Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Spiritual Diversity in Social Work Practice: The Heart of Helping by Canda, E., & Furman, L. D.

The subject of spiritual diversity within social work is fraught with personal ethical dilemmas, difficult policy choices, and full-blown controversy. How do we as a profession even define spirituality? How do social workers move past our own reservations about discussion of religion and spirituality? What do social workers do when our religious beliefs seem to be in conflict with social work ethics? How can we navigate honest differences among faith groups? What does it take to create the space for intergroup dialogue? What is an appropriate way to assess a client’s spiritual development and help them grow? How can social workers better access the spiritual dimensions of a client’s environment? In the writing of Spiritual Diversity in Social Work Practice: The Heart of Helping, Drs. Canda and Furman set out to answer these and other questions, an ambitious challenge and task that they are well prepared to address. The authors serve as guides in an honest and candid examination of the concept of spirituality, showing us similarities within and between religious groups, and providing a holistic approach to theory building that balances diverse ways of knowing. Recommendations for practice and policy are wrapped within a “spiritual context” that will feel intuitive to social workers who follow the enjoinder to “start where the client is. ” This book is an invitation to growth. The authors argue that social work is an inherently spiritual profession, a secular calling for some. Our professional ethics and practice wisdom reflect deep commitments to the personhood of all clients and to ourselves. The authors argue that these commitments are similar to those within most religions and philosophies that aim to help human beings live loving, connected and transcendent lives. Spirituality, Canda and Furman argue, is the heart of social work. Spiritual Diversity in Social Work Practice is thorough and quite readable. The authors invite the readers to assume a self-critical stance by sharing their own religious and spiritual histories and owning their individual perspectives and by encouraging curiosity about the similarities and differences among different religious perspectives. The authors achieve the significant task of creating the necessary safety for the kind of self-examination that fosters growth. As an atheist reading this text, I often paused to consider what felt like a religious bias in the writing. Rather than cast the book aside,
Speculative Considerations about Some Cardiology Enigmas

Background: Enigmas often lead to hypotheses and speculations. For this reason, especially for the sake of the reader’s motivation, we opted for the plain discussion of some cardiology enigmas. Objective: The present text was aimed to discuss speculatively some cardiology enigmas. Method: Text was freely designed in the context of coronary artery and heart valve diseases. Results: The results were presented as the combination enigma/hypothesis. 1) The absence of arteriosclerosis in intramyocardial coronary arteries/ endothelium-myocardial interaction (crosstalk); 2) The unique and always confirmed superior evolution of the internal thoracic artery as coronary graft/ higher NO basal release 3) The prophylactic left internal thoracic artery graft in mildly-stenosed coronary lesions/need of more accurate functional imaging techniques; 4) The high incidence of perioperative atrial fibrillation in patients with coronary artery disease/atrial ischemia associated to left circumflex coronary lesions; 5) The handling of disease-free saphenous vein grafts at the time of re-operation/biological serendipity with graft vein segments; 6) The possible aortic stenosis protection against coronary artery disease/ endothelium myocardium interaction (crosstalk) improving NO release. Conclusion: The discussed topics associated with their respective speculative hypothesis remain as enigmas, but would become motivations for investigations
Image watermarking for high dynamic range images

Conventional color image watermarking usually causes sever color and texture distortions when applied to high dynamic range images. In this paper, we thus propose a new color image watermarking method for high dynamic range image. Based on modification of the blue component in the detail layer of host image, some color and texture distortions can be significantly reduced. Set of experiments are carried out to verify our concept. The experimental results show an efficiency of the proposed method, in both higher quality of watermarked image and more robustness of embedded watermark against various types of attack, compared to the previous work [7].
Using deep learning and Google Street View to estimate the demographic makeup of neighborhoods across the United States

