Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Smart Growth and the Transportation-Land Use Connection: What Does the Research Tell Us?

The connection between transportation and land use lies at the center of efforts in the United States to combat sprawl through smart growth strategies. Proponents of smart growth commonly make several specific propositions about the relationships between transportation and land use: (1) building more highways will contribute to more sprawl, (2) building more highways will lead to more driving, (3) investing in light rail transit systems will increase densities, and (4) adopting new urbanism design strategies will reduce automobile use. This article explores how well the available evidence supports these four propositions and provides an overview of the theory, research efforts, and current debates associated with each of these propositions. This overview shows that the four propositions have not yet been fully resolved: researchers have made more progress on some of these propositions than others, but even in the best cases, our ability to predict the impact of smart growth policies remains limited.
Failure analysis of composite bolted joints by an experimental and a numerical approach

Composite materials are widely used by aircraft manufacturers because of their high mechanical properties. These properties severely decrease when composite material are drilled and bolted. To avoid structural failure, the behavior of composite bolted joints has to be understood and mastered. An experimental database was constituted by Dassault Aviation with supported single-shear tests with countersunk head screws on different composite materials. This database is analysed to find the main parameters that lead to the failure of the joint. The end distance is the most important parameter. It has a strong influence on both the bearing stress at failure and the failure mode. Width and lay-up have a lower effect on joint failure. A two-dimensional finite element (FEM) model with elastic membrane behavior is then developed to simulate the different configurations in the database. Fiber failure criteria is computed and the dispersion of the results for each failure mode is compared to the dispersion of the experimental data to evaluate the quality of the model. The modification of the failure criteria by taking into account different ply orientations and shear stress permits to reduce the dispersion but it is still higher than the dispersion of the experimental data. This work highlights the limits of such linear 2D modelling and it confirms the needs for more complex modelling such as the local bending effects of the joints and/or the non linear behavior of the composite material.
SOME REMARKS ON SCALING AND UNIVERSALITY IN TURBULENCE

The relation between universality and temporal and spatial scaling of structurefunctions and moments of the coarse-grained energy dissipation in turbulence is studied for flows where the Taylor Frozen Flow Hypothesis holds exactly. To account for observed deviations from a strict scaling law, we conclude that non-constant scaling exponents depend on the mean flow U . Furthermore, spatial and temporal scaling exponents are identical if and only if they are constant.
TCP Performance for Vehicular Users Through Satellite Links

In this paper the reference system is given by wireless users aboard of fast moving vehicles, such as trains, connected to the Internet by means of satellite links. Performance of several TCP flavors are investigated in this scenario using a performance enhancing proxy architecture. TCP performance are reported also in presence of UDP flows and some enhancements, such as large initial window and window scale, and are evaluated in terms of throughput and fairness. Results show that TCP Vegas is the best performing when large initial window and window scale options are implemented
Challenges of Detecting Directional Selection After a Bottleneck: Lessons From Sorghum bicolor

Multilocus surveys of sequence variation can be used to identify targets of directional selection, which are expected to have reduced levels of variation. Following a population bottleneck, the signal of directional selection may be hard to detect because many loci may have low variation by chance and the frequency spectrum of variation may be perturbed in ways that resemble the effects of selection. Cultivated Sorghum bicolor contains a subset of the genetic diversity found in its wild ancestor(s) due to the combined effects of a domestication bottleneck and human selection on traits associated with agriculture. As a framework for distinguishing between the effects of demography and selection, we sequenced 204 loci in a diverse panel of 17 cultivated S. bicolor accessions. Genomewide patterns of diversity depart strongly from equilibrium expectations with regard to the variance of the number of segregating sites, the site frequency spectrum, and haplotype configuration. Furthermore, gene genealogies of most loci with an excess of low frequency variants and/or an excess of segregating sites do not show the characteristic signatures of directional and diversifying selection, respectively. A simple bottleneck model provides an improved but inadequate fit to the data, suggesting the action of other population-level factors, such as population structure and migration. Despite a known history of recent selection, we find little evidence for directional selection, likely due to low statistical power and lack of an appropriate null model.
Impact of thymine glycol damage on DNA duplex energetics: Correlations with lesion‐induced biochemical and structural consequences

