Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Applications of Probabilistic Programming (Master's thesis, 2015)

This thesis describes work on two applications of probabilistic programming: the learning of probabilistic program code given specifications, in particular program code of one-dimensional samplers; and the facilitation of sequential Monte Carlo inference with help of data-driven proposals. The latter is presented with experimental results on a linear Gaussian model and a non-parametric dependent Dirichlet process mixture of objects model for object recognition and tracking. In Chapter 1 we provide a brief introduction to probabilistic programming. In Chapter 3 we present an approach to automatic discovery of samplers in the form of probabilistic programs. We formulate a Bayesian approach to this problem by specifying a grammar-based prior over probabilistic program code. We use an approximate Bayesian computation method to learn the programs, whose executions generate samples that statistically match observed data or analytical characteristics of distributions of interest. In our experiments we leverage different probabilistic programming systems to perform Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling over the space of programs. Experimental results have demonstrated that, using the proposed methodology, we can learn approximate and even some exact samplers. Finally, we show that our results are competitive with regard to genetic programming methods. In Chapter 3, we describe a way to facilitate sequential Monte Carlo inference in probabilistic programming using data-driven proposals. In particular, we develop a distance-based proposal for the non-parametric dependent Dirichlet process mixture of objects model. We implement this approach in the probabilistic programming system Anglican, and show that for that model data-driven proposals provide significant performance improvements. We also explore the possibility of using neural networks to improve data-driven proposals.
CONCISE COMMUNICATION: Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia and cytomegalovirus infection in children with vertically acquired HIV infection

Results: By April 1998, 340 vertically HIV-infected children had been reported, of whom 93 had PCP and/or CMV, as their ®rst AIDS indicator disease; 85 (91%) were infants. Among infants with PCP, 79% were born to mothers not diagnosed as HIV infected, and there was an independent and statistically signi®cant association with breast-feeding, being black African, and developing CMV disease. Median survival after PCP and/or CMV was signi®cantly better in those born between 1993 and 1998 compared with those born before 1993 (P  0.009), and worse than after other AIDS diagnoses (P  0.01). Infants with dual infection were more likely to be ventilated (P  0.003) and receive corticosteroids (P  0.002) than those with PCP alone.
Language Learners as Teachers: Integrating Service-learning and the Advanced Language Course

The aim of this paper is to illustrate the applications of service-learning pedagogy for an advanced Spanish language course through a case study conducted at Rollins College, a comprehensive liberal arts institution in Winter Park, Florida. The paper discusses diverse theories on service-learning pedagogy, explaining how and why this teaching method should be implemented given the changing expectations for institutions of higher education in general as well as for today's foreign language programs. Additionally, the paper evaluates how the course objectives of the subject of the case study have been enhanced by its partnership with Junior Achievement of Central Florida, including reflections and responses from the student participants themselves, as well as an analysis of the program's limitations and areas for future improvement.
The Structure of Learning: From Sign Stimuli To Sign Language

Contents: Introduction. Classical Conditioning. Instrumental Conditioning. Mechanisms of Conditioning. Reinforcement Versus Expectancy. Sequence and Anticipation. Feed Forward Versus Feed Backward. Contiguity Versus Contingency. Appetite, Aversion, and Conflict. Excitation, Inhibition, and Competition. Reward Versus Nonreward. Places, Paths, and Bearings. Transfer. Teaching Sign Language to Chimpanzees. Concepts and Communications.
Integrated polispectrum on speech recognition

The paper deals with the application of higher order statistics (HOS) in a recognition system where the speech input is corrupted by noise. Cumulants, bispectrum and trispectrum are being used in noisy speech signal processing because of their immunity to noise. The authors introduce the use of integrated polispectrum and trispectrum in a recognition system based on a filter bank analysis. The results improve other HOS based methods without a substantial increase of the computational load.
Taking Aim at Infusion Confusion

