Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Determinants of Mortality at Older Ages: The Role of Biological Markers of Chronic Disease

Researchers have had a longstanding interest in understanding the determinants of mortality. This article examines the impact of a broad array of biological markers, together with self-reports of physical and mental health status, on the probability of dying for older adults. The estimates are derived from logistic regression models based on data from a national survey in Taiwan. The analysis confirms previous studies demonstrating the effects of clinical measures related to metabolic syndrome on mortality and identifies detrimental effects of neuroendocrine and immune-system markers. The results reveal that biomarkers provide independent explanatory power in the presence of self-reported health measures. The associations between biomarkers and mortality found here provide new avenues for projecting future mortality and elucidating differences in longevity across populations. Copyright 2005 The Population Council, Inc.
Solar modulation parameter for cosmic rays since 1936 reconstructed from ground-based neutron monitors and ionization chambers

[1] The differential energy spectrum of galactic cosmic rays near Earth is often parameterized by the force field model with the only time-dependent parameter, the modulation potential ϕ. Here we present a series of reconstructed monthly values of the modulation potential for the period from July 1936 through December 2009. This works extends our earlier study by employing new data and improving the reconstruction method. The presented series is a composite of three parts. The most reliable part is based on data from the world network of sea level neutron monitors and covers the period since April 1964. The part between February 1951 and March 1964 is based on data from one to two mountain neutron monitors of IGY type and is characterized by larger uncertainties and possible systematic error. The part related to the period before 1951 is based on data from Forbush ground-based ionization chambers and is characterized by large uncertainties and should be taken with caveats. The reconstructed series has been tested against long-term data of balloon-borne measurements of flux of cosmic ray ionizing radiation in the stratosphere performed by the Lebedev Institute since 1957. The comparison shows good agreement since 1964 but suggests that the result before 1964 may contain larger errors in that the NM-based reconstruction method may underestimate the low energy part of GCR spectrum.
Geographic analysis of social media and qualitative geovisualization

The popularity of geotagged social media has provided many research opportunities for geographers and GIScientists in the digital age. This article reviews innovative approaches to studying spatially linked social media, and applies lessons taken from qualitative GIS and geographic visualization to improve these approaches. I introduce the idea of “code clouds” as a potential technique for the qualitative geovisualization of spatial information. Code clouds can depict and visualize analytic codes, or codes identifying key ideas and themes, that are generated through digital qualitative research. Rather than transforming qualitative forms of data into categories or numbers, code clouds attempt to preserve and represent the context of data as a visualized outcome of qualitative analysis. I use examples from an exploratory case study of geotweets in King County, WA, to demonstrate how code clouds can be applied to the production of meanings through qualitative geovisualization.
Effect of sulphur on yields and S uptake by onion and garlic grown in acid alfisol of Ranchi.

Field experiments were carried out for three consecutive years ((2001 to 2004) at farmer’s field of Ranchi district to study the response of graded levels of sulphur on bulb yields and S uptake by onion and garlic crops applied through sulfer’ 95 and gypsum. An increase of 37.8 q ha-1 in bulb yield of onion and 18.8 q ha-1 bulb yield of garlic were obtained with S application up to 40 kg ha-1 over the recommended dose of fertilizers (NPK). Sulfer’ 95 was identified superior over gypsum to meet the S requirement of onion and garlic in S deficient soils of Ranchi. S use efficiency was found to be higher by these two crops with sulfer’ 95 than that of gypsum application
Education Choices and Returns to Schooling: Intrahousehold Decision Making, Gender and Subjective Expectations.

In this paper we investigate the role of expected returns to schooling and of perceived risks (of unemployment and earnings) as determinants of schooling decisions. Moreover, our data also allow us to shed light on the intrahousehold decision making process by analyzing whose expectations matter in schooling decisions, youths’ or parents’, and whether this depends on the age and gender of the youth. In particular, we use Mexican data that contain labor market expectations of both parents and youths. We find that expected returns and risk perceptions are important determinants of schooling decisions. Regarding youths’ role in the decision-making process, our results show that while both boys and girls expect high returns to schooling, only boys’ expectations matter in the decision, but not the ones of girls. Parents’ role depends on gender and age of the youths. JEL-Classification: I21, I22, O15
Oatmeal particle size alters glycemic index but not as a function of 1 gastric emptying rate 2 3

