Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pinhole Viewing Strengthens the Hollow-Face Illusion

A hollow (concave) mask appears convex when viewed from beyond a certain distance even when viewed stereoscopically—this is the hollow-face illusion. At close viewing distances, the same mask is seen as hollow even when disparity information is eliminated by monocular viewing. A potential source of nonpictorial, monocular information that favors a veridical percept at close distances is accommodation in conjunction with focus blur. In this article, we used pinhole viewing to minimize this potential source of information and test whether it affects whether a hollow mask is seen as veridical (concave) or illusory (convex). Since monocular viewing also facilitates the illusory (convex) percept, it was included in the design both as a comparison and to test whether any effect of accommodation depends on vergence. Pinhole viewing was found favor the illusory percept, and its effect was at least as large as, and added to, that of monocular viewing. A control experiment using tinted glasses that attenuate illumination at least as much as the pinholes did not strengthen the illusion ruling out explanations in terms of reduced luminance. For pinhole viewing, there was no difference between monocular and binocular conditions. The results are interpreted as evidence that focus driven depth information affects perceived three-dimensional shape at close distances even when other sources of depth information are available. The lack of a difference between monocular and binocular pinhole viewing suggests that, by disrupting accommodation, pinholes may also interfere with linked vergence cues to depth.
Grip strengths and required forces in accessing everyday containers in a normal population.

OBJECTIVE A commonly adhered to operating principle in occupational therapy clinics is that a person must exhibit 20 lb of grip strength before his or her hand is considered "functional. " This study examined the relationship between hand and finger grip performances with the forces required to open common household containers. METHOD The grip and pinch strengths of 49 college students were obtained using dynamometry. The forces required to open six common household containers were measured using Force Sensing Resistors attached to each container. RESULTS Weak correlations were found (r = -.179 to r = .333) between grip and pinch strength performances and the forces used to operate the accessing mechanisms of the containers. Analyses of variances demonstrated significantly greater grip and pinch strength performances in men than in women (ps < .05) but no significant difference between the genders in the forces generated to open the containers (ps > .05). CONCLUSIONS In a normal population of college students, the premise that greater hand strength affords greater performance in accessing everyday household containers was not supported. Implications suggest that grip and pinch dynamometry are not conclusive evaluative tools for predicting hand function while opening a select group of containers. The relationship between traditional dynamometry and hand performance during a variety of functional tasks needs to be examined in clinical populations as well.
Learning implicit user interest hierarchy for web personalization

Most web search engines are designed to serve all users in a general way, without considering the interests of individual users. In contrast, personalized web search engines incorporate an individual user's interests when choosing relevant web pages to return. In order to provide a more robust context for personalization, a user interest hierarchy (UIH) is presented. The UIH extracts a continuum of general to specific user interests from web pages and generates a uniquely personalized order to search results. This dissertation consists of five main parts. First, a divisive hierarchical clustering (DHC) algorithm is proposed to group words (topics) into a hierarchy where more general interests are represented by a larger set of words. Second, a variable-length phrase-finding (VPF) algorithm that finds meaningful phrases from a web page is introduced. Third, two new desirable properties that a correlation function should satisfy are proposed. These properties will help understand the general characteristics of a correlation function and help choose or devise correct correlation functions for an application domain. Fourth, methods are examined that (re)rank the results from a search engine depending on user interests based on the contents of a web page and the UIH. Fifth, previously studied implicit indicators for interesting web pages are evaluated. The time spent on a web page and other new indicators are examined in more detail as well. Experimental results indicate that the personalized ranking methods presented in this study, when used with a popular search engine, can yield more relevant web pages for individual users. The precision/recall analysis showed that our weighted term scoring function could provide more accurate ranking than Google on average.
Comparison of Optomap ultrawide-field imaging versus slit-lamp biomicroscopy for assessment of diabetic retinopathy in a real-life clinic

