Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Population tobacco control interventions and their effects on social inequalities in smoking: systematic review

Objective: To assess the effects of population tobacco control interventions on social inequalities in smoking. Data sources: Medical, nursing, psychological, social science and grey literature databases, bibliographies, hand-searches and contact with authors. Study selection: Studies were included (n = 84) if they reported the effects of any population-level tobacco control intervention on smoking behaviour or attitudes in individuals or groups with different demographic or socioeconomic characteristics. Data extraction: Data extraction and quality assessment for each study were conducted by one reviewer and checked by a second. Data synthesis: Data were synthesised using graphical (“harvest plot”) and narrative methods. No strong evidence of differential effects was found for smoking restrictions in workplaces and public places, although those in higher occupational groups may be more likely to change their attitudes or behaviour. Smoking restrictions in schools may be more effective in girls. Restrictions on sales to minors may be more effective in girls and younger children. Increasing the price of tobacco products may be more effective in reducing smoking among lower-income adults and those in manual occupations, although there was also some evidence to suggest that adults with higher levels of education may be more price-sensitive. Young people aged under 25 are also affected by price increases, with some evidence that boys and non-white young people may be more sensitive to price. Conclusions: Population-level tobacco control interventions have the potential to benefit more disadvantaged groups and thereby contribute to reducing health inequalities.
Self-neglect and adult safeguarding: findings from research

This report was commissioned by the Department of Health (DH) and examines the concept of self-neglect. The relationship between self-neglect and safeguarding in the UK is a difficult one, partly because the current definition of abuse specifies harmful actions by someone other than the individual at risk. Safeguarding Adults Boards’ policies and procedures commonly contain no reference to self-neglect; occasionally they explicitly exclude it or set criteria for its inclusion The perceptions of people who neglect themselves have not been extensively researched, but where they have, emerging themes are pride in self-sufficiency, connectedness to place and possessions and behaviour that attempts to preserve continuity of identity and control. Traumatic histories and life-changing effects are also present in individuals’ own accounts of their situation. Self-neglect is reported mainly as occurring in older people, although it is also associated with mental ill health. Differentiation between inability and unwillingness to care for oneself, and capacity to understand the consequences of one’s actions, are crucial determinants of response. Professional tolerance of self-neglect as lifestyle choice is higher than when it accompanies physical/mental impairment. Professionals express uncertainty about causation and intervention.
A hybridization of evolutionary fuzzy systems and ant Colony optimization for intrusion detection

A hybrid approach for intrusion detection in computer networks is presented in this paper. The proposed approach combines an evolutionary-based fuzzy system with an Ant Colony Optimization procedure to generate high-quality fuzzy-classification rules. We applied our hybrid learning approach to network security and validated it using the DARPA KDD-Cup99 benchmark data set. The results indicate that in comparison to several traditional and new techniques, the proposed hybrid approach achieves better classification accuracies. The compared classification approaches are C4.5, Naive Bayes, k-NN, SVM, Ripper, PNrule and MOGF-IDS. Moreover the improvement on classification accuracy has been obtained for most of the classes of the intrusion detection classification problem. In addition, the results indicate that the proposed hybrid system's total classification accuracy is 94.33% and its classification cost is 0.1675. Therefore, the resultant fuzzy classification rules can be used to produce a reliable intrusion detection system.
Sliding Mode Control of the Master Manipulator Based on Disturbance Observer

