp open reading frame, the deduced amino acid sequence of which predicts a 302-amino acid, 31.8-kDa protein with a 22-amino acid N-terminal signal sequence. The p30 gene is expressed at 24–72 h after infection of intestinal epithelial cells. Antisera to recombinant p30 expressed in Escherichia coli react with an ∼30-kDa protein in C. parvum and C. hominis. p30 is localized to the apical region of sporozoites and is predominantly intracellular in both sporozoites and intracellular stages of the parasite. p30 associates with gp900 and gp40, Gal/GalNAc-containing mucin-like glycoproteins that are also implicated in mediating infection. Native and recombinant p30 bind to Caco-2A cells in a dose-dependent, saturable, and Gal-inhibitable manner. Recombinant p30 inhibits C. parvum attachment to and infection of Caco-2A cells, whereas antisera to the recombinant protein also inhibit infection. Taken together, these findings suggest that p30 mediates C. parvum infection in vitro and raise the possibility that this protein may serve as a target for intervention.
Development and Characterization of Mucoadhesive In Situ Nasal Gel of Midazolam Prepared with Ficus carica Mucilage

The objective of the present study was to prepare mucoadhesive in situ nasal gels with mucilage isolated from fig fruits (Ficus carica, family: Moraceae) containing midazolam hydrochloride. Nasal gels of midazolam were prepared using three different concentrations (0.5%, 1.0% and 1.5% w/v) of F. carica mucilage (FCM) and synthetic polymers (hydroxypropylmethyl cellulose and Carbopol 934). Evaluation of FCM showed that it was as safe as the synthetic polymers for nasal administration. In situ gels were prepared with mixture Pluronic F127 and mucoadhesive agents. Evaluation of the prepared gels was carried out, including determination of viscosity, texture profile analysis and mucoadhesive strength. In vitro drug permeation study was conducted with the gels prepared with and without permeation enhancer (0.5% w/v sodium taurocholate) using excised goat nasal mucosa. In vitro permeation profiles were evaluated, and histological study of nasal mucosae before and after permeation study was also conducted to determine histological change, if any. In vivo experiments conducted in rabbits further confirmed that in situ nasal gels provided better bioavailability of midazolam than the gels prepared from synthetic mucoadhesive polymers. It was observed that the nasal gel containing 0.5% FCM and 0.5% sodium taurocholate exhibited appropriate rheological, mechanical and mucoadhesive properties and showed better drug release profiles. Moreover, this formulation produced no damage to the nasal mucosa that was used for the permeation study, and absolute bioavailability was also higher compared to gels prepared from synthetic polymers.
Efficient rate-distortion optimization for HDR video compression

Rate-Distortion optimization is updated to improve HEVC coding performance for HDR content. The proposed method employs Perceptually Uniform encoding as a distortion measure and shows on average performance improvement of 1.06% for HDR-VDP-2.2 Q factor and 4.02% in HDR-VQM with respect to the reference encoder. Further, with proposed change, better bit budget estimation is achieved showing performance improvement in Rate-Control. In comparison to NRMSE values from 0.5991 to 3.7670 achieved by the reference encoder, the proposed method is able to achieve improved NRMSE values from 0.2896 to 2.7754.
Common-wide information flow in CDS markets: The case of earnings surprises of industry leaders

ABSTRACTThis paper examines the way common-wide information is disseminated in credit default swap (CDS) markets. I find strong supporting evidence that earnings announcements of CDS references with greater liquidity and higher credit risk help in predicting the subsequent CDS spread movements of their industry peers. This is consistent with the notion that the earnings announcements of certain firms may contain valuable market- and industry-wide information, which may be utilised afterwards to appraise the financial situation and the creditworthiness of industry peers, thereby influencing their CDS rates. Another major finding is that this common-wide information seems to be impounded with a lag into the CDS rates of industry peers. That pattern appears to be more pronounced for negative than for positive earnings surprises. The lag in the response to earnings surprises is higher among firms of the financial, cyclical consumer and energy sectors, and almost non-existent for firms of the sectors of techno.
Handover Latency Reduction on Host-based Mobility in Multihomed Networks

Future pervasive networks will be constructed by various access networks, which will be managed by different operators. Host-based mobility mechanisms are promising for achieving efficient mobile computing in such an environment, because of their ability to handle the multihomed environment. However, the impact of switching network media will significantly degrade performance of communications with large RTT and high moving intensity. Therefore, we propose an adaptive handover scheme on host-based mobility to mitigate the impact of the switching media under such circumstances. This scheme switches the way of handover according to the network conditions. Furthermore, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme through simulation results
Randomization approach to water suppression in multidimensional NMR using pulsed field gradients.