Significance We show that socioeconomic attributes such as income, race, education, and voting patterns can be inferred from cars detected in Google Street View images using deep learning. Our model works by discovering associations between cars and people. For example, if the number of sedans in a city is higher than the number of pickup trucks, that city is likely to vote for a Democrat in the next presidential election (88% chance); if not, then the city is likely to vote for a Republican (82% chance). The United States spends more than $250 million each year on the American Community Survey (ACS), a labor-intensive door-to-door study that measures statistics relating to race, gender, education, occupation, unemployment, and other demographic factors. Although a comprehensive source of data, the lag between demographic changes and their appearance in the ACS can exceed several years. As digital imagery becomes ubiquitous and machine vision techniques improve, automated data analysis may become an increasingly practical supplement to the ACS. Here, we present a method that estimates socioeconomic characteristics of regions spanning 200 US cities by using 50 million images of street scenes gathered with Google Street View cars. Using deep learning-based computer vision techniques, we determined the make, model, and year of all motor vehicles encountered in particular neighborhoods. Data from this census of motor vehicles, which enumerated 22 million automobiles in total (8% of all automobiles in the United States), were used to accurately estimate income, race, education, and voting patterns at the zip code and precinct level. (The average US precinct contains ∼1,000 people.) The resulting associations are surprisingly simple and powerful. For instance, if the number of sedans encountered during a drive through a city is higher than the number of pickup trucks, the city is likely to vote for a Democrat during the next presidential election (88% chance); otherwise, it is likely to vote Republican (82%). Our results suggest that automated systems for monitoring demographics may effectively complement labor-intensive approaches, with the potential to measure demographics with fine spatial resolution, in close to real time.
Decomposing Joint Distortion for Adaptive Steganography

Recent advances on adaptive steganography imply that the security of steganography can be improved by exploiting the mutual impact of modifications between adjacent cover elements, such as pixels of images, which is called a nonadditive distortion model. In this paper, we propose a framework for nonadditive distortion steganography by defining joint distortion on pixel blocks. To reduce the complexity for minimizing joint distortion, we design a coding method to decompose the joint distortion (abbreviated to DeJoin) into distortion on individual pixels; thus, the message can be efficiently embedded with syndrome-trellis codes. We prove that DeJoin can approach the lower bound of joint distortion. As an example, we define joint distortion according to the principle of synchronizing modification direction and then design steganographic algorithms with DeJoin. The experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms previous nonadditive distortion steganography when resisting the state-of-the-art steganalysis.
Speaker identification by location in an optimal space of anchor models

The process of speaker recognition is generally based on modeling the characteristics of each speaker. An interesting method for modeling consists in representing a new speaker, not in an absolute manner, but relatively to a set of well trained speaker models which constitutes the new representation space. This paper ad-dresses the task of ﬁnding a good representation space for speaker identiﬁcation. It describes a representation space built either by clustering speakers or by selecting an optimal subset of them. In this representation space, speaker location is then performed by the anchor models technique. We present experimental results and compare them with GMM-based results. We show that clustering and subset selection give good representation spaces. With a little amount of training data, identiﬁcation by location in a space of virtual voices performs much better than GMM.
Computational intelligence and decision making: A multidisciplinary review

The phenomenon of dynamic shift in our society called “speed up” has been part of the modern society since the middle of the eighteenth century. Its progressive development is already and will demand more speed in information processing. To cope with such fast pace demand of processing it is necessary to develop more sophisticated computational representation of the human brain. Computational Cognitive Neuroscience is the only realistic approach in reproducing the fundamental nature of human brain’s neurology. We support the biological computational representation of the human brain, based on fMRI imaging analysis, as more effective in the process of decision making.
Construction Workspace Planning: Assignment and Analysis Utilizing 4D Visualization Technologies

Abstract: This article describes a construction activity execution space analysis approach and a decision support tool for resolving execution space interference and conflict between work‐face construction activities. Lack of execution pace planning interrupt and badly affect the progress of construction activities. Also, in real situations, spatial congestion can severely reduce the productivity of workers sharing the same workspace, and may cause health and safety hazard issues. The aim of this article is to present a critical space‐time analysis (CSA) approach that was developed to model and quantify workspace congestion and was encapsulated in a computerized tool dubbed PECASO (patterns execution and critical analysis of site‐space organization) that was developed to assist site managers in the assignment and identification of workspace conflicts. A new concept of “visualizing workspace competition” between the construction activities is presented based on a unique representation of the dynamic nature of activities within the execution workspace, in 3D space and time. PECASO embraces 4D visualization and highlights the critical space control aspect to formulate an innovative 4D space planning and visualization tool. The CSA methodology and PECASO were validated using a real case study and the article concludes that the PECASO system has the potential to reduce the number of competing workspaces, as well as the conflicting volume/space between occupied workspaces. This in turn produces better assessment of the execution strategy for a given project schedule. Additionally, the PECASO system has introduced a new way of communicating the program of work in a high level of detail for space planning purposes.
Blood groups ABO and Rh (D) factor in the rheumatic diseases.

The researches of Cohen, Boyd, Goldwasser, Cathcart, and Heisler (1963) on a small number of patients with chronic joint disease of different clinical types showed that there was no association between the ABO blood groups and the chronic rheumatic diseases, but that there was a deficiency of Rh factor. examining controls, rheumatic
Dental amalgam and multiple sclerosis: a case-control study in Montreal, Canada.

