Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Volunteerism and socioemotional selectivity in later life.

OBJECTIVE The goal of this work was to assess the applicability of socioemotional selectivity theory to the realm of volunteerism by analyzing data drawn from the September 2002 Current Population Survey Volunteer Supplement. METHODS Total number of organizations volunteered for and total number of hours engaged in volunteer activities were utilized to obtain measures of volunteer hours per organization and volunteer hours in the main organization to determine whether a selective process could be observed. Descriptive statistics on age patterns were followed by a series of curve estimations to identify the best-fitting curves. RESULT Logistic age patterns of slowly increasing then relatively stable volunteer activity suggest that socioemotional selectivity processes are operative in the realm of voluntary activities. DISCUSSION Socioemotional selectivity theory is applicable to voluntary activities.
The Neuroimmune Basis of Anti-inflammatory Acupuncture

This review article presents the evidence that the antiinflammatory actions of acupuncture are mediated via the reflexive central inhibition of the innate immune system. Both laboratory and clinical evidence have recently shown the existence of a negative feedback loop between the autonomic nervous system and the innate immunity. There is also experimental evidence that the electrical stimulation of the vagus nerve inhibits macrophage activation and the production of TNF, IL-1β , IL-6, IL-18, and other proinflammatory cytokines. It is therefore conceivable that along with hypnosis, meditation, prayer, guided imagery, biofeedback, and the placebo effect, the systemic anti-inflammatory actions of traditional and electro-acupuncture are directly or indirectly mediated by the efferent vagus nerve activation and inflammatory macrophage deactivation. In view of this common physiological mediation, assessing the clinical efficacy of a specific acupuncture regimen using conventional double-blind placebo-controlled trials inherently lacks objectivity due to (1) the uncertainty of ancient rules for needle placement, (2) the diffuse noxious inhibitory control triggered by control-needling at irrelevant points, (3) the possibility of a dose-response relationship between stimulation and effects, and (4) the possibility of inadequate blinding using an inert sham procedure. A more objective assessment of its efficacy could perhaps consist of measuring its effects on the surrogate markers of autonomic tone and inflammation. The use of acupuncture as an adjunct therapy to conventional medical treatment for a number of chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases seems plausible and should be validated by confirming its cholinergicity.
Application of the Karhunen–Loeve transform temporal image filter to reduce noise in real-time cardiac cine MRI

Real-time dynamic magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) typically sacrifices the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) to achieve higher spatial and temporal resolution. Spatial and/or temporal filtering (e.g., low-pass filtering or averaging) of dynamic images improves the SNR at the expense of edge sharpness. We describe the application of a temporal filter for dynamic MR image series based on the Karhunen–Loeve transform (KLT) to remove random noise without blurring stationary or moving edges and requiring no training data. In this paper, we present several properties of this filter and their effects on filter performance, and propose an automatic way to find the filter cutoff based on the autocorrelation of the eigenimages. Numerical simulation and in vivo real-time cardiac cine MR image series spanning multiple cardiac cycles acquired using multi-channel sensitivity-encoded MRI, i.e., parallel imaging, are used to validate and demonstrate these properties. We found that in this application, the noise standard deviation was reduced to 42% of the original with no apparent image blurring by using the proposed filter cutoff. Greater noise reduction can be achieved by increasing the length of the image series. This advantage of KLT filtering provides flexibility in the form of another scan parameter to trade for SNR.
CMOS millimeter wave and THz ICs

The silicon based CMOS millimeter wave and THz ICs developed in the State Key Laboratory of Millimeter Waves (SKLMMW), Southeast University, China, is reviewed in this invited talk. The millimeter wave ICs includes amplifiers, mixers, oscillators at Q, V and W band. The THz ICs are mainly focused on transmission lines and filter structure based on substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) technology. The design and performance of waveguide structures in silicon based CMOS and MEMs process are also presented.
Supplementary Issue: Array Platform Modeling and Analysis (b) ). Most Often, Classical Models for a Survival Response Are Coupled with Some Dimension Reduction Methods for Individual or Grouped Predictors, Extending Information Retrieval Methods to Personalized Genomic-based Studies of Disease Appli

