Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Influences of different absorbents on the detection of SF6 gas decomposition products

After the setup of detection system based on gas chromatography, typical gas decomposition products of corona and spark discharge in needle-to-plate defect model were detected. Modeling the practical regulations, absorbents with one tenth the quality of filled SF6 gas were added in the gas cell. Focusing on the concentrations of SO2F2 and SO2, gas decomposition on the sole existence of silica gel and four types of molecular sieve- KDHF-03, F-03, 4A and 5A were compared. Moreover, influences of absorbents with different numbers of use on detection results were analyzed. It is clear that influences of absorbents added in practical SF6 insulated apparatus on gas chromatography detection are not fatal. As for absorbent performance evaluation, comparing with molecular sieve, silica gel is not recommended. Among the molecular sieve investigated, while 4A is obviously worse than the other three, with lower SO2 concentration but higher SO2F2 concentration than the compare group. KDHF-03 is best with comprehensively lower concentrations of gas decomposition products.
Incidental findings on cardiac imaging.

AJR:191, September 2008 Their findings raise the question: Should we look for, report, and follow up on incidental findings identifiable during cardiac imaging examinations? According to the findings of Northam et al. and others [7–12], it may seem obvious that we should. More health information is better. Patients and their physicians can decide how to proceed with the additional data identified. For now, let us consider five counterarguments proposed by Budoff et al. [14] to the review of full-FOV data: “(a) > 50% of participants may have at least one noncalcified nodule; (b) the increased costs and radiation exposure associated with the resulting followup CT scans; (c) the cost and the morbidity of follow-up, including further testing, as well as biopsy or resection of benign noncalcified nodules (at least 25% of such procedures in several trials); (d) a small but difficult to quantify potential risk of cancer associated with multiple follow-up CT scans; and (e) a potential for increased anxiety of both the patient and the physician about nonsignificant pathology. ” Budoff et al. [14] concluded: “We have reviewed all the relevant literature and sought to determine the potential benefits and harms of specifically overreading CTA for noncardiac pathology. The weight of the evidence suggests that it is most prudent to not specifically reconstruct and re-read CTA scans for lung nodules. If a noncardiac abnormality is visualized by the primary interpreter of the cardiac CT, appropriate referral or follow-up is prudent. ” Supporting these conclusions, radiation oncologists Smitt and Mehta [15] found that although incidental findings were identified on 20% of 132 radiation-planning CT scans, only three patients had important previously unknown findings, and only one patient with neck adenopathy had potential outcome benefit from discovery. The findings by Northam et al. [13] balance the compelling arguments made by Budoff et Incidental Findings on Cardiac Imaging
A Ku-band geosynchronous Synthetic Aperture Radar mission analysis with medium transmitted power and medium-sized antenna

In this paper, the feasibility of a geosynchronous satellite for Synthetic Aperture Radar applications is assessed. The nearly fixed position of geosynchronous satellites offers new features to SAR acquisition such as the continuous monitoring of wide areas with short revisit times. A monostatic dedicated mission, working with moderated antenna sizes and transmitted powers with long integration time (several hours), is firstly presented and the main SAR parameters (PRF selection, power budget, ambiguities) analyzed. The system Point Spread Function is obtained from simulated raw data showing the system spatial resolution in a realistic orbital configuration.
Potent antidiuretic agonists, deamino‐vasopressin and desmopressin, and their inverso analogs: NMR structure and interactions with micellar and liposomic models of cell membrane