BACKGROUND The aetiology of multiple sclerosis (MS) remains poorly understood. Dental amalgams containing mercury have recently been suggested as a possible risk factor for MS. METHODS In a case-control study conducted between 1991 and 1994, we interviewed a total of 143 MS patients and 128 controls, to obtain information on socio-demographic characteristics and the number of dental amalgams and the time since installation based on dentists' records. RESULTS Neither the number nor the duration of exposure to amalgams supported an increased risk of MS. After adjustment for age, sex, smoking, and education those who had more than 15 fillings had an odds ratio (OR) of 2.57 (95% CI: 0.78-8.54) compared to those who had none; for individuals whose first amalgam was inserted more than 15 years prior to the study, we found an OR of 1.34 (95% CI: 0.38-4.72). CONCLUSIONS Although a suggestive elevated risk was found for those individuals with a large number of dental amalgams, and for a long period of time, the difference between cases and controls was not statistically significant.
The New Public Management is not that bad after all : Evidence from Estonia, Hungary and Romania

textabstractThis article reviews the New Public Management (NPM) literature in Central and Eastern Europe, looking particularly at reforms in Estonia, Hungary and Romania. It finds that research that assessed changes in internal processes and activities within the public sector by far outnumber research that assessed changes in outputs and outcomes. Overall more studies have found positive than negative effects – especially in terms of processes and activities – but less so for outputs and outcomes. Significant challenges in assessing impacts make sweeping claims about whether NPM “works” difficult to support with solid evidence. The paper shows that NPM policy is still considered as an option for public sector modernization in Central and Eastern Europe and suggests that a number of NPM components, if not the model as a whole, are likely to continue to exert influence on the public sector in the future.
Service to Others in Sobriety (SOS)

Alcoholics Anonymous participation has been measured in addiction research, but few validated tools distinguish components of this multidimensional construct. This study provides psychometric findings for the scale Service to Others in Sobriety, a brief assessment of AA-related helping. Data are derived from a sample of treatment-seeking alcoholics, and Service to Others in Sobriety validity and response stability is reported by using a test–retest sample. Findings demonstrated adequate psychometric properties of the Service to Others in Sobriety, including convergent validity, internal consistency (alpha = 0.92) and test–rest reliability (r = 0.94). The Service to Others in Sobriety is a valid measure of AA-related helping activities pertinent to the daily lives of recovering alcoholics.
Estimating galaxy cluster magnetic fields by the classical and hadronic minimum energy criterion

We wish to estimate magnetic field strengths of radio emitting galaxy clusters by minimizing the non-thermal energy density contained in cosmic ray electrons (CRe), protons (CRp), and magnetic fields. The classical minimum energy estimate can be constructed independently of the origin of the radio synchrotron emitting CRe yielding thus an absolute minimum of the non-thermal energy density. Provided the observed synchrotron emission is generated by a CRe population originating from hadronic interactions of CRp with the ambient thermal gas of the intra-cluster medium, the parameter space of the classical scenario can be tightened by means of the hadronic minimum energy criterion. For both approaches, we derive the theoretically expected tolerance regions for the inferred minimum energy densities. Application to the radio halo of the Coma cluster and the radio mini-halo of the Perseus cluster yields equipartition between cosmic rays and magnetic fields within the expected tolerance regions. In the hadronic scenario, the inferred central magnetic field strength ranges from 2.4 μG (Coma) to 8.8 μG (Perseus), while the optimal CRp energy density is constrained to 2 per cent ± 1 per cent of the thermal energy density (Perseus). We discuss the possibility of a hadronic origin of the Coma radio halo while current observations favour such a scenario for the Perseus radio mini-halo. Combining future expected detections of radio synchrotron, hard X-ray inverse Compton, and hadronically induced γ-ray emission should allow an estimate of volume averaged cluster magnetic fields and provide information about their dynamical state.
One-armed spiral instability in neutron star mergers and its detectability in gravitational waves

