Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effort-reward imbalance and one-year change in neck-shoulder and upper extremity pain among call center computer operators.

OBJECTIVE The literature on psychosocial job factors and musculoskeletal pain is inconclusive in part due to insufficient control for confounding by biomechanical factors. The aim of this study was to investigate prospectively the independent effects of effort-reward imbalance (ERI) at work on regional musculoskeletal pain of the neck and upper extremities of call center operators after controlling for (i) duration of computer use both at work and at home, (ii) ergonomic workstation design, (iii) physical activities during leisure time, and (iv) other individual worker characteristics. METHODS This was a one-year prospective study among 165 call center operators who participated in a randomized ergonomic intervention trial that has been described previously. Over an approximate four-week period, we measured ERI and 28 potential confounders via a questionnaire at baseline. Regional upper-body pain and computer use was measured by weekly surveys for up to 12 months following the implementation of ergonomic interventions. Regional pain change scores were calculated as the difference between average weekly pain scores pre- and post intervention. RESULTS A significant relationship was found between high average ERI ratios and one-year increases in right upper-extremity pain after adjustment for pre-intervention regional mean pain score, current and past physical workload, ergonomic workstation design, and anthropometric, sociodemographic, and behavioral risk factors. No significant associations were found with change in neck-shoulder or left upper-extremity pain. CONCLUSIONS This study suggests that ERI predicts regional upper-extremity pain in -computer operators working >or=20 hours per week. Control for physical workload and ergonomic workstation design was essential for identifying ERI as a risk factor.
Improving performance through knowledge translation in the Veterans Health Administration

&NA; The Veterans Health Administration (VA) provides a case study for linking performance measurement, information technology, and aligned research efforts to facilitate quality improvement in a large, complex health system. Dialogue between clinical researchers and VA leaders occurs through structured activities (e.g., the Quality Enhancement Research Initiative); engagement with formal policymaking bodies (e.g., development of clinical guidelines and performance measures); and informally through local, regional, and national work groups responsible for implementing evidence‐based clinical initiatives. Important lessons for knowledge translation from the VA experience include the following: research needs to generate clinical evidence relevant to the needs of patients served by the health system; researchers need to systematically study the process of evidence implementation itself to increase the capability of the health system to improve performance; although print and Web‐based dissemination structures are important, direct accessibility of researchers to policymakers and clinical leaders through formal and informal mechanisms is key; and both top‐down and bottom‐up activities are needed to integrate evidence‐based practice across a large health system. As VA care moves from hospital and clinic into community‐based settings and faces a new veteran population with different needs and expectations, knowledge‐translation activities must develop new forms of evidence and more direct interaction with veterans and their caregivers.
Corrosion in titanium dental implants: literature review

The corrosion of dental biomaterials is a pertinent clinical issue. In spite of the recent innovative metallurgical and technological advances and remarkable progress in the design and development of surgical and dental materials, failures do occur. The present article describes the problem of corrosion in titanium dental implants. The clinical significance of the dental implant corrosion is highlighted and the most common form of corrosion i.e. galvanic corrosion is emphasized both in vitro and in vivo conditions. The article is presented keeping in view of carrying out different studies for indigenous titanium dental implant and indigenous alloys. The Department of Dental Research at Institute of Nuclear Medicine & Allied Sciences has developed indigenous Titanium Dental Implants and Base metal Alloys. The studies carried out have proven their biocompatibility and suitability to be used for oral defects. The aim of the study is to evaluate galvanic corrosion current around indigenously developed Titanium Dental Implant when coupled to a Base metal Alloy.
The research of recommendation system based on Hadoop cloud platform

This paper integrates hadoop with recommendation system. Recommendation system is a system which makes predictions of user preferences. In this paper, we introduces a improved hybrid recommended algorithm and combine MapReduce programming which is used on Hadoop plaform. Through practice, the improved algorithm can accurately acquiring user preferences, provide the user with recommendation when the user browses the web page. Finally, Hadoop can meet the demand of massive data processing, and achieve a highly performance system by making use of the data reprocessing method.
Reducing Endoglin Activity Limits Calcineurin and TRPC‐6 Expression and Improves Survival in a Mouse Model of Right Ventricular Pressure Overload

