Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ozone and survival in four cohorts with potentially predisposing diseases.

RATIONALE Time series studies have reported associations between ozone and daily deaths. Only one cohort study has reported the effect of long-term exposures on deaths, and little is known about effects of chronic ozone exposure on survival in susceptible populations. OBJECTIVES We investigated whether ozone was associated with survival in four cohorts of persons with specific diseases in 105 United States cities, treating ozone as a time varying exposure. METHODS We used Medicare data (1985–2006), and constructed cohorts of persons hospitalized with chronic conditions that might predispose to ozone effects: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes, congestive heart failure, and myocardial infarction. Yearly warm-season average ozone was merged to the individual follow-up in each city. We applied Cox proportional hazard model for each cohort within each city, adjusting for individual risk factors, temperature, and city-specific long-term trends. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS We found significant associations with a hazard ratio for mortality of 1.06 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.03–1.08) per 5-ppb increase in summer average ozone for persons with congestive heart failure; of 1.09 (95% CI, 1.06–1.12) with myocardial infarction; of 1.07 (95% CI, 1.04–1.09) with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; and of 1.07 (95% CI, 1.05–1.10) for diabetics.We also found that the effect varied by region, but that this was mostly explained by mean temperature, which is likely a surrogate of air conditioning use, and hence exposure. CONCLUSIONS This is the first study that follows persons with specific chronic conditions, and shows that long-term ozone exposure is associated with increased risk of death in these groups.
Validating Security Configurations and Detecting Backdoors in New Network Devices

With! the! discovery! of! admin! backdoors! in! network! devices! of! Barracuda! in! January! last! year,! it! once! again! has! become! apparent! that! internetPfacing! network! devices! are! vulnerable! to! unauthorized! remote! access. It! was! found! that! 80%! of! bestPselling! routers! have! security! vulnerabilities! that! may! be! exploited! to! gain! unauthorized! remote! access. With! increasing! reports! of! router! vulnerabilities! found! like! the! ones! in! Cisco! NX! based! devices! in! early! 2014,! the! question! arises! whether! these! routers! and! network! devices! are! doing! a! good! job! in! keeping! their! users’! networks! and! personal! data! secure. Even! worse,! with! hidden! builtPin! vendor! backdoors! and! default! logins! found! in! network! devices,! the! question! arises! if! users! can! trust! their! vendors! to! uphold! security! as! a! key! feature! of! their! products. Apart! from! analyzing! vulnerability! disclosures! in! the! past,! this! paper! outlines! techniques! und! provides! suggestions! to! mitigate! the! risk! associated! with! router! vulnerabilities. Router! backdoors! Can! you! trust! your! vendor? 2 ! Christoph! Eckstein,! christopheckstein.sec@gmx.net!
Age adjustment factors, heritabilities and genetic correlations for scrotal circumference and related growth traits in Hereford and Brangus bulls.

Field data records on 10,511 Hereford and 2,522 Brangus bulls between 330 and 430 d of age were analyzed to find age of calf and age of dam adjustment factors for yearling scrotal circumference. Age of calf adjustment factors were . 024 cm/d for Hereford bulls and . 041 cm/d for Brangus bulls. Sons of Hereford dams were adjusted to a 6- to 8-yr dam age basis by adding . 7, . 3, . 2, . 2 or . 3 cm for dams 2, 3, 4, 5 or 8 or more years old, respectively. Age of dam adjustment factors for Brangus bulls were . 8, . 4, . 3 and . 2 for dams 2, 3, 4 or 8 or more years old, respectively. Variance and covariance components for yearling scrotal circumference and several growth traits were estimated within breed using multiple-trait models and pseudo expectations involving the solutions and the right-hand sides of the mixed-model equations. Additive heritability estimates for yearling scrotal circumference of . 53 and . 16 were found for Hereford and Brangus bulls, respectively. Maternal heritability estimates of . 12 and . 10 were found for Hereford and Brangus bulls, respectively. Genetic correlations between yearling scrotal circumference and other growth traits were positive for both sets of data indicating that selection for yearling scrotal circumference should not adversely affect other growth traits in either breed. Environmental correlation estimates between yearling scrotal circumference and adjusted birth weight and between yearling scrotal circumference and adjusted 205-d weight and adjusted 365-d height were positive and moderate in magnitude for both breeds.
Changes in Mental Health Policy and Their Influence on Self-Injurious Behaviours in the Israeli Military Prison System

