Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Strategies in the Prevention of Preterm Births During and Before Pregnancy

Preterm birth – defined as a childbirth before 259 days of gestation (<37 weeks) – is the major challenge in obstetrics and gynaecology worldwide. Preterm birth is associated with high perinatal mortality and surviving children often suffer higher morbidity throughout their lives. The incidence of preterm birth is very high in developing countries but also in some developed countries. According to a worldwide WHO report, Africa and North America, with rates of 11.9% and 10.6% in 2005, are the regions with the highest rates of incidence (Beck et al., 2010). Preterm birth not only causes much harm but also is associated with high costs. Despite considerable technical and medical improvements in obstetrics over recent decades, in developed countries preterm birth rates are not decreasing. On the contrary, the incidence continues to increase. In relation to possible preventive and epidemiologically well-founded measures, although onset and aetiology are not completely understood, our epidemiological knowledge concerning risk and protective factors of preterm birth is in no way poor. As regards preventive approaches, a distinction has to be made between primary and secondary preventive interventions, with this chapter focusing on the former. After presenting some epidemiological and economic data on preterm birth, we will summarise the scope and results of certain programmes aiming to prevent preterm births. Subsequently, we will introduce the framework and methods of our prevention programme BabyCare. Special attention will be given to the evaluative methods and results achieved by our programme in terms of effectiveness and efficiency. While we can register a considerable and stable reduction in the incidence of preterm birth by at least 25% when comparing participants in the programme with a control data set, epidemiological analysis of our data indicates further that certain persistent risk factors of preterm birth observed in relation to programme participants require additional preventive measures which, ideally, should be implemented at the pre-conceptual stage. Consequently, after releasing the BabyCare Program in 2000, the PlanBaby Program was launched in 2007. In conclusion, interventional as well as evaluative problems and limitations of our programmes will be discussed.
A new method, with application, for analysis of the impacts on flood risk of widely distributed enhanced hillslope storage

Abstract. Enhanced hillslope storage is utilised in “natural” flood management in order to retain overland storm run-off and to reduce connectivity between fast surface flow pathways and the channel. Examples include excavated ponds, deepened or bunded accumulation areas, and gullies and ephemeral channels blocked with wooden barriers or debris dams. The performance of large, distributed networks of such measures is poorly understood. Extensive schemes can potentially retain large quantities of run-off, but there are indications that much of their effectiveness can be attributed to desynchronisation of sub-catchment flood waves. Inappropriately sited measures may therefore increase, rather than mitigate, flood risk. Fully distributed hydrodynamic models have been applied in limited studies but introduce significant computational complexity. The longer run times of such models also restrict their use for uncertainty estimation or evaluation of the many potential configurations and storm sequences that may influence the timings and magnitudes of flood waves. Here a simplified overland flow-routing module and semi-distributed representation of enhanced hillslope storage is developed. It is applied to the headwaters of a large rural catchment in Cumbria, UK, where the use of an extensive network of storage features is proposed as a flood mitigation strategy. The models were run within a Monte Carlo framework against data for a 2-month period of extreme flood events that caused significant damage in areas downstream. Acceptable realisations and likelihood weightings were identified using the GLUE uncertainty estimation framework. Behavioural realisations were rerun against the catchment model modified with the addition of the hillslope storage. Three different drainage rate parameters were applied across the network of hillslope storage. The study demonstrates that schemes comprising widely distributed hillslope storage can be modelled effectively within such a reduced complexity framework. It shows the importance of drainage rates from storage features while operating through a sequence of events. We discuss limitations in the simplified representation of overland flow-routing and representation and storage, and how this could be improved using experimental evidence. We suggest ways in which features could be grouped more strategically and thus improve the performance of such schemes.
Self-Interest and Organizational Performance: An Empirical Examination with U.S. and Brazilian Managers

The literature has drifted towards a polarized view of managers as either individuals concerned with mitigating self-interest (e.g. agency and organizational politics theories) or individuals who actively motivate and engage team members in the pursuit of common organizational goals (e.g. shared cognition and justice theories). Using a survey sample of 419 U.S. and Brazilian managers, we propose and find instead that managers exhibit complex attitudes and behaviors that do not reflect a single perspective of human behavior in the workplace. Managers who perceive self-interest to be common are not necessarily less concerned with other issues unrelated to self-interest (e.g. fairness and adequate treatment for team members). Managers also appear to adopt behaviors that blend recommendations consistent with multiple theories. For instance, we find that managers who are concerned with justice not only emphasize practices to foster justice, but also practices that directly follow from agency theory (such as performance evaluation and incentives); and the joint emphasis in those practices appear to positively influence organizational performance. By outlining the predictions of distinct theories and exploring their possible interactions, our study contributes with a more complete picture of the interplay between managerial attitudes, managerial behavior and performance.
Development of Coupled Particle Hypersonic Flowfield-Photon Monte Carlo Radiation Methods

