Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Why do Chinese people with COPD continue smoking: the attitudes and beliefs of Chinese residents of Vancouver, Canada

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is currently one of the most common chronic lung diseases and a growing cause of global morbidity and mortality. Smoking is the most important risk factor for its development, and about 20% of smokers develop COPD. This study took place in Metro Vancouver, Canada. The aim of the study was to compare and contrast the smoking habits and associated beliefs among two groups of Chinese people after receiving a diagnosis of COPD: those who successfully stopped smoking and those who continued to smoking. Ninety one Mandarin or Cantonese speaking patients with COPD, of whom 24 were current smokers and 67 were former smokers, participated in individual semi-structured interviews. Participants were recruited with the assistance of primary care physicians and respirologists in the Metro Vancouver. Data were analyzed using hand coding for qualitative content analysis. Differences between the two groups were assessed. Smoking experience, social influences, addiction/habit, and the advantages and disadvantages of smoking were identified. In particular, differences between smokers and former smokers found in terms of beliefs that smoking helps relaxation and reduces COPD anxiety and stress, and that smoking is a psychological habit that cannot give up easily. Significant information on barriers to successful smoking cessation was also elucidated. This study suggests we need to first understand Chinese smokers’ internal motivations to quit and then assist with culturally and linguistically relevant smoking cessation counselling. Further research is needed to determine if communication regarding tobacco use that is targeted toward the Chinese-speaking population in North America improves cessation rates.
State-dependent fluorescence of neutral atoms in optical potentials

Recently we have demonstrated scalable, non-destructive, and high-fidelity detection of the internal state of $^{87}$Rb neutral atoms in optical dipole traps using state-dependent fluorescence imaging [M. Martinez-Dorantes et al., PRL, 2017]. In this article we provide experimental procedures and interpretations to overcome the detrimental effects of heating-induced trap losses and state leakage. We present models for the dynamics of optically trapped atoms during state-dependent fluorescence imaging and verify our results by comparing Monte Carlo simulations with experimental data. Our systematic study of dipole force fluctuations heating in optical traps during near-resonant illumination shows that off-resonant light is preferable for state detection in tightly confining optical potentials.
LEFT VENTRICULAR DIASTOLIC AND SYSTOLIC PERFORMANCE: A STUDY USING TEI INDEX IN ADULTHOOD PATIENTS WITH THALASSEMIA MAJOR

Introduction: Cardiac complications, including heart failure, are the most important secondary ones of the thalassemia major disease, which manifests itself in adolescence and early adulthood. Appropriate, low cost diagnostic tools available as well as knowing its related factors are the most important components of therapy in these patients, given the importance of these complications, or by examining and revealing early symptoms. Thus, in this study, we intend to examine the systolic and diastolic ventricular effects in adult patients with the help of Tei index. Methods: 70 adult patients with thalassemia major were examined in this study. Frequency of Tei index and its association with factors such as age, sex, level of packed cell injection, as well as hemosiderosis were measured in two blood levels of more than 1000 ferretins. Results: In this study, 70 youth adult patients with thalassemia major with an average age of 21.3± 2.8 years were studied, 31 were male (44.4%). Tei index were abnormal in 16 patients (24%). There is no statistically significant correlation between the Tei index and one of the variables of age, gender, number and duration of blood transfusion and deferoxamine, the hemoglobin level and the number of ferretins (P>0.05). Discussion: Study on Tei index shows that many patients are subclinically involved in the disease before the onset of clinical symptoms of heart failure, the subject which raises the need for early diagnosis of the disease; and it seems that none of the demographic factors or factors related to disease cannot be considered as a main cause or warning of the disease; and the above results can be confirmed only on the basis of paraclinical tests.
Exploring the Tight Asymptotic Bounds of the Trade-off Between Query Anonymity & Communication Cost in Wireless Sensor Network

