Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Motor Representation of Actions in Children with Autism

Background Children with Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are frequently hampered by motor impairment, with difficulties ranging from imitation of actions to recognition of motor intentions. Such a widespread inefficiency of the motor system is likely to interfere on the ontogeny of both motor planning and understanding of the goals of actions, thus delivering its ultimate effects on the emergence of social cognition. Methodology/Principal Findings We investigate the organization of action representation in 15 high functioning ASD (mean age: 8.11) and in two control samples of typically developing (TD) children: the first one, from a primary school, was matched for chronological age (CA), the second one, from a kindergarten, comprised children of much younger age (CY). We used nine newly designed behavioural motor tasks, aiming at exploring three domains of motor cognition: 1) imitation of actions, 2) production of pantomimes, and 3) comprehension of pantomimes. The findings reveal that ASD children fare significantly worse than the two control samples in each of the inspected components of the motor representation of actions, be it the imitation of gestures, the self-planning of pantomimes, or the (verbal) comprehension of observed pantomimes. In the latter task, owing to its cognitive complexity, ASD children come close to the younger TD children’s level of performance; yet they fare significantly worse with respect to their age-mate controls. Overall, ASD children reveal a profound damage to the mechanisms that control both production and pre-cognitive “comprehension” of the motor representation of actions. Conclusions/Significance Our findings suggest that many of the social cognitive impairments manifested by ASD individuals are likely rooted in their incapacity to assemble and directly grasp the intrinsic goal-related organization of motor behaviour. Such impairment of motor cognition might be partly due to an early damage of the Mirror Neuron Mechanism (MNM).
Scholarship@Western Scholarship@Western

The ﬁeld of formal linguistics was founded on the premise that language is mentally represented as a deterministic symbolic grammar. While this approach has captured many important characteristics of the world’s languages, it has also led to a tendency to focus theoretical questions on the correct formalization of grammatical rules while also de-emphasizing the role of learning and statistics in language development and processing. In this review we present a different approach to language research that has emerged from the parallel distributed processing or ’connectionist’ enterprise. In the connectionist framework, mental operations are studied by simulating learning and processing within networks of artiﬁcial neurons. With that in mind, we discuss recent progress in connectionist models of auditory word recognition, reading, morphology, and syntactic processing. We argue that connectionist models can capture many important characteristics of how language is learned, represented, and processed, as well as providing new insights about the source of these behavioral patterns. Just as importantly, the networks naturally capture irregular (non-rule-like) patterns that are common within languages, something that has been difﬁcult to reconcile with rule-based accounts of language without positing separate mechanisms for rules and exceptions.
Towards a Competence Web -Based Assessment model to support lifelong learning

Assessment is a crucial component of learning. Assessment activity is practical not only in formal learning, but also in view of employability and further lifelong training activities. In light of trends toward increased requirements for skilled workers, Web-based assessment presents today many challenges; It should address students' real performance in life. This paper considers the Competence-Based Assessment. Although attempts have been made to address some aspects of competence-based assessment, this kind of assessment has to go a step further. Issues such as evidence, assessment grid and feedback should be tackled. This paper presents the essential components behind a competence Web-based assessment model that will lead to the design of our framework.
The Measurement of Variability and Change in Life Satisfaction: A Comparison of Single-Item and Multi-Item Instruments

In many large-scale surveys, life satisfaction is measured with a single item. Little is known about how sensitive single-item instruments react to changes across time or in the face of critical life events. The present study draws on a Dutch sample of N = 4,034 participants who were administered three different single items and an established multi-item instrument at four annual surveys within 6 years. An indicator-specific latent state-trait growth model was employed to estimate the agreement in change coefficients for the different instruments. The results indicated that single items estimated a similar developmental decline in life satisfaction across the life course as multi-item scales, but they were less sensitive to the loss of paid work. Interindividual differences in intraindividual change were better captured with multiple items. Moreover, single items reflected occasion-specific variance to a larger degree than longer scales. In addition, occasion-specific effects were larger among younger respondents as compared to older age groups. Therefore, single items appear to represent valid measures for the estimation of the average change in life satisfaction within a sample. However, they might exhibit a low power to detect moderating influences on the estimated change trajectories and capture less trait variance than multi-item scales.
Perception of Objects That are Translating and Rotating