DOI: 10.2514/1.44645 With its fast reentry speed, the Stardust vehicle generated a strong shock region ahead of its blunt body with a translational temperature in excess of 60,000 K. Such an extreme Mach number flow is sufficiently energetic to initiate gas ionization processes and thermal and chemical ablation processes. The generated charged species affect nonequilibrium atomic and molecular energy distributions and shock layer radiation. In this work, we present the first loosely coupled direct simulation Monte Carlosimulations with the particle-based photon Monte Carlo method to simulate high-Mach-number reentry flows in the near-continuum to transitional flow regimes. Eleven species including five ionization processes were modeled in direct simulation Monte Carlo, and the average ion velocity model was used to simulate the electron motion. The degree of ionization is predicted to be between 3–7% along the stagnation line for altitudes of 68.9 and 81 km, and the maximum translational and electron temperatures are approximately 60,000 and 20,000 K, respectively. To efficiently capture the nonequilibrium radiation generated by this flow, emission and absorption coefficient databases using the Nonequilibrium Air Radiation computational tool were generated. However, in contrast to the Nonequilibrium Air Radiation computational tool, radiative transport was modeled by the particle-based photon Monte Carlo method instead of the simplified one-dimensional tangentslab approximation. It was found that the atomic nitrogen emission is approximately 1 order of magnitude higher than the atomic oxygen emission along the stagnation line due to the higher concentration of atomic nitrogen at this altitude.Theradiationenergychangecalculatedbytheparticle-basedphotonMonteCarlomethodwascoupledwith the direct simulation Monte Carlo calculations, and it was found that although the atomic nitrogen and atomic oxygenatomicradiationdoesnothaveanimportantimpactonthe flowfieldat81km,thestrongerradiationmodified the flowfield and heat flux at the wall at an altitude close to peak heating.
Expression of Sweet Potato Senescence-Associated Cysteine Proteases Affect Seed and Silique Development and Stress Tolerance in Transgenic Arabidopsis

Hsien-Jung Chen1, Guan-Jhong Huang2, Chia-Hung Lin1, Yi-Jing Tsai1, Zhe-Wei Lin1, Shu-Hao Liang1 and Yaw-Huei Lin3 1Department of Biological Sciences, National Sun Yat-sen University, Kaohsiung 2School of Chinese Pharmaceutical Sciences and Chinese Medicine Resources, College of Pharmacy, China Medical University, Taichung 3Institute of Plant and Microbial Biology, Academia Sinica, Nankang, Taipei Taiwan
A NEW MPPT CONTROLLER FOR PHOTOVOLTAIC SYSTEM BASED ON HIGH ORDER SLIDING MODE APPROACH

The photovoltaic energy is now considered as an important source of electricity and renewable energy in general. However it is an unstable source of power since it presents a nonlinear current-power characteristic that depends on the variable climatic conditions as the illumination and the temperature. Consequently this leads to the variation of the maximum power point (MPP)’s position. Therefore, this work will deal with this problem of power optimization by using a robust technique called a high order sliding mode algorithm which is proposed to track the maximum power point in spite of model uncertainties and meteorology condition variations. A detailed description of the tracking approaches’ theoretical analysis is presented. The proposed MPP tracking algorithm has been validated through an extensive simulation work under MATLB/SIMULINK package. Based on the obtained results, we can note a great effectiveness in terms of output power optimization. Moreover, this new MPPT controller resolved the well known chattering problem and succeeded to ensure a great robustness and stability against the rapid external disturbances variation and the parametric uncertainties of the photovoltaic systems.
DROIDSWAN: Detecting Malicious Android Applications Based on Static Feature Analysis

Android being a widely used mobile platform has witnessed an increase in the number of malicious samples on its market place. The availability of multiple sources for downloading applications has also contributed to users falling prey to malicious applications. Classification of an Android application as malicious or benign remains a challenge as malicious applications maneuver to pose themselves as benign. This paper presents an approach which extracts various features from Android Application Package file (APK) using static analysis and subsequently classifies using machine learning techniques. The contribution of this work includes deriving, extracting and analyzing crucial features of Android applications that aid in efficient classification. The analysis is carried out using various machine learning algorithms with both weighted and non-weighted approaches. It was observed that weighted approach depicts higher detection rates using fewer features. Random Forest algorithm exhibited high detection rate and shows the least false positive rate.
Midges, Cladophora, and epiphytes: shifting interactions through succession

