Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Extension of the Extended Parallel Process Model (EPPM) in Television Health News: The Influence of Health Consciousness on Individual Message Processing and Acceptance

The purpose of this study is to examine the role of health consciousness in processing TV news that contains potential health threats and preventive recommendations. Based on the extended parallel process model (Witte, 1992), relationships among health consciousness, perceived severity, perceived susceptibility, perceived response efficacy, perceived self-efficacy, and message acceptance/rejection were hypothesized. Responses collected from 175 participants after viewing four TV health news stories were analyzed using the bootstrapping analysis (Preacher & Hayes, 2008). Results confirmed three mediators (i.e., perceived severity, response efficacy, self-efficacy) in the influence of health consciousness on message acceptance. A negative association found between health consciousness and perceived susceptibility is discussed in relation to characteristics of health conscious individuals and optimistic bias of health risks.
Totally defect-tolerant arrays capable of quick broadcasting

This paper proposes an advanced spare-connection scheme for k-out-of-n redundancy called "generalized additional bypass linking (ABL)" for total defect-tolerance in large hybrid-WSIs with array structures. The proposed scheme uses bypass links with wired-OR connections to spare processing elements (PEs) without external switches, and can reconfigure complete arrays by tolerating defects in these PEs, links, and external I/O-terminals. The wired-OR connections help to limit the increase in the PE-connections of spare PEs, and these connections are made so that the primary PEs are an inter-PE distance of 3 or more away from each other and are connected to the same bypass link in parallel. The ABL scheme can be used for constructing totally defect-tolerant (TDT) arrays capable of quick broadcasting by using spare circuitries, and it is superior to conventional schemes in terms of extra PE-connections and control of the reconfiguration. This paper describes the basic ABL configurations for series-connected arrays, two-dimensional mesh-connected arrays, and binary trees, and further describes a hierarchical application of the ABL scheme that allows the construction of large arrays using shorter bypass links than the basic ABL configurations.
Termination of the B cell lymphoma dormant state in thymectomized AKR mice.

AKR mice are highly susceptible to spontaneous T cell lymphomagenesis and thymus removal at the age of 1 to 3 mo greatly reduces its development. Twelve-mo-old AKR mice thymectomized at young age were shown previously to carry potential lymphoma cells that could be triggered to develop into B cell lymphomas (80 to 100%) after removal from their host "restrictive" environment into young histocompatible hosts. Additional attempts were made to terminate the potential lymphoma cell dormant state in 12-mo-old thymectomized AKR mice. Replenishment of some deficiencies caused by thymectomy at a young age, including a s.c. syngeneic thymus graft or a single injection of the dual tropic recombinant virus isolates DTV-71 or MCF-247 into 12-mo-old thymectomized AKR mice resulted in Ly-1+ pre-B or B cell lymphoma development in 80 to 98% of these treated mice. In vivo elimination of T cell subsets by administration of cyclosporin A or by mAb expressed on Th cells (anti-CD4) or cytotoxic T cells (anti-CD8) stimulated the progression of dormant potential lymphoma cells towards B cell lymphoma development. The most striking results were observed after administration of anti-CD8 mAb: 90 to 100% of these treated mice developed Ly-1+ B cell lymphomas within 80 days. The effect of rIL-2 on dormant PLC was also tested. Administration of rIL-2 to 12-mo-old thymectomized mice terminated tumor dormancy in 94% of the treated mice within 66 days. Tests of the resulting B lymphomas for dual tropic recombinant virus/mink cell focus-inducing virus infection indicated that the breakdown of tumor dormancy did not result from development of pathogenic class I mink cell focus-inducing viruses. These results suggest that T cell subsets and/or their products are involved in the proliferation arrest of potential lymphoma cells present in thymectomized AKR mice.
Flow cytometric karyotyping of mammals, using blood lymphocytes: detection and analysis of chromosomal abnormalities.

