Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Relationships between consumer decision-making styles and lifestyle characteristics: Young fashion consumers in China

Abstract This study explores the effects of lifestyle characteristics on consumer decision-making styles of young fashion consumers in China. Consumer Style Inventory (CSI), developed by Sproles and Kendall (1986) for examining different consumer decision-making styles, was adapted in this study. A questionnaire survey was employed as a tool to collect primary data and the research instrument was administered to university students in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Taipei. The results identified seven consumer decision-making styles, including recreational and hedonistic consciousness, perfectionism consciousness, habitual and brand loyal, confused by overchoice, price and value consciousness, impulsive and careless, and brand and fashion consciousness. In addition, eight lifestyle characteristics were also identified in terms of activities, interests and opinions dimensions, including “working activities”, “shopping activities”, “interests related to home”, “interests related to family”, “interests related to fashion”, “fashion as self representation”, “opinion about themselves” and “opinion about products”. Except “interests related to home”, “interests related to family” and “opinion about themselves”, all lifestyle characteristics were found to be positively and/or negatively associated with some of the consumer decision-making styles for the young consumers in China.
Rule-based application development using Webdamlog

We present the WebdamLog system for managing distributed data on the Web in a peer-to-peer manner. We demonstrate the main features of the system through an application called Wepic for sharing pictures between attendees of the sigmod conference. Using Wepic, the attendees will be able to share, download, rate and annotate pictures in a highly decentralized manner. We show how WebdamLog handles heterogeneity of the devices and services used to share data in such a Web setting. We exhibit the simple rules that define the Wepic application and show how to easily modify the Wepic application.
Sol-gel deposition of nanostructured low refractive index materials on solar collector glazing

Nanoporous SiO2 and nanocomposite MgF2:SiO2 coatings have been deposited by sol gel dip-coating in a particle-free atmosphere. The refractive index of the prepared nanostructured thin films is determined from spectrophotometric data. In both cases, significantly lower values than for compact SiO2 have been achieved. Highly transparent samples have been produced in a single dip-coating step followed by simple thermal annealing in air. Broad spectral transmittance maxima are observed exceeding values of 98.5% (nanoporous SiO2) and 99.5% (quaternary Mg:F:Si:O films). MgF2:SiO2 nanocomposite thin films can be expected to exhibit a higher aging stability than porous SiO2 films with respect to pore-filling by hydrocarbons and are therefore a promising alternative as well for single-layered anti reflection coatings as for multilayered coulored coatings on solar collector glazing.
Cholic Acid, a Bile Acid Elicitor of Hypersensitive Cell Death, Pathogenesis-Related Protein Synthesis, and Phytoalexin Accumulation in Rice

When plants interact with certain pathogens, they protect themselves by generating various defense responses. These defense responses are induced by molecules called elicitors. Since long ago, composts fermented by animal feces have been used as a fertilizer in plant cultivation, and recently, have been known to provide suppression of plant disease. Therefore, we hypothesized that the compounds from animal feces may function as elicitors of plant defense responses. As a result of examination of our hypothesis, an elicitor of rice defense responses was isolated from human feces, and its structure was identified as cholic acid (CA), a primary bile acid in animals. Treatment of rice (Oryza sativa) leaves with CA induced the accumulation of antimicrobial compounds (phytoalexins), hypersensitive cell death, pathogenesis-related (PR) protein synthesis, and increased resistance to subsequent infection by virulent pathogens. CA induced these defense responses more rapidly than did fungal cerebroside, a sphingolipid elicitor isolated from the rice pathogenic fungus Magnaporthe grisea. Furthermore, fungal cerebroside induced both types of rice phytoalexins, phytocassanes and momilactones, whereas CA mainly induced phytocassanes, but not momilactones. In the structure-activity relationship analysis, the hydroxyl groups at C-7 and C-12, and the carboxyl group at C-24 of CA contributed to the elicitor activity. These results indicate that CA is specifically recognized by rice and is a different type of elicitor from fungal cerebroside. This report demonstrated that bile acid induced defense responses in plants.
EventScope : Finding Discriminating Event Patterns for Different Outcomes

Discovering temporal patterns in large datasets is a challenging problem because researchers must explore a huge space of possible correlations. EventScope is a visualization and ranking tool to assist in identification of temporal patterns leading to, or following, different events. In order to identify non-trivial patterns, EventScope splits the data based on user-specified reference events. Patterns are sorted based on differences found between these two groups. By providing information regarding an event of interest relative to two outcomes, more useful temporal patterns can be identified. EventScope was evaluated by conducting usability tests with events derived from one season of Chicago Bulls basketball games. Usability test results from non-expert users were generally positive and users were able to successfully identify several strong relations.
Alternate slicing and deposition strategies for fused deposition modelling of light curved parts

