Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Prediction of Personal Narrative on Features of Recovery Among People with Schizophrenia-Spectrum Disorders

The Prediction of Personal Narrative Features on Features of Recovery among People with Schizophrenia-Spectrum Disorders by Beth Vayshenker Advisor: Professor Philip T. Yanos Among individuals with schizophrenia, research has demonstrated that in addition to the positive and negative symptoms characteristic of schizophrenia, the diminishment of the self also represents an important aspect of the illness (Lysaker & Lysaker, 2010). Research has confirmed that the self-experience, particularly as measured by the telling of one’s life story through the Scale to Assess Narrative Development (STAND), is linked to a variety of subjective and objective recovery outcomes from schizophrenia. While this association has been documented in different research studies, less is known about the ways in which personal narrative functions to predict recovery outcomes in a longitudinal design and with a diverse sample. This longitudinal study included two assessment points, baseline and post-treatment (approximately five months following baseline assessment), to better evaluate narrative development in a prospective research design. In a sample of 116 individuals with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders, this study sought to investigate the influences of the self-experience on recovery-related factors (both subjective and objective). This study sought to research the associations between the selfexperience and others facets of recovery among people with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders in a prospective design, to evaluate the predictive relationship of the self-experience to subjective and objective recovery indicators and to extend prior results in this area to more diverse samples. Results indicated that the self-experience revealed associations to psychiatric symptoms, selfesteem, internalize stigma of mental illness, and social and vocational functioning. Baseline
Financial Distress and Corporate Investment: The Japanese Case in the 90s

We examine quantitatively the extent to which financial distress in the 90s affected Japanese corporate investment. Based on the firm-level data that includes small, unlisted firms, we estimate investment function to measure the impact of financial distress on investment. We find that the firm's ratio of debt to total asset exerts a significantly negative effect on investment of small firms. We also find that lending attitude of financial institutions did affect investment behavior irrespective of firm size. The impact of lending attitude on investment is notably large for 1998 labeled "credit crunch. "
The Spectrum of Renal Involvement in Patients With Inflammatory Myopathies

AbstractData regarding the incidence and outcome of renal involvement in patients with inflammatory myopathies (IM) remain scarce. We assessed the incidence and causes of acute kidney injury (AKI) and chronic kidney disease (CKD) in 150 patients with dermatomyositis, polymyositis, and antisynthetase syndrome followed in 3 French referral centers. Renal involvement occurred in 35 (23.3%) patients: AKI in 16 (10.7%), and CKD in 31 (20.7%) patients. The main cause of AKI was drug or myoglobinuria-induced acute tubular necrosis. Male sex, cardiovascular risk factors, cardiac involvement, and initial proteinuria >0.3 g/d were associated with the occurrence of AKI. The outcome of patients with AKI was poor: 13 (81%) progressed to CKD and 2 (12.5%) reached end-stage renal disease. In multivariate survival analysis, age at IM onset, male sex, a history of cardiovascular events, and a previous episode of AKI were associated with the risk of CKD. We also identified 14 IM patients who underwent a kidney biopsy in 10 nephrology centers. Renal pathology disclosed a wide range of renal disorders, mainly immune-complex glomerulonephritis. We identified in 5 patients a peculiar pattern of severe acute renal vascular damage consisting mainly of edematous thickening of the intima of arterioles.We found that AKI and CKD are frequent in patients with IM. Prevention of AKI is crucial in these patients, as AKI is a major contributor to their relatively high risk of CKD. A peculiar pattern of acute vascular damage is part of the spectrum of renal diseases associated with IM.
Evaluating aerosol direct radiative effects on global terrestrial ecosystem carbon dynamics from 2003 to 2010