A comprehensive multidisciplinary approach was used to improve drug infusion safety in an acute care hospital in Melbourne, Australia. This project aimed to reduce the potential for drug infusion–related error, improve drug infusion safety for patients, and encourage incident reporting to inform and guide continuous quality improvement projects. The project applied a systems approach to medication safety, using redesign strategies such as continuous quality improvement (plan, do, study, and act) and reengineering. Key safety design concepts such as standardization, simplification, and forcing functions were also used.
Data-Fu: a language and an interpreter for interaction with read/write linked data

An increasing amount of applications build their functionality on the utilisation and manipulation of web resources. Consequently REST gains popularity with a resource-centric interaction architecture that draws its flexibility from links between resources. Linked Data offers a uniform data model for REST with self-descriptive resources that can be leveraged to avoid a manual ad-hoc development of web-based applications. For declaratively specifying interactions between web resources we introduce Data-Fu, a lightweight declarative rule language with state transition systems as formal grounding. Data-Fu enables the development of data-driven applications that facilitate the RESTful manipulation of read/write Linked Data resources. Furthermore, we describe an interpreter for Data-Fu as a general purpose engine that allows to perform described interactions with web resources by orders of magnitude faster than a comparable Linked Data processor.
Bilingualism and Multilingualism: Some Central Concepts

Bilingualism and multilingualism have both de facto existences and important places in the psychological, political, and social debates that defi ne social and ethnic groups, communities, and regions. Very widespread phenomena, they arise for a number of well understood reasons; in the main, however, they are also quite unremarkable phenomena, fuelled by necessity up to, but rarely beyond, appropriately useful levels of competence. They imply both heightened and lessened opportunities for interpersonal and intercultural exchange: multilingual capacities at an individual level can obviously broaden possibilities, but a world of many languages is also one in which communicative problems exist. In such a world, lingua francas and translation are required. 1
Diversifying Personalized Recommendation with User-session Context

Recommender systems (RS) have become an in-tegral part of our daily life. However, most current RS often repeatedly recommend items to users with similar proﬁles. We argue that recommendation should be diversiﬁed by leveraging session contexts with personalized user proﬁles. For this, current session-based RS (SBRS) often assume a rigidly ordered sequence over data which does not ﬁt in many real-world cases. Moreover, personal-ization is often omitted in current SBRS. Accordingly, a personalized SBRS over relaxedly ordered user-session contexts is more pragmatic. In do-ing so, deep-structured models tend to be too com-plex to serve for online SBRS owing to the large number of users and items. Therefore, we design an efﬁcient SBRS with shallow wide-in-wide-out networks, inspired by the successful experience in modern language modelings. The experiments on a real-world e-commerce dataset show the superiority of our model over the state-of-the-art methods.
Envy and gratitude : a study of unconscious sources

Adler Current Trends in Analytical Psychology (1961) Hb: 0-415-26478-2 Balint Focal Psychotherapy (1972) Hb: 0-415-26479-0 Balint Primary Love and Psychoanalytic Technique (1965) Hb: 0-415-26480-4 Bion Attention and Interpretation (1970) Hb: 0-415-26481-2 Jordan Themes in Speculative Psychology (1968) Hb: 0-415-26482-0 Klein Envy and Gratitude (1957) Hb: 0-415-26483-9 Klein, Heimann and Money-Kyrle New Directions in Psychoanalysis (1955) Hb: 0-415-26484-7 Malan A Study of Brief Psychotherapy (1963) Hb: 0-415-26485-5 Schon Displacement of Concepts (1963) Hb: 0-415-26486-3 Soddy Identity (1961) Hb: 0-415-26487-1 Wilden Systems and Structure: Essays in Communication and Exchange (2nd Edition) (1980) Hb: 0-415-26488-X
Application of Feminist Therapy

SUMMARY Lesbian and gay (LG) parents face common and unique challenges compared to heterosexual parents. In addition to the typical challenges that all parents encounter while rearing children, LG parents often face myriad obstacles to having and rearing children in a society that struggles to accept alternative family structures. In this paper, we provide a brief overview of the empirical literature related to LG parenting and children of same-sex couples. Then, some fundamental principles of feminist theory as they relate to the provision of therapy are discussed. Last, we present a case study that exemplifies judicious application of feminist therapy as a means to validate, strengthen, and promote resiliency among the family members of a lesbian couple who had sought treatment. Future directions of research with LG families are discussed.
Optimal Selection of Adaptive Streaming Representations

