Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Exploring the interplay between the use of risk-related information, risk perception formation, and the stages of travel product consumption

This study examined using patterns of risk and warning-related information by backpackers who develop their own travel risk perceptions. It looked at the preferences of information sources and usage levels among Israeli backpackers. Using a simulating approach, interviewees were asked to report on their preference and usage patterns in four stages of the travel consumption sequence – (a) prior to choice of destination; (b) after choice of destination but before departure; (c) during the trip, and (d) after returning home. Based on a sample of 467 former backpackers, the study revealed that they use a relatively wide range of risk-related sources of information yet their preference and usage levels in those sources vary as they moved from one consumption stage to the other. The most innovative finding of this study is that unlike previous findings there was a significant and direct correlation between the level of risk-related information consumption and the backpackers’ level of risk perception in each of the tourist product consumption stages. Further research directions derived from these findings as well as management implications are provided.
Coronary anatomy and function: a story of Yin and Yang.

Invasive coronary angiography (ICA) remains an essential component of the diagnostic workup of patients with suspected stable angina. The availability of ICA has increased significantly since it was first performed in the 1960s with remarkable improvements in efficiency and safety. The diagnosis of coronary artery obstruction is readily made anatomically, and its suitability for revascularization by percutaneous or surgical intervention can also be assessed. Therefore, ICA not only provides a diagnosis but it can also be a step towards treatment. Despite being unable to demonstrate atheroma that does not encroach upon the arterial lumen, this invasive procedure is still a common standard for the diagnosis of coronary artery disease (CAD), particularly when assessing the efficacy of alternative diagnostic techniques. Because treatment decisions partly depend upon the angiographic appearance of disease, ICA is often the initial diagnostic test in suitable patients with a high likelihood of obstructive disease causing their symptoms. However, this may not be appropriate in all cases for several reasons. One of the most important is the low power of the clinical history for predicting the likelihood of obstructive CAD, caused by the complex relation between symptoms, myocardial ischaemia, and coronary luminal narrowing. Classical angina, although highly specific, is reported by only a minority of patients with significant CAD, and atypical features are common.1 Thus, in stable symptomatic patients, routine ICA would result in an unacceptably high number of normal angiograms while denying ICA to patients with less convincing symptoms may lead to misdiagnosis with potentially fatal consequences. When patient selection relies entirely on the clinical history, ICA performs poorly. To refine patient selection, particularly in patients at an intermediate …
A Survey on Image Processing Techniques for Glaucoma Detection

Automatic analysis of retina images is becoming an important screening tool now days. This technique helps to detect various kind of risks and diseases of eyes. One of the most common diseases which cause blindness is Glaucoma. This disease happens due to the increase of Intraocular Pressure (IOP). Early detection of this disease is essential to prevent the permanent blindness. Screenings of glaucoma based on digital images of the retina have been performed in the past few years. Several techniques are there to detect the abnormality of retina due to glaucoma. The key image processing techniques are image registration, image fusion, image segmentation, feature extraction, image enhancement, morphology, pattern matching, image classification, analysis and statistical measurements. The main idea behind this paper is to describe a system which is mainly based on image processing and classification techniques for detection of glaucoma by comparing and measuring different parameters of fundus images of glaucoma patients and normal patients.
The Effects of a Group Guidance Programme on the Self Esteem of Newly Arrived Children from the Chinese Mainland to Hong Kong

Abstract The present study investigated the effects of a school‐based group guidance programme on the self‐esteem of newly arrived children from the Chinese Mainland to Hong Kong. A sample of 31 subjects (19 male, 12 female) from a primary school was selected for participation in this study. Among the 31 subjects, 16 joined the programme which was designed and implemented according to the Enhancing Adolescents’ Self‐Esteem: Facilitator's Manual for ten 90 minutes sessions over a 7‐week period. The other 15 newly arrived children acted as the comparison group. The self‐esteem of the participants was measured by the Self‐Description Questionnaire ‐ 1 (SDQ‐1) (Marsh et al., 1983) and follow‐up interviews were conducted. Results showed that the subjects in the experimental group had significantly higher peer relationship self‐esteem than subjects who received no treatment. The subjects also reported that the programme was a valuable social skills learning experience for them.
Optical design and development of near range compact lidar

