Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
identity in adolescence : the balance between self and other / Jane Kroger

Towards a definition of Identity: Sociocultural and Developmental Views, Adolescence as Identity Synthesis: Erikson's Psychosocial Approach, Adolescence as a Second Individuation Process: An Object Relations View, Identity through a Cognitive-Developmental Lens: Kohlberg's Contributions, Ego Development in Adolescence: Loevinger's Paradigm, Identity as Meaning-Making: The Constructive-Developmental Approach of Kegan and Noam, Towards Integration and Conclusions: They Tell Their Stories
Piecewise Planar and Compact Floorplan Reconstruction from Images

This paper presents a system to reconstruct piecewise planar and compact floorplans from images, which are then converted to high quality texture-mapped models for free- viewpoint visualization. There are two main challenges in image-based floorplan reconstruction. The first is the lack of 3D information that can be extracted from images by Structure from Motion and Multi-View Stereo, as indoor scenes abound with non-diffuse and homogeneous surfaces plus clutter. The second challenge is the need of a sophisticated regularization technique that enforces piecewise planarity, to suppress clutter and yield high quality texture mapped models. Our technical contributions are twofold. First, we propose a novel structure classification technique to classify each pixel to three regions (floor, ceiling, and wall), which provide 3D cues even from a single image. Second, we cast floorplan reconstruction as a shortest path problem on a specially crafted graph, which enables us to enforce piecewise planarity. Besides producing compact piecewise planar models, this formulation allows us to directly control the number of vertices (i.e., density) of the output mesh. We evaluate our system on real indoor scenes, and show that our texture mapped mesh models provide compelling free-viewpoint visualization experiences, when compared against the state-of-the-art and ground truth.
Fine De Novo Sequencing of a Fungal Genome Using only SOLiD Short Read Data: Verification on Aspergillus oryzae RIB40

The development of next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies has dramatically increased the throughput, speed, and efficiency of genome sequencing. The short read data generated from NGS platforms, such as SOLiD and Illumina, are quite useful for mapping analysis. However, the SOLiD read data with lengths of <60 bp have been considered to be too short for de novo genome sequencing. Here, to investigate whether de novo sequencing of fungal genomes is possible using only SOLiD short read sequence data, we performed de novo assembly of the Aspergillus oryzae RIB40 genome using only SOLiD read data of 50 bp generated from mate-paired libraries with 2.8- or 1.9-kb insert sizes. The assembled scaffolds showed an N50 value of 1.6 Mb, a 22-fold increase than those obtained using only SOLiD short read in other published reports. In addition, almost 99% of the reference genome was accurately aligned by the assembled scaffold fragments in long lengths. The sequences of secondary metabolite biosynthetic genes and clusters, whose products are of considerable interest in fungal studies due to their potential medicinal, agricultural, and cosmetic properties, were also highly reconstructed in the assembled scaffolds. Based on these findings, we concluded that de novo genome sequencing using only SOLiD short reads is feasible and practical for molecular biological study of fungi. We also investigated the effect of filtering low quality data, library insert size, and k-mer size on the assembly performance, and recommend for the assembly use of mild filtered read data where the N50 was not so degraded and the library has an insert size of ∼2.0 kb, and k-mer size 33.
State Observability and Observers of Linear-Time-Invariant Systems Under Irregular Sampling and Sensor Limitations

State observability and observer designs are investigated for linear-time-invariant systems in continuous time when the outputs are measured only at a set of irregular sampling time sequences. The problem is primarily motivated by systems with limited sensor information in which sensor switching generates irregular sampling sequences. State observability may be lost and the traditional observers may fail in general, even if the system has a full-rank observability matrix. It demonstrates that if the original system is observable, the irregularly sampled system will be observable if the sampling density is higher than some critical frequency, independent of the actual time sequences. This result extends Shannon's sampling theorem for signal reconstruction under periodic sampling to system observability under arbitrary sampling sequences. State observers and recursive algorithms are developed whose convergence properties are derived under potentially dependent measurement noises. Persistent excitation conditions are validated by designing sampling time sequences. By generating suitable switching time sequences, the designed state observers are shown to be convergent in mean square, with probability one, and with exponential convergence rates. Schemes for generating desired sampling sequences are summarized.
Links Between Parental Responses to Adolescent Distress and Adolescent Risk Behavior: The Mediating Role of Thought/Emotion Suppression