Fused deposition modeling (FDM), as one of the additive manufacturing (AM) techniques, has been widely used in the manufacturing industry from the 1990s. It is relatively cheaper than other AM methods and there are other advantages such as being able to process a variety of other polymers. Currently, FDM is more likely to be suitable for direct production of the terminal-use parts, in some cases challenging traditional process such as injection molding. Research evidences indicate that change of road and layer structure would have significant influence on the meso-structure and thus impact the mechanical properties of the resulting polymer parts. Adaptive flat layer deposition and curved layer deposition have been introduced to improve the mechanical properties of terminal-use product. It is necessary that an appropriate deposition scheme is essential to ensure the best interroad and inter-layer connectivity. Uninterrupted connections are likely to result in a continuous network of polymer chains, as in the case of the conventional processes. The current research proposes conventional flat layer deposition, adaptive flat layer deposition and curved layer deposition for FDM. In particular for curved parts, curved layer deposition in expected to ensure fiber continuity and better meso-structure. Mathematical models are developed for curved slicing, practically implemented to print physical parts and test results suggest marked improvement in the mechanical characteristics of curved parts.
Optimal U/f-control of high speed permanent magnet motors

High speed motors are used nowadays more and more in many applications such as turbo blowers and compressors, microturbine gas generators, machine tools and down-hole oilpumps. Benefits of high speed motor drives are the reduced size and the increased efficiency compared to the conventional technology consisting typically of a motor and a gearbox. High speed motors used are mainly permanent magnet synchronous motors (PM-motors) and induction motors. PM-motors are more widely used due to the better power factor and efficiency although the control of PM-motors is more difficult, for example, due to the insufficient natural damping of motor dynamics. Furthermore the carbon fiber sleeve, usually used around the rotor magnets, prevents the heat conducting away from the rotor surface. This, together with a poor control, easily results in rotor overheating problems. Special control methods and pulse width modulation are usually needed to overcome this kind of problems. In this presentation, special control issues are discussed for the optimal U/f-control of high speed PM-motors
The changing professional practice of physician assistants: 1992 to 2000.

BACKGROUND Substantial changes in professional practice for physician assistants (PAs) occurred between 1992 and 2000. This paper describes a new professional practice index for the PA profession for 2000 that reflects current practice environments more accurately than did an index developed to reflect practice environments in 1992. In addition, the paper examines the relationships among the profession, its professional environment, and physicians, as well as the relationship between the PA profession and access to care for underserved populations. RESULTS Comparisons of the 1992 professional practice index for the PA profession and indices for 2000 indicate that, collectively, the scope of practice of PAs increased significantly across the United States over the 8-year period. Variation of the index scores narrowed over the same period, suggesting that the 1990s were a period of convergence of professional practice across the 50 states. During this period the numbers of practicing PAs nearly doubled between 1992 and 2000, and in 2000 there were 5.8 practicing PAs per 100 physicians in active patient care in the United States. The professional practice index for the profession is positively correlated with the numbers of PAs per capita across the 50 states for both 1992 and 2000. CONCLUSION Enabling legislation for PAs has been enacted in all 50 states and the District of Columbia over a 3-decade period. A period of consolidation and convergence of statutes and policies over the 1990s suggests that American medicine has endorsed the role of PAs. In spite of these findings, almost one third of states continue to have limited or restricted statutes for PA practice, mostly in the area of reimbursement.
Ambient particle inhalation and the cardiovascular system: potential mechanisms.

Well-documented air pollution episodes throughout recent history have led to deaths among individuals with cardiovascular and respiratory disease. Although the components of air pollution that cause the adverse health effects in these individuals are unknown, a small proportion by mass but a large proportion by number of the ambient air particles are ultrafine, i.e., less than 100 nm in diameter. This ultrafine component of particulate matter with a mass median aerodynamic diameter less than 10 microm (PM(10) may mediate some of the adverse health effects reported in epidemiologic studies and for which there is toxicologic evidence to support this contention. The exact mechanism by which ultrafine particles have adverse effects is unknown, but these particles have recently been shown to enhance calcium influx on contact with macrophages. Oxidative stress is also to be anticipated at the huge particle surface; this can be augmented by oxidants generated by recruited inflammatory leukocytes. Atheromatous plaques form in the coronary arteries and are major causes of morbidity and death associated epidemiologically with particulate air pollution. In populations exposed to air pollution episodes, blood viscosity, fibrinogen, and C-reactive protein (CRP) were higher. More recently, increases in heart rate in response to rising air pollution have been described and are most marked in individuals who have high blood viscosity. In our study of elderly individuals, there were significant rises in CRP, an index of inflammation. In this present review, we consider the likely interactions between the ultrafine particles the acute phase response and cardiovascular disease.
Challenges in the design of a 100 kw induction motor for a PHEV application

