bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Volatile Oil Content of Scots Pine Needles (Pinus sylvestris L.)
Authors: Sporek Monika 
Published: February 2017

Abstract
This study focused on how the concentration of volatile oils in Scots Pine needles varied in relation to the age of the trees, the age of the needles and their location within the canopy. Study material were pine needles from 15-, 44- and 89-year-old pine stands. The mean content of oils increased with the age of trees. The averaged oil content in needles was: 0.46% in the 15-year-old stand, 0.55% in the 44-year-old and 0.61% in the 89-year-old stands. The mean content of volatile oils decreased with the age of the needles. 1-year-old needles contained the highest concentration of volatile oils (0.56%), and the 3-year-old needles contained the least (0.48%). In 15-year-old stands the oil content in needles increased linearly with their height in the canopy. In 44-year-old (age class IIb) and 89-year-old (age class Va) stands oil content was greater lower in the canopy than in the middle.
Menthol Cigarettes, Time to First Cigarette, and Smoking Cessation
Authors: Sanders Edward , Weitkunat Rolf , Dempsey Ruth 
Published: February 2017

Summary
The goal of the present work is to determine if menthol and non-menthol cigarette smokers differ with respect to time to first cigarette (TTFC) and successful smoking cessation via a meta-analysis of published results. For 13 independent estimates, menthol smokers were slightly but statistically significantly more likely to exhibit TTFC ≤ 5 min (random-effects odds ratio (OR) = 1.12; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.04–1.21), while 17 independent estimates provided a non-significant difference for TTFC ≤ 30 min (random-effects OR = 1.06; 95% CI, 0.96–1.16). For cessation studies, meta-analysis of 30 published estimates indicated a decreased likelihood for menthol cigarette smokers to quit (random-effects OR = 0.87; 95% CI, 0.80–0.96). There was no difference between cessation rates for Caucasian menthol and non-menthol cigarette smokers, but the results support that African American menthol cigarette smokers find it more difficult to quit. Adjustment of cessation for socioeconomic status eliminated any statistically significant advantage for smoking cessation in non-menthol smokers. In conclusion, these results suggest that the observed differences in cessation rates between menthol and non-menthol cigarette smokers are likely explained by differences in socioeconomic status and also suggest that TTFC may not be a robust predictor of successful smoking cessation.
The Smoking Mind: A Psycho-Cognitive Perspective
Authors: Masiero Marianna , Renzi Chiara , Pravettoni Gabriella 
Published: February 2017

Summary
Smoking behavior involves not only a biological addiction, but also psycho-cognitive components. This runs from smoking initiation, through to maintaining, attempts at quitting, and relapse. This perspective is an important element in studying and intervening in smoking behaviors. The main aim of this narrative review is to explore tobacco cigarette smoking behavior, considering the pivotal role of cognitive mechanisms embedded in decision-making and in risk judgment, with particular attention to the so-called Optimistic Bias (OB). The mechanisms through which this fallacy supports smoking initiation and continuance are explored, considering the transition from young to adult smokers and the case of light and intermittent smokers. Furthermore, additional cognitive mechanisms associated with the OB, which sustain smoking behavior and prevent the efficacy of smoking cessation, are described. Finally, a stimulus for reflection and for discussion about how the impact of the cognitive bias perspective in tobacco cigarette smoking is provided, focusing on how it could support tailored interventions, both in smoking initiation prevention in adolescents and young adults, as well as in smoking cessation in high-risk categories.
Development of Models for the Estimation of Mouth Level Exposure to Aerosol Constituents from a Heat-Not-Burn Tobacco Product Using Mouthpiece Analysis
Authors: Poget Laurent , Campelos Pedro , Jeannet Cyril , Maeder Serge 
Published: February 2017

