Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Classification of single trial motor imagery EEG recordings with subject adapted non-dyadic arbitrary time–frequency tilings

We describe a new technique for the classification of motor imagery electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings in a brain computer interface (BCI) task. The technique is based on an adaptive time–frequency analysis of EEG signals computed using local discriminant bases (LDB) derived from local cosine packets (LCP). In an offline step, the EEG data obtained from the C3/C4 electrode locations of the standard 10/20 system is adaptively segmented in time, over a non-dyadic grid by maximizing the probabilistic distances between expansion coefficients corresponding to left and right hand movement imagery. This is followed by a frequency domain clustering procedure in each adapted time segment to maximize the discrimination power of the resulting time–frequency features. Then, the most discriminant features from the resulting arbitrarily segmented time-frequency plane are sorted. A principal component analysis (PCA) step is applied to reduce the dimensionality of the feature space. This reduced feature set is finally fed to a linear discriminant for classification. The online step simply computes the reduced dimensionality features determined by the offline step and feeds them to the linear discriminant. We provide experimental data to show that the method can adapt to physio-anatomical differences, subject-specific and hemisphere-specific motor imagery patterns. The algorithm was applied to all nine subjects of the BCI Competition 2002. The classification performance of the proposed algorithm varied between 70% and 92.6% across subjects using just two electrodes. The average classification accuracy was 80.6%. For comparison, we also implemented an adaptive autoregressive model based classification procedure that achieved an average error rate of 76.3% on the same subjects, and higher error rates than the proposed approach on each individual subject.
Liver Fibrosis Progression in HIV–HCV-Coinfected Patients Treated with Distinct Antiretroviral Drugs and Impact of Pegylated Interferon/Ribavirin Therapy

Background Advanced liver fibrosis frequently develops in patients with chronic hepatitis C coinfected with HIV. Non-invasive techniques for staging liver fibrosis, such as transient elastometry, may allow both periodic monitoring and examination of large patient populations. Methods A programme of liver fibrosis assessment using transient elastometry has been ongoing at our institution since 2004. All HIV-HCV-coinfected patients having ≥2 examinations separated by >18 months were included. Liver fibrosis progression (LFP) was defined as an increase in liver stiffness from <9.5 kPa (Metavir F0-F2) to >9.5 kPa (Metavir F3-F4), or an increase >30% in patients with baseline Metavir F3-F4. Results A total of 545 HIV-HCV-coinfected patients were analysed (mean age 41 years, 71% male, 81% intravenous drug users, mean body mass index 23.3 kg/m2, 4.2% hepatitis B surface antigen-positive, 8.4% alcohol abuse, mean CD4+ T-cell count 519 cells/μl). At baseline, 527 patients were on antiretroviral therapy, with the most frequent third drug being atazanavir (19.7%), efavirenz (15.9%), lopinavir (13.1%) or nevirapine (7.2%). A total of 99 (18%) patients experienced LFP during a mean (sd) follow-up of 70.9 (15.7) months. Use of protease inhibitors (OR 4.93, 95% CI 1.73, 14.0; P=0.03) and male gender (OR 5.12, 95% CI 1.37, 19.1; P=0.01) were associated with LFP. By contrast, the achievement of HCV clearance following pegylated interferon/ribavirin (PEG-IFN/RBV) therapy (OR 0.27, 95% CI 0.1, 0.79; P=0.02) was protective. Lopinavir exposure was significantly associated with LFP (OR 1.02, 95% CI 1.0, 1.04; P=0.03), whereas nevirapine was protective (OR 0.94, 95% CI 0.9, 0.99; P=0.02). Conclusions The use of protease inhibitors, mainly lopinavir, is associated with increased LFP in HIV–HCV-coinfected patients. By contrast, nevirapine therapy and, particularly, HCV clearance with PEG-IFN/RBV significantly reduce LFP.
Linear Geometric ICA: Fundamentals and Algorithms