This paper summarizes some design challenges encountered in the development of a high speed induction motor/generator for a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV). The traction system motor/generator was developed for integration into a high performance full-sized passenger car being developed by a major automotive manufacturer. The paper summarizes the traction motor performance requirements and presents the electromagnetic, mechanical and thermal design issues of the high speed 100 kW peak power induction machine.
A 16.6μW 32.8MHz monolithic CMOS relaxation oscillator

This paper presents a 32.8MHz low power, supply insensitive monolithic CMOS relaxation oscillator. Instead of using voltage-mode comparators for cycle-to-cycle capacitor voltage swing (CVS) threshold voltage comparison, the CVS is regulated by a low-power closed-loop control which consists of a current-controlled delay cell (CCDC), a Gm-C error integrator and a comparator-free switch logic block. The CCDC and switching logics are powered by a logic supply regulator for reducing switching-losses and line sensitivity. The oscillator consumes 16. 6μW from a 1.5V supply voltage at room temperature, achieving a FOM of 0. 51μW/MHz. The measured output frequency variation is <;±0.13%/V @ 32.8MHz, for a supply range of 1.5V to 3.6V It occupies 0.013mm2 in a 0. 18μm CMOS process.
HYDROGEN IN METALS: Microstructural Aspects

▪ Abstract Metal-hydrogen (M-H) systems are interesting from both a theoretical and a practical point of view. M-H systems are utilized for energy-storage systems, in sensor applications, and in catalysis. These systems are often exploited as models for studying basic material properties, especially when the size of these systems is small and nonbulk-like contributions become dominant. Surfaces, nanocrystals, vacancy- and dislocation-rich materials, thin films, multilayers, and clusters as systems of major interest are addressed in this review. We show that the hydrogen solubility of M-H systems is strongly affected by the morphology and microstructure of and the stress between regions of different hydrogen concentration. For small-sized systems, surface- or interface-related sites become important and change the overall solubility as well as the phase boundaries of M-H systems. In thin films deposited on stiff substrates, compressive stresses evolve during hydrogen loading because the films are effective.
Removing useless variables in cost analysis of Java bytecode

Automatic cost analysis has interesting applications in the context of verification and certification of mobile code. For instance, the code receiver can use cost information in order to decide whether to reject mobile code which has too large cost requirements in terms of computing resources (in time and/or space) or billable events (SMSs sent, bandwidth required). Existing cost analyses for a variety of languages describe the resource consumption of programs by means of Cost Equation Systems (CESs), which are similar to, but more general than recurrence equations. CESs express the cost of a program in terms of the size of its input data. In a further step, a closed form (i.e., non-recursive) solution or upper bound can sometimes be found by using existing Computer Algebra Systems (CASs), such as Maple and Mathematica. In this work, we focus on cost analysis of Java bytecode, a language which is widely used in the context of mobile code and we study the problem of identifying variables which are useless in the sense that they do not affect the execution cost and therefore can be ignored by cost analysis. We identify two classes of useless variables and propose automatic analysis techniques to detect them. The first class corresponds to stack variables that can be replaced by program variables or constant values. The second class corresponds to variables whose value is cost-irrelevant, i.e., does not affect the cost of the program. We propose an algorithm, inspired in static slicing which safely identifies cost-irrelevant variables. The benefits of eliminating useless variables are two-fold: (1) cost analysis without useless variables can be more efficient and (2) resulting CESs are more likely to be solvable by existing CASs.
Gm-C based band pass filter

Design of Transconductance-C (Gm-C) filters, which can operate from a few kHz to 100 MHz, have been presented. Two operational transconductor amplifiers (OTA) are used in a mirrored cascade structure. This structure offers a flexible common mode range. The band pass filter uses two OTAs and two capacitors. The structure offers a variable center frequency and variable Q. These center frequency and the Q values can be changed by keeping one capacitor fixed and by varying the second one. The value of the two capacitors is varied to obtain different bandwidths and center frequencies. The theoretical and the simulation result match closely.
Association of food consumption with total volumes of visceral and subcutaneous abdominal adipose tissue in a Northern German population

