Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Visual Representations: Defining Properties and Deep Approximations

Visual representations are defined in terms of minimal sufficient statistics of visual data, for a class of tasks, that are also invariant to nuisance variability. Minimal sufficiency guarantees that we can store a representation in lieu of raw data with smallest complexity and no performance loss on the task at hand. Invariance guarantees that the statistic is constant with respect to uninformative transformations of the data. We derive analytical expressions for such representations and show they are related to feature descriptors commonly used in computer vision, as well as to convolutional neural networks. This link highlights the assumptions and approximations tacitly assumed by these methods and explains empirical practices such as clamping, pooling and joint normalization.
Authoritarianism, Religious Fundamentalism, Quest, and Prejudice

Five studies of university students and their parents were carried out to investigate the relationships among right-wing authoritarianism, various indices of religious orientation, and prejudice. Measures of religious fundamentalism, and religious quest, developed for this research, proved to be psychometrically sound, and were good discriminators between prejudiced and unprejudiced persons, across a variety of different measures of prejudice and authoritarian aggression. Scores on both Religious Fundamentalism and Religious Quest scales also were correlated strongly with right-wing authoritarianism and the Christian Orthodoxy scale, although orthodoxy itself tended not to be correlated with prejudice. Apparently, religious fundamentalism and nonquesting are linked with authoritarianism and prejudice toward a wide variety of minority groups. Possible explanations for these relationships are discussed.
Early identification of autism: A comparison of the Checklist for Autism in Toddlers and the Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers

There is still debate as to what is the most effective strategy for identifying the early signs of autism in very young children. Two levels of screening having been advocated: broad‐based developmental surveillance and targeted screening. Two popular tools for use in developmental surveillance are the Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (CHAT) and the Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (M‐CHAT). The purpose of this article is to summarise the current evidence for screening for autistic symptoms in very young children using CHAT and M‐CHAT. A systematic search was carried out of electronic database and other sources for original studies which evaluated the use of CHAT and M‐CHAT in screening for autism in children younger than 5 years of age. Studies were included for review if they evaluated the sensitivity and/or specificity of CHAT or M‐CHAT, or described the best age to administer these instruments. The available evidence suggests that characteristic behaviours in autism should be evident in simple forms before the age of 18 months, while screening at 24 months should be conducted to identify those who regress. Administering a screening tool during 18‐ to 24‐month well‐child visits improves early identification of autism, while the stability of diagnosis at the ages of 18 months and 24 months is confirmed. M‐CHAT has slightly better sensitivity and specificity compared to CHAT, and is preferable to use as a developmental surveillance screening instrument.
Biomedical Event Extraction using Abstract Meaning Representation

We propose a novel, Abstract Meaning Representation (AMR) based approach to identifying molecular events/interactions in biomedical text. Our key contributions are: (1) an empirical validation of our hypothesis that an event is a subgraph of the AMR graph, (2) a neural network-based model that identifies such an event subgraph given an AMR, and (3) a distant supervision based approach to gather additional training data. We evaluate our approach on the 2013 Genia Event Extraction dataset and show promising results.
Clostridium difficile: (re)emergence of zoonotic potential.

Transmission routes of pathogenic bacteria can be very complex and can include direct transmission from human to human, contact with environment, contact with animals, aerosol transmission, vectors, and food and water intake. Clostridium difficile was historically regarded as a typically nosocomial pathogen, and hospitalization was one of the main risk factors for development of C. difficile infection. Within this environment, hand contamination with spores was the most important transmission mode. If hospital environment is the main reservoir for C. difficile, one would expect a very limited number of genotypes to prevail in a single hospital for a prolonged time. However, in nonoutbreak situations with good hospital hygiene, the number of genotypes found in a single hospital is rather high. A low number of genotypes (1 or 2) is constantly present, but many others are changing during time. This indicates that external sources play an important role in overall epidemiology and are constantly imported to the hospitals from the community. Outside hospitals,
The RASSCALS: An X-Ray and Optical Study of 260 Galaxy Groups