The magnitude and nature of lesion‐induced energetic perturbations empirically correlate with mutagenicity/cytotoxicity profiles and can be predictive of lesion outcomes during polymerase‐mediated replication in vitro. In this study, we assess the sequence and counterbase‐dependent energetic impact of the Thymine glycol (Tg) lesion on a family of deoxyoligonucleotide duplexes. Tg damage arises from thymine and methyl‐cytosine exposure to oxidizing agents or radiation‐generated free‐radicals. The Tg lesion blocks polymerase‐mediated DNA replication in vitro and the unrepaired site elicits cytotoxic lethal consequences in vivo. Our combined calorimetric and spectroscopic characterization correlates Tg‐induced energetic perturbations with biological and structural properties. Specifically, we incorporate a 5R‐Tg isomer centered within the tridecanucleotide sequence 5′‐GCGTACXCATGCG‐3′ (X = Tg or T) which is hybridized with the corresponding complementary sequence 5′‐CGCATGNGTACGC‐3′ (N = A, G, T, C) to generate families of Tg‐damaged (Tg·N) and lesion‐free (T·N) duplexes. We demonstrate that the magnitude and nature of the Tg destabilizing impact is dependent on counterbase identity (i.e., A ∼ G < T < C). The observation that a Tg lesion is less destabilizing when positioned opposite purines suggests that favorable counterbase stacking interactions may partially compensate lesion‐induced perturbations. Moreover, the destabilizing energies of Tg·N duplexes parallel their respective lesion‐free T·N mismatch counterparts (i.e., G < T < C). Elucidation of Tg‐induced destabilization relative to the corresponding undamaged mismatch energetics allows resolution of lesion‐specific and sequence‐dependent impacts. The Tg‐induced energetic perturbations are consistent with its replication blocking properties and may serve as differential recognition elements for discrimination by the cellular repair machinery. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Biopolymers 103: 491–508, 2015.
Media Use and the Cancer Communication Strategies of Cancer Survivors

Communication related to health not only substantially affects perceptions and behaviors related to health but is also positively associated with the extent of health-information seeking and the practice of preventive behavior. Despite the fact that the number of cancer survivors has increased dramatically, there are few studies of the lack of health information, factors which act as barriers, and the difficulties in follow-up care experienced by cancer survivors. Therefore, we reviewed media utilization and the types of media used by cancer survivors with regard to risk communication and suggested appropriate strategies for cancer communication. According to the results, health communication contributed to health promotion by providing health-related information, consolidating social support factors such as social solidarity and trust, and reducing anxiety. In particular, participatory health communication may establish preventive programs which reflect the needs of communities, expand accessibility to better quality healthcare, and intensify healthy living by reducing health inequalities. Therefore, when people do not have an intention to obtain cancer screening, we need to intervene to change their behavior, norms, and degrees of self-efficacy. The findings of this study may help those involved in building partnerships by assisting in their efforts to understand and communicate with the public.
Prehospital recognition of acute myocardial infarction.

INTRODUCTION Paramedics often provide advance notice of patients with suspected acute myocardial infarction (AMI) so that emergency department (ED) staff can prepare for early aggressive management and expeditious thrombolysis, but the validity of this practice is unclear. Our objective was to determine the accuracy of prehospital AMI diagnosis by Paramedic Level III (ALS) attendants. METHODS ALS paramedics serving a busy community hospital were instructed regarding the clinical diagnosis of chest pain and the value of early thrombolysis. For all patients transported with a chief complaint of chest pain, they were asked to record an explicit diagnosis of "probable AMI" or "chest pain, other. " Prehospital diagnoses were subsequently compared to ED diagnoses. Sensitivity, specificity and predictive values of the prehospital diagnosis for AMI were determined. RESULTS During the 5-year study period, 1305 patients were studied. Based on clinical features alone, ALS paramedics were 77.8% sensitive and 82.2% specific for the diagnosis of AMI. CONCLUSION ALS paramedics can accurately identify patients likely to benefit from early aggressive AMI management. These data have implications with respect to prehospital triage of chest pain patients, "early notification" protocols and future prehospital thrombolytic strategies.
On the Effectiveness of Contextualisation Techniques in Spoken Query Spoken Content Retrieval

In passage and XML retrieval, contextualisation techniques seek to improve the rank of a relevant element by considering information from its surrounding elements and its container document. Recent research has demonstrated that some of these techniques are also particularly effective in spoken content retrieval tasks (SCR). However, no previous research has directly compared contextualisation techniques in an SCR setting, nor has it studied their potential to provide robustness to speech recognition errors. In this paper, we evaluate different contextualisation techniques, including a recently proposed technique based on positional language models (PLM) on the task of retrieving relevant spoken passages in response to a spoken query. We study the benefits of these techniques when queries and documents are transcribed with increasingly higher error rates. Experimental results over the Japanese NTCIR SpokenQuery&Doc collection show that combining global and local context is beneficial for SCR and that models usually benefit from using larger amounts of context in highly noisy conditions.
Chemical analysis of minerals content in daily diets of children and adolescents grown up in Krakow orphanages.