Title of Document: LINKS BETWEEN PARENTAL RESPONSES TO ADOLESCENT DISTRESS AND ADOLESCENT RISK BEHAVIOR: THE MEDIATING ROLE OF THOUGHT/EMOTION SUPPRESSION Jason Daniel Jones, Doctor of Philosophy, 2015 Directed By: Professor Jude Cassidy Department of Psychology The rates of substance use and unsafe sexual practices among America’s youth are a major public health concern. The goal of this study was to examine novel interand intrapersonal predictors of adolescent risk behavior. Aim 1 of this study was to examine how supportive and unsupportive parental responses to adolescents’ negative emotions relate to adolescent substance use and sexual behavior, and to test whether the tendency to suppress unwanted thoughts and emotions mediates this link. Aim 2 was to further explore the putative link between suppression and adolescent risk behavior by testing whether physiological arousal when viewing negative emotional stimuli mediates this link. Participants included 115 adolescents (mean age = 17.19 years, SD = 1.27; 48% female) and 109 mothers. Aim 1 analyses revealed limited support for the hypothesized links: (a) adolescent-reported unsupportive maternal responses were associated with greater self-reported suppression (but not the other two measures of suppression), which in turn was related to more frequent sexual behavior in the past year and (b) adolescent-reported supportive maternal responses were negatively associated with adolescent substance use in the past year. Aim 2 analyses did not support any links between suppression and physiological arousal or between physiological arousal and adolescent risk behavior. Overall, these results suggest some potential links among parents’ responses to their adolescents’ negative emotions, suppression, and adolescent risk behavior. However, the hypothesized links that were significant in the path models were between variables measured by adolescent self-reports; therefore, the findings should be viewed as preliminary. I discuss these findings in the context of the available literature on parental emotion socialization, suppression, and adolescent risk behavior, and suggest directions for future research that could move this area of inquiry forward. LINKS BETWEEN PARENTAL RESPONSES TO ADOLESCENT DISTRESS AND ADOLESCENT RISK BEHAVIOR: THE MEDIATING ROLE OF THOUGHT/EMOTION SUPPRESSION
Spatial Opinion Dynamics and the Effects of Two Types of Mixing

Spatially situated opinions that can be held with different degrees of conviction lead to spatiotemporal patterns such as clustering (homophily), polarization, and deadlock. Our goal is to understand how sensitive these patterns are to changes in the local nature of interactions. We introduce two different mixing mechanisms, spatial relocation and nonlocal interaction ("telephoning"), to an earlier fully spatial model (no mixing). Interestingly, the mechanisms that create deadlock in the fully spatial model have the opposite effect when there is a sufficient amount of mixing. With telephoning, not only is polarization and deadlock broken up, but consensus is hastened. The effects of mixing by relocation are even more pronounced. Further insight into these dynamics is obtained for selected parameter regimes via comparison to the mean-field differential equations.
On the Cognitive Interpretation of Performance Assessment Scores. CSE Technical Report 546.