We address query-anonymity in the context of wireless sensor networks. Queryanonymity is the property that the destination of a client’s query is indistinguishable from other potential destinations. Prior work has established that this is an important issue, and has also pointed out that there appears to be a natural tradeoff between query-anonymity and communication-cost. We explore what we call the limits of this trade-off: what is the communication-cost that is sufficient to achieve a certain query-anonymity, and what is the communication-cost that we must necessarily incur to achieve a certain query-anonymity? We adopt an unconditional notion of query-anonymity that we argue has intuitive appeal. We then establish the limits of the trade-off. In particular, we show that in wireless sensor networks which are source-routed, the necessary and sufficient communicationcost for query-anonymity asymptotically smaller than the diameter of the network d is a function of d only, and the necessary and sufficient communication-cost for query-anonymity larger than d is a function of the desired query-anonymity only. Our result applies to any network topology that is an arbitrary connected undirected graph. We validate our analytical insights empirically, via simulations. In summary, our work establishes sound and interesting theoretical results for queryanonymity in wireless sensor networks, and validates them empirically.
PII: S0010-7824(00)00175-X

Dietary fibers are widely used in hypoglycaemic, hypolipidemic, slimming diets. It is probable that their ingestion coincides with the oral administration of drugs and a modification of their pharmacokinetics can appear. In the present study, the influence of two soluble fibers (guar gum and psyllium) was evaluated on the pharmacokinetics of ethinyloestradiol (EE) when they were administered together to female rabbits via the oral route. Three groups of rabbits were used. All animals received 1 mg/kg of EE; this compound was administered alone in the control group and with 3.5 g of guar gum or psyllium in the other two groups. When guar gum was administered, there was a decrease in the extent of EE absorbed, but no change was observed in the rate of absorption. When psyllium was administered, the extent of EE absorbed increased slightly and the rate of absorption was slower. © 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.
Named entity extraction for ontology enrichment

We propose in this paper two pattern-based named entity extraction methods for ontology enrichment. The proposed methods are characterized by the use of entity relation patterns obtained by our unsupervised extraction method. These patterns correspond to syntactic paths that connect two named entities in dependency trees. This work aims to take advantage of parsing benefits and also offers solutions for parsing disadvantage.
Feeding in extreme flows: behavior compensates for mechanical constraints in barnacle cirri

Plastic morphological changes in response to environmental cues can allow organisms to adapt to their local environment. Barnacle feeding legs (cirri) exhibit substantial plasticity in size and shape along wave exposure gradients on rocky shores, but only up to a certain limit in maximum water velocities. Above the limit, the morphology of the cirri becomes invariant. Behavioral observa- tions of barnacles feeding at a wave-exposed shore indicate that the fast response time for feeding motions allows barnacles to avoid potentially damaging flows associated with breaking waves, while still allowing feeding between wave impacts. The ability of barnacles to avoid individual waves indi- cates that the apparent limit in morphological plasticity may not be a result of physiological limits in cirral form, but rather a result of the barnacles reacting to some measure of the environment besides extreme flow speeds.
Monitoring Class Activity and Predicting Student Performance Using Moodle Action Log Data

Purpose – This paper proposes a novel approach for processing course log data obtained from Moodle-based blended courses in order to visualize patterns of student activity within the online environment and to determine whether these log data can be used to predict student academic performance.Method – Logs of student activities were summarized and processed using the Vector Space Model approach. This resulted in a novel vector-based form of representation which can be used to map students’ activity in a latent activity space given a set of activity dimensions. An enriched form of this representation was also generated by processing the DateTime and IP address metadata for the purpose of developing classification/predictive model of students’ performance. Results – The activity space coupled with a one-hot vector representation for each unique activity dimension can be used to visualize the differences in level and type of activity preferences of students. Experiments using several machine learning algorithms indicate that the generated model can modestly distinguish between sets of activities that lead to High, Low, or Failed performances.Conclusion – The development of easily interpretable graphics that can depict trends in student activity is a useful tool for instructors handling blended courses. It can provide constant monitoring of course progression with minimal effort and enable instructors to determine whether and how the environment actually affects student performance.Recommendations – Further work on refining the process applied to the data is recommended. The log data should be time-sliced and processed to determine whether and how the student’s level and type of activity changes over time. More powerful machine learning classification techniques shouldalso be tested to determine whether it can improve the classification accuracy.Research Implications – These types of visualizations and predictive models could be used to monitor the student or class which requires immediate and specific pedagogical adjustments.
Hémocultures positives: interprétation et prise en charge initiale