Adaptive streaming addresses the increasing and heterogeneous demand of multimedia content over the Internet by offering several encoded versions for each video sequence. Each version (or representation) is characterized by a resolution and a bit rate, and it is aimed at a specific set of users, like TV or mobile phone clients. While most existing works on adaptive streaming deal with effective playout-buffer control strategies on the client side, in this article we take a providers' perspective and propose solutions to improve user satisfaction by optimizing the set of available representations. We formulate an integer linear program that maximizes users' average satisfaction, taking into account network dynamics, type of video content, and user population characteristics. The solution of the optimization is a set of encoding parameters corresponding to the representations set that maximizes user satisfaction. We evaluate this solution by simulating multiple adaptive streaming sessions characterized by realistic network statistics, showing that the proposed solution outperforms commonly used vendor recommendations, in terms of user satisfaction but also in terms of fairness and outage probability. The simulation results show that video content information as well as network constraints and users' statistics play a crucial role in selecting proper encoding parameters to provide fairness among users and to reduce network resource usage. We finally propose a few theoretical guidelines that can be used, in realistic settings, to choose the encoding parameters based on the user characteristics, the network capacity and the type of video content.
Öğretmen Adayları Tarafından Kullanılan Dil Öğrenme Stratejileri

The purpose of this study is to determine the students’ use of language learning strategies and to find out the relationship between these strategies and variables like gender and academic achievement The sample of the study consists of 73 students from the ELT Department of Dicle University Education Faculty The data have been collected by means of a questionnaire designed to test how the students use the cognitive metacognitive affective social compensation and memory strategies In the analysis of data t test ANOVA and Scheffe test have been employed The results indicate that the students use metacognitive compensation and social strategies more often and that there is a significant difference between the language learning strategy usages of male and female students The findings of the study also reveal significant relationships between the students’ strategy usages and their achievement levels in speaking writing and grammar courses Key Words: Language Teaching Language Learning Strategies
SELF-REPORTED DENTAL CARE AND DIETARY HABITS OF SAUDI PREGNANT WOMEN IN A PRENATAL CLINIC IN RIYADH

To assess the oral health care practices, dental care, and dietary habits of Saudi prenatal women (PNW) attending a prenatal clinic in a teaching hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia . A structured questionnaire was prepared to include information regarding demographic data, medical complications, dental care, past dental treatment and dietary habits. A total of500 PNW were interviewed, and after completion all participants were given oral hygiene instruction and dietary advice. The mean age of the PNW was 29.5 ( ±5.46) years and 75% were housewives. The majority (79.6%) went for emergency dental care. Just over two thirds (68%) of them reported having restorative treatment as their past dental care followed by extraction among 48% and only 3% had scaling. Cariogenic snacks between meals were consumed by 77.4% of the sample. Nearly two thirds (65%) of the PNW reported having bleeding gum with brushing, 46.4% reported brushing 21 day, and 80% performed no flossing. There is a need to educate and motivate prenatal women on oral health care to prevent dental 1 oral diseases among pregnant Saudi women.
MESANGIOPROLIFERATIVE GLOMERULONEPHRITIS WITH IgM DEPOSITION: CLINICAL CHARACTERISTICS AND OUTCOME

