Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Gradients of Counterfactuals

Gradients have been used to quantify feature importance in machine learning models. Unfortunately, in nonlinear deep networks, not only individual neurons but also the whole network can saturate, and as a result an important input feature can have a tiny gradient. We study various networks, and observe that this phenomena is indeed widespread, across many inputs. We propose to examine interior gradients, which are gradients of counterfactual inputs constructed by scaling down the original input. We apply our method to the GoogleNet architecture for object recognition in images, as well as a ligand-based virtual screening network with categorical features and an LSTM based language model for the Penn Treebank dataset. We visualize how interior gradients better capture feature importance. Furthermore, interior gradients are applicable to a wide variety of deep networks, and have the attribution property that the feature importance scores sum to the the prediction score. Best of all, interior gradients can be computed just as easily as gradients. In contrast, previous methods are complex to implement, which hinders practical adoption.
The Moderating Role of Perceived Social Support on the Relationship between Physical Functional Impairment and Depressive Symptoms among Chinese Nursing Home Elderly in Hong Kong

With reference to the stress-buffering model, this study aimed to examine the moderating role of perceived social support (including institutional peer support and family support) on the relationship between physical functional impairment, as a source of stress, and depressive symptoms among Chinese nursing home elderly in Hong Kong. The study used a cross-sectional survey method and convenience sampling. The subjects were recruited from two private nursing homes. A total of 187 elderly (54 males and 133 females) participated in the survey. Interviews were conducted by experienced research assistants. The Geriatric Depression Scale was used to assess depressive symptoms of each participant. Pearson correlational analyses showed that females reported more depressive symptoms than their male counterparts, and a positive relationship was found between education level and depressive symptoms. Perceived institutional peer support was negatively correlated, while physical functional impairment was positively correlated with depressive symptoms. However, there was no significant correlation between perceived family support and depressive symptoms. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that physical functional impairment and perceived institutional peer support were significant predictors of elderly depressive symptoms, while perceived family support was not a significant predictor, after statistically controlling for the influence of gender and education level. Perceived institutional peer support, but not perceived family support, was found to moderate the negative impact of physical functional impairment on elderly depressive symptoms. The theoretical and practical implications of this study were then discussed.
Measuring Social Factors in E-government Adoption in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

This paper explores the measurement of social factors in e-government adoption in a developing country (Jordan). The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is developing strong Information Communication Technology (ICT) with the aim of becoming a knowledge based country and a regional Information Technology (IT) centre. Although e-government is an important part of this strategy, there appears to be a lack of understanding of the social factors that may influence citizens' intention to use e-government. This paper makes a contribution in examining these factors through a literature search and questionnaire and data collected from 400 Jordanian participants. The research explores four different social factors: trust in terms of the security and privacy and trust in government, attitudes and beliefs, internet and computer skill confidence, and website design. The measurements used in examining these factors were mostly adapted from previous research. We developed new measurements for the factors of internet related beliefs, internet and computer skill confidence, and website design. This research uses exploratory factor analysis to identify the main factors that may influence e-government adoption in Jordan.
Endorsement of self-report neurovegetative items of depression is associated with multiple sclerosis disease symptoms

Abstract Some researchers have suggested that general self-report depression scales may be inadequate for assessing depression among individuals with Multiple Sclerosis (MS), because many of such items represent MS disease symptoms. However, research has been mixed on this issue: whereas some studies provide support for symptom overlap, others have found opposing evidence. We investigated this issue in two different MS samples with three different strategies. We (1) examined reliable change in depression symptom categories at two time points over three years, (2) assessed the relationship between variables associated with depression and different depression symptom subscales, and (3) assessed the relationship between symptom subscales and physical disability. In each instance we found significant evidence that items meant to assess vegetative symptoms of depression may be influenced by presence of MS disease symptoms or were not associated with other core elements or central correlates of depression. (JINS, 2008, 14, 1057–1062.)
Longitudinal Data Analysis of Symptom Score Trajectories Using Linear Mixed Models in a Clinical Trial