Chez l’adulte, les hemocultures font partie des examens diagnostiques les plus frequents a l’hopital. Elles sont determinantes pour le diagnostic et la prise en charge de nombreuses infections, et ce, meme si le taux de resultat positif est faible avec 6–10% et que les contaminations sont frequentes. L’annonce d’hemocultures positives requiert generalement une evaluation de la situation clinique et une decision therapeutique rapides.
Secondary wind dispersal enhances long-distance dispersal of an invasive species in urban road corridors

Roads contribute to habitat fragmentation and function as dispersal barriers for many organisms. At the same time many nonnative plant species are associated with road systems, a relationship that has been explained by the availability of disturbed habitats along roadsides and traffic-mediated dispersal of species. By studying secondary wind dispersal (SWD) over paved ground in an urban road corridor, we add the perspective of corridor-specific, but traffic-independent dispersal processes to the complex dispersal systems along roads. We analyzed (1) the seed shadow of an invasive tree Ailanthus altissima along a sidewalk subsequent to a strong wind and (2) the movements of painted samaras of this species released at ground level at the same site to identify the functioning of SWD. For the first experiment, we searched for samaras in the vicinity of an isolated tree three days after a strong wind. For the second experiment, we tracked the movement of the released samaras repeatedly over a period of 9–11 days, approximated probability-distance functions to the frequency distribution of samaras along the transect for different times after release, and related nearby measured wind data to changes in dispersal kernels. Single samaras from an isolated tree formed a seed shadow that extended for a distance of up to 456 m, and fragments of fruit clusters traveled up to 240 m. Forty-two percent of the sampled samaras were moved >100 m. The second experiment revealed that painted samaras released on the ground were moved up to 150 m over the pavement. Dispersal distances increased with time after seed release. A wider distribution of diaspores over the transect was significantly related to higher wind sums. Habitat shifts to safe sites for germination occurred during SWD, and different types of pavement influenced these processes. Smooth-surfaced pavement enhanced SWD, while cobbles with irregular surfaces slowed down or terminated SWD. During the observation period, 17% of released samaras accumulated in patches with a planted tree. Some were recaptured within the median strip and thus must have been lifted and moved over four lanes of heavy traffic. Our results suggest that impervious surfaces within road corridors can function as powerful avenues of wind-mediated long-distance dispersal and may counteract fragmentation of urban habitats. This also offers a functional explanation for the invasion success of Ailanthus at isolated urban sites.
Renewable Energy and Climate Policies: Studies in the Forest and Energy Sector

