Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Étude cliniquement représentative des problèmes conjugaux, des mandats et des objectifs thérapeutiques des couples consultant en thérapie conjugale

La presente these avait pour but d’analyser les problemes conjugaux, les mandats et les objectifs therapeutiques des couples qui consultent en therapie conjugale en milieu naturel. Cette these a ete redigee sous la forme de deux articles. Le premier article visait a dresser un portrait des problemes conjugaux rapportes par les conjoints a l’aide d’une question ouverte. Les problemes conjugaux de 108 couples debutant une therapie conjugale ont d’abord ete categorises. Les resultats ont montre que les problemes conjugaux les plus frequemment rapportes etaient lies a la communication, a la distance emotionnelle, a des problemes specifiques de la relation et a la sexualite. En comparant les couples selon le mandat therapeutique, il a ete trouve que les couples en mandat de resolution de l’ambivalence rapportent davantage de problemes lies a l’engagement/securite et a l’infidelite/flirting que les couples en mandat d’amelioration de la relation. Ces resultats ont demontre l’importance de l’utilisation du construit des mandats therapeutiques et la necessite d’etudier davantage l’ambivalence des couples. Le deuxieme article visait a examiner les proprietes psychometriques de la mesure individualisee Goal Attainment Scaling (GAS) dans l’evaluation du changement des couples en therapie conjugale en milieu naturel. L’atteinte des objectifs therapeutiques de 100 couples ayant complete une therapie conjugale a ete evaluee. Une categorisation des objectifs therapeutiques a egalement ete proposee. Les resultats obtenus soutiennent l’efficacite de la therapie conjugale en milieu naturel. Le pronostic du therapeute quant au deroulement de la therapie ainsi que le motif de fin de therapie et la stabilite conjugale ont ete identifies comme etant lies a l’atteinte des objectifs. En comparant les couples selon le mandat therapeutique, il a ete trouve que les couples en mandat d’amelioration de la relation ont davantage d’objectifs therapeutiques lies a la communication, a la resolution de problemes et a l’acceptation des differences que les couples en mandat de resolution de l’ambivalence. Les resultats appuient la validite et l’utilite de la mesure GAS pour la recherche et la pratique clinique. En somme, cette these a contribue a l’avancement des connaissances en apportant un appui empirique au construit des mandats therapeutiques et comporte des implications tant au niveau de la clinique qu’au niveau methodologique et theorique.
Feeling the ambiance: using smart ambiance to increase contextual awareness in game agents

The behaviour of non-player character game agents can be made more interesting and believable through the use of increased contextual awareness. In this paper, we present smart ambiance which allows information about the ambiance of an environment (determined by the environment itself, objects in the environment and recent events) to be used in agent plan generation. We demonstrate how this leads to contextually influenced action selection and, in turn, more interesting and believable character behaviour.
The Neural Baroreflex Pathway in Subjects With Metabolic Syndrome

AbstractThe mechanisms that link metabolic syndrome (MetS) to increased cardiovascular risk are incompletely understood. We examined whether MetS is associated with the neural baroreflex pathway (NBP) and whether any such associations are independent of blood pressure values.This study involved the cross-sectional analysis of data on 2835 subjects aged 50 to 75 years from the Paris Prospective Study 3. The prevalence of MetS was defined according to the American Heart Association/National Heart Blood and Lung Institute definition. NBP values were calculated from the fluctuation of the common carotid distension rate and heart rate using fast Fourier transformation and cross-spectral analysis.The prevalence of MetS was 20.1% in men and 10.4% in women. Compared with controls, subjects with MetS (≥3 components), and those at risk for MetS (1–2 components) had lower NBP (−5.3% and −2.3%, respectively) and higher carotid stiffness (+13.5% and +6.8%, respectively). The negative association between MetS components and NBP was confirmed, even after adjustment for age, sex, and carotid stiffness. After stratification for blood pressure (BP) levels, NBP was reduced only in MetS subjects and those at risk with high BP. The NBP was positively associated with carotid stiffness in controls and subjects at risk for MetS. This association was lost in subjects with MetS, regardless of BP levels.Subjects with MetS had reduced NBP values. The role of BP is fundamental in the reduction of NBP. The mechanisms that link carotid stiffness and NBP are inactive in subjects with MetS, independent of BP levels.
Comparative Population Genetic Structure of the Endangered Southern Brown Bandicoot, Isoodon obesulus, in Fragmented Landscapes of Southern Australia