Introduction Technological advances continue to increase both the ease and accuracy with which measurements of the genome and phenome can be obtained and, consequently, genomic-based studies of diseases such as cancer often involve highly diverse types of data collected on large groups of patients. The primary goals of such studies involve identifying genomic features useful for characterizing patient subgroups as well as predicting patient-specific disease course and/or likelihood of response to treatment. Doing so requires computational methods that handle complex interactions, accommodate genetic heteroge-neity, and allow for data integration across multiple sources. A number of statistical methods are available for feature identification and prediction of a time-to-event phenotype such as overall survival or time to recurrence (for a review, providing a concise representation of the genomic features affecting patient outcome. Although useful, the majority of these methods identify a set of covariates common to all patients and as a result may " distort what is observed " in the presence of heterogeneity. 9 Survival-supervised clustering approaches naturally accommodate heterogeneity, providing for efficient and effective identification of patient subgroups. However, these approaches do not identify salient features associated with subgroups and, as with the aforementioned methods, may AbstrAct: Genomic-based studies of disease now involve diverse types of data collected on large groups of patients. A major challenge facing statistical scientists is how best to combine the data, extract important features, and comprehensively characterize the ways in which they affect an individual's disease course and likelihood of response to treatment. We have developed a survival-supervised latent Dirichlet allocation (survLDA) modeling framework to address these challenges. Latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) models have proven extremely effective at identifying themes common across large collections of text, but applications to genomics have been limited. Our framework extends LDA to the genome by considering each patient as a " document " with " text " detailing his/her clinical events and genomic state. We then further extend the framework to allow for supervision by a time-to-event response. The model enables the efficient identification of collections of clinical and genomic features that co-occur within patient subgroups, and then characterizes each patient by those features. An application of survLDA to The Cancer Genome Atlas ovarian project identifies informative patient subgroups showing differential response to treatment, and validation in an independent cohort demonstrates the potential for patient-specific inference. authors confirm that the funder had no influence over the study design, content …
Parameterized Verification of Many Identical Probabilistic Timed Processes

Parameterized verification aims at validating a system's model irrespective of the value of a parameter. We introduce a model for networks of identical probabilistic timed processes, where the number of processes is a parameter. Each process is a probabilistic single-clock timed automaton and communicates with the others by broadcasting. The number of processes either is constant (static case), or evolves over time through random disappearances and creations (dynamic case). An example of relevant parameterized verification problem for these systems is whether, independently of the number of processes, a configuration where one process is in a target state is reached almost-surely under all scheduling policies. On the one hand, most parameterized verification problems turn out to be undecidable in the static case (even for untimed processes). On the other hand, we prove their decidability in the dynamic case.
Ku80 is required for immunoglobulin isotype switching

Isotype switching is the DNA recombination mechanism by which antibody genes diversify immunoglobulin effector functions. In contrast to V(D)J recombination, which is mediated by RAG1, RAG2 and DNA double‐stranded break (DSB) repair proteins, little is known about the mechanism of switching. We have investigated the role of DNA DSB repair in switch recombination in mice that are unable to repair DSBs due to a deficiency in Ku80 (Ku80−/−). B‐cell development is arrested at the pro‐B cell stage in Ku80−/− mice because of abnormalities in V(D)J recombination, and there are no mature B cells. To reconstitute the B‐cell compartment in Ku80−/− mice, pre‐rearranged VB1−8 DJH2 (μi) and V3−83JK2 (κi) genes were introduced into the Ku80−/− background (Ku80−/−μi/+κi/+). Ku80−/−μi/+ κi/+ mice develop mature mIgM+ B cells that respond normally to lipopolysaccharide (LPS) or LPS plus interleukin‐4 (IL‐4) by producing specific germline Ig constant region transcripts and by forming switch region‐specific DSBs. However, Ku80−/−μi/+κi/+ B cells are unable to produce immunoglobulins of secondary isotypes, and fail to complete switch recombination. Thus, Ku80 is essential for switch recombination in vivo, suggesting a significant overlap between the molecular machinery that mediates DNA DSB repair, V(D)J recombination and isotype switching.
Striving for integrated services, a Dutch experience

Purpose – In an urban environment in The Netherlands, a municipality, a health insurance company and nine health care organisations try to integrate health care services and social services by means of a global, population-based budget for three areas with above the average costs. Against a background of changing circumstances and bureaucratic impediments, they try to reach an agreement on the contractual provisions before starting cooperation in everyday practice. The purpose of this paper is to describe and evaluate the cooperative process. Design/methodology/approach – The paper reflects the authors’ personal experiences and interpretation of the cooperative process. Findings – The participants experience was that the ideals they had started with faded when financial and juridical procedures dominated the discussions. In contrast with that, focusing on the population involved created positive energy and motivation. Practical implications – Uncertainties are part of social innovation and therefore, formal contracts will be incomplete. Trust building techniques and creating common values and culture are necessary ingredients for developing confidence that the cooperating parties will be able to cope with unforeseen developments or outcomes. Originality/value – The paper may contribute to the successful development of innovative agreements between purchasers and providers of health care and social care in order to achieve better integrated services without rising costs.
Regional water resource implications of bioethanol production in the Southeastern United States

The Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007 mandates US production of 136 billion L of biofuel by 2022. This target implies an appropriation of regional primary production for dedicated feedstocks at scales that may dramatically affect water supply, exacerbate existing water quality challenges, and force undesirable environmental resource trade offs. Using a comparative life cycle approach, we assess energy balances and water resource implications for four dedicated ethanol feedstocks – corn, sugarcane, sweet sorghum, and southern pine – in two southeastern states, Florida and Georgia, which are a presumed epicenter for future biofuel production. Net energy benefit ratios for ethanol and coproducts range were 1.26 for corn, 1.94 for sweet sorghum, 2.51 for sugarcane, and 2.97 for southern pine. Corn also has high nitrogen (N) and water demand (11.2 kg GJnet 1 and 188 m GJnet 1 , respectively) compared with other feedstocks, making it a poor choice for regional ethanol production. Southern pine, in contrast, has relatively low N demand (0.4 kg GJnet 1 ) and negligible irrigation needs. However, it has comparatively low gross productivity, which results in large land area per unit ethanol production (208 m GJnet 1 ), and, by association, substantial indirect and incremental water use (51 m GJnet 1 ). Ultimately, all four feedstocks require substantial land (10.1, 3.1, 2.5, and 6.1 million ha for corn, sugarcane, sweet sorghum, and pine, respectively), annual N fertilization (3230, 574, 396, 109 million kg N) and annual total water (54 400, 20 840, 8840, and 14 970 million m) resources when scaled up to meet EISA renewable fuel standards production goals. This production would, in turn, offset only 17.5% of regional gasoline consumption on a gross basis, and substantially less when evaluated on a net basis. Utilization of existing waste biomass sources may ameliorate these effects, but does not obviate the need for dedicated primary feedstock production. Careful scrutiny of environmental trade-offs is necessary before embracing aggressive ethanol production mandates.
Mind-body approaches and chronic illness: Status of research

An increasing number of children experience chronic health issues that affect their academic and behavioral functioning, as well as psychological well-being. At the same time, psychological stress can exacerbate the chronic illness. The first line of treatment most often is medical (e.g., pharmacology, surgery, radiation). Even when the medical approach addresses the physical issues adequately, there may be residual effects on functioning. To better address overall well-being, as well as to potentially decrease reliance on medication, one approach has been to use mind-body or mindfulness interventions. Overall, results from existing studies suggest that mindfulness interventions may be beneficial for reducing symptoms and associated problems through relaxation for many chronic illnesses, including epilepsy, fibromyalgia, headaches or migraines, cancer, and asthma. While the research is promising, there is a need for additional, more controlled studies that integrate mind-body approaches with traditional medical approaches. Suggestions for future studies are provided.
Oral Health During Pregnancy

Background Pregnancy causes physiological changes to a woman's body that makes it a special circumstance for oral care. Proper oral care is extremely important for not only the pregnant woman, but also the developing fetus, and this also marks an important period where a woman is more susceptible to learning positive health behaviors for themselves and their future child. Therefore, it is important for health professionals to understand the special needs of pregnant women and their fetus and encourage them to obtain appropriate and safe dental care from trained dentists. [1]
Biofilm production by clinical staphylococci strains from canine otitis

This study determined the species of 54 staphylococci isolates from canine otitis and their ability to produce biofilm through the Congo red agar method, confirmed by scanning electron microscopy. The most frequently identified species were S. intermedius and S. simulans. Results showed that 30% of the strains were biofilm producers.
Write Request Handling for Static Wear Leveling in Flash Memory (SSD) Controller

The lifetime of a solid-state drive (SSD) is limited because of the number of program and erase cycles allowed on its NAND flash blocks. Data cannot be overwritten in an SSD, leading to an out-of-place update every time the data are modified. This result in two copies of the data: the original copy and a modified copy. This phenomenon is known as write amplification and adversely affects the endurance of the memory. In this study, we address the issue of reducing wear leveling through efficient handling of write requests. This results in even wearing of all the blocks, thereby increasing the endurance period. The focus of our work is to logically divert the write requests, which are concentrated to limited blocks, to the less-worn blocks and then measure the maximum number of write requests that the memory can handle. A memory without the proposed algorithm wears out prematurely as compared to that with the algorithm. The main feature of the proposed algorithm is to delay out-of-place updates till the threshold is reached, which results in a low overhead. Further, the algorithm increases endurance by a factor of the threshold level multiplied by the number of blocks in the memory.
Financial Development and Economic Growth in Transition Economies : Empirical Evidence from the CEE and CIS Countries

