Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Adapting cognitive behaviour therapy for psychosis for black and minority ethnic communities

FACULTY OF MEDICINE, HEALTH AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES Doctor of Philosophy Adapting Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for Psychosis for Black and Minority Ethnic Communities By Peter Phiri Background: Studies of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for psychosis ‘a debilitating illness of the mind, often characterised by symptoms such as hallucinations, delusional beliefs, thought disorder and bizarre behaviours’ demonstrate that African Caribbean and Black African patients have higher drop-out rates and poor outcomes from treatment. Aims: a). To produce a culturally sensitive adaption of an existing CBT manual for therapists working with patients with psychosis from African-Caribbean, BlackAfrican/Black British, and South Asian Muslim communities. b). To assess the effectiveness of culturally adapted CBT for psychosis in this population. Method: Part 1: A two centre qualitative study consisting of individual semi-structured interviews with patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, schizo-affective, delusional disorders or psychosis (n=15); focus groups with lay members (n=52); CBT therapists (n=22) and mental health practitioners (n=25). Data was analysed thematically using evolving themes and content analysis. NVivo 8 was used to manage and explore data. Part 2: The recommendations were used to inform adaptation of CBTp. A randomised controlled trial was conducted in three centres in the UK. A total of 35 participants were recruited. Assessors blind to randomisation and treatment allocation administered outcome measures at three-time points; baseline, post-therapy and at 6 months follow-up using the Comprehensive Psychopathological Rating Scale (CPRS) and Insight in Psychosis Scale. Participants in the CaCBTp arm (n=16) were offered 16 sessions of therapy and completed Patient Experience Questionnaire (PEQ) post-treatment. Treatment as usual (TAU: n=17) arm continued with standard their treatment. Results: Analysis was based on the principles of intention to treat (ITT). This was further supplemented with secondary sensitivity analysis. Post-treatment the intervention group showed statistically significant reductions in symptomatology on overall CPRS scores, CaCBTp group, Mean (SD) = 16.23 (10.77), TAU = 18.60(14.84); p = 0.047, with a difference in change of 11.31 (95% CI: 0.14 to 22.49; CPRS subscales showed significant effect in CaCBTp over TAU. Adjustment was made for age, gender and medication. Overall satisfaction on the PEQ was significantly correlated with the number of sessions attended (r= .563; p = 0.003). Conclusion: Participants in the CaCBTp group achieved statistically significant improvement post-treatment compared to the TAU. Attrition rates were low and therapy experience and satisfaction were highly rated. The findings will have implications for a definitively powered phase III RCT. A CaCBTp training manual in is preparation.
Moving beyond the Borders of Top–Down Broadcasting

This article analyzes whether and to what extent public broadcasters have been able to transpose concepts like interaction, cocreation, and participation into actual media service delivery. The article theoretically frames this discussion, first, by defining and operationalizing interaction with, cocreation of, and participation in public service media (PSM), focusing mainly on participation, and, second, by analyzing the challenges that emerge from these concepts. Subsequently, a comparative case study analysis is conducted. Included in the analysis are three PSM multiplatform projects targeted at younger users: that is, TV Lab (France Télévisions), Carte Blanche (VRT, Flanders), and BNN University (NPO, the Netherlands). Findings are based on a qualitative document analysis and semistructured interviews with both producers of and participants in these multiplatform projects.
Adaptive affective response identification for hearing threshold detection

Emotional arousal, or affective patterns, can be probed using observable bioelectric signals, in particular using the fluctuations of electroencephalographic potentials from the human scalp. Hearing impairment related to increased threshold of audio tone detection may cause the loss of intelligibility of speech resulting in an innate automatic emotional response. An adaptive support vector machine can be trained to identify a subject's unique affective response based upon an audiogram hearing test. This paper presents the efficacy of our model, initial SVM classification data, and discusses potential application.
Occurrence of Stalking Victimization Among Female and Male Undergraduate Students