Genetic connectivity is a key factor for maintaining the persistence of populations in fragmented landscapes. In highly modified landscapes such us peri-urban areas, organisms’ dispersal among fragmented habitat patches can be reduced due to the surrounding matrix, leading to subsequent decreased gene flow and increased potential extinction risk in isolated sub-populations. However, few studies have compared within species how dispersal/gene flow varies between regions and among different forms of matrix that might be encountered. In the current study, we investigated gene flow and dispersal in an endangered marsupial, the southern brown bandicoot (Isoodon obesulus) in a heavily modified peri-urban landscape in South Australia, Australia. We used 14 microsatellite markers to genotype 254 individuals which were sampled from 15 sites. Analyses revealed significant genetic structure. Our analyses also indicated that dispersal was mostly limited to neighbouring sites. Comparisons of these results with analyses of a different population of the same species revealed that gene flow/dispersal was more limited in this peri-urban landscape than in a pine plantation landscape approximately 400 km to the south-east. These findings increase our understanding of how the nature of fragmentation can lead to profound differences in levels of genetic connectivity among populations of the same species.
Labels Type Declass . Checks Type Labels Labels Type Declass

We present an information flow type system for Featherweight Java, taking a programmer-centered view by requiring minimal program annotations, and focusing on IO points, the most critical flow boundary. Our static type inference system automatically infers information flow labels, thus eliminating the need for explicit program annotations. We prove type soundness and a noninterference property using an extensible operational approach. On top of this system, we provide an analysis that extracts all information flowing in and out of the IO points of a program. Global program flows can then be observed, and policies can be set to control these flows. We argue that controlling data at input and output points is ultimately the only data security borders that matter, and our system allows programmers to focus on this dimension.
Who returns to work and why? : a six-country study on work incapacity and reintegration

Work incapacity has become a major social problem in most industrialized countries. It increases social expenditures for sickness and disability programs and declines in labor force participation rates. Most measures taken in an effort to counter this trend focus on narrowing eligibility criteria or reducing levels and duration of benefit payments. Others aim instead to restore health and work capacity, and to stimulate return to wrok. Who Returns to Work and Why? examines a wide range of interventions directed at work incapacity and reintegration that are used currently by social security institutions, health care providers, and employers. It draws on data from six longitudinal studies of day-to-day practices and experiences in Denmark, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United States. Sponsored by the International Social Security Association's project on work incapacity and reintegration (WIR project), this volume addresses key questions: do various interventions (by social security and health care systems) found in different countries make a difference as to work resumption patterns? If so, what are the best interventions? The contributors, lead researchers from the six countries involved in the WIR Project, provide a contextual background for the studies, including a comprehensive review of related literature; extensive descriptions of the measures taken by health care providers, employers, social security and other agencies, and the clients themselves, including medical interventions and vocational and other non-medical interventions; and qualitative and quantitative cross-national analyses of the measures applied, their impact on work resumption, and the role of incentives and disincentives. This book will be of special interest to policy makers, administrators, and scholars, as well as to doctors and other practitioners involved in rehabilitation and reintegration.
Securing Encryption Key Distribution in WLAN via QKD