Purpose We aimed to assess the agreement between clinical assessment of diabetic retinopathy and Optomap ultrawide-field imaging (UWFI) in a real-life clinic setting. Methods Structured examination findings, from diabetic patients attending routine medical retina clinics in July 2011, were retrospectively compared with the grade obtained from Optomap UWFI images, graded independently by two ophthalmologists, taken at the same visit. Results A total of 84 eyes (42 patients) were examined, and 74 eyes (37 patients) were suitable for analysis. The hospital Eye Service slit-lamp biomicroscopy grades for retinopathy were: no diabetic retinopathy in zero eyes; background retinopathy in 21 eyes; preproliferative retinopathy in 34 eyes; and proliferative retinopathy in 19 eyes. For retinopathy, the agreement between the Optomap UWFI and clinical grading was moderate for both graders (κ=0.57 and κ=0.63), and there was almost perfect agreement between the two graders (κ=0.92). The clinical grades for the presence of photocoagulation scars were: no photocoagulation scars in 46 eyes and photocoagulation scars visible in 28 eyes, indicating substantial agreement between the Optomap UWFI and clinical grading for both graders (κ=0.73 and κ=0.64). There were two instances where proliferative retinopathy was documented clinically but graded as preproliferative by both graders of Optomap UWFI. These were investigated, and neither patient required treatment, ie, the difference in retinopathy grade would not have affected the patient outcomes. Conclusion This study demonstrated moderate agreement between Optomap UWFI and hospital slit-lamp biomicroscopy grading of patients’ retinopathy in a real-life medical retina clinic setting. The authors believe that Optomap UWFI is, not only a very useful adjunct to clinical examination in terms of detection and recording of retinopathy, but also, could have a role in standalone “virtual” clinics.
Predictors for long‐term survival after transcatheter edge‐to‐edge mitral valve repair

OBJECTIVES To determine predictors for long-term outcome in high-risk patients undergoing transcatheter edge-to-edge mitral valve repair (TMVR) for severe mitral regurgitation (MR). BACKGROUND There is no data on predictors of long-term outcome in high-risk real-world patients. METHODS From August 2009 to April 2011, 126 high-risk patients deemed inoperable were treated with TMVR in two high-volume university centers. RESULTS MR could be successfully reduced to grade ≤2 in 92.1% of patients (116/126 patients). Long-term clinical follow-up up to 5 years (95.2% follow-up rate) revealed a mortality rate of 35.7% (45/126 patients). Repeat mitral valve treatment (surgery or intervention) was needed in 19 patients (15.1%). Long-term clinical improvement was demonstrated with 69% of patients being in NYHA class ≤II. In a multivariable Cox regression analysis, the post-procedural grade of MR (hazard ratio [HR] 1.55 per grade, P = 0.035), the left ventricular ejection fraction (HR 0.58 for difference between 75th and 25th percentile, P = 0.031) and the glomerular filtration rate (HR 0.33 for 75th vs 25th percentile, P < 0.001) were independent predictors for long-term mortality. Patients with primary MR and a post-procedural MR grade ≤1 had the most favorable long-term outcome. CONCLUSIONS This study determines predictors of long-term clinical outcome after TMVR and demonstrates that the grade of residual MR determines long-term survival. Our data suggest that it might be of benefit reducing residual MR to the lowest possible MR grade using TMVR-especially in selected high-risk patients with primary MR who are not considered as candidates for surgical MVR.
Perceived academic quality and approaches to studying at Danish schools of occupational therapy