Objective: Self-injurious behaviours (SIBs) are widespread among prisoners and are sometimes classified as potentially calculated acts intended to control others. Access to a psychiatrist may be valued by imprisoned soldiers seeking immediate release from service. The main goal of the study was to assess the effects of a new mental health regulation in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) prison system, which requires ordering an immediate interview with a psychiatrist for inmates performing SIBs. Method: Frequency of SIBs in 2 military prisons was examined and compared for 11 months before and 10 months after the implementation of the regulation. Severity of injuries and rates of release from service were examined for 4 months. Results: The frequency of SIBs significantly increased after the implementation of the regulation in one prison, but not in the other. No effect was found for rate of release from service or for severity of injuries. Conclusions: Increased accessibility to a psychiatrist for military prisoners may have resulted in increased motivation for inmates to perform SIBs. These effects are limited to the prison that serves a higher proportion of highly stressed soldiers.
Modelling of contrast enhancement for cardiac multi-detector row CT

Cardiac computed tomography (CT) requires intravascular injection of iodinated contrast agent to visualize the cardiac chambers, large vessels, and coronary arteries. Currently, the standard injection protocol used clinically is uniphasic (fixed volume of contrast agent injected at a single flow rate). This results in non-uniform enhancement of the blood pool in some patients. The purpose of this work was to develop an algorithm for determining patient-specific contrast injection protocols necessary to consistently achieve optimal uniform enhancement in the left heart on multi-detector row CT (MDCT) images. A model was developed using the patient-function approach: the injection administered to the patient was the input and the corresponding enhancement observed in the region-of-interest was the output of the system. These input and output functions were related via the transfer-function which was computed in the Fourier domain. The model was first validated clinically using standard uniphasic contrast injection protocols. Then, the model was implemented to determine the patient-specific injection protocol necessary to achieve the desired enhancement in the left heart. The resulting enhancement in the diagnostic images was in agreement with the desired enhancement. The results indicate that it is possible to determine a patient-specific injection protocol in order to achieve uniform enhancement in MDCT images of the left heart.
Corticotrophin‐releasing Hormone and Fetal Responses in Human Pregnancy

Abstract: During human pregnancy, maternal and fetal compartments of the human placenta produce and release corticotrophic‐releasing hormone (CRH). Elevations of placental CRH are associated with decreased gestational length (including preterm delivery). The effects of elevated placental CRH on human fetal neurological development are not known. Pregnant women in the 31st and 32nd week of gestation consented to procedures for collection of blood and measurement of fetal heart rate (FHR) in response to a series of 40 vibroacoustic stimuli (VAS). Measures of habituation and dishabituation were calculated from the FHR. All subjects were followed to delivery. Fetuses (N= 33) of women with highly elevated CRH were least responsive (p < .03) to stimulation after presentation of a novel (dishabituating) stimulus with control for parity, fetal gender, medical (antepartum) risk, and gestational length at term. In a larger sample (N= 156) a polynomial model predicted the pattern of FHR reactivity for the first 15 trials. Placental CRH concentration significantly predicted FHR reactivity after controlling for the effects of trial number, baseline FHR, inter‐trial interval, and presence of uterine contractions. Increased maternal CRH levels were significantly related to the length of gestation after controlling for the effects of fetal gender, parity, and medical risk (p= .05). The relationship between length of gestation and FHR was not significant suggesting separate actions of CRH on these events. Elevated placental CRH appears to accelerate certain developmental events (gestational length) and may influence the fetal nervous system. The impaired fetal responses to novelty and increased arousal observed in this study suggest that neurological systems may be targets for placental CRH during sensitive developmental periods.
A novel 2D to 3D video conversion system based on a machine learning approach

There has been recently a significant increase in the number of available 3D displays and players. Nevertheless, the amount of 3D content has not increased in the same magnitude, creating a gap between 3D offer and demand. To reduce this difference, many algorithms have appeared that perform 2D-to-3D image and video conversion. These algorithms usually require several images from the same scene to perform the conversion. In this paper, an automatic algorithm for estimating the 3D structure of a scene from a single color image is proposed. It is based on the key assumption that color images with similar structure will likely present similar depth structures. The conversion algorithm is split into an offline and an online module to be easily deployable into consumer devices, such as smartphones or TVs. The offline module pre-processes a color+depth image database to speed up the subsequent depth estimation. The online module infers a depth prior from a color query image using the previous database as training data. Then, it is refined through a segmentation-guided filtering. The conversion algorithm has been evaluated in three publicly available databases, and compared with several state-of-theart algorithms to prove its efficiency.
Primary School Principals’ Perceptions of their Role and Experiences within the Protracted Conflict Regions of Somalia

