Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Patient–Physician End-of-Life Discussions in the Routine Care of Medicare Beneficiaries

Objective: Medicare reimbursement for physicians who discussed end-of-life care and planning with a patient during an office visit was cut from the 2010 Affordable Care Act. We assessed the characteristics of patients who reported having had such discussions, and whether these discussions are associated with trust in one’s physicians and with rates of family advance care planning (FACP). Method: The sample consisted of 5,199 Medicare beneficiaries who reported having an ongoing relationship with a primary care physician. We estimated ordinal and multinomial logistic regressions that controlled for health care utilization, current health, and recent family deaths. Results: Less than 1% (n = 310) reported an end-of-life conversation with a physician during the course of routine care. However, conversations were associated with greater trust in one’s physician and higher rates of completion of FACP. Discussion: Findings support renewed efforts to reimburse physicians for discussing end of life with their Medicare patients.
The Influence of Delay and Item Difficulty in Criminal Justice Systems on Eyewitness Confidence and Accuracy

Abstract Â There is international concern about the negative effects of delays in Criminal Justice Systems. Problems include the deleterious effects that delay can have on witnessesâ€™ memory accuracy and witnessesâ€™ ability to calibrate their memories accurately. Little empirical work has been conducted on these issues combined with item difficulty and the relationship between accuracy and confidence. This paper investigates these issues. 21 witnesses were interviewed about an observed crime and required to answer lawyerly questions used in cross-examination relating to target items classified as â€˜easyâ€™, â€˜moderateâ€™ and â€˜difficultâ€™, in terms of memorability. Participants were interviewed again, 6 months later. A 6 month delay significantly reduced memory accuracy for all levels of question difficulty. Within-subjects C-A relationships seemed to be relatively unaffected by delay; i.e. they tended to be positive for easy and moderate items, and negative for difficult items. Between-subjects C-A relationships were also positive for both easy and moderate items, but improved after 6 months; whereas C-A relationships for the difficult items remained negative and statistically insignificant following the 6 month delay. Delay can have a profound negative effect on witness accuracy that is not likely to be compensated for by improvements in C-A calibration. Â
A Novel Nine-Switch Inverter for Independent Control of Two Three-Phase Loads

Industrial applications require large numbers of motors. For example, motors are used to manipulate industrial robots, an electric vehicles with in-wheel motors and electric trains. Two methods exist for controlling PM motors providing an inverter to control each motor, and connecting the motors in parallel and driving them with a single inverter. The first method makes an experimental apparatus complex and expensive; the second does not allow independent control of each motor because of differences in rotor angle between the two motors. Thus, we propose a novel nine-switch inverter that can independently control two three-phase loads. This paper introduces the structure of the nine-switch inverter, which is made from nine switches. The validity of the proposed inverter is verified through simulations and experiments.
Predictive value of nuclear DNA content in breast cancer in relation to clinical and morphologic factors. A retrospective study of 227 consecutive cases

The predictive value of nuclear DNA content in breast cancer in relation to clinical and morphologic factors was studied in 227 consecutive cases of invasive breast adenocarcinomas with follow‐up periods of 8 to 13 years. The results show that, with the use of Cox multivariate analysis, nuclear DNA content provided significant prognostic information additional to that given by all other clinical and histomorphologic variables taken together. This fact indicates that the DNA content of breast cancer cells reflects biological properties, associated with the malignant behavior of the tumor, other than those determining the stage of the disease. Nuclear DNA content was strongly correlated to histopathologic grading of the ductal carcinomas, with poorly differentiated tumors more likely to be aneuploid. On the other hand, no clear correlation was found to exist between nuclear DNA content and axillary node status, indicating that these two factors are independent prognostic parameters. It is noteworthy that DNA content provided additional prognostic information within both the node‐negative and node‐positive patient groups. In summary, the results shown here indicate that nuclear DNA content, as an objective biological marker of tumor aggressiveness, can significantly improve our prognostic capabilities within the currently designated stages.
A Study of Impact Regime Boundary Transitions

Impact of free flying projectiles onto flat plates produces characteristically different types of response whose boundaries and transitions have previously been identified based on macro scale variables such as projectile mass and velocity. This paper explored the limitations of the macro scale approach specifically focussing on the boundary transitions that contain the most complex behaviour, by observing time evolution profiles of normal, shear and Von-Mises stresses. It also showed details of behaviour that has not previously been observed through other methods.
An exploration of the intrapsychic themes in the play of children affected by HIV/AIDS using the Sceno test.