A sliding mode control (SMC) with improved exponent reaching law based on disturbance observer (DOB) is proposed for the robot control, to solve the problem of robot system which is vulnerability to external interferences and has some uncertainties. The disturbance observer (DOB) would detect and compensate external disturbances and uncertainties in the robot system, so that the movement of the robot would be in accordance with the desired trajectory. Besides, a variable exponent reaching law is designed to reduce the chattering phenomenon in sliding mode control (SMC). The simulation results demonstrate that sliding mode control based on disturbance observer can estimate the uncertainties and external interference of the robot accurately, and reduce the chattering effectively, the robot actual trajectory is consistent with the desired trajectory, be able to achieve precise control and excellent control performance. A disturbance observer (DOB) was designed and introduced into the sliding mode control of the robot system to estimate the uncertainties of the robot system and the external interferences in this paper. It makes compensation to modify the system, so that the movement of the robot will be in accordance with the desired trajectory. Besides, a sliding mode control strategy based on variable exponent reaching law has been designed to reduce shaking vibration, to achieve excellent control performance. The simulation results show that this method is effective to reduce the chattering of the robot sliding mode control and make the robot move as the desired trajectory, which improves the precision of control greatly and achieves excellent control performance. Sliding mode control (SMC), also known as variable structure control, in essence, is a special nonlinear control, and its nonlinear is reflected in the non-continuity of control. Due to the properties and parameters of the SMC just depend on the design of the switching hyper plane and have nothing with the external interferences, so that the SMC has good robustness. The advantage of sliding mode control is able to overcome the systematic uncertainty, and has good robustness for disturbances and unmodeled parts, especially suitable for the control of nonlinear systems. Because of SMC with the characteristics of simple algorithm, fast response and robust to external noise and parameter perturbation, SMC has been widely applied in the field of robot control. Sliding mode control applied to robot control field should to be solved first is the chattering problem, due to the impact of the incomplete model of robot system and external interferences, there is always some certain delay and lag. The delay and lag will not make the actual sliding mode motion to be happened in the reserved switch plane, but cause a high-frequency vibration in the vicinity of its both sides, a phenomenon known as chattering of the sliding mode control systems. Chattering generation will affect the system
A new approach to Wiener-like modeling

In this paper we propose a Wiener-like approximation scheme that uses Rational Wavelets for the linear dynamical structure and Orthonormal High Level Canonical Piecewise Linear functions for approximating the nonlinear static part. This structure allows to approximate any nonlinear, timeinvariant, causal dynamic systems with fading memory and has the following advantages: capability of time-frequency location, design of the linear dynamic part taking into account the a priori knowledge of the system, and minimum number of parameters of Orthonormal High Level Canonical Piecewise Linear functions determined straightforwardly.
Transcriptional Analysis of Biofilm Formation Processes in the Anaerobic, Hyperthermophilic Bacterium Thermotoga maritima

ABSTRACT Thermotoga maritima, a fermentative, anaerobic, hyperthermophilic bacterium, was found to attach to bioreactor glass walls, nylon mesh, and polycarbonate filters during chemostat cultivation on maltose-based media at 80°C. A whole-genome cDNA microarray was used to examine differential expression patterns between biofilm and planktonic populations. Mixed-model statistical analysis revealed differential expression (twofold or more) of 114 open reading frames in sessile cells (6% of the genome), over a third of which were initially annotated as hypothetical proteins in the T. maritima genome. Among the previously annotated genes in the T. maritima genome, which showed expression changes during biofilm growth, were several that corresponded to biofilm formation genes identified in mesophilic bacteria (i.e., Pseudomonas species, Escherichia coli, and Staphylococcus epidermidis). Most notably, T. maritima biofilm-bound cells exhibited increased transcription of genes involved in iron and sulfur transport, as well as in biosynthesis of cysteine, thiamine, NAD, and isoprenoid side chains of quinones. These findings were all consistent with the up-regulation of iron-sulfur cluster assembly and repair functions in biofilm cells. Significant up-regulation of several β-specific glycosidases was also noted in biofilm cells, despite the fact that maltose was the primary carbon source fed to the chemostat. The reasons for increased β-glycosidase levels are unclear but are likely related to the processing of biofilm-based polysaccharides. In addition to revealing insights into the phenotype of sessile T. maritima communities, the methodology developed here can be extended to study other anaerobic biofilm formation processes as well as to examine aspects of microbial ecology in hydrothermal environments.
Chitosan-Alginate Nanoparticles as a Novel Drug Delivery System for Nifedipine