Flow cytometric karyotyping of two different species of mammals, with use of peripheral blood lymphocytes, was carried out. Human and porcine short-term lymphocyte cultures were treated with colcemid prior to preparation of chromosomes in suspension. Different types of chromosomal abnormalities, human (47,+21) and porcine (38,t(13q-;14q+)), were examined. Result of flow cytometric karyotyping of chromosomes in suspension were compared with G-and Q-banded karyotypes of metaphase chromosomes. The observed flow cytometric resolution for chromosome peaks ranged from 2.5 to 5.0% (coefficient of variation) when acceptable flow karyotypes were obtained. Flow karyotyping can be performed successfully in many cases, but cell growth conditions, preparation techniques and instrumentation are all sensitive factors that require consideration to achieve high quality results. These problems have to be solved before the method of flow karyotyping can be used for reproducible and routine diagnosis of chromosomal abnormalities.
South American guidelines for cardiovascular disease prevention and rehabilitation.

In this document, the Inter-American Committee of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation, together with the South American Society of Cardiology, aimed to formulate strategies, measures, and actions for cardiovascular disease prevention and rehabilitation (CVDPR). In the context of the implementation of a regional and national health policy in Latin American countries, the goal is to promote cardiovascular health and thereby decrease morbidity and mortality. The study group on Cardiopulmonary and Metabolic Rehabilitation from the Department of Exercise, Ergometry, and Cardiovascular Rehabilitation of the Brazilian Society of Cardiology has created a committee of experts to review the Portuguese version of the guideline and adapt it to the national reality. The mission of this document is to help health professionals to adopt effective measures of CVDPR in the routine clinical practice. The publication of this document and its broad implementation will contribute to the goal of the World Health Organization (WHO), which is the reduction of worldwide cardiovascular mortality by 25% until 2025. The study group's priorities are the following: • Emphasize the important role of CVDPR as an instrument of secondary prevention with significant impact on cardiovascular morbidity and mortality; • Join efforts for the knowledge on CVDPR, its dissemination, and adoption in most cardiovascular centers and institutes in South America, prioritizing the adoption of cardiovascular prevention methods that are comprehensive, practical, simple and which have a good cost/benefit ratio; • Improve the education of health professionals and patients with education programs on the importance of CVDPR services, which are directly targeted at the health system, clinical staff, patients, and community leaders, with the aim of decreasing the barriers to CVDPR implementation.
Learning to Detect Change

People, across a wide range of personal and professional domains, need to detect change accurately. Previous research has documented systematic shortcomings in doing so, in particular, a pattern of overand underreaction to indications of change, resulting from a tendency to overweight signals of change at the expense of the environment that produces the signals. This investigation considers whether this pattern persists when participants are given the opportunity to learn. We find that the pattern of system neglect does persist, but that the impact of experience varies greatly across environments — participants show reliable improvement in some conditions and virtually none in others. We explain this differential learning by formally characterizing environments in terms of the extent to which they: (i) provide consistent feedback; and (ii) tolerate non-optimal behavior. Whereas we find that learning is related to consistent feedback, the stronger—and perhaps more surprising—finding is that more learning occurs in environments that are more tolerant of non-optimal behavior.
Rapid freeze prototyping technique in bio‐plotters for tissue scaffold fabrication

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a new bio‐plotter using a rapid freeze prototyping (RFP) technique and to investigate its potential applications in fabricating tissue scaffolds.Design/methodology/approach – The development of cryogenic bio‐plotters including design steps of hardware as well as software is addressed. Effects of structural parameters and process parameters on the properties of tissue scaffolds are demonstrated through simulation and experimental results.Findings – The paper finds that the RFP method is suitable to fabricate macro‐ and micro‐porous scaffolds, especially for temperature‐sensitive polymers. In addition, through simulation and experiment results, it also shows that macro‐ and micro‐porous properties could be manipulated by structural parameters and process parameters, respectively.Research limitations/implications – This paper shows that the chamber temperature is an important process parameter that can provide the means to control the micro‐porous structure o.
Bit-planes decomposition with eigenpalm on different distance measures

In this paper, a palmprint recognition using bitplane extraction with Principal Component Analysis is presented. Different distance measures are applied for classification to evaluate the recognition performance. Also, bit-plane is selected by analyzing the principal components. Hong Kong PolyU Palmprint Database is applied in this paper. The result showed that the palmprint recognition can achieved 90.42% performance rate by using approximately 4.17% of total principal components by using Manhattan Distance.
Age-related metabolic changes in the corpus callosum: assessment with MR spectroscopy.

