Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Achieving Cultural Congruency in Weight Loss Interventions: Can a Spirituality-Based Program Attract and Retain an Inner-City Community Sample?

Ethnic minorities continue to be disproportionately affected by obesity and are less likely to access healthcare than Caucasians. It is therefore imperative that researchers develop novel methods that will attract these difficult-to-reach groups. The purpose of the present study is to describe characteristics of an urban community sample attracted to a spiritually based, weight loss intervention. Methods. Thirteen participants enrolled in a pilot version of Spiritual Self-Schema Therapy (3S) applied to disordered eating behavior and obesity. Treatment consisted of 12 one-hour sessions in a group therapy format. At baseline, participants were measured for height and weight and completed a battery of self-report measures. Results. The sample was predominantly African-American and Hispanic and a large percentage of the sample was male. Mean baseline scores of the EDE-Q, YFAS, and the CES-D revealed clinically meaningful levels of eating disordered pathology and depression, respectively. The overall attrition rate was quite low for interventions targeting obesity. Discussion. This application of a spiritually centered intervention seemed to attract and retain a predominantly African-American and Hispanic sample. By incorporating a culturally congruent focus, this approach may have been acceptable to individuals who are traditionally more difficult to reach.
A safeguarded dual weighted residual method

The dual weighted residual (DWR) method yields reliable a posteriori error bounds for linear output functionals provided that the error incurred by the numerical approximation of the dual solution is negligible. In that case, its performance is generally superior than that of global ‘energy norm’ error estimators which are ‘unconditionally’ reliable. We present a simple numerical example for which neglecting the approximation error leads to severe underestimation of the functional error, thus showing that the DWR method may be unreliable. We propose a remedy that preserves the original performance, namely a DWR method safeguarded by additional asymptotically higher order a posteriori terms. In particular, the enhanced estimator is unconditionally reliable and asymptotically coincides with the original DWR method. These properties are illustrated via the aforementioned example.
ReFlex: A Flexible Smartphone with Active Haptic Feedback for Bend Input

ReFlex is a flexible smartphone with bend input and active haptic feedback. ReFlex's features allow the introduction of sensations such as friction or resistance. We report results from an experiment using ReFlex in a targeting task, as well as initial users' reactions to the prototype. We explore both absolute and relative tactile haptic feedback, paired with two types of bend input mappings: position-control and rate-control. We observed that position-controlled cursors paired well with relative bend feedback, while rate-controlled cursors paired well with absolute bend feedback to indicate targets. We also explored an eyes-free condition. Results suggest that while eyes-free, haptic feedback conditions were more error-prone than visual-only conditions, the size of the error was relatively small, and users were able to complete the task in all cases. We present two application scenarios that take advantage of the unique input and output modalities of ReFlex and discuss its potential for within document navigation.
fMRI of Retina-Originated Phosphenes Experienced by Patients with Leber Congenital Amaurosis

A phenomenon characterized by the experience of seeing light without any light actually entering the eye is called phosphenes or photopsias. Phosphenes can occur spontaneously or via induction by external stimuli. Previous reports regarding phosphenes have primarily focused on externally induced phosphenes such as by applying alternating or direct current to the cortex. A few of these reports used functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) to study activations induced by cortical phosphenes. However, there are no fMRI reports on spontaneous phosphenes originating from the retina and the resulting pattern of cortical activations. We performed fMRI during a reversing checkerboard paradigm in three LCA patients who underwent unilateral gene therapy and reported experiencing frequent phosphene on a daily basis. We observed bilateral cortical activation covering the entire visual cortices when patients reported experiencing phosphenes. In contrast, in the absence of phosphenes, activation was regulated by patient's visual ability and demonstrated improved cortical activation due to gene therapy. These fMRI results illustrate the potential impact of phosphene perception on visual function and they may explain some of the variability that clinicians find in visual function testing in retinal degeneration. Although we did not perform correlations between visual function and phosphenes, we hope data presented here raises awareness of this phenomenon and its potential effect on visual function and the implications for clinical testing. We recommend a thorough history for phosphene experiences be taken in patients with retinal disease who are candidates for gene or molecular therapy. Lastly, these data illustrate the potential power of fMRI as an outcome measure of gene therapy and the negative impact phosphenes may have on vision testing. fMRI has proven to be a sensitive, non-invasive, and reproducible test paradigm for these purposes and can complement standard visual function testing.
Repeated amphetamine treatment induces neurite outgrowth and enhanced amphetamine‐stimulated dopamine release in rat pheochromocytoma cells (PC12 cells) via a protein kinase C‐ and mitogen activated protein kinase‐dependent mechanism