An integrated terrestrial ecosystem model and an atmospheric radiative transfer module are developed and applied to evaluate aerosol direct radiative effects on carbon dynamics of global terrestrial ecosystems during 2003–2010. The Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer measurements of key atmosphere parameters have been used to quantify aerosol effects on downward solar radiation. Simulations with and without considering the aerosol loadings show that aerosol affects terrestrial ecosystem carbon dynamics through the effects on plant phenology, thermal and hydrological conditions as well as solar radiation. The simulations also show that aerosol enhances the terrestrial gross primary production by 4.9 Pg C yr−1, the net primary production by 3.8 Pg C yr−1, the net ecosystem production by 3.9 Pg C yr−1, and the plant respiration by 1.1 Pg C yr−1 during the period. The aerosol loading at a magnitude of 0.1 Pg C yr−1 reduces ecosystem heterotrophic respiration. These results support previous findings of the positive effects of aerosol light scattering on plant production, but suggest there is a strong spatial variation due to cloud cover. This study suggests that both direct and indirect aerosol radiative effects through aerosol–cloud interactions should be considered to quantify the global carbon cycle.
Bayesian image reconstruction in SPECT using higher order mechanical models as priors

While the ML-EM algorithm for reconstruction for emission tomography is unstable due to the ill-posed nature of the problem. Bayesian reconstruction methods overcome this instability by introducing prior information, often in the form of a spatial smoothness regularizer. More elaborate forms of smoothness constraints may be used to extend the role of the prior beyond that of a stabilizer in order to capture actual spatial information about the object. Previously proposed forms of such prior distributions were based on the assumption of a piecewise constant source distribution. Here, the authors propose an extension to a piecewise linear model-the weak plate-which is more expressive than the piecewise constant model. The weak plate prior not only preserves edges but also allows for piecewise ramplike regions in the reconstruction. Indeed, for the authors' application in SPECT, such ramplike regions are observed in ground-truth source distributions in the form of primate autoradiographs of rCBF radionuclides. To incorporate the weak plate prior in a MAP approach, the authors model the prior as a Gibbs distribution and use a GEM formulation for the optimization. They compare quantitative performance of the ML-EM algorithm, a GEM algorithm with a prior favoring piecewise constant regions, and a GEM algorithm with their weak plate prior. Pointwise and regional bias and variance of ensemble image reconstructions are used as indications of image quality. The authors' results show that the weak plate and membrane priors exhibit improved bias and variance relative to ML-EM techniques.
Neurocognitive Informatics Manifesto

Informatics studies all aspects of the structure of natural and artificial information systems. Theoretical and abstract approaches to information have made great advances, but human information processing is still unmatched in many areas, including information management, representation and understanding. Neurocognitive informatics is a new, emerging field that should help to improve the matching of artificial and natural systems, and inspire better computational algorithms to solve problems that are still beyond the reach of machines. In this position paper examples of neurocognitive inspirations and promising directions in this area are given.
The Multicomponent Nature of the Vela Pulsar Nonthermal X-Ray Spectrum

We report on our analysis of a 274 ks observation of the Vela pulsar with the Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer (RXTE). The double-peaked, pulsed emission at 2-30 keV, which we had previously detected during a 93 ks observation, is confirmed with much-improved statistics. There is now clear evidence, in both the spectrum and the light curve, that the emission in the RXTE band is a blend of two separate nonthermal components. The spectrum of the harder component connects smoothly with the OSSE, COMPTEL, and EGRET spectra, and the peaks in the light curve are in phase coincidence with those of the high-energy light curve. The spectrum of the softer component is consistent with an extrapolation to the pulsed optical flux, and the second RXTE pulse is in phase coincidence with the second optical peak. In addition, we see a peak in the 2-8 keV RXTE pulse profile at the radio phase.
Spinal Cord Injury without Radiographic Abnormality (SCIWORA) – Clinical and Radiological Aspects