We describe the ROSAT All-Sky Survey—Center for Astrophysics Loose Systems (RASSCALS), the largest X-ray and optical survey of low-mass galaxy groups to date. We draw 260 groups from the combined Center for Astrophysics and Southern Sky Redshift Surveys, covering one-quarter of the sky to a limiting Zwicky magnitude of mz = 15.5. We detect 61 groups (23%) as extended X-ray sources. The statistical completeness of the sample allows us to make the first measurement of the X-ray selection function of groups, along with a clean determination of their fundamental scaling laws. We find robust evidence of similarity breaking in the relationship between the X-ray luminosity and velocity dispersion. Groups with σp < 340 km s-1 are overluminous by several orders of magnitude compared to the familiar LX ∝ σ4 law for higher velocity dispersion systems. An understanding of this break depends on the detailed structure of groups with small velocity dispersions σp < 150 km s-1. After accounting for selection effects, we conclude that only 40% of the optical groups are extended X-ray sources. The remaining 60% are either accidental superpositions or systems devoid of X-ray emitting gas. Combining our results with group statistics from N-body simulations, we find that the fraction of real, bound systems in our objectively selected optical catalog is between 40%-80%. The X-ray detections have a median membership of nine galaxies, a median recession velocity cz = 7250 km s-1, a median projected velocity dispersion σp = 400 km s-1, and a median X-ray luminosity LX = 3 × 1042 h ergs s-1, where the Hubble constant is H0 = 100 h100 km s-1 Mpc-1. We include a catalog of these properties, or the appropriate upper limits, for all 260 groups.
A Relational Psychoanalytic Model for Case Management: A Literature Review

Abstract Relationship building is critical in case management with the seriously mentally ill. A theoretical framework, such as relational psychoanalytic theory, with a strong integrative emphasis provides a structure for the complex interplay of internal and external factors/forces in case management. The purpose of this paper is to provide a literature review in the area of case management: relational psychoanalytic theory, relationship building and psychodynamic theory. The review concludes outlining the appropriateness of this theoretical framework for case management.
The Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale: A Replication Study on Reliability, Validity and Prediction

In replicating the findings of Gabrys, et al. (1985), the Zung Self-rating Depression Scale discriminated between depressed and nondepressed patients in a day-clinic population. There is, however, considerably more overlap in group scores which makes prediction difficult for the individual case. The influence of sex on the Zung total score, indicating women score higher than men, requires consideration be given to matching experimental groups.
Classification of hardware trojan detection techniques

The majority of techniques that have been developed to detect hardware trojans are based on only specific attributes. Further, the ad hoc approaches that have been employed to design methods for trojan detection are largely ineffective. These trojans have a number of attributes which can be used in a systematic way to develop detection techniques. Based on this concept, a detailed examination of current trojan detection techniques and the characteristics of existing hardware trojans is presented. This is used to develop a new approach to hardware trojan identification and classification.
Referendum Campaigns in Polarized Societies: The Case of Turkey

Can referendum mechanism be used in deeply polarized societies without invoking existing cleavages? This question is tackled by studying two recent Turkish constitutional referenda, which took place in 2007 and 2010. Turkish society and politics are highly polarized along the secular versus pro-Islam axis. Based on an in-depth study of the campaign materials, media content analysis, and survey data from both cases, it is demonstrated that although both referendum proposals were related to secularism in Turkey, this cleavage was more visible in the 2010 vote. If political parties choose to treat referenda as elections, voters' predispositions are more likely to be reinforced, and partisan voting is more likely to prevail. This research shows that controlled comparisons help in understanding the role of party politics in direct democracy.
How stressful is online victimization? Effects of victim's personality and properties of the incident

An online survey was used to assess the lifetime experiences of online victimization of internet users aged 10 to 50 years (N = 9,760). It gathered descriptions and categorizations of the most recent incident (n = 4,498), and analysed the variables associated with emotional distress. Results showed that less serious (verbal and sexual harassment, flaming) and more serious incidents (denigration, impersonation, outing, and trickery) can be distinguished. Both characteristics of the victims and properties of the incident were identified as predictors of distress. Higher neuroticism, chronic stress, and prior experiences of online victimization correlated with stronger stress. The safety measures of the provider, greater internet literacy, and, unexpectedly, offender anonymity correlated with lower stress. However, perceived distress depended most strongly on the impact on daily life.
Neighborhood Food Environment, Diet, and Obesity Among Los Angeles County Adults, 2011

Introduction The objective of this study was to examine whether an association exists between the number and type of food outlets in a neighborhood and dietary intake and body mass index (BMI) among adults in Los Angeles County. We also assessed whether this association depends on the geographic size of the food environment. Methods We analyzed data from the 2011 Los Angeles County Health Survey. We created buffers (from 0.25 to 3.0 miles in radius) centered in respondents’ residential addresses and counted the number of food outlets by type in each buffer. Dependent variables were weekly intake of fruits and vegetables, sugar-sweetened beverages, and fast food; BMI; and being overweight (BMI ≥25.0 kg/m2) or obese (BMI ≥30.0 kg/m2). Explanatory variables were the number of outlets classified as fast-food outlets, convenience stores, small food stores, grocery stores, and supermarkets. Regressions were estimated for all sets of explanatory variables and buffer size combinations (150 total effects). Results Only 2 of 150 effects were significant after being adjusted for multiple comparisons. The number of fast-food restaurants in nonwalkable areas (in a 3.0-mile radius) was positively associated with fast-food consumption, and the number of convenience stores in a walkable distance (in a 0.25-mile radius) was negatively associated with obesity. Discussion Little evidence was found for associations between proximity of respondents’ homes to food outlets and dietary intake or BMI among adults in Los Angeles County. A possible explanation for the null finding is that shopping patterns are weakly related to neighborhoods in Los Angeles County because of motorized transportation.
Ponies Out of Place? Wild Animals, Wilderness and Environmental Governance

