Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Psychological barriers to optimal insulin therapy: more concerns in adolescent females than males

Objective The aim of this study is to investigate psychological barriers (illness perceptions, insulin beliefs, and coping strategies) to optimal insulin therapy among adolescents with type 1 diabetes (T1D), with a specific focus on gender differences and mode of treatment (insulin pump vs pen). Methods A total of 105 males and females (12–20 years) participated in this study. The Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire, the Beliefs about Medicines Questionnaire, and the Adolescent Coping Orientation for Problem Experiences were completed. Additionally, diabetes clinical data were collected by the Norwegian Childhood Diabetes Registry. Results Females had significantly more negative illness perceptions than males on all dimensions (p<0.05), with moderate-to-large effect sizes. Regarding insulin beliefs, females scored significantly higher than males on insulin concern (p<0.001), indicating more concerns about insulin. There were no significant gender differences on perceptions of insulin necessity. Finally, females scored significantly higher on the coping strategies being social and solving family problems (p<0.01), indicating more positive coping among females than males for these subscales. In terms of treatment mode, the only statistically significant difference in the psychological aspects was for the illness perception treatment control, with patients using insulin pen reporting more negative perceptions on this dimension than patients using insulin pump. Conclusions Addressing psychological aspects may be a clinically important supplement to standard somatic T1D care. The consistent finding of gender differences across the psychological measures implies that a tailored treatment approach for males and females with T1D may be warranted.
Bootstrapping General Empirical Measures

It is proved that the bootstrapped central limit theorem for empirical processes indexed by a class of functions F and based on a probability measure P holds a.s. if and only if F CLT (P ) and ∫ F dP < ∞, where F = supf F |f | and it holds in probability if and only if F ∈ CLT (P ). Thus, for a large class of statistics, no local uniformity of the CLT (about P ) is needed for the bootstrap to work. Consistency of the bootstrap (the bootstrapped law of large numbers) is also characterized. These results are proved under some mild measurability assumptions of F for P . AMS 1980 subject classifications. Primary: 60F17, 62E20; secondary: 60B12. Key works and phrases: bootstrapping, empirical processes, central limit theorem. 1 Research partially supported by National Science Foundation Grant No. DMS8619411 2 Research partially supported by National Science Foundation Grant No. DMS8601250 0 Introduction. B. Efron (1979) introduced the “bootstrap”, a resampling method for approximating the distribution functions of statistics Hn(X1, ., Xn; P ), where the random variables Xi are independent, identically distributed with common law P (i.i.d.(P )). Since the empirical measure
A pragmatic approach to dealing with high-variability in network measurements

The Internet is teeming with high variability phenomena, from measured IP flow sizes to aspects of inferred router-level connectivity, but there still exists considerable debate about how best to deal with this encountered high variability and model it. While one popular approach favors modeling highly variable event sizes with conventional, finite variance distributions such as lognormal or Weibull distributions, Mandelbrot has argued for the last 40 years that there are compelling mathematical, statistical, and practical reasons for why infinite variance distributions are natural candidates for capturing the essence behind high variability phenomena. In this paper, we elaborate on Mandelbrot's arguments and present a methodology that often allows for a clear distinction between the two approaches. In particular, by requiring the resulting models to be resilient to ambiguities (i.e., robust to real-world deficiencies in the underlying network measurements) and internally self-consistent (i.e., insensitive with respect the duration, location, or time of the data collection), we provide a rigorous framework for a qualitative assessment of the observed high variability. We apply the proposed framework to assess previously reported findings about measured Internet traffic and inferred router- and AS-level connectivity. In the process, we also discuss what our approach has to say about recent discussions concerning network traffic being Poisson or self-similar and router-level or AS-level connectivity graphs of the Internet being scale-free or not.
From user needs to opportunities in personal information management: A case study on organisational strategies in cross-media information spaces

The efficient management of our daily information in physical and digital information spaces is a well-known problem. Current research on personal information management (PIM) aims to understand and improve organisational and re-finding activities. We present a case study about organisational strategies in cross-media information spaces, consisting of physical as well as digital information. In contrast to existing work, we provide a unified view on organisational strategies and investigate how re-finding cues differ across the physical and digital space. We further introduce a new mixing organisational strategy which is used in addition to the well-known filing and piling strategies. Last but not least, based on the results of our study we discuss opportunities and pitfalls for future descriptive PIM research and outline some directions for future PIM system design.
Evaluation of antioxidant and antimicrobial potential of two endangered plant species Atropa belladonna and Matricaria chamomilla.

