Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hippocampal Subregions are Differentially Affected in the Progression to Alzheimer's Disease

Atrophy within the hippocampus (HP) as measured by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a promising biomarker for the progression to Alzheimer's disease (AD). Subregions of the HP along the longitudinal axis have been found to demonstrate unique function, as well as undergo differential changes in the progression to AD. Little is known of relationships between such HP subregions and other potential biomarkers, such as neuropsychological (NP), genetic, and cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) beta amyloid and tau measures. The purpose of this study was to subdivide the hippocampus to determine how the head, body, and tail were affected in normal control, mild cognitively impaired, and AD subjects, and investigate relationships with HP subregions and other potential biomarkers. MRI scans of 120 participants of the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative were processed using FreeSurfer, and the HP was subdivided using 3D Slicer. Each subregion was compared among groups, and correlations were used to determine relationships with NP, genetic, and CSF measures. Results suggest that HP subregions are undergoing differential atrophy in AD, and demonstrate unique relationships with NP and CSF data. Discriminant function analyses revealed that these regions, when combined with NP and CSF measures, were able to classify by diagnostic group, and classify MCI subjects who would and would not progress to AD within 12 months. Anat Rec, 2012. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
The effects of social skill training in a simulated community environment for adolescents with cognitive impairments

v List of Figures . vii List of Tables . viii Chapter 1: Introduction . 1 Statement of Problems . 1 Significance of the Study . 8 Purpose of the Study . 8 Research Questions . 9 Chapter 2: Literature Review.10 Importance of Social Skill Training . 10 Technology-based Social Skills Training . 13 Community-based Social Skills Training . 15 School-based Social Skills Training . 17 Suggestions for Future Research . 19 Conclusions . 21 Chapter 3: Methodology . 23 Setting . 23 School Store . 23 Participants . 24 Teachers . 26 Research Design.26 Materials . 26
Analysis of Real-Time Multiple Source Video Streaming via Wireless 5.8 GHz for Intelligent Traffic Management System

This paper evaluates the performance of live compressed motion image transmission in coherence with the development of the multiple video streaming and compression (multiple-VSCS) software, as applied for the intelligent traffic management system. Motion images of multiple sources are captured, jointly compressed and streamed real time via utilization of the 5.8 GHz OFDM outdoor wireless LAN network. Experiments were performed and analyzed to ascertain the reliability and potency of this application with improved bitstream rates as low as 50 kbps and compression ratio rates as high as 1800:1, under various compression parameters settings as well as different video formats. This paper also includes performance analysis of video stream rates with comparison into varying compression formats and quantization factors retrospective to quality of service (QoS). Projections were also performed as behavioral study on the effects of the available bandwidth with increased video capture sources and streaming processes.
Relations Among Elementary Students' Use of Dialect and Concurrent and Subsequent Reading Outcomes

Nonmainstream American English, or dialect, among children may have important implications for reading research and practice. The purpose of this dissertation study was to examine dialect use in various language contexts and to investigate potential relations between dialect and reading outcomes among elementary students. First, a meta-analysis of recent empirical research examining quantitative relations among dialect use and reading, spelling, and writing outcomes is presented. In summary, the meta-analysis revealed a negative and moderate relationship between dialect production and literacy. Next, the study analyzed and compared dialect production across an oral language task and specifically between two different written language samples, one elicited by a narrative prompt and the second by an expository prompt, among 250 second and third grade students. The study also examined dialect use in the oral narrative task and the two writing samples in relation to concurrent and longitudinal reading outcomes. Finally, the study examined the dialect-reading relationship for students diagnosed with speech, language, and learning disabilities in comparison to their typically developing peers. The study found that overall, most students used features of dialect in their oral language samples and that students generally used several features of dialect in their written language samples as well. However, the frequency of dialect use was greater in the written narrative sample than in the written expository samples. In addition, dialect use, particularly in the oral and written narrative, was predictive of reading outcomes in the same year and two years later. Moderator analyses for students with speech, language, and learning disabilities indicated that relationships between dialect use and reading did not differ for students identified with these particular disabilities. However, students with these disabilities who also use dialect may be at increased risk for reading difficulties. Implications for practice and future research are provided.
On the use of the Method of Moments in plasmonic applications

In the last 40 years the Method of Moments has been a cornerstone in the field of computational electromagnetics for antennas and other components in the microwave frequency range. In this paper, the applicability, advantages and disadvantages of this method are discussed in view of applying it at much higher frequencies, namely in the field of plasmonics.
A 600MHz to 3.4GHz flexible spectrum-sensing receiver with spectrum-adaptive reconfigurable DT filtering

