Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of a quality of life coaching intervention on psychological courage and self-determination

This study utilised a multiple case study design, grounded in self-determination theory, which examined changes in motivation and psychological courage throughout an 8-week quality of life coaching intervention. Eight nonclinical adults participated in six one-hour tele-coaching sessions. Sources of data included a pre-assessment survey, a pre-post questionnaire, field notes, and post-session interview transcriptions. The coaching process included six telephone sessions, use of the profile reports, and HeartMath resources. The qualitative cross-case analysis describes how integrative life coaching supported participants‟ expression of psychological courage and facilitated shifts toward autonomous motivation.
Defragging Subgraph Features for Graph Classification

Graph classification is an important tool for analysing structured and semi-structured data, where subgraphs are commonly used as the feature representation. However, the number and size of subgraph features crucially depend on the threshold parameters of frequent subgraph mining algorithms. Any improper setting of the parameters will generate many trivial short-pattern subgraph fragments which dominate the feature space, distort graph classifiers and bury interesting long-pattern subgraphs. In this paper, we propose a new Subgraph Join Feature Selection (SJFS) algorithm. The SJFS algorithm, by forcing graph classifiers to join short-pattern subgraph fragments, can defrag trivial subgraph features and deliver long-pattern interesting subgraphs. Experimental results on both synthetic and real-world social network graph data demonstrate the performance of the proposed method.
ASSESSING SOCIAL COSTS OF INEFFICIENT PROCUREMENT DESIGN

This paper considers the social costs implied by inefficient allocation of contracts in a first price, sealed bid procurement auction with asymmetric bidders. We adopt a constrained (piecewise linear) strategy equilibrium concept and estimate the structural parameters of the bidders’ distribution of costs. We estimate social costs defined as the predicted cost difference between the winning firm and the most efficient bidding firm. We also compare the expected procurement costs under two different auction formats. The data is collected from procurement auctions of road painting in Sweden during 1993-99. The results indicate that the social costs of inefficient contract allocation is about 1.7 per cent of total potential social cost and that an efficient second price auction would lower the expected procurement cost by 2.8 per cent.
Managing Change Communication in Contested Professional Spaces

ABSTRACT This article reports subjective responses from resident medical officers to reform-driven change during a period of unprecedented industrial action in the public health sector in Aotearoa-New Zealand. Analysis revealed the way in which subjective perceptions were expressed through identity-based narratives when writing on a social media blog site during ongoing reform. Because both problems and solutions are shaped within the framework of particular assumptions and ideologies, when an institutional environment relentlessly shifts because of rapid, ongoing reform, changes may not resonate with the vocational focus of health professionals. The findings illustrate recognizing and validating subjective dimensions of professional identity during ideological change may help managers to navigate through the flux in the public health service. If managers are willing to acknowledge and reflect on alternative viewpoints, it will likely enhance their ability to understand and legitimately mediate in organizational and clinical settings during periods of extensive reform-driven change.
Avatars' Appearance and Social Behavior in Online Virtual Worlds

In this article, we investigate the effects of avatars’ appearance on user social behavior in online virtual worlds. In particular, we study appearance differences in social communication preferences and behavior in virtual public spaces. For this purpose, we have employed virtual ethnographic methods, which is an adaptation of traditional ethnography for the study of cyberspace. We employed nine users who used four different avatars and we observed a cumulative of more than two hundreds social encounters. The results of the study indicate that avatars' appearance is an important factor in determining the social communication patterns between users in online 3D worlds. In particular, we found that users with more elaborate avatars had a higher success rate in their social encounters, than those users with the default avatars. The implications of this study raise several issues for the design of avatars, as well as for the study of social communication in online 3D worlds.
Selective increase in T-type calcium conductance of reticular thalamic neurons in a rat model of absence epilepsy

The properties of voltage-dependent calcium currents were compared in thalamic neurons acutely dissociated from a rat model of absence epilepsy, designated as Genetic Absence Epilepsy Rat from Strasbourg (GAERS), and from a Nonepileptic Control strain (NEC). Two populations of neurons were isolated: thalamocortical relay neurons of the nucleus ventrobasalis (VB) and neurons of the nucleus reticularis (RT) of the thalamus. Whole-cell patch-clamp analysis demonstrated an increase in the amplitude of the calcium (Ca2+) current with a low threshold of activation (IT) in RT neurons of GAERS in comparison to that of the seizure-free rat strain (-198 +/- 19 pA and -128 +/- 14 pA, respectively), whereas the sustained component (IL) was not significantly different. The kinetic properties, voltage dependence, and basic pharmacological sensitivity of the Ca2+ conductances were similar in the two populations of neurons. The amplitude of both IT and IL in RT neurons increased after birth, and differences in IT between GAERS and NEC attained significance after postnatal day 11. At corresponding ages, the Ca2+ currents in VB thalamocortical relay neurons were not altered in GAERS in comparison to those in NEC. We conclude that the selective increase in IT of RT neurons enhances the probability of recurrent intrathalamic burst activity, thereby strengthening the synchronizing mechanisms in thalamocortical systems, and, as such, represents a possible primary neuronal dysfunction that relates to the pathological increase in synchronization underlying the generation of bilateral and synchronous spike and wave discharges (SWDs) in an established genetic model of generalized epilepsy.
Context-Aware Query Refinement for Mobile Web Search