Summary The acronym SCIWORA (Spinal Cord Injury Without Radiographic Abnormality) was first developed and introduced by Pang and Wilberger who used it to define “clinical symptoms of traumatic myelopathy with no radiographic or computed tomographic features of spinal fracture or instability”. SCIWORA is a clinical-radiological condition that mostly affects children. SCIWORA lesions are found mainly in the cervical spine but can also be seen, although much less frequently, in the thoracic or lumbar spine. Based on reports from different authors, SCIWORA is responsible for 6 to 19% and 9% to 14% of spinal injuries in children and adults, respectively. Underlying degenerative changes, including spondylosis or spinal canal stenosis, are typically present in adult patients. The level of spinal cord injury corresponds to the location of these changes. With recent advances in neuroimaging techniques, especially in magnetic resonance imaging, and with increasing availability of MRI as a diagnostic tool, the overall detection rate of SCIWORA has significantly improved.
Same difference ? Why audiences fail to recognize distinctiveness in new products

New products and technologies, which are often underappreciated by mainstream audiences, represent potential opportunities for entrepreneurial audiences with contrarian perspectives. Yet little is known about what makes an audience good at rewarding the unfamiliar—and, indeed, whether this even matters. Even if audiences favor products with contrarian principles of value-creation, lack of prior familiarity with related products still makes audiences less capable of appreciating some aspects of distinctiveness than others. It does not hinder audiences from recognizing ostensive design choices that distinguish new products from prior ones, but it does hinder audiences from recognizing distinctive functional principles behind design choices. Original quantitative and qualitative data collected from the text of tens of thousands of letters between patent examiners and applicants provide a window on perceptions about the distinctiveness of design choices in new technologies and functional principles behind design choices. I show that greater distance from an examiner’s prior experience reduces the likelihood of rejections due to lack of distinctive choices but increases the likelihood of rejections due to lack of distinctive functional principles. Qualitative evidence provides insights about the hypothesized micromechanisms: because of incomplete understandings of interactive complexity, examiners overlook ways in which functional principles from prior technologies do not carry over additively when combined with other design choices. Quantitatively, these kinds of oversights are more likely when a technology is farther from an examiner’s prior experience, and examiners are more likely to reverse rejections that involve these oversights.
Multiscale Approximation and Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Space Methods

We consider reproducing kernels $K:\Omega\times \Omega \to \mathbb{R}$ in multiscale series expansion form, i.e., kernels of the form $K\left(\boldsymbol{x},\boldsymbol{y}\right)=\sum_{\ell\in\mathbb{N}}\lambda_\ell\sum_{j\in I_\ell}\phi_{\ell,j}\left(\boldsymbol{x}\right)\phi_{\ell,j}\left(\boldsymbol{y}\right)$ with weights $\lambda_\ell$ and structurally simple basis functions $\left\{\phi_{\ell,i}\right\}$. Here, we deal with basis functions such as polynomials or frame systems, where, for $\ell\in \mathbb{N}$, the index set $I_\ell$ is finite or countable. We derive relations between approximation properties of spaces based on basis functions $\{\phi_{\ell,j} :1\leq\ell\leq L, j\in I_\ell\}$ and spaces spanned by translates of the kernel span $\{K(\boldsymbol{x}_1,\cdot),\dots, K(\boldsymbol{x}_N,\cdot)\}$ with $X_{N}:=\{\boldsymbol{x}_1,\dots,\boldsymbol{x}_N\}\subset\Omega$ if the truncation index $L$ is appropriately coupled to the discrete set $X_{N}$. An analysis of a numerically feasible approx.
Voter uncertainty, political institutions, and legislative turnover

Abstract The level of legislative turnover in a polity can have significant political consequences. Low turnover may increase the number of legislators who are out of touch with constituents, while high turnover can limit a legislature’s ability to fulfill its duties. Focusing on separation of powers arrangements, a factor overlooked by previous studies, we identify institutional conditions that affect turnover. When the executive and legislature are equally responsible for budgetary outcomes, we argue, this creates ambiguous contexts, leaving voters more likely to re-elect incumbents, thereby lowering turnover. We test our predictions using US state-level data.
The ability of organization commitment and moderate worked motivation by the effect of budget goal clarity in budgetary inaccuracy