Summary
Philip Morris International has developed a heat-not-burn tobacco heating system (THS 2.2) that produces an aerosol without combustion. Adult smokers are anticipated to use the product with differing behaviors, such as puffing volume or puffing frequency, therefore it was important to find an easy way to study how users are exposed to the aerosol constituents. Thus, the intended outcome of this study was to propose and assess a simple approach for the estimation of THS users’ exposure to harmful and potentially harmful constituents (HPHCs).
THS operates using tobacco sticks (HeatSticks) that include a mouthpiece and a tobacco plug which, when heated, generates an aerosol. The analysis of nicotine retained in the mouthpiece of the HeatSticks during use was identified as a potential approach to estimate users’ mouth level exposure (MLE) to HPHCs. Consequently, the following study was conducted with the objectives 1.) to assess the correlation between the quantity of retained nicotine in the mouthpiece (Nicotine MP) of the HeatSticks and the nicotine delivered in the aerosol of machine-smoked products, 2.) to verify the practical range for Nicotine MP based on the analysis of used HeatSticks left by THS users, and 3.) to develop models describing the relationship between Nicotine MP and specific aerosol constituents measured in the aerosol of machine-smoked products.
The regular non-mentholated HeatSticks variant was machine-smoked under various smoking regimens to cover the range of anticipated human puffing behaviors. The suitability of this practical range of machine-smoking conditions was verified by collecting used HeatSticks from two different trials conducted with THS users. The determined Nicotine MP distribution indicated that the machine-smoked regimens encompassed the range observed for users.
Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) combined with a stepwise approach was used for selecting models describing the relationship between Nicotine MP and specific aerosol constituents. The stepwise approach interactively explores which amongst various tested predictors provides a good fit. The developed models showed good adjusted coefficients of determination (i.e., R2 adj. ≥ 0.75) for 28 out of the 43 investigated HPHCs.
Previously published studies showed that actual MLE can be estimated from cigarette filter analysis. This study demonstrated that the analysis of nicotine in THS mouthpiece (filter section) corresponded to an estimation of the upper limits of MLE, in line with maximum possible usage conditions.
Genetic polymorphisms of cytochrome P450 enzymes: CYP2C9, CYP2C19, CYP2D6, CYP3A4, and CYP3A5 in the Croatian population
Authors: Ganoci Lana , Božina Tamara , Mirošević Skvrce Nikica , Lovrić Mila , Mas Petar , Božina Nada 
Published: February 2017

Abstract

Background:
Data on the frequency of pharmacogenetic polymorphisms in the Croatian population are limited. We determined and analyzed frequencies for the most important CYP2C9, CYP2C19, CYP2D6, CYP3A4, and CYP3A5 genetic variants in the Croatian population.

Methods:
2637 subjects were included. Genotyping was performed by real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) using TaqMan® DME or TaqMan® SNP Genotyping Assays, and by PCR, and PCR-RFLP analysis.

Results:
For CYP2C9, allele frequencies of *2 and *3 variant were 14.5% and 7.6%, respectively. Among them, 3.98% of subjects were predicted to be poor metabolizers. For CYP2C19, the most frequent variant alleles were *2 (14.8%), and *17 (23.7%), while 2.4% of subjects were predicted to be poor metabolizers, and 5.39% were homozygous carriers of *17 predicted to be ultrarapid metabolizers (UM). For CYP2D6, the frequencies of tested variant alleles were *3 (2.2%), *4 (17.4%), *5 (1%), *6 (1.1%), and *41 (10.8%). Out of these, 5.59% were predicted to be poor metabolizers, 3.19% were classified as UM while 1.0% were carriers of variant alleles duplications (undefined phenotype). For CYP3A4 allele frequencies of *1B and *22 variants were 1.4% and 2.7%, respectively. Allele frequency of CYP3A5*3 was 95.5%. Analyzing CYP3A cluster according to the combination of CYP3A4*22 and CYP3A5*3 revealed 5.34% of subjects to be poor metabolizers, while 8.66% were classified as extensive metabolizers.

Conclusions:
The frequency of the CYP allelic variants, genotypes, and predicted phenotypes in the Croatian population is in accordance with the other European populations, between the values of published data for Middle European and Mediterranean populations.
Diagnoses in and out of time: historical and medical perspectives on the diagnoses of distress
Authors: Pietikainen Petteri , Turunen Jari 
Published: February 2017

