Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Coevolution Regression and Composite Likelihood Estimation for Social Networks

Coevolution Regression and Composite Likelihood Estimation for Social Networks Yanjun He Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Peter D. Hoff Department of Statistical Science, Duke University Department of Statistics, University of Washington We study how social networks and nodal attributes influence each other over time. A multiplicative coevolution regression (MCR) model is proposed for longitudinal network and nodal attribute data. The coevolution model is based on the following three principles: autocorrelation, homophily and contagion. For the Gaussian MCR model, the maximum likelihood estimates can be obtained using ordinary least squares. We also extend the Gaussian MCR so that it can include latent factors or model ordinal data. A Bayesian method using Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) is used to estimate the parameters and latent factors. We then focus on developing a scalable method to estimate the parameters in models of very large binary network datasets. Maximum likelihood estimates are generally impossible to obtain because the full likelihood involves an intractable high dimensional integral. Also, full-likelihood Bayesian estimation is impractical for very large datasets as the MCMC algorithm is very slow. We propose a triadic composite likelihood estimation method for exchangeable latent Gaussian network models, and extend it to q-node composite likelihood estimation for other exchangeable and non-exchangeable models. The maximum composite likelihood estimates are obtained by optimizing the composite likelihood using a stochastic gradient-based algorithm, where the gradients are approximated using Monte Carlo samples. For networks of moderate size, we show via simulations that composite likelihood estimation provides estimates as accurate as those provided by fully Bayesian estimation using MCMC. For very large datasets, fully Bayesian estimation is impractical, but composite likelihood estimation is feasible as its computational cost is essentially constant as a function of the network size. Keyword: longitudinal social networks, multiplicative coevolution regression model, composite likelihood estimation, fully Bayesian estimation, gradient-based method
Effects of a Single-Lesson Tobacco Prevention Curriculum on Knowledge, Skill Identification and Smoking Intention

One in five students report experimenting with tobacco before the age of 13 and most prevention efforts take place in the school setting. This study measures the effect of a single-lesson tobacco prevention curriculum, conducted by a health education center, focusing on knowledge of tobacco, ability to identify refusal techniques, and intent not to smoke. Data were collected, via electronic keypads, from students visiting a non-school, health education center in Michigan (n = 704 intervention and 85 comparison). Contingency table Chi-squared tests and t-tests demonstrated that a single lesson can improve general knowledge and ability to identify appropriate refusal techniques. Improvement in intent not to smoke was not significant because both groups had very high intent prior to implementation. Similar to results from other programs, multivariate logistic regression of gender, general knowledge, and skill identification revealed that only the skill variable was associated with intent not to smoke at pretest. Recommendations are given for further research and for designing more effective curricula or programs.
Effect of exercise‐induced muscle damage on endurance running performance in humans

Exercise‐induced muscle damage (EIMD) is known to decrease muscle strength and power but its effect on endurance performance is unclear. Thirty moderately trained adult runners (24 men and six women) were randomly assigned to EIMD or control. The EIMD group jumped 100 times from a 35 cm bench, while controls did not perform any muscle‐damaging exercise. Before and 48 h after treatment, subjects were tested on markers of EIMD, steady‐state cardiorespiratory, metabolic and perceptual responses during a constant speed submaximal run; distance ran in 30 min on a treadmill. There were significant changes in muscle soreness, creatine kinase, and knee extensors strength (P<0.01). This EIMD significantly reduced self‐paced time trial performance by 4% (P<0.01) because subjects reduced running speed (P=0.02), with no change in perceived exertion (P=0.31). No significant alterations in running economy and other physiological responses to submaximal running were found. However, there was a trend (P=0.08) for increased perceived exertion, which was correlated with decreased time trial performance (P<0.01). In conclusion, EIMD has a significant impact on endurance running performance in humans, and this effect seems to be mediated by alterations in the sense of effort.
Opposing effects of fructokinase C and A isoforms on fructose-induced metabolic syndrome in mice