Geometric algorithms for linear independent component analysis (ICA) have recently received some attention due to their pictorial description and their relative ease of implementation. The geometric approach to ICA was proposed first by Puntonet and Prieto (1995). We will reconsider geometric ICA in a theoretic framework showing that fixed points of geometric ICA fulfill a geometric convergence condition (GCC), which the mixed images of the unit vectors satisfy too. This leads to a conjecture claiming that in the nongaussian unimodal symmetric case, there is only one stable fixed point, implying the uniqueness of geometric ICA after convergence. Guided by the principles of ordinary geometric ICA, we then present a new approach to linear geometric ICA based on histograms observing a considerable improvement in separation quality of different distributions and a sizable reduction in computational cost, by a factor of 100, compared to the ordinary geometric approach. Furthermore, we explore the accuracy of the algorithm depending on the number of samples and the choice of the mixing matrix, and compare geometric algorithms with classical ICA algorithms, namely, Extended Infomax and FastICA. Finally, we discuss the problem of high-dimensional data sets within the realm of geometrical ICA algorithms.
On Free Speech and Civil Discourse: Filtering Abuse in Blog Comments

Internet blogs provide forums for discussions within virtual communities, allowing readers to post comments on what they read. However, such comments may contain abuse, such as personal attacks, offensive remarks about race or religion, or commercial spam, all of which reduce the value of community discussion. Ideally, filters would promote civil discourse by removing abusive comments while protecting free speech by not removing any comments unnecessarily. In this paper, we investigate the use of user flags to train filters for this task, with the goal of empowering each community to enforce its own standards. We find encouraging results on experiments using a large corpus of blog comment data with real users flags. We conclude by proposing several novel deployment schemes for filters in this setting.
Fathers' and Mothers' Home Literacy Involvement and Children's Cognitive and Social Emotional Development: Implications for Family Literacy Programs

The relations between fathers' and mothers' home literacy involvement at 24 months and children's cognitive and social emotional development in preschool were examined using a large sample of African American and Caucasian families (N = 5190) from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B). Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that both fathers' and mothers' home literacy involvement positively contributed to children's cognitive and social emotional development. Specifically, fathers and mothers who participated in more frequent home literacy involvement (e.g., shared book reading) had children with better reading, math, and social emotional outcomes (i.e., sustained attention and fewer negative behaviors) in preschool. Findings suggest that increasing family literacy involvement can have positive benefits for children's cognitive and social emotional skills during the developmentally important early childhood years.
Incomplete classifications of a finite set of objects using Monotone Systems

The problem of incomplete classification is solved using a monotone system of a special kind. A classification method based on identification of the minimal cores of the monotone system is proposed. Existence conditions of a complete classification are given. The method is compared with previously published methods. Automatic classification methods, in addition to looking for complete classifications (i.e., partitioning of the initial set of objects), when classes are nonintersecting and form a covering of the entire set, also consider classifications with intersecting classes, with fuzzy classes, with macrostructure, etc. [1-3]. An independent group comprises incomplete classification methods, which identify a special class of “atypical” (background, special, or intermediate) objects and then assign the rest of the objects to nonintersecting classes [4-6]. Incomplete classifications are constructed when it is desirable to form classes comprising “strongly separated” subsets of objects, with all the background objects collected in a single class. This is archived either by two-step procedures, in which the first stage involving identification of the special objects is independent of the second stage involving classification proper, or by single-stage processing in which the classification functional is defined on the set of two-level classifications, thus complicating the discrete optimization problem. Moreover, both cases require specifying in advance the number of classes and the cardinality of the set of special objects, which leads to multi-alternative computations. Finally, most of the known algorithms are crudely approximate. In this paper, the sought incomplete classification is implicitly described by a separate estimate for each identified class of nonspecial objects, and this estimate should be extremal and equal on all classes of the sought classification. The proposed approach requires minimum prior information: we only need to know the measure of association of one object with a subset of objects. The number of classes and the number of objects identified, as special, is not fixed in advance. The proposed algorithm guarantees exact solution of the corresponding extremal problem.
Psychology in dentistry—"An emerging field of dentistry in India"