In clinical trials, longitudinal data are often analyzed using T-tests, anovas or ancovas instead of the more powerful linear mixed models. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how the more sophisticated linear mixed models according to the approach of Singer and Willett, which allows special insight into the behaviour of the data, can be used in clinical trials. Individual trajectories of PANNS-MNS Scores from a controlled clinical trial were used to demonstrate all the steps needed for an analysis of longitudinal data. The model is built step by step, model assumptions are checked, time-variant and time-invariant factors are included and the results are interpreted. The unique needs of a clinical trial, such as the calculation of effect sizes or of an appropriate sample size, are taken into account. Finally, a flow chart is presented that would serve as an instruction tool for the analysis of longitudinal data in clinical trials.
Impact of left ventricular lead position on the efficacy of cardiac resynchronisation therapy: a two-dimensional strain echocardiography study

Background: Definition of the optimal left ventricular (LV) lead position in cardiac resynchronisation therapy (CRT) is desirable. Objective: To define the optimal LV lead position in CRT and assess the effectiveness of CRT depending on the LV lead position using new myocardial deformation imaging. Methods: Myocardial deformation imaging based on tracking of acoustic tissue pixels in two-dimensional echocardiographic images (EchoPAC, GE ultrasound) was performed in 47 patients with heart failure at baseline and during CRT. In a 36-segment LV model the segment with the latest peak systolic circumferential strain before CRT was determined. The segment with maximal temporal difference in peak systolic circumferential strain on CRT compared with before CRT was assumed to be the LV lead position. The optimal LV lead position was defined as concurrence or immediate neighbouring of the segment with the latest contraction before CRT and those with assumed LV lead location. Results: 25 patients had optimal and 22 non-optimal LV lead positions. Before CRT, the LV ejection fraction (EF) and peak oxygen consumption (Vo2max) were similar in patients with optimal and non-optimal LV lead positions (mean (SD) EF = 31.4 (6.1)% vs 30.3 (6.5)% and Vo2max = 14.2 (1.8) vs 14.0 (2.1) ml/min/kg, respectively). At 3 months on CRT, EF increased by 9 (2)% vs 5 (3)% and Vo2max by 2.0 (0.8) vs 1.1 (0.5) ml/min/kg in the optimal vs non-optimal LV lead position groups, respectively (both p<0.001). Conclusions: Concordance of the LV lead site and location of the latest systolic contraction before CRT results in greater improvement in EF and cardiopulmonary workload than the non-optimal LV lead position.
Three-Dimensional Eigenbrain for the Detection of Subjects and Brain Regions Related with Alzheimer's Disease.

BACKGROUND Considering that Alzheimer's disease (AD) is untreatable, early diagnosis of AD from the healthy elderly controls (HC) is pivotal. However, computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) systems were not widely used due to its poor performance. OBJECTIVE Inspired from the eigenface approach for face recognition problems, we proposed an eigenbrain to detect AD brains. Eigenface is only for 2D image processing and is not suitable for volumetric image processing since faces are usually obtained as 2D images. METHODS We extended the eigenbrain to 3D. This 3D eigenbrain (3D-EB) inherits the fundamental strategies in either eigenface or 2D eigenbrain (2D-EB). All the 3D brains were transferred to a feature space, which encoded the variation among known 3D brain images. The feature space was named as the 3D-EB, and defined as eigenvectors on the set of 3D brains. We compared four different classifiers: feed-forward neural network, support vector machine (SVM) with linear kernel, polynomial (Pol) kernel, and radial basis function kernel. RESULTS The 50x10-fold stratified cross validation experiments showed that the proposed 3D-EB is better than the 2D-EB. SVM with Pol kernel performed the best among all classifiers. Our "3D-EB + Pol-SVM" achieved an accuracy of 92.81% ± 1.99% , a sensitivity of 92.07% ± 2.48% , a specificity of 93.02% ± 2.22% , and a precision of 79.03% ± 2.37% . Based on the most important 3D-EB U1, we detected 34 brain regions related with AD. The results corresponded to recent literature. CONCLUSIONS We validated the effectiveness of the proposed 3D-EB by detecting subjects and brain regions related to AD.
CT and 18F-FDG PET for noninvasive detection of splenic involvement in patients with malignant lymphoma.