Fructose intake from added sugars correlates with the epidemic rise in obesity, metabolic syndrome, and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Fructose intake also causes features of metabolic syndrome in laboratory animals and humans. The first enzyme in fructose metabolism is fructokinase, which exists as two isoforms, A and C. Here we show that fructose-induced metabolic syndrome is prevented in mice lacking both isoforms but is exacerbated in mice lacking fructokinase A. Fructokinase C is expressed primarily in liver, intestine, and kidney and has high affinity for fructose, resulting in rapid metabolism and marked ATP depletion. In contrast, fructokinase A is widely distributed, has low affinity for fructose, and has less dramatic effects on ATP levels. By reducing the amount of fructose for metabolism in the liver, fructokinase A protects against fructokinase C-mediated metabolic syndrome. These studies provide insights into the mechanisms by which fructose causes obesity and metabolic syndrome.
Consumers’ electronic word-of-mouth behavioral intentions on Facebook: Does message type have an effect?

This study was designed to assess consumers’ electronic word-of-mouth behavioral intentions toward various types of business-to-consumer messages on Facebook, as well as their intentions toward the hospitality companies that initiate the messages. The results suggested that marketing messages (vs. conversational messages) evoke stronger electronic word-of-mouth behavioral intentions toward the messages as well as the companies that initiated the messages. Strong electronic word-of-mouth behavioral intentions toward the messages were found to be predictive of higher electronic word-of-mouth intentions toward the companies that initiated the messages. Gender had no moderating effect on such relationships. The findings provide implications for hospitality managers to develop specific business-to-consumer strategies to engage with Facebook users.
Comparing the Teaching Effectiveness of PART-TIME & FULL-TIME CLINICAL NURSE FACULTY

The purpose of this study was to compare the teaching effectiveness of part-time and full-time clinical nursing faculty. Results indicate that students rank part-time faculty as significantly less effective than full-time faculty on each of five categories measured by the Nursing Clinical Teacher Effectiveness Inventory and on the overall scale. These results are supported by the finding that there is no significant difference between student ratings of teacher effectiveness and the self-ratings of the teachers themselves.
Open Ankle Fractures in Patients With Diabetes Mellitus

Complications after surgical treatment of closed ankle fractures in patients with diabetes previously have been well documented. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the union rate, infection rate, and soft tissue complication rate in open ankle fractures in patients with diabetes. Between January 1, 1981 and December 31, 2000, 14 open ankle fractures in 13 patients with diabetes were treated. The mean followup was 19 months (range, 6–84 months). All patients were followed up until union, amputation, or for at least 6 months. Nine of 14 extremities (64%) had wound healing complications. Ultimately, five patients (six extremities; 42%) had belowknee amputation. Only three of 14 fractures in three patients healed without complications. Open ankle fractures in patients with diabetes are limb-threatening injuries with high amputation and infection rates despite contemporary techniques of open reduction and internal fixation, intravenous antibiotics, and emergent irrigation and debridement.
Pedestrian Detection in Binocular Stereo Sequence Based on Appearance Consistency

Pedestrian detection is an important yet challenging task. In this paper, a pedestrian codetection framework for binocular stereo sequences is proposed. Binocular vision and consecutive frames can provide more information than a single image. That information can be used to improve detection performance by reducing the number of candidate detection windows with low confidence or enhancing the high-confidence candidates. To design the framework, we follow the intuition that a pedestrian has consistent appearance when observed from the same or different viewpoints. First, a baseline detector is used in both stereo images with a conservative threshold in order to expand the set of detection candidates. Before the detection process, an assisted stixel world model is computed for both left and right frames. Thus, the search range of the detector is greatly reduced with the help of the stixel world. Second, adjacency-constrained patch matching is proposed to build correspondence between two candidates in both intra and inter sequences of binocular vision. Finally, we establish a mechanism to update the score of the detection aided by the corresponding candidates. The experimental results show that our framework significantly improves the performance of the evaluated baseline pedestrian approaches.
Expression of transforming growth factor-alpha in hepatoblastoma.