We study the development and saturation of the m=1 one-armed spiral instability in remnants of binary neutron star mergers by means of high-resolution long-term numerical relativity simulations. Our results suggest that this instability is a generic outcome of neutron star mergers in astrophysically relevant configurations, including both “stiff” and “soft” nuclear equations of state. We find that, once seeded at merger, the m=1 mode saturates within ∼10 ms and persists over secular time scales. Gravitational waves emitted by the m=1 instability have a peak frequency around 1–2 kHz and, if detected, they could be used to constrain the equation of state of neutron stars. We construct hybrid waveforms spanning the entire Advanced LIGO band by combining our high-resolution numerical data with state-of-the-art effective-one-body waveforms including tidal effects. We use the complete hybrid waveforms to study the detectability of the one-armed spiral instability for both Advanced LIGO and the Einstein Telescope. We conclude that the one-armed spiral instability is not an efficient gravitational wave emitter. Even under very optimistic assumptions, Advanced LIGO will only be able to detect the one-armed instability up to ∼3 Mpc, which corresponds to an event rate of 10^(−7) yr^(−1) to 10^(−4) yr^(−1). Third-generation detectors or better will likely be required to observe the one-armed instability.
REDUCTION OF SERUM HYPERCHOLESTEROLENIC IN MALE RABBITS BY SECOISOLARICIRESINOL DIGLUCOSIDE (LIGNAN) ISOLATED FROM FLAXSEED

Secoisolariciresinol diglucoside (SDG, Lignan) is a plant lignan isolated from flaxseed may exert anti-inflammatory effects via its action as an antioxidant. Rabbits were assigned to 5 groups: group 1, normal diet; group 2, 2%cholesterol diet for 60days ,group 3, 2%cholesterol diet for 60days and then gave 40mg/ml partiall lignan ; group 4, same as group 3 but with added pure lignan and group 5, same as group 3 but with adminstation galantamine subcutaneous (injection). Blood samples were collected before (time 0) and after 60days and 74 days of experimental diets for measurement of serum triglycerides, total cholesterol (TC), and LDL, HDL, and VLDL cholesterol (LDL-C, HDL-C, and VLDL-C). Serum TC, LDL-C, and TG increased in Positive groups at 60days compared with time 0 days, but changes were lower in group 3 than in group 4 and 5 after treatment with lignan compound and galantamine. Pure lignan reduced TC, TG and LDL-C at 74 days from these results it can be concluded that flaxseed contains active components (lignans) which decrease serum lipid profile and lowers the risk of atherosclerosis in cholesterol fed rabbits may be through the inhibition of lipid peroxidation and through antioxidant activity.
A Brief Research Report: Thinking Styles of Online Distance Education Students

This study evaluates the distribution of thinking styles in online distance education courses. One hundred and sixty undergraduate students from three universities enrolled in online distance education courses were administered the Sternberg-Wagner Thinking Styles Inventory (Sternberg, 1997). Results indicated a disproportionate number of Legislative and Hierarchic thinkers in online distance education courses. Based on these findings, suggestions for online course development and design are discussed.
Least effort and the origins of scaling in human language

The emergence of a complex language is one of the fundamental events of human evolution, and several remarkable features suggest the presence of fundamental principles of organization. These principles seem to be common to all languages. The best known is the so-called Zipf's law, which states that the frequency of a word decays as a (universal) power law of its rank. The possible origins of this law have been controversial, and its meaningfulness is still an open question. In this article, the early hypothesis of Zipf of a principle of least effort for explaining the law is shown to be sound. Simultaneous minimization in the effort of both hearer and speaker is formalized with a simple optimization process operating on a binary matrix of signal–object associations. Zipf's law is found in the transition between referentially useless systems and indexical reference systems. Our finding strongly suggests that Zipf's law is a hallmark of symbolic reference and not a meaningless feature. The implications for the evolution of language are discussed. We explain how language evolution can take advantage of a communicative phase transition.
Outcomes in Newly Diagnosed Elderly Glioblastoma Patients after Concomitant Temozolomide Administration and Hypofractionated Radiotherapy

This study aimed to analyze the treatment and outcomes of older glioblastoma patients. Forty-four patients older than 70 years of age were referred to the Paul Strauss Center for chemotherapy and radiotherapy. The median age was 75.5 years old (range: 70–84), and the patients included 18 females and 26 males. The median Karnofsky index (KI) was 70%. The Charlson indices varied from 4 to 6. All of the patients underwent surgery. O6-methylguanine–DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) methylation status was determined in 25 patients. All of the patients received radiation therapy. Thirty-eight patients adhered to a hypofractionated radiation therapy schedule and six patients to a normofractionated schedule. Neoadjuvant, concomitant and adjuvant chemotherapy regimens were administered to 12, 35 and 20 patients, respectively. At the time of this analysis, 41 patients had died. The median time to relapse was 6.7 months. Twenty-nine patients relapsed, and 10 patients received chemotherapy upon relapse. The median overall survival (OS) was 7.2 months and the one- and two-year OS rates were 32% and 12%, respectively. In a multivariate analysis, only the Karnofsky index was a prognostic factor. Hypofractionated radiotherapy and chemotherapy with temozolomide are feasible and acceptably tolerated in older patients. However, relevant prognostic factors are needed to optimize treatment proposals.