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to determine the sensitivity and specificity of (18)F-FDG PET, CT, and combined PET/CT in the detection of splenic involvement at initial staging of lymphoma. MATERIALS AND METHODS A retrospective longitudinal analysis was performed on the records of 111 patients with proven lymphoma who had undergone PET and CT before and after treatment. CT scans were evaluated independently by two radiologists, and PET scans by two nuclear medicine physicians. Abnormal CT findings were defined as low-attenuation nodules or a splenic index greater than 725 cm(3) (> 2 SDs above the mean in 100 controls). An abnormal PET finding was defined as splenic uptake greater than hepatic uptake. True splenic involvement was defined retrospectively on the basis of the treatment response assessed with criteria revised in the International Harmonization Project on lymphoma. Observer agreement and sensitivity and specificity values were calculated. RESULTS Observer agreement for CT splenic index and PET findings was good. For initial splenic staging, the sensitivity and specificity of CT, PET, and PET/CT were 91% and 96%, 75% and 99%, and 100% and 95%. CONCLUSION For initial staging of splenic involvement in malignant lymphoma, the sensitivity and specificity of PET/CT can reach 100% and 95%. The sensitivity of the combined approach is higher than that of either technique alone.
Impairments in part–whole representations of objects in two cases of integrative visual agnosia

How complex multipart visual objects are represented perceptually remains a subject of ongoing investigation. One source of evidence that has been used to shed light on this issue comes from the study of individuals who fail to integrate disparate parts of visual objects. This study reports a series of experiments that examine the ability of two such patients with this form of agnosia (integrative agnosia; IA), S.M. and C.R. , to discriminate and categorize exemplars of a rich set of novel objects, “Fribbles”, whose visual similarity (number of shared parts) and category membership (shared overall shape) can be manipulated. Both patients performed increasingly poorly as the number of parts required for differentiating one Fribble from another increased. Both patients were also impaired at determining when two Fribbles belonged in the same category, a process that relies on abstracting spatial relations between parts. C.R. , the less impaired of the two, but not S.M. , eventually learned to categorize the Fribbles but required substantially more training than normal perceivers. S.M. 's failure is not attributable to a problem in learning to use a label for identification nor is it obviously attributable to a visual memory deficit. Rather, the findings indicate that, although the patients may be able to represent a small number of parts independently, in order to represent multipart images, the parts need to be integrated or chunked into a coherent whole. It is this integrative process that is impaired in IA and appears to play a critical role in the normal object recognition of complex images.
The relation between marital quality and (step)parent-child relationship quality for parents and stepparents in stepfamilies. By: Mark A. Fine and Lawrence A. Kurdek

This study examined the relation between perceived marital quality and the perceived quality of the (step)parent–child relationship in 2 independent samples of couples living in stepfamilies. In Sample 1, participants were both spouses in 111 stepmother families and 92 stepfather families recruited from the Stepfamily Association of America. In Sample 2, participants were both spouses in 442 stepfather families and 75 stepmother families who participated in the National Survey of Families and Households. Within families, for both samples, the relation between perceived marital quality and the perceived quality of the stepparent–stepchild relationship was stronger than that between perceived marital quality and the perceived quality of the biological parent–child relationship. psychology | family psychology | parent-child relationships | stepfamilies | step
Regret Analysis of the Finite-Horizon Gittins Index Strategy for Multi-Armed Bandits