The provocation of anxiety by dental treatment is a universal phenomenon. It can be variously called as dental phobia, dental anxiety, odontophobia etc. Patients suffering from dental anxiety are a population of public health importance because of the extensive dental health problems caused by dental treatment avoidance, delay in seeking dental care or even irregular dental attendance as a result of fear and the suboptimal dental health behaviors that are highly prevalent in this group. A thorough knowledge in this field will not only help dentists to understand their patients but also motivate and plan a better treatments for them
Modulation of energy and protein supplies in sequential feeding in laying hens

Sequential feeding (SF) consists of splitting energy (E) and protein/calcium (P) fractions temporally, improving the feed conversion ratio (FCR) of hens compared with a continuous distribution during the day. In a previous study, the E fraction (with a low level of protein) was provided in the morning, whereas the P fraction (with low level of energy) was given in the afternoon. However, there is no clear evidence that a requirement in energy or proteins is connected to these distribution sequences, whereas the requirement for calcium is known to be required in the afternoon. To evaluate the effects on performances of the modulation of energy and protein supplies in SF, five different sequential treatments were offered: E0P0/E0P0; E+P+/E−P−; E+P−/E−P+; E0P+/E0P− and E+P0/E−P0 where E+ represents a high energy level, E0 a moderate one and E− a low one (with the same meaning for P regarding protein supply). Afternoon fractions were provided with particulate calcium. A total of 168 Hendrix hens were housed in individual cages from 20 to 39 weeks of age in two environmentally contrasted rooms. Feed intake in the morning and afternoon fractions, egg production, egg weight, BW and weight of digestive organs were recorded. No diet effect was observed concerning feed intake, egg production and BW. These results suggested that hens are not able to fit their feed intake on energy or protein level of fractions within half-day duration, whereas at the day scale same protein and energy intakes were observed. Moreover, the time of nutrient distribution in feeding did not seem to have an impact on birds’ performances. These studies have also demonstrated that, despite strong environmental pressure, the hens with SF had attenuated performance but continue to produce eggs.
An endogenous inhibitor of calcium/calmodulin‐dependent kinase II is up‐regulated during consolidation of fear memory

CaMKIINα and CaMKIINβ are endogenous inhibitors of the abundant synaptic protein, calcium/calmodulin‐dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII). CaMKII exerts a prominent function in memory formation and the endogenous inhibitors might be important regulators of CaMKII activity during this process. Here we investigated whether or not CaMKIINα and CaMKIINβ gene expressions are regulated in the mouse hippocampus and amygdala after background contextual fear conditioning. Quantitative real‐time PCR revealed that the hippocampal expression of CaMKIINα mRNA was up‐regulated 30 and 60 min after conditioning. In contrast, CaMKIINβ mRNA expression did not change. The up‐regulation of CaMKIINα expression was specific for the fear memory because the context alone and a shock control did not induce any variation of transcription level. Quantification of in situ hybridization signals showed that CaMKIINα expression increased in hippocampal area CA1, in the dentate gyrus (DG) and in the lateral amygdala (LA) 30 min after training. Our findings show an up‐regulation in the expression of the endogenous inhibitor gene CaMKIINα during consolidation of fear memory. The early onset and the amplitude of the up‐regulation are similar to those of immediate‐early genes. Taken together, our results suggest that the CaMKIINα inhibitor has a physiological role in controlling CaMKII activity from an early stage of memory consolidation.
Optimal cooperative spectrum sensing strategy in cognitive radio networks exploiting RF-energy harvesting

In this paper, we consider energy harvesting cognitive radio networks (CRNs) where each secondary user (SU) has no fixed power supplies and extract energy only via harvesting energy by Radio Frequency (RF) provided by the control center (CC). Cooperative spectrum sensing is employed to improve the sensing performance. The spectrum sensing policy should maximize the probability of discovering and utilizing the spectrum opportunities while ensuring the specified primary user (PU) protection level. For a homogeneous scenario, the optimal sensing probability of each SU is obtained to maximize the CC throughput while satisfying the energy causality and PU collision constraints. An iterative algorithm is proposed to obtain the optimal charging time τe. Numerical results depict that in an energy constrained scenario, we can benefit from the optimal cooperative spectrum sensing policy in terms of enhanced PU detection.
Angiotensin II activates two cation conductances with distinct TRPC1 and TRPC6 channel properties in rabbit mesenteric artery myocytes