We examined the occurrence of stalking victimization among female and male undergraduate students attending three urban colleges. Specifically, we explored the proportion of students who experienced only stalking victimization and the relationship to the perpetrator identified by victims of stalking. Our findings suggest that stalking victimization is less frequently perpetrated by intimate partners and occurs independent of more commonly measured forms of interpersonal victimization. Given recent changes to the Jeanne Clery Act to include stalking victimization as a mandatorily reportable offense, these results provide insight to college administrators responsible for designing violence-related educational efforts, as well as to health care providers who counsel and provide care to college-aged young adults.
Racial Disparities in Elderly Patients Receiving Lumbar Spinal Stenosis Surgery

Study Design: Retrospective cohort study. Objective: To evaluate for racial disparities in elderly patients having undergone lumbar spinal stenosis surgery. Methods: The US Medicare Provider Analysis and Review database (records from 2005 to 2011) was used to identify patients over the age of 65 years, diagnosed with lumbar spinal stenosis, and having undergone lumbar laminectomy or fusion surgery. Blacks were compared to Whites in both unmatched and propensity score-matched populations. The data was analyzed with univariate (χ2 and Wilcoxon rank sum tests for unmatched comparison, and McNemar exact and signed rank sum tests for matched comparison) and multivariate models. Results: Query of the data resulted in a study sample of 12 807 patients; 514 (4.0%) were identified as Black and 12 293 (96%) as White. Blacks were less likely to be discharged home (42.4% vs 58.9%, P < .0001) and had lower repeat operation rates (6.81% vs 11.5%, P = .0009); both remained significant in the propensity score-matched comparison. Finally, Blacks experienced more postoperative complications, higher median Medicare costs, but lower out-of-pocket expenses (P = .0113). Blacks had higher rates of diabetes (33.7% vs 21.5%, P < .0001) and obesity (9.92% vs 6.85%, P = .0074), when compared to Whites, but these comorbidities did not significantly affect odds of 30-day complications. Conclusions: Black patients having undergone lumbar spinal stenosis surgery were more likely to have received fusion at initial operation, had shorter pre- and postoperative follow-up intervals and displayed variances in discharge disposition. Reasons for these differences are not entirely understood; however, educational and socioeconomic factors and possibly ethnic/cultural biases may have contributed. Racial disparities in health care continue to be identified and should be further explored in order to eliminate them.
Properties of HflX, an Enigmatic Protein from Escherichia coli

ABSTRACT The Escherichia coli gene hflX was first identified as part of the hflA operon, mutations in which led to an increased frequency of lysogenization upon infection of the bacterium by the temperate coliphage lambda. Independent mutational studies have also indicated that the HflX protein has a role in transposition. Based on the sequence of its gene, HflX is predicted to be a GTP-binding protein, very likely a GTPase. We report here purification and characterization of the HflX protein. We also specifically examined its suggested functional roles mentioned above. Our results show that HflX is a monomeric protein with a high (30% to 40%) content of helices. It exhibits GTPase as well as ATPase activities, but it has no role in lambda lysogeny or in transposition.
Multi-document Text Summarization: SimWithFirst Based Features and Sentence Co-selection Based Evaluation

Document summarization is an emerging technique for understanding the main purpose of any kind of documents. To visualize a large text document within a short duration and small visible area like PDA screen, summarization provides a greater flexibility and convenience. In this paper we study various text summarization techniques e.g. RANDOM, LEAD and MEAD. Then, we propose two techniques for both single and multi document text summarization. One is adding a new feature SimWithFirst (Similarity With First Sentence) with MEAD (Combination of Centroid, Position, and Length Features) called CPSL and another is the combination of LEAD and CPSL called LESM. Finally we simulate and compare the results of new techniques with conventional ones called MEAD with respect to some evaluation techniques. Simulation results demonstrate that CPSL shows better performance for short summarization than MEAD and for remaining cases it is almost similar to MEAD. Furthermore, simulation results demonstrate that LESM also shows better performance for short summarization than MEAD but for remaining cases it does not show better performance than MEAD.
BER performance of OFDM systems in mobile multi-hop relaying channels