I analyse the frequentist regret of the famous Gittins index strategy for multi-armed bandits with Gaussian noise and a finite horizon. Remarkably it turns out that this approach leads to finite-time regret guarantees comparable to those available for the popular UCB algorithm. Along the way I derive finite-time bounds on the Gittins index that are asymptotically exact and may be of independent interest. I also discuss some computational issues and present experimental results suggesting that a particular version of the Gittins index strategy is a modest improvement on existing algorithms with finite-time regret guarantees such as UCB and Thompson sampling.
Requirements for the design of a personal document-management system

In this article a set of requirements for the design of a personal document management system is presented, based on the results of three research studies (Bondarenko, 2006; Bondarenko & Janssen, 2005; Bondarenko & Janssen, 2009). We propose a framework, based on layers of task decomposition, that helps to understand the needs of information workers with regard to personal document and task management. Relevant user processes are described and requirements for a document-management system are derived for each layer. The derived requirements are compared to related studies, and implications for system design are discussed.
Improper Gaussian Signaling for the Two-user Broadcast Channel Treating Interference as Noise

Improper Gaussian signaling (IGS) has been shown to enlarge the rate region achievable by conventional proper Gaussian signaling (PGS) schemes in several interference-limited multiuser networks. In this work, we consider the 2-user broadcast channel (BC) when treating interference as noise "TIN" at every receiver. For this scenario, we derive a closed-form characterization of the rate region boundary with IGS. The Pareto-optimal points are achieved when at least one of the users employs maximally improper (rectilinear) signals. Differently from other interference-limited networks, our results show that IGS always outperforms PGS for the 2-user BC with TIN. Furthermore, IGS also enlarges the PGS rate region with time-sharing for this scenario.
Brain‐derived neurotrophic factor regulates expression of vasoactive intestinal polypeptide in retinal amacrine cells

Brain‐derived neurotrophic‐factor (BDNF) is expressed in the retina and controls the development of subtypes of amacrine cells. In the present study we investigated the effects of BDNF on amacrine cells expressing vasoactive intestinal polypeptide (VIP). Rats received three intraocular injections of BDNF on postnatal days (P) 16, 18, and 20. The animals were sacrificed on P22, P40, P60, P80, and P120, and VIP expression in their retinas was detected by immunohistochemistry (P22, P40) and by radioimmunoassay (RIA; P22, P40, P60, P80, P120) to assess the time course of BDNF effects on VIP. A significant increase in the density of VIP‐positive amacrine cells was detected in BDNF‐treated retinas, and VIP concentration was up‐regulated by 150% both at P22 and at P40 with respect to untreated controls. VIP concentration then slowly declined in the treated retinas over a period of 3 months; however, a statistically significant increase of 50% was still detectable on P120. The impact of endogenous BDNF on the regulation of VIP expression in the retina was analyzed in mice homozygous for a targeted deletion of the BDNF gene locus (bdnf−/−). VIP immunohistochemistry revealed a marked reduction of VIP‐positive amacrine cells and of VIP‐immunopositive processes in the inner plexiform layer of the BDNF knockout mice. Mice lacking BDNF expressed only 5% of the VIP protein in their retinas compared with the retinas of wild‐type mice as measured by RIA. Our data show that BDNF is a major regulator of VIP expression in retinal amacrine cells and exerts long‐lasting effects on VIP content. J. Comp. Neurol. 467:97–104, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Electronic properties of atomic ribbons with spin-orbit couplings on different substrates