Students in the fourth semester of basic training programmes in occupational therapy at seven different institutions of higher education in Denmark were surveyed using the Course Experience Questionnaire [CEQ] and the Revised Approaches to Studying Inventory [RASI]. The CEQ proved to be a reasonably robust in this setting: most of the scales demonstrated satisfactory reliability, and a factor analysis confirmed its intended constituent structure. The CEQ also discriminated among students at the seven institutions in their patterns of scores. The RASI proved to be less satisfactory: many subscales did not demonstrate satisfactory reliability and its intended constituent structure was only partly confirmed by factor analysis. Moreover, the RASI failed to discriminate clearly among students at the seven institutions. The scores on the CEQ produced by students at four of the institutions raised concerns relating to the clarity of academic goals and standards, the teaching performance of staff, and the academic workload imposed on students. Nevertheless, students at five institutions produced relatively high ratings of their general satisfaction with their programmes, and students at all seven schools produced high ratings of the appropriateness of their assessments and the acquisition of generic skills.
UAE population reference standard charts for body mass index and skinfold thickness, at ages 0–18 years

Aims To determine a range of anthropometric measurements including skinfold thickness measurements in four different areas of the body, to construct population growth charts for body mass index (BMI), skinfolds, and to compare these with growth charts from other countries. One aim was also to validate body fat charts derived from skinfold thickness. Methods A national cross-sectional growth survey of children, 0–18 years old, was conducted using multistage stratified random sampling. The sample size included at least 200 children in each age–sex group. Height, weight, biceps skinfold, triceps skinfold, subscapular skinfold, suprailiac skinfold, and mid-upper-arm circumference were measured in each child. We describe correlation, standard deviation scores relative to the other standards, and calculation of body density in the United Arab Emirates population. We determined whether any of the above is a good indicator of fatness in children. Results BMI, upper-arm circumference, sum of four skinfolds, and percentage body fat charts were constructed using the LMS method of smoothing. BMI was very significantly correlated with sum of skinfold thicknesses, and mid-upper-arm circumference. Prevalence of obesity and overweight in ages 13–17 years was respectively 9.94% and 15.16% in females and 6.08% and 14.16% in males. Derived body fat charts were found not to be accurate Conclusion A national BMI, upper-arm circumference, and sum of four skinfolds chart has been constructed that can be used as a reference standard for the United Arab Emirates. Sum of four skinfold thickness charts can be used as crude determinants of adiposity in children, but derived body fat charts were shown to be inaccurate.
Brownian strings: segmenting images with stochastically deformable contours

This paper describes an image segmentation technique in which an arbitrarily shaped contour was deformed stochastically until it fitted around an object of interest. The evolution of the contour was controlled by a simulated annealing process which caused the contour to settle into the global minimum of an image-derived 'energy' function. The non-parametric energy function was derived from the statistical properties of previously-segmented images, thereby incorporating prior experience. Since the method was based on a state space search for the contour with the best global properties, it was stable in the presence of image errors which confound segmentation techniques based on local criteria such as connectivity. However, unlike 'snakes' and other active contour approaches, the new method could handle arbitrarily irregular contours in which each inter-pixel crack represented an independent degree of freedom. The method was illustrated by using it to find the brain surface in magnetic resonance head images, to identify the epicardial surface in magnetic resonance cardiac images, and to track blood vessels in angiograms.
Detection of Inland Open Water Surfaces Using Dual Polarization L-Band Radar for the Soil Moisture Active Passive Mission

A dual-copolarization algorithm to classify inland open water bodies free of flooded vegetation using an L-band radar is presented and evaluated, with a view to applying the method to the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission for hydrological science and soil moisture retrieval applications. Past radar-based water body detection algorithms have applied a threshold to a single-polarization measurement, with water body detection declared if the observed cross section is less than the specified threshold. However, such methods are subject to ambiguities associated with scene variability and terrain slopes, making a universal threshold value difficult to derive and complicating the global application of such methods. Because SMAP will provide measurements in both HH and VV polarizations, the copolarization ratio is also available for water body detection. A threshold of -3 dB applied to the HH/VV polarization ratio is found effective in detecting water bodies at 40° incidence angle based on analysis of theoretical model predictions and measurements from airborne synthetic aperture radar and the spaceborne Aquarius scatterometer. When the water surface is calm and its radar response is very small (i.e., at the radar thermal noise level), the HH/VV ratio method fails. However, a combination of an HH/VV threshold (at -3 dB) and an HH threshold (at -25 dB) is shown to allow water body classification even in this situation. This proposed “combined” algorithm is assessed in four different geophysical scenarios. The resulting water body detection error is shown to be less than 10% for these cases, which satisfies SMAP requirements to allow accurate soil moisture retrieval, and the corresponding false alarm rate is smaller than 2%. The robustness of the proposed approach to subpixel heterogeneity has been also investigated. The performance of the algorithm remains sensitive to the noise level of the radar observations: for SMAP, a radar noise-equivalent sigma 0 of -28.5 dB or less is required in order to facilitate acceptable performance.
Patterns of structural and sequence variation within isotype lineages of the Neisseria meningitidis transferrin receptor system

