Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Presence of neuroticism and antidepressant remission rates in late-life depression: results from the Neurobiology of Late-Life Depression (NBOLD) study

ABSTRACT Neuroticism in older adults is common yet understudied, particularly its effects on depression treatment outcomes. We hypothesized that presence of high neuroticism would be associated with lower 12-week remission rates in older depressed sertraline-treated patients. In this longitudinal cohort study, 43 depressed older adults completed the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R). A study psychiatrist administered the Montgomery Ǻsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS), and the Cumulative Illness Rating Scale (CIRS, a measure of medical burden) at baseline, and the MADRS at each clinical visit. All subjects began open-label sertraline treatment and were followed over 12 weeks with clinically indicated flexible dosing and an option to switch antidepressants. We used regression analyses to examine factors related to 12-week remission of depression (MADRS score < 8) and final MADRS score. We found that higher total neuroticism (odds ratio (OR) = 0.963, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.928–1.000) and a neuroticism subscale, stress vulnerability (OR = 0.846, 95% CI = 0.728–0.983), were associated with lower likelihood of remission among both the intention-to-treat group and sertraline completers. Findings remained significant after controlling for baseline MADRS and CIRS score. In conclusion, assessment of personality, particularly features of neuroticism, may be important in management of late-life depression. Future studies should determine if depressed patients high in neuroticism may benefit from psychotherapy focusing on emotional regulation and stress management.
Feature combination and stacking of recurrent and non-recurrent neural networks for LVCSR

This paper investigates the combination of different short-term features and the combination of recurrent and non-recurrent neural networks (NNs) on a Spanish speech recognition task. Several methods exist to combine different feature sets such as concatenation or linear discriminant analysis (LDA). Even though all these techniques achieve reasonable improvements, feature combination by multi-layer perceptrons (MLPs) outperforms all known approaches. We develop the concept of MLP based feature combination further using recurrent neural networks (RNNs). The phoneme posterior estimates derived from an RNN lead to a significant improvement over the result of the MLPs and achieve a 5% relative better word error rate (WER) with much less parameters. Moreover, we improve the system performance further by combining an MLP and an RNN in a hierarchical framework. The MLP benefits from the preprocessing of the RNN. All NNs are trained on phonemes. Nevertheless, the same concepts could be applied using context-dependent states. In addition to the improvements in recognition performance w.r. t. WER, NN based feature combination methods reduce both, the training and the testing complexity. Overall, the systems are based on a single set of acoustic models, together with the training of different NNs.
ACP5 (Uteroferrin): Phylogeny of an Ancient and Conserved Gene Expressed in the Endometrium of Mammals1

ABSTRACT Type 5 acid phosphatase (ACP5; also known as tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase or uteroferrin) is a metalloprotein secreted by the endometrial glandular epithelium of pigs, mares, sheep, and water buffalo. In this paper, we describe the phylogenetic distribution of endometrial expression of ACP5 and demonstrate that endometrial expression arose early in evolution (i.e., before divergence of prototherian and therian mammals ∼166 million years ago). To determine expression of ACP5 in the pregnant endometrium, RNA was isolated from rhesus, mouse, rat, dog, sheep, cow, horse, armadillo, opossum, and duck-billed platypus. Results from RT-PCR and RNA-Seq experiments confirmed that ACP5 is expressed in all species examined. ACP5 was also demonstrated immunochemically in endometrium of rhesus, marmoset, sheep, cow, goat, and opossum. Alignment of inferred amino acid sequences shows a high conservation of ACP5 throughout speciation, with species-specific differences most extensive in the N-terminal and C-terminal regions of the protein. Analysis by Selecton indicated that most of the sites in ACP5 are undergoing purifying selection, and no sites undergoing positive selection were found. In conclusion, endometrial expression of ACP5 is a common feature in all orders of mammals and has been subjected to purifying selection. Expression of ACP5 in the uterus predates the divergence of therians and prototherians. ACP5 is an evolutionary conserved gene that likely exerts a common function important for pregnancy in mammals using a wide range of reproductive strategies.
Nanoparticles: A Challenging Vehicle for Neural Stimulation

Neurostimulation represents a powerful and well-established tool for the treatment of several diseases affecting the central nervous system. Although, effective in reducing the symptoms or the progression of brain disorders, the poor accessibility of the deepest areas of the brain currently hampers the possibility of a more specific and controlled therapeutic stimulation, depending on invasive surgical approaches and long-term stability, and biocompatibility issues. The massive research of the last decades on nanomaterials and nanoscale devices favored the development of new tools to address the limitations of the available neurostimulation approaches. This mini-review focuses on the employment of nanoparticles for the modulation of the electrophysiological activity of neuronal networks and the related transduction mechanisms underlying the nanostructure-neuron interfaces.
The Effects of Self-Regulated Strategy Development on the Written Language Performance of Students on the Autism Spectrum