BACKGROUND Transforming growth factor-alpha (TGF-alpha) is a potent stimulator of cell proliferation in the liver and in liver tumors; however, its significance and association with hepatocyte proliferation remains unclear. METHODS Expression of TGF-alpha and proliferation markers, such as proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) and cyclin A, were studied and correlated with each other in samples of tumor and surrounding liver tissue taken from nine patients with hepatoblastoma. An avidin-biotin-peroxidase immunohistochemical method was used for detection of TGF-alpha, PCNA, and cyclin A, and in situ hybridization was used to detect TGF-alpha mRNA. RESULTS Two types of tumor cells of epithelial origin were distinguished based on the expression of TGF-alpha protein and RNA. The more differentiated "fetal" phenotype had a high expression of TGF-alpha and correlated with a low expression of proliferation markers. The less differentiated "embryonal" phenotype had low TGF-alpha expression and high proliferation activity. CONCLUSIONS The expression of TGF-alpha is associated with a certain morphologic phenotype of tumor cells in hepatoblastoma; higher expression can be detected in more differentiated tumor cells. The negative correlation between the expression of TGF-alpha and proliferation markers suggests that the less differentiated embryonal cells do not depend on growth stimulation provided by TGF-alpha.
Accelerated Coherent Point Drift for Automatic Three-Dimensional Point Cloud Registration

Fully automatic 3-D point cloud registration is a highly challenging task in light detection and ranging (LiDAR) remote sensing. The coherent point drift (CPD) algorithm provides an appropriate solution for point cloud registration because of its high accuracy. However, real application of the traditional CPD algorithm is limited due to its demanding computational complexity. In this letter, we present a novel accelerated CPD (ACPD) algorithm for fast, accurate, and automatic registration of 3-D point clouds. First, a global squared iterative expectation-maximization (gSQUAREM) technique is integrated to the ACPD algorithm. Then, the dual-tree improved fast Gauss transform method is used to further accelerate the Gaussian summation process during the correspondence probability matrix calculation. Experimental results on two real data sets show that the proposed algorithm can perform fast and accurate registration on LiDAR point clouds.
Polyomavirus middle tumor antigen increases responsiveness to growth factors

The middle tumor antigen (mT) of polyomavirus is unable to transform a clone of NIH 3T3 cells to anchorage independence (L. Raptis and J.B. Bolen, J. Virol. 63:753-758, 1989). However, this oncogene increased the responsiveness of these cells to the growth factors (alpha-like and beta-type transforming growth factors) produced by cells possessing the whole transforming region of polyomavirus. This resulted in the growth of NIH 3T3 cells, expressing mT under control of the dexamethasone-regulatable mouse mammary tumor virus promoter, in agar medium supplemented with these growth factors upon addition of the inducer. Therefore, mT, a transforming oncogene, is able to enhance the responsiveness of established cells to growth factors, a property previously attributed primarily to myc and other establishment type oncogenes.
Strategies and Assessments to Support Special Education Students' Writing the Literacy Test.

