Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Second Order Sufficient Conditions for Time-Optimal Bang-Bang Control

We study second order sufficient optimality conditions (SSC) for optimal control problems with control appearing linearly. Specifically, time-optimal bang-bang controls will be investigated. In [N. P. Osmolovskii, Sov. Phys. Dokl. , 33 (1988), pp. 883--885; Theory of Higher Order Conditions in Optimal Control, Doctor of Sci. thesis, Moscow, 1988 (in Russian); Russian J. Math. Phys., 2 (1995), pp. 487--516; {\it Russian J. Math. Phys.}, 5 (1997), pp. 373--388; Proceedings of the Conference "Calculus of Variations and Optimal Control," Chapman & Hall/CRC, Boca Raton, FL, 2000, pp. 198--216; A. A. Milyutin and N. P. Osmolovskii, Calculus of Variations and Optimal Control, Transl. Math. Monogr. 180, AMS, Providence, RI, 1998], SSC have been developed in terms of the positive definiteness of a quadratic form on a critical cone or subspace. No systematical numerical methods for verifying SSC are to be found in these papers. In the present paper, we study explicit representations of the critical subspace. This leads to an easily implementable test for SSC in the case of a bang-bang control with one or two switching points. In general, we show that the quadratic form can be simplified by a transformation that uses a solution to a linear matrix differential equation. Particular conditions even allow us to convert the quadratic form to perfect squares. Three numerical examples demonstrate the numerical viability of the proposed tests for SSC.
Community education for stroke awareness: An efficacy study.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE This study examined the effectiveness of a slide/audio community education program aimed at increasing knowledge of stroke risk factors, stroke warning signs, and action needed when stroke warning signs occur. The program targets audiences at higher risk for stroke, especially individuals who are black or >50 years of age. METHODS Subjects were 657 adults living in the community or in senior independent-living settings. The study examined the effectiveness of the program when presented alone and when accompanied by discussion (facilitation) led by a trained individual. Knowledge of stroke risk factors and warning signs was assessed using parallel pretests and posttests developed and validated specifically for the study. RESULTS ANCOVA indicated that neither pretesting nor facilitation had a significant effect on posttest measures of knowledge. Paired t tests of groups receiving both the pretest and posttest demonstrated significant increase in knowledge (mean increase, 10.87%; P<0.001). ANCOVA indicated that these gains in knowledge were similar across subjects of different sex, race, age, and educational level. No significant differences could be ascribed to facilitation. CONCLUSIONS The data indicate that the slide/audio program is effective in increasing knowledge of stroke risk factors, warning signs, and necessary action in subjects of varying ages, races, and education. Pretesting and facilitation did not significantly affect the short-term acquisition of information. The slide/audio program appears to offer a short, easily used educational experience for diverse communities, whether as a stand-alone program or with facilitated discussion.
Multiscale gradient watersheds of color images

We present a new framework for the hierarchical segmentation of color images. The proposed scheme comprises a nonlinear scale-space with vector-valued gradient watersheds. Our aim is to produce a meaningful hierarchy among the objects in the image using three image components of distinct perceptual significance for a human observer, namely strong edges, smooth segments and detailed segments. The scale-space is based on a vector-valued diffusion that uses the Additive Operator Splitting numerical scheme. Furthermore, we introduce the principle of the dynamics of contours in scale-space that combines scale and contrast information. The performance of the proposed segmentation scheme is presented via experimental results obtained with a wide range of images including natural and artificial scenes.
Selective &bgr;2-Adrenoreceptor Stimulation Attenuates Myocardial Cell Death and Preserves Cardiac Function After Ischemia–Reperfusion Injury