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system has been proposed as a technique for broadcasting digital signals and for wireless communication. The bit-error-rate (BER) performance of the OFDM system is severely affected by the nonlinearity of the high power amplifier and by the Doppler effect impairments. In this paper, we analyze the effects induced on the OFDM signal by the amplifier non-linearity and by the Doppler effect over multi-hop relaying channels. Moreover, simulation results are presented to validate the analysis. It is shown that the resulting inter-carrier interference (ICI) due to the cumulative effects of the phase noise generated by these impairments per hop becomes very significant in a multi-hop relaying communication system, and severely degrades the BER performance of the system. Theoretical results show perfect agreement with those obtained by simulation.
Hutchins' University: A Memoir of the University of Chicago, 1929-1950@@@Robert M. Hutchins: Portrait of an Educator

The inauguration of Robert Maynard Hutchins as the fifth President of the University of Chicago in 1929 coincided with a drastically changed social and economic climate throughout the world. And Hutchins himself opened an era of tumultuous reform and debate within the University. In the midst of the changes Hutchins started and the intense feelings they stirred, William H. McNeill arrived at the University to pursue his education. In "Hutchins' University" he tells what it was like to come of age as a undergraduate in those heady times. Hutchins' scathing opposition to the departmentalization of learning and his resounding call for reforms in general education sparked controversy and fueled debate on campus and off. It became a struggle for the heart and soul of higher education--and McNeill, as a student and then as an instructor, was a participant. His account of the university's history is laced with personal reminiscences, encounters with influential fellow scholars such as Richard McKeon, R. S. Crane, and David Daiches, and details drawn from Hutchins' papers and other archives. McNeill sketches the interplay of personalities with changing circumstances of the Depression, war, and postwar eras. But his central concern is with the institutional life of the University, showing how student behavior, staff and faculty activity and even the Hyde Park neighborhood all revolved around the charismatic figure of Robert Maynard Hutchins--shaped by him and in reaction against him. Successive transformations of the College, and the tribulations of the ideal of general or liberal education are central to much of the story; but the memoir also explores how the University was affectedby such events as Red scares, the remarkably successful Round Table radio broadcasts, the abolition of big time football, and the inauguration of the nuclear age under the west stands of Stagg Field in 1942. In short, "Hutchins' University" sketches an extraordinarily vibrant period for the University of Chicago and for American higher education. It will revive old controversies among veterans from those times, and may provoke others to reflect anew about the proper role of higher education in American society.
Effects of Neurokinin B Administration on Reproductive Hormone Secretion in Healthy Men and Women

Background: Neurokinin B (NKB) is a member of the tachykinin family of peptides. Inactivating mutations in the tachykinin 3 or tachykinin 3 receptor gene are associated with pubertal failure and congenital hypogonadotrophic hypogonadism in humans. This suggests that NKB may have a critical role in human reproduction. The effects of NKB administration have not been investigated previously in humans. Aim: The aim of this study was to determine the effects of iv administration of NKB on gonadotrophin secretion in healthy male and female volunteers. Methods: A total of 23 healthy men and 11 healthy women participated in the study. After an initial dose-finding study (study 1), men received a 4-hour infusion of vehicle (gelofusin) followed by a 4-hour infusion of NKB (2.56 or 5.12 nmol/kg/h) (study 2), and an 8-hour infusion of vehicle or NKB during different visits (study 3). Healthy women underwent a dose-finding study consisting of a 3-hour NKB administration during the follicular phase of the menstrual cycle, and the maximum dose of NKB was also tested during the preovulatory and midluteal phases of menstrual cycle (study 4). Results: Mean LH, FSH, and T secretion were not significantly altered during a 90-minute infusion of NKB (0.4–5.12 nmol/kg/h), or a 4-hour infusion of NKB (5.12 nmol/kg/h). No alterations in gonadotrophin secretion or LH pulsatility were observed during an 8-hour infusion of NKB when compared with vehicle. Doses of 0.64–5.12 nmol/kg/h NKB did not significantly alter LH, FSH, or estradiol secretion in healthy women during the follicular phase of the menstrual cycle. Finally, 5.12 nmol/kg/h did not significantly alter reproductive hormone secretion during the preovulatory or midluteal phases of the menstrual cycle. Conclusions: This is the first clinical study of NKB administration. None of the doses of NKB tested were associated with significant alterations in reproductive hormone secretion in healthy male or female volunteers. These novel data add to our understanding of the physiological actions of NKB in human reproduction.
Eurographics Symposium on Point-based Graphics (2006) Octree-based Progressive Geometry Coding of Point Clouds