BACKGROUND Plants are the natural source of antioxidants as well as antimicrobial compounds that has great potentials in pharmaceutical industry. In the present study, two medicinal plants Atropa belladonna and Matricaria chamomilla were collected from Northern areas of Pakistan. MATERIALS AND METHODS The extracts of the collected plants were obtained by microwave assisted extraction (MAE) with changing parameters, power level and time; methanol and ethanol were solvents used during extraction. The extracts of plants were tested against different bacterial strains. RESULTS It was observed that ethanolic extracts of Atropa belladonna has more significant antimicrobial activity against S.aureus than E.coli. In parallel, methanolic extract of Matricaria chamomilla showed greater significant antibacterial activity against S.aureus when compared with E.coli. In comparison, ethanolic extracts of Matricaria chamomilla has shown more significant results against S. aureus than E.coli (p ≤ 0.05). Both plants had no antibacterial activity against S.typhi. The free radical scavenging activity observed by DPPH assay, indicate that both plants have antioxidant activity at all levels of concentrations in solvent tested during the present work. However, methanolic extracts had greater antioxidant activity when compared with ethanolic extracts. CONCLUSION Present study is thus helpful in highlighting present potentials for antioxidant and antimicrobial properties in the selected plants.
Simultaneous Recording of Event-Related Auditory Oddball Response Using Transcranial Near Infrared Optical Topography and Surface EEG

Near infrared optical topography (OT) is the measurement of hemoglobin absorption simultaneously from an array of optical fibers on the scalp to construct maps of cortical activity. We demonstrate that OT can be used to simultaneously detect and characterize the hemodynamic responses associated with an "oddball" auditory stimulus and that corresponding electrical event related potentials can be acquired simultaneously using conventional scalp recordings. In addition to the measured electrical response, the hemodynamic localization is consistent with fMRI studies, which show significant activation in the temporal and parietal cortical regions. The event-related response of total hemoglobin showed relatively slow peak latencies (5.8 +/- 0.3 s), which were also consistent with fMRI. The current study shows the regions of peak hemodynamic activity that are in closest proximity to areas of peak electrical activity. This is the first demonstration of simultaneous ERP electrical recording and non-invasive optical mapping in human subjects, which promises to be an important tool in the characterization of both normal and abnormal brain function.
TF-IDF uncovered: a study of theories and probabilities

Interpretations of TF-IDF are based on binary independence retrieval, Poisson, information theory, and language modelling. This paper contributes a review of existing interpretations, and then, TF-IDF is systematically related to the probabilities <i>P</i>(<i>q</i>|<i>d</i>) and <i>P</i>(<i>d</i>|<i>q</i>). Two approaches are explored: a space of <i>independent</i>, and a space of <i>disjoint</i> terms. For <i>independent</i> terms, an "extreme" query/non-query term assumption uncovers TF-IDF, and an analogy of <i>P</i>(<i>d</i>|<i>q</i>) and the probabilistic odds <i>O</i>(<i>r</i>|<i>d</i>, <i>q</i>) mirrors relevance feedback. For <i>disjoint</i> terms, a relationship between probability theory and TF-IDF is established through the integral + 1/<i>x</i> d<i>x</i> = log <i>x</i>. This study uncovers components such as divergence from randomness and pivoted document length to be inherent parts of a document-query independence (DQI) measure, and interestingly, an integral of the DQI over the term occurrence probability leads to TF-IDF.
Applications of Wavelet Transform for Analysis of Harmonic Distortion in Power Systems: A Review

Wavelet transform (WT) is one of the most useful digital signal processing tools for time-frequency analysis of power quality disturbances in power systems. This paper presents an extensive bibliographic review of applications of WTs in the measurement and analysis of harmonic distortion in power systems, discussing the performance of the different methods proposed in the technical literature.
Working With Underachieving Students in Higher Education: Fostering Inclusion Through Narration and Reflexivity

The book Working With Underachieving Students in Higher Education: Fostering Inclusion Through Narration and Reflexivity (2016) edited by Maria Francesca Freda, Jose Gonzalez-Monteagudo, and Giovanna Esposito, is a very interesting and innovative work for those who wish to engage in a critical reading of the relation between academic inclusion, narration and reflexivity. The book stems from a European action-research project, INSTALL (Innovative Solutions to Acquire Learning to Learn), which was founded in 2011 by the European Commission within the ERASMUS Multilateral Project measures. It presents an innovative narrative methodology, the Narrative Mediation Path (NMP), which is aimed to foster reflexive competences and to improve the academic performance of underachieving college students at risk of drop-out and university exclusion.
Efficient Sampling for k-Determinantal Point Processes

Determinantal Point Processes (DPPs) are elegant probabilistic models of repulsion and diversity over discrete sets of items. But their applicability to large sets is hindered by expensive cubic-complexity matrix operations for basic tasks such as sampling. In light of this, we propose a new method for approximate sampling from discrete $k$-DPPs. Our method takes advantage of the diversity property of subsets sampled from a DPP, and proceeds in two stages: first it constructs coresets for the ground set of items; thereafter, it efficiently samples subsets based on the constructed coresets. As opposed to previous approaches, our algorithm aims to minimize the total variation distance to the original distribution. Experiments on both synthetic and real datasets indicate that our sampling algorithm works efficiently on large data sets, and yields more accurate samples than previous approaches.
Reproducibility of performance-based and self-reported measures of functional status.

