Tie-strength has been in the focus of social science research for decades, yet the use of measurement tools or scales has been relatively scarce. The aim of this study was to fill the gap and provide a tool that is able to provide a quantitative and continuous measure of tie strength in social networks. The focus was on virtual communities because the fast expansion of Internet use and the cons...

BACKGROUND Periodic cycles in the serotype-specific incidence of invasive pneumococcal disease have been described but less is known in carriage. METHODS We analyzed serotype carriage prevalence among children 0-6 years old over a 15-year period that included pre-PCV7 data and a decade of PCV7 use. Mixed generalized additive models were used to study periodic cycles and how PCV7 impacted on t...

Increased environmental awareness has promoted the need for improved feedlot runoff control. The use of vegetative treatment systems (VTSs) to control and treat feedlot runoff may enhance environmental security and protect water quality. Knowledge of effluent nutrient concentrations throughout the vegetative treatment system is required to evaluate impact on water quality and system performance...

In this paper we describe a new framework of feature compensation for robust speech recognition. We introduce Delta-Cepstrum Normalization (DCN) that normalizes not only cepstral coefficients, but also their time-derivatives. In previous work, the mean and the variance of cepstral coefficients are normalized to reduce the irrelevant information, but such a normalization was not applied to time-...

This article proposes a new collision avoidance decision method for ships, allowing ships at risk of collision to take timely collision avoidance measures to ensure safe passage. Through vessel traffic service (VTS) collision alert system, an analysis can be made for the probability of a ship collision and an early warning can be issued. For ships in potential collision danger, the proposed met...

Han C, Pogwizd SM, Killingsworth CR, He B. Noninvasive reconstruction of the three-dimensional ventricular activation sequence during pacing and ventricular tachycardia in the canine heart. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol 302: H244–H252, 2012. First published October 7, 2011; doi:10.1152/ajpheart.00618.2011.—Single-beat imaging of myocardial activation promises to aid in both cardiovascular res...

Background: This study aimed to investigate differences in sucking behavior of infants bottle-fed with vented (socalled anticolic) teats (VTs) and nonvented teats (NVTs). Methods: Trial design: Prospective, randomized clinical trial. Ninety-six term, healthy infants (aged 1–8 months) were assessed for eligibility. Seventy-three infants remained for intention-to-treat (ITT) and 65 infants (vente...

OBJECTIVES This study evaluates whether contrast-enhanced (CE) cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) can be used to identify critical isthmus sites for ventricular tachycardia (VT) in ischemic and nonischemic heart disease. BACKGROUND Fibrosis interspersed with viable myocytes may cause re-entrant VT. CE-CMR has the ability to accurately delineate fibrosis. METHODS Patients who underwent VT abla...

BACKGROUND Both breastfeeding pattern and duration are associated with postnatal HIV acquisition; their relative contribution has not been reliably quantified. METHODOLOGY AND PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Pooled data from 2 cohorts: in urban West Africa where breastfeeding cessation at 4 months was recommended but exclusive breastfeeding was rare (Ditrame Plus, DP); in rural South Africa where high rat...