Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Segmentation of color images using multiscale clustering and graph theoretic region synthesis

A multiresolution color image segmentation approach is presented that incorporates the main principles of region-based segmentation and cluster-analysis approaches. The contribution of This work may be divided into two parts. In the first part, a multiscale dissimilarity measure is proposed that makes use of a feature transformation operation to measure the interregion relations with respect to their proximity to the main clusters of the image. As a part of this process, an original approach is also presented to generate a multiscale representation of the image information using nonparametric clustering. In the second part, a graph theoretic algorithm is proposed to synthesize regions and produce the final segmentation results. The latter algorithm emerged from a brief analysis of fuzzy similarity relations in the context of clustering algorithms. This analysis indicates that the segmentation methods in general may be formulated sufficiently and concisely by means of similarity relations theory. The proposed scheme produces satisfying results and its efficiency is indicated by comparing it with: 1) the single scale version of dissimilarity measure and 2) several earlier graph theoretic merging approaches proposed in the literature. Finally, the multiscale processing and region-synthesis properties validate our method for applications, such as object recognition, image retrieval, and emulation of human visual perception.
The perception of egocentric distances in virtual environments - A review

Over the last 20 years research has been done on the question of how egocentric distances, i.e., the subjectively reported distance from a human observer to an object, are perceived in virtual environments. This review surveys the existing literature on empirical user studies on this topic. In summary, there is a mean estimation of egocentric distances in virtual environments of about 74% of the modeled distances. Many factors possibly influencing distance estimates were reported in the literature. We arranged these factors into four groups, namely measurement methods, technical factors, compositional factors, and human factors. The research on these factors is summarized, conclusions are drawn, and promising areas for future research are outlined.
Dissociable Age Effects in Focus-Switching

Focus-switching has recently been identified as an executive control process with differential age sensitivity. To date, the assumption of dissociable age effects is based on only two kinds of tasks constricting its conclusiveness. In a study with 85 younger (19–35 years) and 91 older adults (59–80 years), age effects were again dissociable in two alternative tasks with respect to the availability and the accessibility of representations. The results validate earlier findings that focus-switching is primarily affected in maintaining representations rather than in accessing them.
Girls' Education in South Africa: Special Consideration to Teen Mothers as Learners

Teenage pregnancy has militated against the educational success of girls in South Africa. Statistics show that four out of ten girls become pregnant overall at least once before age 20. Education is important for these girls in order to break the poverty cycle in which most of them are trapped. Though the girls are allowed to return to school after becoming mothers, they face many challenges in trying to balance motherhood and the demands of schooling. The aim of this study was to find out how teen mothers cope with schooling, hence how much support is rendered to them. A qualitative research approach was used to understand the social phenomena of teenage mothers as learners. The result of the research showed that teen mothers in Cape Town receive insufficient support (physically and emotionally) and the consequence is that many quit school or do not succeed with schooling.
Quantitative evaluation of third year medical students' perception and satisfaction from problem based learning in anatomy: A pilot study of the introduction of problem based learning into the traditional didactic medical curriculum in Nigeria

Problem-based learning (PBL) is a method of teaching that uses hypothetical clinical cases, individual investigation and group process. In recent years, in medical education, problem-based learning (PBL) has increasingly been adopted as the preferred pedagogy in many countries around the world. Controversy, however, still exists as the potential benefits and overall outcome of PBL over traditional didactic learning (TDL). The present study compared the learning effectiveness of PBL with TDL using both experimental method (students’ performance in examination) and observational method (students` responses to questionnaires). The self-administered questionnaires measured learning outcomes and acquisition of interpersonal skills on a 5-point Likert type rating scale of 1 (strongly agree) - 5 (strongly disagree). The study population comprised third year medical students of Lagos State University College of Medicine, Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria. Half of the new innovative Human Anatomy curriculum was thought using PBL and the other half using TDL. The PBL method resulted in better examination scores than TDL for the same students. A majority of students felt that, the PBL sessions were better at fulfilling learning objectives, gave better factual knowledge of Anatomy, promoted better student participation in the learning process, provided more learning fun, ensured more students team work and interpersonal skills acquisition and enabled more students’ reflective/critical thinking and reasoning of anatomy, as compared to traditional teaching methods. Most of the students opined that more such sessions should be organized in the future. The main disadvantage perceived was that, it was time-consuming. We conclude that, based on the examination scores and the responses of the students, PBL are more successful than TDL.
On Exemplar-Based Exemplar Representations: Reply to Ennis (1988)

