Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Predictors of perceptions of involuntary retirement.

PURPOSE Retirement is often treated as a voluntary transition, yet selected circumstances can restrict choice in retirement decision processes. We investigated conditions under which retirees perceive their retirement as "forced" rather than "wanted. " METHODS Analyses relied on Waves 1-4 of the Health and Retirement Survey (N=1,160; 572 men and 588 women). Logistic regression models estimated the effects of background factors, choice and restricted choice conditions, and retirement contexts on perceptions of forced retirement. RESULTS Nearly one third of older workers perceived their retirement as forced. Such forced retirement reflects restricted choice through health limitations, job displacement, and care obligations. Other predictors include marital status, race, assets, benefits, job tenure, and off-time retirement. IMPLICATIONS Future research should establish personal and policy implications of forced retirement. Programs are needed to help older workers forced into retirement find alternative employment opportunities and to reduce the conditions leading to forced retirement.
Supporting the electromechanical nature of ultra-fast charge pulses in insulating polymer conduction

The generation and transport of ultra-fast charge pulses is a new conduction mechanism in insulating polymers, which is related to the electromechanical property of polymers. An investigation of fast space charge dynamics in pure and nanofilled epoxy resin at different temperatures is presented in this paper. Experimental observations show the appearance of ultra-fast charge pulses, which cause heterocharge accumulation at electrodes. Mobility and repetition rate of both positive and negative fast pulses decrease with increasing nanoparticle concentration. Their temperature dependence was also determined. The influence of nanoparticles on dynamic-mechanical properties is studied to investigate the relation between charge dynamics and the chain relaxations. The values of activation energy for pulse mobility, repetition rate and loss modulus support the speculation that in epoxy based nanocomposite the mechanism of the ultra-fast charge pulse injection is associated with the β mechanical relaxation. Transport of positive pulses seems to be governed by the same mechanical relaxation as injection, while the transport of negative pulses is probably driven by a different process. An explanation for the variation of fast charge pulse characteristics is given in terms of the different morphological effects of nanoparticles on epoxy resin.
Ischemic and thrombotic effects of dilute diesel-exhaust inhalation in men with coronary heart disease.

BACKGROUND Exposure to air pollution from traffic is associated with adverse cardiovascular events. The mechanisms for this association are unknown. We conducted a controlled exposure to dilute diesel exhaust in patients with stable coronary heart disease to determine the direct effect of air pollution on myocardial, vascular, and fibrinolytic function. METHODS In a double-blind, randomized, crossover study, 20 men with prior myocardial infarction were exposed, in two separate sessions, to dilute diesel exhaust (300 mug per cubic meter) or filtered air for 1 hour during periods of rest and moderate exercise in a controlled-exposure facility. During the exposure, myocardial ischemia was quantified by ST-segment analysis using continuous 12-lead electrocardiography. Six hours after exposure, vasomotor and fibrinolytic function were assessed by means of intraarterial agonist infusions. RESULTS During both exposure sessions, the heart rate increased with exercise (P<0.001); the increase was similar during exposure to diesel exhaust and exposure to filtered air (P=0.67). Exercise-induced ST-segment depression was present in all patients, but there was a greater increase in the ischemic burden during exposure to diesel exhaust (-22+/-4 vs. -8+/-6 millivolt seconds, P<0.001). Exposure to diesel exhaust did not aggravate preexisting vasomotor dysfunction, but it did reduce the acute release of endothelial tissue plasminogen activator (P=0.009; 35% decrease in the area under the curve). CONCLUSIONS Brief exposure to dilute diesel exhaust promotes myocardial ischemia and inhibits endogenous fibrinolytic capacity in men with stable coronary heart disease. Our findings point to ischemic and thrombotic mechanisms that may explain in part the observation that exposure to combustion-derived air pollution is associated with adverse cardiovascular events. (ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00437138 [ClinicalTrials.gov].).
Sub-frame based apnea detection exploiting delta band power ratio extracted from EEG signals

Sleep apnea syndrome (SAS) is one of the most common sleep disorder diseases. In this paper, we have proposed a new apnea detection method exploiting delta band power ratio of EEG signal. Each EEG signal frame of 30 seconds is divided into 10 seconds sub frames. Delta band power ratio is extracted as a feature from these sub frames. The feature thus formed is fed to KNN and SVM classifier, respectively to detect apnea and non apnea frames in patients with apnea, which is a challenging task. From MIT-BIH sleep apnea database, the proposed method is tested with 14 overnight polysomnographic (PSG) records. The proposed method outperforms one state-of-the-art method in terms of accuracy, sensitivity and specificity.
A Regular k-Shrinkage Thresholding Operator for the Removal of Mixed Gaussian-Impulse Noise