17 Scope: The aim of this study was to determine the extent to which oat particle size in a 18 porridge could alter glucose absorption, gastric emptying, gastrointestinal hormone response 19 and subjective feelings of appetite and satiety. 20 Method and results: Porridge was prepared from either oat flakes or oat flour with the same 21 protein, fat, carbohydrate and mass. These were fed to eight volunteers on separate days in 22 a crossover study and subjective appetite ratings, gastric contents and plasma glucose, 23 insulin, and gastrointestinal hormones were determined over a period of three hours. The 24 flake porridge gave a lower glucose response than the flour porridge and there were 25 apparent differences in gastric emptying in both the early and late post prandial phases. The 26 appetite ratings showed similar differences between early and late phase behavior. 27 Conclusions: The structure of the oat flakes remained sufficiently intact to delay their 28 gastric emptying leading to a lower glycemic response, even though initial gastric emptying 29 rates were similar for the flake and flour porridge. This highlights the need to take food 30 structure into account when considering relatively simple physiological measures and 31 offering nutritional guidance. 32
The ITZ in concrete with natural and recycled aggregates : Study of microstructures based on image and SEM analysis

Aim of this work was to investigate the microstructure of the Interfacial Transition Zone (ITZ) between cement paste and aggregate in concrete utilizing Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) in order to identify possible effects on the ITZ related to different recipes and production parameters. SEM is an important tool to carry out concrete, cement and aggregate microstructure characterization. SEM imaging facilitates identification of elements in concrete. Thanks to the higher spatial resolution, and the analytical capabilities, it allows to perform a materials-imaging-related analysis. Many information can thus be extracted from these data, such as composition, phase abundance and distribution. In particular, during the last years, backscattered electron imaging of polished surfaces became an important method for the study of cement and concrete microstructures. The technique has many advantages, as the possibility to visualize representative cross-sections over a wide range of magnifications and to correlate image contrast with materials composition (i.e. atomic number). Comparing the information acquired starting from SEM imaging and X-ray microanalysis, the complex microstructure of concrete can be analyzed and images with sub-micrometer definition acquired and processed, obtaining compositional, morphological and morphometric information allowing to understand and evaluate the mechanism affecting the interaction of the aggregates with the cement paste. A common image representative of the ITZ in concrete involves approximately a domain of about 30 μm surrounding each aggregate and showing, theoretically, an increase of the porosity at the aggregate interface. In order to study this transition zone, 12 different types of concrete mixtures were analyzed, characterized by different combination of cement and virgin/recycled aggregates. The influence of these aggregates (i.e. virgin and recycled) on the resulting concrete microstructure was studied. The significant morphological and overall textural characteristics (i.e. area with higher porosity around aggregate, micro-cracks, size of the crystals in the ITZ) were detected by SEM analysis. Image analysis and SEM investigation, obtained from different concrete samples, provided very interesting results due to the different porosity and the possible interactions between the aggregates and the cement paste.
Chapter 6 Additive Manufacturing of 3 D Printed Microwave Passive Components

This chapter presents a comprehensive analysis of the applications of a low-cost version of additive manufacturing (AM). The technique called Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF), which makes use of plastic as raw material, is explained in the context of its applications to the microwave waveguide engineering field. The main advantages of this technology include the promptness to print models, the variety of feasible geometries, and specially the reduced cost. The main limitations are also explained. Two important applications are considered: (1) rapid prototyping of complex devices and (2) manufacturing of fully functional devices. The former is relevant to get a more realistic perspective of the actual geometry in computer-aided designs, as shown in several examples. It also helps to forecast possible issues in the fabrication process that the computer sometimes fails to detect at the design stage. In the latter case (2), the subsequent and necessary metallization of plastic devices is also addressed. Several examples of state-of-the-art passive waveguide devices are presented, including waveguide filters, a diplexer, a branch-line coupler, a load or horn antennas, which have been printed, metallized, and measured. The results show the potential of three-dimensional (3D) printing and provide a different insight into this innovative technology.
Czech students and EU – knowledge and views

