Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Validity and Reliability of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire in 5–6 Year Olds: Differences by Gender or by Parental Education?

Introduction The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is a relatively short instrument developed to detect psychosocial problems in children aged 3–16 years. It addresses four dimensions: emotional problems, conduct problems, hyperactivity/inattention problems, peer problems that count up to the total difficulties score, and a fifth dimension; prosocial behaviour. The validity and reliability of the SDQ has not been fully investigated in younger age groups. Therefore, this study assesses the validity and reliability of the parent and teacher versions of the SDQ in children aged 5–6 years in the total sample, and in subgroups according to child gender and parental education level. Methods The SDQ was administered as part of the Dutch regularly provided preventive health check for children aged 5–6 years. Parents provided information on 4750 children and teachers on 4516 children. Results Factor analyses of the parent and teacher SDQ confirmed that the original five scales were present (parent RMSEA = 0.05; teacher RMSEA = 0.07). Interrater correlations between parents and teachers were small (ICCs of 0.21–0.44) but comparable to what is generally found for psychosocial problem assessments in children. These correlations were larger for males than for females. Cronbach’s alphas for the total difficulties score were 0.77 for the parent SDQ and 0.81 for the teacher SDQ. Four of the subscales on the parent SDQ and two of the subscales on the teacher SDQ had an alpha <0.70. Alphas were generally higher for male children and for low parental education level. Discussion The validity and reliability of the total difficulties score of the parent and teacher SDQ are satisfactory in all groups by informant, child gender, and parental education level. Our results support the use of the SDQ in younger age groups. However, some subscales are less reliable and we recommend only to use the total difficulties score for screening purposes.
Effective brain network analysis with resting-state EEG data: a comparison between heroin abstinent and non-addicted subjects

Objective. Neuro-electrophysiological tools have been widely used in heroin addiction studies. Previous studies indicated that chronic heroin abuse would result in abnormal functional organization of the brain, while few heroin addiction studies have applied the effective connectivity tool to analyze the brain functional system (BFS) alterations induced by heroin abuse. The present study aims to identify the abnormality of resting-state heroin abstinent BFS using source decomposition and effective connectivity tools. Approach. The resting-state electroencephalograph (EEG) signals were acquired from 15 male heroin abstinent (HA) subjects and 14 male non-addicted (NA) controls. Multivariate autoregressive models combined independent component analysis (MVARICA) was applied for blind source decomposition. Generalized partial directed coherence (GPDC) was applied for effective brain connectivity analysis. Effective brain networks of both HA and NA groups were constructed. The two groups of effective cortical networks were compared by the bootstrap method. Abnormal causal interactions between decomposed source regions were estimated in the 1–45 Hz frequency domain. Main results. This work suggested: (a) there were clear effective network alterations in heroin abstinent subject groups; (b) the parietal region was a dominant hub of the abnormally weaker causal pathways, and the left occipital region was a dominant hub of the abnormally stronger causal pathways. Significance. These findings provide direct evidence that chronic heroin abuse induces brain functional abnormalities. The potential value of combining effective connectivity analysis and brain source decomposition methods in exploring brain alterations of heroin addicts is also implied.
EPINET: A Fully-Convolutional Neural Network Using Epipolar Geometry for Depth from Light Field Images

Light field cameras capture both the spatial and the angular properties of light rays in space. Due to its property, one can compute the depth from light fields in uncontrolled lighting environments, which is a big advantage over active sensing devices. Depth computed from light fields can be used for many applications including 3D modelling and refocusing. However, light field images from hand-held cameras have very narrow baselines with noise, making the depth estimation difficult. Many approaches have been proposed to overcome these limitations for the light field depth estimation, but there is a clear trade-off between the accuracy and the speed in these methods. In this paper, we introduce a fast and accurate light field depth estimation method based on a fully-convolutional neural network. Our network is designed by considering the light field geometry and we also overcome the lack of training data by proposing light field specific data augmentation methods. We achieved the top rank in the HCI 4D Light Field Benchmark on most metrics, and we also demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method on real-world light-field images.
Effect of Grain Boundary on Closure Behavior of Small Fatigue Cracks

Effect of Grain Boundary on Closure Behavior of Small Fatigue Cracks by Yoshiaki AKINIWA*, Shoji HARADA** and Takayuki YAMAGAMI*** The effect of the interaction between crack-tip slip band and grain boundary on plasticity induced crack closure was analyzed. On the basis of the method proposed by Budiansky and Hutchinson, the crack opening stress and the crack opening displacement were calculated for the constant and proportional residual stretch models in which the residual stretch was assumed to be constant and proportional along the crack surfaces, respectively. The crack opening stress and the crack opening displacement range decreased with increasing crack length. Then the simulation method developed by Newman was applied to crack growth. The crack opening stress increased with increasing crack length. The distribution of the residual stretch was geometrically similar to the change of the maximum crack opening displacement with crack length. The relation between the crack opening displacement range and the effective stress intensity range was almost unique irrespective of applied stress and boundary condition.
Serum Anti-Cryptosporidial gp15 Antibodies in Mothers and Children Less than 2 Years of Age in India