BACKGROUND The reproducibility of a performance-based and a self-reported measure of functional status was investigated, as well as the impact of age and cognitive function on the reproducibility. METHODS Of a random sample of 114 men of the 1995 survey of the Zutphen Elderly Study, 105 men (aged 79.9 +/- 4.5 years) participated in a test-retest study. They filled out a questionnaire on disabilities and carried out performance tests twice, in a 2-week interval. Four performance tests were administered (standing balance, walking speed, chair stand, and external shoulder rotation), and a summary performance score was constructed. The number of self-reported disabilities in basic activities of daily living, mobility, and instrumental activities of daily living were assessed. Kappa statistics and Pearson correlation coefficients between test and retest measurements were computed for the total group and stratified by age and cognitive function. RESULTS Three performance tests and the summary performance score had fair to good reproducibility (walking speed: Pearsons r = .90, chair stand: r = .82, shoulder rotation: kappa = .49, summary score: kappa = .52). Only the test for standing balance was poorly reproducible (kappa = .29). The self-reported functional status was fairly to good reproducible (kappa = .63, r = .87). Self-reported functional status was significantly less reproducible in very old and cognitively impaired than in younger and nonimpaired individuals. CONCLUSIONS In the elderly male subjects, performance tests and self-reported disabilities had moderate to good reproducibility, with the exception of the test for standing balance. In very old or cognitively impaired populations, self-reported functional status may have a lower reproducibility.
Clinical Utility of Short Social Cognitive Tests in Early Differentiation of Behavioral Variant Frontotemporal Dementia from Alzheimer's Disease

Background: Traditional cognitive tests used in clinical practice may not be sensitive enough for the early differentiation of behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) from Alzheimer's disease (AD). A growing body of literature has shown that deficits in various aspects of social cognition can be found in bvFTD. Aim: The objective of this study is to investigate whether short and easily administered tests of social cognition are useful in providing clinical information which might aid in the differentiation of bvFTD from AD in the early stages of bvFTD. Methods: 11 patients diagnosed with bvFTD and 10 patients diagnosed with AD completed a neuropsychological assessment comprising global, executive and social cognitive tasks. Results: Measures of global cognitive function showed no significant difference between the two groups, whereas even the short social cognitive measures (the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test and the Emotion Hexagon) showed significant group differences, reflecting a poorer performance by the bvFTD group. Conclusion: Our results suggest that it may indeed be relevant to include short and easily administered measures of social cognition in the differential diagnosis of early bvFTD and AD.
A routing protocol for k-hop networks

Recent years have witnessed the widespread deployment of IEEE 802.11 LANs in areas such as airports, campuses, and enterprises. These networks allow users to access network services and the Internet in remote locations and without the need Tor wires. The data rates for 802.11a, b and g far surpass that of wide-area cellular networks, however, the range of transmission of 802.11 is much less than that of cellular (250m versus 20km). Employing ad-hoc mode in 802.11 can extend traditional WLANs to multiple hops, thus increasing coverage and reducing the need for additional infrastructure. The amount of network extension (in terms of wireless hops) is limited by the density of the network (i.e., the availability of wireless devices that can serve as relays for other devices), and the scalability of stand-alone wireless ad-hoc networks. In this paper, we introduce a k-hop architecture and routing protocol utilizing a "beaconing" approach for route discovery and maintenance. We demonstrate through simulations the efficiency and reliability of our routing protocol in the presence of mobility and high node density.
Two Species with an Unusual Combination of Traits Dominate Responses of British Grasshoppers and Crickets to Environmental Change

There are large variations in the responses of species to the environmental changes of recent decades, heightening interest in whether their traits may explain inter-specific differences in range expansions and contractions. Using a long-term distributional dataset, we calculated range changes of grasshoppers and crickets in Britain between the 1980s and the 2000s and assessed whether their traits (resource use, life history, dispersal ability, geographic location) explain relative performance of different species. Our analysis showed large changes in the distributions of some species, and we found a positive relationship between three traits and range change: ranges tended to increase for habitat generalists, species that oviposit in the vegetation above ground, and for those with a southerly distribution. These findings accord well with the nature of environmental changes over this period (climatic warming; reductions in the diversity and increases in the height of vegetation). However, the trait effects applied mainly to just two species, Conocephalus discolor and Metrioptera roeselii, which had shown the greatest range increases. Once they were omitted from the analysis, trait effects were no longer statistically significant. Previous studies on these two species emphasised wing-length dimorphism as the key to their success, resulting in a high phenotypic plasticity of dispersal and evolutionary-ecological feedback at their expanding range margins. This, combined with our results, suggests that an unusual combination of traits have enabled these two species to undertake extremely rapid responses to recent environmental changes. The fact that our results are dominated by two species only became apparent through cautious testing of the results’ robustness, not through standard statistical checks. We conclude that trait-based analyses may contribute to the assessment of species responses to environmental change and provide insights into underlying mechanisms, but results need to be interpreted with caution and may have limited predictive power.
Toward a Methodology for the Design of Bird-Proof Intakes Made with Composite Materials