In term of designing activity and budgeting for organization, the goal of this research is to explore and understand the effects of budget goal clarity on the inaccuracy of budgeting that moderate by organizational commitment and worker motivation. Population of research is all department under the postgraduate program of Udayana University. Samples are choosing by total sampling method and data that collected should meet with pre-request of assumption test. Data were analyzed by Binary Logistic Regression Analysis. The result of this research showed that: (1) budget goal clarity is negative significant effect the budgeting unaccuracy; (2) organizational commitment are increased the negative effect of budgeting goals on budget unaccuracy; (3) worked motivation increased the negative effect of the clarity of budgeting on budgeting unaccuracy.
Seeds Cleansing CNMF for Spatiotemporal Neural Signals Extraction of Miniscope Imaging Data

Miniscope calcium imaging is increasingly being used to monitor large populations of neuronal activities in freely behaving animals. However, due to the high background and low signal-to-noise ratio of the single-photon based imaging used in this technique, extraction of neural signals from the large numbers of imaged cells automatically has remained challenging. Here we describe a highly accurate framework for automatically identifying activated neurons and extracting calcium signals from the miniscope imaging data, seeds cleansing Constrained Nonnegative Matrix Factorization (sc-CNMF). This sc-CNMF extends the conventional CNMF with two new modules: i) a neural enhancing module to overcome miniscope-specific limitations, and ii) a seeds cleansing module combining LSTM to rigorously select and cleanse the set of seeds for detecting regions-of-interest. Our sc-CNMF yields highly stable and superior performance in analyzing miniscope calcium imaging data compared to existing methods.
Variations in Cause and Management of Atrial Fibrillation in a Prospective Registry of 15 400 Emergency Department Patients in 46 Countries: The RE-LY Atrial Fibrillation Registry

Background— Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common sustained arrhythmia; however, little is known about patients in a primary care setting from high-, middle-, and low-income countries. Methods and Results— This prospective registry enrolled patients presenting to an emergency department with AF at 164 sites in 46 countries representing all inhabited continents. Patient characteristics were compared among 9 major geographic regions. Between September 2008 and April 2011, 15 400 patients were enrolled. The average age was 65.9, standard deviation 14.8 years, ranging from 57.2, standard deviation 18.8 years in Africa, to 70.1, standard deviation 13.4 years in North America, P<0.001. Hypertension was globally the most common risk factor for AF, ranging in prevalence from 41.6% in India to 80.7% in Eastern Europe, P<0.001. Rheumatic heart disease was present in only 2.2% of North American patients, in comparison with 21.5% in Africa and 31.5% in India, P<0.001. The use of oral anticoagulation among patients with a CHADS2 score of ≥2 was greatest in North America (65.7%) but was only 11.2% in China, P<0.001. The mean time in the therapeutic range was 62.4% in Western Europe, 50.9% in North America, but only between 32% and 40% in India, China, Southeast Asia, and Africa, P<0.001. Conclusions— There is a large global variation in age, risk factors, concomitant diseases, and treatment of AF among regions. Improving outcomes globally requires an understanding of this variation and the conduct of research focused on AF associated with different underlying conditions and treatment of AF and predisposing conditions in different socioeconomic settings.
A Brief Account of the Turkish Economy: 1980-2000

In this paper we provide a brief account of the Turkish economy during the last twenty years. After the implementation of a structural change and reform program in 1980, the economy experienced a relatively high growth rate of the Gross Domestic Product, a healthy balance of payments situation and relatively low inflation in early 1980s. Towards the end of the 1980s, the annual inflation started to rise in a stepwise fashion and the growth performance was poor afterwards. Due to exchange rate policy preferences of the authorities, the economy became dependent on short-term capital flows--so called hot money--for the last ten years. As a result, the exemplary economy of the 1980s became a textbook case of "boom-bust" economy with a relatively lower GDP growth and a high volatility in the 1990s. Recently, the Government launched another restructuring and reform program. The aim of the program is to reduce annual inflation to single digits by the end of year 2002. A short-lived financial crisis during the course of the program showed that the financial system is very fragile. Ironically, the latest crisis made it clear that the continuation of the disinflation program and the stability of the banking system in the short run depend on short-term capital inflows.
Using Ethnography of Communication in Organizational Research