Little is known about the type and longevity of the humoral response to cryptosporidial infections in developing countries. We evaluated serum antibody response to Cryptosporidium gp15 in 150 sets of maternal, preweaning and postinfection/end-of-follow-up sera from children followed up to 2 years of age to determine the influence of maternal and preweaning serological status on childhood cryptosporidiosis. Fifty two percent (N = 78) of mothers and 20% (N = 30) of children were seropositive preweaning. However, most positive preweaning samples from children were collected early in life indicating transplacental transfer and subsequent rapid waning of antibodies. Although 62% (N = 94) of children had a parasitologically confirmed cryptosporidial infection (detected by stool polymerase chain reaction) during the follow-up, only 54% (N = 51) of children were seropositive postinfection. Given there were striking differences in seropositivity depending on when the sample was collected, even though Cryptosporidium was detected in the stool of the majority of the children, this study indicates that antibodies wane rapidly. During follow-up, the acquisition or severity of cryptosporidial infections was not influenced by maternal (P = 0.331 and 0.720, respectively) as well as the preweaning serological status of the child (P = 0.076 and 0.196, respectively).
Molecular Genetic Basis of Opposite Gene by Environment Interactions in Reading Disability and Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

The goal of this study is to better understand the genetic basis of Reading Disability (RD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) by examining molecular G x E interactions with parental education for each disorder. Research indicates that despite sharing genetic risk factors, RD and ADHD are influenced by different types of G x E interactions with parental education – a diathesis stress interaction in the case of ADHD and a bioecological interaction in RD. In order to resolve this apparent paradox, we conducted a preliminary study using behavioral genetic methods to test for G x E interactions in RD and the inattentive subtype of ADHD (ADHD-I) in the same sample of monozygotic and dizygotic Colorado Learning Disabilities Research Center same-sex twin pairs (DeFries et al., 1997), and our findings were consistent with the literature. We posited a genetic hypothesis for this opposite pattern of interactions, which suggests that only genes specific to each disorder enter into these opposite interactions, not the shared genes underlying their comorbidity. This study sought to further investigate this paradox using molecular genetics methods. We examined multiple candidate genes identified for RD or related language phenotypes and those identified for ADHD for G x E interactions with parental iii education. The specific aims of this study were as follows: 1) partition known risk alleles for RD and/or related language phenotypes and ADHD-I into those which are pleiotropic and non-pleiotropic by testing each risk allele for association with both RD and ADHD-I, 2) explore the main effects of parental education on both RD and ADHD-I, 3) address G-E correlations, and 4) conduct exploratory G x E interaction analyses in order to test the genetic hypothesis. Analyses suggested a number of pleiotropic genes that influence both RD and ADHD; however, results did not remain after correcting for multiple comparisons. Although exploratory G x E interaction findings were not significant after multiple comparison correction, results suggested a G x E interaction in the bioecological direction with KIAA0319, parental education, and ADHD-I. Given the limited power in the current study, replication of these findings with larger samples is necessary.
On inhomogeneity parameters for Backus average Filip

In this paper, we discuss five parameters that indicate the inhomogeneity of a stack of parallel isotropic layers. We show that, in certain situations, they provide further insight into the intrinsic inhomogeneity of a Backus medium, as compared to the Thomsen parameters. Additionally, we show that the Backus average of isotropic layers is isotropic if and only if γ = 0 . This is in contrast to parameters δ and , whose zero values do not imply isotropy.
Reconstructing the history of sediment deposition in caves: A case study from Wonderwerk Cave, South Africa