Deamination of vasopressin (AVP) enhances its antidiuretic activity. Moreover, introduction of D‐Arg8 instead of its L enantiomer in deamino‐vasopressin (dAVP) results in an extremely potent and selective antidiuretic agonist ‐ desmopressin (dDAVP). In this study we describe the synthesis, pharmacological properties and structures of these two potent antidiuretic agonists, and their inverso analogs. The structures of the peptides are studied in micellar and liposomic models of cell membrane using CD spectroscopy. Additionally, three‐dimensional structures in mixed anionic‐zwitterionic micelles are obtained using NMR spectroscopy supported by molecular dynamics simulations. Our conformational studies have shown that desmopressin in a membrane mimicking environment adopts one of the characteristic for vasopressin‐like peptides β‐turn ‐ in position 3,4. Furthermore, dDAVP shows the tendency to create a β‐turn in the Cys6‐Gly9 C‐tail, considered to be important for the antidiuretic activity, and also some tendency to adopt a 5,6 β‐turn. In desmopressin, in contrast to the native vasopressin, deamino‐vasopressin and [D‐Arg8]‐vasopressin (DAVP), the Arg8 side chain, crucial for the pressor and antidiuretic activities, is very well exposed for interaction with the receptor, whereas Gly9, crucial for the pressor and uterotonic activities, is situated together with the C‐terminal amide group very close to the tocin ring. The arrangements of the Gln4 and Asn5 side chains, being crucial for OT activity, also differ in desmopressin as compared to those of AVP, dAVP and DAVP. These differences in arrangement of the important for activities side chains are likely to explain extremely potent and selective antidiuretic activities of desmopressin. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Biopolymers (Pept Sci) 106: 245–259, 2016.
Comparative performance of pyramid data structures for progressive image transmission

A review of various pyramid data structures for progressive image transmission, focusing on the steps involved in forming the pyramid and the performance comparisons, is presented. The simple mean pyramid, its variants including the truncated mean, reduced-sum, difference, reduced-difference and S-transform pyramids, and the more general Laplacian pyramid are discussed. It is also shown that the use of an interpolation function improves the quality of the full-resolution approximations both objectively and subjectively. >
A bibliometric analysis of the Journal of Advanced Nursing, 1976–2015

AIM The aim of this study was to examine the publication characteristics and development of Journal of Advanced Nursing during its 40-year history. BACKGROUND Bibliometric studies of single journals have been performed, but to the best of our knowledge, bibliometric analysis and bibliometric mapping have not yet been used to analyse the literature production of the Journal of Advanced Nursing. DESIGN/METHOD Using descriptive bibliometrics, we studied the dynamics and trend patterns of literature production and identified document types and the most prolific authors, papers, institutions and countries. Bibliometric mapping was used to visualize the content of published articles and determine the most prolific research terms and themes published in Journal of Advanced Nursing and their evolution through time. We were also interested in determining whether there were any 'Sleeping Beauties' among the articles published in the journal. RESULTS The study revealed a positive trend in literature production, although recently, the number of articles published in Journal of Advanced Nursing has slightly decreased. The most productive institutions are from the United Kingdom, which ranks in the highest place in terms of successful publishing in the journal. Thematic analysis showed that the most prolific themes corresponded to the basic aims and scope of the journal. CONCLUSION Journal of Advanced Nursing contributes to advances in nursing research, practice and education as well as the quality of health care, teamwork and family care, with an emphasis on knowledge transfer and partnership between various healthcare professionals.
The N-ERC index is a novel monitoring and prognostic marker for advanced malignant pleural mesothelioma.

BACKGROUND Although N-ERC/mesothelin (N-ERC) is an attractive diagnostic and treatment monitoring biomarker for malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM), its clinical utility for predicting the prognosis has not yet been clarified. The aim of this study is to investigate whether the serum N-ERC level can accurately predict the outcome in patients with MPM. METHODS Twenty-six patients with MPM were enrolled. Serum N-ERC level was measured before and after chemotherapy. The N-ERC index was determined by the logarithm of the division of the N-ERC level after two courses of chemotherapy by the prior level. RESULTS The median N-ERC index in the partial response (PR) group was significantly lower than that in patients with the stable disease (SD) plus the progressive disease (PD) group. The overall survival in the group whose median N-ERC index was lower than its median value was significantly longer than the group whose median N-ERC index was higher than its median value. CONCLUSIONS The N-ERC index is therefore considered to be a useful biomarker for predicting not only the chemotherapeutic response, but also the prognosis in patients with advanced MPM.
Parental and peer influences on the onset of heavier drinking among adolescents.