Mobile Web search engines as well as fixed ones become much more important for our Web access in the near future. However, mobile computing environments have troublesome limitations, as compared with traditional desktop computing environments. In order to solve the so-called "mismatched query problem" due to more shortness and ambiguity of mobile users' original queries, this paper proposes a novel method for context-aware query refinement based on their current geographic location and real-world contexts which are inferred from the place-names representing the location and the Web as a knowledge database
Building on Deep Learning

We propose using deep learning as the "workhorse" of a cognitive architecture. We show how deep learning can be leveraged to learn representations, such as a hierarchy of analogical schemas, from relational data. This approach to higher cognition drives some desiderata of deep learning, particularly modality independence and the ability to make top-down predictions. Finally, we consider the problem of how relational representations might be learned from sensor data that is not explicitly relational.
Sex, horizontal transmission, and multiple hosts prevent local adaptation of Crithidia bombi, a parasite of bumblebees (Bombus spp.)

Local adaptation within host-parasite systems can evolve by several non-exclusive drivers (e.g., host species-genetic adaptation; ecological conditions-ecological adaptation, and time-temporal adaptation). Social insects, especially bumblebees, with an annual colony life history not only provide an ideal system to test parasite transmission within and between different host colonies, but also parasite adaptation to specific host species and environments. Here, we study local adaptation in a multiple-host parasite characterized by high levels of horizontal transmission. Crithidia bombi occurs as a gut parasite in several bumblebee species. Parasites were sampled from five different host species in two subsequent years. Population genetic tools were used to test for the several types of adaptation. Although we found no evidence for local adaptation of the parasite toward host species, there was a slight temporal differentiation of the parasite populations, which might have resulted from severe bottlenecks during queen hibernation. Parasite populations were in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium and showed no signs of linkage disequilibrium suggesting that sexual reproduction is an alternative strategy in this otherwise clonal parasite. Moreover, high levels of multiple infections were found, which might facilitate sexual genetic exchange. The detection of identical clones in different host species suggested that horizontal transmission occurs between host species and underpins the lack of host-specific adaptation.
The Influence of Risk Factors on Preschoolers’ Spanish Vocabulary Development in the Context of Spanish Instruction

ABSTRACT Research Findings: This longitudinal study investigated the Spanish vocabulary development of dual-language-learning (DLL) children (N = 150) from Spanish-speaking, low-income, predominantly immigrant homes who were enrolled in a state-funded preschool program that provided instruction in Spanish. Children’s Spanish vocabulary trajectories were examined, as were patterns of co-occurring risk. In addition, the relation of individual and cumulative risk factors at preschool entry on Spanish vocabulary development was explored. Findings reveal that, on average, children’s receptive Spanish vocabulary skills, which started below age-level norms at the beginning of the preschool year, grew to surpass age-level norms by the end of the year. These gains were made despite children facing, on average, eight risk factors. The investigation of patterns of co-occurring risk and the effect of individual risk factors on Spanish vocabulary outcomes reveal that some social risk factors, such as having an unemployed parent, might function as a protective factor in this population. Practice or Policy: This study paves the way for future work in determining the role of native-language instruction for supporting language growth among DLL children. In addition, it expands the research literature on the nature and influence of social and economic risks in this population of children.
Image recovery from partial wavelet coefficients via sparse representation

Loss of information in wavelet transform domain may occur while transmitting images represented in JPEG 2000. This produces artifacts like black holes, degraded edges and correlated damage patterns in received images. Recovering an image from its partial wavelet coefficients or filling the missing wavelet coefficients from the available coefficients is called wavelet inpainting. This problem is closely related to image inpainting but here inpainting is done in wavelet domain. Mathematically it is equivalent to solving a set of under determined system of equations having infinite number of solutions. In this paper, we propose an efficient algorithm that uses greedy Orthogonal Matching Pursuit (OMP) algorithm that solves the under determined problem by minimizing the l0 norm of the sparse Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) representation of the image. The image is reconstructed by taking inverse DCT. We show that good quality reconstruction can be obtained even if 50 % of the randomly selected wavelet coefficients including the approximation coefficients are missing. The proposed method outperforms the gradient based and optimum transfer function based inpainting algorithms in terms of SNR.
A Survey on Network Architectures for Mobility