PURPOSE The aim of this study was to examine metabolite changes in different parts of the corpus callosum (CC), and to relate these changes to different age groups using magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS). MATERIALS AND METHODS A total of 76 healthy subjects participated in the study with MRS analyses (39 females and 37 males). Subjects were grouped by age into four groups, in increasing order: Groups 1, 2, 3, and 4. Single-section 2D multivoxel spectroscopy was performed using chemical-shift imaging techniques. The voxels were placed on the rostrum, genu, corpus, and splenium of the CC. Peak metabolite ratios of N-acetylaspartate (NAA)/choline (Cho), NAA/creatine (Cr), and Cho/Cr were calculated from the rostrum, genu, body, and splenium. One way analysis of variance test was performed for the detection of changes in different age groups. Pearson correlation test was performed for correlation of metabolite ratio related to age. RESULTS Statistically significant differences were found for NAA/Cho ratios for the rostrum, corpus, and splenium, and NAA/Cr ratios for the corpus and splenium between Groups 1 and 2, Groups 1 and 3, and Groups 1 and 4. Metabolite ratios of the corpus and splenium were similar. This similarity was also valid for parts of the rostrum and genu. CONCLUSION Metabolite ratios in the CC are influenced by age. Age-related changes and regional metabolite levels may cause these alterations. Analyses of the CC may be informative for the evaluation of white matter. MRS may help to demonstrate metabolite levels and ratios of the CC.
Threat bias in attention orienting: evidence of specificity in a large community-based study

Background Preliminary research implicates threat-related attention biases in paediatric anxiety disorders. However, major questions exist concerning diagnostic specificity, effects of symptom-severity levels, and threat-stimulus exposure durations in attention paradigms. This study examines these issues in a large, community school-based sample. Method A total of 2046 children (ages 6–12 years) were assessed using the Development and Well Being Assessment (DAWBA), Childhood Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and dot-probe tasks. Children were classified based on presence or absence of ‘fear-related’ disorders, ‘distress-related’ disorders, and behavioural disorders. Two dot-probe tasks, which differed in stimulus exposure, assessed attention biases for happy-face and threat-face cues. The main analysis included 1774 children. Results For attention bias scores, a three-way interaction emerged among face-cue emotional valence, diagnostic group, and internalizing symptom severity (F = 2.87, p < 0.05). This interaction reflected different associations between internalizing symptom severity and threat-related attention bias across diagnostic groups. In children with no diagnosis (n = 1411, mean difference = 11.03, s.e. = 3.47, df = 1, p < 0.001) and those with distress-related disorders (n = 66, mean difference = 10.63, s.e. = 5.24, df = 1, p < 0.05), high internalizing symptoms predicted vigilance towards threat. However, in children with fear-related disorders (n = 86, mean difference = −11.90, s.e. = 5.94, df = 1, p < 0.05), high internalizing symptoms predicted an opposite tendency, manifesting as greater bias away from threat. These associations did not emerge in the behaviour-disorder group (n = 211). Conclusions The association between internalizing symptoms and biased orienting varies with the nature of developmental psychopathology. Both the form and severity of psychopathology moderates threat-related attention biases in children.
Randomized Controlled Trial of SuperBetter, a Smartphone-Based/Internet-Based Self-Help Tool to Reduce Depressive Symptoms.

