A Longitudinal Study of Factors that Affect User Interactions with Social Media and Email Spam

Given the rapid growth of social media and the increasing prevalence of spam, it is crucial to understand users’ interactions with unsolicited content to develop effective countermeasures against spam. This thesis focuses on exploring the factors that influence users’ decisions to interact with spam on social media and email. It builds upon prior work, which serves as a foundation for further research and conducting a longitudinal analysis. Our results are based on the analysis of 221 responses collected through an online survey. The survey not only gathered demographic information such as age, gender, and race but also collected data on education, spam training, interaction with spam, and experiences of being a victim of spam. With about 87% of respondents stating they sometimes, often, or always encounter spam on social media, only 23% interact with it sometimes, often, or always before knowing it was spam, and 10% sometimes, often, or always interact with social media spam after knowing it was spam. Of the 75% of the respondents who stated that they sometimes, often, or always encounter email spam, approximately 13% of the respondents stated that they sometimes, often, or always interact with email spam before knowing it is spam, and 6%s stated that they sometimes, often, or always interact with email spam after knowing it is spam. Although only 38% of the users stated that they may have been victims of social media spam and 21% stated that they may have been victims of email spam. Among the factors analyzed, only age had an effect on reporting email spam, but not social media spam. A STEM education was found to reduce the likelihood of being a victim of both social media and email spam, as well as reduce the likelihood of interacting with both email and social media spam, but only before users knew they were interacting with spam. Interestingly, formal spam training did not show any statistical significance in determining how users interact with, report, or become victims of social media spam, although there was an effect when observing the identification of email spam. To quantify the effect of different factors on individuals falling victim to spam on social media and email, a logistic regression analysis was performed. The research findings suggest that individuals with a higher attained degree and a STEM background are the least likely to be victims of spam

EXTERNAL BARREL TEMPERATURE OF A SMALL BORE OLYMPIC RIFLE

Investigations on changes in a rifle’s barrel temperature during shooting in a rhythm typical for practitioners of Olympic shooting sports are presented. Walther KK300 (cal. 5.6 mm), a typical rifle often used in Olympic competitions, R50 RWS ammunition and a high speed thermographic camera were used in the study. Altair version 5 software was used to process thermal images and a stationary wavelet transform was applied to denoise signals for all the studied points. It was found that the temperature of the rifle barrel does not exceed 0.3°C after one shot whereas the total temperature increase does not exceed 5°C after taking 40 shots and does not affect the position of the hitting point on a target. In fact, contrary to popular belief, the so-called “warming shots” are not done for barrel heating but for cleaning of remnants in the barrel

Dyskeratosis congenita as a multifaceted bone marrow disorder

Dyskeratosis congenita (DC) is a rare multisystem clinical entity caused by genetic mutations associated with telomere biology disorder. The symptoms include bone marrow dysfunction as well as skin and mucosal abnormalities. In severe cases, DC is characterized by high mortality rates among children. In milder subtypes, it is less detectable in adults, due to the occurrence of cryptic forms of the disease. To date, more than 15 mutated genes have been shown as causative for DC. The aim of this study was to provide a brief description of the currently known clinical and genetic characteristics of DC, and to elucidate the molecular pathogenesis

Agent-based hierarchical approach for executing bag-of-tasks in clouds

Numerous unrelated, independent (no inter-task communication) tasks called “bag-oftasks”(BoTs) compared with message passing applications can be highly parallelised andexecuted in any acceptable order. A common practice when executing bag-of-tasks applications(BoT) is to exploit the master-slave topology. Cloud environments offer some featuresthat facilitate executing BoT applications. One of the approaches to control cloud resourcesis to use agents that can flexibly act in a dynamic environment. Given these assumptions wedesigned a combination of these approaches, which can be classified as: a distributed, hierarchicalsolution to the issue of scalable executing of bag-of-tasks. The concept of our systemrelates to a project that is focused on processing huge quantities of data incoming from anetwork of sensors by the Internet. Our aim is to create a mechanism for processing such dataas a system which executes jobs while exploiting load balancing for cloud resources using,e.g., Eucalyptus. The idea is to create a hybrid architecture which takes advantage of somecentralized parts of the system and full distributedness in other parts. On the other handwe balance dependencies between the system components using a hierarchic master-slavestructure

Superficial brachial artery : a case report with commentaries on the classification

Variations of the brachial plexus and median nerve relationships with the axillary and brachial artery may be significant to anatomists, radiologists, anesthesiologists, and surgeons. In some cases, the coexistence of anatomical variations of the nerves and vessels may also be a source of conflict between individual structures, e. g., entrapment neuropathy of the median nerve due to atypical (superficial to the nerve) course of the brachial artery. The presented report describes coexisting anatomical variations in the neurovascular topography within the axillary fossa, arm, forearm, and hand. The presence of the superficial brachial artery originating from the second part of the axillary artery was observed. Atypical common steam for the subscapularis, posterior humeral circumflex, double profunda brachii, and superior ulnar collateral arteries was also found deep to the median nerve roots. In the forearm, the persistent median artery contributing to the blood supply of the hand was exposed. The classification issues were also discussed