AbstractFocusing on the medical approach to the subjective forms of distress, this article has a three-fold argument. First, the historical starting point of diagnosing distress was neurasthenia during the last two decades of the 19th century. Second, the diagnosis of neurasthenia that initially contained more somatic than mental symptoms was gradually replaced by the more psychologically conceptualized neuroses. Such a psychiatrization of neurosis gradually separated mental and somatic syndromes into two distinct diagnostic categories, those of mental and somatic. Third, when modern “neuroses” are seen in the framework of distress rather than disease, it provides tools for new kinds of interventions, in which the principal aim is to alleviate the subjective distress with all possible and reasonable means and methods. As the social context constitutes a crucial “etiology” to medicalized forms of distress, we need new, context-based approaches to both analyze and alleviate such distress. In our historical and medical approach to these “diagnoses of distress”, we are guided by the belief that analyzing diagnostic categories can provide important insight into the mechanisms behind our changing conceptions of health and wellbeing.
An Empirical Propagation Model for Corridors in Office Buildings
Authors: Kosz Paweł 
Published: February 2017

Abstract
This paper presents an empirical propagation path loss model for corridors in office buildings. The proposed model estimates changeable character of radio signal attenuation, based on a special approach as a combination of the simple free-space model with the author’s model. The measurement stand and measurement scenario are described. The propagation path loss research have been made in corridor for different frequencies in range 30 MHz to 290 MHz. A significant number of measurement results were allowed an analysis of the radio wave propagation conditions in the environment. In general, the propagation path loss increases for each measurement frequencies with length of propagation route. Based on measurement data, the new empirical propagation path loss model was developed. For this purpose, the regression analysis was made. The novelty of this model is that it could be used for estimate propagation path loss in measured environment for different radio wave frequencies. At the end, in order to justification the practical usefulness of described method for estimate a radio wave attenuation, the statistical evaluation was made. Thus, the results of the statistical analysis (ME, SEE and R2 values) are satisfactory for each measured radio wave frequency.
Metrological Properties of the Test Setup for Determination Shielding Effectiveness of the Industrial Cable Connectors
Authors: Kopka Ryszard , Tarczyński Wiesław , Pluta Sławomir 
Published: February 2017

Abstract
The paper presents results related to assessment of the repeatability and reproducibility of the measurement test setup for determination the relative value of the shielding effectiveness coefficient of the industrial connectors. The construction of the proposed test setup, the measurement method and the procedure for the analysis of measurement results were described. To determine the value of the repeatability and reproducibility coefficient, the two–way analysis of variance was used, which additionally allows for an assessment of the influence of individual sources of variance. The measurements and their analysis were conducted for several frequencies in the range up to 1 GHz. Additionally, the expanded measurement uncertainty, including the test setup and instruments uncertainty was estimated.
Ultra-wide-angle Wireless Endoscope with a Backend-camera-controller Architecture
Authors: Shim Dongha , Yi Jason 
Published: February 2017

Abstract
This paper presents a wireless endoscope with an ultra-wide FOV (Field of View) of 130° and HD resolution (1280×720 pixels). The proposed endoscope consists of a camera head, cable, camera controller, and wireless handle. The lens module with a 150° degrees AOV (Angle of View) is achieved using the plastic injection-molding process to reduce manufacturing costs. A serial CMOS image sensor using the MIPI (Mobile Industry Processor Interface) CSI-2 (Camera Serial Interface-2) interface physically separates the camera processor from the camera head. The camera head and the cable have a compact structure due to the BCC (Backend-Camera-Controller) architecture. The size of the camera head and the camera controller is 8×8×26 mm and 7×55 mm, respectively. The wireless handle supports a UWB (Ultra-Wide-Band) or a Wi-Fi communication to transmit video data. The UWB link supports a maximum data transfer rate of ~37 Mbps to transmit video data with a resolution of 1280×720 pixels at a frame rate of 30 fps in the MJPEG (Motion JPEG) format. Although the Wi-Fi link provides a lower data transfer rate (~8 Mbps Max.), it has the advantage of flexible interoperability with various mobile devices. The latency of the UWB link is measured to be ~0.1 sec. The Wi-Fi link has a larger latency (~0.5 sec) due to its lower data transfer rate. The proposed endoscope demonstrates the feasibility of a high-performance yet low-cost wireless endoscope using the BCC architecture. To the best of the author’s knowledge, the proposed endoscope has the largest FOV among all presently existing wireless endoscopes.
Effects of Triangular Core Rotation of a Hybrid Porous Core Terahertz Waveguide
Authors: Ali Sharafat , Ahmed Nasim , Alwee Syed , Islam Monirul , Rana Sohel , Bhuiyan Touhid 
Published: February 2017