Currently the most well-known mobility solution for the Internet is Mobile IPv4 and Mobile IPv6. However, new challenges are brought up by all kinds of needs in mobility such that they can hardly be handled with Mobile IP alone and standard networking architecture we have now. Thus a number of new architectures are proposed to address the issues in mobility. In this paper we discuss the requirements and current solutions of mobility, and review several novel architectures proposed for IP-based wireless networks in recent years.
Taking Brazil's pulse: tracking growing urban economies from online attention

Urban resources are allocated according to socio-economic indicators, and rapid urbanization in developing countries calls for updating those indicators in a timely fashion. The prohibitive costs of census data collection make that very difficult. To avoid allocating resources upon outdated indicators, one could partly update or complement them using digital data. It has been shown that it is possible to use social media in developed countries (mainly UK and USA) for such a purpose. Here we show that this is the case for Brazil too. We analyze a random sample of a microblogging service popular in that country and accurately predict the GDPs of 45 Brazilian cities. To make these predictions, we exploit the sociological concept of glocality, which says that economically successful cities tend to be involved in interactions that are both local and global at the same time. We indeed show that a city's glocality, measured with social media data, effectively signals the city's economic well-being.
Haplotypes in SLC24A5 Gene as Ancestry Informative Markers in Different Populations

Ancestry informative markers (AIMs) are human polymorphisms that exhibit substantially allele frequency differences among populations. These markers can be useful to provide information about ancestry of samples which may be useful in predicting a perpetrator’s ethnic origin to aid criminal investigations. Variations in human pigmentation are the most obvious phenotypes to distinguish individuals. It has been recently shown that the variation of a G in an A allele of the coding single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs1426654 within SLC24A5 gene varies in frequency among several population samples according to skin pigmentation. Because of these observations, the SLC24A5 locus has been evaluated as Ancestry Informative Region (AIR) by typing rs1426654 together with two additional intragenic markers (rs2555364 and rs16960620) in 471 unrelated individuals originating from three different continents (Africa, Asia and Europe). This study further supports the role of human SLC24A5 gene in skin pigmentation suggesting that variations in SLC24A5 haplotypes can correlate with human migration and ancestry. Furthermore, our data do reveal the utility of haplotype and combined unphased genotype analysis of SLC24A5 in predicting ancestry and provide a good example of usefulness of genetic characterization of larger regions, in addition to single polymorphisms, as candidates for population-specific sweeps in the ancestral population.
A survey of data provenance techniques

Data management is growing in complexity as large-scale applications take advantage of the loosely coupled resources brought together by grid middleware and by abundant storage capacity. Metadata describing the data products used in and generated by these applications is essential to disambiguate the data and enable reuse. Data provenance, one kind of metadata, pertains to the derivation history of a data product starting from its original sources. The provenance of data products generated by complex transformations such as workflows is of considerable value to scientists. From it, one can ascertain the quality of the data based on its ancestral data and derivations, track back sources of errors, allow automated re-enactment of derivations to update a data, and provide attribution of data sources. Provenance is also essential to the business domain where it can be used to drill down to the source of data in a data warehouse, track the creation of intellectual property, and provide an audit trail for regulatory purposes. In this paper we create a taxonomy of data provenance techniques, and apply the classification to current research efforts in the field. The main aspect of our taxonomy categorizes provenance systems based on why they record provenance, what they describe, how they represent and store provenance, and ways to disseminate it. Our synthesis can help those building scientific and business metadata-management systems to understand existing provenance system designs. The survey culminates with an identification of open research problems in the field.
Prospects for the Determination of H0 through Observation of Multiply Imaged Supernovae in Galaxy Cluster Fields

We assess the possibility of determining the Hubble constant H0 by measuring time delays between multiple images of supernovae gravitationally lensed by rich clusters of galaxies and combining these delay measurements with detailed cluster potential models based on other lensing constraints. Such a lensing determination of H0 would be complementary to those obtained from galaxy-quasar lensing studies and could potentially be better calibrated. We show that relatively low-redshift (z ~ 0.2), significantly elliptical clusters have appreciable lensing cross sections for observable image pairings with tractable time delays on the order of a few years despite large lensing mass scales. We find that a targeted search for such image pairs would be a significant undertaking for current observatories but that it would be appropriate for a facility such as the proposed Large-Aperture Synoptic Survey Telescope.
Query optimization in microsoft SQL server PDW