While the role of the school principal has received much attention in stable environments, little research exists on principals working in conflict-affected countries. The purpose of this phenomenological study is to uncover perceptions of Somali principals in Mogadishu regarding their roles and lived experiences, as well as the challenges they face as they lead their schools amid ongoing conflict. In order to understand the different dimensions of the principal’s role and how this role is experienced in such a context, a descriptive phenomenology has been employed. A purposeful sample of eight primary school principals in Mogadishu, which has been the epicentre of the ongoing conflict, was indentified and the principals were interviewed. Through the six-step approach to phenomenological data analysis, as suggested by Creswell (2013), 11 themes were identified. Findings revealed that principals perceived their role as supporting teachers personally and professionally, supervising instruction, facilitating teacher professional development when the security situation permits, having good relationships with governing bodies, and building community collaboration. Findings also showed that, besides security concerns, student mobility, poor facilities, shortage of trained teachers and student discipline were the major challenges to principals. Findings further indicated that principals acted as boundary spanners using a variety of buffering and bridging strategies in an attempt to minimize uncertainty and security risks, as well as to adapt the school to the volatile environment. Furthermore, commitment to keep schools open, despite the huge challenges, a sense of responsibility for student safety, and calm and courageous actions in the face of danger were perceived as critical factors in sustaining principals in their positions. Four conclusions were drawn from the study, including principals’ lack of unity in the perception of their roles, principals’ lack of pre-service training, the possibility and
The Green Prescription and older adults: what do general practitioners see as barriers?

INTRODUCTION Limited research exists that has examined the barriers that older adults (those aged 65 years and older) can encounter when given a Green Prescription (GRx). This study aimed to identify what general practitioners (GPs) perceived their older-aged patients' barriers were with regard to carrying out a GRx. This study also identified the strategies that GPs used to assist their older-aged patients in overcoming barriers to physical activity engagement. METHODS Fifteen GPs from the Auckland region of New Zealand were interviewed individually. An inductive thematic approach was used to analyse data. FINDINGS GPs identified chronic health conditions, fear of injury, transportation constraints, set routines and lack of confidence as being barriers that some of their older-aged patients have encountered when considering whether to become more physically active and, also, when engaging in actual physical activity. CONCLUSION Physical activity interventions, such as the GRx programme, can have an important role in helping confer health-related gain for low-active older adults. To ensure that such interventions are successful on a long-term basis, practitioners need to be aware of the barriers that their older-aged patients can encounter when given a prescription for physical activity.
A low-resource low-latency hybrid adaptive CORDIC in 180-nm CMOS technology

In this paper, a low-resource low-latency hybrid adaptive COordinate Rotation DIgital Computer (HA-CORDIC) is implemented both in FPGA and 180-nm CMOS technology. The adaptive algorithm reduces around 50% iterations in comparison with the conventional CORDIC algorithm. The hybrid architecture together with resource sharing, parallel and pipeline processing are utilized in HA-CORDIC implementation. In FPGA implementation, the results show that the proposed system can operate at 108.15-MHz frequency, with 716 LUTs and 473 registers resource consumption. In CMOS implementation, the hardware architecture costs 10,299 cells with 0.41 mm2 area and fully operates at 50-MHz frequency.
Towards a crowdsourced radio map for indoor positioning system

Fingerprinting has become the most popular approach for infrastructure-free indoor positioning systems. But fingerprinting relies on frequent and exhaustive building surveys to build and maintain a radio map of the indoor environment. A concept being developed recently is the crowdsourced indoor positioning system, where users of an indoor area will collectively contribute sensor data collected by personal smart devices to the construction of the radio map. As a proof of concept, this paper proposes and evaluates a promising approach for building the radio map based on a crowdsourced dataset. Evaluation shows that we can achieve a mean positioning error of less than 3 meters base on the crowdsourced map, slightly worse than conventional path survey approach.
Reply to Comment on ‘Roles of interbasin frequency changes in the poleward shifts of maximum intensity location of tropical cyclones’

Recently a pronounced global poleward shift in the latitude at which the maximum intensities of tropical cyclones (TC) occur has been identified. Moon et al (2015 Environ. Res. Lett. 10 104004) reported that the poleward migration is significantly influenced by changes in interbasin frequency. These frequency changes are a larger contributor to the poleward shift than the intrabasin migration component. The strong role of interbasin frequency changes in the poleward migration also suggest that the poleward trend could be changed to an opposite equatorward trend in the future due to multi-decadal variability that significantly impacts Northern Hemisphere TC frequency. In the accompanying comment, Kossin et al (2016 Environ. Res. Lett. 11 068001) questioned the novelty and robustness of our results by raising issues associated with subsampling, contributions from some basins to poleward migration, and data dependency. Here, we explain the originality and importance of our main findings, which are different from those of Kossin et al (2014 Nature 509 349–52) and reaffirm that our conclusions are maintained regardless of the issues that were raised.
Sampled-data robust feedback linearization using estimator