Abstract
In this paper, we investigate the effects for rotating the triangular core air hole arrangements of a hybrid design porous core fiber. The triangular core has been rotated in anti-clockwise direction to evaluate the impact on different waveguide properties. Effective Material Loss (EML), confinement loss, bending loss, dispersion characteristics and fraction of power flow are calculated to determine the impacts for rotating the triangular core. The porous fiber represented here has a hybrid design in the core area which includes circular rings with central triangular air hole arrangement. The cladding of the investigated fiber has a hexagonal array of air hole distribution. For optimum parameters the reported hybrid porous core fiber shows a flat EML of ±0.000416 cm−1 from 1.5 to 5 terahertz (THz) range and a near zero dispersion of 0.4±0.042 ps/THz/cm from 1.25 to 5.0 THz. Negligible confinement and bending losses are reported for this new type of hybrid porous core design. With improved concept of air hole distribution and exceptional waveguide properties, the reported porous core fiber can be considered as a vital forwarding step in this field of research.
Artificial Neural Network Approach to Mobile Location Estimation in GSM Network
Authors: Ezema Longinus S. , Ani Cosmas I. 
Published: February 2017

AbstractThe increase in utilisation of mobile location-based services for commercial, safety and security purposes among others are the key drivers for improving location estimation accuracy to better serve those purposes. This paper proposes the application of Levenberg Marquardt training algorithm on new robust multilayered perceptron neural network architecture for mobile positioning fitting for the urban area in the considered GSM network using received signal strength (RSS). The key performance metrics such as accuracy, cost, reliability and coverage are the major points considered in this paper. The technique was evaluated using real data from field measurement and the results obtained proved the proposed model provides a practical positioning that meet Federal Communication Commission (FCC) accuracy requirement.
Cloud Cooperated Heterogeneous Cellular Networks for Delayed Offloading using Millimeter Wave Gates
Authors: Mohamed Ehab Mahmoud 
Published: February 2017

Abstract
Increasing the capacity of wireless cellular network is one of the major challenges for the coming years. A lot of research works have been done to exploit the ultra-wide band of millimeter wave (mmWave) and integrate it into future cellular networks. In this paper, to efficiently utilize the mmWave band while reducing the total deployment cost, we propose to deploy the mmWave access in the form of ultra-high capacity mmWave gates distributed in the coverage area of the macro basestation (Macro BS). Delayed offloading is also proposed to proficiently exploit the gates and relax the demand of deploying a large number of them. Furthermore, a mobility-aware weighted proportional fair (WPF) user scheduling is proposed to maximize the intra-gate offloading efficiency while maintaining the long-term offloading fairness among the users inside the gate. To efficiently link the mmWave gates with the Macro BS in a unified cellular network structure, a cloud cooperated heterogeneous cellular network (CC-HetNet) is proposed. In which, the gates and the Macro BS are linked to the centralized radio access network (C-RAN) via high-speed backhaul links. Using the concept of control/user (C/U) plane splitting, signaling information is sent to the UEs through the wide coverage Macro BS, and most of users’ delayed traffic is offloaded through the ultra-high capacity mmWave gates. An enhanced access network discovery and selection function (eANDSF) based on a network wide proportional fair criterion is proposed to discover and select an optimal mmWave gate to associate a user with delayed traffic. It is interesting to find out that a mmWave gate consisting of only 4 mmWave access points (APs) can offload up to 70 GB of delayed traffic within 25 sec, which reduces the energy consumption of a user equipment (UE) by 99.6 % compared to the case of only using Macro BS without gate offloading. Also, more than a double increase in total gates offloaded bytes is obtained using the proposed eANDSF over using the conventional ANDSF proposed by 3GPP due to the optimality in selecting the associating gate.
Power Allocation for Energy-Harvesting-based Fading Cognitive Multiple Access Channels: with or without Successive Interference Cancellation
Authors: Li Qun , Xu Ding 
Published: February 2017

