Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Spatial Queries Evaluation with MapReduce

Spatial queries include spatial selection query, spatial join query, nearest neighbor query, etc. Most of spatial queries are computing intensive and individual query evaluation may take minutes or even hours. Parallelization seems a good solution for such problems. However, parallel programs must communicate efficiently, balance work across all nodes, and address problems such as failed nodes. We describe MapReduce and show how spatial queries can be naturally expressed in this model, without explicitly addressing any of the details of parallelization. We present performance evaluations for several spatial queries and prove that MapReduce is also appropriate for small scale clusters and computing intensive applications.
Determinants of Sexual Activity and Pregnancy among Unmarried Young Women in Urban Kenya: A Cross-Sectional Study

Objectives With age of marriage rising in Kenya, the period between onset of puberty and first marriage has increased, resulting in higher rates of premarital sexual activity and pregnancy. We assessed the determinants of sexual activity and pregnancy among young unmarried women in urban Kenya. Methods Baseline data from five urban areas in Kenya (Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu, Machakos, and Kakamega) collected in 2010 by the Measurement, Learning & Evaluation project were used. Women aged 15-24 years, who had never been married, and were not living with a male partner at the time of survey (weighted n=2020) were included. Using weighted, multivariate Cox proportional hazard regression and logistic regression analyses, we assessed factors associated with three outcome measures: time to first sex, time to first pregnancy, and teenage pregnancy. Results One-half of our sample had ever had sex; the mean age at first sex among the sexually-experienced was 17.7 (± 2.6) years. About 15% had ever been pregnant; mean age at first pregnancy was 18.3 (±2.2) years. Approximately 11% had a teenage pregnancy. Three-quarters (76%) of those who had ever been pregnant (weighted n=306) reported the pregnancy was unwanted at the time. Having secondary education was associated with a later time to first sex and first pregnancy. In addition, religion, religiosity, and employment status were associated with time to first sex while city of residence, household size, characteristics of household head, family planning knowledge and misconceptions, and early sexual debut were significantly associated with time to first pregnancy. Education, city of residence, household wealth, early sexual debut, and contraceptive use at sexual debut were associated with teenage pregnancy for those 20-24 years. Conclusion Understanding risk and protective factors of youth sexual and reproductive health can inform programs to improve young people’s long-term potential by avoiding early and unintended pregnancies.
A Server Side Solution for Protection of Web Applications from Cross-Site Scripting Attacks

Cross-Site scripting attacks occur when accessing information in intermediate trusted sites. Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) is one of the major problems of any Web application. Web browsers are used in the execution of commands in web pages to enable dynamic Web pages attackers to make use of this feature and to enforce the execution of malicious code in a user's Web browser. This paper describes the possibilities to filter JavaScript in Web applications in server side protection. Server side solution effectively protects against information leakage from the user's environment. Cross-Site scripting attacks are easy to execute, but difficult to detect and prevent. The flexibility of HTML encoding techniques, offers the attacker many possibilities for circumventing server-side input filters that should prevent malicious scripts from being injected into trusted sites. Cross site scripting (XSS) attacks are currently the most exploited security problems in modern web applications. These attacks make use of vulnerabilities in the code of web-applications, resulting in serious consequences, such as theft of cookies, passwords and other personal credentials. It is caused by scripts, which do not sanitize user input.
An Ultra-Low Power OTA-C Bandpass Filter Design for ECG Application