Society becomes more and more electronic and many daily applications, like those of e-commerce, need a height level of security because of the sensitivity of the manipulated data. Cryptography is the main way to ensure security of data, such passwords, cards numbers, etc. However, the classical cryptography suffers from relevant problematic of secured key sharing. According to Shannon theory, a secured encryption key is the one generated randomly and used only once time. The Quantum Key Distribution, based on quantum physic lows, offers the opportunity to generate such a key. It seems also, to be the only technique that does not present vulnerability against the quantum calculating power. In this paper, we present an enhanced scheme for deriving a secured encryption key for WLAN using the quantum key distribution principals.
Deterministic Blind Channel Estimation for a Block Transmission System Using Fractional Sampling and Interpolation

This paper introduces a blind channel estimation method for a block transmission system using fractional sampling at a receiver. In most digital communication systems, low-pass filters are placed at a transmitter to confine the transmitting waveform to an allocated bandwidth and at a receiver to improve the signal-to-noise (SNR) power ratio. Consequently, if the received waveform is sampled with sufficiently fast rate, the resulting discrete-time signal is band-limited and exhibits a smooth waveform. The method exploits this property for estimating the channel impulse response, via an interpolation formula. The method does not require knowledge of input statistics or the autocorrelation of the received signal. It is free of channel order estimation and thus robust against its overestimation. Moreover, the algorithm is quite efficient because it does not need to compute eigenvalues of a matrix.
Fresh fruit and vegetables: a world of multiple interactions : the case of the Buenos Aires Central Wholesale Market (BACWM)

This research explores ethnographically the everyday social interactions between the ‘users’ of a particular marketplace, the Buenos Aires Central Wholesale Market (BACWM). The ‘users’ of this marketplace are the social actors who work there everyday, and who bring and buy fresh produce. These ´users´ are the ´makers´ of the BACWM since, through their everyday practices, interactions and interpretations and knowledge, they socially construct this hub of distribution.
Designing an Improved Discriminative Word Aligner

The quality of statistical machine translation systems depends on the quality of the word alignments, computed during the translation model training phase. IBM generative alignment models, despite their poor quality compared to a gold standard, perform well in practice. In this paper, we propose an improved word aligner based on a maximum entropy alignment combination model, which employ better feature engineering, `1 regularization, and an enhanced search space to improve the quality of both alignment and translation. For the Arabic-English language pair, we are able to reduce the Alignment Error Rate by 43.4%, and achieve≈ 1 BLEU point enhancement over the IBM model 4 symmetrized alignments. These improvement are attainable at a lower computational cost, using only easy to estimate HMM and IBM model 1 features. An analysis of the obtained results shows that a good balance between several alignment characteristics should be maintained in order to deliver good translation quality.
Energy Efficient Image Transmission with Security in Wireless Sensor Networks

— A wireless sensor network (WSN) consists of spatially distributed autonomous sensors to monitor physical or environmental conditions, such as temperature, sound, pressure etc. and to cooperatively pass their data through the network to a main location. Transmission of large sized images can be a bottleneck for a Wireless Multimedia Sensor Nodes due to its limited resources. Energy of the individual sensor and Security is also a major constraint in Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks. In the proposed system the problem of security is overcome by sending the sensitive data through multiple node disjoint-paths so that it is impossible for an adversary to get the entire information by compromising a single path. The Images are transmitted within a low energy budget over the Wireless Sensor Networks by using unequal error protection. In addition, acknowledgements are used, to recover from the loss of image fractions and retransmitting it through an alternate path.
Exploring the Dynamics of Complex Problem-Solving With Artificial Neural Network-Based Assessment Systems