OBJECTIVE Technological advances have sparked the development of computer- and smartphone-based self-help programs for depressed people, but these programs' efficacy is uncertain. This randomized controlled trial evaluated an intervention called SuperBetter (SB), which is accessed via smartphone and/or the SB Web site. MATERIALS AND METHODS Online, we recruited 283 adult iPhone(®) (Apple, Cupertino, CA) users with significant depression symptoms according to the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression questionnaire (CES-D). They were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: (a) a version of SB using cognitive-behavioral therapy and positive psychotherapy strategies to target depression (CBT-PPT SB); (b) a general SB version focused on self-esteem and acceptance (General SB); or (c) a waiting list control group (WL). The two SB groups were instructed to use SB for 10 minutes daily for 1 month. All participants completed psychological distress and well-being measures online every 2 weeks through follow-up. An intent-to-treat analysis was conducted using hierarchical linear modeling. RESULTS As hypothesized, SB participants achieved greater reductions in CES-D scores than WL participants by posttest (Cohen's d=0.67) and by follow-up (d=1.05). Contrary to prediction, CBT-PPT SB did not perform better than General SB; both versions of SB were more effective than the WL control. Differences between SB versions favored General SB but were not statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS These large effect sizes should be interpreted cautiously in light of high attrition rates and the motivated, self-selected sample. Nonetheless, smartphone-based/Internet-based self-help may play an important role in treating depression.
Multiuser-based Gray-level Watermarking Sharing System

A novel watermarking sharing system having the ability of sharing gray-level secret images with multi-user is proposed. Multiple-based number system is used to split the secret into n meaningless shares, each share is embedded into respective cover image with controlled distortion and to be assigned to each user afterwards. The architecture of the proposed watermarking system is an open issue, which means the system is easy to be implemented according to the purposes and concerns of the users. The main feature of the proposed system is sharing a secret of gray-level image among multi-users; another application of such system is ownership verification. To reveal the secret, the necessary amount of shares has to be presented. That is, the secret can be recovered even if some shares were lost. Simulation results show that the recovered secret has robustness against a wide range of imaging processing operations.
A Wilcoxon–Mann–Whitney-type test for infinite-dimensional data

The Wilcoxon–Mann–Whitney test is a robust competitor of the $t$ test in the univariate setting. For finite-dimensional multivariate non-Gaussian data, several extensions of the Wilcoxon–Mann–Whitney test have been shown to outperform Hotelling's $T^{2}$ test. In this paper, we study a Wilcoxon–Mann–Whitney-type test based on spatial ranks in infinite-dimensional spaces, we investigate its asymptotic properties and compare it with several existing tests. The proposed test is shown to be robust with respect to outliers and to have better power than some competitors for certain distributions with heavy tails. We study its performance using real and simulated data.
∑Δ ADC based current mode power supply controller with digital voltage loop

Sigma-delta (SigmaDelta) modulators offer cost advantages in digitally controlled power supplies. Due to its noise shaping, high resolution, high speed ADCs and DACs are not necessary for digital control. This paper presents a low cost current-mode controller. The outer voltage loop is digital with SigmaDelta modulator and low resolution DAC. The inner current loop is kept analog with analog comparator and SR latch. An experimental circuit includes a SigmaDelta modulator test chip, a controller implemented on an FPGA, and a 30 V-to 3.3 V 10 W fly-back converter operating at 100 kHz. Experimental results demonstrate this mixed structure is a suitable solution for digital power supplies.
Robust jumping performance and elastic energy recovery from compliant perches in tree frogs

ABSTRACT Arboreal animals often move on compliant branches, which may deform substantially under loads, absorbing energy. Energy stored in a compliant substrate may be returned to the animal or it may be lost. In all cases studied so far, animals jumping from a static start lose all of the energy imparted to compliant substrates and performance is reduced. Cuban tree frogs (Osteopilus septentrionalis) are particularly capable arboreal jumpers, and we hypothesized that these animals would be able to recover energy from perches of varying compliance. In spite of large deflections of the perches and consequent substantial energy absorption, frogs were able to regain some of the energy lost to the perch during the recoil. Takeoff velocity was robust to changes in compliance, but was lower than when jumping from flat surfaces. This highlights the ability of animals to minimize energy loss and maintain dependable performance on challenging substrates via behavioral changes. Highlighted Article: Tree frogs can recover elastic energy lost to springy perches when jumping, allowing robust jumping performance across highly variable perch compliances.
New developments in lentiviral vector design, production and purification