A flexible spectrum-sensing receiver in 65nm CMOS consists of a wideband front-end, spectrum-adaptive (SA) filtering, switched-capacitor amplifiers, and a filtering SAR ADC. The SA filter uses a DT spectrum-analyzer and a reconfigurable DT notch filter to detect and suppress large interferers over a 55MHz range. In IEEE 802.15. 4 tests, the receiver exceeds sensitivity and interferer rejection requirements. With SA filtering enabled, it achieves ≥+55dB rejection of +25 to +65MHz FM interferers.
Analysis of Horn Antenna Transfer Functions and Phase-Center Position for Modeling Off-Ground GPR

The antenna of a zero-offset off-ground ground-penetrating radar can be accurately modeled using a linear system of frequency-dependent complex scalar transfer functions under the assumption that the electric field measured by the antenna locally tends to a plane wave. First, we analyze to which extent this hypothesis holds as a function of the antenna height above a multilayered medium. Second, we compare different methods to estimate the antenna phase center, namely, 1) extrapolation of peak-to-peak reflection values in the time domain and 2) frequency-domain full-waveform inversion assuming both frequency-independent and -dependent phase centers. For that purpose, we performed radar measurements at different heights above a perfect electrical conductor. Two different horn antennas operating, respectively, in the frequency ranges 0.2-2.0 and 0.8-2.6 GHz were used and compared. In the limits of the antenna geometry, we observed that antenna modeling results were not significantly affected by the position of the phase center. This implies that the transfer function model inherently accounts for the phase-center positions. The results also showed that the antenna transfer function model is valid only when the antenna is not too close to the reflector, namely, the threshold above which it holds corresponds to the antenna size. The effect of the frequency dependence of the phase-center position was further tested for a two-layered sandy soil subject to different water contents. The results showed that the proposed antenna model avoids the need for phase-center determination for proximal soil characterization.
2 Before Machinetta : STEAM in Soar

For heterogeneous agents working together to achieve complex goals, teamwork (Jennings, 1995; Yen, Yin, Ioerger, Miller, Xu, & Volz, 2001; Tambe, 1997a) has emerged as the dominant coordination paradigm. For domains as diverse as rescue response, military, space, sports and collaboration between human workmates, flexible, dynamic coordination between cooperative agents needs to be achieved despite complex, uncertain, and hostile environments. There is now emerging consensus in the multiagent arena that for flexible teamwork among agents, each team member is provided with an explicit model of teamwork, which entails their commitments and responsibilities as a team member. This explicit modelling allows the coordination to be robust, despite individual failures and unpredictably changing environments. Building on the well developed theory of joint intentions (Cohen & Levesque, 1991) and shared plans (Grosz & Kraus, 1996), the STEAM teamwork model (Tambe, 1997a) was operationalized as a set of domain independent rules that describe how teams should work together. This domain independent teamwork model has been successfully applied to a variety of domains. From combat
An Application of Degree-Constrained Minimum Spanning Trees in Sensor Networks

In wireless sensor networks, it is an important task to periodically collect data from an area of interest for time-sensitive applications. The sensed data must be gathered and transmitted to a base station for further processing to meet the end-user queries. Since the network consists of low-cost nodes with limited battery power, it is a challenging task to design an efficient routing scheme that can minimize delay and offer good performance in energy efficiency, and long network lifetimes. In this paper, we propose a new routing protocol, called Degree-Constrained Minimal Spanning Tree (DCMST), to collect information efficiently. DCMST is efficient in the ways that it ensures maximal utilization of network energy, it makes the lifetime of the network longer, as well as it takes much lower time to complete a round. Simulation results show that DCMST achieves around 20% better performance than that of COSEN in respect of delay time. It also shows that DCMST can perform better than COSEN in total transmission distance, which implies the less total energy consumption. Therefore, our DCMST scheme gives a good compromise between energy efficiency and latency.
A new positive psychology: A critique of the movement based on early Christian thought

Abstract Positive psychology offers two visions for human life: a hedonic path that focuses on the seeking of pleasure and happiness, and a eudaimonic journey that involves the development of virtues conducive to a good life. Early Christian thought offers a sophisticated critique of the strengths and weaknesses of these visions because it responded to similar ideas that were present in classical philosophical systems like Stoicism. Early Christian writers rejected hedonic understandings of human flourishing (as did most people in the classical period) and approved of a focus on virtue as necessary to a good life. They also would join with positive psychologists and criticize a narrowly medical model view of mental health. However, there are also important differences between early Christian thought and eudaimonic positive psychology. Early Christian authors had a different understanding of virtue as holistic and relational, in contrast to the more fragmented and individualistic picture of virtue and health found in most positive psychology research. These Christian writers also had a different view of suffering as having positive potential or a ‘medicinal’ quality, while positive psychology writers generally see suffering as something undesirable that needs to be eliminated. Overall, some aspects of positive psychology are not incompatible with the vision of life, struggle, and helping that was developed by early Christian writers. However, the differences are probably more notable than the similarities.
Chinese Discourse Relation Recognition Using Parallel Corpus