The removal of mixed Gaussian-impulse noise plays an important role in many areas, such as remote sensing. However, traditional methods may be unaware of promoting the degree of the sparsity adaptively after decomposing into low rank component and sparse component. In this paper, a new problem formulation with regular spectral -support norm and regular -support norm is proposed. A unified framework is developed to capture the intrinsic sparsity structure of all two components. To address the resulting problem, an efficient minimization scheme within the framework of accelerated proximal gradient is proposed. This scheme is achieved by alternating regular -shrinkage thresholding operator. Experimental comparison with the other state-of-the-art methods demonstrates the efficacy of the proposed method.
Hydrogenotrophic Methanogenesis by Moderately Acid-Tolerant Methanogens of a Methane-Emitting Acidic Peat

ABSTRACT The emission of methane (1.3 mmol of CH4 m−2 day−1), precursors of methanogenesis, and the methanogenic microorganisms of acidic bog peat (pH 4.4) from a moderately reduced forest site were investigated by in situ measurements, microcosm incubations, and cultivation methods, respectively. Bog peat produced CH4 (0.4 to 1.7 μmol g [dry wt] of soil−1 day−1) under anoxic conditions. At in situ pH, supplemental H2-CO2, ethanol, and 1-propanol all increased CH4 production rates while formate, acetate, propionate, and butyrate inhibited the production of CH4; methanol had no effect. H2-dependent acetogenesis occurred in H2-CO2-supplemented bog peat only after extended incubation periods. Nonsupplemented bog peat initially produced small amounts of H2 that were subsequently consumed. The accumulation of H2 was stimulated by ethanol and 1-propanol or by inhibiting methanogenesis with bromoethanesulfonate, and the consumption of ethanol was inhibited by large amounts of H2; these results collectively indicated that ethanol- or 1-propanol-utilizing bacteria were trophically associated with H2-utilizing methanogens. A total of 109 anaerobes and 107 hydrogenotrophic methanogens per g (dry weight) of bog peat were enumerated by cultivation techniques. A stable methanogenic enrichment was obtained with an acidic, H2-CO2-supplemented, fatty acid-enriched defined medium. CH4 production rates by the enrichment were similar at pH 4.5 and 6.5, and acetate inhibited methanogenesis at pH 4.5 but not at pH 6.5. A total of 27 different archaeal 16S rRNA gene sequences indicative of Methanobacteriaceae, Methanomicrobiales, and Methanosarcinaceae were retrieved from the highest CH4-positive serial dilutions of bog peat and methanogenic enrichments. A total of 10 bacterial 16S rRNA gene sequences were also retrieved from the same dilutions and enrichments and were indicative of bacteria that might be responsible for the production of H2 that could be used by hydrogenotrophic methanogens. These results indicated that in this acidic bog peat, (i) H2 is an important substrate for acid-tolerant methanogens, (ii) interspecies hydrogen transfer is involved in the degradation of organic carbon, (iii) the accumulation of protonated volatile fatty acids inhibits methanogenesis, and (iv) methanogenesis might be due to the activities of methanogens that are phylogenetic members of the Methanobacteriaceae, Methanomicrobiales, and Methanosarcinaceae.
Weed Control as a Collective Action Problem: Quantifying group effects on individual behavior, and clarifying the theoretical frame

Weeds reduce the biodiversity and productivity of agricultural systems. Weeds are challenging to control because their effective dispersal mechanisms enable cross-boundary colonization, and so managers must engage diverse groups of private landowners. Researchers have recognized weed control is a collective action problem, but there is little research quantifying the role of collective factors on an individual’s decision to control. To fully understand the motivations behind independent weed control, we initiated a study to quantitatively assess the relationship between collective interest variables and individual landowners’ willingness to engage in weed control behaviors. We identified the Collective Interest Model as a way to understand the influence of collective factors on an individual’s decision to control for weeds, while holding individual factors constant. We surveyed Montana landowners (n=4,500), and analyzed results using ordinarily least squares regression. We found collective factors, such as an injunctive norm and the belief that weeds are a cross boundary problem, were significantly correlated with willingness to engage in three different weed control behaviors. This suggests if weed control outreach explicitly promotes collective messages, it may be able to more effectively engage
Role of scenarios in work analysis during system design

User-centred development is a process of system development that starts with users and their requirements rather than technology. The objectives of a useror human-centred design approach is to enable users to be in control of the advancing technologies by enhancing human abilities, overcoming human limitations, and fostering user acceptance [1]. To meet these objectives, designers have to understand users and the tasks they wish to achieve. A user-centred design approach is participatory in nature, in the sense that users participate and make effective contributions throughout the system development life cycle. Direct participation of the end-users is a means of collaboratively identifying, interpreting, and jointly developing system requirements that reflect the users’ needs and perspectives.
Auxin-mediated growth of rice in cadmium-contaminated soil