An ultra-low power OTA-C bandpass filter is presented in this paper. An 1-150 Hz 4-th order OTC-C bandpass filter is design which is suitable for ECG application. A subthreshold region OTA is designed with current cancellation technology to achieve a very small transconductance. The OTA-C filter is design with TSMC 0. 18μm CMOS process. The MIM capacitor is used in this design. The supply of the proposed circuit is 1V. The total power consumption is only 245nW. I. I NTRODUCTION The development of portable heart monitoring system is not only useful in long-term healthcare, but also demanded in an increasing number of researches in the biomedical file (1). Filters is continually a critical block of biopotential acquisition systems for enhancing the signal quality (2). However, for low frequency biomedical applications, realizing filter circuits with large time constant under an acceptable capacitor's value isn't an easy task (3). Switching-capacitor circuit is a popular technique used in implementing filter circuit. Due to the leakage problem of the advanced process, the sample-hold circuits of the switch-based topologies are not suitable for applications requiring large time constant. Compared with the switching-capacitor filters, continuous-time OTA-C filter has their benefits of lower power consumption and freeing the system from switching noise. The cut-off frequency is proportional to the transconductance (g m ) of the OTA; this allows a low-power implementation for low frequency biopotential signals. In OTA-based circuits, OTA will dominate the performance of the filter circuit, while the ratio of the capacitor to the small transconductance determines the time constant of OTA-C integrators. Thus, an OTA in which the transistors are operated in the subthreshold region is needed to save more power and realize a very low transconductance. A 4-order Butterworth bandpass is presented in this paper. The bandwidth of this filter is 1-150Hz. A subthreshold OTA is used to achieve the 1Hz cut-off frequency. The transconductance is below 1nA/V. The performance of the OTA is based on the behavior of MOS devices operating in the subthreshold region. The channel current of subthreshold region is:(3)
Prevention of High-Dose Chemotherapy-Induced Cardiotoxicity in High-Risk Patients by Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme Inhibition

Background— An increase in troponin I soon after high-dose chemotherapy (HDC) is a strong predictor of poor cardiological outcome in cancer patients. This finding has important clinical implications and provides a rationale for the development of prophylactic strategies for preventing cardiotoxicity. Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors slow the progression of left ventricular dysfunction in different clinical settings, but their role in the prevention of cardiotoxicity has never been investigated. Methods and Results— Of the 473 cancer patients evaluated, 114 (72 women; mean age, 45±12 years) who showed a troponin I increase soon after HDC were randomized to receive (angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor group; 20 mg/d; n=56) or not to receive (control subjects; n=58) enalapril. Treatment was started 1 month after HDC and continued for 1 year. Cardiological evaluation was performed at baseline and at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months after HDC. The primary end point was an absolute decrease >10 percent units in left ventricular ejection fraction, with a decline below the normal limit value. A significant reduction in left ventricular ejection fraction and an increase in end-diastolic and end-systolic volumes were observed only in untreated patients. According to the Kaplan-Meier analysis, the incidence of the primary end point was significantly higher in control subjects than in the angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor group (43% versus 0%; P<0.001). Conclusions— In high-risk, HDC-treated patients, defined by an increased troponin I value, early treatment with enalapril seems to prevent the development of late cardiotoxicity.
Dietary overlap and seasonality in three species of mormoopid bats from a tropical dry forest

Competing hypotheses explaining species’ use of resources have been advanced. Resource limitations in habitat and/or food are factors that affect assemblages of species. These limitations could drive the evolution of morphological and/or behavioural specialization, permitting the coexistence of closely related species through resource partitioning and niche differentiation. Alternatively, when resources are unlimited, fluctuations in resources availability will cause concomitant shifts in resource use regardless of species identity. Here, we used next‐generation sequencing to test these hypotheses and characterize the diversity, overlap and seasonal variation in the diet of three species of insectivorous bats of the genus Pteronotus. We identified 465 prey (MOTUs) in the guano of 192 individuals. Lepidoptera and Diptera represented the most consumed insect orders. Diet of bats exhibited a moderate level of overlap, with the highest value between Pteronotus parnellii and Pteronotus personatus in the wet season. We found higher dietary overlap between species during the same seasons than within any single species across seasons. This suggests that diets of the three species are driven more by prey availability than by any particular predator‐specific characteristic. P. davyi and P. personatus increased their dietary breadth during the dry season, whereas P. parnellii diet was broader and had the highest effective number of prey species in all seasons. This supports the existence of dietary flexibility in generalist bats and dietary niche overlapping among groups of closely related species in highly seasonal ecosystems. Moreover, the abundance and availability of insect prey may drive the diet of insectivores.
Follow-Up Study of Adolescents Exposed to Di(2-Ethylhexyl) Phthalate (DEHP) as Neonates on Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) Support

Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) is used to make polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic tubing soft and flexible. Animal data show that adverse effects of DEHP exposure may include reduced fertility, reduced sperm production in males, and ovarian dysfunction in females. Known treatments that involve high DEHP exposures are blood exchange transfusions, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), and cardiovascular surgery. Although potential exposure to DEHP in ECMO patients is significant, the exposure has not been associated with short-term toxicity. To evaluate long-term toxicity, we undertook a study of neonatal ECMO survivors to assess their onset of puberty and sexual maturity. We evaluated 13 male and 6 female subjects at 14–16 years of age who had undergone ECMO as neonates. All subjects had a complete physical examination including measurements for height, weight, head circumference, and pubertal assessment by Tanner staging. The testicular volume and the phallic length were measured in male participants. Laboratory tests included thyroid, liver, and renal function as well as measurements of luteinizing hormone, follicle-stimulating hormone, testosterone for males, and estradiol for females. Except for one patient with Marfan syndrome, the rest had normal growth percentile for age and sex. All had normal values for thyroid, liver, and renal functions. Sexual hormones were appropriate for the stage of pubertal maturity. Our results indicate that adolescents exposed to significant quantities of DEHP as neonates showed no significant adverse effects on their physical growth and pubertal maturity. Thyroid, liver, renal, and male and female gonadal functions tested were within normal range for age and sex distribution.
Systems Biology: the Reincarnation of Systems Theory Applied in Biology?

With the availability of quantitative data on the transcriptome and proteome level, there is an increasing interest in formal mathematical models of gene expression and regulation. International conferences, research institutes and research groups concerned with systems biology have appeared in recent years and systems theory, the study of organisation and behaviour per se, is indeed a natural conceptual framework for such a task. This is, however, not the first time that systems theory has been applied in modelling cellular processes. Notably in the 1960s systems theory and biology enjoyed considerable interest among eminent scientists, mathematicians and engineers. Why did these early attempts vanish from research agendas? Here we shall review the domain of systems theory, its application to biology and the lessons that can be learned from the work of Robert Rosen. Rosen emerged from the early developments in the 1960s as a main critic but also developed a new alternative perspective to living systems, a concept that deserves a fresh look in the post-genome era of bioinformatics.
Breaking the fall.

Why should wait for some days to get or receive the breaking the fall book that you order? Why should you take it if you can get the faster one? You can find the same book that you order right here. This is it the book that you can receive directly after purchasing. This breaking the fall is well known book in the world, of course many people will try to own it. Why don't you become the first? Still confused with the way?
Cross-Layer Optimized MAC to Support Multihop QoS Routing for Wireless Sensor Networks

This paper presents an efficient hybrid medium- access control (HMAC) protocol with an embedded cross-layer optimization solution to provide routing-layer coarse-grained end-to-end quality-of-service (QoS) support for latency-sensitive traffic flows. A novel channel-reservation technique is proposed to significantly reduce the end-to-end delay for delay-sensitive traffic flows by allowing packets to go through multiple hops within a single medium-access control (MAC) frame and by also giving them higher priority channel access to reduce possible queuing delay. Our proposed protocol (HMAC) combines energy-efficient features of the existing contention-based and time-division multiple-access (TDMA)-based MAC protocols and adopts a short frame structure to expedite packet delivery. Simulation results in ns-2 show that HMAC achieves significant performance improvements in energy consumption, latency, and throughput over existing MAC protocols.
Mechanical Properties of Materials Used For Prosthetic Foot: A Review