We investigated some aspects of reasoning needed to complete science performance assessments, i.e., students’ hands-on investigations scored for the scientific justifiability of the findings. While others have characterized the content demands of science performance assessments as rich or lean, and the processes as constrained or open, or characterized task demands as calling for different cognitive processes, we studied the reasoning demands of science performance assessments on three dimensions based on previous analysis of NELS:88 data: basic knowledge and reasoning, spatial mechanical reasoning, and quantitative science reasoning. In this pilot study, 6 subjects (3 experts and 3 novices) were asked to think aloud (talk aloud) while they completed one of three science performance assessments. The performance assessments were chosen because their tasks appeared to elicit differences in reasoning along these three dimensions. Comparisons were then made across the performance assessments and across the expertise levels. The talk alouds provided evidence of the three reasoning dimensions consistent with our nominal analysis of the performance assessment tasks. Furthermore, experts were more likely to use scientific reasoning in addressing the tasks, while novices verbalized more “doing something” and “monitoring” statements.
Growth, Virulence, and Immunogenicity of Listeria monocytogenes aro Mutants

ABSTRACT Mutants of Listeria monocytogenes with deletions in genes of the common branch of the biosynthesis pathway leading to aromatic compounds were constructed as possible virulence-attenuated carrier strains for protein antigens or vaccine DNA. aroA, aroB, and in particular aroE mutants showed strongly reduced growth rates in epithelial cells and even in rich culture media. The metabolism of the aro mutants under these conditions was predominantly anaerobic. Aerobic metabolism and a wild-type growth rate were, however, regained upon the addition of vitamin K2, suggesting that the aro mutants are deficient in oxidative respiration due to the lack of menaquinone. Replication of the aro mutants in the host cell's cytosol and cell-to-cell spread were drastically slowed down, and all aro mutants showed high virulence attenuation in mice, i.e., the 50% lethal dose in BALB/c mice was increased at least 104-fold for the aroA, aroB, and aroA/B mutants and >105-fold for the aroE mutant compared to the parent strain. Nevertheless, mice preimmunized with aro mutant bacteria elicited good T-cell response and full protection against a subsequent challenge with the virulent wild-type strain. A total of 5 × 106aroA, aroB, and aroA/B mutant bacteria were sufficient to obtain a protective T-cell response, while 5 × 108aroE or aroA/E mutants were necessary to achieve comparable numbers of antigen-specific T cells. These numbers were well tolerated without causing any signs of disease, indicating that Listeria strains with deletions in genes of the basic branch of the aromatic amino acid pathway could be useful vaccine carriers for inducing T-cell immunity.
Precision measurement of the Λ0b baryon lifetime

The ratio of the Λb0 baryon lifetime to that of the B- 0 meson is measured using 1.0 fb-1 of integrated luminosity in 7 TeV center-of-mass energy pp collisions at the LHC. The Λb0 baryon is observed for the first time in the decay mode Λb0→J/ψpK-, while the B- 0 meson decay used is the well known B- 0→J/ψπ+K- mode, where the π+K- mass is consistent with that of the K- *0(892) meson. The ratio of lifetimes is measured to be 0.976±0.012±0.006, in agreement with theoretical expectations based on the heavy quark expansion. Using previous determinations of the B- 0 meson lifetime, the Λb0 lifetime is found to be 1.482±0.018±0.012 ps. In both cases, the first uncertainty is statistical and the second systematic.
Depolarizing the perceptual magnet effect.

In recent years there has been a great deal of interest in demonstrations of the so-called "Perceptual-Magnet Effect" (PME). In these studies, AX-discrimination tasks purportedly reveal that discriminability of speech sounds from a single category varies with judged phonetic "goodness" of the sounds. However, one possible confound is that category membership is determined by identification of sounds in isolation, whereas, discrimination tasks include pairs of stimuli. In the first experiment of the current study, identification and goodness judgments were obtained for vowels (/i/-/e/) presented in pairs. A substantial shift in phonetic identity was evidenced with changes in the context vowel. In a second experiment, listeners participated in an AX-discrimination task with the vowel pairs from the first experiment. Using the contextual identification functions from the first experiment, predictions of discriminability were calculated using the classic tenets of Categorical Perception. Obtained discriminability functions were well accounted for by predictions from identification. There was no additional unexplained variance that required the proposal of "perceptual magnets. " These results suggest that PME may be nothing more than further demonstration that general discriminability is greater for cross-category stimulus pairs than for within-category pairs.
A synthetic luxCDABE gene cluster optimized for expression in high-GC bacteria

