Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Computer simulation of the free energy of polymer chains with excluded volume and with finite interactions.

We have recently suggested an approximate computer simulation technique, based on the scanning method, which enables one to extract the entropy (and hence the free energy) of polymer chains from a relatively small sample. So far this technique has been discussed in terms of chains with excluded volume (EV); in the present work we extend its scope to chains, which also have finite interactions. In order to obtain better approximations for the entropy we utilize the concepts of the generalized Monte Carlo procedure suggested by Schmidt [Phys. Rev. Lett. 51, 2175 (1983)] (and discussed in the preceding paper). We analyze our results from the preceding paper for self-attracting random walks (without EV) on square and simple-cubic lattices, and show that our techniques lead to accuracy which is better than 0.3% for both the free energy and the entropy. For chain models which include EV, we use, in addition to Schmidt's procedure, an alternative one based on ``importance sampling. '' We test these two procedures as applied to self-avoiding walks (SAW's) on a square lattice, where the SAW's are unbounded in space or bounded in relatively small ``boxes. '' Very accurate results for the entropy are also obtained here. It turns out, however, that importance sampling is slightly more efficient than the Schmidt procedure.
The perceived ability to cope and adapt to management changes in young and old fishers in two New England fishing ports

The present research aims at examining commercial fishermen’s subjective resilience to management changes in two Southern New England fishing ports. This study also aims at analyzing the relationship between job satisfaction and level of occupational attachment with fishermen’s perceived ability to adapt and cope to change. The two age groups examined were categorized into a younger and older generation by splitting the mean age value of 46.6 to </= 45 for the younger and >45 for the older generation. Three hypotheses were developed: 1) Management practices have negatively influenced older fishermen’s perceptions on their ability to adapt to changes, where younger fishers perceive to be more resilient to management changes; 2) Level of resilience varies between fishing gear types. For example, those fishers participating in net fisheries perceive to be less resilient and able to adapt to changes than those fishing dredge gear; and 3) Between port differences may influence the relationships between variables in the first two hypotheses. In order to test these hypotheses, a total of 92 interviews were conducted with fishermen from the ports of Point Judith, Rhode Island and New Bedford, Massachusetts. Results of analyses show that there is no difference between age groups on fishermen’s perceived level of resilience. However, results show a positive relationship between age and fishermen’s Perceptions of Risk. Those involved in dredge gear fisheries (scallop, ocean clam/quahog) were shown to be more confident in their ability to adapt and cope to management changes. Results suggest that income and monetary gains play an important role in fishermen’s perception of their ability to adapt and cope with changes. Correlations between levels of job satisfaction components suggest that a decrease in satisfaction with income and financial needs could result in lower levels of perceived ability to adapt and cope with management changes. Results from this study have the potential to contribute to the expansion of knowledge and inspire future research about the adaptability of fishermen for future policy strategies.
Natural Acquired Immunity Against Subsequent Genital Human Papillomavirus Infection: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND Studies have been mixed on whether naturally acquired human papillomavirus (HPV) antibodies may protect against subsequent HPV infection. We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis to assess whether naturally acquired HPV antibodies protect against subsequent genital HPV infection (ie, natural immunity). METHODS We searched the MEDLINE and EMBASE databases for studies examining natural HPV immunity against subsequent genital type-specific HPV infection in female and male subjects. We used random-effects models to derive pooled relative risk (RR) estimates for each HPV type. RESULTS We identified 14 eligible studies that included >24,000 individuals from 18 countries that examined HPV natural immunity. We observed significant protection against subsequent infection in female subjects with HPV-16 (pooled RR, 0.65; 95% confidence interval, .50-.80) and HPV-18 (0.70; .43-.98) but not in male subjects (HPV-16: 1.22; .67-1.77 [P= .05 (test for heterogeneity)]; HPV-18: 1.50; . 46-2.55; [P= . 15]). We also observed type-specific protection against subsequent infection for a combined measure of HPV-6/11/31/33/35/45/52/58 in female subjects (pooled RR, 0.75; 95% confidence interval, .57-.92). Natural immunity was also evident in female subjects when analyses were restricted to studies that used neutralizing assays, used HPV persistence as an outcome, or reported adjusted analyses (each P< .05). CONCLUSIONS HPV antibodies acquired through natural infection provide modest protection against subsequent cervical HPV infection in female subjects.
A 16Kb 10T-SRAM with 4x read-power reduction