BACKGROUND Numerous studies attest to the role that inappropriate food product groups in the human diet, including children and adolescents diet, leading to abnormal intakes of many important nutrients, such as minerals. OBJECTIVES These studies were undertaken to assess the coverage of the recommended values for chosen minerals by 205 children and adolescents between the ages of 4 and 20 years, grown up in Krakow orphanages. MATERIALS AND METHODS Sodium, magnesium, zinc, iron, copper, calcium and potassium concentrations in 112 diets of children and adolescents from 7 selected orphanages in Krakow in every season of the year were performed using AAS method. Results obtained were compared to recommended standards in Poland. RESULTS Intakes of calcium and potassium were usually too low whilst adequate levels of dietary magnesium and calcium were seen only for the youngest children. Recommended dietary levels of zinc were met in all cases and mostly also for iron and copper. Sodium intakes were however excessive. CONCLUSIONS The study demonstrates that regular a monitoring and adjusting of the diet is necessary for the assessed children and adolescents in order to correct dietary abnormalities.
Regions of Attraction of Closed-loop Linear Systems with Saturated Linear Feedback

In this article we address the problem of determining the region of attraction (RA) of a closed-loop single-input linear system with a saturated stabilizing linear feedback. It is shown that the shape of the region of attraction depends strongly on the number nu of eigen-values with positive real part of the open-loop system. In particular, under certain conditions on the control function, if the open-loop system has eigenvalues with strictly non-zero real part, the corresponding RA is homeomorphic to the cylinder R n? nu B nu. B n (r) n-dimensional open ball of radius r. S n n-dimensional unitary sphere. n s ; n u number of eigenvalues of the matrix A with negative and positive real part, respectively. W s (); W u () stable and unstable manifolds of the invariant set. @S; cl(S) boundary and clousure of the set S. (0) region of attraction of the origin. (A) the set of eigenvalues (spectrum) of the matrix A. complex numbers with positive, negative and zero real part.
An approximative calculation of the fractal structure in self-similar tilings

Fractal structures emerge from statistical and hierarchical processes in urban development or network evolution. In a class of efficient and robust geographical networks, we derive the size distribution of layered areas, and estimate the fractal dimension by using the distribution without huge computations. This method can be applied to self-similar tilings based on a stochastic process.
Pulmonary artery pressure and alveolar gas exchange in man during acclimatization to 12,470 ft.

Pulmonary hemodynamics and gas exchange were studied in four physicians during 72 hr acclimatization to 12,470 ft. Pulmonary catheters were left in three subjects for 72 hr. Resting mean pulmonary arterial pressure (PAP) rose progressively during the first 24 hr from 10.3 +/-1.0 to 21.1 +/-4.0 torr and remained at this level. During this same 24 hr period cardiac output increased from 7.1 +/-1.4 to 8.4 +/-2.0 liters/min and total pulmonary resistance rose from 122 +/-16 to 209 +/-40 dynes.sec/cm(-5). Excercise at 60 w after 24 hr of hypoxia increased PAP to 28.8 +/-5.1 torr and decreased total pulmonary resistance to 155 +/-25. Shunt fractions were 11 +/-3.8% after 24 hr at altitude and fell to 7 +/-0% after 72 hr. Alveolar to arterial O(2) difference (P(A-a)(O2)) breathing oxygen fell from 116 +/-10.8 to 92 +/-33.3 torr during the same period of acclimatization, whereas dead space to tidal volume ratio (V(D)/V(T)) rose from 33 +/-4.0% to 40 +/-5.3% and P(A-a)(O2) breathing ambient air rose from 8 +/-2.6 to 11 +/-3.0 torr. Inspiratory static lung compliance decreased significantly from a control of 176 +/-8 to 141 +/-8 ml/cm H(2)O after 72 hr of hypoxia. After 4-7 days at altitude, further deterioration in gas exchange was observed after a 5 mile, 1800 ft climb to the summit (14,255 ft) and return. P(A-a)(O2) on air rose from 2.5 +/-2.1 just before starting, to 16.3 +/-2.8 at the summit (rested), and was still 9.0 +/-2.2 several hours after returning. The O(2)-breathing values paralleled these, whereas dead space appeared to fall. We speculate that the hypoxic pulmonary hypertension which develops over 24 hr in some way may be responsible for a reduction of compliance and deterioration in oxygen exchange efficiency, possibly representing a sub-clinical form of pulmonary edema of high altitude. The increased alveolar to arterial O(2) difference induced by hypoxic exercise persists for several hours of hypoxic rest.
Infrared Ray Emission (IREM) Based Post-Silicon Power Debug Flows Developed for Chip Power Performance

Pre-silicon power modeling, post-silicon power validation, and power debugs design efforts have significantly increased to meet speed performance, reliability deliverables and design robustness for manufacturing. IREM based power debug flow has been developed to isolate marginal circuits with excessive static and dynamic power consumption. Three root cause analysis cases are presented to demonstrate the success of this novel post-silicon debug flow
Blocking TRPA1 in Respiratory Disorders: Does It Hold a Promise?