Pollution from heavy metals is a global problem that is very dangerous to the environment. Among the heavy metals, cadmium is receiving more and more attention because it is one of the most ecotoxic, making it very harmful for biological activity in soil, biodiversity, plant metabolism, and human and animal health. Phytohormones, produced by plants, control or regulate germination, growth, metabolism, or other physiological activities, and they can alleviate the toxic effects of heavy metals on plant growth. Auxin is the most abundant natural growth hormone, controlling apical dominance, tropism, elongation of shoots, and initiation of roots in plants. However, cadmium stress causes the degradation of indigenous auxin. To cope with this, auxin may be applied exogenously. To evaluate the role of auxin in cadmium -contaminated soil, different levels of the auxin precursor L-TRP were applied to plants growing in contaminated soil. Rice seedlings were dipped in a L-TRP solution for 2 h and transplanted into potted soil contaminated with 30 mg kg1 cadmium. The results showed that the exogenous application of L-TRP improved the growth and yield of treated plants both in normal and contaminated soil. The data of different parameters showed that L-TRP enhanced plant height (12.54%), the number of tillers (25.53%), the number of panicles (19.04%), the 1000 grain weight (19.28%), and the paddy yield (11.78%) in cadmium-contaminated soil, as compared to plants grown in the absence of L-TRP with the same level of contamination. L-TRP increased the uptake of cadmium in rice straw while decreasing the translocation of cadmium towards grains, as compared to plants grown in contaminated soil without L-TRP. This experiment revealed the possibility of using L-TRP to improve plant growth and soil health in contaminated soil.
Bargaining power, market risk, and coordination costs in the cassava starch marketing channel in Thailand: a three stage principal-agent model and application

This study examined bargaining power, market risk and coordination costs in the Thailand cassava starch marketing channel using a three-stage principal-agent marketing channel model and annual data over the period 1980-2015. The empirical results of the econometrics analysis revealed that the fixed compensations for producers decreased over the period of study and reached negative levels in 1999 and 2008-2015. The fixed compensations for the wholesalers were positive and increased over the period of study. In general, the producers were risk seeking, whereas the wholesalers were risk averse over the study period. The processors being risk neutral bear more risk in the marketing channel than producers and wholesalers, while the producers bear more risk than the wholesalers. The coordination cost of the marketing channel showed negative trending pattern over the period of study. The findings have implications for the development of the cassava industry in Thailand.
‘Life expectancy among people with cerebral palsy in Western Australia’

This report describes trends, predictors, and causes of mortality in persons with cerebral palsy (CP) using individuals identified by the Western Australian Cerebral Palsy Register and born between 1958 and 1994. Two thousand and fourteen people were identified (1154 males, 860 females), of whom 225 had died by 1 June 1997. Using date-of-death data, crude and standardized mortality rates were estimated and predictors of mortality sought using survival analysis stratified by decade of birth, description of impairments, and demographic and perinatal variables. For those born after 1967, the cause of death profile was examined over time. Mortality exceeded 1% per annum in the first 5 years and declined to age 15 years after which it remained steady at about 0.35% for the next 20 years. The strongest single predictor was intellectual disability, but all forms of disability contributed to decreased life expectancy. Half of those with IQ/DQ score <20 survived to adulthood, increasing to 76% with IQ/DQ score 20-34, and exceeding 92% for higher scores. Severe motor impairment primarily increased the risk of early mortality. Despite there being 72 persons aged from 25 to 41 years with severe motor impairment in our data set, none had died after the age of 25 years. Infants born after more than 32 weeks' gestation were at significantly higher risk of mortality than very preterm infants, accounted for by their higher rates of intellectual disability. No improvements in survival of persons with CP were seen over the study period despite advances in medical care, improved community awareness, and the increasing proportion of very preterm births among people with CP. This may be the result of improved neonatal care enabling the survival of infants with increasingly severe disabilities.
PHARMACOKINETIC EXPOSURE AND VIROLOGIC RESPONSE IN HIV-1 INFECTED PREGNANT WOMEN TREATED WITH LOPINAVIR/RITONAVIR: AIDS CLINICAL TRIALS GROUP PROTOCOL A5153S: A SUBSTUDY TO A5150.