Repeated intermittent treatment with amphetamine (AMPH) induces both neurite outgrowth and enhanced AMPH‐stimulated dopamine (DA) release in PC12 cells. We investigated the role of protein kinases in the induction of these AMPH‐mediated events by using inhibitors of protein kinase C (PKC), mitogen activated protein kinase (MAP kinase) or protein kinase A (PKA). PKC inhibitors chelerythrine (100 nm and 300 nm), Ro31‐8220 (300 nm) and the MAP kinase kinase inhibitor, PD98059 (30 µm) inhibited the ability of AMPH to elicit both neurite outgrowth and the enhanced AMPH‐stimulated DA release. The direct‐acting PKC activator, 12‐O‐tetradecanoyl phorbol 13‐acetate (TPA, 250 nm) mimicked the ability of AMPH to elicit neurite outgrowth and enhanced DA release. On the contrary, a selective PKA inhibitor, 100 µm Rp‐8‐Br‐cAMPS, blocked only the development of AMPH‐stimulated DA release but not the neurite outgrowth. Treatment of the cells with acute AMPH elicited an increase in the activity of PKC and MAP kinase but not PKA. These results demonstrated that AMPH‐induced increases in MAP kinase and PKC are important for induction of both the enhancement in transporter‐mediated DA release and neurite outgrowth but PKA was only required for the enhancement in AMPH‐stimulated DA release. Therefore the mechanisms by which AMPH induces neurite outgrowth and the enhancement in AMPH‐stimulated DA release can be differentiated.
DUAL VOTE: A NOVEL USER INTERFACE FOR E-VOTING SYSTEMS

The authors present a novel e-Voting system called "Dual Vote", which couples the strength of electronic voting with the traditional pen and paper user interface (UI). Through the use of pen and paper as a voting medium the system addresses usability problems and provides a verifi able audit trail; two i ssues which have a fflicted modern e-voting solut ions. The paper presen ts the implem entation details of the Dual Vote s ystem, whic h is mainly comprised of an inductiv e sensor array and a cap acitive-based electron ic pen. A n evaluation is also condu cted which demonstr ates the h igh level of usability as well as assessing the technical competency of the Dual Vote system. This paper presents a novel e-voting system called Dual Vote. In the Dual Vote system a voter's preference is simultaneously recorded on both electronic and paper media. The Dual Vote syste m allows a user to e nter a vote using the traditional pe n and paper interface. The system simultaneously records the vote electronically using an ind uctive sen sor array an d a cap acitive-based electronic p en. This nov el UI ad dresses t he cru cial issues of u sability and verifiability, which are n ow widely recognised as b eing deficiencies in many modern e-voting systems Usability is a co mmonly u sed metric fo r electronic-voting syste ms. Th e issue of providing an effectiv e and intuitive UI h as proved a sig nificant challenge for modern e-voting solutions. A recent study Conrad et al, com pared the usa bility of si x prominent e-Voting machine interfaces and ide ntified a num ber of weaknesses ( 7). The problems ranged from at best , i ncreasing t he e ffort re quired t o v ote t o at wo rst; interfering with th e vo ter's ab ility to v ote as in tended. The stu dy showed th at voters preferred a short an d quick voting e xperience wi th a cl ear negative relationship betwee n effort and satis faction. The study also found t hat pa per ballot i nterfaces re quired t he least am ount of actions to vote when compared with othe r types of voting system. In addition, Byrne et al found the overall error rate for paper ballots to be 1.5% which was sign ificantly less th an electron ic vo ting (4 ). Th is clearly h ighlights th e on going need fo r im proved e- voting interfaces. Increasing empha sis is also placed on t he ability to fo rmally verify the results of an electronic voting system For example, it is now a requirement in twen ty-seven states in the US that e-voting system s contain some form of paper audit trail. As another example a group called the Irish Citizens for Trustworthy e-Voting was formed because Ireland's Power Vote system lacked any means of verifiability. The Power Vote system was officially removed from use in 2009 (14). The Dual Vote interface incorporates an Ind uctive Sen sor Array R eader (ISAR ) and a cap acitive- based electronic pen. The ISAR is a novel use of inductor technology that allows the system to determine the paper form location and orientation. The pen relays positional data as the user writes on the ballot paper. The
The Ecological Approach to Text Visualization

This article presents both theoretical and technical bases on which to build a “science of text visualization. ” These conceptually produce “the ecological approach,” which is rooted in ecological and evolutionary psychology. The basic idea is that humans are genetically selected from their species history to perceptually interpret certain informational aspects of natural environments. If information from text documents is visually spatialized in a manner conformal with these predilections, its meaningful interpretation to the user of a text visualization system becomes relatively intuitive and accurate. The SPIRE text visualization system, which images information from free text documents as natural terrains, serves as an example of the “ecological approach” in its visual metaphor, its text analysis, and its spatializing procedures.
On the moduli scheme of stable sheaves supported on cubic space curves