This work aims to reduce the read power consumption as well as to enhance the stability of the SRAM cell during the read operation. A new 10-transisor cell is proposed with a new read scheme to minimize the power consumption within the memory core. It has separate read and write ports, thus cell read stability is significantly improved. A 16Kb SRAM macro operating at 1V supply voltage is demonstrated in 65 nm CMOS process. Its read power consumption is reduced to 24% of the conventional design. The new cell also has lower leakage current due to its special bit-line pre-charge scheme. As a result, it is suitable for low-power mobile applications where power supply is restricted by the battery.
Superpixel-based salient region detection using the wavelet transform

Salient regions are the most dominant parts of an image, which capture human visual system's attention. Finding computational methods that are able to detect salient regions especially in images with messy background is a challenging task. In this paper, a novel segment-based saliency detection method using the wavelet transform is proposed. The human beings are attracted by objects or regions rather than individual pixels. Moreover, at pixel grid, a sudden change in a pixel from a cluttered scene obtains a high saliency value, whereas at segment grid, the saliency is determined by considering each pixel and its neighboring pixels. Thus, applying fast and efficient frequency transforms at the segment grid can improve the capability of the method in images with cluttered background or repeating distractors. The proposed method is evaluated on several images from a publicly available dataset of natural images. Experimental results show that the proposed method provides larger values of area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, precision-recall, and F-measure in comparison to some of the state-of-the-art methods.
Relationship of postoperative complications from preoperative biliary stents after pancreaticoduodenectomy. A new cohort analysis and meta-analysis of modern studies.

CONTEXT Debate still continues as to the effects of preoperative biliary stents on postoperative complications after pancreaticoduodenectomy. Some studies have documented increased wound infection rates, while others have not. The importance of this issue rests on whether these postoperative complications are detrimental enough to not recommend preoperative chemoradiation in the treatment of pancreatic cancer. OBJECTIVE This study is in two parts: 1) a retrospective review of patients who underwent pancreaticoduodenectomy at Henry Ford Hospital; and 2) a meta-analysis of published studies on the effects of preoperative biliary stents. METHODS In the retrospective portion, all patients who underwent pancreaticoduodenectomy from January 1st, 1997 through December 31st, 2006 were included in the study. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Data gathered included gender, age, pathologic diagnosis, use of preoperative biliary stent (either ERCP or PTC), all postoperative complications, and in-hospital mortality. In the meta-analysis portion, all studies published from 1990 with either a randomized or quasi-randomized allocation of patients were included. Endpoints analysis were peri-operative mortality, wound infection rate, intra-abdominal abscess rate, and overall morbidity rate. RESULTS In the retrospective portion, 181 patients were studied, with 123 (68.0%) of these having preoperative biliary stents. Patients with and without stents had no significant difference in wound infection rate (19.5% vs. 17.2%, respectively), intra-abdominal abscess rate (16.3% vs. 22.4%), any postoperative complication (50.4% vs. 51.7%) and in-hospital death (2.4% vs. 1.7%). Fifteen studies were included in the meta-analysis. There was variation in both the definitions of complications as well as the incidence of all postoperative endpoints among the studies. For peri-operative mortality and wound infection rate, the relative difference favored the no stent group by 0.5% (95% confidence interval: -0.4% to 1.4%) and 5.8% (95% confidence interval: 3.6% to 8.0%), respectively. For intra-abdominal abscess and overall morbidity rate, the relative difference favored the stent group by 2.0% (95% confidence interval: -0.3% to 4.3%) and 0.06% (95% confidence interval -3.8% to 3.9%), respectively. CONCLUSION Although the use of a preoperative biliary stent increases the postoperative wound infection rate by about 5%, there is no overwhelming evidence that it either promotes or protects from the other complications. As there was variation in the definitions used in these studies, a more uniformed system of complication reporting is required.
Abnormal concentrations of B vitamins and amino acids in plasma, bile, and liver of chicks with aflatoxicosis

