Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Family Expressed Emotion In Relapse of Alcoholism Githae

Alcoholism is a family illness that requires treatment of the whole family, because recovery after rehabilitation seems mostly achievable when both the individual and their family are involved in relapse prevention. While studies have demonstrated that the family plays an important role from the diagnosis to treatment of alcoholism, few studies have focused on the interpersonal dynamics of family members which would maintain alcoholism relatedbehaviors and lead to relapse. Such interpersonal dynamics include the family emotional expression (EE) and how it may relate to relapse of an individual dependent on alcohol. The relationship between family EE and the occurrence of relapse in alcoholism was examined. The study was underpinned by the Family Systems Theory to help understand how complex interactional patterns among family members were likely to maintainmaladaptive behaviors such as alcoholism. Samples were derived from populations of inpatient individuals that were addicted to alcohol (N=186) and their family members in Nairobi, Kenya. The study found out that EE had a predictive value R 2 = . 348 and was statistically significant at p=0.000<0.05. While hostility was found to have an inverse relationship with relapse (β=-.133), criticism was found to predict relapse at R 2 =. 282 and over-involvement at R 2 =. 471%. The study concluded that high levels of family EE were a significant in predicting relapse of an individual dependent on alcohol during the recovery process.
Modeling of proton-induced CCD degradation in the Chandra X-ray Observatory

Modeling results are presented for proton-induced degradation of charge-coupled devices (CCDs) used in the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer instrument on the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. A methodology is described that provides insights regarding degradation mechanisms and on-orbit performance for front-illuminated and back-illuminated CCDs. Proton-induced changes in charge transfer inefficiency are modeled. The observed amount of on-orbit degradation can be accounted for using a proton spectrum at the CCD location that has the same shape as the spectrum incident on the spacecraft but has a fluence that is reduced in magnitude by a factor of /spl sim/10/sup 5/.
SYNTHESIS AND CHARACTERIZATION OF BOVINE SERUM ALBUMIN NANOPARTICLES AS A DRUG DELIVERY VEHICLE

Nanoparticles prepared from Bovine serum albumin (BSA) are versatile carrier systems for drug delivery and can be prepared by an established desolvation process, under the aspect of the controllable particle size range between 100 to 300 nm with narrow size distribution. Various components were evaluated influencing the size of BSA nanoparticles (BSA NPs) viz pH, salt content and the conditions for purification. Washing the particles by subsequent cycles of differential centrifugation significantly led to decrease in the poly disparity index (PDI). FTIR was used to determine the purity of the prepared BSA NPs. Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) and Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) displays the size and spherical shape of nanoparticles. Zeta potential with varying pH unveils the surface charges of BSA NPs. The size controlled BSA nanoparticles can be used as the standard material for drug loading capacity for bioactive molecules.
Meaningful Consideration? A Review of Traditional Knowledge in Environmental Decision Making

In Canada’s Northwest Territories, governments, industrial corporations, and other organizations have tried many strategies to promote the meaningful consideration of traditional knowledge in environmental decision making, acknowledging that such consideration can foster more socially egalitarian and environmentally sustainable relationships between human societies and Nature. These initiatives have taken the form of both “top-down” strategies (preparing environmental governance authorities to receive traditional knowledge) and “bottom-up” strategies (fostering the capacity of aboriginal people to bring traditional knowledge to bear in environmental decision making). Unfortunately, most of these strategies have had only marginally beneficial effects, primarily because they failed to overcome certain significant barriers. These include communication barriers, arising from the different languages and styles of expression used by traditional knowledge holders; conceptual barriers, stemming from the organizations’ difficulties in comprehending the values, practices, and context underlying traditional knowledge; and political barriers, resulting from an unwillingness to acknowledge traditional-knowledge messages that may conflict with the agendas of government or industry. Still other barriers emanate from the co-opting of traditional knowledge by non-aboriginal researchers and their institutions. These barriers help maintain a power imbalance between the practitioners of science and European-style environmental governance and the aboriginal people and their traditional knowledge. This imbalance fosters the rejection of traditional knowledge or its transformation and assimilation into Euro-Canadian ways of knowing and doing.
Central Arctic Caribou and Petroleum Development: Distributional, Nutritional, and Reproductive Implications

