Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Are Current State Standards for Domestic Violence Perpetrator Treatment Adequately Informed by Research?

Summary An empirical review and critique of existing state standards for batterer programs in the domestic violence field appeared timely, given the current debate about their status and utility. Although there has been a considerable amount of polemic discussion of the topic, relatively limited data have been reported. The present article surveyed the content of standards developed in 30 states within the United States. Five categories of interest were examined including: (1) the minimum length of treatment specified; (2) specification of treatment orientation, methods, and content; (3) preferred or allowable modalities of treatment; (4) whether research findings were mentioned or endorsed as a basis for development of treatment standards; and (5) methods for developing and revising standards. A related area, the minimum education required for providers, was also included as an area of interest to further describe the current pool of practitioners targeted for regulation. An analysis of the content of these standards was then performed with regard to existing peer-reviewed research in the field. The results are discussed in terms of the strengths and weaknesses of current standards, the areas in which further research is needed, and specific recommendations regarding steps that might be taken to improve existing efforts.
EFFECTIVENESS OF EMOTION-FOCUSED THERAPY ON PATIENTS WITH MAJOR DEPRESSION DISORDER

This research was conducted to examine the efficacy of emotion focused therapy on the severity of depression in patients with major depression. emotion focused therapy as a neo-humanistic approach, by integrating and up-to-dating person-centered, gestalt, and existential therapies, and focusing on emotional processing gathered a good deal of experimental supports abroad. In this single-case design, the efficacy of the mentioned therapy was examined on three participants (two women and one man) suffering from major depression. To evaluate the consistency of therapeutic effects, the findings were followed for two months. Depression and the severity of it, was assessed by using structured clinical interview for DSM-IV-TR (SCID) and Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II), respectively. General remission percentage of this index was 77%. The findings suggest that emotion focused therapy has high efficacy on reducing the severity of depression. Two months follow up results indicated the consistency of patients' remission during this period.
Ultraconserved Elements Between the Genomes of the Plants Arabidopsis thaliana and Rice

Abstract Ultraconserved elements, sequences with 100% identity with no insertions or deletions between genomes, have been found in both vertebrate and invertebrate genomes; whether plant genomes contain ultraconserved elements, however, is unknown. We consequently compared the genomes of Arabidopsis thaliana and rice, which diverged about 200 million years ago, and identified 25 ultraconserved elements that are longer than 100 bp. Similar to those previously found, ultraconserved elements in plants tend to occur in clusters and locate at noncoding regions; nevertheless, they have many distinct features. For instance, the longest ultraconserved element between the 2 plant genomes is 1491 bp, much longer than the longest one (779 bp) between the human and rodent genomes. Some biological implications are discussed, but the functions of these plant ultraconserved elements and the reasons why they are practically frozen during the evolution of millions of years remain a mystery.
CloudSat adding new insight into tropical penetrating convection

Collocated observations of cloud‐top height and cloud‐profiling information from CloudSat and cloud‐top temperature from MODIS are analyzed to determine where convective cloud top occurs in relation to the cold point tropopause and to characterize the internal vertical structure of these deep convective clouds. Three types of penetrating convection identified as cold‐low (CL), cold‐high (CH), and warm‐high (WH) are defined according to the cloud‐top temperature and height in comparison to the cold point tropopause height and temperature: It is suggested that CL, CH and WH types correspond to, respectively, the incipient, mature and dissipating stage of the convective lifecycle. Multiple lines of evidence, including characteristics of CloudSat radar profiles, test against the undiluted ascent hypothesis, and examination of convective system size, all lend support to this interpretation.
Binary analysis and optimization-based normalization of gene expression data

MOTIVATION Most approaches to gene expression analysis use real-valued expression data, produced by high-throughput screening technologies, such as microarrays. Often, some measure of similarity must be computed in order to extract meaningful information from the observed data. The choice of this similarity measure frequently has a profound effect on the results of the analysis, yet no standards exist to guide the researcher. RESULTS To address this issue, we propose to analyse gene expression data entirely in the binary domain. The natural measure of similarity becomes the Hamming distance and reflects the notion of similarity used by biologists. We also develop a novel data-dependent optimization-based method, based on Genetic Algorithms (GAs), for normalizing gene expression data. This is a necessary step before quantizing gene expression data into the binary domain and generally, for comparing data between different arrays. We then present an algorithm for binarizing gene expression data and illustrate the use of the above methods on two different sets of data. Using Multidimensional Scaling, we show that a reasonable degree of separation between different tumor types in each data set can be achieved by working solely in the binary domain. The binary approach offers several advantages, such as noise resilience and computational efficiency, making it a viable approach to extracting meaningful biological information from gene expression data.
Barriers to mask wearing for influenza-like illnesses among urban Hispanic households.