Neisseria meningitidis inhabits the human upper respiratory tract and is an important cause of sepsis and meningitis. A surface receptor comprised of transferrin‐binding proteins A and B (TbpA and TbpB), is responsible for acquiring iron from host transferrin. Sequence and immunological diversity divides TbpBs into two distinct lineages; isotype I and isotype II. Two representative isotype I and II strains, B16B6 and M982, differ in their dependence on TbpB for in vitro growth on exogenous transferrin. The crystal structure of TbpB and a structural model for TbpA from the representative isotype I N. meningitidis strain B16B6 were obtained. The structures were integrated with a comprehensive analysis of the sequence diversity of these proteins to probe for potential functional differences. A distinct isotype I TbpA was identified that co‐varied with TbpB and lacked sequence in the region for the loop 3 α‐helix that is proposed to be involved in iron removal from transferrin. The tightly associated isotype I TbpBs had a distinct anchor peptide region, a distinct, smaller linker region between the lobes and lacked the large loops in the isotype II C‐lobe. Sequences of the intact TbpB, the TbpB N‐lobe, the TbpB C‐lobe, and TbpA were subjected to phylogenetic analyses. The phylogenetic clustering of TbpA and the TbpB C‐lobe were similar with two main branches comprising the isotype 1 and isotype 2 TbpBs, possibly suggesting an association between TbpA and the TbpB C‐lobe. The intact TbpB and TbpB N‐lobe had 4 main branches, one consisting of the isotype 1 TbpBs. One isotype 2 TbpB cluster appeared to consist of isotype 1 N‐lobe sequences and isotype 2 C‐lobe sequences, indicating the swapping of N‐lobes and C‐lobes. Our findings should inform future studies on the interaction between TbpB and TbpA and the process of iron acquisition.
Interviews with children of persons with a severe mental illness—Investigating their everyday situation

Research on children of persons with a severe mental illness focuses predominantly on parents’ and others’ perceptions. Children of mentally ill parents form a vulnerable group that has not been adequately paid attention to in psychiatric care institutions. Comparatively little is known about the children's recognition of their parents and the everyday situation of these families. The aim of the study was to investigate experiences of their life situation in children 10–18 years of age in a family with a parent with a severe mental illness. Eight children were interviewed concerning their everyday life situation. The interviews were analysed inspired from using thematic analysis. From the analysis of the material emerged aspects concerning the following themes: need for conversation, love for their family, maturity, experience of fear and blame, feelings of loneliness, responsibility and associated stigma. This study highlights the situation experienced by children of severely mentally ill persons who also are parents. The study may be found to be a basis for inspiring structured interventions and treatments programmes including children of the adult patients seeking psychiatric treatment.
Cohomology of Modules in the Principal Block of a Finite Group

In this paper, we prove the conjectures made in a joint paper of the author with Carlson and Robinson, on the vanishing of cohomology of a nite group G. In particular, we prove that if k is a eld of characteristic p, then every non-projective kG-module M in the principal block has nontrivial cohomology in the sense that H(G;M)6 0, if and only if the centralizer in G of every element of order p is p-nilpotent (this was proved for p odd in the above mentioned paper, but the proof here is independent of p). We prove the stronger statement that whether or not these conditions hold, the union of the varieties of the modules in the principal block having no cohomology coincides with the union of the varieties of the elementary abelian p-subgroups whose centralizers are not p-nilpotent (i.e., the nucleus). The proofs involve the new idempotent functor machinery of Rickard.
Patterns and levels of gene flow in Rhododendron metternichii var. hondoense revealed by microsatellite analysis