The paper deals with the results of a pilot study themed “Czech students and EU”, which adum­bra­ted a prepared extensive research in graduation years of secondary schools of the region Vysocina on the occasion of the Czech chairmanship in the European Union in the first half-year of 2009. The pilot study included 362 students of the Polytechnic College in Jihlava. Its objective consisted particularly in the rectification of a questionnaire and exploratory research into relationships between the know­led­ge and opinion parts of questionnaires even within the both mentioned parts by means of factor analysis and methods of structural modelling. With respect to the considerable number of respondents and standard conditions, which were ensured at completing the questionnaires it is not possible to ignore even results concerning the knowledge and views of the group of respondents as a whole as well as particular specific segments. Our research was inspired by a “Eurobarometer”, but with respect to a fact that (unlike the Standard Eurobarometer) it refers to a specific target group, ie studying young people, it concerns only partly and only in some questions comparable examination. Therefore, the questionnaire (in contrast to Eurobarometer) involves also the knowledge part. This part includes eight fields. With respect to the study orientation of the respondents surprisingly worse results occur particularly in fields Institution, politics and law of EU (30% successfulness) and Economy and finance of EU (37% successfulness). On the contrary, the highest successfulness (of course, only relatively) was noted in fields Culture, education and sport in EU (63%). Generally, knowledge of students can be unambiguously evaluated as poor. The opinion part includes in total 20 items, which are divided into five fields. In particular respondents, sex, the size of the place of residence, political profile, social group of a household, ideas of a future carrier, knowledge of languages and interest in problems of EU were determined by means of identification questions. As for the opinion part, it is possible to state that opinions of students are not too marked (answers in the central part of an evaluation scale predominate but, at the same time, all values of the scale were used in all questions) and differences between segments of respondents are generally insignificant. The subject of the paper is particularly aimed at the analysis of results of the opinion part, in the concrete eight items from two fields (Social dimension of EU and Me and EU). For the first area, segments were compared according to sex and political orientation and for the second area, according to sex, language knowledge and interest in EU problems.
Range and correlation effects in edge disordered graphene nanoribbons

In this paper, we investigate the impact of edge disorder on the transport properties of graphene nanoribbons with zigzag and armchair symmetries. The diffusive and localization conduction regimes are analysed by performing a mesoscopic study on long disordered ribbons and by extracting elastic mean free paths and localization lengths. At fixed defect density and depending on specific edge disorder profile and ribbon symmetry, we observe strong transport fluctuations resulting in large mobility gaps or robust quasi-ballistic transport. These features are shown to be connected with the topology of edge irregularities as well as their correlation degree. Zigzag nanoribbons are also shown to be more robust than armchairs for similar disorder parameters.
Title Harvesting discriminative meta objects with deep CNN featuresfor scene classification

Recent work on scene classification still makes use of generic CNN features in a rudimentary manner. In this paper, we present a novel pipeline built upon deep CNN features to harvest discriminative visual objects and parts for scene classification. We first use a region proposal technique to generate a set of high-quality patches potentially containing objects, and apply a pre-trained CNN to extract generic deep features from these patches. Then we perform both unsupervised and weakly supervised learning to screen these patches and discover discriminative ones representing category-specific objects and parts. We further apply discriminative clustering enhanced with local CNN finetuning to aggregate similar objects and parts into groups, called meta objects. A scene image representation is constructed by pooling the feature response maps of all the learned meta objects at multiple spatial scales. We have confirmed that the scene image representation obtained using this new pipeline is capable of delivering state-of-theart performance on two popular scene benchmark datasets, MIT Indoor 67 [22] and Sun397 [31].
Learning Word Meaning 2 Learning Word Meanings : A Comparison of Instructional Procedures and Effects on Measures of Reading Comprehension with Learning Disabled Students

AUTHOR Lamy, Darlene; Jenkins, Joseph R. TITLE Learning Word Meanings: A Comparison of Instructional Procedures and Effects on Eeasures of Reading Comprehension with Learning Disabled Students. Technical Report No. 25. INSTITUTION Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Inc., Cambridge, Eass. ; Illinois Univ., Urbana. Center for the Study of Reading. SPONS AGENCY National Inst. of Education (DREW), Washington, D.C. PUB LATE Mar 77 CONTEACT 400-76-0116 NOTE 34p.
Nursing Educators Need Our Help

There is a current demand for nurses and nursing faculty. Nursing faculty are necessary in order to meet the need for registered nurses in the United States. In order to meet the need for nursing faculty, nursing colleges are recruiting advanced degree nurses, even with little or no experience in academia. A literature review demonstrates a lack of support and orientation for novice nursing faculty. Various campaigns are underway in order to increase the number of qualified nursing faculty, yet few if any nursing programs offer an organized, structured, comprehensive orientation for new nursing faculty. Novice nursing faculty have reported feelings of apprehension, frustration and the desire to leave academia. This project implemented an online orientation program for nursing faculty at an undergraduate nursing program and measured the levels of self-efficacy before and after faculty took part in this program. Data was collected, analyzed and demonstrated that self-efficacy improved in content areas that the National League for Nursing has recommended as core competencies for nursing faculty. Although this was a small sample, it is recommended that nursing faculty receive an organized, structured, comprehensive orientation in order to minimize the feelings of inadequacy and frustration. This will increase the pool of qualified nursing faculty and therefore decrease the nursing shortage
NOVEL APPROACH IN FORMULATION AND EVALUATION OF MOUTH DISSOLVING TABLETS OF ONDANSETRON HYDROCHLORIDE