Prosthetic limbs are artificial devices which substitutes missing body parts (limbs). A person may face amputation due to disease or accident. The amputee’s limbs are hence replaced by prosthetic limbs. These limbs aren't as multi-functional as natural limbs but try to meet specifications, restricting the performance level. Considering particularly prosthetic foot; selection of devices is based on its characteristics which coincide favorably with the characteristics of human foot. Prosthetic foot are designed in such a way it they meets required value of tensile strength, low density, corrosion resistant, more shear strength, flexible, durable and cost efficient. The above considerations depends on mechanical properties of the material used, Design of the foot and the manufacturing process applied. In this paper, mechanical properties of materials used for prosthetic foot are studied. The various materials used are: Carbon Fiber, Derlin, RCF, Glass fiber, polypropylene, Kevlar etc. This is a comparative study of analysis of material properties by assuming boundary conditions, reaction forces, design consideration and application. The materials studied in this are: Carbon fiber, Reinforced Carbon Fiber, Fiber Glass and Kevlar.
Calcium Signals: The Lead Currency of Plant Information Processing

Ca2+ signals are core transducers and regulators in many adaptation and developmental processes of plants. Ca2+ signals are represented by stimulus-specific signatures that result from the concerted action of channels, pumps, and carriers that shape temporally and spatially defined Ca2+ elevations. Cellular Ca2+ signals are decoded and transmitted by a toolkit of Ca2+ binding proteins that relay this information into downstream responses. Major transduction routes of Ca2+ signaling involve Ca2+-regulated kinases mediating phosphorylation events that orchestrate downstream responses or comprise regulation of gene expression via Ca2+-regulated transcription factors and Ca2+-responsive promoter elements. Here, we review some of the remarkable progress that has been made in recent years, especially in identifying critical components functioning in Ca2+ signal transduction, both at the single-cell and multicellular level. Despite impressive progress in our understanding of the processing of Ca2+ signals during the past years, the elucidation of the exact mechanistic principles that underlie the specific recognition and conversion of the cellular Ca2+ currency into defined changes in protein–protein interaction, protein phosphorylation, and gene expression and thereby establish the specificity in stimulus response coupling remain to be explored.
A Newton method with always feasible iterates for Nonlinear Model Predictive Control of walking in a multi-contact situation

In this paper, we present a Nonlinear Model Predictive Control scheme, which is able to generate walking motions in multi-contact situations. Walking up and down stairs with an additional hand support is a typical example, which we address in simulation. Computing such a nonlinear control scheme is usually done with a Newton method, a potentially time-consuming procedure involving iterative linearizations. We propose here a Newton method which is specifically designed to provide at each iteration a feasible solution, always satisfying the (nonlinear) dynamic balance constraints. This results in a significant reduction in computation time, by minimizing the number of necessary iterations to reach a feasible solution.
Imaging Performance of Quantitative Transmission Ultrasound

Quantitative Transmission Ultrasound (QTUS) is a tomographic transmission ultrasound modality that is capable of generating 3D speed-of-sound maps of objects in the field of view. It performs this measurement by propagating a plane wave through the medium from a transmitter on one side of a water tank to a high resolution receiver on the opposite side. This information is then used via inverse scattering to compute a speed map. In addition, the presence of reflection transducers allows the creation of a high resolution, spatially compounded reflection map that is natively coregistered to the speed map. A prototype QTUS system was evaluated for measurement and geometric accuracy as well as for the ability to correctly determine speed of sound.
Assessing tomorrow's learners: In competency-based education only a radically different holistic method of assessment will work. Six things we could forget

In this paper we are challenging six traditional notions about assessment that are unhelpful when designing ‘assessment for learning’-programmes for competency-based education. We are arguing for the following: Reductionism is not the only way to assure rigour in high-stakes assessment; holistic judgements can be equally rigorous. Combining results of assessment parts only because they are of the same format (like different stations in an OSCE) is often not defensible; instead there must be a logically justifiable combination. Numbers describe the quality of the assessment. Therefore, manipulating the numbers is usually not the best way to improve its quality. Not every assessment moment needs to be a decision moment, disconnecting both makes combining summative and formative functions of assessment easier. Standardisation is not the only route to equity. Especially with diverse student groups tailoring is more equitable than standardisation. The most important element to standardise is the quality of the process and not the process itself. Finally, most assessment is too much focussed on detecting deficiencies and not on valuing individual student differences. In competency-based education – especially with a focus on learner orientation – this ‘deficiency-model’ is not as well aligned as a ‘differences-model’.
Reclaiming the Don: An Environmental History of Toronto's Don River Valley