This study is an exploratory investigation aimed at understanding the intrapsychic themes of children affected by HIV/AIDS, using the medium of the Sceno test. The Sceno test is a play assessment technique. The aim of this research was to ascertain if the Sceno test would be a useful procedure to increase our understanding of children's intrapsychic experience of illness, impending death, and/or the death of their parents. Four children, between the ages of 7 11, who are affected by HIV/AIDS and are living in a children's home, were assessed three times. Two children not affected by HIV/AIDS but who had lost their parents were also included in the study. The assessment sessions were videotaped and then the action and dialogue transcribed. A hermeneutic phenomenological methodology was used within a narrative framework to interpret the 'text' of the children's play. Several important themes arose in analysis. Children were concerned with routines, particularly within the family. This is believed to be demonstration of a need for security and structure. The role of the Mother as caring and nurturing occurred often in the childrens' play. This demonstrates attachment or wish for attachment to this figure. Other important themes were those of organising the environment and having control over the context of the play, and the theme of the doctor and illness. The Sceno was found to be a valuable means of eliciting the intrapsychic themes of these children. Limitations and implications of the study are considered.
Computing Private Set Operations with Linear Complexities

Private set operation (PSO) protocols provide a natural way of securely performing operations on data sets, such that crucial details of the input sets are not revealed. Such protocols have an everincreasing number of practical applications, particularly when implementing privacy-preserving data mining schemes. Protocols for computing private set operations have been prevalent in multi-party computation literature over the past decade, and in the case of private set intersection (PSI), have become practically feasible to run in real applications. In contrast, other set operations such as union have received less attention from the research community, and the few existing designs are often limited in their feasibility. In this work we aim to fill this gap, and present a new technique using Bloom filter data structures and additive homomorphic encryption to develop the first private set union (PSU) protocol with both linear computation and communication complexities. The overheads of our protocol scale better with increasing set sizes than existing PSU designs and we thus provide the first potentially practical realisation of the PSU functionality. Moreover, we show how to adapt this protocol to give novel ways of computing PSI and private set intersection/union cardinality (PSI/PSU-CA). The resulting schemes have complexities that are comparable to current solutions that are considered practical. We therefore present an adaptable way for efficiently computing the main set operations, with linear complexities, and with the possibility of extending to compute other more complex functionalities. Our constructions can be proven secure with respect to semi-honest and (in the case of input-privacy) malicious adversaries when considered in the authenticated set scenario.
Inheriting the Homeland? Intergenerational Transmission of Cross-Border Ties in Migrant Families1

Theories of migrant transnationalism emphasize the enduring imprint of the premigration connections that the newcomers bring with them. But how do the children of migrants raised in the parents’ adopted country develop ties to the parental home country? Using a structural equation model and data from a recent survey of adult immigrant offspring in Los Angeles, this article shows that second-generation cross-border activities are strongly affected by earlier experiences of and exposure to home country influences. Socialization in the parental household is powerful, transmitting distinct home country competencies, loyalties, and ties, but not a coherent package of transnationalism. Our analysis of five measures of cross-border activities and loyalties among the grown children of migrants shows that transmission is specific to the social logic underlying the connection: activities rooted in family relationships such as remitting are transmitted differently than emotional attachments to the parents’ home country.
Abacavir and myocardial infarctions: the benefit of doubt?

Abacavir (ABC) was approved in 2004 and quickly found its way into convenient single tablet formulations and recommendations for first-line regimens to treat HIV infection. Later, HIV specialists were advised to use ABC carefully in therapy-naive patients with a HIV-RNA viral load above 100 000 copies/ml because some evidence suggested little less antiviral efficiency in these patients [1]. In addition, cases of severe hypersensitivity reactions led some physicians to keep their hands off ABC. However, the pioneering HLA-B5701 testing blazed a trail for genetic screening and individualized therapy in routine clinical practice and allowed physicians to continue with well tolerated prescriptions of the drug [2].
(Positive) power to the child: The role of children's willing stance toward parents in developmental cascades from toddler age to early preadolescence

Abstract In a change from the once-dominant view of children as passive in the parent-led process of socialization, children are now seen as active agents who can considerably influence that process. However, these newer perspectives typically focus on the child's antagonistic influence, due either to a difficult temperament or aversive, resistant, negative behaviors that elicit adversarial responses from the parent and lead to future coercive cascades in the relationship. Children's capacity to act as receptive, willing, even enthusiastic, active socialization agents is largely overlooked. Informed by attachment theory and other relational perspectives, we depict children as able to adopt an active willing stance and to exert robust positive influence in the mutually cooperative socialization enterprise. A longitudinal study of 100 community families (mothers, fathers, and children) demonstrates that willing stance (a) is a latent construct, observable in diverse parent–child contexts, parallel at 38, 52, and 67 months and longitudinally stable; (b) originates within an early secure parent–child relationship at 25 months; and (c) promotes a positive future cascade toward adaptive outcomes at age 10. The outcomes include the parent's observed and child-reported positive, responsive behavior, as well as child-reported internal obligation to obey the parent and parent-reported low level of child behavior problems. The construct of willing stance has implications for basic research in typical socialization and in developmental psychopathology as well as for prevention and intervention.
The Puzzling Persistence of the Distance Effect on Bilateral Trade