We synthesize findings from cooperative research on effects of petroleum development on caribou ( Rangifer tarandus granti ) of the Central Arctic Herd (CAH). The CAH increased from about 6000 animals in 1978 to 23000 in 1992, declined to 18 000 by 1995, and again increased to 27 000 by 2000. Net calf production was consistent with changes in herd size. In the Kuparuk Development Area (KDA), west of Prudhoe Bay, abundance of calving caribou was less than expected within 4 km of roads and declined exponentially with road density. With increasing infrastructure, high-density calving shifted from the KDA to inland areas with lower forage biomass. During July and early August, caribou were relatively unsuccessful in crossing road/pipeline corridors in the KDA, particularly when in large, insect-harassed aggregations; and both abundance and movements of females were lower in the oil field complex at Prudhoe Bay than in other areas along the Arctic coast. Female caribou exposed to petroleum development west of the Sagavanirktok River may have consumed less forage during the calving period and experienced lower energy balance during the midsummer insect season than those under disturbance-free conditions east of the river. The probable consequences were poorer body condition at breeding and lower parturition rates for western females than for eastern females (e.g., 1988–94: 64% vs. 83% parturient, respectively; p = 0.003), which depressed the productivity of the herd. Assessments of cumulative effects of petroleum development on caribou must incorporate the complex interactions with a variable natural environment.
Visualization and Interpretation of Convolutional Neural Network Predictions in Detecting Pneumonia in Pediatric Chest Radiographs

Pneumonia affects 7% of the global population, resulting in 2 million pediatric deaths every year. Chest X-ray (CXR) analysis is routinely performed to diagnose the disease. Computer-aided diagnostic (CADx) tools aim to supplement decision-making. These tools process the handcrafted and/or convolutional neural network (CNN) extracted image features for visual recognition. However, CNNs are perceived as black boxes since their performance lack explanations. This is a serious bottleneck in applications involving medical screening/diagnosis since poorly interpreted model behavior could adversely affect the clinical decision. In this study, we evaluate, visualize, and explain the performance of customized CNNs to detect pneumonia and further differentiate between bacterial and viral types in pediatric CXRs. We present a novel visualization strategy to localize the region of interest (ROI) that is considered relevant for model predictions across all the inputs that belong to an expected class. We statistically validate the models’ performance toward the underlying tasks. We observe that the customized VGG16 model achieves 96.2% and 93.6% accuracy in detecting the disease and distinguishing between bacterial and viral pneumonia respectively. The model outperforms the state-of-the-art in all performance metrics and demonstrates reduced bias and improved generalization.
Salinity effects on leaf ion composition and salt secretion rate in Avicennia germinans (L.) L.

The effect of salinity on leaf water relations, and rate and ionic composition of leaf secretion was investigated in plants of Avicennia germinans growing under controlled salinity conditions. Increases in salinity from 0 to 940 mol NaCl m-3 reduced the predawn water potential from -0.56 to -4.16 MPa and the solute potential from -2.27 to -4.48 MPa, whereas the pressure potential remained positive in all treatments. Compared to the control, at 940 mol NaCl m-3 Na+ and Cl- concentrations of leaf sap increased 19 and 7 times, respectively. With the addition of salt the main ions accumulated in leaves were Na+ and Cl- whereas plants grown without salt accumulated K+ in leaves at levels similar to those of Na+ with salt treatments. Secretion rates of Na+ and Cl- ions increased up to the highest salinity treatment, amounting to 59 and 46 times respectively, compared to control plants. The increase in secretion rate contributed to counteract the increase of salt concentration in the leaf. In the treatments receiving salts, the Na+/K+ ratio of leaf sap ranged from 4 to 10, whereas that of the secretion ranged from 24 to 56. The ratio of Cl- vs the rest of anions remained around 3 in the leaf sap of salt-treated plants whereas it varied between 96 and 243 in the secretion. With increasing salinity higher secretion rates maintained the internal ion leaf concentration relatively low. The selective character of the secretion contributes to maintain favourable Na+/K+ and Cl-/anion ratios in the leaf cells.
Genetic Algorithm-Guided, Adaptive Model Order Reduction of Flexible Aircrafts