OBJECTIVES To identify barriers to mask wearing and to examine the factors associated with the willingness to wear masks among households. DESIGN AND SAMPLE We used data sources from a study assessing the impact of 3 nonpharmaceutical interventions on the rates of influenza: exit interviews; home visits with a subset of the mask group; and a focus group. MEASURES Risk perception score, univariate analysis, and logistic regression were conducted to identify the characteristics and predictors of mask use. Thematic barriers to mask wearing were identified from qualitative data obtained at home visits and focus group. RESULTS Respondents from the mask group, when compared with the nonmask group, demonstrated higher risk perception scores concerning influenza (maximum score: 60, means: 37.6 and 30.2, p<.001) and increased perception of effectiveness of mask wearing (maximum score: 10, means: 7.8 and 7.3, p=.043). There was no significant association between demographic, attitudinal, or knowledge variables and adherence to wearing masks. Thematic barriers were identified such as social acceptability of mask use, comfort and fit, and perception of the risk/need for masks. CONCLUSIONS Face masks may not be an effective intervention for seasonal or pandemic influenza unless the risk perception of influenza is high. Dissemination of culturally appropriate mask use information by health authorities and providers must be emphasized when educating the public.
A Schema-Based DNA Algorithm Applicable on Graphics Processing Units

In this paper, an evolutionary algorithm inspired by biological deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) computing is proposed to perform the task of optimization. As a novel branch of computational intelligence, DNA computing has the strong computing and proliferating capability to in DNA strands by DNA encoding and matching in the molecule layer. However, it is difficult to apply DNA computing to search processing in a nonlinear hyperspace, because traditional DNA computing often relies on biochemical reactions of DNA molecules and may result in incorrect or undesirable computations. To utilize the advantages and avoid the problems of biological DNA computing, this article proposes an artificial DNA computing approach, which accelerates the process by means of the operation of restriction enzymes based on constructed schemata. After DNA encoding, the typical DNA database is constructed and evolved by evolutionary algorithms and the schema theory of genetic algorithm (GA) integrated to enhance the accuracy and convergence rate of exploration in the search space. Meanwhile, to fully utilize parallelism characteristics of DNA computing, a novel algorithm, named parallel DNA computing algorithm, which is tailored to be implemented in graphics processing unit devices, is proposed and exanimated its performance on benchmark optimization problems. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method presents excellent expected processing time efficiency, compared with its counterparts without the designed accelerating processes, such as schemata, restriction enzyme, and migration. As well, the performance is also distinctly superior to two renowned GAs.
Interleukin‐15 strongly inhibits interleukin‐8 and monocyte chemoattractant protein‐1 production in human colonic epithelial cells

Interleukin‐15 (IL‐15) is a novel cytokine with actions similar to IL‐2 because of common receptor components. Although IL‐15 is expressed in colonic epithelial cells and may regulate epithelial cell function, its effects on these cells are not fully defined. We explored the regulatory effects of IL‐15 on IL‐8 and monocyte‐chemoattractant protein‐1 (MCP‐1) production in the colonic epithelial cell line Caco‐2 as well as in freshly isolated human colonic epithelial cells. IL‐15 was added to intestinal epithelial cells under various culture conditions. Levels of chemokines were determined by enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay. To determine the elements of the IL‐2/IL‐15R complex involved we used neutralizing antibodies specific for individual receptor chains. IL‐15 down‐regulates IL‐8 and MCP‐1 production in Caco‐2 cells as well as in freshly isolated human colonic epithelial cells in a dose‐dependent manner. Intestinal epithelial cells became more responsive to IL‐15‐induced suppression when activated with greater IL‐1 doses. Strong chemokine suppression was seen when IL‐15 was given prior to, simultaneous with, or after stimulatory agent. Anti‐IL‐2Rγ antibodies efficiently blocked (82% inhibition) the suppression induced by IL‐15, while anti‐IL‐2Rβ antibodies were less effective. The involvement of β‐chain was further suggested by the finding that a mixture of both monoclonal antibodies (mAb) at a suboptimal concentration (1 µg/ml of each mAb) produced a synergistic inhibitory effect on down‐regulation of epithelial chemokine production. These results show that IL‐15 can suppress IL‐8 and MCP‐1 secretion by intestinal epithelial cells. A microenvironment containing high concentrations of IL‐15 may alter the recruitment of neutrophils to enterocytes at least partly by inhibiting IL‐8 and MCP‐1 production.
Countering antivaccination attitudes