We propose a generic point cloud encoder that compresses geometry data including positions and normals of point samples corresponding to 3D objects with arbitrary topology. In this work, the coding process is led by an iterative octree cell subdivision of the object space. At each level of subdivision, positions of point samples are approximated by the geometry centers of all tree-front cells while normals are approximated by their statistical average within each of the tree-front cells. With this framework, we employ attribute-dependent encoding techniques to exploit different characteristics of various attributes. As a result, significant improvement in the rate-distortion (R-D) performance has been obtained with respect to the prior art. Furthermore, the proposed point cloud encoder can be potentially used for lossless geometry coding of 3D point clouds, given sufficient levels of octree expansion and normal space partitioning.
The effect of Trust on Information Diffusion in Online Social Networks

online social networks have a explosive growth in recent years and they provide a perfect platform for information diffusion. Many models have been given to explore the information diffusion procedure and its dynamics. But the trust relationship and memory effect are ignored. Based on the complex network theory, The information diffusion model is proposed and the network users, considered as agents, are classified into susceptible, infected and recovered individuals. The users’ behaviour rule and diffusion process are designed. The proposed agent-based model is tested by simulation experiments in four different complex networks: regular network, small world network, random network and scale-free network. Moreover, the effect of four immunization strategies are explored. The research results show that the influence of users’ trust relationship on different networks is varied, and the vertex weight priority immunization strategy is the best one in all four networks.
LQG control for networked control systems in the presence of data packet drops

We study the linear-quadratic-Gaussian (LQG) control for multiple-input/multiple-output (MIMO) discrete-time networked control systems (NCSs) in the presence of data packet drops that are modeled as multiplicative noises, assumed to be white processes. We will first analyze the mean square (MS) stability problem for MIMO feedback systems in the presence of the multiplicative noises, and provide a new useful MS stability condition. The LQG control under packet data drops will then be studied in which the critical probability of the received data packet can be computed by solving a set of linear matrices inequalities (LMIs), beyond which the modified algebraic Riccati equations, associated with the LQG control, admit the stabilizing solutions. Finally a numerical example from the known literature is employed to illustrate our results.
The Evolution and Functional Diversification of the Deubiquitinating Enzyme Superfamily

Ubiquitin and ubiquitin-like molecules are attached to and removed from cellular proteins in a dynamic and highly regulated manner. Deubiquitinating enzymes are critical to this process, and the genetic catalogue of deubiquitinating enzymes expanded greatly over the course of evolution. Extensive functional redundancy has been noted among the 93 members of the human deubiquitinating enzyme (DUB) superfamily. This is especially true of genes that were generated by duplication (termed paralogs) as they often retain considerable sequence similarity. Because complete redundancy in systems should be eliminated by selective pressure, we theorized that many overlapping DUBs must have significant and unique spatiotemporal roles that can be evaluated in an evolutionary context. We have determined the evolutionary history of the entire class of deubiquitinating enzymes, including the sequence and means of duplication for all paralogous pairs. To establish their uniqueness, we have investigated cell-type specificity in developmental and adult contexts, and have investigated the coemergence of substrates from the same duplication events. Our analysis has revealed examples of DUB gene subfunctionalization, neofunctionalization, and nonfunctionalization.
Evaluation of a sex hormone-binding globulin automated chemiluminescent assay