Background Right ventricular (RV) failure is a major cause of mortality worldwide and is often a consequence of RV pressure overload (RVPO). Endoglin is a coreceptor for the profibrogenic cytokine, transforming growth factor beta 1 (TGF‐β1). TGF‐β1 signaling by the canonical transient receptor protein channel 6 (TRPC‐6) was recently reported to stimulate calcineurin‐mediated myofibroblast transformation, a critical component of cardiac fibrosis. We hypothesized that reduced activity of the TGF‐β1 coreceptor, endoglin, limits RV calcineurin expression and improves survival in RVPO. Methods and Results We first demonstrate that endoglin is required for TGF‐β1‐mediated calcineurin/TRPC‐6 expression and up‐regulation of alpha‐smooth muscle antigen (α‐SMA), a marker of myofibroblast transformation, in human RV fibroblasts. Using endoglin haploinsufficient mice (Eng+/−) we show that reduced endoglin activity preserves RV function, limits RV fibrosis, and attenuates activation of the calcineurin/TRPC‐6/α‐SMA pathway in a model of angio‐obliterative pulmonary hypertension. Next, using Eng+/− mice or a neutralizing antibody (Ab) against endoglin (N‐Eng) in wild‐type mice, we show that reduced endoglin activity improves survival and attenuates RV fibrosis in models of RVPO induced by pulmonary artery constriction. To explore the utility of targeting endoglin, we observed a reversal of RV fibrosis and calcineurin levels in wild‐type mice treated with a N‐Eng Ab, compared to an immunoglobulin G control. Conclusion These data establish endoglin as a regulator of TGF‐β1 signaling by calcineurin and TRPC‐6 in the RV and identify it as a potential therapeutic target to limit RV fibrosis and improve survival in RVPO, a common cause of death in cardiac and pulmonary disease.
Simple Models of Discrete Choice and Their Performance in Bandit Experiments

Recent operations management papers model customers as solving multiarmed bandit problems, positing that consumers use a particular heuristic when choosing among suppliers. These papers then analyze the resulting competition among suppliers and mathematically characterize the equilibrium actions. There remains a question, however, as to whether the original customer models on which the analyses are built are reasonable representations of actual consumer choice. In this paper, we empirically investigate how well these choice rules match actual performance as people solve two-armed Bernoulli bandit problems. We find that some of the most analytically tractable models perform best in tests of model fit. We also find that the expected number of consecutive trials of a given supplier is increasing in its expected quality level, with increasing differences, a result consistent with the models' predictions as well as with loyalty effects described in the popular management literature.
Compressed random access memory

AbstractMotivated by applicationswhichneed to storehugeamounts ofdatain the main memory of a computer, this paper proposes a new dynamicdata-structure for compressed random access memory. Ferragina andVenturini [SODA 2007, TCS 2007] recently gave a compressed data-structure for storing a string that allows substrings to be retrievedeﬃciently, but it requires the string to be static. Here, we extend theirresults in a non-trivial way to also allow the stored compressed stringto be modiﬁed during execution.Our results are as follows. A memory (or string) T[1.n], where eachcharacterT[i]isoflogσ bits, canbe storedinnH k (T)+O(nlogσ (k+1)(logσ+loglogn)logn )bits, where H k (T) is the k-th order empirical entropy of T, such that(1) accessing T[i.j] takes optimal O(1+(j−i)/log σ n) time and (2) re-placing T[i.i + log σ n − 1] by another string of length log σ n takesO(logn/loglogn) time. We can also support insertion and deletionof log σ n characters in O(logn/loglogn) time at the cost of increas-ing the access time to O(logn/loglogn) time, which matches a knownlower bound. In addition, our key observation that the empirical en-tropy of a string does not change much after a small change to thestring and our simple yet eﬃcient method for maintaining an arrayof variable-length blocks under length modiﬁcations may be useful formany other applications as well.
On the complementarity of an ontology and a nearest neighbour classifier for remotely sensed image interpretation

Automatic image interpretation could be achieved by first performing a segmentation of the image, i.e. aggregating similar pixels to form regions, then use a region-based classification. This paper presents two region-based classifications, namely a supervised classification and an ontology-based classification and discuss their pros and cons. As they are complementary, we propose to combine these two approaches. Results shown that the presented method is relevant.
Juvenile Justice Diversion in Victoria: A Blank Canvas?

Abstract Unlike many jurisdictions in Australia, Victoria has not adopted a legislative, court-based diversion scheme for addressing crime committed by children and young people. The state has also seen limited investment in diversionary programs and an over-reliance on discretionary police cautions. For young people in rural and regional areas, access to diversion programs and support services is especially limited. This article examines the limited diversionary options available in the current youth justice system, identifying strengths and opportunities. It concludes that legislated, court-based diversion schemes — assisted by community programs that provide appropriate intervention and support to those at risk of reoffending — are an essential means of addressing young people's engagement in crime.
The Theory and Practice of Transformative Learning: A Critical Review