The luxCDABE operon of the bioluminescent bacterium Photorhabdus luminescens has proven to be a superb transcriptional reporter. It encodes a luciferase (LuxA and LuxB) and the enzymes that produce its substrate (LuxC, LuxD and LuxE) so cells that express the cluster emit the 490-nm light spontaneously. The sequence of these genes is AT-rich (>69%) and for this and other reasons, they are not expressed efficiently in high-GC bacteria like Streptomyces coelicolor. We therefore constructed a synthetic luxCDABE operon encoding the P. luminescens Lux proteins optimized for expression in high-GC bacteria. We tested the genes using transcriptional fusions to S. coelicolor promoters having well-established expression profiles during this organism's life cycle. The hrdB gene encodes a housekeeping sigma factor; while ramC is important for the formation of the spore-forming cells called aerial hyphae and whiE is required for the production of a grey, spore-associated pigment that is deposited in the walls of developing spores. Using these fusions we demonstrated that our synthetic lux genes are functional in S. coelicolor and that they accurately report complex developmental gene expression patterns. We suggest that this lux operon and our procedure for generating synthetic high-GC genes will be widely useful for research on high-GC bacteria.
Genome-Wide Association Study Implicates Chromosome 9q21.31 as a Susceptibility Locus for Asthma in Mexican Children

Many candidate genes have been studied for asthma, but replication has varied. Novel candidate genes have been identified for various complex diseases using genome-wide association studies (GWASs). We conducted a GWAS in 492 Mexican children with asthma, predominantly atopic by skin prick test, and their parents using the Illumina HumanHap 550 K BeadChip to identify novel genetic variation for childhood asthma. The 520,767 autosomal single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) passing quality control were tested for association with childhood asthma using log-linear regression with a log-additive risk model. Eleven of the most significantly associated GWAS SNPs were tested for replication in an independent study of 177 Mexican case–parent trios with childhood-onset asthma and atopy using log-linear analysis. The chromosome 9q21.31 SNP rs2378383 (p = 7.10×10−6 in the GWAS), located upstream of transducin-like enhancer of split 4 (TLE4), gave a p-value of 0.03 and the same direction and magnitude of association in the replication study (combined p = 6.79×10−7). Ancestry analysis on chromosome 9q supported an inverse association between the rs2378383 minor allele (G) and childhood asthma. This work identifies chromosome 9q21.31 as a novel susceptibility locus for childhood asthma in Mexicans. Further, analysis of genome-wide expression data in 51 human tissues from the Novartis Research Foundation showed that median GWAS significance levels for SNPs in genes expressed in the lung differed most significantly from genes not expressed in the lung when compared to 50 other tissues, supporting the biological plausibility of our overall GWAS findings and the multigenic etiology of childhood asthma.
Dietary intakes of energy and macronutrients by lactating women of different ethnic groups living in Yakutia

Background There should be a substantial increase in the intake of dietary energy, protein and other nutrients by lactating women, though these special increments can be different in different ethnic groups. Objective To evaluate the influence of maternal ethnicity and diet on the quality of breast milk and its potential effect on early childhood development. Design A total of 185 mothers (150 Native and 35 Russian) living in settlements and small towns of rural Yakutia and 54 mothers (26 Native and 28 Russian) living in Yakutsk were surveyed and average food intake was recorded during 3 successive days before the survey was analyzed. Results The amount of protein varied from 18 to 168.3 g/day, fat – from 12 to 176.1 g/day, energy – from 900 to 3680.4 kcal/day. Protein intake was at the level of current recommended dietary allowances (RDA) in Russians and was higher than in Natives living in rural settlements and small towns (p=0.02) and in Yakutsk (p=0.03). Carbohydrate intake was higher, though not significantly, in both ethnic groups compared with the current recommendations. Protein, fat, carbohydrates and, therefore, energy intake were lower (p<0.03) in Native women living in Yakutsk compared with the intake of Native women living in rural settlements and small towns. Conclusions The dietary intakes of energy and macronutrients depended on the place where a woman lived rather than on her ethnicity. Overall, energy intake was considered to be at the lower limit (basal energy expenditure 2002/2005) for lactating women, with the exception of Native women living in Yakutsk whose energy intake was below the lower limit.
Implantable Cardioverter‐Defibrillator Therapy in the Absence of Significant Symptoms Rhythm Diagnosis and Management Aided by Stored Electrogram Analysis