OBJECTIVE We studied the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of boosted soft-gel lopinavir/ritonavir to assess if the area under the plasma concentration versus time curve (AUC) is altered in pregnancy and whether changes in AUC impacted HIV-1 control. METHODS We enrolled pregnant women ≥13 years of age between 22 to 30 weeks gestation who expected to be on stable lopinavir/ritonavir for ≥8 weeks pre-delivery and ≥24 weeks post-delivery. Pharmacokinetic evaluations for lopinavir and ritonavir occurred at 36 weeks gestation and 6 and 24 weeks postpartum. RESULTS Ten women underwent intensive pharmacokinetic evaluations for lopinavir and ritonavir at 36 weeks gestation and at 6 and 24 weeks postpartum. Estimated geometric mean (GM) AUC 0-6h (95% CI) for lopinavir were not significantly different at 26.5 (17.0, 41.4) and 41.9 (26.1, 67.5) mcg*hr/mL at 36 weeks gestation and 6 weeks postpartum, respectively (within-subject GM ratio 0.60 (0.25, 1.43); p=0.19). At 36 weeks gestation, 5 of 10 women had viral load <50 copies/mL and at 6 weeks postpartum 5 of 9 had viral load <50 copies/mL. Nine of ten infants for whom data were available were HIV negative. CONCLUSION Despite below target lopinavir levels (< 52 mcg*hr/mL except at 2 postpartum measurements), women maintained virologic control postpartum. Higher doses of lopinavir/ritonavir during pregnancy may not be necessary in all women.
Analysis of the regional differentiation of the world financial market

The object of research is the global financial market, which unites national financial systems and has significant regional development differentiation. One of the most problematic places for the development of the world market is the reduction of the internal regulatory influence of countries on their financial system as well as the growth of world debt of countries on foreign borrowing, the volatile nature of market development, where the law of uneven economic development manifests itself. The analysis of the dynamics of the global market is used for such indicators as: foreign direct investment and its net outflow (% of GDP); foreign direct investment and its net inflow (% of GDP); the number of national companies listed on the stock exchange and their market capitalization. With the help of classical general scientific research methods, regression analysis, statistical data processing methods, it is obtained that the lowest indicators of capital outflow are inherent in the countries of rapid development (Latin America and the Caribbean, South Asia). The highest rates of capital inflows are inherent in highly developed countries within the European Union or the Eurozone. Most of the companies with quotes on the stock exchange and the largest market capitalization, located in the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), including in the European Union. This is due to the fact that all components of the market are in close relationship. The increase in the volume of monetary savings of the population and free funds of enterprises contributes to the expansion and revitalization of the credit market and the securities market. And the issue of securities reduces the need for financing the economy through loans and accumulates temporarily free funds of investors. This ensures the conditional nature of the separation of financial markets into the money and capital markets.
Hyperosmotic tolerance of human spermatozoa: separate effects of glycerol, sodium chloride, and sucrose on spermolysis.

Hyperosmotic stress, which cells experience during the freezing process, and its release during the warming process are both related to cryoinjury. To define optimal cooling or warming rates and prevent osmotic injury to human sperm, information is required regarding the osmotic tolerance of the cells as a function of 1) time, 2) temperature, 3) type of solute, and 4) solute concentration. Human sperm samples were divided into three aliquots. The aliquots were equilibrated at 0, 8, and 22 degrees C, respectively. Different hyperosmotic solutions were prepared by addition of either a permeating cryoprotective agent (glycerol) or nonpermeating solutes (sucrose, non-ionic; or NaCl, ionic) to isotonic Mann's Ringer solution. Aliquots of the prepared solutions were equilibrated at 0, 8, and 22 degrees C, respectively. A small volume (2.5 microliters) of each sperm aliquot was quickly mixed with 50 microliters of each hyperosmotic solution at the corresponding temperature. After times ranging from 5 s to 5 min, 10 microliters of each hyperosmotic cell suspension was abruptly returned to an isosmotic environment by mixing with 500 microliters of Mann's Ringer solution at the corresponding temperature. The plasma membrane integrity of cells after exposure to hyperosmotic stress and after return to isosmotic conditions was measured by a dual staining (carboxyfluoroscein diacetate and propidium iodide) technique and flow cytometry. The morphology of the treated cells was observed by scanning electron microscopy of freeze-substituted sperm. The results indicate that human spermatozoa exhibited a significant posthypertonic lysis/injury, i.e., loss of membrane integrity, when returned to isosmotic conditions after exposure to hyperosmotic solutions of NaCl or sucrose. The higher the hyperosmolality, the more serious the cell injury. The majority of the cells (> 50%) lost membrane integrity when the osmolality was > or = 2000 mOsm. In contrast, if the sperm were not returned to isosmotic conditions, the majority of the sperm in the hyperosmotic solutions appeared to maintain membrane integrity. For a given higher hyperosmolality (> 1000 mOsm), posthypertonic spermolysis was reduced with a decrease of temperature. Cell survival was also affected by time of cell exposure to hyperosmotic environments before cells were returned to the isotonic condition. The shorter the time, the higher the cell survival. When exposed to hyperosmotic glycerol solutions that were isotonic with respect to electrolytes, few cells lost their membrane integrity if the osmolality of glycerol was < 3000 mOsm. For a fixed high osmolality (> 3000 mOsm), the lower the temperature, the higher the percentage spermolysis. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)