OBJECTIVE Less is known about heavier drinking in adolescents than about alcohol initiation. The present study examined the emergence of regular (weekly) and heavy episodic (five or more drinks at a time) adolescent drinking as a function of social influence (modeling and social control) from parents and peers. METHOD A three-wave study was conducted using a representative household sample of families in metropolitan Buffalo, New York (N = 612). Over half (54%) of the adolescent respondents were female. Black families made up 30% of the sample. Interviews were conducted at 1-year intervals. Adolescent drinking was dichotomized at each wave into abstinence/light drinking versus regular drinking. Logistic regression including only adolescents who were abstainers/light drinkers at Wave 1 was performed to assess which Wave- variables could predict regular-drinking onset by Wave 2; a similar analysis examined the onset of heavy episodic drinking by Wave 2. Parallel analyses using Wave-2 variables to predict the onset of the drinking outcomes by Wave 3 were also conducted. RESULTS Across the different analyses, the strongest psychosocial predictors of advancement to heavier drinking were friend's drinking and low parental monitoring. Also, white adolescents were at greater risk than their black counterparts. CONCLUSIONS A multidimensional approach to prevention that addresses different processes of influence (e.g., modeling and social control) involving both parental and peer domains is likely to be most successful in deterring the onset of heavier drinking in adolescents.
Papers from the Sixth Hannah Conference

1200 Main Street West Hamilton L8N 3Z5, Canada. E-mail: dwright@mcmaster.ca The following articles originate from the Sixth Hannah Conference on the History of Medicine, sponsored by Associated Medical Services of Toronto, and held in April 2001 at McMaster University and the University of Toronto, Canada. The theme of the international conference was straightforward, but challenging: to explore the history of mental disorders and clinical psychiatry in cross-cultural perspective. Needless to say, the theoretical, methodological and ontological issues inherent in this historical challenge continued to be debated long after the multi-course Chinese conference dinner in downtown Toronto completed its last serving. Participants, however, were united in their common interest in reading closely institutional and non-institutional case files and in structuring analyses of the history of mental disorders that moved beyond the traditional divide of social labelling on the one hand and raw retrospective diagnosis on the other. Some of the papers arising from the conference appear in this special issue, and others in a larger volume published concurrently by Cambridge University Press under the title Confinement of the Insane, 1800–1965: International Perspectives (Porter and Wright, 2003). This editorial introduction will address three central themes highlighted in this special issue. The first theme encompasses the spectrum of theoretical issues haunting any attempt to chart the history of mental disorders. As James Moran’s challenging and inventive contribution testifies, constructing a history (still less, an historical epidemiology) of mental disorders carries with it the usual difficulties inherent in tracking any disease over time, and then some. First and foremost lies the question of definition. Can one research the history of History of Psychiatry Copyright © 2003 SAGE Publications 0957-154X [200309] 14(3): 275–279; 039688
Women and men’s psychological adjustment after abortion: a six months prospective pilot study

Background The psychological impact of abortion is a controversial issue. While some studies indicate that women who had elective abortions present lower psychological distress when compared with those who had spontaneous or therapeutic abortions, other studies found abortion to be associated with significant psychological distress. Objectives To assess psychological adjustment (emotional disorder, trauma symptoms and couple relationship) one and six months after abortion, and gender differences regarding psychological adjustment, and to assess the moderation role of couple relationship in the effect of the etiology of abortion on emotional disorder and trauma symptoms. Methods Women (n=50) with different etiologies of abortion agreed to participate, as well as 15 partners (N=65). Assessments took place one and six months after abortion. Measures included the Brief Symptoms Inventory, the Impact of Event Scale-Revised and the Relationship Questionnaire. Results A decrease in emotional disorder for all etiologies of abortion and an increase in perceived quality of couple relationship in therapeutic abortion were observed over time. Couple relationship moderates the effect of the etiology of abortion on trauma symptoms one month after abortion. Conclusion Psychological adjustment after abortion seems not to be exclusively related to its etiology, being influenced by other factors such as couple relationship.
General Method to Unravel Ancient Population Structures through Surnames, Final Validation on Italian Data