Atomic ribbons and monoatomic chains on different substrates are proposed as spin-dependent electrical conductors with asymmetrical local density of states (DOS) and ferromagnetic occupancies along the chains. The tight-binding Hamiltonian and Green’s function techniques were used to analyze the electrical properties of both normal and topological systems with spin-orbit scattering. To make the system more realistic, electron leakage from atomic chains to various types of substrates is considered. We have shown that delocalized electrons in the substrate and spin-orbit interactions are responsible for asymmetry in the local DOS. The structure of DOS for spin-orbit nontopological chains is spin-dependent at both chain edges; however, in the middle of the chain, only paramagnetic solutions are observed. Additionally, we have found different periods of the local DOS oscillations along the chain in the presence of spin-flip and spin-orbit couplings. For topological chains, the edge nontrivial states split in the presence of spin-orbit scattering and spin-dependent Friedel oscillations appear along the whole topological chain. We have also found out-of-phase Friedel oscillations between neighboring chains along the atomic ribbon.Atomic ribbons and monoatomic chains on different substrates are proposed as spin-dependent electrical conductors with asymmetrical local density of states (DOS) and ferromagnetic occupancies along the chains. The tight-binding Hamiltonian and Green’s function techniques were used to analyze the electrical properties of both normal and topological systems with spin-orbit scattering. To make the system more realistic, electron leakage from atomic chains to various types of substrates is considered. We have shown that delocalized electrons in the substrate and spin-orbit interactions are responsible for asymmetry in the local DOS. The structure of DOS for spin-orbit nontopological chains is spin-dependent at both chain edges; however, in the middle of the chain, only paramagnetic solutions are observed. Additionally, we have found different periods of the local DOS oscillations along the chain in the presence of spin-flip and spin-orbit couplings. For topological chains, the edge nontrivial states split in .
Micro-sized erosions in a nanofilled composite after repeated acidic beverage exposures: consequences of clusters dislodgments

Objective To evaluate the hardness (KHN), color stability (DE), and superficial micromorphology of two categories of composites after immersion in either distilled water or grape juice for up to 45 days. Material and Methods Cylindrical specimens (6 mm diameter x 2 mm thick) were obtained according to the factors: composite [Opallis (FGM) and Filtek Z350XT (3M ESPE)]; immersion solution (distilled water and grape juice); and evaluation time: 24 h and 7, 14, 21, 28, and 45 days. After photoactivation, the specimens were stored at 37ºC for 24 h. KHN (50 g/15 s) and ΔE were then repeatedly assessed according to the immersion solutions. Data were analyzed (three-way ANOVA/Tukey's test). Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) topographic analysis was also performed. Results In general, KHN of both composites reduced after 24 h, irrespective of the immersion solution and time. A significantly lower KHN was noted for Opallis compared with Filtek Z350XT in all parameters. An increase in ΔE over time was noted for both composites, irrespective of the immersion solution. Significantly higher ΔE was noted for Filtek Z350XT immersed in grape juice compared with Opallis, regardless of the evaluation time. The grape juice caused significantly higher DE compared with water in all periods. SEM analysis showed eroded areas for Filtek Z350XT but not for Opallis. Conclusions The compositions and immersion solutions influence the composite hardness and the color stability. In spite of the higher hardness, the nanofilled composite is more susceptible to color change than the microhybrid when immersed in an acidic dyed solution.
How to Be 80 Year Old and Have a VO2max of a 35 Year Old

UNLABELLED Background. To discuss the cardiovascular and pulmonary physiology and common risk factors of an 80-year-old man with a world record maximal oxygen uptake of 50 mL·kg(-1)·min(-1). Methods. CASE REPORT Results. His maximal oxygen uptake of 3.31 L·min(-1), maximal heart rate of 175 beats·min(-1), and maximal oxygen pulse of 19 mL·beats(-1) are high. He is lean (66.6 kg) and muscular (49% skeletal muscle mass). His echo parameters of mitral flow (left ventricular filling, E = 82 cm·s(-1) and E/A = 1.2) were normal for 40- to 60-year-old men. Systolic and diastolic function increased adequately during exercise, with no increase in left ventricular filling pressure. He has excellent pulmonary function (FVC = 4.31 L, FEV1 = 3.41, FEV1/FVC = 0.79, and DLCO = 12.0 Si(1)) and normal FMD and blood volumes (5.8 L). He has a high level of daily activity (10,900 steps·day(-1) and 2:51 hours·day(-1) of physical activity) and a lifelong history of physical activity. Conclusion. The man is in excellent cardiopulmonary fitness and is highly physically active. His cardiac and pulmonary functions are above expectations for his age, and his VO2max is comparable to that of an inactive 25-year-old and of a normal, active 35-year-old Norwegian man.