Myocardial Ischaemia, Coronary Atherosclerosis and Pulmonary Pressure Elevation in Antiphospholipid Syndrome Patients

Thrombotic events in antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) involve venous and arterial circulation with the possible involvement of coronary or pulmonary microcirculation.To evaluate the influence of antiphospholipid antibodies (aPL) and on myocardial ischaemia assessed by single-photon emission computerized tomography (SPECT), coronary atherosclerosis assessed by multidetector computerized tomography (MDCT) and pulmonary pressure assessed by transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) in patients with primary antiphospholipid syndrome (PAPS).TTE, SPECT (Tc 99m sestamibi) and MDCT-based coronary calcium scoring were performed in 26 consecutive PAPS patients (20 females, 6 males, aged 20-61, mean 39.7) without any signs of other autoimmunological disease and without clinical symptoms of heart disease.Out of 26 patients, TEE showed normal left and right ventricle function in 25 (96.2%) and elevated (≥ 30 mm Hg) right ventricle systolic pressure in 7 (26.9%) patients. SPECT revealed myocardial perfusion defects in 15 (57.7%) patients: exercise-induced in 6 (23.1%) and persistent in 11 (42.3%). MDCT revealed coronary calcifications in 4 (15.4%) patients. The number of plaques ranged from 1 to 11 (median 2), volume 3-201.7 mm³ (median 7), calcium scores 1.3-202.6 (median 5.7). In the group with perfusion defects or coronary calcifications (n = 15), all the patients showed elevated aCL IgG.In most of the relatively young APS patients, without any symptoms of ischemic heart disease, SPECT showed myocardial perfusion defects, and coronary calcifications in 1/6 of them. Right ventricle systolic pressure was elevated in 1/4 of APS patients. These pathologies, well known as cardiovascular risk markers, were associated with elevated levels of the IgG class of both anti-cardiolipin and antiB2 GPI antibodies. Thus, in a high percentage of APS patients, clinically silent myocardial ischaemia, pulmonary pressure elevation and coronary atherosclerosis are present and related to the presence of antiphospholipid antibodies

Right ventricular dysfunction in hypertensive patients - analysis by tissue Doppler echocardiography

Wstęp Związek nadciśnienia tętniczego z dysfunkcją rozkurczową, a w zaawansowanych okresach choroby - również z dysfunkcją skurczową lewej komory, (LV) jest dobrze udokumentowany. Mniej znany jest wpływ choroby nadciśnieniowej na czynność prawej komory (RV). Wyniki badań w innych zespołach chorobowych sugerują, że przydatną techniką w ocenie RV może być tkankowa echokardiografia doplerowska (TDI). Ocena skurczowej i rozkurczowej funkcji prawej komory serca u chorych z nadciśnieniem tętniczym stanowiła cel pracy. Materiał i metody Do badania włączono 102 pacjentów z rozpoznanym nadciśnieniem tętniczym (grupa HT) w wieku 57,8 &plusmn; 12,7 roku, w tym 45 kobiet i 57 mężczyzn. Grupę kontrolną (CG) stanowiły 33 zdrowe osoby w wieku 58,2 &plusmn; 7,9 roku, w tym 17 kobiet i 16 mężczyzn. U wszystkich uczestników badania wykonano echokardiografię, w której oceniano wymiary jam i grubości ścian LV i RV, frakcję wyrzutową LV, masę mięśnia LV i wskaźnik masy LV, parametry funkcji RV w doplerze pulsacyjnym - prędkość maksymalną fali wczesnego napływu (E), prędkość maksymalną w czasie skurczu przedsionka (A), stosunek E/A, wskaźnik Tei oraz parametry funkcji skurczowej i rozkurczowej LV i RV przy użyciu TDI - maksymalną prędkość skurczową (Sm), maksymalną prędkość wczesnorozkurczową (Em), maksymalną prędkość późnorozkurczową (Am) oraz czas relaksacji izowolumetrycznej (IRTm). Wyniki W grupie HT, w porównaniu z CG, stwierdzono większą grubość przegrody międzykomorowej i tylnej ściany LV oraz większą masę mięśnia LV (p < 0,001), bez różnic w pozostałych parametrach standardowego badania echokardiograficznego. W analizie wyników badania TDI w odniesieniu do LV w grupie HT wykazano niższe wartości Sm, Em, Em/Am oraz wydłużony czas IRTm. Ocena parametrów dotyczących RV nie wykazała istotnych różnic między badanymi grupami w zakresie E, E/A oraz Sm. Natomiast w grupie HT wyższy był wskaźnik Tei, niższe wartości Em, Em/Am oraz dłuższy czas IRTm, co wskazuje na upośledzoną funkcję rozkurczową RV. W analizie metodą regresji wielokrotnej krokowej postępującej niezależnym czynnikiem predykcyjnym dla RV Em była jedynie wartość Em dla przegrody międzykomorowej. Wnioski Obecność nadciśnienia tętniczego wiąże się z upośledzoną funkcją rozkurczową RV ocenianą z użyciem tkankowej echokardiografii doplerowskiej. Metoda ta wydaje się mieć większą przydatność klinicznej niż konwencjonalne techniki echokardiograficzną w ocenie funkcji RV w nadciśnieniu tętniczym.Background There is a well documented association between arterial hypertension and left ventricular diastolic and (in more advanced stages) systolic dysfunction. Conversely, less is known about the influence of hypertension on right ventricular (RV) function. The results of studies in other disease states suggest that tissue Doppler imaging (TDI) may be useful in evaluation of this issue. Aim The assessment of RV systolic and diastolic function in patients with hypertension. Material and methods Studied group consisted of 102 hypertensive patients (HT) (mean age 57.8 &plusmn; 12.7) without coronary artery disease. 33 healthy age-matched persons served as controls (CG). Each patient underwent echocardiographic study including tissue Doppler imaging of right ventricle and estimation of RV end-diastolic dimension and free wall thickness, peak early and late diastolic tricuspid velocity (E and A, respectively) and right ventricular total ejection isovolume index (Tei). Analysis of tissue velocity curves comprised peak systolic velocity (Sm), peak early diastolic velocity (Em), late diastolic velocity (Am) and isovolumic relaxation time (IRTm) obtained from lateral aspect of the tricuspid annulus. Results Significantly lower values of Em (p < 0.02), lower Em/Am ratio (p < 0.01) and longer IRTm (p < 0.05) in hypertensive patients than in the controls were indicative of right ventricular diastolic dysfunction. Likewise, Tei index involving both systolic and diastolic function was significantly higher in hypertensive patients reflecting impairment in right ventricular myocardial performance (p < 0.01). Sm which expresses merely systolic function of right ventricle was comparable to that in CG. In forward stepwise multiple regression analysis the only independent predictor of RV Em was Em from the interventricular septum indicating interdependence of the left and right ventricle. Conclusions The presence of hypertension is associated with the impairment of RV diastolic function as assessed by tissue Doppler echocardiography. TDI seems more feasible method of RV evaluation in clinical settings than conventional echocardiographic approach

Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome - living with chronic pain. Current knowledge of the disease

Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (EDS) is a group of the most common inherited connective tissue disorders. The main symptoms of this syndrome are excessive skin flexibility, joint hypermobility and blood vessels fragility. The diagnosis is based on clinical symptoms, but to confirm the type of EDS, it is necessary to identify the collagen-encoding gene or protein interacting with it. The group of Ehlers and Danlos diseases include fourteen types, the most common are classic, vascular, hypermobile, arthrochalasis, kyphoscoliotic and dermatosparaxis. [15] Connective tissue plays a key role in the process of movement, constituting the main component of bones, joint cartilage, tendons, ligaments and intervertebral discs. In addition, connective tissue is a part of every internal organ including the intestines and parenchymal organs and the cardiovascular system.[19] For this reason, patients with EDS show symptoms of many diseases, including respiratory, muscular, skeletal and vascular. Women suffering from EDS often struggle with complications during their pregnancies. Psychological and emotional issues are also common.[6] However, the most noticeable and debilitating symptom of EDS is pain, which is often severe and chronic. The pain occurs in approximately 90% or more of EDS patients.[8] Successful pain management in patients with EDS is a major challenge for specialists. The treatment involves non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, acetaminophen, opioids and physiotherapy. Also marijuana, traditional chinese treatments, herbal remedies are considered to reduce the severity of the symptoms. [9] During the creation of this article, the authors analyzed the clinically relevant knowledge of EDS treatment and management based on research published on Pubmed

Adipose-Derived Stem Cells undergo differentiation after co-culture with porcine Limbal Epithelial Stem Cells

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are objects of interest in regenerative medicine. They are used for various therapies such as for the regeneration of bone, chondrocytes and other tissues. Adipose derived stem cells (ADSCs) inter alia are particularly easy to access, they are relatively abundant in fat tissue. ADSCs could be differentiated into many types of cells. To date, it has been proven that ADSCs only differentiate into mesodermal cell lineages. In this study, we present the differentiation of ADSCs into the corneal epithelium. Human ADSCs were placed in a co-culture with porcine limbal epithelial stem cells (LESCs). After 14 days of cultivation, total RNA was extracted for the analysis of the molecular markers (expression of genes of interest). The gene expression was assessed by real-time RT-qPCR. The expression of the surface molecular markers of ADSCs is modulated after co-culturing. We have observed the decrease in CD73, CD90 and CD105 mRNA expression, while the expression of mRNA coding for CK3 and CK12 mRNA was increased in ADSCs co-cultured with porcine limbal epithelial stem cells as compared to the control. We conclude that the coculture of LESCs and ADSCs changed ADSCs’ molecular markers gene expression indicating initiation of differentiation towards limbal cells