Chitosan-alginate (CS/ALG) nanoparticles were prepared by ionotropic pre-gelation of an alginate core followed by chitosan polyelectrolyte complexation, nifedipine was chosen as a model drug. Morphology and structure characterization of nanoparticles were investigated by transmission electron microscope (TEM) and Fourier transform infrared spectra (FTIR), respectively. The diameter of the nanoparticles was about 20-50 nm, suitable for uptake within the gastrointestinal tract due to their nanosize range and mucoadhesive properties. A reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method has been developed and validated for the determination of nifedipine in nanoparticulate dosage forms. In addition, the delivery behavior of nifedipine from nanoparticles was studied. Nifedipine released from chitosan-alginate nanoparticles was 26.52% at pH1.5, 69.69% at pH6.8 and 56.50% at pH7.4 within 24hour. This suggests that the release of nifedipine from nanoparticles was pH-responsive. Quick release occurred in simulated intestinal fluid (SIF, pH6.8) and phosphate buffer solution (pH7.4), while the release was slow in simulated gastric fluid (SGF, pH1.5). The release profile was characterized by an initial burst effect in three media, followed by a continuous and controlled release phase, the drug release mechanism from polymer was due to Fickian diffusion.
Dynamic modeling of a hybrid assembly robot for blowout preventing based on the blowout environment simulation

In this paper a hybrid robot is proposed used for the installation of a valve to prevent the oil blowout. The hybrid robot has three components, which are waist component, parallel mechanism component and wrist component. The wrist component of the robot is designed with RCC structure, which is beneficial to the installation of the valve. And the parallel mechanism component is mainly in charge of the transport of the valve by actuating the end-effector. The forward kinematics of the hybrid robot is established by Denabit-Hartenberg (D-H) law based on the equivalent serial mechanism. And then the dynamic model is derived without considering of the impact force. But the dynamic model will be not accurate when the valve under blowout condition. So, the motion process of the valve under blowout condition was simulated using dynamic mesh model in Fluent. And the force-position functions of the valve have been derived by using least-squares approximation. Based on the force-position functions, the dynamic model with impact force is presented.
Hydrodynamical stellar models including rotation, internal gravity waves and atomic diffusion. I. Formalism and tests on Pop I dwarfs

In this paper, we develop a formalism in order to incorporate the contribution of internal gravity waves to the transport of angular momentum and chemicals over long time-scales in stars. We show that the development of a double peaked shear layer acts as a ﬁlter for waves, and how the asymmetry of this ﬁlter produces momentum extraction from the core when it is rotating faster than the surface. Using only this ﬁltered ﬂux, it is possible to follow the contribution of internal waves over long (evolutionary) time-scales. We then present the evolution of the internal rotation proﬁle using this formalism for stars which are spun down via magnetic torquing. We show that waves tend to slow down the core, creating a “slow” front that may then propagate from the core to the surface. Further spin down of the surface leads to the formation of a new front. Finally we show how this momentum transport reduces rotational mixing in a 1 . 2 M ⊙ , Z = 0 . 02 model, leading to a surface lithium abundance in agreement with observations in the Hyades.
Ongoing Speciation and Gene Flow between Taxonomically Challenging Trochulus Species Complex (Gastropoda: Hygromiidae)