Disclaimer: This publication was prepared pursuant to a contract with the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education. Contractors undertaking such projects under government sponsorship are encouraged to express freely their judgment in professional and technical matters. Points of view or opinions do not, therefore, necessarily represent official U.S. Department of Education position or policy. Discrimination Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 states: " No person in the Prohibited: United States shall, on the grounds of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. " Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1971 states: " No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. " The ERIC Clearinghouse project, like every program or activity receiving financial assistance from the U.S. Department of Education, must be operated in compliance with these laws.
Quick power supply noise estimation using hierarchically derived transfer functions

The analysis of power supply noise on VLSI chips is becoming important. In this paper we propose a new methodology for the estimation of power supply noise caused by digital switching activity. Using a transfer function calculated hierarchically from F-matrices, this method makes it possible with dramatically reduced computational cost to estimate power supply noise at all the nodes in power supply lines, which is linear to node number. The method is shown to be efficient and valid enough compared with HSPICE simulation.
Reliable directory service and message delivery for large-scale mobile agent systems

In this paper, we introduce a reliable directory service and message delivery mechanism for large-scale mobile agent systems to address both agent mobility and directory service node failures. The mechanism enables each mobile agent to keep its forwarding pointer only on the small number of its visiting nodes in an autonomous manner. As this desirable feature has every mobile agent's migration route be very considerably shortened, the time for forwarding each message to the agent becomes much smaller. Also, this feature causes each node to maintain much fewer forwarding pointers of mobile agents on its storage than in the traditional approach. Moreover, the mechanism allows each movement path of a mobile agent to be replicated in an effective way to preserve scalability of our proposed mechanism. This replication may require a little more agent location updating costs, but much more accelerate delivery of each message to the corresponding mobile agent.
AT&T at TREC-7 SDR Track

AT&T participated in the Spoken Document Retrieval (SDR) track of TREC-7. Our speech retrieval system uses modern Information Retrieval (IR) methods in conjunction with in-house automatic speech recognition. The novel feature of our TREC-7 work is the use of document expansion to reduce the performance loss due to ASR errors. Results show that retrieval from automatic transcriptions of speech is quite competitive with doing retrieval from human transcriptions. Our experiments indicate that document expansion can be used to further improve retrieval from automatic transcripts. This paper presents some analysis of document expansion in context of the TREC-7 SDR track task.
Method for Speech Inversion with Large Scale Statistical Evaluation

Abstract An articulatory model of speech production is created for the purpose of studying the links between speech production and perception. A computationally effective method for speech inversion in proposed, using a two-pole predictor structure in order to maintain better articulatory dynamics when compared to conventional dynamic programming methods. Preliminary tests for the effect of inversion are performed for 2500 Finnish syllables extracted from continuous speech, consisting of 125 different syllable classes. A cluster selectivity test shows that the syllables are more reliably clustered using the automatically obtained parametric representation of articulatory gestures rather than the original formant representation that is used as a starting point for the inversion. Index Terms: Articulatory model, speech inversion, motor theory, vocal tract 1. Introduction to articulatory modeling Speech events are more conveniently described in articulatory than acoustic sense. Individual articulators move rather slowly and smoothly when compared to spectral characteristics of speech signals. Since the relative trajectories of different articulators remain rather similar in the production of speech sounds regardless of the speaker, the modeling of speech perception with articulatory modeling may help to overcome many of the problems that arise from the ambiguity in the purely acoustic domain. In the 19th century research on the area of articulatory modeling boomed when the first electrical and then digital models for speech production could be implemented. Researchers have often referred to articulatory models developed by Coker [1], Mermelstein [2] or Maeda [3], for example when studying the speech inverse problem. Maeda’s model’s seven articulatory parameters were estimated from x-ray tracings using so-called arbitrary factor analysis in order to have the parameters maximally uncorrelated to each other. Mermelstein’s geometrical articulatory model depicts the positions of articulators in the midsagittal plane. Lips, jaw, tongue, velum and hyoid are considered as movable structures. In 1990’s and 2000’s more complex vocal tract and tongue models were developed. E.g. Dang and Honda have created a 3D articulatory model which used physiological constraints typical to human articulation in inverting vowel-to-vowel sequences [4].
Characterization of peach thaumatin‐like proteins and their identification as major peach allergens

Background Peach is the most important fruit related to food allergy in the Mediterranean area. Pru p 3, its lipid transfer protein, has been described as the principal allergen responsible for cross‐reactivities with other foods and pollen and the severity of clinical symptoms. However, the involvement of other allergenic families cannot be ruled out. Thaumatin‐like proteins (TLPs) have been described as food allergen in several fruits, such as apple, cherry, kiwi and banana, and pollen.
Advanced wafer thinning and handling for through silicon via technology