THE EFFECTS OF SELF-REGULATED STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT ON THE WRITTEN LANGUAGE PERFORMANCE OF STUDENTS ON THE AUTISM SPECTRUM Dannette Allen-Bronaugh, Ph.D. George Mason University, 2013 Dissertation Director: Dr. Margo A. Mastropieri A multiple baseline, multiple probe design was used to determine the effectiveness of self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) instruction for persuasive writing (POW + TREE) for three fourth grade and three sixth grade students with high-functioning autism who had writing goals in their IEPs. The intervention occurred after school, three days a week for an average of 14.8 days (10.40 hours) of instruction across three instructional phases (SRSD, fluency, and generalization phases). Each session was timed to ensure students received 45 minutes of instruction. For the first phase of instruction, students were taught to write one-paragraph essays. Once students mastered the strategy, the fluency phase taught students to plan and write a persuasive response in 10 minutes. In the final phase, students received one day of generalization instruction. Three weeks later students received one maintenance and generalization probe and one maintenance and generalization fluency probe for a total of four essays. Participants essays were assessed on the number of essay parts, essay quality, number of words, sentences and transition words written. Throughout instruction, students were assessed on their knowledge of the SRSD POW + TREE strategy. In addition, student and parents interviews were conducted. At post SRSD, overall performance indicated 88.83-100% PNDs as well as level changes from low levels, with no trend or a slight decreasing trend at baseline to mid levels at post SRSD on essay measures. Post-fluency performance for essay parts and essay quality indicated increases from low levels at baseline fluency to mid to high level of performance. Overall PNDs from baseline fluency to post-fluency were 83.33-100%. At post-fluency, all participants remained above baseline performance across all essay measures. Varied results were noted from maintenance to maintenance fluency as well as from generalization to generalization fluency with overall PNDs ranging from 83.33-100%. The findings from the current study extend previously conducted SRSD research for students with ASD and EBD. Study results, implications for education of students with ASD and suggestions for future research will be discussed.
Effects of high-energy electrons and gamma rays directly on protein molecules.

High-energy electrons and gamma rays ionize molecules at random along their trajectories. In each event, chemical bonds are ruptured, releasing radiolytic products that diffuse away. A solution of macromolecules is mostly water whose principal radiation products are H(+) and OH(-). These can diffuse to and react with macromolecules; this indirect action of radiation is responsible for 99.9% of the damage to proteins. In frozen samples, the ionizations still occur randomly and water is still the principle molecular target, but diffusion of radiation products is limited to only a very small distance. At very low temperatures, essentially all the radiation damage to macromolecules is due to primary ionizations occurring directly in those molecules. Therefore, proteins in frozen solutions are only 10(-3) to 10(-4) as sensitive to radiation as in the liquid state. Every molecule that suffered a direct ionization is destroyed; the only surviving molecules are those that escaped ionization. The survival of frozen proteins after irradiation is a direct measure of the mass of the active structures and independent of the presence of other proteins.
The Role of Ambulatory Assessment in Psychological Science

We describe the current use and future promise of an innovative methodology, ambulatory assessment, that can be used to investigate psychological, emotional, behavioral, and biological processes of individuals in their daily lives. The term “ambulatory assessment” encompasses a wide range of methods used to study people in their natural environment, including momentary self-report, observational, and physiological methods. We emphasize applications of ambulatory assessment that integrate two or more of these methods, discuss the smartphone as a hub or access point for ambulatory assessment, and discuss future applications of ambulatory-assessment methodology to the science of psychology. We pay particular attention to the development and application of wireless body area networks that can be implemented with smartphones and wireless physiological monitoring devices, and we close by discussing future applications of this approach to matters relevant to psychological science.
Exclusive Territories and Manufacturers' Collusion

This paper highlights the rationale for exclusive territories in a model of repeated interaction between competing supply chains. We show that with observable contracts exclusive territories have two countervailing effects on manufacturers' incentives to sustain tacit collusion. First, granting local monopolies to retailers softens competition in a one-shot game. Hence, punishment profits are larger, thereby rendering deviation more profitable. Second, exclusive territories stifle deviation profits because retailers of competing brands adjust their prices to the wholesale contract offered by a deviant manufacturer, whereas intrabrand competition prevents such “instantaneous reaction. ” We show that the latter effect tends to dominate, thereby making exclusive territories a more suitable organizational mode to cooperate. These insights are robust to endogenous communication between manufacturers. We also consider retailers' service investments. Here, a novel effect emerges that softens the procollusive value of exclusive territories: Retailers of a deviant manufacturer increase investments, which renders deviation more profitable. This paper was accepted by Preyas Desai, marketing.
An Efficient Multimodal 2D-3D Hybrid Approach to Automatic Face Recognition