Geographical isolation, selection and genetic drift can cause the geographical diversification of populations and lead to speciation. Land snail species in the genus Trochulus show overlaps in geographical ranges as well as in morphology, but genetic data do not always support the species-level taxonomy based on morphological characters. Such a group offers an excellent opportunity to explore the processes involved. We have addressed the problem by determining the status of the restricted endemic T. graminicola within the larger context of Trochulus taxonomy. We used an integrated approach based on morphological features, ecological preferences and two molecular markers: mitochondrial COI sequences and microsatellites. Comparison of these results demonstrated: (i) conchological distinction of T. striolatus and T. sericeus; (ii) anatomical, ecological and genetic differentiation of T. graminicola and (iii) concordance between morphological characters and mtDNA markers in T. striolatus. Moreover, our data showed an intricate evolutionary history within the genus Trochulus, which can be best explained by: (i) recent or ongoing gene flow between taxa or (ii) their large ancestral polymorphism. Both of these hypotheses suggest that diversification within this group of snails has occurred relatively recently. The mismatches between species defined on morphology and on molecular genetics indicate the complexity of the processes involved in the diversification of this genus.
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The aim of Feature Subset Selection - FSS - algorithms is to select a subset of features from the original set of features that describes a data set according to some importance criterion. To accomplish this task, FSS removes irrelevant and/or redundant features, as they may decrease data quality and reduce several of the desired properties of classifiers induced by supervised learning algorithms. As learning the best subset of features is an NP-hard problem, FSS algorithms generally use heuristics to select subsets. Therefore, it is important to empirically evaluate the performance of these algorithms. However, this evaluation needs to be multicriteria, i.e., it should take into account several properties. This work describes a simple model we have proposed to evaluate FSS algorithms which considers two properties, namely the predictive performance of the classifier induced using the subset of features selected by dierent FSS algorithms, as well as the reduction in the number of features. Another multicriteria performance evaluation model based on rankings, which makes it possible to consider any number of properties is also presented. The models are illustrated by their application to four well known FSS algorithms and two versions of a new FSS algorithm we have developed.
Bidirectional Coupling Scheme of Chaotic Systems and its Application in Secure Communication System

In this paper, in order to show some interesting phenomena of three dimensional autonomous ordinary differential equations, the chaotic behavior as a function of a variable control parameter, has been studied. The initial study in this paper is to analyze the phase portraits, the Lyapunov exponents, the Poincaré maps and the bifurcation diagrams. Moreover, some appropriate comparisons are made to contrast some of the existing results. Finally, the effectiveness of the bidirectional coupling scheme between two identical Jerk circuits in a secure communication system is presented in details. Finally, the simulation results are shown to demonstrate that the proposed method is correct and feasible
THE STOICHIOMETRY OF CONSUMER‐DRIVEN NUTRIENT RECYCLING: THEORY, OBSERVATIONS, AND CONSEQUENCES

Ecologists are increasingly recognizing the importance of consumers in reg- ulating ecosystem processes such as nutrient cycling. Ecologists have recently made con- siderable progress in understanding nutrient cycling and trophic interactions in pelagic systems by application of a new concept, ecological stoichiometry, to consumer-driven processes. In this paper we synthesize these conceptual advances within pelagic ecology and attempt to illustrate how they may be usefully applied in other ecosystems. Stoichi- ometric theory shows that both grazer and algal elemental composition are critical param- eters influencing rates and ratios of nutrient release. Thus, the stoichiometry of nutrient recycling is a feedback mechanism linking grazer dynamics and algal nutritional status. Incorporation of such effects into a fully dynamic stoichiometric model generates profound changes in the predicted dynamics of algae and grazers, suggesting that adoption of a stoichiometric view may substantively alter our view of the interaction between trophic dynamics and nutrient cycling. The basic predictions of stoichiometric models of nutrient release are generally supported by experimental data showing that N:P release ratios are primarily a function of algal N:P ratio and secondarily a function of grazer N:P ratio, and that rates of P release by grazers are also related to food P:C. Furthermore, evidence for effects of nutrient release stoichiometry on phytoplankton communities and pelagic eco- system function is accumulating, including data showing consistent alterations in algal physiological status and ecosystem-scale changes in N fixation in response to altered grazer community structure and elemental composition. As the general features of the stoichi- ometry of algae-zooplankton interactions reflect fundamental biological processes linked to plant and animal mineral nutrition, the stoichiometric view of consumer-driven nutrient recycling can easily be applied to other ecosystems, including terrestrial and benthic food webs. A suite of potential applications of stoichiometric thinking to benthic and terrestrial habitats is suggested.
Trichoderma species diversity in rhizosphere soils and potential antagonism with Fusarium oxysporum