This study is conducted to develop advanced wafer thinning and handling system in 50μm thick TSV integration. Systematical investigation of the material compatibility between temporary bonding material and organic dielectric pairs is carried out in terms of temporary bonding, wafer thinning, heat treatment, and debonding. It is found that heat treatment which is representing backside dielectric curing process is critical for voids formation in the bonded wafer. The voids formation is found to be dependent on the material selected. In debonding, room temperature debonding technology is found to be a feasible solution for debonding for 3D TSV integration. Using the selected potential temporary bonding and dielectric material pairs, 3D TSV integration is successfully demonstrated.
Influence of Spatial Exploration Patterns on Cognitive Mapping by Blindfolded Sighted Persons

Blindfolded sighted subjects were asked to find four target objects located in the open space of a room. With no experience in the layout, they applied patterns that promoted knowledge of the layout, but once they were familiar with the layout, they used a pattern that used directional and angular information to locate the objects. The subjects did better on relative-distance estimation without experience with the spatial layout, but did better on relocation with experience. Thus, different kinds of experience may result in different kinds of knowledge that are optimal for different spatial judgment tasks.
Joint Tomlinson-Harashima precoding with diversity techniques for multiuser MIMO systems

This paper addresses the problem of joint multiuser Tomlinson-Harashima Precoding (THP) for broadcast channels (BC), where the transmitter is equipped with multiple antennas and each receiver has also multiple antennas. In order to exploit the diversity from the multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems and to eliminate multiuser interference (MUI) among the users, we combine nonlinear THP with two diversity techniques (DT): dominant eigenmode transmission (DET) and orthogonal space-time block codes (OSTBC). The design target of the proposed strategy is to improve the multiuser MIMO broadcast in terms of BER performance.
Isolation of Auxotrophic Mutants of Diploid Industrial Yeast Strains after UV Mutagenesis

ABSTRACT Auxotrophic mutants of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae are usually isolated in haploid strains because the isolation of recessive mutations in diploids is thought to be difficult due to the presence of two sets of genes. We show here that auxotrophic mutants of diploid industrial sake yeast strains were routinely obtained by a standard mutant selection procedure following UV mutagenesis. We isolated His−, Met−, Lys−, Trp−, Leu−, Arg−, and Ura− auxotrophic mutants of five sake strains, Kyokai no. 7, no. 9, no. 10, no. 701, and no. 901, by screening only 1,700 to 3,400 colonies from each treated strain. Wild-type alleles were cloned and used as markers for transformation. With HIS3 as a selectable marker, the yeast TDH3 overexpression promoter was inserted upstream of ATF1, encoding alcohol acetyltransferase, by one-step gene replacement in a his3 mutant of Kyokai no. 7. The resulting strain contained exclusively yeast DNA, making it acceptable for commercial use, and produced a larger amount of isoamyl acetate, a banana-like flavor. We argue that the generally recognized difficulty of isolating auxotrophic mutants of diploid industrial yeast strains is misleading and that genetic techniques used for haploid laboratory strains are applicable for this purpose.
Long-Term Impact of Radiation on the Stem Cell and Oligodendrocyte Precursors in the Brain

Background The cellular basis of long term radiation damage in the brain is not fully understood. Methods and Findings We administered a dose of 25Gy to adult rat brains while shielding the olfactory bulbs. Quantitative analyses were serially performed on different brain regions over 15 months. Our data reveal an immediate and permanent suppression of SVZ proliferation and neurogenesis. The olfactory bulb demonstrates a transient but remarkable SVZ-independent ability for compensation and maintenance of the calretinin interneuron population. The oligodendrocyte compartment exhibits a complex pattern of limited proliferation of NG2 progenitors but steady loss of the oligodendroglial antigen O4. As of nine months post radiation, diffuse demyelination starts in all irradiated brains. Counts of capillary segments and length demonstrate significant loss one day post radiation but swift and persistent recovery of the vasculature up to 15 months post XRT. MRI imaging confirms loss of volume of the corpus callosum and early signs of demyelination at 12 months. Ultrastructural analysis demonstrates progressive degradation of myelin sheaths with axonal preservation. Areas of focal necrosis appear beyond 15 months and are preceded by widespread demyelination. Human white matter specimens obtained post-radiation confirm early loss of oligodendrocyte progenitors and delayed onset of myelin sheath fragmentation with preserved capillaries. Conclusions This study demonstrates that long term radiation injury is associated with irreversible damage to the neural stem cell compartment in the rodent SVZ and loss of oligodendrocyte precursor cells in both rodent and human brain. Delayed onset demyelination precedes focal necrosis and is likely due to the loss of oligodendrocyte precursors and the inability of the stem cell compartment to compensate for this loss.