Mouth dissolving drug delivery systems has number of advantage viz., faster onset of action, elegance, ease of administration, ease of manufacturing, ease of storage and transport. A novel attempt has been made to develop mouth dissolving tablets of Ondansetron hydrochloride by including clove oil as flavor and local anesthetic on taste buds. The tablets were prepared by direct compression technique. The formulated tablets were evaluated for Pre formulation and post formulation parameters and they were found to be saatisfactory. Direct compression method was employed for making mouth dissolving tablets. The formulated mouth dissolving tablets possessed good drug releasing property, good mouth feel and improved drug availability with better patient compliance.
ASSESSMENT OF THE EFFECTS OF LAND USE SCENARIOS ON WATERSHED SURFACE RUNOFF USING HYDROLOGICAL MODELLING

To manage watersheds, simulations of hydrological phenomena are very important. This paper investigates hydrological modelling of Taleqan basin in Iran, and studies the effects of land use scenarios on the model runoff using Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). For this purpose, hydrometeorological data, soil map, land use maps, and digital elevation model of the area were prepared and used for model parameters’ sensitivity analysis, model calibration, and validation. Sensitivity analysis was performed using SUFI-2 algorithm. Model performance was evaluated by using time series visual comparison plots and statistical indicators of Nash-Sutcliffe (NS) and the coefficient of determination (R). It was shown that the model has high potential to predict monthly runoff. Then, the effects of land use changes on surface runoff in the basin were studied. For this purpose, practicable land use options in the watershed such as agroforestry, afforestation, expansion of agricultural land, and agriculture on terrace were considered. Hence, various management scenarios resulted from combinations of land use activities. They were applied to the calibrated model, and their effects on surface runoff were studied. The results show that management scenarios may have significant effects on runoff control.
SPECTRAL-TEMPORAL FEATURES OF SEISMIC LOADINGS ON THE BASIS OF STRONG MOTION WAVELET DATABASE

There are many different techniques for seismic impact simulation for engineering purposes. Some of them are very detailed and while practice needs quite simple and effective one. All of the techniques widely used determine envelop of seismic process in the time domain. Currently, it is possible to build a model based on a detailed study of the spectral and temporal energy content of seismic process. Wavelet analysis is an effective tool for spectral-temporal analysis. New type of database was developed for new seismic loadings model research. The main features are: wavelet transformation of initial seismic data (accelerograms), taking into account relative orientation of fault plane and station site. New algorithms of polarization and wavelet analysis were developed. The second one is based on fast Fourier transform and more efficient for big data processing. Spectral-temporal envelope matrix was introduced as new parameter for development of new impact models. Polarization analysis results show a good accordance of p-wave ellipsoid azimuth correlation with calculated one, while s-wave (group of SH-waves) plane is strongly influenced by relative fault plane location. Obtained results may be used for new empirical-analytical model of seismic impacts development for usage in seismic design.
Antimicrobial Activity of Bimetallic Cu/Pd Nanofluids

A series of copper/palladium bimetallic nanostructures based nanofluids has been prepared with the aim of investigating antimicrobial activity. Synthesized nanofluids were characterized by UV-visible spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and acoustic spectroscopy to determine their optical absorbance, structure, surface morphology and particle size distribution, respectively. Prepared nanofluids were tested for their antimicrobial activity using the agar disc diffusion method and their minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values were calculated by micro-dilution method. Results of antimicrobial activity revealed that prepared nanofluids possessed a good antibacterial activity against microbial species. In summary, the application of these bimetallic nanofluids as antimicrobial agent will be very valuable for biomedical and industrial applications
Merced Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society Title One-Shot Learning with Bayesian Networks

Humans often make accurate inferences given a single exposure to a novel situation. Some of these inferences can be achieved by discovering and using near-deterministic relationships between attributes. Approaches based on Bayesian networks are good at discovering and using soft probabilistic relationships between attributes, but typically fail to identify and exploit near-deterministic relationships. Here we develop a Bayesian network approach that overcomes this limitation by learning a hyperparameter for each distribution in the network that specifies whether it is non-deterministic or near-deterministic. We apply our approach to one-shot learning problems based on a real-world database of immigration records, and show that it outperforms a more standard Bayesian network approach.