The multivariate theory of similarity discussed by Ennis (1988) entails the assumption that individual category exemplars are themselves represented psychologically as distributions of individual exemplars. The potential utility of this exemplar-distribution approach for theories relating selective attention, similarity, and categorization is briefly discussed. Nosofsky (1986) proposed and tested a unified quantitative approach to modeling performance in tasks of multidimensional stimulus identification and categorization. The approach was based on the assumption that both identification and categorization decisions are governed by similarity comparisons with individually stored exemplars. By modeling patterns of identification confusions, a multidimensional scaling solution for the exemplars was derived. This solution was then used in conjunction with the exemplar-similarity model to predict performance in four separate categorization conditions with the same set of stimuli. A key component assumption was that selective attention processes may systematically modify distances among exemplars in the multidimensional psychological space.
How Spatial Frequencies and Visual Awareness Interact During Face Processing

In vision, high and low spatial frequencies have been dissociated at the cognitive and neural levels. Usually, high spatial frequency (HSF) is associated with slow analysis along the ventral cortical stream, and low spatial frequency (LSF) is associated with fast and automatic processing. These findings suggest a specific relation between spatial-frequency processing and visual awareness. We investigated this issue using masked-face priming with hybrid prime images of variable visibility. We found subliminal priming for both LSF and HSF information, along with a strong interaction between spatial frequency and visibility: HSF-related priming increased with stimulus visibility, whereas LSF influences remained unchanged. We argue that the results limit the validity of the coarse-to-fine model of vision and of models equating ventral-stream activity with perceptual awareness. Interpreting our results in light of the diagnostic approach suggests a close relation between awareness and diagnosticity.
CHILDHOOD SEXUAL ABUSE FACT SHEET

• One U.S. governmental source counts 78,188 child victims of sexual abuse in 2003. That’s a rate of 1.2 per 1,000 American children. • The 2001 National Crime Victimization Survey, which only covers youth 12-17, estimates that 1.9 per 1,000 children are raped or sexually assaulted. • National surveys of adults find that 9-28% of women say they experienced some type of sexual abuse or assault in childhood. All these estimates and others that are available have limitations and should be used with care.
Child Murder Committed by Severely Mentally Ill Mothers: An Examination of Mothers Found Not Guilty By Reason of Insanity

Forensic hospital records of 39 severely mentally ill mothers adjudicated Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity for filicide (child murder by parents) were analyzed to describe characteristics preceding this tragedy and to suggest prevention strategies. Almost three-quarters of the mothers (72%) had previous mental health treatment. Over two thirds (69%) of the mothers were experiencing auditory hallucinations, most frequently command hallucinations, and half (49%) were depressed at the time of the offense. Over one third (38%) of the filicides occurred during pregnancy or the postpartum period, and many had a history of postpartum psychosis. Almost three-quarters (72%) of the mothers had experienced considerable developmental stressors, such as death of their own mother or incest. Maternal motives for filicide were predominantly "altruistic" (meaning murder out of love) or "acutely psychotic" (occurring in the throes of psychosis, without rational motive). Psychiatrists should perform careful risk assessments for filicide in mothers with mental illnesses.
Specific Vulnerability to Depressive Mood Reactions in Schoolchildren: The Moderating Role of Self-Esteem

Tested the specific vulnerability hypothesis of Blatt and Zuroff's (1992) theory of personality predispositions to depression in a sample of 119 3rd-grade children (58 girls and 61 boys; mean age = 8.8 years) and 184 7th-grade children (78 girls and 106 boys; mean age = 12.8 years). In addition, we examined whether high self-esteem buffers against depressive reactions following negative events in children possessing high levels of self-criticism or dependency. Last, we examined whether these relations vary as a function of grade or sex. At baseline, participants completed questionnaires assessing depressed mood, self-criticism, dependency, and self-esteem. Six weeks later, participants completed questionnaires assessing depressed mood and negative events. Results provided limited support for the specific vulnerability hypothesis.
Young Elite Asian Americans and the Model Minority Stereotype: The Nativity Effect

While research on the model minority stereotype has focused on white American attitudes, much less research has considered the ways in which Asian Americans understand this concept and its implications. Utilizing frameworks from social psychology and critical race theory we hypothesize that young foreign-born Asian Americans will more likely accept the model minority stereotype than native born Asian Americans due to their likely socialization in a context where their ethnic group was dominant. Further we hypothesize that young Asian Americans who accept the model minority stereotype also accept individualistic explanations for black inequality given that the stereotype implicates non-Asian minorities presumed incompetence and lack of effort on lower socioeconomic outcomes. Third, we hypothesize that US-born Asian Americans’ exposure to the racialized climate of the US will make their belief in the stereotype more salient in predicting individualistic attitudes toward black inequality. We employ OLS regression techniques using survey data from the first wave of the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen. We find that the mean level of acceptance to the stereotype does not differ by nativity. However that acceptance, regardless of nativity, is positively associated with individualist explanations for African American inequality. Further, foreign-born status is also linked to anti-black individualist sentiment. When we interact nativity status with belief in the stereotype, we find that foreign-born status is moderated in its effect on individualist beliefs toward African American inequality. Thus, we find that while young foreign-born Asian Americans are more individualistic in their views on racial inequality, native-born acceptance of the stereotype has a more pronounced effect. These findings suggest what we describe as a “choosing sides” logic; acceptance of the model minority stereotype reflects collusion with white dominance at the expense of alienation with other non-white minorities.
Re-Imagining Theological Education for the Twenty-First Century: “What Has Theological Ed to do with Higher Ed?”