In recent years, Massively Parallel Processors have increasingly been used to manage and query vast amounts of data. Dramatic performance improvements are achieved through distributed execution of queries across many nodes. Query optimization for such system is a challenging and important problem. In this paper we describe the Query Optimizer inside the SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse product (PDW QO). We leverage existing QO technology in Microsoft SQL Server to implement a cost-based optimizer for distributed query execution. By properly abstracting metadata we can readily reuse existing logic for query simplification, space exploration and cardinality estimation. Unlike earlier approaches that simply parallelize the best serial plan, our optimizer considers a rich space of execution alternatives, and picks one based on a cost-model for the distributed execution environment. The result is a high-quality, effective query optimizer for distributed query processing in an MPP.
Low-power folded tree architecture and multi-bit flip-flop merging technique for WSN nodes

Wireless communication exhibits the highest energy consumption in wireless sensor network (WSN) nodes. Due to their limited energy supply from batteries, the low power design have become inevitable part of today's wireless devices. Power has become a burning issue in VLSI design. In modern integrated circuits, the power consumed by clocking gradually takes a dominant part. Reducing the power consumption not only enhance battery life but also avoid overheating problem. By employing a more appropriate Processing Element (PE), the power consumption is significantly reduced. In this paper the novel method for low power design is achieved by using Folded Tree Architecture (FTA) and Multi-Bit Flip-Flop Merging (MBFM) technique for on-the-node data processing in wireless sensor networks using Parallel Prefix Operations (PPO) and data locality in hardware. Besides power reduction the objective of minimizing area and delay is also considered.
Radiofrequency volumetric inferior turbinate reduction: long-term clinical results

SUMMARY The aim of our study was to assess long-term results of radiofrequency volumetric tissue reduction of inferior turbinates (RVTR). We performed a prospective long-term longitudinal evaluation of 305 patients affected by rhinitis (114 allergic and 191 non-allergic) who were unresponsive to medical treatment and underwent RVTR (January 2004 - December 2010). Subjects were followed for a mean period of 39.70 ± 19.41 months (range 24-60). Patients completed the NOSE-scale questionnaire pre- and post-operatively after 1 month and yearly for 5-years. Recurrence was assumed if the post-operative total NOSE score increased by at least 75% during follow-up and the patient restarted medical treatments. Estimation of relapse over time was performed by Kaplan-Meyer analyses. We documented overall good satisfaction of patients regarding the procedure, with a good rate of pain control and a low rate of complications. Post-operatively there was a significant improvement in nasal stuffiness, nasal obstruction and mouth breathing (p < 0.05). We observed a worsening trend for symptoms after 36 months with progressive increasing rate of recurrences that were significantly higher in allergic than non-allergic patients (p < 0.05). We also observed a slight worsening trend of global satisfaction of patients. Our study confirms the minor discomfort and low risk of side effects of RVTR. Our data showed good efficacy of the procedure in the majority of patients for at least 36 months after surgery, and in fact in this time period the cumulative probability to remain relapse-free was up to 0.8. In the following 2 years, we observed a worse temporal trend in term of recurrence rate, and in particular in allergic patients with a significant difference vs non-allergic individuals (p < 0.05).
Data mining library reuse patterns using generalized association rules

It is shown how data mining can be used to discover library reuse patterns in existing applications. Specifically, we consider the problem of discovering library classes and member functions that are typically reused in combination by application classes. The paper improves upon earlier research using "association rules" (A. Michail, 1999) by taking into account the inheritance hierarchy using "generalized association rules". This turns out to be a non-trivial but worthwhile endeavor. By browsing generalized association rules, a developer can discover patterns in library usage in a way that takes into account inheritance relationships. For example, such a rule might tell us that application classes that inherit from a particular library class often instantiate another class or one of its descendents. We illustrate the approach using our tool, CodeWeb, by demonstrating characteristic ways in which applications reuse classes in the KDE application framework.
Time-Optimal Control of Robotic Manipulators Along Specified Paths

The minimum-time manipulator control problem is solved for the case when the path is specified and the actuator torque limitations are known. The optimal open-loop torques are found, and a method is given for implementing these torques with a conventional linear feedback control system. The algorithm allows bounds on the torques that may be arbitrary functions of the joint angles and angular velocities. This method is valid for any path and orientation of the end- effector that is specified. The algorithm can be used for any manipulator that has rigid links, known dynamic equations of motion, and joint angles that can be determined at a given position on the path.