One of the best-established empirical results in international economics is that bilateral trade decreases with distance. Although well known, this result has not been systematically analyzed before. We examine 1,467 distance effects estimated in 103 papers. Information collected on each estimate allows us to test hypotheses about the causes of variation in the estimates. Our most interesting finding is that the estimated negative impact of distance on trade rose around the middle of the century and has remained persistently high since then. This result holds even after controlling for many important differences in samples and methods.
Intracellular Sodium Modulates Mitochondrial Calcium Signaling in Vascular Endothelial Cells*

We have investigated the role of extramitochondrial Na+ for the regulation of mitochondrial Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+] m ) in permeabilized single vascular endothelial cells. [Ca2+] m was measured by loading the cells with the membrane-permeant Ca2+ indicator fluo-3/AM and subsequent removal of cytoplasmic fluo-3 by surface membrane permeabilization with digitonin. An elevation of extramitochondrial Ca2+ resulted in a dose-dependent increase in the rate of Ca2+accumulation into mitochondria (k 0.5 = 3 μm) via the mitochondrial Ca2+ uniporter. In the presence of 10 mm extramitochondrial Na+([Na+] em ), repetitive application of brief pulses of high Ca2+ (2–10 μm) to simulate cytoplasmic [Ca2+] oscillations caused transient increases of [Ca2+] m characterized by a fast rising phase that was followed by a slow decay. Removal of extramitochondrial Na+ or inhibition of mitochondrial Na+/Ca2+ exchange with clonazepam blocked mitochondrial Ca2+ efflux and resulted in a net accumulation of Ca2+ by the mitochondria. Half-maximal activation of mitochondrial Na+/Ca2+ exchange occurred at [Na+] em = 4.4 mm, which is well within the physiological range of cytoplasmic [Na+]. This study provides evidence that Ca2+efflux from the mitochondria in vascular endothelial cells occurs solely via Na+/Ca2+ exchange and emphasizes the important role of intracellular Na+ for mitochondrial Ca2+ regulation.
The Feedback Process: Perspectives of First and Second Year Undergraduate Students in the Disciplines of Education, Health Science and Nursing.

The purpose of this study was to determine the current perspectives of feedback from first and second year undergraduate students enrolled in blended units of study which incorporated both face-to-face and online components. Students enrolled in a unit of study taught by the School of Health Sciences at the University of Tasmania were surveyed to broadly determine their perception of the feedback process. Responses from the 55% of the cohort who completed the survey indicated that students recognised a wide variety of feedback processes in both written and online formats. Results indicated that students did not always identify that feedback (particularly formative) could feed forward to enhance their learning. There was a strong student focus on the importance of summative assessment feedback. The analysis of survey responses identified four main themes which form the focus of the discussion; types of feedback, student role in seeking feedback, the usefulness of feedback to learning and, feedback perception and awareness of students. The outcomes of this study also highlighted the necessity to educate both teaching staff and students with respect to feedback processes within the learning and teaching paradigm in higher education.
Noise suppression based on an analysis-synthesis approach

In noise suppression methods that are based on an analysis-synthesis approach, speech is enhanced by re-synthesis using acoustic cues extracted from harmonic noise model (HNM) analysis. In this paper, a complete analysis-synthesis framework using HNM is introduced and generalized for different noise conditions. Fine details in choosing and estimating HNM parameters are discussed. Techniques that contribute to robust estimation of HNM parameters are proposed. Evaluation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed HNM-based noise suppression method in low signal-to-noise ratio environments.
Semi-automated modular modeling of buildings for model predictive control

A promising alternative to standard control strategies for heating, ventilation, air conditioning and blinds positioning of buildings is Model Predictive Control (MPC). Key to MPC is having a sufficiently simple (preferably linear) model of the building's thermal dynamics. In this paper we propose and test a general approach to derive MPC compatible models consisting of the following steps: First, we use standard geometry and construction data to derive in an automated way a physical first-principles based linear model of the building's thermal dynamics. This describes the evolution of room, wall, floor and ceiling temperatures on a per zone level as a function of external heat fluxes (e.g., solar gains, heating/cooling system heat fluxes etc.). Second, we model the external heat fluxes as linear functions of control inputs and predictable disturbances. Third, we tune a limited number of physically meaningful parameters. Finally, we use model reduction to derive a low-order model that is suitable for MPC. The full-scale and low-order models were tuned with and compared to a validated EnergyPlus building simulation software model. The approach was successfully applied to the modeling of a representative Swiss office building. The proposed modular approach flexibly supports stepwise model refinements and integration of models for the building's technical subsystems.
Stator-Flux-Oriented Vector Control for Brushless Doubly Fed Induction Generator