Strategies and Assessments to Support Special Education Students’ Writing the Literacy Test by Angelo Maniccia MS, Canisius College, 1998 BS Major, McMaster University, 1995 BS, McMaster University, 1993 Project Study Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Education
Abnormalities of autobiographical memory of patients with depressive disorders: a meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND Previous studies on the autobiographical memory (AM) of depressed patients had inconsistent findings. Various severities of depression in patients in these studies may lead to conflicting results. However, the differences in the procedure of the autobiographical memory tests (AMTs) may also influence the AM results. OBJECTIVE In this study, we analyse the results published so far to research the AM characteristics of patients with depressive disorders and identify moderators that affect the assessment results while using AMT in this field. METHOD A systematic search was conducted using following databases: MEDLINE, PubMed, ScienceDirect, Cnki, and Google Scholar, yielding 22 studies of patients with depressive disorders and autobiographical memory published between 1986 and 2010. RESULTS The results of meta-analysis showed that, compared with the control group, the patients with depressive disorders reported less specific AMs (g = -1.051) and more overgeneralized AMs (g = 1.115). The patients with depressive disorders also recalled more slowly (g = 0.400). The effect sizes of overgeneral memory could be predicted by the self-reported depression score of the depressed patients (B = -.329, p < .01). The mean effect sizes of AMT indices were affected by the AMT characteristics (i.e., number of cue word, max response time, prompting, presentation of cue word, taping, and so on). CONCLUSIONS Our results suggest that overgeneralization and response lag are the AM deficits in patients with depressive disorders. The parameters of AMT are important factors, which are related to the inconsistency in the assessment of AM in patients with depressive disorders. Some recommendations on AMT and programme research design are given for future research.
The relationship between psychosocial profile, health practices, and pregnancy outcomes

Background. The influence of psychosocial factors such as stress, anxiety, depression, and self‐esteem on birth weight is controversial. A prospective study was conducted to evaluate the relationship between pregnancy outcomes, psychosocial profile, and maternal health practices. Methods. 3,149 low‐income, predominantly African‐American pregnant women participated in this study. A 28‐item psychosocial scale measured the constructs of negative and positive affect, self esteem, mastery, worry, and stress. Maternal health practices were assessed with 11 questions dealing with diet, exercise, and the use of preventive medical and dental services. Results. A low score on either scale indicated “poor” psychosocial or health practices status. Low birth weight, preterm delivery, and intrauterine growth retardation occurred in 10.9, 10.1 and 7.3% of the pregnant women respectively. In women with low psychosocial scores, the risk of both low birth weight and preterm delivery was 40% higher and the mean birth weight of infants was 51 g (p=0.02) lower as compared to women with high scores. Negative affect (a measure of depression) was the only factor significantly associated with both infant birth weight (β= − 71.2, p=0.001) and low birth weight (AOR = 1.4, 95% CI = 1.1–1.7). When data were stratified by body mass index, the adverse effect of negative affect scores on birth weight and low birth weight was present only in thin women. Health practice scores were not associated with any of the pregnancy outcomes. Conclusion. Thin women with a poor psychosocial profile and who are depressed during pregnancy are at increased risk of giving birth to low birth weight and preterm infants.
The feasibility and acceptability of a multimedia hepatitis C prevention program for Hispanic HIV-infected persons.

INTRODUCTION Hepatitis C (HCV) and HIV coinfection has emerged as a major health problem in Puerto Rico, particularly among injection drug users (IDUs). We developed and implemented a multimedia educational intervention for HIV-infected IDUs, based on the Health Belief Model and social cognitive theory. METHODS To evaluate the program's acceptability, a group of 42 participants completed a written questionnaire immediately after each intervention component. RESULTS Participants were 85% male, the mean age was 41.6 years (standard deviation 9.2 years), and mean educational level was ninth grade. More than 73% of respondents reported that the computer-based program was very easy to operate. More than 83% agreed that the audio and video tools highly facilitated their learning process, and > 71% agreed that the sessions were long enough. Additionally, they reported a high incremental increase in perceived knowledge regarding HIV/HCV co-infection, HCV infection risk behaviors, HCV complications, HCV preventive measures, and HCV diagnosis and therapy. Most of the participants favored the dissemination of this intervention. CONCLUSIONS The study found a very good acceptability and feasibility of the computerized intervention in the study group. This new technology that includes audiovisual tools in its design kept the participants' attention and interest, while increasing HIV/HCV co-infection knowledge. Subsequent studies will evaluate the efficacy of this intervention, investigating changes in knowledge and risk behaviors among HIV-infected persons.
The effect of standardised cancer pathways on Danish cancer patients' dissatisfaction with waiting time.