Ethnography of Communication offers new analytical and interpretive possibilities for contextually sensitized, language- and communication-based ethnographic studies of management and organization. In this article we provide an introduction and overview of relevant linguistic and related fields, positioning Ethnography of Communication within the broader context of anthropology, ethnomethodology, and sociolinguistics. We describe Dell Hymes’s seminal contribution to theory and method of Ethnography of Communication (foregrounding Hymes’s signature concept of “communicative competence”) and outline what the application of an Ethnography of Communication approach in management research might entail (illustrating the application of Hymes’s SPEAKING grid). We conclude by offering an example of how the methods of Ethnography of Communication might be applied usefully to the study of organizational language, discourse, and communication.
An Upregulation in the Expression of Vanilloid Transient Potential Channels 2 Enhances Hypotonicity-Induced Cytosolic Ca2+ Rise in Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Model of Hutchinson Gillford Progeria

Hutchinson-Gillford Progeria Syndrome (HGPS) is a fatal genetic disorder characterized by premature aging in multiple organs including the skin, musculoskeletal and cardiovascular systems. It is believed that an increased mechanosensitivity of HGPS cells is a causative factor for vascular cell death and vascular diseases in HGPS patients. However, the exact mechanism is unknown. Transient receptor potential (TRP) channels are cationic channels that can act as cellular sensors for mechanical stimuli. The aim of this present study was to examine the expression and functional role of TRP channels in human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived endothelial cells (iPSC-ECs) from the patients with HGPS. The mRNA and protein expression of TRP channels in HGPS and control (IMR90) iPSC-ECs were examined by semi-quantitative RT-PCRs and immunoblots, respectively. Hypotonicity-induced cytosolic Ca2+ ([Ca2+]i) rise in iPSC-ECs was measured by confocal microscopy. RT-PCRs and immunoblots showed higher expressional levels of TRPV2 in iPSC-ECs from HGPS patients than those from normal individuals. In functional studies, hypotonicity induced a transient [Ca2+]i rise in iPSC-ECs from normal individuals but a sustained [Ca2+]i elevation in iPSC-ECs from HGPS patients. A nonselective TRPV inhibitor, ruthenium red (RuR, 20 µM), and a specific TRPV2 channel inhibitor, tranilast (100 µM), abolished the sustained phase of hypotonicity-induced [Ca2+]i rise in iPSC-ECs from HGPS patients, and also markedly attenuated the transient phase of the [Ca2+]i rise in these cells. Importantly, a short 10 min hypotonicity treatment caused a substantial increase in caspase 8 activity in iPSC-ECs from HGPS patients but not in cells from normal individuals. Tranilast could also inhibit the hypotonicity-induced increase in caspase 8 activity. Taken together, our data suggest that an up-regulation in TRPV2 expression causes a sustained [Ca2+]i elevation in HGPS-iPSC-ECs under hypotonicity, consequently resulting in apoptotic cell death. This mechanism may contribute to the pathogenesis of vascular diseases in HGPS patients.
Weighted distance Grey wolf optimizer for global optimization problems

Grey Wolf Optimizer (GWO) is one of the recently introduced Swarm Intelligence (SI) algorithms, developed by the inspiration from grey wolves prey search characteristics. The GWO algorithm imitate the hierarchical leadership and hunting mechanism of grey wolves in nature. The GWO simulates the major steps of grey wolves like hunting, searching for prey, encircling and attacking. The GWO move the wolves pack toward prey by updating location vector, which is an average of best locations of the pack. This paper addresses the GWO issues and proposes the Weighted distance Grey Wolf Optimizer (wdGWO). In proposed wdGWO algorithm, the location update strategy is modified and weighted sum of best locations is used instead of just a simple average. The proposed algorithm is well tested over set of complex benchmark problems and the performance is comprehensively compared with SI algorithms counterpart. The dimensions of the problems are varied from 10 to 50 for fair comparison among basic state of-the-art. Simulation results supports the superior performance of the proposed algorithm.