The motion of objects that are both translating and rotating can be decomposed into an infinite number of translational and rotational combinations. How, then, do such stimuli routinely elicit specific percepts and behavioral responses that are usually appropriate? A possible answer is that motion percepts are fully determined by the probability distributions of all the possible correspondences and differences in the stimulus sequence. To test the merits of this conceptual framework, we investigated the perceived motion elicited by a line that is both translating and rotating behind an aperture. When stimuli are presented such that a particular sequence of appearance and disappearance occurs at the aperture boundary, subjects report that the line is rotating only; furthermore, the perceived centers of rotation appear to describe a cycloidal trajectory, even when one aperture shape is replaced by another. These and other perceptual effects elicited by translating and rotating stimuli are all accurately predicted by the probability distribution of the possible sources of the physical movements, supporting the conclusion that motion perception is indeed generated by a wholly probabilistic strategy.
Intracellular Clusterin Interacts with Brain Isoforms of the Bridging Integrator 1 and with the Microtubule-Associated Protein Tau in Alzheimer's Disease

Sporadic or late-onset Alzheimer's disease (AD) is expected to affect 50% of individuals reaching 85 years of age. The most significant genetic risk factor for late-onset AD is the e4 allele of APOE gene encoding apolipoprotein E, a lipid carrier shown to modulate brain amyloid burden. Recent genome-wide association studies have uncovered additional single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) linked to AD susceptibility, including those in the CLU and BIN1 genes encoding for clusterin (CLU) and the bridging integrator 1 (BIN1) proteins, respectively. Because CLU has been implicated in brain amyloid-β (Aβ) clearance in mouse models of amyloid deposition, we sought to investigate whether an AD-linked SNP in the CLU gene altered Aβ42 biomarker levels in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Instead, we found that the CLU rs11136000 SNP modified CSF levels of the microtubule-associated protein Tau in AD patients. We also found that an intracellular form of CLU (iCLU) was upregulated in the brain of Tau overexpressing Tg4510 mice, but not in Tg2576 amyloid mouse model. By overexpressing iCLU and Tau in cell culture systems we discovered that iCLU was a Tau-interacting protein and that iCLU associated with brain-specific isoforms of BIN1, also recently identified as a Tau-binding protein. Through expression analysis of CLU and BIN1 variants, we found that CLU and BIN1 interacted via their coiled-coil motifs. In co-immunoprecipitation studies using human brain tissue, we showed that iCLU and the major BIN1 isoform expressed in neurons were associated with modified Tau species found in AD. Finally, we showed that expression of certain coding CLU variants linked to AD risk led to increased levels of iCLU. Together, our findings suggest that iCLU and BIN1 interaction might impact Tau function in neurons and uncover potential new mechanisms underlying the etiology of Tau pathology in AD.
Economic Valuation of Communal Rangelands in Botswana: A Case Study

The literature on rangelands is extensive but very little includes an examination of rangeland valuation. Where it does appear, rangelands tend to be undervalued, mainly due to the fact that most analyses are a) restricted to a specific sector (mainly livestock production); b) biased towards one market product (primarily beef sales or slaughter); or c) limited to use values. Undervaluation of rangelands may contribute to their mismanagement or their transformation to monoculture, such as for livestock or wildlife. Similarly, this may lead to inappropriate policy recommendations and prescriptions, for example that vegetation changes in rangelands are not a problem as long as they do not affect livestock productivity. This paper undertakes a valuation exercise in an effort to address the first two causes of undervaluation mentioned above. The objective is to estimate the annual direct use value of an average hectare of communal rangeland in Botswana, based on an analysis of secondary data. The exercise incorporates the three major direct uses, both marketed and non-marketed, of rangelands - livestock, wildlife and gathering. The valuation clearly shows that each use makes a significant contribution to the direct use value: in the case of hunting and gathering it amounts to around one third of the total direct use value during the period under study. Another conclusion is that non-marketed products are very important; milk production and processing represent a considerable, although partly potential, use value which requires further investigation. Considerable discrepancies were found between private and social use values for livestock, mostly as a result of government subsidies to that sector. The use values for wildlife based on hunting quota has dropped significantly. This suggests a trade-off between livestock and wildlife use values. With the observed decline in wildlife numbers, a switch towards game viewing offers opportunities to boost the use values. alternatively hunting values should be raised to net market values. It is critical to ensure that any benefits from wildlife should accrue to the local population. These conclusions raise important policy questions as to the future use of rangelands in Botswana. Total land productivity per hectare should be the key variable in assessing the significance of eg, vegetation changes or erosion, as well as the merits of different single or multiple use options, such as livestock expansion, wildlife utilisation and/or gathering. The growing resource scarcity not only raises concerns about efficiency and sustainability but also about the distribution of current and future use values.
Towards understanding residential internet traffic: From packets to services