In this paper, robust control schemes are presented to achieve sampled-data output feedback tracking, for the cases of unknown and known nonlinear minimum phase second order plant (system) models. For known system model case, system output tracks reference trajectory using Extended Kalman Filter (EKF), Unscented Kalman filter (UKF), and Cubature Kalman Filter (CKF). Whereas, for unknown system model case; EKF, UKF and CKF cannot be utilized. For this case, in this paper; State-Space Recursive Least Squares (SSRLS) and Sliding Mode observer (SMO) are employed. SSRLS uses constant velocity model, whereas, SMO requires information about input function only, to track the reference signal. Emulation Design based discrete feedback linearization controller utilizes estimated states to generate control input for plant. The robustness of these sampled-data output feedback control schemes (using estimators) against disturbance and parameter perturbation is demonstrated. It is presented via simulations for magnetic levitation system, that robust tracking is achieved on using estimators (Kalman filters and SMO) in sampled-data output feedback configuration as compared to performing tracking using sampled-data state feedback scheme. Simulation results show that SMO based output feedback tracking is most robust, followed by CKF and EKF based output feedback scheme. UKF based output feedback scheme is robust against external disturbance force, but for case of system parameter perturbation, UKF tracking error takes longer time to converge. SSRLS based scheme behaves poorly in presence of external disturbance force, as SSRLS estimation is based on constant velocity model and not on actual nonlinear system model.
The TOKEn project: knowledge synthesis for in silico science

OBJECTIVE The conduct of investigational studies that involve large-scale data sets presents significant challenges related to the discovery and testing of novel hypotheses capable of supporting in silico discovery science. The use of what are known as Conceptual Knowledge Discovery in Databases (CKDD) methods provides a potential means of scaling hypothesis discovery and testing approaches for large data sets. Such methods enable the high-throughput generation and evaluation of knowledge-anchored relationships between complexes of variables found in targeted data sets. METHODS The authors have conducted a multipart model formulation and validation process, focusing on the development of a methodological and technical approach to using CKDD to support hypothesis discovery for in silico science. The model the authors have developed is known as the Translational Ontology-anchored Knowledge Discovery Engine (TOKEn). This model utilizes a specific CKDD approach known as Constructive Induction to identify and prioritize potential hypotheses related to the meaningful semantic relationships between variables found in large-scale and heterogeneous biomedical data sets. RESULTS The authors have verified and validated TOKEn in the context of a translational research data repository maintained by the NCI-funded Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia Research Consortium. Such studies have shown that TOKEn is: (1) computationally tractable; and (2) able to generate valid and potentially useful hypotheses concerning relationships between phenotypic and biomolecular variables in that data collection. CONCLUSIONS The TOKEn model represents a potentially useful and systematic approach to knowledge synthesis for in silico discovery science in the context of large-scale and multidimensional research data sets.
Prospects of SST technology for high speed LSI

SST has realized very high speed integrated circuits with a basic gate delay time of 25.8 ps/gate. Also, a 10.38 GHz frequency divider, a 0.85 ns 1 Kb RAM and a 6 ns 16×16 bit parallel multiplier are fabricated using SST with 1um optical lithography. For a scaled-down SST transistor, the basic gate delay time is expected to be less than 10 ps/gate.
p53-Dependent apoptosis induced in human bronchial epithelial (16-HBE) cells by PM2.5 sampled from air in Guangzhou, China

Abstract Epidemiological studies have shown that air pollution particulate matter (PM) is associated with increased respiratory morbidity and mortality. However, the mechanisms are not fully understood. Oxidative stress-mediated apoptosis plays an important role in the occurrence of respiratory diseases. In this study, human bronchial epithelial (16-HBE) cells were exposed to different concentrations (16–128 µg/ml) of PM2.5 for 24 h to investigate the apoptosis induced by PM2.5. The results showed that PM2.5 exposure significantly induced apoptosis, DNA strand breaks, and oxidative damage in a dose-dependent manner in 16-HBE cells. The expression of p53 and p73 increased significantly along with the dose of PM2.5 in 16-HBE cells, whereas the expression of p21Cip1/WAF1 decreased; the expression of mdm2 increased and then decreased, but not significantly. Taken together, these observations indicate that PM2.5 may lead to oxidative damage and induce apoptosis through the p53-dependent pathway in 16-HBE cells. p53-dependent apoptosis mediated by DNA strand breaks may be an important mechanism of PM2.5-induced apoptosis in 16-HBE cells.
(Self-) Educational Effects of Computer Gaming Cultures

The goal of this chapter is to emphasize a certain notion of self-induced education, to discuss it in the context of digital games and to provide the means for assessing digital games as well as to give hints on their educational use. In the first section, the concept of “self-education” is introduced and distinguished against less complex learning phenomena. The second section discusses and analyses the different layers of “educational space” inherent to gaming software, providing the analytical means for the further sections. The third section presents and analyses educational aspects of single-player games, while the fourth section adds the socio-cultural impacts implied in multi-player communities. In conclusion, a synopsis is given, which sums up the main educational dimensions and connects them to aspects and analytical criteria, allowing a pedagogical assessment of digital games.