Significance Myths about the safety of vaccinations have led to a decline in vaccination rates and the reemergence of measles in the United States, calling for effective provaccine messages to curb this dangerous trend. Prior research on vaccine attitude change suggests that it is difficult to persuade vaccination skeptics and that direct attempts to do so can even backfire. Here, we successfully countered people’s antivaccination attitudes by making them appreciate the consequences of failing to vaccinate their children (using information provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). This intervention outperformed another that aimed to undermine widespread vaccination myths. Three times as many cases of measles were reported in the United States in 2014 as in 2013. The reemergence of measles has been linked to a dangerous trend: parents refusing vaccinations for their children. Efforts have been made to counter people’s antivaccination attitudes by providing scientific evidence refuting vaccination myths, but these interventions have proven ineffective. This study shows that highlighting factual information about the dangers of communicable diseases can positively impact people’s attitudes to vaccination. This method outperformed alternative interventions aimed at undercutting vaccination myths.
Effect of In Vitro Organic Nitrate Tolerance on Relaxation, Cyclic GMP Accumulation, and Guanylate Cyclase Activation By Glyceryl Trinitrate and the Enantiomers of Isoidide Dinitrate

Previously, it was shown that the D enantiomer of isoidide dinitrate was 10-fold more potent than the L enantiomer and 10-fold less potent than glyceryl trinitrate for stimulating cyclic GMP accumulation and relaxation of isolated rat aorta. In the present study, these organic nitrates were tested for their ability to induce tolerance to organic nitrate-induced relaxation, cyclic GMP accumulation, and guanylate cyclase activation in rat aorta in vitro. To compensate for the differences in vasodilator potency, tolerance was induced by incubating isolated rat aorta with concentrations of organic nitrates 1,000-fold greater than the EC50 for relaxation. Under these conditions, the EC50 for relaxation was increased significantly for each organic nitrate and to a similar degree on subsequent reexposnre. These data suggest that the potential for inducing in vitro tolerance to relaxation was the same for the three organic nitrates tested. When activation of soluble guanylate cyclase by these compounds was assessed, the enantiomers of isoidide dinitrate were equipotent, but less potent than glyceryl trinitrate, suggesting that the site of enantioselectivity is not guanylate cyclase itself. In blood vessels made tolerant to organic nitrates by pretreatment with glyceryl trinitrate, vasodilator activity, cydic GMP accumulation, and guanylate cydase activation were attenuated on reexposure to each organic nitrate. In addition, differences in the potency of the three organic nitrates and the enantioselectivity of isoidide dinitrate for relaxation were abolished in tolerant tissue, whereas the potency difference between glyceryl trinitrate and isoidide dinitrate for activation of guanylate cyclase was unchanged. The results suggest that there are at least two sites at which organic nitrates act: guanylate cyclase and an unidentified site that allows for enantioselectivity of vasodilation and cyclic GMP accumulation. Furthermore, when blood vessels are made tolerant to organic nitrates, the enantioselectivity and the differences hi potency of the organic nitrates for relaxation are lost, and activation of guanylate cyclase is decreased.
Smith predictor based control of continuous-review perishable inventory systems with multiple supply alternatives

In this paper we address the problem of efficient control of continuous-review perishable inventory systems. In the considered systems the goods at a distribution center used to fulfill unknown, variable demand deteriorate at a constant rate. The stock is replenished with delay from multiple supply sources characterized by different latency in procuring orders. We develop a new supply policy which incorporates the Smith predictor to counteract the adverse effects of delay. The proposed policy guarantees that the assigned storage space at the distribution center is never exceeded which means that the cost of emergency storage is eliminated. Moreover, we show that with appropriately chosen controller parameters all of the demand imposed at the distribution center is realized from the readily available resources.
Analyses of 32 Loci Clarify Phylogenetic Relationships among Trypanosoma cruzi Lineages and Support a Single Hybridization prior to Human Contact

Background The genetic diversity of Trypanosoma cruzi, the etiological agent of Chagas disease, has been traditionally divided in two major groups, T. cruzi I and II, corresponding to discrete typing units TcI and TcII-VI under a recently proposed nomenclature. The two major groups of T. cruzi seem to differ in important biological characteristics, and are thus thought to represent a natural division relevant for epidemiological studies and development of prophylaxis. To understand the potential connection between the different manifestations of Chagas disease and variability of T. cruzi strains, it is essential to have a correct reconstruction of the evolutionary history of T. cruzi. Methodology/Principal Findings Nucleotide sequences from 32 unlinked loci (>26 Kilobases of aligned sequence) were used to reconstruct the evolutionary history of strains representing the known genetic variability of T. cruzi. Thorough phylogenetic analyses show that the original classification of T. cruzi in two major lineages does not reflect its evolutionary history and that there is only strong evidence for one major and recent hybridization event in the history of this species. Furthermore, estimates of divergence times using Bayesian methods show that current extant lineages of T. cruzi diverged very recently, within the last 3 million years, and that the major hybridization event leading to hybrid lineages TcV and TcVI occurred less than 1 million years ago, well before the contact of T. cruzi with humans in South America. Conclusions/Significance The described phylogenetic relationships among the six major genetic subdivisions of T. cruzi should serve as guidelines for targeted epidemiological and prophylaxis studies. We suggest that it is important to reconsider conclusions from previous studies that have attempted to uncover important biological differences between the two originally defined major lineages of T. cruzi especially if those conclusions were obtained from single or few strains.
Rituximab, Bevacizumab and CHOP (RA-CHOP) in untreated diffuse large B-cell lymphoma: Safety, biomarker and pharmacokinetic analysis