: In re-imagining theological education for the twenty-first century, Stortz examines two late-twentieth-century proposals for seminary education: ecumenical consortia and “clustering,” or merging seminaries within the same communion. Given the relative failure of such proposals, she explores a “back to the future” move—a return of seminaries to the church-related colleges from which many of them sprung. The move might prove mutually beneficial on three fronts: helping the respective institutions with twin emphases on formation and professionalization, sorting through mission and identity issues, and facilitating a greater awareness of the global context which both theological and higher education serve.
Mid front vowel lowering before rhotics in Ibero-Romance

This paper surveys the distribution of mid front vowels before rhotics in five different varieties of Ibero-Romance and identifies typological patterns of vowel lowering. An analysis is proposed in Optimality Theory that employs a fixed ranking of phonetically grounded markedness constraints against closed mid front /e/ in different pre-rhotic contexts, organized in an implicational hierarchy. Faithfulness constraints on vowel place features interact with this ranking to generate a factorial typology of /e/-lowering that matches the distribution observed in the data and makes predictions about possible and impossible languages. The paper also discusses theoretical implications for the status of intervocalic trills in Ibero-Romance as singleton versus geminate segments.
Responsiveness of Stromal Fibroblasts to IFN-γ Blocks Tumor Growth via Angiostasis1

The importance of stromal cells for tumor is akin to soil for seed. However, the interaction among these cells is far from understood. In this study, we show that stromal fibroblasts exist not only during tumor progression but also during regression stage, together with immune effector cells. Coinjection of stromal fibroblasts with tumor cells often promotes tumor growth. However, the presence of IFN-γ significantly impairs the ability of these cells to promote tumor growth due to a reduced angiogenesis. The mechanism relies mainly on the IFN-γ-mediated down-regulation of vascular endothelial growth factor production by fibroblasts. The results reveal a novel link between immune cells and nonbone marrow-derived stromal cells, and define stromal fibroblasts as the main targets of IFN-γ in tumor immunity.
Moduli spaces of PU(2)-monopoles

The goal of this article was the S^1-equivariant transversality-problem and the compactification-problem for the moduli spaces of (perturbed) PU(2)-monopoles. A substantially improved version entitled "Moduli spaces of PU(2)-monopoles (revised version)" which gives simpler, clearer proofs of the transversality results, has been published on arxiv in June 99 and appeared in Asian J. Math, see Moduli spaces of PU(2)-Monopoles, Asian J. Math. Vol. 4, No. 2 (2000), 391-436.
Current Studies on Ultra-long-life Fatigue Properties for Metallic Materials Mainly Focusing to Bearing Steels: Fundamental Fatigue Data required to EcoDesign of Mechanical Structures

If every mechanical structure is used for a long period two times of the conventional design life, saving the resources into one half and environmental loads to the globe can be also reduced into one half is realised. Thus, the long life design of the mechanical structures gives us a typical technology to facilitate the application of "EcoDesign" into the industrial societies. From this point of view, the fatigue behavior of high-strength steels in the ultra-long-life regime was clarified as the fundamental design data
Selecting Differentially Expressed Genes from Microarray Experiments

Summary. High throughput technologies, such as gene expression arrays and protein mass spectrometry, allow one to simultaneously evaluate thousands of potential biomarkers that could distinguish different tissue types. Of particular interest here is distinguishing between cancerous and normal organ tissues. We consider statistical methods to rank genes (or proteins) in regards to differential expression between tissues. Various statistical measures are considered, and we argue that two measures related to the Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve are particularly suitable for this purpose. We also propose that sampling variability in the gene rankings be quantified, and suggest using the “selection probability function,” the probability distribution of rankings for each gene. This is estimated via the bootstrap. A real dataset, derived from gene expression arrays of 23 normal and 30 ovarian cancer tissues, is analyzed. Simulation studies are also used to assess the relative performance of different statistical gene ranking measures and our quantification of sampling variability. Our approach leads naturally to a procedure for sample‐size calculations, appropriate for exploratory studies that seek to identify differentially expressed genes.
The total numbers of cerebellar granule neurons in young and aged Fischer 344 and Wistar-Kyoto rats do not change as a result of lengthy ethanol treatment