We investigate the geometry of the Simpson moduli space M P ([inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="01i" /]) of stable sheaves with Hilbert polynomial P ( m ) = 3 m + 1. It consists of two smooth, rational components M 0 and M 1 of dimensions 12 and 13 intersecting each other transversally along an 11-dimensional, smooth, rational subvariety. The component M 0 is isomorphic to the closure of the space of twisted cubics in the Hilbert scheme Hilb P ([inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="02i" /]) and M 1 is isomorphic to the incidence variety of the relative Hilbert scheme of cubic curves contained in planes. In order to obtain the result and to classify the sheaves, we characterize MP ([inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="03i" /]) as geometric quotient of a certain matrix parameter space by a nonreductive group. We also compute the Betti numbers of the Chow groups of the moduli space.
Quick error detection tests with fast runtimes for effective post-silicon validation and debug

Long error detection latency, the time elapsed from the occurrence of an error caused by a bug to its manifestation as an observable failure, severely limits the effectiveness of existing post-silicon validation and debug techniques. Traditional post-silicon validation tests can incur very long error detection latencies of millions or even billions of clock cycles. An earlier technique called Quick Error Detection (QED) shortens error detection latencies to only few hundred (or thousand) clock cycles. However, software-only QED (i.e., QED implemented entirely in software) can result in significantly increased post-silicon validation test runtimes. We present a new technique called Fast QED that overcomes this drawback of software-only QED, while preserving the error detection latency and bug coverage benefits of software-only QED. Simulation results using an OpenSPARC T2-like multi-core SoC and bugs abstracted from multiple commercial multi-core SoCs demonstrate: 1. Fast QED achieves 4 orders of magnitude improvement in test runtime as compared to software-only QED, with only 0.4% increase in chip area; 2. Fast QED improves error detection latencies by up to 5 orders of magnitude compared to non-QED tests, and also achieves improved error detection latencies compared to software-only QED; and, 3. Fast QED improves bug coverage by up to 2-fold compared to non-QED tests (similar to software-only QED).
ZW10 links mitotic checkpoint signaling to the structural kinetochore

The mitotic checkpoint ensures that chromosomes are divided equally between daughter cells and is a primary mechanism preventing the chromosome instability often seen in aneuploid human tumors. ZW10 and Rod play an essential role in this checkpoint. We show that in mitotic human cells ZW10 resides in a complex with Rod and Zwilch, whereas another ZW10 partner, Zwint-1, is part of a separate complex of structural kinetochore components including Mis12 and Ndc80–Hec1. Zwint-1 is critical for recruiting ZW10 to unattached kinetochores. Depletion from human cells or Xenopus egg extracts is used to demonstrate that the ZW10 complex is essential for stable binding of a Mad1–Mad2 complex to unattached kinetochores. Thus, ZW10 functions as a linker between the core structural elements of the outer kinetochore and components that catalyze generation of the mitotic checkpoint-derived “stop anaphase” inhibitor.
An exploratory study toward understanding social entrepreneurial intention

Societies are struggling from an array of social complications. The presence of such complications can be observed in the form of poverty, education disparity, malnutrition, inadequate infrastructure and medical services, environmental hazards, just to name a few. The reduction of such complications has become a major concern for many countries in various regions across the world. Thus, today’s societies are in a great need of social entrepreneurs, as they have the ability to minimise such complications through the development of sustainable social enterprises. Hence, individuals’ intention of establishing a social venture has emerged as a more recent area of inquiry which calls for further exploration. With this thought, this paper has been crafted for acquiring in-depth insight regarding the development of social entrepreneurship through exploring the intentions of future social entrepreneurs and mapping how their intentions will be translated into reality. The findings suggest that intention to create a social venture is initiated thorough individuals personal experiences along with their concern toward helping humanity. Such intentions can be brought to light through the enhancement of certain skills, social support as well as overcoming the obstacles that may arise.
Baseline blood immunological profiling differentiates between Her2–breast cancer molecular subtypes: implications for immunomediated mechanisms of treatment response

Purpose Breast cancer patients’ response to treatment is highly dependent on the primary tumor molecular features, with triple-negative breast tumors having the worst prognosis of all subtypes. According to the molecular features, tumors stimulate the microenvironment to induce distinct immune responses, baseline immune activation being associated with higher likelihood of pathologic response. In this study, we investigated the deconvolution of the immunological status of triple-negative tumors in comparison with luminal tumors and the association with patients’ clinicopathological characteristics. Patients and methods Gene expression of 84 inflammatory molecules and their receptors were analyzed in 40 peripheral blood samples from patients with Her2− primary breast cancer tumors. We studied the association of triple-negative phenotype with age, clinical stage, tumor size, lymph nodes, and menopausal status. Results We observed that more patients with estrogen (ER)/progesterone (PR)-negative tumors had grade III, while more patients with ER/PR-positive tumors had grade II tumors. Gene expression analysis revealed a panel of 14 genes to have differential expression between the two groups: several interleukins: IL13, IL16, IL17C and IL17F, IL1A, IL3; interleukin receptors: IL10RB, IL5RA; chemokines: CXCL13 and CCL26; and cytokines: CSF2, IFNA2, OSM, TNSF13. Conclusion The expression levels of these genes have been previously shown to be associated with reduced immunological status; indeed, the triple-negative breast cancer patients presented with lower counts of lymphocytes and eosinophils than the ER/PR-positive ones. These results contribute to a better understanding of the possible role of antitumor immune responses in mediating the clinical outcome.
Qualitative Research as Social Justice Practice with Culturally Diverse Populations