Randomization approach to water suppression in multidimensional NMR using pulsed field gradients. Title Randomization approach to water suppression in multidimensional NMR using pulsed field gradients. Publication Type Journal Article Year of Publication 1995 Authors Altieri, AS, Byrd, RA Journal J Magn Reson B Volume 107 Issue 3 Pagination 260-6 Date Published 1995 Jun ISSN 1064-1866
Fusing Organizational Theory, Policy, and Leadership: A Depiction of Policy Learning Activities in a Principal Preparation Program

This pedagogy–practice article portrays three instructional activities that were implemented with aspiring leaders and refined over four rounds of teaching the course in a northeastern state’s principal preparation program (PPP). After describing each activity, I share lessons learned regarding the pedagogy of principal preparation. I make the case that embedding organizational theory into PPP coursework can play a role in developing the higher order skills of aspiring leaders.
A simple yet effective approach for resource allocation in outband device-to-device communication

This paper presents an efficient resource allocation approach for outband device-to-device communication within cellular networks. The proposed method aims to maximize bandwidth resource utilization and simplify system protocols, greatly optimizing throughput by minimizing the number of blocked connections and increasing the ease of operation. Using this method, bandwidth resources can be effectively provided for use according to the level of network traffic. Simulation results verify that our newly proposed method is indeed superior to the conventional method.
Mimicking the Escherichia coli cytoplasmic environment activates long‐lived and efficient cell‐free protein synthesis

Cell‐free translation systems generally utilize high‐energy phosphate compounds to regenerate the adenosine triphosphate (ATP) necessary to drive protein synthesis. This hampers the widespread use and practical implementation of this technology in a batch format due to expensive reagent costs; the accumulation of inhibitory byproducts, such as phosphate; and pH change. To address these problems, a cell‐free protein synthesis system has been engineered that is capable of using pyruvate as an energy source to produce high yields of protein. The “Cytomim” system, synthesizes chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) for up to 6 h in a batch reaction to yield 700 μg/mL of protein. By more closely replicating the physiological conditions of the cytoplasm of Escherichia coli, the Cytomim system provides a stable energy supply for protein expression without phosphate accumulation, pH change, exogenous enzyme addition, or the need for expensive high‐energy phosphate compounds. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Facilitated diffusion of VEGF165 through descemet's membrane with sucrose octasulfate

Vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF‐A) is a promoter of neovascularization and thus a popular therapeutic target for diseases involving excessive growth of blood vessels. In this study, we explored the potential of the disaccharide sucrose octasulfate (SOS) to alter VEGF165 diffusion through Descemet's membrane. Descemet's membranes were isolated from bovine eyes and used as a barrier between two chambers of a diffusion apparatus to measure VEGF transport. Diffusion studies revealed a dramatic increase in VEGF165 transport in the presence of SOS, with little diffusion of VEGF165 across the membrane over a 10‐h time course in the absence of SOS. Diffusion studies with VEGF121, a non‐heparin binding variant of VEGF, showed robust diffusion with or without SOS. To determine a possible mechanism, we measured the ability of SOS to inhibit VEGF interactions with extracellular matrix (ECM), using cell‐free and cell surface binding assays. Binding studies showed SOS had no effect on VEGF165 binding to either heparin‐coated plates or endothelial cell surfaces at less than mg/ml concentrations. In contrast, we show that SOS inhibited VEGF165 binding to fibronectin in a dose dependent manner and dramatically accelerated the rate of release of VEGF165 from fibronectin. SOS also inhibited the binding of VEGF165 to fibronectin‐rich ECM deposited by vascular smooth muscle cells. These results suggest that fibronectin‐rich extracellular matrices serve as barriers to VEGF165 diffusion by providing a network of binding sites that can trap and sequester the protein. Since the content of Descemet's membrane is typical of many basement membranes it is possible that they serve throughout the body as formidable barriers to VEGF165 diffusion and tightly regulate its bioavailability and distribution within tissues. J. Cell. Physiol. 227: 3693–3700, 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Using a distributed Shapley-value based approach to ensure navigability in a social network of smart objects