Abstract
This paper considers a fading cognitive multiple access channel (CMAC), where multiple secondary users (SUs), who share the spectrum with a primary user (PU), transmit to a cognitive base station (CBS). A power station is assumed to harvest energy from the nature and then provide power to the SUs. We investigate the power allocation problems for such a CMAC to maximize the SU sum rate under the interference power constraint, the sum transmit power constraint and the peak transmit power constraint of each individual SU. In particular, two scenarios are considered: with successive interference cancellation (SIC) and without SIC. For the first scenario, the optimal power allocation algorithm is derived. For the second scenario, a heuristic algorithm is proposed. We show that the proposed algorithm with SIC outperforms the algorithm without SIC in terms of the SU sum rate, while the algorithm without SIC outperforms the algorithm with SIC in terms of the number of admitted SUs for a high sum transmit power limit and a low peak transmit power limit of each individual SU.
Saleh’s Model of AM/AM and AM/PM Conversions is not a Model without Memory – Another Proof
Authors: Borys Andrzej 
Published: February 2017

Abstract
The so-called Saleh’s representation for description of the AM/AM and AM/PM conversions, occurring in communication power amplifiers, consists of two expressions that describe them as functions of a real-valued baseband signal modulating the carrier amplitude. It is a common view that this description forms a model without memory. We show here that the above belief is not correct; just the opposite is true. To prove this, we take into account an equivalent description of the Saleh’s model called the quadrature model of bandpass nonlinearities and express it in a form of a nonlinear operator. Afterwards, we check whether this operator possesses a zero memory. To this end, we use an appropriate theorem of the nonlinear systems theory. Finally, as a result of this investigation, we observe that the memory of the above operator is nonzero.
Improved Water-Filling Power Allocation for Energy-Efficient Massive MIMO Downlink Transmissions
Authors: Noor Shahida M. K , Nordin Rosdiadee , Ismail Mahamod 
Published: February 2017

Abstract
Energy Efficiency (EE) is becoming increasingly important for wireless communications and has caught more attention due to steadily rising energy costs and environmental concerns. Recently, a new network architecture known as Massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) has been proposed with the remarkable potential to achieve huge gains in EE with simple linear processing. In this paper, a power allocation algorithm is proposed for EE to achieve the optimal EE in Massive MIMO. Based on the simplified expression, we develop a new algorithm to compute the optimal power allocation algorithm and it has been compared with the existing scheme from the previous literature. An improved water filling algorithm is proposed and embedded in the power allocation algorithm to maximize EE and Spectral Efficiency (SE). The numerical analysis of the simulation results indicates an improvement of 40% in EE and 50% in SE at the downlink transmission, compared to the other existing schemes. Furthermore, the results revealed that SE does not influence the EE enhancement after using the proposed algorithm as the number of Massive MIMO antenna at the Base Station (BS) increases.
Investigation of dynamic routing and spectrum allocation methods in elastic optical networks
Authors: Biernacka Edyta , Domżał Jerzy , Wójcik Robert 
Published: February 2017

Abstract
The introduction of flexible frequency grids and advanced modulation techniques to optical transmission, namely an elastic optical network, requires new routing and spectrum allocation techniques. In this paper, we investigate dynamic two-step routing and spectrum allocation (RSA) methods for elastic optical networks. K-shortest path-based methods as well as spectrum allocation methods are analysed and discussed. Experimental verification of the investigated techniques is provided using simulation software. Simulation results present effectiveness of routing and spectrum allocation methods for analyzed networks using requested bandwidth of connections. Moreover, performance of shortest path first methods improves considerably when a number of candidate paths increases in the UBN24 topology.
Image Quality Assessment Using Edge Correlation
Authors: Ruikar Jayesh , Sinha Ashoke , Chaudhury Saurabh 
Published: February 2017

Abstract
In literature, oriented filters are used for low-level vision tasks. In this paper, we propose use of steerable Gaussian filter in image quality assessment. Human visual system is more sensitive to multidirectional edges present in natural images. The most degradation in image quality is caused due to its edges. In this work, an edge based metric termed as steerable Gaussian filtering (SGF) quality index is proposed as objective measure for image quality assessment. The performance of the proposed technique is evaluated over multiple databases. The experimental result shows that proposed method is more reliable and outperform the conventional image quality assessment method.