This paper presents a methodology for automated model order reduction (MOR) of flexible aircrafts to construct linear parameter-varying (LPV) reduced order models (ROM) for aeroservoelasticity (ASE) analysis and control synthesis in broad flight parameter space. The novelty includes utilization of genetic algorithms (GAs) to automatically determine the states for reduction while minimizing the trial-and-error process and heuristics requirement to perform MOR; balanced truncation for unstable systems to achieve locally optimal realization of the full model; congruence transformation for “weak” fulfillment of state consistency across the entire flight parameter space; and ROM interpolation based on adaptive grid refinement to generate a globally functional LPV ASE ROM. The methodology is applied to the X-56A MUTT model currently being tested at NASA/AFRC for flutter suppression and gust load alleviation. Our studies indicate that X-56A ROM with less than one-seventh the number of states relative to the original model is able to accurately predict system response among all input-output channels for pitch, roll, and ASE control at various flight conditions. The GA-guided approach exceeds manual and empirical state selection in terms of efficiency and accuracy. The adaptive refinement allows selective addition of the grid points in the parameter space where flight dynamics varies dramatically to enhance interpolation accuracy without over-burdening controller synthesis and onboard memory efforts downstream. The present MOR framework can be used by control engineers for robust ASE controller synthesis and novel vehicle design. canonical form and matches modes with similar dynamic properties at neighboring grid points to minimize state inconsistency. This paper presents the development of LPV ASE reduced order models (ROMs) of flexible aircrafts based on a combination of sequential model order reduction (MOR), consistent state representation, and model interpolation
Infecções cervicais profundas: classificação em níveis de gravidade

Introducao: As infeccoes dos espacos cervicais constituem quadros graves e que apresentam elevada mortalidade quando evoluem com complicacoes. Objetivo: Estabelecer um protocolo de graduacao dos abscessos cervicais e organizar uma sequencia para o atendimento desses pacientes. Metodo: Foi realizado um estudo retrospectivo de 150 pacientes portadores de abscesso cervical no qual se avaliou a impressao clinica, estado geral, condicao respiratoria, estado loco-regional, antibioticos utilizados e comorbidades. Apos, organizou-se a classificacao em niveis de gravidade. Resultados: A idade media foi de 31 anos e em 37% dos casos a origem era dentaria. Na avaliacao loco - regional em 67% o acometimento se estendia ate nivel I e II. Conforme a gravidade, os pacientes foram classificados da seguinte maneira: Grau I (46%), II (36%), III (15%) e IV (3%). Somente antibioticoterapia foi utilizada em 27% dos casos. A associacao com cirurgia ocorreu em 73% Conclusao: A padronizacao da conduta terapeutica e a sua classificacao em gravidade e fundamental para a sistematizacao do atendimento e diminuicao da morbi-mortalidade. Introduction: The cervical spaces infections compose severe pictures and result in a high degree of mortality when they evolve with complications. Objective: To set up a graduation protocol of the cervical abscesses and organize a sequence to treat these patients. Method: We carried out a retrospective study of 150 patients with cervical abscess in which we evaluated the clinical impression, general state, respiratory state, locoregional state, antibiotics used and comorbidity. Then we organized a classification with severity levels. Results: The mean age was of 31 years old and in 37% of the cases the origin was dental. In the locoregional evaluation in 67% the affection expanded up to level I and II. According to the severity, the patients were classified as follows: Level I (46%), II (36%), III (15%) and IV (3%). Only antibiotic therapy was used in 27% of the cases. The association with surgery occurred in 73% Conclusion: The therapeutic procedure standardization and its classification in severity is essential for the service systematization and reduction of morbimortality.
A Study of Socio-Economic Status (SES) Associated with Epidemiology of Tuberculosis in General Population of District Buner, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), Pakistan