Objective—&bgr;2-adrenoreceptor activation has been shown to protect cardiac myocytes from cell death. We hypothesized that acute &bgr;2-adrenoreceptor stimulation, using arformoterol (ARF), would attenuate myocardial ischemia/reperfusion (R) injury via NO synthase activation and cause a subsequent increase in NO bioavailability. Methods and Results—Male C57BL/6J and endothelial NO synthase (eNOS) knockout mice were subjected to 45 minutes of myocardial ischemia and 24 hours of R. ARF or vehicle was administered 5 minutes before R. Serum troponin-I was measured, and infarct size per area-at-risk was evaluated at 24 hours of R. Echocardiography was performed at baseline and 2 weeks after R. Myocardial cAMP, protein kinase A, eNOS/Akt phosphorylation status, and NO metabolite levels were assayed. ARF (1 µg/kg) reduced infarct size per area-at-risk by 53.1% (P<0.001 versus vehicle) and significantly reduced troponin-I levels (P<0.001 versus vehicle). Ejection fraction was significantly preserved in ARF-treated hearts compared with vehicle hearts at 2 weeks of R. Serum cAMP and nuclear protein kinase A C-&agr; increased 5 and 15 minutes after ARF injection, respectively (P<0.01). ARF increased Akt phosphorylation at Thr308 (P<0.001) and Ser473 (P<0.01), and eNOS phosphorylation at Ser1177 (P<0.01). ARF treatment increased heart nitrosothiol levels (P<0.001) at 15 min after injection. ARF failed to reduce infarct size in eNOS−/− mice. Conclusion—Our results indicate that &bgr;2-adrenoreceptor stimulation activates cAMP, protein kinase A, Akt, and eNOS and augments NO bioavailability. Activation of this prosurvival signaling pathway attenuates myocardial cell death and preserves cardiac function after ischemia/reperfusion.
Calcium and Calpain as Key Mediators of Apoptosis-like Death Induced by Vitamin D Compounds in Breast Cancer Cells*

The active form of vitamin D3 (1,25(OH)2D3) induces an increase in the intracellular free calcium ([Ca2+] i ) and caspase-independent cell death in human breast cancer cells. Here we show that the treatment of MCF-7 breast cancer cells with 1,25(OH)2D3 or its chemotherapeutic analog, EB 1089, releases Ca2+ from the endoplasmic reticulum. The increase in [Ca2+] i was associated with the activation of a calcium-dependent cysteine protease, μ-calpain. Interestingly, ectopic expression of a calcium-binding protein, calbindin-D28k, in MCF-7 cells not only attenuated the elevation in [Ca2+] i and calpain activation, but also reduced death triggered by vitamin D compounds. Similarly, the inhibition of calpain activity by structurally unrelated chemical inhibitors increased the survival of the cells and reduces the amount of annexin V-positive cells. Despite the complete absence of effector caspase activation, transmission electron microscopy of MCF-7 cells treated with 1,25(OH)2D3 or EB 1089 revealed apoptosis-like morphology characterized by the condensed cytoplasm, nuclei, and chromatin. Overall, these results suggest that calpain may take over the role of the major execution protease in apoptosis-like death induced by vitamin D compounds. Thus, these compounds may prove useful in the treatment of tumors resistant to therapeutic agents dependent on the classical caspase cascade.
Les centres d'appel en France: mobilisation et mobilité des salariés face à un système hybride de travail

The call center is increasingly becoming a strategic customer relationships organisation. This device aims at the same time to decrease production costs by industrialization of customer service and to improve the service quality. It produces a hybrid system of work, driven by the tension between quantity and quality production criteria. Based on data collected from 210 French call centers, this paper aims to test the relations between business contexts, choices of production model, HRM tools and working conditions. Indicators such as voluntary quit rates and of illness absenteeism are used to characterize the diversity of forms of employees' mobilization and mobility.
High-yield fabrication of 60 nm Permalloy nanodiscs in well-defined magnetic vortex state for biomedical applications