Traffic characterization is a key aspect for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to tune up their networks according to their customers' requirements. Despite the significant gap between business and residential customers, a large body of literature measurements is performed at higher observation points and only few studies have examined residential traffic characteristics. Furthermore, traffic analysis granularity is often too coarse to tackle observed growth of applications and services. In this paper, we present a fine-grained analysis of a real residential traffic dataset collected in France and provided by a major ISP involving more than 40,000 customers. Our findings provide useful insights of usage patterns, applications distribution and traffic characteristics. Among these findings, HTTP and SSL traffic accounts for more than 73% of total data volume. Also, YouTube generates almost 70% of real time entertainment flows.
Convergence Analysis of Pseudo-Transient Continuation

Pseudo-transient continuation ($\Psi$tc) is a well-known and physically motivated technique for computation of steady state solutions of time-dependent partial differential equations. Standard globalization strategies such as line search or trust region methods often stagnate at local minima. \ptc succeeds in many of these cases by taking advantage of the underlying PDE structure of the problem. Though widely employed, the convergence of \ptc is rarely discussed. In this paper we prove convergence for a generic form of \ptc and illustrate it with two practical strategies.
The situational adaptiveness of implicit theories of intelligence and achievement goal orientations

The Situational Adaptiveness of Implicit Theories of Intelligence and Achievement Goal Orientations by Paul Andrew O’Keefe Department of Psychology and Neuroscience Duke University Date: July 30, 2009 Approved: ___________________________ James Y. Shah, Supervisor ___________________________ Philip Costanzo ___________________________ Gavan Fitzsimons ___________________________ Mark Leary ___________________________ Lisa Linnenbrink-Garcia An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience in the Graduate School of Duke University 2009 Copyright by Paul Andrew O’Keefe 2009
Incorporating patient preference into the management of infertility in women with polycystic ovary syndrome

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a heterogeneous condition characterized by anovulation, hyperandrogenism, and polycystic ovaries. Because of the heterogeneous nature of PCOS, women affected by the condition often require a customized approach for ovulation induction when trying to conceive. Treating symptoms of PCOS in overweight and obese women should always incorporate lifestyle changes with the goal of weight-loss, as many women with PCOS will ovulate after losing 5%–10% of their body weight. On the other hand, other factors must be considered including the woman’s age, age-related decline in fertility, and previous treatments she may have already tried. Fortunately, multiple options for ovulation induction exist for women with PCOS. This paper reviews specific ovulation induction options available for women with PCOS, the benefits and efficacy of these options, and the related side effects and risks women can anticipate with the various options that may affect treatment adherence. The paper also reviews the recommended evidence-based strategies for treating PCOS-related infertility that allow for incorporation of the patient’s preference. Finally, it briefly reviews emerging data and ongoing studies regarding newer agents that have shown great promise as first-line agents for the treatment of infertility in women with PCOS.
Sequential detection and isolation of non-orthogonal alternatives

The comparison between the optimal sequential and repeated ﬁxed size sample (FSS) strategies in the problem of abrupt change detection and isolation is discussed. The general case of non-orthogonal Gaussian hypotheses is considered. Each hypothesis is characterized by its mean vector (the change signature) and it is desirable to detect/isolate a change subject to the constraints on a pre-assigned time between false alarm and a maximum probability of false isolation. It is established that the performance of the proposed FSS algorithm is directly related to the mutual geometry between the hypotheses through the Kullback-Leibler information. This algorithm is almost as efﬁcient as an optimal sequential one but in contrast to the sequential strategy, the FSS strategy can be easily used for monitoring in the case of variable structure systems.
Critical Roles for Macrophages in Islet Angiogenesis and Maintenance During Pancreatic Degeneration