We applied cosmogenic isotope burial dating, magnetostratigraphy, and grain-size distribution analysis to elucidate the history of the sedimentary sequence, composed of fine quartz sands and silts, of Wonderwerk Cave, located on the southern edge of the Kalahari Desert, South Africa. The source for the quartz sand is the Kalahari sand dunes, presently located ∼100 km to the north of the cave. Field observations and grain-size analysis suggest a sediment transport scenario that includes eolian transport of Kalahari sand, abraded to a size of 70–100 µm, to the Kuruman Hills, temporary storage on the hill slopes and valleys surrounding Wonderwerk Cave, and later transport and deposition inside the cave. Our results suggest simple burial ages for sediments from both the front and back of the cave that range between 2.63 ± 0.17 Ma and 1.56 ± 0.10 Ma following initial exposure of 310–620 k.y. However, 26 Al/ 10 Be ratios of 3.98 ± 0.24 and 4.08 ± 0.22 measured in a sand sample collected from the surface outside the cave may imply an initial burial signal equivalent to 0.78 ± 0.15 Ma, thus reducing the possible age range of the buried samples to between 1.85 ± 0.23 and 0.78 ± 0.18 Ma. The paleomagnetic results for the front of the cave gave a polarity sequence of N > R > N||N, where N indicates normal polarity, and R indicates reverse polarity. This sequence can be correlated with both the older and younger cosmogenic burial age ranges. The correlation suggests that in the cave front, cosmogenic burial ages and the acquisition of stable remanent magnetization were not significantly affected by chemical and physical processes and that postburial production of cosmogenic isotopes was insignificant. In contrast, at the back of the cave, the paleomagnetic polarity sequence of R > N cannot be correlated with the cosmogenic burial ages, since the temporal gap between the initial penetration of the sediment into the cave and the final acquisition of a stable remanent magnetization may have been long (∼10 5 yr), and the single polarity transition can be correlated to any reverse-normal transition that occurred during the Quaternary. This highlights the need for caution when cosmogenic burial ages and paleomagnetic sequences are compared. The buried sediments in Wonderwerk Cave show similar grain-size distributions to the fine sand sediment presently exposed at the surface in the vicinity of the cave. Furthermore, calculated preburial 10 Be concentrations for the buried sediment are similar to those measured in sediment outside the cave. These similarities suggest that the environmental conditions and rates of geomorphic processes that persisted during sand deposition in Wonderwerk Cave during the late Pliocene and early Pleistocene may have been similar to those currently experienced in the southern Kalahari, the Kuruman Hills, and the western Ghaap Plain. These conditions favor the transport of fine-grained quartz sand to the vicinity of the cave.
Framework for Hierarchical Mobile Agents: Toward Service-Oriented Agent Compound

Hierarchical mobile agent model is an emerging extension to traditional agent models, where an agent can migrate into another agent and establish a strong partnership. The entering agent and accepting agent are called as achild and itsparent, respectively. This model enables agents to establish the strong (parent-child) partnership and cooperate with each other while maintaining the partnership stable for a long term. This work discusses requirements for frameworks that support development of HMA applications, and describes the basic direction of our proposed HMA framework named MAFEH. MAFEH includes two features: (1) Parent-Child Agreement that specifies an agreement regarding behaviors of a parent and its child, and (2) Interaction Behaviors Description that is used to specify typical synthesis actions separated from the main application logic. Supporting these features, MAFEH aims to facilitate development of an agent system where each agent can obtain required functions on demand by means of synthesis as well as remote interaction. This work considers multimedia application as a motivating scenario, where an agent encapsulates a multimedia content and establishes synthesis with various agents encapsulating other contents or additional services.
New Methods for Assessing the Fascinating Nature of Nature Experiences

In recent years, numerous environmental psychology studies have demonstrated that contact with nature as opposed to urban settings can improve an individual’s mood, can lead to increased levels of vitality, and can offer an opportunity to recover from stress. According to Attention Restoration Theory (ART) the restorative potential of natural environments is situated in the fact that nature can replenish depleted attentional resources. This replenishment takes place, in part, because nature is deemed to be a source of fascination, with fascination being described as having an “attentional”, an “affective” and an “effort” dimension. However, the claim that fascination with nature involves these three dimensions is to a large extent based on intuition or derived from introspection-based measurement methods, such as self-reports. In three studies, we aimed to more objectively assess whether these three dimensions indeed applied to experiences related to natural environments, before any (attentional) depletion has taken place. The instruments that were used were: (a) the affect misattribution procedure (Study 1), (b) the dot probe paradigm (Study 2) and (c) a cognitively effortful task (Study 3). These instrument were respectively aimed at verifying the affective, attentional and effort dimension of fascination. Overall, the results provide objective evidence for the claims made within the ART framework, that natural as opposed to urban settings are affectively positive (cfr., affective dimension) and that people have an attentional bias to natural (rather than urban) environments (cfr., attentional dimension). The results regarding the effort dimension are less straightforward, and suggest that this dimension only becomes important in sufficiently difficult cognitive tasks.
Emotion Processes in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Adolescent Depression

Although cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is an efficacious treatment for adolescent depression, recent findings indicate that positive treatment effects are reduced among youth with a history of childhood interpersonal trauma (CIT). The processing of emotionally-difficult content has been previously emphasized in therapeutic models for the treatment of depression, as well as post-traumatic stress disorder. The present study evaluated the impact of emotion processes on treatment outcomes in two forms of psychotherapy (CBT and usual care treatment) for adolescent depression. This study observationally coded client emotional involvement, specifically during discussions of trauma-related content, as a potentially critical mechanism of change in proximal (emotion dysregulation) and distal (depressive symptom) treatment outcomes. Findings showed that client emotional involvement can be reliably evaluated, and further parsed into two separate constructs. Overall, results demonstrated limited evidence to support the link between client emotional involvement and treatment outcomes, as no statistically significant associations were found. Methodological and clinical implications are discussed.
A Multi-Agent System for Detecting and Correcting "Hidden" Spelling Errors in Arabic Texts