Abstract Background. Sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) is the main transport protein of sex steroids. This study evaluated the analytical performance of the recently developed Access SHBG assay (Beckman Coulter) and compared it with other commercial methods for the determination of serum SHBG. Clinical validation was also performed. Methods. Analytical performance including within-run and between-run imprecision was assessed for Access SHBG assay on the automated Beckman UniCel DxI800 analyzer. Linearity was assessed using five dilutions of the serum samples. For methods comparison, SHBG levels were determined also with Immulite 2000 analyzer (Siemens Healthcare) using clinical serum samples (n = 104). For clinical validation 135 specimens from healthy subjects, pregnant women, hypothyroid and hyperthyroid patients were analyzed. Results. Total coefficients of variation were < 5.5%. Linearity test showed > 90% recovery for all samples and for all dilution rates. Comparison analysis (Bland-Altman difference analysis and Passing-Bablock regression) showed an acceptable agreement between selected methods. SHBG values measured by Access SHBG assay in different groups of subjects were in agreement with other clinical evidence. Conclusions. Automated Access SHBG assay appears to be a reliable and easy to perform assay, as necessary for application in routine diagnostics.
Influence of Leg Length Discrepancy on Clinical Results after Total Hip Arthroplasty - A Prospective Clinical Trial

The effect of leg length differences on early clinical outcome after total hip arthroplasty remains uncertain. We performed a prospective study on 94 patients who were evaluated preoperatively and one year after surgery for clinical leg length differences, which were then compared with radiological measurements. The effect of leg length differences on walking ability, limp, pain and patient satisfaction was studied. The mean clinical leg length difference after operation was 0.05 cm (–1.5 to 1.5, SD 0.5). Clinical and radiological measurements correlated poorly (ω=0.36 pre- and ω=0.186 postoperatively). Patients with a shorter operated leg on clinical assessment were more prone to limping (p<0.05), and patients with a longer leg had more pain compared to patients with equal leg lengths (p<0.05). Walking ability, Harris Hip Score and patient satisfaction were only marginally affected by leg length differences. Virtually equal leg length was achieved for most patients but small differences had a negative influence in relation to limping and pain. Patients should be counselled pre-operatively about possible leg length differences and associated symptoms.
FLEXFIS: A Robust Incremental Learning Approach for Evolving Takagi–Sugeno Fuzzy Models

In this paper, we introduce a new algorithm for incremental learning of a specific form of Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy systems proposed by Wang and Mendel in 1992. The new data-driven online learning approach includes not only the adaptation of linear parameters appearing in the rule consequents, but also the incremental learning of premise parameters appearing in the membership functions (fuzzy sets), together with a rule learning strategy in sample mode. A modified version of vector quantization is exploited for rule evolution and an incremental learning of the rules' premise parts. The modifications include an automatic generation of new clusters based on the nature, distribution, and quality of new data and an alternative strategy for selecting the winning cluster (rule) in each incremental learning step. Antecedent and consequent learning are connected in a stable manner, meaning that a convergence toward the optimal parameter set in the least-squares sense can be achieved. An evaluation and a comparison to conventional batch methods based on static and dynamic process models are presented for high-dimensional data recorded at engine test benches and at rolling mills. For the latter, the obtained data-driven fuzzy models are even compared with an analytical physical model. Furthermore, a comparison with other evolving fuzzy systems approaches is carried out based on nonlinear dynamic system identification tasks and a three-input nonlinear function approximation example.