LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Deeply Learned Rich Coding for Cross-Dataset Facial Age Estimation

We propose a method for leveraging publicly available labeled facial age datasets to estimate age from unconstrained face images at the ChaLearn Looking at People (LAP) challenge 2015 [9]. We first learn discriminative age related representation on multiple publicly available age datasets using deep Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN). Training CNN is supervised by rich binary codes, and thus modeled as a multi-label classification problem. The codes represent different age group partitions at multiple granularities, and also gender information. We then train a regressor from deep representation to age on the small training dataset provided by LAP organizer by fusing random forest and quadratic regression with local adjustment. Finally, we evaluate the proposed method on the provided testing data. It obtains the performance of 0.287, and ranks the 3rd place in the challenge. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed deep representation is insensitive to cross-dataset bias, and thus generalizable to new datasets collected from other sources.
Exploring relationships between racism, housing and child illness in remote indigenous communities.

BACKGROUND
Although racism is increasingly acknowledged as a determinant of health, few studies have examined the relationship between racism, housing and child health outcomes.


METHODS
Cross-sectional data from the Housing Improvement and Child Health study collected in ten remote indigenous communities in the Northern Territory, Australia were analysed using hierarchical logistic regression. Carer and householder self-reported racism was measured using a single item and child illness was measured using a carer report of common childhood illnesses. A range of confounders, moderators and mediators were considered, including socio-demographic and household composition, psychosocial measures for carers and householders, community environment, and health-related behaviour and hygienic state of environment.


RESULTS
Carer self-reported racism was significantly associated with child illness in this sample after adjusting for confounders (OR 1.65; 95% CI 1.09 to 2.48). Carer negative affect balance was identified as a significant mediator of this relationship. Householder self-reported racism was marginally significantly associated with child illness in this sample after adjusting for confounders (OR 1.43; 95% CI 0.94 to 2.18, p=0.09). Householder self-reported drug use was identified as a significant mediator of this relationship.


CONCLUSIONS
Consistent with evidence from adult populations and children from other ethnic minorities, this study found that vicarious racism is associated with poor health outcomes among an indigenous child population.
Lipoblastoma: Clinical Features, Treatment, and Outcome

Lipoblastoma is a rare, benign, encapsulated tumor arising from embryonic white fat. On histology they typically contain variably differentiated adipocytes, primitive mesenchymal cells, myxoid matrix, and fibrous trabeculae. The tumor occurs primarily in infancy and early childhood. It often occurs in the extremities and trunk, and rarely develops in the head and neck and other sites. Ten cases of histopathologically proven lipoblastoma presenting to our hospital during a 6-year period (2003–2008) were reviewed retrospectively for their clinical presentations, treatment, postoperative outcome, and follow-up. There were five males and five females ranging in age from 6 months to 20 years. The commonest presentation was a painless rapidly growing mass. Tumors occurred in an extremity (n = 5), head and neck (n = 3), trunk (n = 1), and retroperitoneum (n = 1). Preoperative diagnosis was accurate in only one case. The largest tumor measuring 25-cm × 20-cm × 7-cm and weighing 1.9 kg was excised from the retroperitoneum. All patients underwent complete surgical excision. Patient follow-up period ranging from 9 to 76 months showed no recurrences and no metastases. Lipoblastoma behaves benignly, occurs in both superficial and deep sites, and occasionally attains large size. Complete surgical excision is the treatment of choice and long-term follow-up is required because there is a reported tendency for these tumors to recur.
Withdrawal from Chronic Phencyclidine Treatment Induces Long-Lasting Depression in Brain Reward Function

Phencyclidine (PCP) is a drug of abuse that has rewarding and dysphoric effects in humans. The complex actions of PCP, and PCP withdrawal in particular, on brain reward function remain unclear. The purpose of the present study was to characterize the effects of withdrawal from acute and chronic PCP treatment on brain reward function in rats. A brain stimulation reward procedure was used to evaluate the effects of acute PCP injection (0, 5, or 10 mg/kg) or chronic PCP treatment (0, 10, 15, or 20 mg/kg/day for 14 days delivered via subcutaneous osmotic minipumps) on brain reward function. Withdrawal from acute administration of 5 and 10 mg/kg PCP produced a decrease in brain reward function as indicated by a sustained elevation in brain reward thresholds. When administered chronically, 10, 15, or 20 mg/kg/day PCP induced a progressive dose-dependent potentiation of brain stimulation reward, while cessation of the treatment resulted in significant elevations in reward thresholds reflecting diminished reward. Specifically, withdrawal from 15 or 20 mg/kg/day PCP induced a depression in brain reward function that lasted for the entire month of observation. These results indicate that prolonged continuous administration of high PCP doses facilitates brain stimulation reward, while withdrawal from acute high PCP doses or chronic PCP treatment results in a protracted depression of brain reward function that may be analogous to the dysphoric and anhedonic symptoms observed in PCP dependence, depression, and schizophrenia.
Effect of HIV-specific immune-based therapy in subjects infected with HIV-1 subtype E in Thailand.