Powerful institutions in Australia regularly depict the continent as overrun with fauna variously described as ‘feral’, ‘vermin’, ‘alien’ and ‘invasive’. This paper addresses the issue of ‘animal matter out of place’ through the ethnographic analysis of a long-running conflict over ‘feral’ ponies in Coffin Bay National Park, South Australia. As the Department of Environment and Heritage manoeuvred to eliminate this ‘alien’ presence from the ‘pristine’ landscape of the Coffin Bay Peninsula, local residents argued that the herd was a product of this ecological niche and should remain in its ‘natural’ home. The trajectory of the conflict suggests that the expansion of environmental governance from centre to periphery is by no means as predictable and inevitable as is often anticipated.1
A Linear Programming Approach for Molecular QSAR analysis

Small molecules in chemistry can be represented as graphs. In a quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) analysis, the central task is to find a regression function that predicts the activity of the molecule in high accuracy. Setting a QSAR as a primal target, we propose a new linear programming approach to the graph-based regression problem. Our method extends the graph classification algorithm by Kudo et al. (NIPS 2004), which is a combination of boosting and graph mining. Instead of sequential multiplicative updates, we employ the linear programming boosting (LP) for regression. The LP approach allows to include inequality constraints for the parameter vector, which turns out to be particularly useful in QSAR tasks where activity values are sometimes unavailable. Furthermore, the efficiency is improved significantly by employing multiple pricing.
Studies of Student Life: an overview

Interest in the nature of the undergraduate student experience in most countries has been somewhat sporadic until recent years. The obvious exception is the US where the impact of college on students has been closely and systematically monitored for decades. Indeed, the US research is the major reference for almost all studies of student life, despite the significant limitations of its possible applications to other systems. Why the current interest in the life of students? The best way to answer that is to examine the nature of the studies that have proliferated at national and institutional levels in the last five years or so. The focus of surveys, interviews and observations, and indeed, the specific items on questionnaires tell us a great deal about the starting points and assumptions of the investigations. There are substantial differences in the focus of national preoccupations about student life. In this article some of the contrasts and variations of emphasis of studies are illustrated by the ways in which data are gathered and reported. There are, however, some emerging universal themes that cross international borders. The impact of globalisation on the nature of the student experience is increasingly evident.
Rebleeding and Outcome in Patients with Symptomatic Brain Stem Cavernomas

Purpose: We sought to evaluate the long-term functional outcomes and identify the potential risk factors for rebleeding in patients with brain stem cavernous malformations (BCMs) who presented with hemorrhages and were surgically or conservatively treated and prospectively monitored. Methods: From January 1990 to July 2015, we included patients with first hemorrhagic episodes secondary to single BCMs. Modified Rankin score (mRS) was used for neurological status assessment. Univariate and multivariate regression statistics were used to identify the risk factors for rebleeding. Results: A total of 99 patients with BCMs hemorrhages were included (59 [59.6%] women, mean age 37± 13 years). As initial treatments, 37 patients (37.4%) underwent surgery and 62 (62.6%) received conservative treatment. The median follow-up was 3.33 years (interquartile range 1.16-7 years; 408.3 patient/years). The rebleeding rate by patient/year was 10% in conservatively treated patients. Deterioration was significantly more frequent in patients with rebleeding (p = 0.0001). At the end of the follow-up, the mRS were favorable in 49 patients (65.3%) without rebleeding, whereas only 8 (33.3%) with rebleeding evolved to favorable outcomes (p = 0.006). Lesion size >18 mm (hazards ratio, HR 3.34, 95% CI 1.54-7.26; p = 0.0001) and ventral location or crossing the brain stem's midpoint (HR 2.5, 95% CI 1.14-5.46; p = 0.022) were associated with a major risk of rebleeding in the univariate analysis, but only a lesion >18 mm remained statistically significant (HR 2.7, 95% CI 1.2-6.21; p = 0.016) in the multivariate analysis. Conclusion: A lesion size >18 mm was the principal factor associated with hemorrhage recurrence. The overall functional outcome was good. However, significant morbidity was attributable to rebleeding.
Social risk amplification as an attribution: the case of zoonotic disease outbreaks