There are large demands to monitor the atmosphere in the closed space (hall, factory and so on), to check vegetation remotely and to detect hazardous gases such as explosive gas and bio terror from explosion-proof distance. On the contrary, traditional lidars have blind area, it is hard to monitor the atmosphere and the gas in the near range. In this study, optical designs and concrete developments for the atmosphere monitoring and the certain gas detection in near range were accomplished. Unique optical designs are introduced and their practical setups are explained.
Intestinal mucosal mast cells in normal and nematode-infected rat intestines are in intimate contact with peptidergic nerves.

Inflammatory or allergic conditions, as well as situations where healing and repair processes occur, are characterized by the presence of increased numbers of mast cells. Previous work on the effect of neuropeptides on mast cell mediator release showed that only substance P caused such release from intestinal mucosal mast cells [Shanahan, F. , Denburg, J. A. , Fox, J., Bienenstock, J. & Befus, A. D. (1985) J. Immunol. 135, 1331-1337]. Accordingly, we investigated the microanatomical relationship between mast cells and enteric nerves in normal rat intestine and parasite-infected rat intestine, in which mucosal mast cell hyperplasia occurs. Combined immunohistochemistry for neuron-specific enolase and staining with alcian blue at pH 0.5 was employed on paraffin-embedded sections of normal and Nippostrongylus brasiliensis-infected rat jejunum. Sixty-seven percent of intestinal mucosal mast cells were touching subepithelial nerves, and an additional 20% were within 2 micron of nerves. Assessment of the proportion of the lamina propria occupied by mast cells (12.5%), the average mast cell area (121 +/- 28 microns 2), and the density of enteric nerves (one per 788 +/- 151 microns 2) suggested that the association was 5 times greater than would be expected by chance alone (P less than 0.0001). In consecutive sections, the nerves in contact with mast cells were also shown to contain substance P and/or calcitonin-gene-related peptide. Electron microscopy confirmed this association: 8% of the mast cells in infected rats exhibited membrane-membrane contact with unmyelinated axons containing 70- to 170-nm dense-core vesicles, and an additional 31% were situated less than 250 nm from nerves. Other mast cells appeared to embrace nerve bundles through the projection of lamellopodia. These data provide systematic quantitative evidence that a structural foundation for communication between the immune and nervous systems exists in the rat gastrointestinal tract.
Randomized accuracy-aware program transformations for efficient approximate computations

Despite the fact that approximate computations have come to dominate many areas of computer science, the field of program transformations has focused almost exclusively on traditional semantics-preserving transformations that do not attempt to exploit the opportunity, available in many computations, to acceptably trade off accuracy for benefits such as increased performance and reduced resource consumption. We present a model of computation for approximate computations and an algorithm for optimizing these computations. The algorithm works with two classes of transformations: substitution transformations (which select one of a number of available implementations for a given function, with each implementation offering a different combination of accuracy and resource consumption) and sampling transformations (which randomly discard some of the inputs to a given reduction). The algorithm produces a (1+ε) randomized approximation to the optimal randomized computation (which minimizes resource consumption subject to a probabilistic accuracy specification in the form of a maximum expected error or maximum error variance).
Parents as demanding tax payers? Finnish findings

Though not categorically opposed to the idea, Finnish parents tended to resist rather than endorse the view of parents as tax payers who can make demands for the efficacy of schooling and expected teacher performance. However, parents with vocational training tended to resist this view less than parents from higher educational groups. Additionally, dissatisfaction with a child’s primary schooling and support for a selective educational policy were both associated with a tendency to view this role in a relatively positive light.
Are there differences in brain morphometry between twins and unrelated singletons? A pediatric MRI study