This dissertation examines the impacts of energy and climate policies on the energy and forest sectors, focusing on the case of Finland. The thesis consists of an introduction article and four separate studies. The dissertation was motivated by the climate concern and the increasing demand for renewable energy. In particular, the renewable energy consumption and greenhouse gas emission reduction targets of the European Union were driving this work. In Finland, both forest and energy sectors are in key roles in achieving these targets. In fact, the separation between forest and energy sector is diminishing as the energy sector is utilizing increasing amounts of wood in energy production and as the forest sector is becoming more and more important energy producer. The objective of this dissertation is to find out and measure the impacts of climate and energy policies on the forest and energy sectors. In climate policy, the focus is on emissions trading, and in energy policy the dissertation focuses on the promotion of renewable forestbased energy use. The dissertation relies on empirical numerical models that are based on microeconomic theory. Numerical partial equilibrium mixed complementarity problem models were constructed to study the markets under scrutiny. The separate studies focus on co-firing of wood biomass and fossil fuels, liquid biofuel production in the pulp and paper industry, and the impacts of climate policy on the pulp and paper sector. The dissertation shows that the policies promoting wood-based energy may have unexpected negative impacts. When feed-in tariff is imposed together with emissions trading, in some plants the production of renewable electricity might decrease as the emissions price increases. The dissertation also shows that in liquid biofuel production, investment subsidy may cause high direct policy costs and other negative impacts when compared to other policy instruments. The results of the dissertation also indicate that from the climate mitigation perspective, perfect competition is the favored wood market competition structure, at least if the emissions trading system is not global. In conclusion, this dissertation suggests that when promoting the use of wood biomass in energy production, the favored policy instruments are subsidies that promote directly the renewable energy production (i.e. production subsidy, renewables subsidy or feed-in premium). Also, the policy instrument should be designed to be dependent on the emissions price or on the substitute price. In addition, this dissertation shows that when planning policies to promote wood-based renewable energy, the goals of the policy scheme should be clear before decisions are made on the choice of the policy instruments.
The biological functions of mouse twinfilin isoforms

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE . 1 1. The cytoskeleton . 1 1.1 Microtubules . 1 1.2 Intermediate fi laments . 1 1.3 The actin cytoskeleton . 2 1.3.1 Actin fi lament dynamics . 3 1.3.2 Regulation of the actin cytoskeleton . 4 1.3.2.1 Rho family of small GTPases . 4 1.3.2.2 PI(4,5)P2 . 5 1.3.3 Actin binding proteins . 6 2. Actin nucleating proteins . 7 2.1 Arp2/3 . 8 2.2 Formins . 8 2.3 Other actin nucleating factors . 9 3. Actin monomer-binding proteins . 9 3.1 WASP family of proteins . 10 3.2 Verprolin/WIP . 12 3.3 Srv/CAP . 12 3.4 Profi lin . 14 3.5 β-thymosins . 15 4. Actin fi lament capping proteins . 16 4.1 Gelsolin . 16 4.2 Heterodimeric capping protein . 17 4.3 Other capping proteins.17 5. ADF-H domain proteins . 18 5.1 ADF/Cofi lin . 19 5.2 Coactosin . 21 5.3 Abp1/Drebrin . 22 5.4 GMF . 24 5.5 Twinfi lin . 25 AIMS OF THE STUDY . 28 MATERIALS AND METHODS . 29 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION . 30 6. Mouse twinfi lin isoforms . 30 6.1 Expression patterns of the mouse twinfi lin isoforms (I, III) . 30 6.2 Biochemical characteristics of the mouse twinfi lin isoforms (I, II, III) . 31 6.3 Cell biological characteristics of the mouse twinfi lin isoforms (I, II, III) . 33 6.4 Regulation of the mouse twinfi lin isoforms (I, III) . 35 7. Twinfi lin-2a knockout mouse (IV) . 35 8. Biological roles of twinfi lin isoforms . 36 CONCLUDING REMARKS . 39 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . 40 REFERENCES . 41 ORIGINAL PUBLICATIONS This thesis is based on four original articles and one review article, which are referred to in the text by their roman numerals. I Vartiainen MK. , Sarkkinen EM. , Matilainen T. , Salminen M. and Lappalainen P. Mammals have two twinfi lin isoforms whose sub-cellular localizations and tissue distributions are differentially regulated. Journal of Biological Chemistry 2003 vol 278 p 34347-55 II Helfer E* & Nevalainen EM*, Naumanen P, Romero S, Didry D, Pantaloni D, Lappalainen P and Carlier MF. Mammalian twinfi lin sequesters ADP-G-actin and caps fi lament barbed ends: implications in motility. EMBO Journal 2006 vol 25 p 1184-95 *these authors contributed equally III Nevalainen EM, Skwarek-Maruszewska A, Braun A, Moser M, Lappalainen P. Two biochemically distinct and tissue-specifi c twinfi lin isoforms are generated from mouse twinfi lin-2 gene by alternative promoter usage. Biochemical Journal in press IV Nevalainen EM, Braun A, Vartiainen M, Moser M, Lappalainen P and Fässler R. Twinfi lin-2a is dispensable for development in mice. Manuscript V Nevalainen EM, Paavilainen VO and Lappalainen P. Twinfi lin family of actin monomer-binding proteins. Actin Monomer Binding Proteins. Springer Science + Business Media. New York, NY, and Landes Biosciences. Georgetown, TX . 2006 vol 7:53-60. Unpublished material presented in the results are referred to by (Author et al., unpublished)
“Participant” Perceptions of Twitter Research Ethics