Transient Receptor Potential Ankyrin 1 (TRPA1) ion channel is expressed abundantly on the C fibers that innervate almost entire respiratory tract starting from oral cavity and oropharynx, conducting airways in the trachea, bronchi, terminal bronchioles, respiratory bronchioles and upto alveolar ducts and alveoli. Functional presence of TRPA1 on non-neuronal cells got recognized recently. TRPA1 plays a well-recognized role of “chemosensor”, detecting presence of exogenous irritants and endogenous pro-inflammatory mediators that are implicated in airway inflammation and sensory symptoms like chronic cough, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), allergic rhinitis and cystic fibrosis. TRPA1 can remain activated chronically due to elevated levels and continued presence of such endogenous ligands and pro-inflammatory mediators. Several selective TRPA1 antagonists have been tested in animal models of respiratory disease and their performance is very promising. Although there is no TRPA1 antagonist in advanced clinical trials or approved on market yet to treat respiratory diseases, however, limited but promising evidences available so far indicate likelihood that targeting TRPA1 may present a new therapy in treatment of respiratory diseases in near future. This review will focus on in vitro, animal and human evidences that strengthen the proposed role of TRPA1 in modulation of specific airway sensory responses and also on preclinical and clinical progress of selected TRPA1 antagonists.
Antiinflammatory, Analgesic and Antipyretic Activities of Aerial Parts of Costus speciosus Koen

In the present study, methanol extracts of Costus speciosus Koen. aerial parts were assessed for antiinflammatory, analgesic and antipyretic activities in experimental animals. The antiinflammatory activity of methanol extract of Costus speciosus (400 and 800 mg/kg, p.o.) was evaluated using carrageenan-induced paw oedema test. Analgesic effect was evaluated using acetic acid-induced writhing and Eddy’s hot-plate models and antipyretic activity was assessed by Brewer’s yeast-induced pyrexia in rats. The methanol extract of aerial parts of Costus speciosus in a dose of 400 and 800 mg/kg showed significant antiinflammatory activity (19.36 and 40.05% reduction) at 5 h postmedication. In analgesic models extract treated animals at (400 and 800 mg/kg) inhibited writhing’s caused by acetic acid by 14.24 and 31.90%, respectively, and it also increased the latency period at both high and low doses which showed the mean reaction time at 16.60±0.355 s and 14.12±0.355 s, respectively, when compared to control in hot-plate test. It also reduces the rectal temperature of the animals at low and high doses significantly 37.03±0.108° and 36.63±0.098°, respectively, in Brewer’s yeast induced pyrexia. The obtained results of the present investigation revealed that methanol extract of Costus speciosus has significant antiinflammatory, analgesic and antipyretic activities.
A pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic drug interaction between rosuvastatin and valsartan in healthy subjects

Purpose Valsartan, an angiotensin-receptor blocker, and rosuvastatin, a competitive inhibitor of the 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase, are frequently coadministered to treat patients with hypertension and dyslipidemia. The study reported here sought to evaluate the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic interactions between rosuvastatin and valsartan in healthy Korean subjects. Subjects and methods Thirty healthy male Korean subjects were administered with rosuvastatin (20 mg/day), valsartan (160 mg/day), and both drugs concomitantly for 4 days in a randomized, open-label, multiple-dose, three-treatment, three-period crossover study. Plasma concentrations of rosuvastatin, N-desmethyl rosuvastatin, and valsartan were determined using validated high-performance liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry. Lipid profiles and vital signs (systolic and diastolic blood pressure and pulse rate) were measured for the pharmacodynamic assessment. Results For rosuvastatin, the geometric mean ratios (90% confidence intervals [CIs]) of coadministration to mono-administration were 0.8809 (0.7873−0.9857) for maximum plasma concentration at steady state and 0.9151 (0.8632−0.9701) for area under the concentration–time curve (AUC) over a dosing interval at steady state. For valsartan, the geometric mean ratios (90% CIs) of those were 0.9300 (0.7946−1.0884) and 1.0072 (0.8893−1.1406), respectively. There were no significant differences in the metabolic ratio of N-desmethyl rosuvastatin AUC to rosuvastatin AUC between coadministration and rosuvastatin alone. No interaction was found in terms of systolic or diastolic blood pressure or lipid profiles. Combined treatment with valsartan and rosuvastatin was generally well tolerated without serious adverse events. Conclusion The pharmacokinetic profiles of rosuvastatin and valsartan in combination were comparable with those of rosuvastatin and valsartan administered individually, suggesting that their individual pharmacokinetics were not affected by their coadministration. No dose adjustment was required and the results are supportive of a study in a larger patient population.