Every year, collisions between aircraft and birds cause remarkable losses. Modern aircrafts have to be certified for a proven level of bird impact resistance before being put into operational service. Nevertheless, it is not surprising if the structure of a turbofan-engine intake (basically designed to carry aerodynamic and thermal loads) collapses when colliding with a bird. The collapse of the intake is tolerated, but the fly-home capability must be guaranteed. The research work that eventually led to a methodology to develop bird-proof intakes made in composite materials is here described. It consists of two phases. In a first phase, referring to the experimental data, a bird model, feasible for the analysis of birdstrike and penetration, was developed and the dynamic behaviour of the composite material used in the intake manufacture was characterised. The numerical model of a full-scale birdstrike test was hence validated referring to a postcertification test of an actual intake and used to improve the design of the same intake. In a second phase, a full-scale birdstrike test on the improved structure was carried out using a prototype and the evidences collected are compared with the numerical results. Eventually the close numerical-experimental correlation obtained demonstrates the validity of the proposed methodology and indicates that the same approach is feasible to be extended to similar cases. Indeed, the use of this methodology leads to evident benefits: highefficiency (low-weight and high-resistance) structures and drastic reductions in design times and costs. INTRODUCTION
Quantum signal processing

In this article we present a signal processing framework that we refer to as quantum signal processing (QSP) (Eldar 2001) that is aimed at developing new or modifying existing signal processing algorithms by borrowing from the principles of quantum mechanics and some of its interesting axioms and constraints. However, in contrast to such fields as quantum computing and quantum information theory, it does not inherently depend on the physics associated with quantum mechanics. Consequently, in developing the QSP framework we are free to impose quantum mechanical constraints that we find useful and to avoid those that are not. This framework provides a unifying conceptual structure for a variety of traditional processing techniques and a precise mathematical setting for developing generalizations and extensions of algorithms, leading to a potentially useful paradigm for signal processing with applications in areas including frame theory, quantization and sampling methods, detection, parameter estimation, covariance shaping, and multiuser wireless communication systems. We present a general overview of the key elements in quantum physics that provide the basis for the QSP framework and an indication of the key results that have so far been developed within this framework. In the remainder of the article, we elaborate on the various elements in this figure.
Torsional oscillations of slowly rotating relativistic stars

We study low-amplitude crustal oscillations of slowly rotating relativistic stars consisting of a central fluid core and an outer thin solid crust. We estimate the effect of rotation on the torsional toroidal modes and on the interfacial and shear spheroidal modes. The results compared against the Newtonian ones for wide range of neutron star models and equations of state.
Impact of income on the profile of cardiovascular risk factors among hypertensives in a Nigerian tertiary health centre: a cross-sectional study

Background In most developed countries, risk factors for cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are more prevalent in low socio-economic classes. However, the pattern in developing countries appears to be different. This study sought to evaluate and compare risk factors for CVD as well as absolute CVD risk in hypertensive subjects grouped by income in Kano, Nigeria. Methods The study was cross-sectional in design and carried out in Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, Kano, Nigeria. Seventy treatment-naïve hypertensives and an equal number of hypertensives on treatment were recruited by balloting from the outpatient clinics, and then regrouped into low- and high-income earners. These two groups were then compared in terms of their profile of CVD risk factors and absolute CVD risk. All the assessed CVD risk factors are recognised in standard guidelines for the management of persons with systemic hypertension. Results The low-income group comprised 45 patients (32.1%) while the remaining 95 (67.9%) had a high income. The most prevalent CVD risk factor was dyslipidaemia, found in 77.8 and 71.6% of low- and high-income earners, respectively (p = 0.437). The prevalence of proteinuria was significantly higher among low-income earners (42.2%) compared with highincome earners (15.8%) (p = 0.001). Mean serum creatinine was also higher among low-income earners but the difference did not reach statistical significance (p = 0.154). Very high CVD risk was found in 75.6 and 70.5% of low- and high-income earners, respectively (p = 0.535). Conclusion Dyslipidaemia and very high CVD risk were found in over 71% of the patients regardless of their level of income. Low-income earners had a higher prevalence of indices of renal damage. These findings pose a great challenge to the present and future management of all subjects, particularly those in the low-income group, given that in Nigeria, healthcare is largely paid for directly out of their pockets.