Objectives: Tuberculosis (TB) is endemic in Pakistan ranking fifth amongst the twenty two endemic countries. Historically, TB has been associated with poverty and low socioeconomic status (SES). This study focuses on the association of SES with prevalence of TB in general population of district Buner, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Material and Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in Government and Private health care centers during 2010-2013 in district Buner, KPK. TB rates were calculated in relation to SES. Result: The data analysis resulted in 1079 positive cases consisting male (n = 445, 41.24%) and female n = (634); 58.8%. The highest occurrence of TB (306/1079: 28.4%) was observed in the group 15 - 45 years followed by the group below 15 years (85/1079:7.9%) in males. The female group in range of 15 - 45 years (251/1079: 23.3%) had maximum TB followed by the group above 45 years (235/1079: 21.8%). The male patients with no education were more in number (152/445: 34.16%) to TB infection as compared to patients with primary (124/445: 27.9%), secondary (111/445: 34.16%) and higher education (58/ 445: 13%). Likewise the highly qualified female patients suffered only 3.5% from TB where as those having no education had maximum infection (49%) followed by primary educated (37.85%) patients. The minimum number of patients (300/1079: 27.8%) suffering from TB were reported in high income family followed by middle (325/1079: 30%) and low income (454/1079: 42%) families. The maximum incidence of TB (320/1079: 28.7%) was found in 2010 followed by 2011 (289/1079: 26.8%), 2012 (268/1079: 24.7%) and 2013 (213/1079: 19.7%) respectively. Conclusions: This result shows that there is deep association between the TB infection and the SES among the public. High infection rates of TB in district Buner may reflect ignorance, no early medical care, poor hygiene, poor nutritional status, economic depressions, lack of proper health facility and knowledge regarding the treatment. Screening for TB (to diagnose latent TB infection), education and good SES remain the most important tools to reduce the risk of TB progression among the general populations in a region.
Early Occupations and Cultural Sequence at Moose Creek: A Late Pleistocene Site in Central Alaska

Early investigations at the Moose Creek site in 1979 and 1984 recovered stone tools within and below paleosol stringers dated between 8160 ± 260 14C yr BP and 11730 ± 250 14C yr BP. Although questions remained regarding the absence of diagnostic artifacts and the validity of the radiocarbon dates obtained from soil organics, this assemblage was tentatively assigned to the Nenana complex. Excavations at the site were resumed in 1996 in hopes of solving persisting problems associated with the culture-historical positions of its components. Microstratigraphic excavation techniques identified two superimposed microblade components associated with the Denali complex. Hearth charcoal dated the deepest microblade occupation at 10500 ± 60 14C yr BP, while a geological sample dated the second at 5680 ± 50 14C yr BP. The oldest microblades lay 15 cm above a Nenana complex occupation that contained a hearth dated at 11190 ± 60 14C yr BP. Artifacts associated with this feature included a large scraper-plane, two side scrapers, a biface, an exhausted flake core, a hammerstone, and anvil stones, as well as a sub-triangular point and a teardrop-shaped Chindadn point. The majority of these tools were manufactured from a large basalt cobble reduced using a bipolar technique. Subsurface testing at several localities around the site did not uncover new late Pleistocene occupations. The chronostratigraphic positions of the diagnostic artifacts found during the re-excavation support previous culture-historical sequences observed for Nenana and Denali complexes in the region. Results from this latest research confirm that the Nenana and Denali complexes are chronologically, stratigraphically, and technologically distinct in the Nenana Valley.
Molecular Composition Analysis of Distant Targets