Though an important task in natural language processing, discourse relation recognition has not until recently received as much attention as it deserves, maybe due to its complexity. In Chinese, discourse relations are mostly implicit, making the task even harder. There are more explicit discourse relations in English than Chinese. In this paper, we propose a new approach to Chinese discourse relation recognition, which utilizes English-Chinese alignment corpus to discover implicit Chinese discourse relations. Results show our method achieves 60% accuracy in argument detection and 40% accuracy in discourse relation recognition.
Trajectory based fuzzy controller for indoor navigation

The experimental results of fuzzy based indoor navigation system are presented in this article. The system was built with simplicity in mind, employing roof mounted visual sensors and fuzzy logic for the guidance and positioning of an autonomous mobility device with real-life noisy and delayed visual data processing. The fuzzy control strategy presented bellow works on a given (predefined) trajectory principle. The position of the device in the 2D plane, the distance from the given trajectory, orientation and control tasks are evaluated according to visual data. The controller controls the angular velocities of two device drive wheels based on the distance to the segment of the given trajectory and the orientation. Paper presents the control model and algorithm of a real-life prototype, as well as the quite promising experimental evaluation of the indoor autonomous navigation capabilities.
Weddings with Uncertain Prospects - Mergers Under Asymmetric Information

We provide a framework for analysing bilateral mergers when there is two-sided asymmetric information about firms’ types. We introduce the concepts of essentially monotone decreasing (EMD) and increasing (EMI) functions, which generalize the respective mono-tonicity properties. If the profit differential between post-merger and pre-merger profits satisfies EMD, low-state firms gain more than high-state firms from mergers in expectation. Using this result, we characterize the equilibria of merger games with simultaneous and sequential moves. The application of our framework to specific oligopoly models illustrates that the introduction of two-sided asymmetric information may lead to considerable changes in the predicted merger pattern.
Genetic Variations in TERT-CLPTM1L Genes and Risk of Lung Cancer in Chinese Women Nonsmokers

Background The TERT gene is the reverse transcriptase component of telomerase and is essential for the maintenance of telomere DNA length, chromosomal stability and cellular immortality. CLPTM1L gene encodes a protein linked to cisplatin resistance, and it is well conserved and express in various normal or malignant tissues, including lung. Methods To test this hypothesis, we genotyped for two significant SNPs TERT-rs2736098 and CLPTM1L-rs4016981 in a case-control study with 501 cancer cases and 576 cancer-free controls in Chinese nonsmoking population. Information concerning demographic and risk factors was obtained for each case and control by a trained interviewer. Gene polymorphisms were determined by TaqMan methodology. Results We found that the homozygous variant genetic model of TERT gene was associated with a significantly increased risk of lung cancer with adjusted OR of 1.72(95%CI = 1.19–2.51, P = 0.004 for heterogeneity). The joint effect of TERT and CLPTM1L increased risk for lung cancer with adjusted OR is 1.31(95%CI = 1.00–1.74, P = 0.052 for heterogeneity). Conclusion Genetic variants in TERT and CLPTM1L may affect the susceptibility of lung cancer, especially adenocarcinoma in Chinese women nonsmokers.
Real-time bus departure time predictions: Vehicle trajectory and countdown display analysis

Uncertainty is an important challenge in operating bus systems. Accurate real-time predictions can therefore facilitate adaptive decision making process of both operations and passengers. This scheme should be tractable, fast and reliable to be used in real time applications. This paper presents a hybrid prediction scheme to generate real-time information concerning downstream vehicle trajectories and next bus arrival. The prediction generated by the proposed hybrid scheme integrates three travel time components: schedule, instantaneous and historical data. Genetic algorithm is applied in order to specify the contribution of each data source component to the prediction scheme. The benefits, transferability and estimation form of the proposed scheme were tested by applying it on three trunk bus lines in Stockholm, Sweden. Its performance was compared to a commonly deployed scheme. The results indicate that the proposed scheme reduces significantly the overall mean absolute error for all routes from both operators' and passengers' perspectives.
Phenytoin intoxication during concurrent diazepam therapy