Abstract We analyze the geographic location of 77,451 different Italian surnames (17,579,891 individuals) obtained from the lists of telephone subscribers of the year 1993. By using a specific neural network analysis (Self-Organizing Maps, SOMs), we automatically identify the geographic origin of 49,117 different surnames. To validate the methodology, we compare the results to a study, previously conducted, on the same database, with accurate supervised methods. By comparing the results, we find an overlap of 97%, meaning that the SOMs methodology is highly reliable and well traces back the geographic origin of surnames at the time of their introduction (Late Middle Ages/Renaissance in Italy). SOMs results enables one to distinguish monophyletic surnames from polyphyletic ones, that is surnames having had a single geographic and historic origin from those that started to be in use, with an identical spelling, in different locations (respectively, 76.06% and 21.05% of the total). As we are interested in geographic origins, polyphyletic surnames are excluded from further analyses. By comparing the present location of each monophyletic surname to its inferred geographic origin in late Middle Ages/Renaissance, we measure the extent of the migrations having occurred in Italy since that time. We find that the percentage of individuals presently living in the very area where their surname started to be in use centuries ago is extremely variable (ranging from 22.77% to 77.86% according to the province), thus meaning that self-assessed regional identities seldom correspond to the “autochthony” they imply. For example the upper part of the Thyrennian coast (Northern Latium, Tuscany) has a strong identity but few “autochthonous” inhabitants (∼28%) having been a passageway from the North to the South of Italy.
Content-based trademark retrieval system using a new region based shape description method: the distance-angle pair-wise histogram

Due to the increasing number of registered trademarks, it is more and more difficult to design and register a new trademark without a good retrieval method Thus, we propose a new region based shape description method: the distance-angle pair wise histogram, as the trademark shape feature vector to retrieve similar trademarks Experiments have been conducted on about 1000 trademark images. Some moment-based methods have also been implemented. In general the proposed method performs better than other moment-based methods.
Verb Sense Disambiguation based on Thesaurus of Predicate-argument Structure - An Evaluation of Thesaurus of Predicate-argument Structure for Japanese Verbs

This paper presents a system for word sense disambiguation based on a manually constructed thesaurus of predicate-argument structure, which is an ontology on the linguistic side providing essential information for mapping form texts to verb concepts. This system can be effective for word sense disambiguation even though the target word sense system is different from the thesaurus. We applied the proposed word sense disambiguation system to the test corpus of SemEval-2010 Japanese tasks. Experimental results showed that the thesaurus-based disambiguation system outperformed a CRFs-based system in recall rates of verb sense disambiguation. From the results of verb sense disambiguation, we clarified that the abstracted verb classes (709 types) in our proposed system were effective sets for verb sense disambiguation.
Optimal design of piezoelectric transformer for high efficiency and high power density

The characteristics of piezoelectric transformer, such as resonance frequency, matching impedance, electromechanical coupling coefficient and efficiency, were analyzed using the finite element analysis along with the equivalent circuit. The validity of the proposed numerical methods was conformed experimentally. Through all of the verified results, the optimal design for a high efficiency and high power density was determined using the multi-modal optimization algorithm based on an evolution strategy.
Dopamine Induces Light‐Adaptive Retinomotor Movements in Bullfrog Cones via D2 Receptors and in Retinal Pigment Epithelium via D1 Receptors