OBJECTIVE— Chronic pancreatitis, characterized by pancreatic exocrine tissue destruction with initial maintenance of islets, eventually leads to insulin-dependent diabetes in most patients. Mice deficient for the transcription factors E2F1 and E2F2 suffer from a chronic pancreatitis-like syndrome and become diabetic. Surprisingly, onset of diabetes can be prevented through bone marrow transplantation. The goal of the described studies was to determine the hematopoietic cell type responsible for maintaining islets and the associated mechanism of this protection. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS— Mouse models of acute and chronic pancreatitis, together with mice genetically deficient for macrophage production, were used to determine roles for macrophages in islet angiogenesis and maintenance. RESULTS— We demonstrate that macrophages are essential for preventing endocrine cell loss and diabetes. Macrophages expressing matrix metalloproteinase-9 migrate to the deteriorating pancreas. E2f1/E2f2 mutant mice transplanted with wild-type, but not macrophage-deficient colony stimulating factor 1 receptor mutant (Csf1r−/−), bone marrow exhibit increased angiogenesis and proliferation within islets, coinciding with increased islet mass. A similar macrophage dependency for islet and islet vasculature maintenance is observed during caerulein-induced pancreatitis. CONCLUSIONS— These findings demonstrate that macrophages promote islet angiogenesis and protect against islet loss during exocrine degeneration, could explain why most patients with chronic pancreatitis develop diabetes, and suggest an avenue for preventing pancreatitis-associated diabetes.
Translation as problem solving : uses of comparable corpora

The paper describes an approach that uses comparable corpora as tools for solving translation problems. First, we present several case studies for practical translation problems and their solutions using large comparable corpora for English and Russian. Then we generalise the results of these studies by outlining a practical methodology, which has been tested in the course of translation training.
Bayesian Model Selection for Beta Autoregressive Processes

We deal with Bayesian inference for Beta autoregressive processes. We restrict our attention to the class of conditionally linear processes. These processes are particularly suitable for forecasting purposes, but are difficult to estimate due to the constraints on the parameter space. We provide a full Bayesian approach to the estimation and include the parameter restrictions in the inference problem by a suitable specification of the prior distributions. Moreover in a Bayesian framework parameter estimation and model choice can be solved simultaneously. In particular we suggest a Markov-Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) procedure based on a Metropolis-Hastings within Gibbs algorithm and solve the model selection problem following a reversible jump MCMC approach.
The Relationship Between Athletic Training Program Directors Self-Reported Leadership Style and Program Success

Walters, E. J., Stiltner, S. & Cripps, A. (2017). A qualitative exploration and analysis of key reasons associated to athletic training program directors job burnout and role strain. Journal of Sports Medicine and Allied Health Sciences, supplemental edition, 3(1). abstract. Weidner, T. G. , & Henning, J. M. (2002). Historical Perspective of Athletic Training Clinical Weidner, T. G. , & Henning, J. M. (2002). Historical Perspective of Athletic Training Clinical
Clinical profile of 93 cases of 46, XY disorders of sexual development in a referral center

ABSTRACT The term DSD refers to disorders that affect the normal process of sexual development causing disagreement between chromosomal, gonadal and phenotypic sex, and this study aimed to describe the clinical profile of a group with DSD 46, XY joined on DSD Clinic of Hospital of Salvador, Bahia Clinics. It was a retrospective study of medical records of survey data of 93 patients with DSD 46, XY. Among the patients studied 50.5% had no defined etiology and 20.4% had androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS), 63.4% had been initially recorded in males, 31 (33.3%) in females, being that in two it was necessary to reassignment. All patients with complete AIS pure gonadal dysgenesis and had female genitalia. Others have been diagnosed with genital ambiguity or severe hypospadias and cryptorchidism. The gonads were palpable at the first consultation in 75.3% of patients. It is important to establish an active surveillance program for these patients. The first assessment took place before the age of ten in more than 50% of cases, which shows that much needs to be done for medical education and community about the DSD. Because the phenotypic variability of sexual development disorders was noted that the clinical profile of patients studied ranged between different etiologies, including hindering the diagnostic conclusion of these individuals.
Heterogeneous Firms, Productivity, and Poverty Traps

We present a model of endogenous total factor productivity which generates poverty traps. We obtain multiple steady-state equilibria for an arbitrarily small degree of increasing returns to scale. While the most productive firms operate across all the steady states, in a poverty trap less productive firms operate as well. This results in lower average firm productivity and lower total factor productivity. In our model a growth miracle is accompanied by a shift of employment from small to large firms, consistent with the empirical evidence. We calibrate our model and relate entry costs to the price of investment goods. The resulting distributions of output, TFP, and capital-to-output ratio across steady states are similar to the ergodic distributions we estimate from the data.