Phenytoin elimination is a saturable process obeying Michaelis-Menten kinetics. Plasma phenytoin levels are not related linearly to dose, and small changes in enzyme activity produced by concurrent drug therapy could alter plasma levels. Two cases of phenytoin intoxication associated with simultaneous administration of diazepam are reported. Intravenous phenytoin infusions were given and the apparent Km and Vmax computed from the resulting plasma phenytoin levels. In one case `Km' and `Vmax' were 0.8 μmol/1 and 1.3 μmol/1/hour respectively during concurrent diazepam administration, and 50.3 μmol/1 and 4.4 μmol/1/hour after discontinuation of diazepam. In the second case phenytoin infusion with diazepam gave `Km' and `Vmax' values of 0.012 μmol/1 and 0.95 μmol/1/hour. Without diazepam these were 28.8 μmol/1 and 0.92 μmol/1/hour respectively.
Database support for processing complex aggregate queries over data streams

Over the last few years, the increasing demand on processing streaming data with high throughput and low latency has led to the development of specialized stream processing engines (SPE). Although existing SPEs show high performance in evaluating stateless operations and stateful operations with small windows, their performance degrades significantly when calculating exact answers for complex aggregate queries with huge windows. Examples include correlated aggregations, quantile and ordering statistic computation. Meanwhile, modern database systems have demonstrated the ability of processing complex analytical tasks efficiently over very large datasets, using technologies such as vertical storage, vectorized query execution, etc. This suggests the feasibility of leveraging database systems to assist SPEs to process complex aggregate queries to reduce their evaluation latency. The goal of this thesis is to investigate the potential of combining database systems with SPEs in the context of stream processing so as to improve the overall query evaluation performance. To this end, the following two major topics will be addressed in this thesis: (1) dynamic migration of complex aggregate operations between the SPE and the database in response to varying system load and (2) efficient evaluation of continuous queries over streaming data that is migrated to the database.
Detection of Cancer Stem Cells in microscopic images by using region covariance and codifference method

This paper presents a cancer stem cell detection method using region covariance and codifference method. It focuses on detection of Cancer Stem Cell (CSC) in microscopic images which are stained with CD13 marker. Features of CSC images are extracted by using both covariance method and its multiplication free version codifference method and these features are fed into a Support Vector Machine (SVM) for classification. Experimental results are presented.
Selective sub-carrier relaying and power allocation for multi-relay-assisted cooperative OFDM systems with outdated CSI

In this paper, we investigate the relay selection, sub-carrier pairing, and power allocation problems in a two-hop, multi-relay-assisted cooperative OFDM system with amplify-and-forward (AF) relays. We study the application of selective sub-carrier relaying, where the relays collectively forward only a subset of the available sub-carriers, in a multi-relay-assisted environment. Transmit power allocation is performed such that the end-to-end system capacity is maximized under individual power constraints at each node. We evaluate the system performance when the available channel state information (CSI) is outdated and compare the performance with the all sub-carrier relaying method.
Local likelihood and local partial likelihood in hazard regression

In survival analysis, the relationship between a survival time and a covariate is conveniently modeled with the proportional hazards regression model. This model usually assumes that the covariate has a log-linear effect on the hazard function. In this paper we consider the proportional hazards regression model with a nonparametric risk effect. We discuss estimation of the risk function and its derivatives in two cases: when the baseline hazard function is parametrized and when it is not parametrized. In the case of a parametric baseline hazard function, inference is based on a local version of the likelihood function, while in the case of a nonparametric baseline hazard, we use a local version of the partial likelihood. This results in maximum local likelihood estimators and maximum local partial likelihood estimators, respectively. We establish the asymptotic normality of the estimators. It turns out that both methods have the same asymptotic bias and variance in a common situation, even though the local likelihood method uses information about the baseline hazard function.
The presence of posttraumatic growth (PTG) in mothers whose children are born unexpectedly with Down syndrome

ABSTRACT Background Mothering children born unexpectedly with developmental disability has historically been shown to have a profound negative impact on maternal functioning. However, this study, which was designed to capture the lived experience of mothers whose children were diagnosed postnatally with Down syndrome, demonstrated the universal presence of factors of posttraumatic growth for all participants. Method Mothers participated in 1 in-depth semistructured interview (N = 18). Feminist theory and thematic narrative analysis framed the data analysis. Results Participants in this study universally reported 3 positive outcomes: development of formal/informal advocacy roles, improved mothering skills, and positive personal growth demonstrating the presence of all 5 domains of Calhoun and Tedeschi’s posttraumatic growth model. Conclusions This study highlights the potential for positive personal maternal growth for mothers unexpectedly raising children with Down syndrome, which can lead to individual personal and spiritual development, which in turn can have a powerful positive impact on the community as a whole.