Abstract. Midge larvae (Pseudochironomus richardsoni Malloch) in the South Fork Eel River, California, weave retreats in mats of Cladophora glomerata (L.) Kütz. and graze on its algal epiphytes. Densities of these midges and their effects on Cladophora vary over time (seasonally, over the course of succession, and interannually) and space (down the drainage network). New Cladophora growth is green, turns yellow with early colonization by a monolayer of Cocconeis, and rusty-red as it becomes heavily epiphytized by a multistory layer of Epithemia spp. (Rhopalodiaceae), diatoms that contain N-fixing endosymbiotic cyanobacteria. To determine how midges influence epiphyte assemblage structure, we incubated Cladophora in early (green [G]), mid (yellow [Y]), and late (rusty-red [R]) stages of succession with and without midges and assessed changes in epiphyte density and composition. Midge effects on epiphyte composition and density (as measured by % cover on Cladophora filaments) varied with stage of succession and proximity to the ends of midge retreats. Local increases in retreat-associated cyanobacteria occurred in Y and R stages. Percent cover of Cocconeis increased on Y filaments >2 cm from midge retreats (ambient) indicating indirect midge effects (e.g., fertilization). Midges were less effective grazers on adnate Cocconeis cells than on loosely attached Epithemia and often ingested Cladophora in the process of grazing or retreat building, especially in G and Y stages. In contrast, midges that grazed on R Cladophora primarily consumed diatoms in the Rhopalodiaceae. Midge survival and retreat quality were lower in G than in Y or R stages, where retreats were longer and denser. Shifts in epiphyte composition and % cover caused by midge–algae interactions at small scales (µm–m) could affect ecologically significant processes, such as N-fixation and foodweb interactions at larger reach and watershed scales.
Fault-Tolerant Deployment of Dataflow Applications Using Virtual Processors

Multi-processors are suited to host a dynamic mix of real-time dataflow applications, but are increasingly subject to faults because of the decreasing feature size. Applications can start and stop as needed if they execute on a private set of Virtual Processors (VPs) that are deployed on the physical processors. This allows online software updates, but makes it impossible to predict the deployment. If a fault renders a processor unusable, the free resources on other processors may be too fragmented to allow its VPs to be re-deployed. We show that mapping an application to more VPs reduces the maximum VP size. This increases the probability of successfully dealing with faults, at the cost of an increase of the total size. Such a mapping can either be run from the start, or we can split the VPs only when a fault occurs. Experiments confirm the feasibility of our approach, and show a trade-off between improved fault-tolerance and resource usage for both strategies.
Novel Floating and Auto-stereoscopic Display with IRLED Sensors Interactive Virtual Touch System

A wide range of the types of interactive virtual touch system have been in research and development. As displayed by the trends, users do not need any special equipment, can interact with the images, and under normal circumstances of the interactive nature, saves trouble. We have been studying relevant video interactive systems in which a virtual image, like in the real world, exists to display objects. We developed a floating display and the principle, which is based on an interactive video system, to enable more realistic auto-stereoscopic images. We developed and applied a multi-view auto-stereoscopic concept, and this newly developed system contains static and moving images. To prove that this concept can be applied, we have developed a series of infrared light-emitting diode sensors character interaction system. In the study, the system is presented in any virtual objects displayed on the screen. These virtual objects move around and interact with the user. The user need not key in any input mode of operation and can use body language to achieve interactive function, as if the fictitious image exists in the ambient space. Here, we use infrared LED array sensors to sense human body motion and finger movements, and we use LED modules to transmit and receive arrays. The systems uses a three-dimensional arrangement of the LED array architecture in order to effectively and accurately detect the user's finger movements and body motions. The purpose of the entire framework is to have the principle of an actual image go through the optical system of the lens from the external surface of the system in 5 cm floating images. The optical lens system frontage of 50 cm can be seen as a pop-up image, and the image shows a 15° angle. People use their forefinger in a non-contact space virtual touch system to control the floating image menu. Touching virtual objects in virtual space will become the next generation human-machine operations. Touching virtual objects architecture will have an effect on other devices. This fictitious space inter-osculate virtual keyboard idea will have a benefit on people's health (not infected) and can be applied to other public equipment like the ATM, hospital elevator (buttons), and so on.
ARABIC TWEETS CATEGORIZATION BASED ON ROUGH SET THEORY