Permalloy disc structures in magnetic vortex state constitute a promising new type of magnetic nanoparticles for biomedical applications. They present high saturation magnetisation and lack of remanence, which ease the remote manipulation of the particles by magnetic fields and avoid the problem of agglomeration, respectively. Importantly, they are also endowed with the capability of low-frequency magneto-mechanical actuation. This effect has already been shown to produce cancer cell destruction using functionalized discs, about 1 μm in diameter, attached to the cell membrane. Here, Permalloy nanodiscs down to 60 nm in diameter are obtained by hole-mask colloidal lithography, which is proved to be a cost-effective method for the uniform patterning of large substrate areas, with a high production yield of nanostructures. The characterisation of the magnetic behaviour of the nanodiscs, complemented with micromagnetic simulations, confirms that they present a very well defined magnetic vortex configuration, unprecedented, to our knowledge, for nanostructures of this size prepared by a high-yield method. The successful detachment of the gold-covered nanodiscs from the substrate is also demonstrated by the use of sacrificial layers.
Nursing Care for Adaptation

The Roy adaptation model has been adopted as the frame of reference for the nursing curriculum at the Universidad de La Sabana School of Nursing in Colombia. The purpose of this paper is to discuss, through an example, the application process of the Roy model, the reflection that has been developed to study in great depth its central concepts and scientific and philosophic principles, and to explain the concept of nursing care for adaptation as a fundamental aspect for its application. Likewise, the process generated from the model's application in teaching and practice are presented.
Design and Development of Energy Efficient Routing Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks using Fuzzy Logic

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) is a emerging technology of real time embedded systems for a variety of applications. In general, WSNs has great challenges in the factor of limited computation, energy and memory resources. Clustering techniques play a vital role in WSNs to increase the network lifetime and also made energy efficiency. Existing clustering approaches like LEACH uses neighboring information of the nodes for selecting cluster heads and other nodes spent more energy for transmitting data to cluster head. It was not considered the expected residual energy for selecting a cluster head. In this study, Genetic Algorithm (GA) is used to form optimal clusters based on fitness parameters including Cluster Distance (CD), Direct Distance to Base Station (DDBS) and Energy of nodes. Also, fuzzy logic approach is applied to select optimal cluster head by using expected residual energy that increases the network lifetime. The aim of the study is providing a solution for unbalanced energy consumption problem in a WSN. The simulation results show that the proposed protocol performs well than other protocols like LEACH and LEACH_ERE.
Work-Family Conflict: a Case Study of Women in Pakistani Banks

3 DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 5 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS 7 LIST OF FIGURES 12 GLOSSARY OF URDU WORDS AND PHRASES 13 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 17 1.1 Prologue 17 1.2 Introduction 19 1.3 Background to the study 22 1.4 Research aims and objectives 26 1.5 Original contribution 27 1.6 Structure of the dissertation 27 CHAPTER 2: SETTING THE SCENE: PAKISTANI CONTEXT 29 2.
The use of multiple cues in mate choice

An increasing number of studies find females to base their mate choice on several cues. Why this occurs is debated and many different hypotheses have been proposed. Here I review the hypotheses and the evidence in favour of them. At the same time I provide a new categorisation based on the adaptiveness of the preferences and the information content of the cues. A few comparative and empirical studies suggest that most multiple cues are Fisherian attractiveness cues or uninformative cues that occur alongside a viability indicator and facilitate detection, improve signal reception, or are remnants from past selection pressures. However, much evidence exists for multiple cues providing additional information and serving as multiple messages that either indicate general mate quality or enable females that differ in mate preferences to choose the most suitable male. Less evidence exists for multiple cues serving as back‐up signals. The importance of receiver psychology, multiple sensory environments and signal interaction in the evolution of multiple cues and preferences has received surprisingly little attention but may be of crucial importance. Similarly, sexual conflict has been proposed to result in maladaptive preferences for manipulative cues, and in neutral preferences for threshold cues, but no reliable evidence exists so far. An important factor in the evolution of multiple preferences is the cost of using additional cues. Most theoretical work assumes that the cost of choice increases with the number of cues used, which restricts the conditions under which preferences for multiple cues are expected to evolve. I suggest that in contrast to this expectation, the use of multiple cues can reduce mate choice costs by decreasing the number of mates inspected more closely or the time and energy spent inspecting a set of mates. This may be one explanation for why multiple cues are more common than usually expected. Finally I discuss the consequences that the use of multiple cues may have for the process of sexual selection, the maintenance of genetic variation, and speciation.
Information Dynamics of Whole Genome Adaptation