Abstract Excess accumulation of visceral adipose tissue (VAT) is a known risk factor for cardiometabolic diseases; further, subcutaneous abdominal adipose tissue (SAAT) and the ratio of both (VAT:SAAT ratio) have been discussed as potentially detrimental. Information about the association between diet and adipose tissue is scarce. This study aimed to identify food group intake associated with VAT and SAAT and the VAT:SAAT ratio in a Northern German population. A cross-sectional analysis was conducted in 344 men and 241 women who underwent an MRI to quantify total volumes of VAT and SAAT. Intake of fourteen food groups was assessed with a self-administered 112-item FFQ. Linear regression models adjusted for age, sex, energy intake, physical activity, intake of other food groups and mutual adjustment for VAT and SAAT were calculated to analyse the associations between standardised food group intake and VAT and SAAT, or the VAT:SAAT ratio. Intakes of potatoes (P=0·043) and cakes (P=0·003) were positively and inversely, respectively, associated with both VAT and SAAT. By contrast, intake of cereals was negatively associated with VAT (P=0·045) only, whereas intakes of eggs (P=0·006) and non-alcoholic beverages (P=0·042) were positively associated with SAAT only. The association between eggs and non-alcoholic beverages with SAAT remained significant after further consideration of VAT. Intake of non-alcoholic beverages was also inversely associated with the VAT:SAAT ratio (P=0·001). Our analysis adds to the evidence that intake of foods is independently associated with VAT or SAAT volumes.
Characterizations of Rapid Sintered Nanosilver Joint for Attaching Power Chips

Sintering of nanosilver paste has been extensively studied as a lead-free die-attach solution for bonding semiconductor power chips, such as the power insulated gated bipolar transistor (IGBT). However, for the traditional method of bonding IGBT chips, an external pressure of a few MPa is reported necessary for the sintering time of ~1 h. In order to shorten the processing duration time, we developed a rapid way to sinter nanosilver paste for bonding IGBT chips in less than 5 min using pulsed current. In this way, we firstly dried as-printed paste at about 100 °C to get rid of many volatile solvents because they may result in defects or voids during the out-gassing from the paste. Then, the pre-dried paste was further heated by pulse current ranging from 1.2 kA to 2.4 kA for several seconds. The whole procedure was less than 3 min and did not require any gas protection. We could obtain robust sintered joint with shear strength of 30–35 MPa for bonding 1200-V, 25-A IGBT and superior thermal properties. Static and dynamic electrical performance of the as-bonded IGBT assemblies was also characterized to verify the feasibility of this rapid sintering method. The results indicate that the electrical performance is comparable or even partially better than that of commercial IGBT modules. The microstructure evolution of the rapid sintered joints was also studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). This work may benefit the wide usage of nanosilver paste for rapid bonding IGBT chips in the future.
Preparation and antibacterial activity of PET/chitosan nanofibrous mats using an electrospinning technique

The nanofiber deposition method, by electrospinning, was employed to introduce antibacterial activity and biocompatibility to the surface of poly (ethylene terephthalate) (PET) textiles. The polymer blends of PET and chitosan were electrospun on to the PET micro-nonwoven mats for biomedical applications. The PET/chitosan nanofibers were evenly deposited on to the surface, and the diameter of the nanofibers was in the range between 500 and 800 nm. The surface of the nanofibers was characterized using SEM, ESCA, AFM, and ATR-FTIR. The wettability of the PET nanofibers was significantly enhanced by the incorporation of chitosan. The antibacterial activity of the samples was evaluated utilizing the colony counting method against Staphylococcus aureus and Klebsiella pneumoniae. The results indicated that the PET/chitosan nanofiber mats showed a significantly higher growth inhibition rate compared with the PET nanofiber control. In addition, the fibroblast cells adhered better to the PET/chitosan nanofibers than to the PET nanofibers mats, suggesting better tissue compatibility. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 2007
Explaining International Fertility Differences

Why do fertility rates vary so much across countries? Why are European fertility rates so much lower than American fertility rates? To answer these questions we extend the Barro—Becker framework to incorporate the decision to accumulate human capital (which determines earnings) and health capital (which determines life span). We find that cross-country differences in productivity and taxes go a long way toward explaining the observed differences in fertility and mortality.
Opinion and Trust Based Collaborative Decision Making Model for Healthcare

The aim of this paper is to build a opinion and trust based collaborative decision making which has deviation in decision making. The idea in a collaborative decision making involves number of options or opinions given by the group of experts and it is very concerned more about how to proceed, where in which involving number of choices to take decision. Many types of decision models can be studied and will be used by the experts to solve problems. To understand decision making models it allows experts to make intentional choices about which model (opinions) might be most appropriate for the various decisions that they comfort. Mechanisms for trust can be used to find the single correct decision among many decision models (opinions).