Assessment of cognitive models developed by students in complex scientific disciplines ideally captures the progressive and dynamic nature of learning. We have developed a computer-based performance assessment system based on the production-system model of problem solving (Newell & Simon, 1972) in order to explore assessment of medical student problem-solving skills. We are able to track student data acquisition within groups of related concepts (concept domains) through a process called (cid:210)search path mapping,(cid:211) which reveals differences between successfully executed performances and unsuccessful strategies. We were able to identify both changes in the overall strategic approach (i.e., selecting the correct concept domain) and refinements in problem-solving strategies (i.e., more efficient use of concepts within a domain). While search path mapping allows for the assessment of student strategies, it is also time-consuming and potentially subject to reviewer bias. We therefore automated the search path map analysis by using supervised back-propagation artificial neural networks (ANNs), trained with data from previous medical student performances. These artificial neural networks could discriminate strategy improvement as well as hypothesis utilization in problem solving. To provide an indicator of learning, we compared the number of hypotheses utilized by students on practice and examination problems in the same concept domain. We found that medical students used information more efficiently during the examination, resulting in fewer hypotheses generated. Although the overall utility of ANN-based analysis was seen, this supervised network did not identify certain specific cases determined by search path mapping to be more (cid:210)expert(cid:211) than the training data set. Our ANN also misinterpreted rare cases of irrelevant concept usage. These studies demonstrate the utility of ANN-based assessments as an adjunct to traditional forms of assessment and suggest additional studies needed for this approach to become part of a comprehensive evaluation system.
Multi-agent Based Simulation of Negotiate Pricing Process in B2C

Product pricing is an important step during the transaction of E-business. Nowadays, most pricing process researches are just from single aspect of business, which leads to ignore customers' effect on pricing process. In the paper, the negotiating pricing process in the B2C environment between the business and the customers is studied, a pricing model based on MAS is established. Moreover, a simulation of negotiating pricing process using Net logo is run to test some factors’ (including the number of the business, the number of the customers, the purchasing power and the cost) effect to the pricing result and the market efficiency. The result of this paper will provide a support for the E-business market managers to make strategies to improve the market efficiency to some extent.
Correlation between pericardial, mediastinal, and intrathoracic fat volumes with the presence and severity of coronary artery disease, metabolic syndrome, and cardiac risk factors.

AIMS To investigate the association of pericardial, mediastinal, and intrathoracic fat volumes with the presence and severity of coronary artery disease (CAD), metabolic syndrome (MS), and cardiac risk factors (CRFs). METHODS AND RESULTS Two hundred and sixteen consecutive patients who underwent cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging and had a coronary angiogram within 12 months of the CMR were studied. Fat volume was measured by drawing region of interest curves, from short-axis cine views from base to apex and from a four-chamber cine view. Pericardial fat, mediastinal fat, intrathoracic fat (addition of pericardial and mediastinal fat volumes), and fat ratio (pericardial fat/mediastinal fat) were analysed for their association with the presence and severity of CAD (determined based on the Duke CAD Jeopardy Score), MS, CRFs, and death or myocardial infarction on follow-up. Pericardial fat volume was significantly greater in patients with CAD when compared with those without CAD [38.3 ± 25.1 vs. 31.9 ± 21.4 cm(3) (P = 0.04)]. A correlation between the severity of CAD and fat volume was found for pericardial fat (β = 1, P < 0.01), mediastinal fat (β = 1, P = 0.03), intrathoracic fat (β = 2, P = 0.01), and fat ratio (β = 0.005, P = 0.01). These correlations persisted for all four thoracic fat measurements even after performing a stepwise linear regression analysis for relevant risk factors. Patients with MS had significantly greater mediastinal and intrathoracic fat volumes when compared with those without MS [126 ± 33.5 vs. 106 ± 30.1 cm(3) (P < 0.01) and 165 ± 54.9 vs. 140 ± 52 cm(3) (P < 0.01), respectively]. However, there was no significant difference in pericardial fat, mediastinal fat, intrathoracic fat, or fat ratio between patients with or without myocardial infarction during the follow-up [33.6 ± 22.1 vs. 35.7 ± 23.8 cm(3) (P = 0.67); 115 ± 26.2 vs. 114 ± 33.8 cm(3) (P = 0.84); 149 ± 44.7 vs. 150 ± 55.7 cm(3) (P = 0.95); and 0.27 ± 0.15 vs. 0.28 ± 0.14 (P = 0.70), respectively]. There was no significant difference in pericardial fat, mediastinal fat, intrathoracic fat, or fat ratio between patients who were alive compared with those who died during follow-up [36.6 ± 26.6 vs. 35.3 ± 23.2 cm(3) (P = 0.76); 114 ± 40.2 vs. 114 ± 31.4 cm(3) (P = 0.95); 150 ± 64.7 vs. 149 ± 52.5 cm(3) (P = 0.92); and 0.29 ± 0.15 vs. 0.28 ± 0.14 (P = 0.85), respectively]. CONCLUSION Our study confirms an association between pericardial fat volume with the presence and severity of CAD. Furthermore, an association between mediastinal and intrathoracic fat volumes with MS was found.
Exploiting Viral Marketing for Location Promotion in Location-Based Social Networks