The human genome is a complex, dynamic information system that encodes principles of life and living systems. These principles are incorporated in the structure of human genome sequence variation and are foundational for the continuity of life and human survival. Using first principles of thermodynamics and statistical physics, we have developed analogous "genodynamic tools" for population genomic studies. Characterizing genomic information through the lens of physics has allowed us to develop energy measures for modeling genome-environment interactions. In developing biophysical parameters for genome-environment homeostasis, we found that stable genomic free energy trades off low genomic energy (genomic conservation and increased order) and high genomic entropy (genomic variation) with an environmental potential that drives the variation. In our approach, we assert that common variants are dynamic sites in the genome of a population and that the stability of whole genome adaptation is reflected in the frequencies of maintained diversity in common variants for the population in its environment. In this paper, we address the relativity of whole genome adaptation towards homeostasis. By this we mean that adaptive forces are directly reflected in the frequency distribution of alleles and/or haplotypes of the population relative to its environment, with adaptive forces driving the genome towards homeostasis. The use of genomic energy units as a biophysical metric in DNA sequence variation analyses provides new insights into the foundations of population biology and diversity. Using our biophysical tools, population differences directly reflect the adaptive influences of the environment on populations.
Problems with access to dental care for Medicaid-insured children: what caregivers think.

OBJECTIVES This study aimed to gain insight into the experiences, attitudes, and perceptions of a racially and ethnically diverse group of caregivers regarding barriers to dental care for their Medicaid-insured children. METHODS Criterion-purposive sampling was used to select participants for 11 focus groups, which were conducted in North Carolina. Seventy-seven caregivers of diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds participated. Full recordings of sessions were obtained and transcribed. A comprehensive content review of all data, including line-by-line analysis, was conducted. RESULTS Negative experiences with the dental care system discouraged many caregivers in the focus groups from obtaining dental services for their Medicaid-insured children. Searching for providers, arranging an appointment where choices were severely limited, and finding transportation left caregivers describing themselves as discouraged and exhausted. Caregivers who successfully negotiated these barriers felt that they encountered additional barriers in the dental care setting, including long waiting times and judgmental, disrespectful, and discriminatory behavior from staff and providers because of their race and public assistance status. CONCLUSIONS Current proposals to solve the dental access problem probably will be insufficient until barriers identified by caregivers are addressed.
La comprensión temprana de la adquisición del conocimiento: viejas propuestas, nuevos horizontes

Este articulo revisa hallazgos y modelos teoricos en torno a un aspecto del desarrollo de la teoria de la mente, a saber: la comprension temprana de como se adquiere el conocimiento. La revision realizada indica que mientras la investigacion inicial sugiere que esta comprension emerge a los cuatro anos de edad, hallazgos recientes indican que se encuentra ya presente al final del primer ano de vida. A partir de esto, la teoria emergente sobre el aprendizaje cultural propuesta por Tomasello y colaboradores propone la integracion de ambos hallazgos en una misma trayectoria de desarrollo. A pesar de sus contribuciones, esta novedosa propuesta podria enriquecerse de dos distintas formas: 1) esclareciendo las diferencias especificas en cuanto a la capacidad del infante y la del nino preescolar para comprender los estados mentales como representaciones internas, y 2) especificando los mecanismos que subyacen la trayectoria de desarrollo de la comprension del comportamiento como el producto de la actividad mental.
The behaviour of the domestic fowl

Imagine that you get such certain awesome experience and knowledge by only reading a book. How can? It seems to be greater when a book can be the best thing to discover. Books now will appear in printed and soft file collection. One of them is this book the behaviour of the domestic fowl. It is so usual with the printed books. However, many people sometimes have no space to bring the book for them; this is why they can't read the book wherever they want.
Childhood rhabdomyosarcoma in Ibadan, Nigeria: 1984–2003