Twins provide a unique capacity to explore relative genetic and environmental contributions to brain development, but results are applicable to non‐twin populations only to the extent that twin and singleton brains are alike. A reason to suspect differences is that as a group twins are more likely than singletons to experience adverse prenatal and perinatal events that may affect brain development. We sought to assess whether this increased risk leads to differences in child or adolescent brain anatomy in twins who do not experience behavioral or neurological sequelae during the perinatal period. Brain MRI scans of 185 healthy pediatric twins (mean age = 11.0, SD = 3.6) were compared to scans of 167 age‐ and sex‐matched unrelated singletons on brain structures measured, which included gray and white matter lobar volumes, ventricular volume, and area of the corpus callosum. There were no significant differences between groups for any structure, despite sufficient power for low type II (i.e. false negative) error. The implications of these results are twofold: (1) within this age range and for these measures, it is appropriate to include healthy twins in studies of typical brain development, and (2) findings regarding heritability of brain structures obtained from twin studies can be generalized to non‐twin populations.
ATTENTIONAL MODULATIONS OF EVENT-RELATED BRAIN POTENTIALS SENSITIVE TO FACES

Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded in response to centrally and peripherally presented faces and chairs under conditions where one stimulus category was attended and the other unattended. It was studied whether selective attention affects ERP components sensitive to the presence of faces. When compared with chairs, faces elicited larger N1 amplitudes at lateral temporal electrodes and a midline positivity in the same latency range. The latter effect was only found for central faces. Attention to centrally presented faces was reflected in enhanced posterior N1 amplitudes. This effect may be related to an attentional modulation of processing within face-specific brain areas. It was not elicited by chairs or peripheral faces. Beyond 200msec post-stimulus, a category-unspecific attentional negativity was found at all recording sites for centrally and peripherally presented face and nonface stimuli.
Molecular recognition and substrate mimicry drive the electron-transfer process between MIA40 and ALR

Oxidative protein folding in the mitochondrial intermembrane space requires the transfer of a disulfide bond from MIA40 to the substrate. During this process MIA40 is reduced and regenerated to a functional state through the interaction with the flavin-dependent sulfhydryl oxidase ALR. Here we present the mechanistic basis of ALR–MIA40 interaction at atomic resolution by biochemical and structural analyses of the mitochondrial ALR isoform and its covalent mixed disulfide intermediate with MIA40. This ALR isoform contains a folded FAD-binding domain at the C-terminus and an unstructured, flexible N-terminal domain, weakly and transiently interacting one with the other. A specific region of the N-terminal domain guides the interaction with the MIA40 substrate binding cleft (mimicking the interaction of the substrate itself), without being involved in the import of ALR. The hydrophobicity-driven binding of this region ensures precise protein–protein recognition needed for an efficient electron transfer process.
Sport, fitness, and the gender gap

Abstract Using large‐scale and nationally representative surveys of the American public conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics, the authors examined recent differences in the sport and fitness activities of men and women aged 18 or older. It was found that participation in sport and fitness activity declined by 12% between 1985 and 1990. Contrary to expectations, such declines were greater among women than men, thus increasing the gender gap in sport and fitness. Young women showed greater rates of decline than did older women, and the largest declines, amounting to more than 30 occasions of sport and fitness participation per year, were found among the youngest group of women in the sample. Such differences continued to be pronounced even when the influence of a variety of variables pertaining to biological, social, economic, and lifestyle statuses were controlled. A model for the analysis of such variables in relation to sport and fitness activity is presented.
Comparison study on VQ codevector index assignment