Graded levels of aflatoxin fed to broiler chickens for 3 weeks decreased the levels of most B vitamins in plasma, bile, and liver and decreased all free and hydrolyzed amino acids from peptides in plasma. The levels of thiamine, riboflavin, vitamin B6, pantothenic acid, and choline decreased by more than 60% in bile; vitamin B6, pantothenic acid, and choline decreased by more than 49% in plasma; thiamine, vitamin B6, pantothenic acid, choline, folate, and niacin decreased by more than 19% in liver; and only bile and plasma levels of folate increased (78 and 12%, respectively) with a dietary level of 5 microgram of aflatoxin per g of feed. Plasma levels of cystine and cysteine, methionine, threonine, serine, and aspartic acid decreased by more than 37%, whereas valine, lysine, leucine, histidine, hydroxyproline, and alanine decreased by more than 9% with 2.5 microgram of aflatoxin per g of feed. The data suggest that aflatoxin interferes with the metabolism of B vitamins and amino acids in chicks. However, these changes may be measuring the effects of aflatoxin-induced hepatic necrosis.
Integration of Physical and Semantic Information in Object Processing

Physiological studies report independent processing pathways for form and colour information. A more-complex picture on human subjects has previously been reported. A sequential matching task was used that was based on a physical property of an object and in which semantic relations between stimuli were manipulated. Performance was affected by semantic information when matching was based on a property of the form of an object (its orientation, shape, or size). Effects of semantic information were eliminated when matching was based on the colour of a local part of an object but were found again when subjects matched pictures on the basis of the percentage of a colour integrated across the shape boundary. The results suggest independent selection mechanisms in vision in which selection by local colour can be based on inhibition of the form-processing pathway whilst processing of the global configuration of the form of an object activates automatically the identification process.
MR imaging of the myocardium using nonionic contrast medium: signal-intensity changes in patients with subacute myocardial infarction.

OBJECTIVE Gadodiamide injection (Omniscan, Sanofi Winthrop Pharmaceuticals, New York) is a new nonionic MR contrast medium that has been shown in animal studies to provide persistent differential enhancement of myocardial infarction. Because differential enhancement of normal and infarcted myocardium may be useful for the diagnosis and sizing of myocardial infarctions, we assessed the effectiveness of gadodiamide injection in enhancing signal-intensity differences between infarcted and normal myocardium on spin-echo T1-weighted images. SUBJECTS AND METHODS Signal intensity of normal and infarcted myocardium, contrast ratio, contrast-to-noise ratio, and signal-to-noise ratio were measured in 12 patients with subacute myocardial infarction (mean, 16 days after diagnosis) before and after injection of contrast medium. Precontrast T1-weighted and T2-weighted images were obtained with a 1.5-T MR imager. T1-weighted images were acquired 5, 15, and 30 min after gadodiamide injection (0.2 mmol/kg) and T1-weighted images with fat saturation were acquired 10 min after gadodiamide injection. RESULTS Gadodiamide injection significantly increased signal intensity of normal (34 +/- %) and infarcted (90 +/- %) myocardium compared with their signal intensities on precontrast T1-weighted images. The contrast ratio was significantly increased, and the augmented ratios persisted throughout the 45-min observation period. The contrast ratio on T2-weighted images was comparable to that on contrast-enhanced T1-weighted images (with or without the use of fat saturation). However, the signal-to-noise and contrast-to-noise ratios of T2-weighted images were significantly lower than those of contrast-enhanced T1-weighted images. The maximum contrast-to-noise ratio for visualizing myocardial infarction was achieved on contrast-enhanced T1-weighted images with fat saturation. CONCLUSION Improved and persistent contrast between infarcted and normal myocardium can be produced on MR images by injecting gadodiamide at a dose of 0.2 mmol/kg, which provides prolonged delineation of myocardial infarctions. Maximum contrast-to-noise ratios for detecting myocardial infarction can be produced by using fat-saturated T1-weighted imaging after a high dose of this nonionic contrast medium has been administered.
Effects of dairy intake on body weight and fat: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.