OBJECTIVE
To examine the effect of treatment with an inactivated, gp120-depleted, HIV-1 immunogen (Remune) in 30 Thai subjects infected with HIV-1 subtype E.


DESIGN
Sixty-week open-label study.


METHODS
Thirty HIV-positive volunteers with CD4 cell counts > or = 300 x 10(6)/l were given intramuscular injections of Remune into the triceps muscle on day 1 and then at weeks 4, 8, 12, 24, 36, 48 and 60.


RESULTS
Treatment with Remune was well-tolerated and augmented HIV-1-specific immune responses. Furthermore, subjects had a significant increase in CD4 cell count (P < 0.0001), CD4 cell percentage (P < 0.0001), CD8 cell percentage (P < 0.0001), and body weight (P < 0.0001) compared with pretreatment levels. Fourteen subjects with detectable viral load at day 1 showed a decrease at week 60 (P=0.04). Retrospective Western blot analysis showed 23 subjects with increased intensity of antibody bands and 15 patients showed development of new reactivities to HIV proteins, especially towards p17 and p15.


CONCLUSION
These results indicate that HIV-specific immune-based therapeutic approaches such as Remune should be further examined in countries with different clades of HIV-1 and where access to antiviral drug therapies is limited.
Vulnerable Narcissism Is (Mostly) a Disorder of Neuroticism.

OBJECTIVE
Increasing attention has been paid to the distinction between the dimensions of narcissistic grandiosity and vulnerability. We examine the degree to which basic traits underlie vulnerable narcissism, with a particular emphasis on the importance of Neuroticism and Agreeableness.


METHOD
Across four samples (undergraduate, online community, clinical-community), we conduct dominance analyses to partition the variance predicted in vulnerable narcissism by the Five-Factor Model personality domains, as well as compare the empirical profiles generated by vulnerable narcissism and Neuroticism.


RESULTS
These analyses demonstrate that the lion's share of variance is explained by Neuroticism (65%) and Agreeableness (19%). Similarity analyses were also conducted in which the extent to which vulnerable narcissism and Neuroticism share similar empirical networks was tested using an array of criteria, including self-, informant, and thin slice ratings of personality; interview-based ratings of personality disorder and pathological traits; and self-ratings of adverse events and functional outcomes. The empirical correlates of vulnerable narcissism and Neuroticism were nearly identical (MrICC  = .94). Partial analyses demonstrated that the variance in vulnerable narcissism not shared with Neuroticism is largely specific to disagreeableness-related traits such as distrustfulness and grandiosity.


CONCLUSIONS
These findings demonstrate the parsimony of using basic personality to study personality pathology and have implications for how vulnerable narcissism might be approached clinically.
Group-based communication in WhatsApp

WhatsApp is a very popular mobile messaging application, which dominates todays mobile communication. Especially the feature of group chats contributes to its success and changes the way people communicate. The group-based communication paradigm is investigated in this work, particularly focusing on the usage of WhatsApp, communication in group chats, and implications on mobile network traffic.
Extracting and Using Electromagnetic Energy from the Active Vacuum

"The first principles of things will never be adequately known. Science is an openended endeavor, it can never be closed. We do science without knowing the first principles. It does in fact not start from first principles, nor from the end principles, but from the middle. We not only change theories, but also the concepts and entities themselves, and what questions to ask. The foundations of science must be continuously examined and modified; it will always be full of mysteries and surprises." {1}
Impact of non-linear smoking effects on the identification of gene-by-smoking interactions in COPD genetics studies.

BACKGROUND
The identification of gene-by-environment interactions is important for understanding the genetic basis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Many COPD genetic association analyses assume a linear relationship between pack-years of smoking exposure and forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV(1)); however, this assumption has not been evaluated empirically in cohorts with a wide spectrum of COPD severity.


METHODS
The relationship between FEV(1) and pack-years of smoking exposure was examined in four large cohorts assembled for the purpose of identifying genetic associations with COPD. Using data from the Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Genetic Modifiers Study, the accuracy and power of two different approaches to model smoking were compared by performing a simulation study of a genetic variant with a range of gene-by-smoking interaction effects.