In the eyes of lower vertebrates, retinal photoreceptors and melanin pigment granules of the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) exhibit characteristic retinomotor movements in response to changes in ambient illumination and to signals from an endogenous circadian clock. We previously reported that 3,4‐dihydroxyphenylethylamine (dopamine) mimicked the effect of light on these movements in photoreceptors and RPE cells of green sunfish, Lepomis cyanellus, by interacting with D2 dopaminergic receptors. Here, we report that dopamine also mimics the effect of light on cone and RPE retinomotor movements in bullfrogs, Rana catesbeiana, i.e., dopamine induces cone contraction and RPE pigment dispersion. Dopamine induced cone contraction in isolated dark‐adapted bullfrog retinas incubated in constant darkness in the presence of the phosphodiesterase inhibitor 3‐isobutyl‐1‐methylxanthine (IBMX). This effect of dopamine was inhibited by a D2 but not a D1 antagonist and mimicked by a D2 but not a D1 agonist. These results suggest that induction of cone contraction by dopamine is mediated by D2 dopaminergic receptors and that cone adenylate cyclase activity is inhibited. Thus, dopamine acts via the same type of receptor in both bullfrog and green sunfish retinas to induce cone contraction. In contrast, dopamine influences RPE retinomotor movement via different receptors in fish and bullfrog. Dopamine induced light‐adaptive pigment dispersion in isolated dark‐adapted bullfrog RPE‐eyecups incubated in constant darkness in normal Ringer's solution. Because the retina was not present, these experiments demonstrate a direct effect of dopamine on bullfrog RPE. This effect of dopamine on bullfrog RPE was inhibited by a D1 but not a D2 antagonist and mimicked by a D1 but not a D2 agonist. Furthermore, agents that increase the concentration of intracellular cyclic AMP also induced pigment dispersion in dark‐adapted bullfrog RPE‐eyecups incubated in the dark. These results suggest that dopamine induces pigment dispersion in bullfrog RPE via D1 dopaminergic receptors. Thus, dopamine acts via different receptors on bullfrog (D1) versus green sunfish (D2) RPE to induce pigment dispersion. In addition, inhibitor studies indicate that pigment dispersion is actin dependent in teleost but not in bullfrog RPE. Dopamine‐induced pigment dispersion was inhibited by cytochalasin D in isolated RPE sheets of green sunfish but not in RPE‐eyecups of bullfrogs. Together, these observations indicate that dopamine mimics the effect of light on cone and RPE retinomotor movements in both fish and bullfrogs. However, in the RPE, different receptors mediate the effect of dopamine, and different cytoskeletal mechanisms are used to affect pigment transport. These findings suggest that the association of dopamine release with light onset is of earlier evolutionary origin than the appearance of retinomotor movements and that retinomotor movements may have evolved separately in teleosts and amphibians.
Lexical and phonetic modeling for Arabic automatic speech recognition

In this paper, we describe the use of either words or morphemes as lexical modeling units and the use of either graphemes or phonemes as phonetic modeling units for Arabic automatic speech recognition (ASR). We designed four Arabic ASR systems: two word-based systems and two morpheme-based systems. Experimental results using these four systems show that they have comparable state-of-the-art performance individually, but the more sophisticated morpheme-based system tends to be the best. However, they seem to complement each other quite well within the ROVER system combination framework to produce substantially-improved combined results.
Speciation timing and neotropical biodiversity: the Tertiary–Quaternary debate in the light of molecular phylogenetic evidence

The evolutionary origin of extant species in the Neotropics, one of the most biodiverse regions of the world, has been widely debated. One hypothesis is that neotropical species emerged primarily during the Quaternary (the last ~2 million years), favoured by alternating glacial/interglacial climates. An opposite view proposes an older Tertiary origin linked primarily to palaeogeographical changes. Here, a thorough review of the available literature on DNA molecular dating shows that the Tertiary–Quaternary debate no longer makes sense. Indeed, the > 1400 neotropical species whose origin has been dated have appeared in a continual fashion since the late Eocene/early Oligocene (~39 million years before present) to the Quaternary. Palaeogeographical mechanisms of speciation are relatively well accepted, but diversification processes linked to climate are still controversial. These results are important to unravel both the origin of present‐day biodiversity patterns at both local and global scales and the genetic and environmental mechanisms involved, which are two crucial aspects for suitable biodiversity conservation strategies.