BACKGROUND Some intervention studies have suggested that dairy products may influence body weight, but the results remain controversial. OBJECTIVE We identified and quantified the effects of dairy consumption on body weight and fat mass from randomized controlled trials (RCTs). DESIGN We conducted a comprehensive search of PubMed and EMBASE databases (to April 2012) of English reports of RCTs regarding dairy consumption on body weight, body fat, or body weight and body fat in adults. The results across studies were pooled by using a random-effects meta-analysis. RESULTS Twenty-nine RCTs were included with a total of 2101 participants. Overall, consumption of dairy products did not result in a significant reduction in weight (-0.14 kg; 95% CI: -0.66, 0.38 kg; I² = 86.3%). In subgroup analysis, consumption of dairy products reduced body weight in the context of energy restriction or short-term intervention (<1 y) trials but had the opposite effect in ad libitum dietary interventions or long-term trials (≥1 y). Twenty-two RCTs that reported results on body fat showed a modest reduction in the dairy group (-0.45 kg; 95% CI: -0.79, -0.11 kg; I² = 70.9%), and further stratified analysis indicated significant beneficial effects of dairy intervention on body fat in energy-restricted or short-term trials but not in long-term or ad libitum studies. CONCLUSIONS This meta-analysis does not support the beneficial effect of increasing dairy consumption on body weight and fat loss in long-term studies or studies without energy restriction. However, dairy products may have modest benefits in facilitating weight loss in short-term or energy-restricted RCTs.
Does Porter Hypothesis Exist? - Take Major-Surveyed Industries in Jiangxi Province as an Example

With 2001-2008 panel data of major-surveyed industries in Jiangxi, we do the empirical test on industrial competitiveness, innovation capacity and environment protection capability of environmental policy regulation, to test Porter hypothesis. We find Pollution tax policy has the best performance, emission abatement investment policy be the second. While the "three simultaneous" implementation policy, administrative punishment policy and the policy of public partition do not play their roles because of the execution and coverage. Among them, the pollution emission tax policy elasticity on technology innovation and profit-cost ratio are 0.97 and 0.007; the elasticity on wastewater, waste gas, SO2 emission intensity are -1.47, -1.21, -1.37 respectively. All the conclusion is agree to Porter Hypothesis, so it is helpful to implement environment policy under low-carbon economy.
Performance evaluation of air-gap-based coaxial RF TSV for 3D NoC

In this paper, a novel air-gap-based coaxial Through Silicon Via (TSV) was proposed for on-chip RF interconnect, to fill up the increasing bandwidth gap between the demand and supply according for the 2007 International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors. Based on earlier work, the expressions of characteristic impedance, attenuation and bandwidth have been proposed. Consequently, we assume an 80 multi-core 3D Network-on-Chip (NoC) system with Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK) modulation, to evaluate energy per bit and area per Gbps of the proposed air-gap-based coaxial TSV. The result indicates that the energy dissipation and area consumption of the proposed one are 40∼50% and 10% better than the conventional dielectric RF TSV.
Pancreatic stem cells