The significance of IgM on immunofluorescence in renal biopsy specimens remains unclear. This retrospective case study was conducted to define the clinical features, response to therapy and outcome of patients with Mesangioproliferative Glomerulonephritis (MGN) with diffuse IgM deposition. Of 1919 native renal biopsies performed over a ten-year period, 139 (7.2%) had light microscopic features of MGN and manifested IgM as the dominant immunoglobulin. When exclusion criteria (more than a trace of IgA or IgG, segmental IgM, evidence of SLE, vasculitis, FSGS or Alport's syndrome and pregnant patients) were applied, 60 patients (3.1%) remained. Follow-up data were available for 54 cases with a mean age of 26.5 years (range 1.7–63). Mean follow-up period was 7.4 years (range 4.7–22.2). Forty-one per cent presented with nephrotic syndrome (NS), 26% with asymptomatic proteinuria (>250mg/24hr), 18% with macroscopic hematuria and 15% with isolated microscopic hematuria. Twenty-one percent of patients were hypertensive at presentation. Creatinine was initially <120(mol/L in all but one patient. Only four patients (7.4%), all nephrotic, suffered a decline in renal function despite treatment; all 4 developed ESRF after a mean of 5.6 years (range 2–8.3). Two of these were subsequently re-biopsied and found to have FSGS. No patients with isolated microscopic / macroscopic hematuria or asymptomatic proteinuria suffered a decline in renal function. Protein excretion rate fell into the normal range in 63% of those receiving steroids, with 82% becoming steroid dependent. Of those treated with cyclosporine (48%) or cyclophosphamide (52%) only 9.5% and 14.5% respectively remained in prolonged remission after discontinuing treatment. It is concluded that MGN with IgM deposition carries a very favorable prognosis except in patients with NS who develop FSGS. However there is a high incidence of steroid dependence and resistance in the proteinuric group.
DE-Cadherin Is Required for Intercellular Motility during Drosophila Oogenesis

Cadherins are involved in a variety of morphogenetic movements during animal development. However, it has been difficult to pinpoint the precise function of cadherins in morphogenetic processes due to the multifunctional nature of cadherin requirement. The data presented here indicate that homophilic adhesion promoted by Drosophila E-cadherin (DE-cadherin) mediates two cell migration events during Drosophila oogenesis. In Drosophila follicles, two groups of follicle cells, the border cells and the centripetal cells migrate on the surface of germline cells. We show that the border cells migrate as an epithelial patch in which two centrally located cells retain epithelial polarity and peripheral cells are partially depolarized. Both follicle cells and germline cells express DE-cadherin, and border cells and centripetal cells strongly upregulate the expression of DE-cadherin shortly before and during their migration. Removing DE-cadherin from either the follicle cells or the germline cells blocks migration of border cells and centripetal cells on the surface of germline cells. The function of DE-cadherin in border cells appears to be specific for migration as the formation of the border cell cluster and the adhesion between border cells are not disrupted in the absence of DE-cadherin. The speed of migration depends on the level of DE-cadherin expression, as border cells migrate more slowly when DE-cadherin activity is reduced. Finally, we show that the upregulation of DE-cadherin expression in border cells depends on the activity of the Drosophila C/EBP transcription factor that is essential for border cell migration.
A four-state Markov model of sleep-wakefulness dynamics along light/dark cycle in mice

Behavioral states alternate between wakefulness (wk), rapid eye movement (rem) and non-rem (nrem) sleep at time scale of hours i.e., light and dark cycle rhythms and from several tens of minutes to seconds (i.e., brief awakenings during sleep). Using statistical analysis of bout duration, Markov chains of sleep-wk dynamics and quantitative EEG analysis, we evaluated the influence of light/dark (ld) changes on brain function along the sleep-wk cycle. Bout duration (bd) histograms and Kaplan-Meier (km) survival curves of wk showed a bimodal statistical distribution, suggesting that two types of wk do exist: brief-wk (wkb) and long-wk (wkl). Light changes modulated specifically wkl bouts, increasing its duration during active/dark period. In contrast, wkb, nrem and rem bd histograms and km curves did not change significantly along ld cycle. Hippocampal eeg of both types of wk were different: in comparison wkb showed a lower spectral power in fast gamma and fast theta bands and less emg tone. After fitting a four-states Markov chain to mice hypnograms, moreover in states transition probabilities matrix was found that: in dark/active period, state-maintenance probability of wkl increased, and probability of wkl to nrem transition decreased; the opposite was found in light period, favoring the hypothesis of the participation of brief wk into nrem-rem intrinsic sleep cycle, and the role of wkl in SWS homeostasis. In conclusion, we propose an extended Markov model of sleep using four stages (wkl, nrem, rem, wkb) as a fully adequate model accounting for both modulation of sleep-wake dynamics based on the differential regulation of long-wk (high gamma/theta) epochs during dark and light phases.
HELP-SEEKING BEHAVIORS BY KOREAN IMMIGRANTS FOR DEPRESSION