INTRODUCTION Standardised cancer patient pathways (CPPs) were implemented in Denmark in 2008 to reduce the waiting time during the diagnostic process and hereby improve patient satisfaction. The aim of this study was to investigate whether patient-reported dissatisfaction with long waiting times has changed from "before" to "after" the implementation of CPPs. METHODS We conducted a comparative cohort study by comparing the patient-reported dissatisfaction with long waiting time before (2004/2005) and after (2010) CPP implementation. Logistic regression was used to estimate the odds ratios (ORs) for patient-reported dissatisfaction after CPP implementation compared with before. RESULTS Fewer patients reported dissatisfaction with long waiting time from the time of referral by their general practitioner (GP) to the first consultation at the hospital across the time of CPP implementation (p < 0.001) (adjusted OR = 0.6 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.5-0.8)). More patients reported dissatisfaction with long waiting time to get an appointment with their GP across the time of CPP implementation (p < 0.001) (adjusted OR = 3.7 (95% CI: 2.5-5.3)). CONCLUSION CPP implementation in Denmark was associated with a reduced level of patient-reported dissatisfaction with long waiting time from the time of referral to the first consultation at the hospital. This indicates that the CPP objective of increasing patient satisfaction may have been achieved. Nevertheless, more patients reported dissatisfaction with long waiting time to get an appointment with their GP. FUNDING none. TRIAL REGISTRATION not relevant.
Business Cycle Anatomy

We propose a new strategy for dissecting the macroeconomic time series, provide a template for the business-cycle propagation mechanism that best describes the data, and use its properties to appraise models of both the parsimonious and the medium-scale variety. Our findings support the existence of a main business-cycle driver but rule out the following candidates for this role: technology or other shocks that map to TFP movements; news about future productivity; and inflationary demand shocks of the textbook type. Models aimed at accommodating demand-driven cycles without a strict reliance on nominal rigidity appear promising. (JEL C22, E10, E32)
Anthropometric reference data for children and adults: United States, 1988-1994.

OBJECTIVE This report presents national anthropometric reference data for the U.S. population aged 3 months and older in 1988-1994. METHODS Data in this report are from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III), which was conducted on a complex, stratified, multistage probability sample of the civilian, noninstitutionalized U.S. population. A total of 31,241 persons were examined. The anthropometric measurements taken included weight, height, recumbent length, circumferences, limb lengths, joint breadths, and skinfold thicknesses. Body mass index values were computed from measured height and weight values. RESULTS The tables in this report include weighted population means, standard errors of the means, and selected percentiles of body measurement values. Because measurements varied by sex and age (and by race and ethnicity in adults), results are reported by these subgroups. CONCLUSIONS These data add to the knowledge about trends in child growth and development and are useful in monitoring overweight and obesity in the U.S. population.
Exposure

Retouching can significantly elevate the visual appeal of photos, but many casual photographers lack the expertise to do this well. To address this problem, previous works have proposed automatic retouching systems based on supervised learning from paired training images acquired before and after manual editing. As it is difficult for users to acquire paired images that reflect their retouching preferences, we present in this article a deep learning approach that is instead trained on unpaired data, namely, a set of photographs that exhibits a retouching style the user likes, which is much easier to collect. Our system is formulated using deep convolutional neural networks that learn to apply different retouching operations on an input image. Network training with respect to various types of edits is enabled by modeling these retouching operations in a unified manner as resolution-independent differentiable filters. To apply the filters in a proper sequence and with suitable parameters, we employ a deep reinforcement learning approach that learns to make decisions on what action to take next, given the current state of the image. In contrast to many deep learning systems, ours provides users with an understandable solution in the form of conventional retouching edits rather than just a “black-box” result. Through quantitative comparisons and user studies, we show that this technique generates retouching results consistent with the provided photo set.