Social computing systems such as Twitter present new research sites that have provided billions of data points to researchers. However, the availability of public social media data has also presented ethical challenges. As the research community works to create ethical norms, we should be considering users’ concerns as well. With this in mind, we report on an exploratory survey of Twitter users’ perceptions of the use of tweets in research. Within our survey sample, few users were previously aware that their public tweets could be used by researchers, and the majority felt that researchers should not be able to use tweets without consent. However, we find that these attitudes are highly contextual, depending on factors such as how the research is conducted or disseminated, who is conducting it, and what the study is about. The findings of this study point to potential best practices for researchers conducting observation and analysis of public data.
Analysis of RWPT Relays for Intermediate-Range Simultaneous Wireless Information and Power Transfer System

The increasing sophisticated power and communication demands have motivated a variety of research on simultaneous wireless information and power transfer system, aiming to provide higher power transfer efficiency and improved communication rate. This paper demonstrates that resonant wireless power transfer (RWPT) system with relays can be a candidate to reach these aims. Based on coupled resonator filter theory, mathematical equations for transmission efficiency and bandwidth are derived for arbitrary number of relays. Improved efficiency and bandwidth are verified by equations, simulation and experiments. Experimental results show that under the distance of two times the diameter of the resonator, system efficiency increases from 5.43% (no relay) to 29.47% (one relay) and 38.02% (two relays), with the fractional bandwidth broadened from 1.33% (no relay) to 3.31% (one relay) and 4.47% (two relays) at operation frequency of 42.55MHz, providing available channel for simultaneous power and data transfer. The procedure for the design of relays is also listed in detail.
FORMATION OF DENSE MOLECULAR GAS AND STARS AT THE CIRCUMNUCLEAR STARBURST RING IN THE BARRED GALAXY NGC 7552

We present millimeter molecular line complemented by optical observations, along with a reanalysis of archival centimeter H i and continuum data, to infer the global dynamics and determine where dense molecular gas and massive stars preferentially form in the circumnuclear starburst ring of the barred-spiral galaxy NGC 7552. We find diffuse molecular gas in a pair of dust lanes each running along the large-scale galactic bar, as well as in the circumnuclear starburst ring. We do not detect dense molecular gas in the dust lanes, but find such gas concentrated in two knots where the dust lanes make contact with the circumnuclear starburst ring. When convolved to the same angular resolution as the images in dense gas, the radio continuum emission of the circumnuclear starburst ring also exhibits two knots, each lying downstream of an adjacent knot in dense gas. The results agree qualitatively with the idea that massive stars form from dense gas at the contact points, where diffuse gas is channeled into the ring along the dust lanes, and later explode as supernovae downstream of the contact points. Based on the inferred rotation curve, however, the propagation time between the respective pairs of dense gas and centimeter continuum knots is about an order of magnitude shorter than the lifetimes of OB stars. We discuss possible reasons for this discrepancy, and conclude that either the initial mass function is top-heavy or massive stars in the ring do not form exclusively at the contact points where dense molecular gas is concentrated.