Twitter is a popular microblogging service where users create status messages (called “tweets”). These tweets sometimes express opinions about different topics; and are presented to the user in a chronological order. This format of presentation is useful to the user since the latest tweets from are rich on recent news which is generally more interesting than tweets about an event that occurred long time back. Merely, presenting tweets in a chronological order may be too embarrassing to the user, especially if he has many followers. Therefore, there is a need to separate the tweets into different categories and then present the categories to the user. Nowadays Text Categorization (TC) becomes more significant especially for the Arabic language which is one of the most complex languages. In this paper, in order to improve the accuracy of tweets categorization a system based on Rough Set Theory is proposed for enrichment the document’s representation. The effectiveness of our system was evaluated and compared in term of the F-measure of the Naive Bayesian classifier and the Support Vector Machine classifier.
Determining the Characteristics of Composite Structure Laminae by Optical 3D Measurement of Deformation with Numerical Analysis

Experimental determination of the elastic constants of orthotropic composite materials and their bearing capacity (strength) for furniture intended for sitting, and numerical verification of the experiment results by analysing with the final elements, was performed on the basis of the theory of elasticity of orthotropic and anisotropic composite materials. The requisite and sufficient material constants were determined in the experiments: moduli of elasticity and Poisson’s coefficients (longitudinal and tangential) and skate modulus for plain stress. These constants, calculated by 3D measurements of deformation, are sufficient for determining the constitutive matrix of the lamina, and for reducing stiffness of the composite irrespective of the thickness of the layers, fibre orientation and choice of material. Experiments were conducted for the stiffness, shear and flexing of uniformly and complexly layered beech veneer sheets, while for new materials experiments for stiffness and shear in a uniform orientation were sufficient. Analysis of stiffness and deformations were conducted layer by layer, as well as by reduced volume stiffness for multi-layered orthotropic shells of chair systems by a method of final elements by application of a composite final element, where combined reduced membrane matrices and flexing matrices are used. Numerical verification of the experiments, including systems of furniture intended for sitting – chairs – was conducted using the KOMIPS software system, which contains in its library a composite final element of the sheet. Experiments with chairs were performed with the aim of determining the stiffness of such systems, and they were confirmed by analytical results and measurement of the real movements on selected models. The results of research provide the design, re-design, construction and determination of the dimensions of not just chairs, but also of any other girder or surface system based on laminates.
Poly(diol citrate) nanocomposites with enhanced mechanical properties

The mechanical properties of a tissue engineering scaffold are particularly important when engineering soft tissues as it has been shown that mechanical stimulation during in vitro tissue development can modulate cell differentiation, increase extracellular matrix synthesis, and enhance the mechanical properties of cartilaginous, ligamentous, and smooth muscle containing tissues [1-5]. Unfortunately, one of the main limitations with poly(hydroxyortho esters) and other polymers commonly used in tissue engineering is their inability to undergo large reversible elastic deformations when stressed [6]. Due to the stiffness and lack of elasticity of commonly used polymers in tissue engineering, our laboratory has developed a novel family of biodegradable elastomeric polyesters referred to as poly(diol citrates) [7-9]. Their mechanical properties can be adjusted depending on the selection of diols and the post-polymerization conditions [8]. Nevertheless, the mechanical properties that can be obtained may not meet the demanding requirements of musculoskeletal tissues, which are often exposed to relatively large tensile or compressive loading forces. In this study we describe the fabrication and mechanical characterization of novel elastomeric nanocomposite materials in which the macrophase consists of a poly(1,10decanediol-co-citrate) (PDC) elastomer and the nanophase consists of a poly(L-lactic acid) (PLLA) nanofibrous network or poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) nanoparticles.
A Geometric Revisit to the Trace Quotient Problem

This paper studies the problem of trace quotient, or trace ratio maximization, which has enormous applications in computer vision, pattern recognition and machine learning. We provide a geometric revisit to the problem in the framework of optimization on smooth manifolds. The set of critical points of the trace quotient is analyzed. Local quadratic convergence properties of the so-called Iterative Trace Ratio (ITR) scheme, which recently became an attractive solver to the problem, is studied. Based on this result, different from a popular realization of ITR, which requires to solve a symmetric eigenvalue problem at each iteration, we propose a simple, efficient algorithm, which employs only one step of the parallel Rayleigh quotient iteration at each iteration. An numerical experiment demonstrates the local convergence properties of ITR.