It is generally accepted that long term chronic ethanol consumption by young rats will lead to significant losses of cerebellar granule neurons (GN). A recent study in this laboratory showed, however, that 40 weeks of chronic ethanol consumption had no effect on the total numbers of GN in aged Fischer 344 rats (F344). The goals of the present study were to determine whether F344 GN were resistant to ethanol toxicity only in aged rats and whether resistance of GN in aged rats to ethanol toxicity occurred only in the F344 strain. To accomplish those goals, young and aged adult F344 and Wistar-Kyoto (WKY) rats were treated chronically with ethanol for 40 weeks during the first or second half of their life span. In each rat the total numbers of GN were estimated with the optical fractionator and the volumes of the GN layer were estimated according to Cavalieri’s theorem. After the 40 weeks of ethanol, there were significant age-related differences in the total numbers of GN in the F344 rats. There were also significant strainrelated differences in the total numbers of GN and volumes of the GN layer. There were no significant ethanol-related differences, however, in numbers of cerebellar GN or volumes of the GN layer in F344 rats or WKY rats. The results presented here show that consumption of ethanol over long periods of time had no effect on the total numbers of cerebellar GN or the granular layer volumes in young or aged F344 or WKY rats.
Building Long-Term Patient–Physician Relationships

We provide a framework for physician-controlled preconditions that impact patient trust and commitment and uncover the influence that trust and commitment have on three central patient outcomes: retention, referral behavior, and ease of voice. Based on survey data from a sample of obstetric patients, we find that though the proposed preconditions have a significant effect on both patient trust and commitment, the predominance of trust on desirable outcomes such as retention, referral behavior, and ease of voice has profound implications for physicians and other health care providers in the development of patient relationship strategy.
Timely diagnosis of dairy calf respiratory disease using a standardized scoring system

Abstract Respiratory disease of young dairy calves is a significant cause of morbidity, mortality, economic loss, and animal welfare concern but there is no gold standard diagnostic test for antemortem diagnosis. Clinical signs typically used to make a diagnosis of respiratory disease of calves are fever, cough, ocular or nasal discharge, abnormal breathing, and auscultation of abnormal lung sounds. Unfortunately, routine screening of calves for respiratory disease on the farm is rarely performed and until more comprehensive, practical and affordable respiratory disease-screening tools such as accelerometers, pedometers, appetite monitors, feed consumption detection systems, remote temperature recording devices, radiant heat detectors, electronic stethoscopes, and thoracic ultrasound are validated, timely diagnosis of respiratory disease can be facilitated using a standardized scoring system. We have developed a scoring system that attributes severity scores to each of four clinical parameters; rectal temperature, cough, nasal discharge, ocular discharge or ear position. A total respiratory score of five points or higher (provided that at least two abnormal parameters are observed) can be used to distinguish affected from unaffected calves. This can be applied as a screening tool twice-weekly to identify pre-weaned calves with respiratory disease thereby facilitating early detection. Coupled with effective treatment protocols, this scoring system will reduce post-weaning pneumonia, chronic pneumonia, and otitis media.
Glucocorticoids enhance extinction-based psychotherapy

Behavioral exposure therapy of anxiety disorders is believed to rely on fear extinction. Because preclinical studies have shown that glucocorticoids can promote extinction processes, we aimed at investigating whether the administration of these hormones might be useful in enhancing exposure therapy. In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study, 40 patients with specific phobia for heights were treated with three sessions of exposure therapy using virtual reality exposure to heights. Cortisol (20 mg) or placebo was administered orally 1 h before each of the treatment sessions. Subjects returned for a posttreatment assessment 3–5 d after the last treatment session and for a follow-up assessment after 1 mo. Adding cortisol to exposure therapy resulted in a significantly greater reduction in fear of heights as measured with the acrophobia questionnaire (AQ) both at posttreatment and at follow-up, compared with placebo. Furthermore, subjects receiving cortisol showed a significantly greater reduction in acute anxiety during virtual exposure to a phobic situation at posttreatment and a significantly smaller exposure-induced increase in skin conductance level at follow-up. The present findings indicate that the administration of cortisol can enhance extinction-based psychotherapy.
Long‐term study of vascular perfusion effects following arteriovenous sheathotomy for branch retinal vein occlusion

Purpose: To evaluate the perfusion effects and long‐term visual outcome of pars plana vitrectomy (PPV) combined with arteriovenous sheathotomy (AVS) with or without triamcinolone for nonischaemic branch retinal vein occlusion (NI‐BRVO).