In this study six different Trichoderma species were isolated form rhizosphere soils of paddy, banana, oil palm, rubber, vegetables and grass land soils. The species are T. harziaum, T. viride, T. koningii, T. asperrelum, and T. parareesei. The morphological study as pigmentation, colony growth and anatomical studies such as, conidiation appearances, size of conidia, conidiophores branching pattern, shapes of phialides, absent or present of chlamydiophores were carried out to identify the species of Trichoderma. The Trchoderma harzianum species were abundant in soil while T. viren was the second highest in the soil. All species showed the antagonistic activity against Fusarium oxysporum. While, T. parareesei showed the highest antagonistic 91.10 % activity against F. oxysporum, reported as best antagonism agent for phytopathogen.
Much Ado About Nothing? Do Domestic Firms Really Benefit from Foreign Direct Investment?

Governments the world over offer significant inducements to attract investment, motivated by the expectation of spillover benefits to augment the primary benefits of a boost to national income from new investment. There are several possible sources of induced spillovers from foreign direct investment. This article evaluates the empirical evidence on productivity, wage, and export spillovers in developing, developed, and transition economies. Although theory can identify a range of possible spillover channels, robust empirical support for positive spillovers is at best mixed. The article explores the reasons and concludes with a review of policy aspects.
Serum High-Sensitivity Cardiac Troponin T Is a Significant Biomarker of Left-Ventricular Diastolic Dysfunction in Subjects with Non-Diabetic Chronic Kidney Disease

Background: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is associated with left-ventricular (LV) diastolic dysfunction (LVDD) which progresses to diastolic heart failure. However, biomarkers predicting LVDD in patients with CKD are largely unknown. Methods: In 93 patients with non-diabetic CKD, the relationships among echocardiography, high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T (hs-cTnT), B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP), and renal function were evaluated. LV mass index, peak early diastolic mitral filling velocity (E), peak early diastolic mitral annular velocity (E′), and E/E′ were recorded. Results: The E′ values were significantly decreased and E/E′, BNP, and hs-cTnT increased with increasing CKD stage. The CKD patients with LVDD with E′ <5 cm/s had a significantly higher hs-cTnT level as well as a significantly higher BNP level compared to those with E′ ≧5 cm/s. The area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve for hs-cTnT and BNP to detect E′ <5 cm/s was 0.880 (p = 0.0101) and 0.741 (p = 0.0570), respectively. In multivariate analysis, hs-cTnT and albuminuria were significantly associated with E′, and estimated glomerular filtration rate with the hs-cTnT level, after adjusting for age, cause of CKD, and other parameters. Conclusions: These data suggest that hs-cTnT may be a useful biomarker of LVDD in non- diabetic CKD patients.
Enhanced Monte Carlo Sampling through Replica Exchange with Solute Tempering

With a view to improving the consistency of free energy perturbation calculations in Monte Carlo simulations of protein–ligand complexes, we have implemented the replica exchange with solute tempering (REST) method in the MCPRO software. By augmenting the standard REST approach with regular attempted jumps in selected dihedral angles, our combined method facilitates sampling of ligand binding modes that are separated by high free energy barriers and ensures that computed free energy changes are considerably less dependent on the starting conditions and the chosen mutation pathway than those calculated with standard Monte Carlo sampling. We have applied the enhanced sampling method to the calculation of the activities of seven non-nucleoside inhibitors of HIV-1 reverse transcriptase, and its Tyr181Cys variant, and have shown that a range of binding orientations is possible depending on the nature of the ligand and the presence of mutations at the binding site.