RESULTS
Non-linear relationships between smoking and FEV(1) were identified in the four cohorts. It was found that, in most situations where the relationship between pack-years and FEV(1) is non-linear, a piecewise linear approach to model smoking and gene-by-smoking interactions is preferable to the commonly used total pack-years approach. The piecewise linear approach was applied to a genetic association analysis of the PI*Z allele in the Norway Case-Control cohort and a potential PI*Z-by-smoking interaction was identified (p=0.03 for FEV(1) analysis, p=0.01 for COPD susceptibility analysis).


CONCLUSION
In study samples of subjects with a wide range of COPD severity, a non-linear relationship between pack-years of smoking and FEV(1) is likely. In this setting, approaches that account for this non-linearity can be more powerful and less biased than the more common approach of using total pack-years to model the smoking effect.
Coalition Formation Games for Dynamic Multirobot Tasks

This paper studies the problem of forming coalitions for dynamic tasks in multirobot systems. As robots either individually or in groups – encounter new tasks for which individual or group resources do not suffice, robot coalitions that are collectively capable of meeting these requirements need to be formed. We propose an approach where such tasks are reported to a task coordinator that is responsible for coalition formation. The novelty of this approach is that the process of determining these coalitions is modeled as a coalition formation game where groups of robots are evaluated with respect to resources and cost. As such, the resulting coalitions are ensured that no group of robots has a viable alternative to staying within their assigned coalition. The newly determined coalitions are then conveyed to the robots which then form the coalitions as instructed. As new tasks are encountered, coalitions merge and split so that the resulting coalitions are capable of the newly encountered tasks. Extensive simulations demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in a wide range of tasks.
The Evolution of Wang Institute's Master of Software Engineering Program

Master of Software Engineering (MSE) programs are relatively new. Starting such a program is expensive in terms of human and capital resources. Some of the costs are: preparation of new course materials, acquisition of sophisticated equipment and software, and maintenance of a low student/faculty ratio. In addition, MSE students and faculty have special needs, such as technical background and familiarity with current industrial practices.
PDFX: fully-automated PDF-to-XML conversion of scientific literature

PDFX is a rule-based system designed to reconstruct the logical structure of scholarly articles in PDF form, regardless of their formatting style. The system's output is an XML document that describes the input article's logical structure in terms of title, sections, tables, references, etc. and also links it to geometrical typesetting markers in the original PDF, such as paragraph and column breaks. The key aspect of the presented approach is that the rule set used relies on relative parameters derived from font and layout specifics of each article, rather than on a template-matching paradigm. The system thus obviates the need for domain- or layout-specific tuning or prior training, exploiting only typographical conventions inherent in scientific literature. Evaluated against a significantly varied corpus of articles from nearly 2000 different journals, PDFX gives a 77.45 F1 measure for top-level heading identification and 74.03 for extracting individual bibliographic items. The service is freely available for use at http://pdfx.cs.man.ac.uk/.
Pre-service Teachers' Views on their Information Technology Education

The concern that teachers are being inadequately prepared by their pre-service education to be confident and competent users of information technology remains, despite over a decade of computer availability in education systems. This paper examines the views of 234 pre-service teachers who experienced an information technology component in their teacher education course. It finds that many students have low computer self-efficacy and express negative feelings about information technology. These perceptions are gender and age related. It concludes that the need for information technology competency training remains important, but such programmes need to be specifically tailored to account for the wide range of experiences and attitudes of pre-service teachers.
Fertility and the economy.


 Fertility and the economy is examined in the context of the Malthusian question about the links between family choices and longterm economic growth. Micro level differences are not included not are a comprehensive range of economic or determinant variables. Specific attention is paid to income and price effects, the quality of children, overlapping generations, mortality effects, uncertainty, and economic growth. Fertility and the demand for children in linked to parental incomes and the cost of rearing children, which is affected by public policies that change the costs. Demand is also related to child and adult mortality, and uncertainty about sex of the child. Fertility in one generation affects fertility in the next. Malthusian and neoclassical models do not capture the current model of modern economies with rising income/capita and human and physical capital, extensive involvement of married women in the labor force, and declining fertility to very low levels. In spite of the present advances in firm knowledge about the relationships between fertility and economic and social variables, there is still much greater ignorance of the interactions. The Malthusian utility function that says fertility rises and falls with income did hold up to 2 centuries of scrutiny, and the Malthusian inclusion of the shifting tastes in his analysis could be translated in the modern context to include price of children. The inclusion of net cost has significant consequences, i.e., rural fertility can be higher because the cost of rearing when children contribute work to maintaining the farm is lower than in the city. An income tax deduction for children in the US reduces cost. Economic growth raises the cost of children due the time spent on child care becoming more valuable. The modern context has changed from Malthusian time, and the cost of education, training, and medical care is relevant. The implication is that a rise in income could reduce the demand for children when education and training of children increases. Quality is substituted for quantity. The neoclassical model that "the capital-labor ratio and the degree of capital deepening" is affected by population growth is examined as well as the modern approach, and the implications are expressed, i.e., intergenerational transfers and parental altruism.
Pooled analysis of the CONFIRM registries: impact of gender on procedure and angiographic outcomes in patients undergoing orbital atherectomy for peripheral artery disease.