Underutilization of mental health services by Asian immigrants has been an ongoing concern for those attempting to provide accessible care for people suffering from mental illness. The author investigated Korean immigrants' help-seeking behaviors for depression to understand their underutilization of mental health services. The study involved 6 focus group discussions and 24 in-depth interviews with 70 Korean immigrants in New York City. Prolonged care within family and traditional Asian practices led to a delay in seeking mental health services, keeping many Korean immigrants with depression out of the delivery system. The lack of interface between formal service providers and psychiatric service providers also caused delayed treatment. This study suggests the need for a comprehensive care model based on community education, linking mental health care with other services, and cultural brokering, as ways to connect population needs with mental health service delivery.
DIET AND DENTAL DISEASE IN GHANA.

DURING A VISIT to Ghana in order to advise the Government of that country on their dental services, a survey of dental disease was undertaken. One thousand, five hundred and seventy-six individuals were examined by me, this total comprising 468 children aged six, 516 children aged 12 and 592 adults with an age range 18-68 and an average age of 29. Particular attention was paid to the relation of diet to dental caries incidence, as it was clear that in Ghana excellent opportunities existed for a reasonably controlled investigation along these lines. In the more developed coun-
How Much Will the Sea Level Rise? Outcome Selection and Subjective Probability in Climate Change Predictions

We tested whether people focus on extreme outcomes to predict climate change and assessed the gap between the frequency of the predicted outcome and its perceived probability while controlling for climate change beliefs. We also tested 2 cost-effective interventions to reduce the preference for extreme outcomes and the frequency–probability gap by manipulating the probabilistic format: numerical or dual-verbal-numerical. In 4 experiments, participants read a scenario featuring a distribution of sea level rises, selected a sea rise to complete a prediction (e.g., “It is ‘unlikely’ that the sea level will rise . . . inches”) and judged the likelihood of this sea rise occurring. Results showed that people have a preference for predicting extreme climate change outcomes in verbal predictions (59% in Experiments 1–4) and that this preference was not predicted by climate change beliefs. Results also showed an important gap between the predicted outcome frequency and participants’ perception of the probability that it would occur. The dual-format reduced the preference for extreme outcomes for low and medium probability predictions but not for high ones, and none of the formats consistently reduced the frequency–probability gap.
The power of positive thinking: the effects of self-esteem, explanatory style, and trait hope on emotional wellbeing

Historically, personality and psychopathology have been viewed as conceptually distinct, but recently there have been calls for integrative models. Similarly, the traditional view of mental disorders has been that they are qualitatively different to normal mental states. However, this view has recently changed with a consensus starting to emerge that emotional wellbeing and psychopathology are on a continuum. In particular, the tripartite model of Clarke and Watson (1994) has been influential in understanding the links between affect and psychopathology, proposing that high negative affectivity is related to both anxiety and depression, and low positive affectivity only to depression. Longitudinal research over multiple time points is needed in order to clarify the above relationships and their trajectories over time, as well as to address the nature of developmental change and stability. Despite this, there is little research available on the link between emotional wellbeing—particularly specific emotional states such as sadness—and mental health over time. In addition, many personality variables have been studied in relation to mental health that have not had the same attention in the realm of emotional wellbeing. This thesis examines one such group of variables and their relationship to emotional wellbeing. Appraisal theories suggest a link between emotional states and the perceptions of events, and the variables included in this research come from this tradition. The phrase ‘positive thinking’ is used in this thesis to refer to cognitive styles that involve positive appraisals of the self, the world, or the future. The specific constructs studied