: In this paper, we address the problem of detecting and correcting hidden spelling errors in Arabic texts. Hidden spelling errors are morphologically valid words and therefore they cannot be detected or corrected by conventional spell checking programs. In the work presented here, we investigate this kind of errors as they relate to the Arabic language. We start by proposing a classification of these errors in two main categories: syntactic and semantic, then we present our multi-agent system for hidden spelling errors detection and correction. The multi-agent architecture is justified by the need for collaboration, parallelism and competition, in addition to the need for information exchange between the different analysis phases. Finally, we describe the testing framework used to evaluate the system implemented.
Association of morning and evening blood pressure at home with asymptomatic organ damage in the J-HOP Study.

BACKGROUND Several guidelines recommend that home blood pressure (HBP) be measured both in the morning and in the evening. However, there have been fewer reports about the clinical significance of morning HBP than about the clinical significance of evening HBP. METHODS Our study included 4,310 patients recruited for the Japan Morning Surge Home Blood Pressure Study who had one or more cardiovascular risk factors. We measured morning and evening HBP, urinary albumin-creatinine ratio (UACR), left ventricular mass index (LVMI), brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity (baPWV), maximum carotid intima media thickness (IMT), N-terminal pro-brain-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP), and high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T (Hs-cTnT). RESULTS The correlation coefficients for the associations between morning systolic BP (SBP) and log-transformed baPWV, NT-proBNP, or Hs-cTnT were significantly greater than the corresponding relationships for evening SBP (all P < 0.01). The goodness-of-fit of the associations between morning home SBP and UACR (P < 0.05) or baPWV (P < 0.01) was improved by adding evening home SBP to the SBP measurement. In contrast, the goodness-of-fit values of the associations between evening SBP and UACR (P < 0.001), LVMI (P < 0.05), baPWV (P < 0.001), NT-proBNP (P < 0.001), and Hs-cTnT (P < 0.001) were improved by adding morning home SBP to the SBP measurement. CONCLUSIONS Morning BP and evening BP provide equally useful information for subclinical target organ damage, yet multivariate modeling highlighted the stand-alone predictive ability of morning BP.
Isolation of actinomycetes from mangrove and estuarine sediments of Cochin and screening for antimicrobial activity

Objective: To isolate and screen actinomycetes for antimicrobial activity from mangroves and estuarine soil samples of Cochin. Methods: In the present study, sediment samples collected from mangroves and various stations of Cochin estuary were pretreated and actinomycetes were isolated on different selective media. The isolates were screened for antibiotic activity by following disc diffusion assay (Kirby-Bauer method) against human pathogens, fish pathogens and Gram-positive bacteria. The isolates were identified based on their morphology. Results: Only 2 actinomycete isolates (ER7 and ER10) of the 50 isolates screened had antimicrobial activities against one or more pathogens tested. ER7 isolate showed higher antimicrobial activity as compared to that of ER10 isolate. The maximum inhibition zone of crude extract from ER7 was 16.7 mm. The methanol extract of ER7 showed antimicrobial activity against all the pathogens tested with a maximum zone of 21.0 mm. The isolates with antimicrobial activity were found to belong to the genus Streptomyces. Conclusions: There is no significant report on bioactive actinomycetes from the present study areas. Potent antibiotics from the selected isolates could contribute to fight against several human and fish diseases. Further purification, structural elucidation and characterization are recommended to know the quality, novelty and commercial value of these antibiotics. Hence, the mangroves and estuary of Kochi show great promise for the discovery of bioactive actinomycetes.
Effect of halite and calcite coatings on thermal infrared spectra wih implications for Mars exploration

Knowing the occurrence and distribution of soluble ionic salts allows us to model the aqueous history and geochemical conditions of surface solutions on Mars. Salts deposited as coatings are particularly important for attaining this knowledge because the thermal infrared (TIR) remote sensing method for determining mineral abundance is limited to the top few hundred micrometers of the surface. To better understand the TIR properties of salt coatings, we investigated the effects of coating thickness and texture on the TIR reflectance spectra of haliteand calcite-coated glasses. We evaluated salt coating textures that could occur on Mars: 1) continuous, uniformly thick layers of salt without exposed substrate; 2) discontinuous particulate salt coatings with variable thickness and exposed substrate. Salt-coated glasses have spectral features attributable to the substrate and the coating. Partially transmissive coatings decrease the intensity of substrate absorption bands as thickness increases. This decrease in intensity is exponential for continuous and coarse particulate (< 50 μm) halite coatings and linear for fine particulate halite coatings (< 2 μm). All halite coating textures and continuous calcite