PURPOSE
To compare the acute procedure and angiographic outcomes of peripheral artery disease (PAD) patients treated with orbital atherectomy stratified by gender.


METHODS
The CONFIRM I, II, and III registries are US multicenter, nonrandomized, all-comers registries of PAD patients who were treated with orbital atherectomy. All patients with gender specified in the registry database were included in the current analysis, which compared the final residual stenosis achieved after atherectomy and the rate of acute complications in female and male patients. The 3 registries included 3131 patients with 4761 lesions: 1261 women (mean age 73.2 ± 10.7 years) with 1874 lesions and 1870 men (mean age 70.4 ± 10.2) with 2887 lesions.


RESULTS
The women were older (p < 0.001) and had a higher but nonsignificant prevalence of critical limb ischemia (p = 0.075). After treatment, the final residual stenosis in women vs. men was 9% ± 11% vs. 11% ± 11%, respectively (p < 0.001). Women had a higher rate of all types of dissection (13.3% vs. 9.9%, p<0.001). However, both genders had similar rates of flow-limiting dissections (1.6% vs. 1.4%, p = 0.61), perforation, slow flow, vessel closure, spasm, embolism, and thrombus formation.


CONCLUSION
The gender analysis of the CONFIRM registries revealed that there was successful lesion modification with orbital atherectomy in both men and women; however, women had a higher rate of dissection (all types). This difference is likely because of the older age and higher percentage of critical limb ischemia in women in this cohort. These results, however, suggest that additional studies should be completed to further understand the increased risks for women vs. men during endovascular procedures.
Ecosystem carbon stocks of mangrove forest in Yingluo Bay, Guangdong Province of South China

Mangrove ecosystems could play important ecological, social and economic roles in addressing the mitigation of climate change through reduced deforestation. The present study aimed to estimate ecosystem carbon stocks (carbon accumulated in both biomass and soil) across the tidal gradient of mangroves in Yingluo Bay, Guangdong Province of South China. The ecosystem carbon storage, as well as vegetation biomass and soil organic carbon (SOC) storage, increased along with the tidal gradient of mangrove forests from the low intertidal zone to the high intertidal zone. The ecosystem carbon storage of the Avicennia marina, Sonneratia apetala, Aegiceras corniculatum + Kandelia obovata, Rhizophora stylosa and Bruguiera gymnorrhiza stands were 212.88 t/ha, 262.03 t/ha, 323.57 t/ha, 443.13 t/ha and 376.80 t/ha, respectively and their vegetation carbon pools accounted for 11.65%, 29.79%, 19.19%, 37.76% and 25.94% of ecosystem carbon storage, respectively. Compared to the mangrove ecosystem, there was a much lower ecosystem carbon stock (97.32 t/ha) at the bare mud flat. The relatively high vegetation biomass, which coupled with carbon-rich soils, resulted in the presence of larger ecosystem carbon stocks compared to other subtropical forests in the same latitude zone. A significant positive correlation was found between vegetation biomass and soil organic carbon concentration of the upper 0–50 cm layers. This may indicate that the increase of vegetation biomass will raise the mangrove-derived SOC in the soil (especially the 0–50 cm soil layers). Reforestation by using mangrove forests is an important way to increase ecosystem carbon sequestration in coastal areas. 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Racial Identity and Gender as Moderators of the Relationship Between Body Image and Self-esteem for African Americans

This study explored whether multiple dimensions of racial identity and gender moderated the relationship between body dissatisfaction and self-esteem for African American men and women (N=425) using an intersectional approach. Centrality (strength of identification with racial group), private regard (positive feelings about racial group), public regard (positive feelings others have about racial group), and gender moderated the relationship between body dissatisfaction and self-esteem for a sample of men (n=109) and women (n=316) college students from three regions of the United States. Body dissatisfaction was related to lower self-esteem only for those African Americans for whom race was less central to their identities. High private regard and low body dissatisfaction were synergistically associated with higher self-esteem. Similarly, low public regard and high body dissatisfaction were synergistically related to lower self-esteem. There was a positive main effect for assimilation ideology (emphasis on similarities between African Americans and Western society) on self-esteem; however it was not a significant moderator. The relationship between body dissatisfaction and self-esteem was stronger for women than for men. This study extends our knowledge of the ways in which racial attitudes and gender shape how African Americans experience their bodies and are related to self-esteem.