BackgroundThis report describes the value of stored ventricular electrogram analysis in the diagnosis and management of patients experiencing minimal or no symptoms before implantable cardioverterdefibrillator (ICD) therapy Methods and ResultsThe study population included 48 patients who received the Cadence Tiered Therapy Defibrillator System, an investigational third-generation ICD with ventricular electrogram storage capabilities. Criteria for arrhythmia diagnosis were based on analysis of the electrogram rate, RR interval variability, and morphology. Twenty-nine of the 48 patients (60%) experienced at least one episode of antitachycardia pacing or shock (one shock or more in 25 of 29 patients) that was preceded by minimal or no symptoms during a mean follow-up of 15.1±7.8 months. There were 194 tachycardia episodes registered by the device, including 101 for which ventricular electrograms were stored and available for analysis. Of the 101 stored electrograms, 74 were classified as ventricular tachycardia (VT), 24 as non-VT rhythms (atrial fibrillation, 13; supraventricular tachycardia, six; rate-sensing lead disruption, four, T wave oversensing, one), and only three as indeterminate rhythms. Based on the electrogram analysis, changes in tachycardia detection criteria and/or antiarrhythmic drug regimens were implemented and were associated with a reduction in the number of device responses for non-VT rhythms from 24 during the initial study period to three during 11.0±7.2 months of additional follow-up. ConclusionICD responses in the absence of symptoms are relatively common in third-generation devices with antitachycardia pacing capabilities. Despite potential limitations such as the effect of bundle branch block on the electrogram morphology during supraventricular tachycardia, the availability of electrogram storage capabilities allowed a presumptive diagnosis of the events precipitating asymptomatic device responses. Device reprogramming based on analysis of stored electrograms was associated with a dramatic reduction in the incidence of ICD responses for non-VT rhythms.
Effective length of horizontal grounding electrode

In this paper, the influences of the length of grounding electrodes on the lightning transient characteristic were analyzed. The effect of effective length of grounding electrodes is demonstrated for 2.6/50 mus and 4.5/50 mus time duration of the wavefront. The effect of the soil ionization has been taken into account by dynamic change of the radius of the grounding conductor.
Parent pain and catastrophizing are associated with pain, somatic symptoms, and pain-related disability among early adolescents.

OBJECTIVE To examine associations between parental history of pain and catastrophizing and their adolescent's pain, somatic symptoms, catastrophizing, and disability. METHODS Participants included 178 youths aged 11-14 years recruited through public schools. Adolescents completed measures assessing pain characteristics, somatic symptoms, and pain catastrophizing. Parents reported on their own pain, and catastrophizing about their adolescent's pain. RESULTS About one quarter of the adolescents and two thirds of parents reported having pain. Parent pain was associated with adolescent pain, somatic symptoms, and pain catastrophizing. Parent catastrophizing was a significant predictor of adolescent somatic symptoms and pain-related disability, beyond the contribution of parent pain. Adolescent catastrophizing mediated the association between parent catastrophizing and adolescent pain-related disability. CONCLUSIONS Parent history of pain and pain-related cognitions may contribute to adolescent risk for chronic pain.