We examine the role of financial development in economic growth in the former Communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States during the first two decades since the beginning of transition. These countries, which had undeveloped financial systems under Communism, provide an interesting test of the relationship between financial development and growth. We show that credit to the private sector had a positive effect on growth in these countries; however, high levels of inflation can render the positive effect of private credit insignificant. High interest rate spreads and reduced banking competition hampered economic growth. JEL Classification: O16, P27, P34
A New Weighted Similarity Method Based on Neighborhood User Contributions for Collaborative Filtering

Collaborative filtering is the most successful and widely used method in personalized recommendation service since it is simple and effective. The key point is to find similar users or items through the user-item rating matrix. However, traditional collaborative filtering do not consider the information about items rated by neighbors and that not rated by the target user, and there has another important factor that preference of each user is different. This paper proposes a new similarity measuring method that takes into account the proportion of co-rating, the user rating preference and the different contributions of other users to the target user. The method is implemented and compared with many other state-of-the-art similarity measures in two real data sets, MovieLens-100K and FilmTrust. The experimental results show that the proposed method most often outperforms the traditional collaborative filtering measures.
Regeneration of retinal axons into the goldfish optic tectum

The growth of regenerating retinal axons into the central portion of the optic tectum of adult goldfish was examined with the light and electron microscopes. Optic tracts were cut and, two days to five months later, the animals were perfused and the tecta prepared for microscopy. Regenerating axons first reached central regions of the tectum seven to ten days postoperatively. Regenerating axons appear in very large numbers and travel in fascicles in the stratum opticum (SO) and in the adjacent neuropil, the stratum fibrosum et griseum superficiale (SFGS). In the SO, the fascicles are bordered by glial cells and degenerating debris. Within the SFGS, however, the fascicles do not seem to be similarly associated with glial cells and degenerating debris. The youngest regenerating axons are very slender processes, containing microtubules but few or no neurofilaments or dense granular material. By 10 to 14 days postoperatively, neurofilaments can be seen and, in addition, large numbers of vesicles with dense cores appear. The vesicles with dense cores increase in numbers until about 28 days postoperatively and then become quite rare. That vesicles with dense cores were seen in regenerating axons in both SO and SFGS during the period of growth into the tectum but were not seen in axon terminals at any time, suggests that they may be concerned with axon elongation. During the period one month to five months postoperatively, the regenerating axons gradually increase in diameter but do not reach preoperative sizes, suggesting that the regenerative changes may still be occurring. Remyelination is delayed and proceeds slowly. Many axons remain unmyelinated for as long as five months postoperatively.
Impact of FinFET and III–V/Ge Technology on Logic and Memory Cell Behavior

In this paper, we assess the performance of a ring oscillator and a DRAM cell when they are implemented with different technologies (planar CMOS, FinFETs, and III-V MOSFETs), and subjected to different reliability scenarios (variability and soft errors). FinFET-based circuits show the highest robustness against variability and soft error environments.
Development of a Breast Cancer Awareness Scale for Thai Women: Moving towards a Validated Measure.

BACKGROUND Breast cancer is a major health problem among women around the world. Recent developments in screening and treatment have greatly improved the prognosis of patients with breast cancer in developed countries. However, in developing countries breast cancer mortality remains high.Breast cancer awareness is a first and important step in reducing breast cancer mortality. The development of a validated instrument to measure breast cancer awareness is crucial for the understanding and implementation of suitable health education programs to facilitate early deletion and minimize mortality. OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to develop an instrument for the assessment of breast cancer awareness in Thai women. MATERIALS AND METHODS This methodological study was conducted in two stages: (1) literature searches and semi-structured interviews were conducted to generate items of the breast cancer awareness scale (B-CAS) which were subsequently examined for content and face validity, and (2) an exploration of the factor structure of the resulting instrument and an examination of its reliability. Data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire in Thai women aged 20-64 in August, 2015. RESULTS A total of 219 women (response rate 97.4 %) participated in this validation study. The B-CAS contains five domains with 53 items on breast cancer awareness: 1) knowledge of risk factors, 2) knowledge of signs and symptoms, 3) attitude to breast cancer prevention, 4) barriers of breast screening, and 5) health behavior related to breast cancer awareness. Items with a content validity index <0.80 were excluded, and factor structure for the remaining items reflected the hypothesized five factor model. The scales based on all retained items was shown to have strongly internal consistency reliability (Cronbach's α=0.86). CONCLUSIONS The B-CAS provides good psychometric properties to assess breast cancer awareness in women. It can be used to examine breast cancer awareness in Thai women and it could lead to the development and evaluation of suitable educational interventions for raising breast cancer awareness. Future research should focus on further validating the B-CAS including an assessment of construct and criterion-based validity.