Angiotensin II (Ang II) is a potent vasoconstrictor with an important role in controlling blood pressure; however, there is little information on cellular mechanisms underlying Ang II‐evoked vasoconstrictor responses. The aim of the present study is to investigate the effect of Ang II on cation conductances in freshly dispersed rabbit mesenteric artery myocytes at the single‐channel level using patch‐clamp techniques. In cell‐attached patches, bath application of low concentrations of Ang II (1 nm) activated cation channel currents (Icat1) with conductances states of about 15, 30 and 45 pS. At relatively high concentrations, Ang II (100 nm) inhibited Icat1 but evoked another cation channel (Icat2) with a conductance of approximately 2 pS. Ang II‐evoked Icat1 and Icat2 were inhibited by the AT1 receptor antagonist losartan and the phospholipase C (PLC) inhibitor U73122. The diacylglycerol (DAG) lipase inhibitor RHC80267 initially induced Icat1 which was subsequently inhibited to reveal Icat2. The DAG analogue 1‐oleoyl‐2‐acetyl‐sn‐glycerol (1 μm) activated Icat1 and Icat2 but inositol 1,4,5‐trisphosphate did not evoke either conductance. The protein kinase C (PKC) inhibitor chelerythrine (3 μm) potentiated Ang II‐evoked Icat1 and inhibited Icat2 whereas the PKC activator phorbol‐12,13‐dibutyrate (1 μm) reduced Ang II‐induced Icat1 but activated Icat2. Moreover in cell‐attached patches pretreated with chelerythrine, application of 100 nm Ang II activated Icat1. These data indicate that PKC inhibits Icat1 but stimulates Icat2. Agents that deplete intracellular Ca2+ stores also activated cation channel currents with similar properties to Icat2. Bath application of anti‐TRPC6 and anti‐TRPC1 antibodies to inside‐out patches inhibited Icat1 and Icat2, respectively. Also flufenamic acid and zero external Ca2+ concentration, respectively, potentiated and reduced Ang II‐evoked Icat1. Immunocytochemical studies showed TRPC6 and TRPC1 expression with TRPC6 preferentially distributed in the plasma membrane and TRPC1 expression located throughout the myocyte. These results indicate that Ang II activates two distinct cation conductances in mesenteric artery myocytes by stimulation of AT1 receptors linked to PLC. Icat1 is activated by DAG via a PKC‐independent mechanism whereas Icat2 involves DAG acting via a PKC‐dependent pathway. Higher concentrations of Ang II inhibit Icat1 by activating an inhibitory effect of PKC. It is proposed that TRPC6 and TRPC1 channel proteins are important components of Ang II‐induced Icat1 and Icat2, respectively.
Magnesium Lithospermate B Protects Cardiomyocytes from Ischemic Injury Via Inhibition of TAB1–p38 Apoptosis Signaling

Danshen has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for hundreds of years to treat cardiovascular diseases. However, its precise cardioprotective components and the underlying mechanism are still unclear. In the present study, we demonstrated that in a rat model of acute myocardial infarction, the treatment with magnesium lithospermate B (MLB), the representative component of phenolic acids in Danshen, significantly reduced the infarct size and the blood lactate dehydrogenase level. In contrast, tanshinone IIA, the representative component of lipophilic tanshinones in Danshen, had no such protective effects. Moreover, in the simulated ischemia cell model, MLB treatment considerably increased the cell viability and reduced the sub-G1 population and the apoptotic nuclei, indicating its anti-apoptotic effect. Further mechanism study revealed that the ischemia-induced p38 phosphorylation was abolished by MLB treatment. Interestingly, MLB specifically inhibited the TGFβ-activated protein kinase 1-binding protein 1 (TAB1) mediated p38 phosphorylation through disrupting the interaction between TAB1 and p38, but it did not affect the mitogen-activated protein kinase 3/6 mediated p38 phosphorylation. In conclusion, the present study identifies MLB as an active component of Danshen in protecting cardiomyocytes from ischemic injury through specific inhibition of TAB1–p38 apoptosis signaling. These results indicate TAB1–p38 interaction as a putative drug target in treating ischemic heart diseases.
Social Services and Child Well-Being Among CPS-Involved Families