Abstract Background: Rhabdomyosarcoma is the most common soft tissue sarcoma in children under 15 years of age. There is, however, a paucity of reports on the pattern of its occurrence in Nigeria and other parts of Africa. Aim: To describe the pattern of childhood rhabdomyosarcoma in Ibadan with respect to demography, morphology and tumour site. Methods: This retrospective study was based on data obtained from the Ibadan cancer registry, College of Medicine, University of Ibadan. All histologically confirmed cases of rhabdomyosarcoma in children under 15 years of age seen at the University College Hospital Ibadan between 1984 and 2003 were included. Information obtained includes age, gender, morphology and sites of the tumours. Results: Ninety-one children were seen with a male:female ratio of 1.5:1. Ages ranged from <1 to 14 years with a mean (SD) of 6.2 (4.1) years. The embryonal variant was the most common histological subtype (61.5%). Other subtypes were alveolar (13.2%), pleomorphic (4.4%) and rhabdomyosarcoma 'not otherwise specified' (20.9%). The majority (50.6%) of tumours were in the head and neck region and the common primary sites were soft tissue of the head, face (24.2%) and orbit (14.3%). Other sites included soft tissue of the pelvis (11.0%), genito-urinary tract (9.9%) and abdomen (9.9%). Conclusion: The pattern of rhabdomyosarcoma in Nigeria is similar to that in the United States and Europe, except for the rarity of parameningeal sites and extremities. There is a need for larger descriptive studies on childhood rhabdomyosarcoma in Africa.
Bayesian Inference Algorithms for Multiuser Detection in M2M Communications

Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications will be playing an important role in the development of 5th generation (5G) and future wireless communication systems. Due to the sporadic nature of massive access, Low-Activity Code Division Multiple Access (LA-CDMA) is one of possible multiple access schemes for M2M communications. In the literature, maximum a posterior (MAP) detector has been proposed to detect the active users when the user activity factor is known and small. However, the user activity factor is usually unknown and could be large in practice, which makes the multiuser detection (MUD) a challenging task for LA-CDMA. In this paper, we first introduce sparse Bayesian learning (SBL) method to recover the transmitted signals for LA- CDMA uplink access. The proposed method exploits the sparsity of the transmitted signals and does not require the knowledge of user activity. Furthermore, we add on the known finite-alphabet constraints and introduce Gaussian mixture model (GMM) method to obtain the transmitted signals. Simulation results have shown that the proposed methods outperform the conventional algorithms.
High Resolution Crosswell Imaging of a West Texas Carbonate Reservoir

Using crosswell data collected at a depth of about 3000 ft (900 m) in West Texas carbonates, one of the first well-to-well reflection images of an oil reservoir was produced. The P and S brute stack reflection images created after wavefield separation tied the sonic logs and exhibited a vertical resolution that was comparable to well log resolution. Both brute stacks demonstrated continuity of several reflectors known to be continuous from log control and also imaged an angular unconformity that was not detected in log correlations or in surface seismic profiling. The brute stacks, particularly the S-wave reflection image, also exhibited imaging artifacts. We found that multichannel wavefield separation filters that attenuated interfering wavemodes were a critical component in producing high-resolution reflection images. In this study, the most important elements for an effective wavefield separation were the time-alignment of seismic arrivals prior to filter application and the implementation of wavefield-separation filters in multiple domains, particularly in common offset domain. The effectiveness of the multichannel filtering was enhanced through the use of extremely fine wellbore sampling intervals. In this study, 2.5 ft (0.76 m) vertical sampling intervals for both source and receiver were used, whereas most previous crosswell data sets were collected with much coarser sampling intervals, resulting in spatial aliasing and limiting the utility of the data for reflection processing. The wavefield separation techniques employed in this study used data volumes and associated filtering operations that were several orders of magnitude larger than those encountered in conventional VSP data analysis.