Parentage analysis was conducted to elucidate the patterns and levels of gene flow in Rhododendron metternichii Sieb. et Zucc. var. hondoense Nakai in a 150 × 70 m quadrat in Hiroshima Prefecture, western Japan. The population of R. metternichii occurred as three subpopulations at the study site. Seventy seedlings were randomly collected from each of three 10 × 10 m plots (S1, S2, and S3) on the forest floor of each subpopulation (A1, A2, and A3). Almost all parents (93.8%) of the 70 seedlings were unambiguously identified by using 12 pairs of microsatellite markers. Within the quadrat, adult trees less than 5 m from the centre of the seedling bank (plots S1, S2, and S3) produced large numbers of seedlings. The effects of tree height and distance from the seedling bank on the relative fertilities of adult trees were highly variable among subpopulations because of the differences in population structure near the seedling bank: neither distance nor tree height had any significant effect in subpopulation A1; distance from the seedling bank had a significant effect in subpopulation A2; and tree height had a significant effect in subpopulation A3. Although gene flow within each subpopulation was highly restricted to less than 25 m and gene flow among the three subpopulations was extremely small (0–2%), long‐distance gene flow from outside the quadrat reached 50%. This long‐distance gene flow may be caused by a combination of topographical and vegetational heterogeneity, differences in flowering phenology, and genetic substructuring within subpopulations.
The Effectiveness of Caching on a Peer-to-Peer Workload

A safety device for vehicles of the type having a head rest for three passengers seated next to each other. In order to minimize the impairment of view of the driver the head rest of the middle seat may be swung down together with an arm rest. This will not only increase the passenger's comfort but prevent movement of the body in a lateral direction in case of an accident.
Point estimation of states of finite quantum systems

The estimation of the density matrix of a k-level quantum system is studied when the parametrization is given by the real and imaginary part of the entries, and they are estimated by independent measurements. It is established that the properties of the estimation procedure depend very much on the invertibility of the true state. In particular, in the case of a pure state, the estimation should be constrained to ensure the positive definiteness of the estimate. An efficient constraining algorithm is proposed and it yields an asymptotically unbiased estimate. Moreover, several estimation schemes are compared for the unknown state of a qubit when one copy is measured at a time. It is shown that the average mean quadratic error matrix is the smallest if the applied observables are complementary. All the results are illustrated by computer simulations.
Evaluating the validity of the Work Role Functioning Questionnaire (Canadian French version) using classical test theory and item response theory.

BACKGROUND The Work Role Functioning Questionnaire (WRFQ) was developed to assess workers' perceived ability to perform job demands and is used to monitor presenteeism. Still few studies on its validity can be found in the literature. OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to assess the items and factorial composition of the Canadian French version of the WRFQ (WRFQ-CF). METHODS Two measurement approaches were used to test the WRFQ-CF: Classical Test Theory (CTT) and non-parametric Item Response Theory (IRT). RESULTS A total of 352 completed questionnaires were analyzed. A four-factor and three-factor model models were tested and shown respectively good fit with 14 items (Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) = 0.06, Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) = 0.04, Bentler Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = 0.98) and with 17 items (RMSEA = 0.059, SRMR = 0.048, CFI = 0.98). Using IRT, 13 problematic items were identified, of which 9 were common with CTT. CONCLUSIONS This study tested different models with fewer problematic items found in a three-factor model. Using a non-parametric IRT and CTT for item purification gave complementary results. IRT is still scarcely used and can be an interesting alternative method to enhance the quality of a measurement instrument. More studies are needed on the WRFQ-CF to refine its items and factorial composition.