We present a fully automatic face recognition algorithm and demonstrate its performance on the FRGC v2.0 data. Our algorithm is multimodal (2D and 3D) and performs hybrid (feature based and holistic) matching in order to achieve efficiency and robustness to facial expressions. The pose of a 3D face along with its texture is automatically corrected using a novel approach based on a single automatically detected point and the Hotelling transform. A novel 3D spherical face representation (SFR) is used in conjunction with the scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT) descriptor to form a rejection classifier, which quickly eliminates a large number of candidate faces at an early stage for efficient recognition in case of large galleries. The remaining faces are then verified using a novel region-based matching approach, which is robust to facial expressions. This approach automatically segments the eyes- forehead and the nose regions, which are relatively less sensitive to expressions and matches them separately using a modified iterative closest point (ICP) algorithm. The results of all the matching engines are fused at the metric level to achieve higher accuracy. We use the FRGC benchmark to compare our results to other algorithms that used the same database. Our multimodal hybrid algorithm performed better than others by achieving 99.74 percent and 98.31 percent verification rates at a 0.001 false acceptance rate (FAR) and identification rates of 99.02 percent and 95.37 percent for probes with a neutral and a nonneutral expression, respectively.
An Investigation into the Lifestyle, Health Habits and Risk Factors of Young Adults

This project examined the lifestyle, health habits and risk factors of young adults at Qatar University. It explored the clustering and differences in dietary habits, body mass index (BMI) and physical activity (PA) amongst male and female students, both Qatari and non-Qatari. Seven hundred thirty two students aged 18–25 years completed a self-reported questionnaire and an objective measure of BMI. Males and females had a high prevalence of being overweight and obesity and low levels of PA, according to well-established international standards. Three clusters were identified based on the students’ lifestyle and dietary habits. Cluster 1 (high risk factors) included those who engaged the least in healthy dietary practices and consumed the most unhealthy foods, participated in less PA and had the highest BMI. Cluster 2 (moderate risk factors) included those with considerably more habits falling into the moderate category, engagement in the most PA, the least TV and computer viewing time and had the lowest BMI. Cluster 3 (low risk factors) included those who engaged the most with the four healthy dietary practices, the least with the four unhealthy dietary practices and participated in moderate PA per week. This project provides valuable data that could be used by policy makers to address issues concerning student’s health.
Identity Concealment in Transgender Adults: A Qualitative Assessment of Minority Stress and Gender Affirmation

Minority individuals might conceal their identity in social contexts in an effort to avoid stigma and victimization. Unfortunately, identity concealment is thought to impact psychological distress in transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) individuals. Thus, through 30 in-depth interviews, we sought to understand if and how identity concealment was experienced by TGNC individuals. Findings indicated that (a) TGNC identity concealment is a source of stress, (b) individuals might conceal their TGNC identity based on social context, (c) concealment of assigned sex and gender history can function to affirm one’s true gender identity, and (d) concealment of gender history is a rejection of one’s assigned sex. In addition, (a) passing/blending is an important interpersonal and intrapersonal process, (b) the importance of passing/blending can change over time, and (c) not passing/blending may result in worrying about personal safety. The authors discuss how concealment can both inhibit and promote psychological health for TGNC individuals, and they offer clinical applications for health providers.
Ichnaea: A Low-Overhead Robust WLAN Device-Free Passive Localization System

WLAN Device-free passive (DfP) indoor localization is an emerging technology enabling the localization of entities that do not carry any devices nor participate actively in the localization process using the already installed wireless infrastructure. Current state-of-the-art DfP localization systems require a large overhead to construct an RF profile for the environment, that is then used as a reference for either motion detection or tracking. These profiles are also not robust to changes in the environment, requiring frequent manual maintenance or reconstruction. In this paper, we present the design, implementation and evaluation of Ichnaea, an accurate, robust, and low-overhead DfP localization system. Ichnaea uses a lightweight, typically two minutes, training period to learn the silence profile of the environment. It then applies statistical anomaly detection techniques and particle filtering, while adapting to changes in the environment, to provide its localization capabilities using standard WiFi hardware. Evaluation of Ichnaea in three typical testbeds with a side-by-side comparison to the state-of-the-art WLAN DfP systems shows that it can achieve a worst case median distance error of 2.5 m while requiring significantly lower deployment overhead and being robust to environment changes.
The dynamic moral self: A social psychological perspective.