Introduction: Lentiviruses are a very potent class of viral vectors for which there is presently a rapidly growing interest for a number of gene therapy. However, their construction, production and purification need to be performed according to state-of-the-art techniques in order to obtain sufficient quantities of high purity material of any usefulness and safety. Areas covered: The recent advances in the field of recombinant lentivirus vector design, production and purification will be reviewed with an eye toward its utilization for gene therapy. Such a review should be helpful for the potential user of this technology. Expert opinion: The principal hurdles toward the use of recombinant lentivirus as a gene therapy vector are the low titer at which it is produced as well as the difficulty to purify it at an acceptable level without degrading it. The recent advances in the bioproduction of this vector suggest these issues are about to be resolved, making the retrovirus gene therapy a mature technology.
Evaluation of Antimicrobial Activity of Mineral Trioxide Aggregate ( MTA ) 1217 – 1812

Aims: To evaluate the antimicrobial activity of MTA against selected microorganisms compared with a widely used root end filling materials. Materials and methods: Fifteen mm discs of MTA, GIC and Amalgam were prepared and three types of microorganisms; two bacteria and one fungus, were grown in 4 ml of brain heart infusion broth for 18 hr. Then 0.5 ml of each growth was spread over selected media (three plates for each sample) and the discs were applied on the agar, incubated for 24–48 hr and the zone of inhibition was measured. Results: Amalgam did not demonstrate any antimicrobial activity, whereas MTA showed antimicrobial effect against all tested microorganisms and was highly significant. GIC showed antibacterial activity comparable to MTA but failed to produce antifungal effect. Conclusions: MTA demonstrated antibacterial and antifungal effect, while GIC showed only antibacterial activity, whereas Amalgam did not show any activity.
MR elastography of breast lesions: Understanding the solid/liquid duality can improve the specificity of contrast‐enhanced MR mammography

The purpose of this analysis is to explore the potential diagnostic gain provided by the viscoelastic shear properties of breast lesions for the improvement of the specificity of contrast enhanced dynamic MR mammography (MRM). The assessment of viscoelastic properties is done via dynamic MR elastography (MRE) and it is demonstrated that the complex shear modulus of in vivo breast tissue follows within the frequency range of clinical MRE a power law behavior. Taking benefit of this frequency behavior, data are interpreted in the framework of the exact model for wave propagation satisfying the causality principle. This allows to obtain the exponent of the frequency power law from the complex shear modulus at one single frequency which is validated experimentally. Thereby, scan time is drastically reduced. It is observed that malignant tumors obtain larger exponents of the power law than benign tumors indicating a more liquid‐like behavior. The combination of the Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System (BIRADS) categorization obtained via MRM with viscoelastic information leads to a substantial rise in specificity. Analysis of 39 malignant and 29 benign lesions shows a significant diagnostic gain with an increase of about 20% in specificity at 100% sensitivity. Magn Reson Med, 2007. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
GPU Acceleration of PROPELLER MRI Using CUDA

PROPELLER technique can effectively cancel motion artifacts in MRI. But its wider application in clinical situation is limited due to considerable reconstruction times. Since most correction operations in PROPELLER reconstruction can be done for each strip respectively, the algorithm is highly parallelizable. This allows us to exploit the data-parallel nature of the GPU fragment processors. The paper presents an implementation to accelerate reconstruction of PROPELLER MRI on graphics processing units (GPUs) using CUDA. An improved grid-driven interpolation algorithm for PROPELLER trajectory is proposed for real-time imaging applications. The experiments show that the reconstruction is speeded up about nine times on GPU that of implementation on CPU with compatible motion correction accuracy and image quality.