Past work on social risk amplification has concentrated on studying large-scale, aggregated societal responses to risk issues as the outcome of social processes. An alternative approach, explored in this article, is to regard amplification as an attribution. Social risk amplification is something that social actors attribute to one another as they try to explain their systematic differences in response, not an objective characterisation of a response that is somehow disproportionate to its stimulus. This avoids the problem that the idea of a social amplification of risk can be taken to imply that a risk external to the social system can somehow be distorted by it. The attributional view also helps illustrate differences in risk response as much as commonalities. In order to explore risk amplification as an attribution we analyse the explanations and descriptions used by actors discussing recent outbreaks of zoonotic disease. We present a grounded analysis that produces a classification of these explanations and descriptions. It is evident from the clichés that informants used – such as ‘crying wolf’, ‘scare-mongering’ and ‘jumping on the bandwagon’ – that social actors have had a concept resembling social risk amplification that long predates the social amplification of risk framework. Moreover, they use it in a strongly normative way: sometimes saying this amplification is explicable and excusable, sometimes not. It is therefore a basis of social judgment. The idea of amplification as an attribution offers the particular advantage that it helps deal with situations where social actors develop their risk responses in reaction to the risk responses of other social actors.
Is Truth in Authority or Authority in Truth? Limitations to the Publication of Scientific Research

Editor-in-Chief Tommy Boone, PhD, MBA Review Board Todd Astorino, PhD Julien Baker, PhD Steve Brock, PhD Lance Dalleck, PhD Eric Goulet, PhD Robert Gotshall, PhD Alexander Hutchison, PhD M. Knight-Maloney, PhD Len Kravitz, PhD James Laskin, PhD Yit Aun Lim, PhD Lonnie Lowery, PhD Derek Marks, PhD Cristine Mermier, PhD Robert Robergs, PhD Chantal Vella, PhD Dale Wagner, PhD Frank Wyatt, PhD Ben Zhou, PhD
Metaphoric Competence, Second Language Learning, and Communicative Language Ability.

Recent developments in cognitive linguistics have highlighted the importance as well as the ubiquity of metaphor in language. Despite this, the ability of second language learners to use metaphors is often still not seen as a core ability. In this paper, we take a model of communicative competence that has been widely influential in both language teaching and language testing, namely Bachman (1990), and argue, giving a range of examples of language use and learner difficulty, that metaphoric competence has in fact an important role to play in all areas of communicative competence. In other words, it can contribute centrally to grammatical competence, textual competence, illocutionary competence, sociolinguistic competence, and strategic competence. Metaphor is thus highly relevant to second language learning, teaching and testing, from the earliest to the most advanced stages of learning.
A volumetric model-based 2D to 3D registration method for measuring kinematics of natural knees with single-plane fluoroscopy.

PURPOSE Accurate measurement of the three-dimensional (3D) rigid body and surface kinematics of the natural human knee is essential for many clinical applications. Existing techniques are limited either in their accuracy or lack more realistic experimental evaluation of the measurement errors. The purposes of the study were to develop a volumetric model-based 2D to 3D registration method, called the weighted edge-matching score (WEMS) method, for measuring natural knee kinematics with single-plane fluoroscopy to determine experimentally the measurement errors and to compare its performance with that of pattern intensity (PI) and gradient difference (GD) methods. METHODS The WEMS method gives higher priority to matching of longer edges of the digitally reconstructed radiograph and fluoroscopic images. The measurement errors of the methods were evaluated based on a human cadaveric knee at 11 flexion positions. RESULTS The accuracy of the WEMS method was determined experimentally to be less than 0.77 mm for the in-plane translations, 3.06 mm for out-of-plane translation, and 1.13 degrees for all rotations, which is better than that of the PI and GD methods. CONCLUSIONS A new volumetric model-based 2D to 3D registration method has been developed for measuring 3D in vivo kinematics of natural knee joints with single-plane fluoroscopy. With the equipment used in the current study, the accuracy of the WEMS method is considered acceptable for the measurement of the 3D kinematics of the natural knee in clinical applications.
Enhancing the Transition to University by Facilitating Social and Study Networks: Results of a One-day Workshop

The quality of students' initial induction to the university system plays a key role in their adaptation to university life. One factor that facilitates transition is the establishment of supportive social and study-related networks. Historically universities have not been proactive in fostering such networks, but in recent years the Faculty of Science at the University of Sydney has held an annual one-day Transition to University workshop designed to facilitate social and study-related networks. A qualitative evaluation found that the workshop facilitated the establishment of strong peer relationships, and that these enhanced study, self-motivation, and general enjoyment of university life. Quantitative analyses found that, in comparison to participants, non-attendees were significantly more likely to feel isolated or depressed, and had greater difficulty in adapting to university life. These findings show that such workshops greatly assist in the development of peer networks, and are helpful in easing the transition of undergraduate students.