Brushless doubly fed induction generators (BDFIGs) show commercial promise for wind-power generation due to their lower capital and operational costs and higher reliability as compared with doubly fed induction generators. This paper presents a vector-control scheme for a BDFIG operating as a variable-speed generator. The proposed vector controller is developed on the power-winding stator-flux frame and can be used to control both the speed and the reactive power. The machine model and the control system are developed in MATLAB. The test results show that the proposed controller has good dynamic performance when changes in speed and reactive power are applied.
Does Grade Retention Make a Difference?

Abstract Despite a continuing record of interest over the years, few studies have documented the demographics of grade retention or the relationship between it and academic achievement across multiple grades and groups of students. In this research, we were interested in the characteristics and consequences of retaining students in elementary (K–5) and middle (6–8) schools. We documented rates of retention that were lower than those reported in the literature and different for gender, ethnic background, limited English proficiency, exceptional student classification, and grade. Our findings support the increasing interest in stopping the use of grade retention as a method of academic intervention and speak to the need to identify and use research-based education interventions to provide remedial instruction for struggling.
Extended Interactive Evolutionary Computation using heart rate variability as fitness value for composing music chord progression

Interactive Evolutionary Computation (IEC) is known as an effective method to create media contents suited to each user. To reduce the user's fatigue, which remains as a serious problem in IEC, an extended IEC that utilizes physiological information as fitness value have been proposed. As a new extended IEC, this study proposed an extended IEC using heart rate variability (HRV), which reflects autonomic nervous activity. High frequency component of HRV was used as a fitness value. Through two listening experiments, the efficacy of the proposed method was investigated. In the experiment 1, with a concrete system of the proposed method creating music chord progression, change in the fitness value was observed. In the experiment 2, representative created music chord progressions were evaluated subjectively. The change in the fitness value did not show gradual increase, however, lowest fitness value was observed in the initial generation in subjective evaluation. These results of subjective evaluation showed a possibility of the proposed method.
Induced Plant Resistance and Susceptibility to Late-Season Herbivores of Wild Radish

Abstract Wild radish is an annual plant that exhibits broad spectrum induced resistance to herbivores. In two experiments, we placed potted plants [control, manually clipped, and damaged byPieris rapae(L.) larvae] in the field and assayed for oviposition byP. rapae(a specialist herbivore), damage by flea beetles (a specialist herbivore), and damage by rabbits (a generalist herbivore). Induced responses attracted oviposition byP. rapaeand increased damage by flea beetles, while having a minimal effect on rabbit herbivory. Plant families had different levels of resistance to herbivory by rabbits and to oviposition byP. rapae,but not to herbivory by flea beetles. Manual clipping was a poor inducer of plant responses. Induced responses in wild radish can be a double-edged sword, increasing herbivory by some herbivores under certain conditions, while reducing herbivory by other herbivores.
FTRAC-A robust fluoroscope tracking fiducial.

C-arm fluoroscopy is ubiquitous in contemporary surgery, but it lacks the ability to accurately reconstruct three-dimensional (3D) information. A major obstacle in fluoroscopic reconstruction is discerning the pose of the x-ray image, in 3D space. Optical/magnetic trackers tend to be prohibitively expensive, intrusive and cumbersome in many applications. We present single-image-based fluoroscope tracking (FTRAC) with the use of an external radiographic fiducial consisting of a mathematically optimized set of ellipses, lines, and points. This is an improvement over contemporary fiducials, which use only points. The fiducial encodes six degrees of freedom in a single image by creating a unique view from any direction. A nonlinear optimizer can rapidly compute the pose of the fiducial using this image. The current embodiment has salient attributes: small dimensions (3×3×5cm); need not be close to the anatomy of interest; and accurately segmentable. We tested the fiducial and the pose recovery method on synthetic data and also experimentally on a precisely machined mechanical phantom. Pose recovery in phantom experiments had an accuracy of 0.56mm in translation and 0.33° in orientation. Object reconstruction had a mean error of 0.53mm with 0.16mm STD. The method offers accuracies similar to commercial tracking systems, and appears to be sufficiently robust for intraoperative quantitative C-arm fluoroscopy. Simulation experiments indicate that the size can be further reduced to 1×1×2cm, with only a marginal drop in accuracy.