ABSTRACT Vector quantization is a popular technique in low bit rate codingof speech signal. The transmission index of the codevector ishighly sensitive to channel noise. The channel distortion canbe reduced by organizing the codevector indices suitably.Several index assignment algorithms are studied comparatively.Among them, the index allocation algorithm proposed by Wuand Barba is the fastest method but the channel distortion is theworst one. The proposed parallel tabu search algorithm reachthe best performance of channel distortion. 1.INTRODUCTION Vector quantization (VQ) [1] is a widely used technique for datacompression. The binary indices of the optimally chosencodevectors are sent to the destination. A vectorXxx x={, , , } 12  k consisting of k samples of informationsource in the k-dimensional Euclidean space R k is sent to thevector quantizer. The k-dimensional vector quantizer with thenumber of codevectors N is defined as follows by using thereproduction alphabet consisting of N codevectors,Ccc c={,,, }
Management Consulting: Dynamics, Debates, and Directions

The purpose of this article is to: (i) provide a brief overview of the emergence and dynamics of the management consulting industry, (ii) summarize the findings from the extant literature, and (iii) identify relevant issues for related research in strategic communication. The article begins by putting management consulting into context by relating it to three other fields of management: practice, education and publishing, pointing out how their interaction furthers the diffusion of management ideas. Then, the article provides an overview of the development of management consulting, showing how consulting activities and firms changed in line with their client organizations, while managing to derive continued legitimacy by adapting their image to different types of “professionalism. ” Finally, the article reviews the extant research on management consulting along three levels of analysis: industry, firm, and project, and discusses the implications of its main debates and insights for strategic communication consulting. The authors acknowledge support for the underlying research and the writing of this article from the European Commission (TSER Contract SOE1-CT97-1072) and the Marcus and Amalia Wallenberg Foundation.
Autologous stem cell transplantation improves quality of life in economically challenged, Brazilian multiple myeloma patients

OBJECTIVES: 1) To characterize the impact of multiple myeloma on the quality of life of patients treated in two public institutions in São Paulo State, Brazil, using a generic Short Form 36 Health Survey and a questionnaire specific for oncologic patients (QLQ-C30) upon diagnosis, after the clinical treatment, and at day +100 after autologous stem cell transplantation; 2) to evaluate whether autologous stem cell transplantation can improve the quality of life of our economically challenged population aside from providing a clinical benefit and disease control. METHODS: We evaluated 49 patients with multiple myeloma (a total of 70 interviews) using the two questionnaires. The scores upon diagnosis, post-treatment/pre-autologous stem cell transplantation, and at D+100 were compared using ANOVA (a comparison of the three groups), post hoc tests (two-by-two comparisons of the three groups), and paired t-tests (the same case at two different times). RESULTS : Of the included patients, 87.8% had a family budget under US $600 (economic class C, D, or E) per month. The generic Short Form 36 Health Survey questionnaire demonstrated that physical function, role-physical, and bodily pain indices were statistically different across all three groups, favoring the D+100 autologous stem cell transplantation group (ANOVA). The questionnaire specific for oncologic patients, the QLQ-C30 questionnaire, confirmed what had been demonstrated by the Short Form 36 Health Survey with respect to physical function and bodily pain, with improvements in role functioning, fatigue, and lack of appetite and constipation, favoring the D+100 autologous stem cell transplant group (ANOVA). The post hoc tests and paired t-tests confirmed a better outcome after autologous stem cell transplantation. CONCLUSION: The questionnaire specific for cancer patients seems to be more informative than the generic Short Form 36 Health Survey questionnaire and reflects the real benefit of autologous stem cell transplantation in the quality of life of multiple myeloma patients in two public Brazilian institutions that provide assistance for economically challenged patients.
Revisited Jury-Lee criterion for multivariable discrete-time Lur'e systems: Convex LMI search

The Tsypkin and Jury-Lee criteria are commonly used to analyse the absolute stability of discrete-time Lur'e systems with slope-restricted nonlinearities. In this paper, we construct a corresponding linear matrix inequality (LMI) condition for the Jury-Lee criterion most appropriate for monotonic, slope-restricted nonlinearities. The corresponding Lur'e-Lyapunov function is also constructed and, via the Lyapunov method, the conditions on the aforementioned criterion are relaxed. The result is explicitly compared with improved LMI-based criteria in the literature. The resulting multiplier from the criterion is also shown to satisfy the conditions of the Zames-Falb multipliers in discrete-time. This indirectly provides a convex search over a subset of the discrete-time Zames-Falb multipliers. Some numerical examples for SISO and MIMO cases are provided to compare the performance of the criteria with existing results, and we demonstrate that the result in this paper provides significant improvement.
Properties of fucoidan from Cladosiphon okamuranus tokida in gastric mucosal protection