ABSTRACT Once children and families become involved with the child welfare system, they are usually referred to a myriad of social services (e.g., concrete services, behavioral, mental, or physical health services). To examine a broad array of social services and child well-being over time, this study utilized secondary analysis of the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being via structural equation modeling with complex sampling techniques. Results showed that child well-being at baseline was significantly related to well-being over time. As social services were added to the model, child well-being decreased (i.e., significant partial mediation). There may be a trend to load higher-risk families with services. Trends like this suggest a need for more exploration of programming that directs resources toward lower-risk families to halt the cyclic nature of child welfare involvement. Practitioners and researchers are urged to consider the need for systematic measurement of service and dose. Close empirical examination will ultimately improve the effectiveness of the service delivery system and consequently the well-being of children and families engaged in child welfare services.
Mobile Internet Adoption and Use : Results from a National Survey in Sweden

The past decade has seen great developments in the telecom sector. The mobile phone has changed from being a communication device, to become a multimedia device. It provides always-on connection to internet and acquaintances beyond time and space. The diffusion of these mobile devices is taking place rather rapidly in the Western world. People have become equipped with portable micro-computers that enable multimedia – mobile devices provide their users with a variety of functions and services such as video, audio and internet. However, actual use of mobile internet seems to be limited in most countries, except for leading nations such as Japan and South-Korea. There is a lack of knowledge about the emerging situation in Western countries. This paper analyses Sweden as a case of a Western country among the international leaders of ICT-diffusion. It is a country that possesses many similarities with other well developed countries, and should in such sense offer valuable insight. The paper closely examines the use of different types of mobile internet services among specific user segments. It also addresses important adoption criteria through an analysis of attitudes and expressed needs for using internet services in the future. The empirical data base is based on a comprehensive national postal survey carried out in Sweden during the fall of 2007. The survey was sent to 2000 Swedes aged 16-65 and the response rate of the survey was 39%. Evaluations of its representativeness indicate that it corresponds rather well to the Swedish public in this age segment.
Capturing dissonance in university teacher education environments

In response to policy developments in higher education in the UK, the Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (ILTHE—now merged in the Higher Education Academy) was established in 1999 to provide a national framework for teaching and learning at tertiary level. This article considers the training environment of novice lecturers within the ILTHE framework and identifies areas of tensions within it. Activity systems theory is used as a broad framework for apprehending this environment. Praxis‐related, epistemological, structural and ideological dissonances are identified. Suggestions to advance change in this area are formulated in the light of the main findings. The limitations afforded by the activity systems approach are also discussed.
Orders is orders . . . aren’t they? Rule bending and rule breaking in the British Army

In common with all professional armies, the British Army is a disciplined force. There is a sharply stratified rank structure and formal rules abound. There is a prima facie case therefore that when formal rules are broken or bent the individuals involved are taking part in acts of ‘resistance’ or ‘misbehaviour’ or ‘dissent’, implying a binary opposition of interests between junior and senior. However, in this article I seek to provide a more nuanced approach to identify a range of rule bending and rule breaking processes embedded in the organizational culture at unit level, through a small number of case studies. To assist in the process, Goffman’s model of ‘underlife’ is adopted and extended for the British Army case, but only as a framework to assist in locating the observed events in the rich cultural milieu in which they take place. Viewed in this way, rule bending/breaking activities can be seen as complex and intricate events involving both those who break or bend the formal rules and the agents of authority in a continuing social process, part of the weft and warp of everyday life at regimental duty.