The huge number of nodes that is expected to join the Internet of Things in the short term will add major scalability issues to several procedures. A recent promising approach to these issues is based on social networking solutions to allow objects to autonomously establish social relationships. Every object in the resulting Social IoT (SIoT) exchanges data with its friend objects in a distributed manner to avoid the need for centralized solutions to implement major functionalities, such as: node discovery, information search and trustworthiness management. However, the number and types of established friendship affects network navigability. This paper addresses this issue proposing an efficient, distributed and dynamic strategy for the objects to select the right friends for the benefit of the overall network connectivity. The proposed friendship selection model relies on a Shapley-value based algorithm mapping the friendship selection process in the SIoT onto the coalition formation problem in a corresponding cooperative game. The obtained results show that the proposed solution is able to ensure global navigability, measured in terms of average path length among two nodes in the network, by means of a distributed and wise selection of the number of friend objects a node has to handle.
A band of alkaline phosphatase activity in the crypts of mouse duodenal epithelium.

Isolated mouse duodenal epithelium, in the form of structurally intact crypt-villus units, was used to study the distribution of alkaline phosphatase with histochemistry. The tissue was incubated on ice in the medium of Hugon and Borgers (J Histochem Cytochem 14:629, 1966), with constant stirring to ensure uniform reaction. Continuous activity was observed frm the crypt mouth to the villus tip. A single band of alkaline phosphatase activity, 2-03 cell in height, was observed in the mid-crypt region in about 80% of crypts studied. Control studies (no substrate control, no lead control, pH control, inhibitor control, inactivated enzyme control, no enzyme control, and stimulator indeed due to alkaline phosphatase. The narrow band of activity in the crypt was also observed in vibratome sections of nonfrozen tissue. When isolated epithelium was subjected to a freeze-thaw cycle and then incubated in Hugon's medium, reaction product was observed continuously from the mid-crypt region to the villus tip. This pattern was similar to that observed with frozen sections. We conclude that alkaline phosphatase is present in an active form in epithelial cells in the region of the band. In epithelial cells above the band, e.e. , in the upper crypt, alkaline phosphatase is present in an inactive form which may be activated by a freeze-thaw cycle.
Advanced electricity load forecasting combining electricity and transportation network

Load forecasting plays a very crucial role in many aspects of electric power systems including the economic and social benefits. Previously, there have been many studies involving load forecasting using time series approach, including weather-load relationships. In one such approach to predict load, this paper investigates through different structures that aim to relate various daily parameters. These parameters include temperature, humidity and solar radiation that comprises the weather data. Along with natural phenomenon as weather, physical aspects such as traffic flow are also considered. Based on the relationship, a prediction algorithm is applied to check if prediction error decreases when such external factors are considered. Electricity consumption data is collected from the City of Tallahassee utilities. Traffic count is provided by the Florida Department of Transportation. Moreover, the weather data is obtained from Tallahassee regional Airport weather station. This paper aims to study and establish a cause and effect relationship between the mentioned variables using different causality models and to forecast load based on the external variables. Based on the relationship, a prediction algorithm is applied to check if prediction error decreases when such external factors are considered.
MEMS Endoscopic Tactile Sensor: Toward In-Situ and In-Vivo Tissue Softness Characterization

The superiority of endoscopic surgery over traditional open surgery in many areas has encouraged researchers to tackle a few shortcomings that are associated with the current state of minimally invasive surgical procedures. Among the shortcomings of minimally invasive surgery (MIS), the lack of sense of touch was the motive of the present work. Therefore, this research was aimed at restoring tactile sensing capabilities by developing a microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) tactile sensor for integration with existing MIS graspers. The tactile sensor is able to measure force, force position and also the softness of the grasped object. The transduction element, a uniaxial polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) film, was characterized before the microfabrication of the corrugated sensor. A finite-element model of the sensor system and soft material was also developed. The simulation results were compared with those of the experimental tests and the comparison showed good agreement.