With the explosion of smartphones and social network services, location-based social networks (LBSNs) are increasingly seen as tools for businesses (e.g., restaurants and hotels) to promote their products and services. In this article, we investigate the key techniques that can help businesses promote their locations by advertising wisely through the underlying LBSNs. In order to maximize the benefit of location promotion, we formalize it as an influence maximization problem in an LBSN, i.e., given a target location and an LBSN, a set of k users (called seeds) should be advertised initially such that they can successfully propagate and attract many other users to visit the target location. Existing studies have proposed different ways to calculate the information propagation probability, that is, how likely it is that a user may influence another, in the setting of a static social network. However, it is more challenging to derive the propagation probability in an LBSN since it is heavily affected by the target location and the user mobility, both of which are dynamic and query dependent. This article proposes two user mobility models, namely the Gaussian-based and distance-based mobility models, to capture the check-in behavior of individual LBSN users, based on which location-aware propagation probabilities can be derived. Extensive experiments based on two real LBSN datasets have demonstrated the superior effectiveness of our proposals compared with existing static models of propagation probabilities to truly reflect the information propagation in LBSNs.
A Round Robin Load Balancing and Redundancy Protocol for Network Routers

Businesses rely on information networking to an extent that makes availability of network systems a major requirement and concern. We introduce in this paper a Round Robin Load Balancing and Redundancy Protocol (R2LBRP) for network routers. R2LBRP is inspired from Token Bus, an IEEE standard which provides a medium access protocol for local area networks. R2LBRP uses the same concept of a virtual router as VRRP, but manages the physical routers differently: instead of having only one active router, R2LBRP utilizes all the routers and uses them to forward packets. R2LBRP supports almost-immediate failure discovery, enhanced failover mechanisms, and is able to increase the virtual router bandwidth and to provide finer control over load balancing.
Dynamic computation scheduling for load balancing in home-based software DSMs

Load balancing is a critical issue for achieving good performance in parallel and distributed systems. However, this issue is neglected in the research area of software DSMs in the past decade. In this paper, we present and evaluate a dynamic computation scheduling scheme for load balancing of iterative applications in software DSM system. The experiment platform is a home based DSM system named JIAJIA. Preliminary results show that this load balancing scheme is efficient and can be used in other software DSM systems. Compared with simple chunk self scheduling scheme which works well for single iteration applications, the system performance is improved by about 30% with the affinity-based self scheduling proposed in this paper.
Short- and Long-Run Differences in the Treatment Effects of Inflation Targeting on Developed and Developing Countries

Allowing for time-varying treatment effects, this paper provides new findings on the effects of inflation targeting on economic performance over time. First, developed countries lower inflation and reach their targets rapidly in two years and developing countries reduce inflation gradually in that disinflation still continues moving to their long-run targets. Second, intertemporal tradeoffs occur for eight developed-country targeters. That is, targeting inflation significantly reduces inflation at the costs of higher inflation and growth variability and a lower output growth in the short-run, although no significant effects occur in the long-run. In contrast, no costs, only gains, emerge for thirteen developing-country targeters. Now, targeters achieve lower inflation following policy adoption as well as lower inflation and output growth variability in the short-run and long-run. Output growth catches up in a longer time horizon, although this effect is not significant. The paper discusses the interpretations of our empirical findings and the implications for monetary policy.