When psychologists explore the role of the self in moral motivation and behavior, they typically take a personological approach. Some seek to describe a general personality structure shared by widely recognized moral exemplars, whereas others examine individual differences in the centrality of mortality to one's personal goals. A social-psychological approach to the moral self complements these personological perspectives by taking into account the situational malleability of moral self-regard, or one's self-perceived moral standing at any given moment. Recent research reviewed in this chapter demonstrates the value added by this perspective: First, when people are made secure about their morality, they sometimes act less morally (moral credentials); second, moral exemplars are disliked rather than admired when their behavior is seen as an indictment of people's own choices (moral resentment); and third, people sometimes boost their moral self-regard to compensate for failures in other domains (moral compensation). These phenomena underscore the importance of understanding moral self-regard as just one aspect of a highly dynamic self-concept. THE SELF IN MORAL PSYCHOLOGY For decades, moral psychology mostly left the self out of its analyses. It focused instead on moral reasoning and on the cognitive underpinnings of decisions about right and wrong (Kohlberg, 1969). The neglect of the self and emphasis on the mechanics of moral reasoning was a reaction against the perceived murkiness of psychodynamic theories influential at the time, and the dearth of empirical support for concepts such as “superego strength” to explain moral learning (see Kohlberg, 1963).
Original Design of a Wheelchair robot Equipped with variable Geometry single tracked Mechanisms

This paper introduces an originally designed wheelchair robot equipped a variable geometry single tracked mechanism (VGSTM). This mechanism can actively control the robot shape and track tension to adapt for obstacles by two pairs of flippers, so the obstacle clearing ability of traditional wheelchairs can be improved. With the aim of stair-climbing, an optimal solution method of driving moments is proposed to guide the robot design; a tip-over and slippage stability criterion is established to evaluate the robot performance. Finally, the prototype is built, and the stair-climbing experiment is carried out to verify the obstacle clearing ability of the robot.
Race, Family Structure, and Wealth: The Effect of Childhood Family on Adult Asset Ownership

Racial differences in wealth ownership are among the most extreme and persistent forms of stratification in the United States, but the factors that contribute to this inequality are unclear. One potentially important contributing factor is family background. It is a critical determinant of attainment, and both childhood family resources and family structure vary racially. This article reports that family size during childhood contributes significantly to racial differences in adult wealth. I find that siblings strain material and nonmaterial resources during childhood and decrease adult home ownership, stock ownership, and total assets. Having extended family in the home also decreases wealth for those from intact families, but an extended family minimizes the negative effect of divorce and separation and increases wealth in disrupted families. I also find that childhood family size and family structure are related to racial differences in adult wealth accumulation trajectories, allowing whites to begin accumulating high-yield assets earlier in life. The results provide insight into the role of family background in creating and maintaining inequality, particularly racial stratification in wealth ownership.
Non-invasive monitoring of chewing and swallowing for objective quantification of ingestive behavior

A methodology of studying of ingestive behavior by non-invasive monitoring of swallowing (deglutition) and chewing (mastication) has been developed. The target application for the developed methodology is to study the behavioral patterns of food consumption and producing volumetric and weight estimates of energy intake. Monitoring is non-invasive based on detecting swallowing by a sound sensor located over laryngopharynx or by a bone-conduction microphone and detecting chewing through a below-the-ear strain sensor. Proposed sensors may be implemented in a wearable monitoring device, thus enabling monitoring of ingestive behavior in free-living individuals. In this paper, the goals in the development of this methodology are two-fold. First, a system comprising sensors, related hardware and software for multi-modal data capture is designed for data collection in a controlled environment. Second, a protocol is developed for manual scoring of chewing and swallowing for use as a gold standard. The multi-modal data capture was tested by measuring chewing and swallowing in 21 volunteers during periods of food intake and quiet sitting (no food intake). Video footage and sensor signals were manually scored by trained raters. Inter-rater reliability study for three raters conducted on the sample set of five subjects resulted in high average intra-class correlation coefficients of 0.996 for bites, 0.988 for chews and 0.98 for swallows. The collected sensor signals and the resulting manual scores will be used in future research as a gold standard for further assessment of sensor design, development of automatic pattern recognition routines and study of the relationship between swallowing/chewing and ingestive behavior.