To elucidate the anti‐ulcer potential of Cladosiphon fucoidan, anti‐peptic activity, bFGF stabilizing activity and inflammatory properties of this and related substances were investigated. Anti‐peptic activity was observed with this and other sulfated polysaccharides such as dextran sulfate, carrageenan, and Fucus fucoidan. However, non‐sulfated polysaccharides such as mannan and dextran did not exert the anti‐peptic activity. The loss of bFGF bioactivity was prevented by all sulfated polysaccharides tested except chondroitin sulfate, at pH 7.4 and at pH 4.0. At pH 2.0, only heparin protected the bFGF activity. The generation of superoxide by macrophages and PMNs was stimulated by dextran sulfate, carrageenan, and Fucus fucoidan, whereas Cladosiphon fucoidan, heparin and chondroitin did not. Dextran sulfate, carrageenan, and Fucus fucoidan also stimulated the secretion of TNFα from macrophages, while Cladosiphon fucoidan did not. Thus, Cladosiphon fucoidan is a sulfated polysaccharide without inflammatory action. These results suggest that Cladosiphon fucoidan is a safe substance with potential for gastric protection.
A possible structure for the higher oxidation state of metmyoglobin.

In a previous paper (George & Irvine, 1954a) we concluded that there are two kinds of structure for the higher oxidation state of metmyoglobin (MetMb) which could explain the experimental observations. One is a radical structure formed by hydrogen atom removal from a methine carbon atom, a pyrrolic carbon atom or some other atom within the conjugated network of porphyrin ring and haemoprotein linkage; the other is a derivative of quadrivalent iron of the ferryl ion type, FeO2+. Further experiments have been undertaken to enable a choice to be made between these two structures, and the results ofthese are described and discussed below. The experiments fall into two sections. In the first, the hydrogen-ion changes accompanying the formation ofthe higher oxidation state in unbuffered solutions were measured, while in the second, the equilibrium constant for the reaction between MetMb and K2IrCl was determined under varying conditions ofpH, temperature and ionic strength. The results of both classes of experiments are most simply interpreted on the basis of the ferryl ion structure. A brief account of the pH measurements has already been published (George & Irvine, 1954 b). MATERIALS AND METHODS Pota88ium chloroiridate. This was the same as that used previously (George & Irvine, 1954a). Spectrophotometric and potentiometric titrations with K4Fe(CN)6 showed the sample to be 99% pure. The titrations were carried out in acid solution using glass-distilled HCl, and the solutions were made up with water distilled from dil. KMnO4. In this way reduction of the E,IrC0 by trace reducing matter was prevented. In the experiments using unbuffered solutions, the EKIrCl was made up in C02-free water as described below, and used immediately to minimize any effect resulting from its hydrolysis. In the equilibrium experiments K2IrCl was made up in dilute glass-distilled HC1 (10-4M) to prevent hydrolysis, although, as was shown previously (George & Irvine, 1954a) if hydrolysis occurs to any extent, its effect is almost negligible. The strength and volumes of the buffer solutions used were such that their pH values were not affected by the acid in the K2IrCl4 solution. Buffer solution8. In the experiments with K2IrCls, phosphate buffers (NaOH +NaH,P04) were used, the ionic strengths being adjusted to the value required by the addition ofAR NaCl. The pH ofeach solution was measured using a Cambridge pH meter calibrated with 0-05m potassium hydrogen phthalate buffer. Stock solutions of approximately 0-IN were prepared by dilution, standardized against KMnO4, and then …