Bevacizumab is a humanized monoclonal antibody directed against vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF-A). Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma patients with high serum VEGF levels have an inferior survival compared to patients with low VEGF levels. Bevacizumab was administered through a central line at 15 mg kg−1 IV on day 1 followed by rituximab (R) and CHOP on day 2 for cycle 1 and day 1 for cycles 2 – 8. Serum levels of bevacizumab and R were measured at specified time points to assess pharmacokinetics (PK). Plasma and urine samples were also analysed for VEGF. Tumor samples were stained for VEGF, CD31 and factor VIII by immunohistochemistry. Thirteen patients with newly-diagnosed DLBCL received a total of 88 cycles (range 2 – 8, median 7). Best response included five CR, six PR, one SD and one PD with an overall response rate of 85% and complete response rate of 38%. The 12-month PFS is 77% and a median follow-up of 16.9 months for the surviving patients. All tumor samples stained strongly positive for VEGF and there was a marginal association between baseline plasma VEGF and response (p = 0.04). Patients with higher plasma VEGF levels were generally younger and had bulky disease. Micro-vessel density did not correlate with presenting disease characteristics, VEGF expression or response. The PK of bevacizumab and rituximab were not influenced by combined treatment. In this patient population, treatment with RA-CHOP did not result in any episodes of grade 3 or 4 proteinuria, heart failure or hemorrhage. The RA-CHOP combination was generally well tolerated and safe.
Mining Online Social Data for Detecting Social Network Mental Disorders

An increasing number of social network mental disorders (SNMDs), such as Cyber-Relationship Addiction, Information Overload, and Net Compulsion, have been recently noted. Symptoms of these mental disorders are usually observed passively today, resulting in delayed clinical intervention. In this paper, we argue that mining online social behavior provides an opportunity to actively identify SNMDs at an early stage. It is challenging to detect SNMDs because the mental factors considered in standard diagnostic criteria (questionnaire) cannot be observed from online social activity logs. Our approach, new and innovative to the practice of SNMD detection, does not rely on self-revealing of those mental factors via questionnaires. Instead, we propose a machine learning framework, namely, Social Network Mental Disorder Detection (SNMDD), that exploits features extracted from social network data to accurately identify potential cases of SNMDs. We also exploit multi-source learning in SNMDD and propose a new SNMDbased Tensor Model (STM) to improve the performance. Our framework is evaluated via a user study with 3126 online social network users. We conduct a feature analysis, and also apply SNMDD on large-scale datasets and analyze the characteristics of the three SNMD types. The results show that SNMDD is promising for identifying online social network users with potential SNMDs.
Learner Autonomy In Language Learning: Student Teachers’ Beliefs

This paper aims to investigate student teachers' beliefs about learner autonomy in the Turkish educational context. In a study in the ELT Department, Gazi University, a questionnaire developed by Camilleri (1997) was administered to 112 student teachers. Twenty volunteer student teachers were interviewed in groups to identify their further general attitudes towards learner autonomy. The overall study findings indicate that student teachers are positive towards the adoption of learner autonomy principles. Most student teachers, however, do not want their future students to take part in the decision making process concerning the time and place of the course and the textbooks to be followed. In light of the findings, teacher educators are recommended to encourage their student teachers to engage in out-of-class tasks; to involve them in decision-making on the learning/teaching processes and to employ portfolios and teacher logs for the development of practical knowledge and thinking operations.
A collaborative approach to developing probation practice

This article reports our experience of developing a skills-based practice framework for effective engagement with offenders. The project began with extensive engagement with probation staff at every level. This was followed by collaborative pilots in 22 probation trusts on effective engagement by practitioners and reflective supervision by managers, using the best available international research and insights from research on desistance. The learning and feedback from these pilots was used to bring together the two complementary elements into a single evidence-based model. Feedback from managers and practitioners gathered in external evaluation of the pilots was very positive, with the vast majority seeing the approaches as having a positive impact on their practice and seeing it as important that the model continued to be used. Observation of practice and constructive feedback was particularly valued as was positive leadership and support by senior managers. The external evaluation of the pilots continues, and we are conducting an internal evaluation of the integrated model, which will look at practitioners’ and offenders’ experiences in three probation trusts over this year and next.