The qualitative research process can offer counselors and psychologists the opportunity to participate in social justice practice. Qualitative research contributes to social justice when researchers promote the following principles: equity, access, participation, and harmony for culturally diverse populations, those currently most at risk for acts of social injustice. In this manuscript we suggests ways in which qualitative approaches can provide a vehicle by which social justice can be enacted when researchers are conscious and deliberate about these intentions. To this end, we review and highlight best practices in socially just qualitative research processes across the following aspects of research: design, data collection, data analysis and interpretation, and application of findings.
Scheduling challenges and opportunities in integrated CPU+GPU processors

Heterogeneous processors with architecturally different devices (CPU and GPU) integrated on the same die provide good performance and energy efficiency for wide range of workloads. However, they also create challenges and opportunities in terms of scheduling workloads on the appropriate device. Current scheduling practices mainly use the characteristics of kernel workloads to decide the CPU/GPU mapping. In this paper we first provide detailed infrared imaging results that show the impact of mapping decisions on the thermal and power profiles of CPU+GPU processors. Furthermore, we observe that runtime conditions such as power and CPU load from traditional workloads also affect the mapping decision. To exploit our observations, we propose techniques to characterize the OpenCL kernel workloads during run-time and map them on appropriate device under time-varying physical (i.e., chip power limit) and CPU load conditions, in particular the number of available CPU cores for the OpenCL kernel. We implement our dynamic scheduler on a real CPU+GPU processor and evaluate it using various OpenCL benchmarks. Compared to the state-ofthe- art kernel-level scheduling method, the proposed scheduler provides up to 31% and 10% improvements in runtime and energy, respectively.
On the simulation of large-scale architectures using multiple application abstraction levels

Simulation is a key tool for computer architecture research. In particular, cycle-accurate simulators are extremely important for microarchitecture exploration and detailed design decisions, but they are slow and, so, not suitable for simulating large-scale architectures, nor are they meant for this. Moreover, microarchitecture design decisions are irrelevant, or even misleading, for early processor design stages and high-level explorations. This allows one to raise the abstraction level of the simulated architecture, and also the application abstraction level, as it does not necessarily have to be represented as an instruction stream. In this paper we introduce a definition of different application abstraction levels, and how these are employed in TaskSim, a multi-core architecture simulator, to provide several architecture modeling abstractions, and simulate large-scale architectures with hundreds of cores. We compare the simulation speed of these abstraction levels to the ones in existing simulation tools, and also evaluate their utility and accuracy. Our simulations show that a very high-level abstraction, which may be even faster than native execution, is useful for scalability studies on parallel applications; and that just simulating explicit memory transfers, we achieve accurate simulations for architectures using non-coherent scratchpad memories, with just a 25x slowdown compared to native execution. Furthermore, we revisit trace memory simulation techniques, that are more abstract than instruction-by-instruction simulations and provide an 18x simulation speedup.
Novel License Plate Detection Method for Complex Scenes

In this paper, a novel license plate detection method is proposed. There are three key steps in our method, i.e. image preprocessing, license plate detection and license plate confirmation. First, the noises are removed and the diversities of license plate forms are unified through image preprocessing. And then, the license plates are detected roughly by using the cascade AdaBoost classifier. Finally, the gradient images are binarized, and the connected component analysis will be adopted to remove some false plates. Meanwhile, the offline trained Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier is adopted to confirm the license plate candidates in further. The promising results of the proposed method is verified by experiments on a challenging database.
Global and Arithmetic Hom-Lie Algebras

Hom-Lie algebras are non-associative, non-commutative algebras generalizing Lie algebras by twisting the Jacobi identity by a homomorphism. The main examples are algebras of twisted derivations (i.e., linear maps with a generalized Leibniz rule). Such generalized derivations appear in all parts of number theory, so hom-Lie algebras appear to have a natural role to play in many number-theoretical studies. In this paper we also give an alternative construction of hom-Lie algebras which is useful for constructing hom-Lie algebras from number fields and A-motives, and vice versa. As a possible interesting application we show that hom-Lie algebras can be used to construct (non-trivial) field extensions of a given number field.