This document is the Final Report for NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Phase I Grant 15-NIAC16A-0145, titled Molecular Composition Analysis of Distant Targets. The research was focused on developing a system concept for probing the molecular composition of cold solar system targets, such as Asteroids, Comets, Planets and Moons from a distant vantage, for example from a spacecraft that is orbiting the target (Hughes et al., 2015). The orbiting spacecraft is equipped with a high-power laser, which is run by electricity from photovoltaic panels. The laser is directed at a spot on the target. Materials on the surface of the target are heated by the laser beam, and begin to melt and then evaporate, forming a plume of asteroid molecules in front of the heated spot. The heated spot glows, producing blackbody illumination that is visible from the spacecraft, via a path through the evaporated plume. As the blackbody radiation from the heated spot passes through the plume of evaporated material, molecules in the plume absorb radiation in a manner that is specific to the rotational and vibrational characteristics of the specific molecules. A spectrometer aboard the spacecraft is used to observe absorption lines in the blackbody signal. The pattern of absorption can be used to estimate the molecular composition of materials in the plume, which originated on the target. Focusing on a single spot produces a borehole, and shallow subsurface profiling of the targets bulk composition is possible. At the beginning of the Phase I research, the estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of the system was TRL-1. During the Phase I research, an end-to-end theoretical model of the sensor system was developed from first principles. The model includes laser energy and optical propagation, target heating, melting and evaporation of target material, plume density, thermal radiation from the heated spot, molecular cross section of likely asteroid materials, and estimation of the absorption profile at a distant spectrometer. Results obtained by executing simulations based on the model provide compelling evidence that the concept of remote laser evaporative molecular absorption spectroscopy is feasible. In this document, technical details of the model are presented, and results of simulations are described that indicate the utility of the proposed sensor system. Additionally, an asteroid rendezvous mission is analyzed, with a survey of system requirements to accomplish molecular composition analysis of the asteroid. Based on positive theoretical results obtained during Phase I, the estimated TRL of the system is now TRL-2. This document also describes potential future research and experimentation that could push the system to TRL-4 within 2 years. Steps required for construction of a laboratory prototype are described. An experiment to test predictions of the theory is described, based on the laboratory prototype setup.
Time-Pattern and Frequency Analyses of Sounds Produced by Irradiated and Untreated Male Bactrocera tryoni (Diptera: Tephritidae) During Mating Behavior

Abstract Behavior and sounds associated with mating of mass-reared irradiated and untreated (nonirradiated) Bactrocera tryoni (Froggatt) (Diptera: Tephritidae) males were analyzed from synchronous acoustic and video records. The flies tested were from a population used in sterile release programs that help maintain fruit-fly-free areas in Australia. Males typically produce “calling,” “courtship,” and “copula” sounds as mating progresses. Calling sounds are variable-duration bursts of wing vibrations produced before the male orients toward the female. Rapid bursts of courtship sounds of relatively constant duration are produced after orientation toward the female. Copula sounds of variable amplitude and duration are produced after mounting. There was a significant negative correlation between courtship wingbeat frequency and wing width of untreated males, and those that copulated had a lower frequency than those that failed. Wingbeat frequencies in flight, calling, courtship, and copula sounds were significantly correlated within flies, possibly because they all are produced by the same flight motor, with amplitudes affected by the positioning of the wings relative to “stops” on the thorax. The temporal patterns of calling and courtship sounds differed significantly between irradiated and untreated males. Irradiation is known to damage insect central nervous system interneurons and thereby alter the coordination and timing of behavioral activities, but this is the first study identifying an effect of irradiation on tephritid calling and courtship sounds. Although differences in temporal patterns of calling and courtship sounds have potential to affect mating competitiveness, no differences were observed in proportions of irradiated and untreated males that copulated in the laboratory.