β‐cell replacement therapy via islet transplantation has had renewed interest, due to the recent improved success. In order to make such a therapy available to more than a few of the thousands of patients with diabetes, new sources of insulin‐producing cells must be readily available. The recent conceptual revolution of the presence of adult pluripotent stem cells in bone marrow and in most, if not all, organs suggests that adult stem cells may be a potential source of insulin‐producing cells. Pancreatic stem/progenitor cells or markers for these cells have been sought in both islets and ducts. There is considerable evidence that such cells exist and several candidate cells have been reported. However, no clearly identifiable adult pancreatic stem cell has been found as yet. The putative pancreatic stem cells will be the focus of this review. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Statistical Saliency Model incorporating motion saliency and an application to driving

This thesis extends the Statistical Saliency Model to include motion as a feature, enabling it to compute the saliency of video sequences more effectively. The motion feature is represented as optical flow and incorporated into the model. The model is validated by testing its capability in predicting reaction time performance in a driving simulator. We find that the model does help predict reaction time and some eye-movements in some simulated driving tasks.
ON RAMSEY TECHNIQUES IN QUANTITATIVE METRIC GEOMETRY: THE MINIMUM DISTORTION NEEDED TO EMBED A BINARY TREE INTO `P

It is commonly said that a result is typical of the Ramsey theory, if in any finite coloring of some mathematical object one can extract a sub-object (usually having some kind of desired structure), which is monochromatic. In this essay we discuss in detail a clever Ramseytype argument due to Jiří Matoušek utilized in the context of embedding theory. Namely, to study the smallest constant C = C (n) for which a complete binary tree of height n can be C embedded into a given uniformly convex Banach space. As a consequence, the quantitative lower bound of const · (logn)min(1/2,1/p) in the distortion needed to embed this space into `p (for 1 < p <∞) is explained. 1. A GLIMPSE TO RAMSEY-TYPE RESULTS AND BOURGAIN’S WORK ON BINARY TREES Let us begin with a seemingly banal but enlightening question: How many people should be on a party to ensure that three of them are either mutual acquaintances (each one knows the other two) or mutual strangers (each one does not know either of the other two)? This query is usually known as the problem of friends and strangers. For our purposes, it is convenient to phrase this question in a graph-theoretic language. Denote by n the number of people at the party and suppose that each person is represented by a vertex of a complete graph (a simple undirected graph in which every pair of distinct vertices is connected by a unique edge) Kn of order n. Given two partygoers (or vertices), we paint in red the edge that links them if they know each other and in blue otherwise. Therefore, our problem translates into the following: How big n must be to assert the existence of a complete subgraph of order 3 in Kn painted entirely in red or blue? Ramsey’s classical theorem [Ram30] points in the same direction as this question. Colloquially speaking, it states that in any coloring of the edges (using a palette with a finite number of colors) of a sufficiently large complete graph, one will find monochromatic (i.e., of the same color) complete subgraphs. This foundational tool in combinatorics initiated a new perspective that is now framed as part of the Ramsey theory. But what exactly do people mean
An Accident Severity Classification Model Based on Multi-Objective Particle Swarm Optimization

SUMMARY Reducing accident severity is an e ﬀ ective way to improve road safety. In the literature of accident severity analysis, two main disadvantages exist: most studies use classiﬁcation accuracy to measure the quality of a classiﬁer which is not appropriate in the condition of unbalanced dataset; the other is the results are not easy to be interpreted by users. Aiming at these drawbacks, a novel multi-objective particle swarm optimization (MOPSO) method is proposed to identify the contributing factors that impact accident severity. By employing Pareto dominance concept, a set of Pareto optimal rules can be obtained by MOPSO automatically, without any pre-deﬁned threshold or variables. Then the rules are used to form a non-ordered classiﬁer. A MOPSO is applied to discover a set of Pareto optimal rules. The accident data of Beijing between 2008 and 2010 are used to build the model. The proposed approach is compared with several rule learning algorithms. The results show the proposed approach can generate a set of accurate and comprehensible rules which can indicate the relationship between risk factors and accident severity.