Citer cet article Anderson, P. (2015). Jennifer L. Bonnell. Reclaiming the Don: An Environmental History of Toronto’s Don River Valley. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014. Pp. 277. Illustrations, photographs, maps. ISBN 9781442643840. Urban History Review, 43(2), 59–60. https:// doi.org/10.7202/1031292ar Ce document est protégé par la loi sur le droit d'auteur. L'utilisation des services d'Érudit (y compris la reproduction) est assujettie à sa politique d'utilisation que vous pouvez consulter en ligne. [https://apropos.erudit. org/fr/usagers/politique-dutilisation/]
Gemcitabine combined with oxaliplatin (GEMOX) in advanced biliary tract adenocarcinoma: a GERCOR study.

BACKGROUND Since gemcitabine-oxaliplatin (GEMOX) has been used in pancreatic adenocarcinoma, we studied its activity and tolerability in advanced biliary tract adenocarcinoma (ABTA). PATIENTS AND METHODS Consecutive adult patients with confirmed ABTA were recruited from four centers. Those in group A had performance status (PS) 0-2, bilirubin <2.5x normal and received GEMOX as first-line chemotherapy. Those in group B had PS >2 and/or bilirubin >2.5x normal and/or prior chemotherapy. All received gemcitabine 1000 mg/m2 as a 10 mg/m2/min infusion on day 1, followed by oxaliplatin 100 mg/m2 as a 2-h infusion on day 2, every 2 weeks. RESULTS Tumor sites were gallbladder (19), extrahepatic bile ducts (5), ampulla of vater (3) and intrahepatic bile ducts (29). Results for group A (n = 3) were: objective response 36% [95% confidence interval (CI) 18.7% to 52.3%], stable disease 26%, progressive disease 39%, median progression-free survival (PFS) 5.7 months and overall survival (OS) 15.4 months. Results for group B (n = 23) were: objective response 22% (95% CI 6.5% to 37.4%), stable disease 30%, progressive disease 48%, PFS 3.9 months and OS 7.6 months. National Cancer Institute Common Toxicity Criteria grade 3-4 toxicities were neutropenia 14% of patients, thrombocytopenia 9%, nausea/vomiting 5% and peripheral neuropathy 7%. CONCLUSION The GEMOX combination is active and well tolerated in ABTA.
THE FREE VASCULARIZED BONE GRAFT: A Clinical Extension of Microvascular Techniques

For the common problem of lower limb injury with extensive. Loss of skin and bone, a new method of free vascularized bone grafting has been used and integrated with an appropriate soft tissue flap repair. The technique was developed to salvage two legs which would otherwise have been amputated. The preliminary result in Case 2 is encouraging. This case would appear to be the first successful distant transfer of a composite fibular graft by microvascular anastomoses to be reported in man.
Automatic sentiment analysis of user reviews

Data mining is the process of turning raw data into useful information. The main use of data mining is to fetch the required data and extract useful information from the data and to interpret the data. In the existing system, Bag of Words model is used along with Dual sentiment Analysis in order to classify the reviews as positive, negative and neutral. However, the performance of Bag of Words sometimes remains limited due to some fundamental deficiencies in handling the polarity shift problem. The proposed system uses a dictionary based classification for accurately classifying the reviews as positive, negative and neutral. To enhance the accuracy in the classification of neutral reviews, Support Vector Machine algorithm is implemented. Both the product owner and the user can identify the quality of the product based on the sentiment graph that is generated based on the reviews for each of the product video. A comparative study of the sentiment graphs is performed in order to improve the efficiency of visual representation.