Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Usefulness of The Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB) for Assessing Cognitive Functions in the Elderly: a Pilot Study

Results: The dementia group showed impairment on the PAL and SRM tasks. The results of the other two subtests were not different between the two groups. The mean adjusted total errors on the PAL task was higher in the de- mentia group (130.88) than in the control group (51.38), which was statistically significant (p<0.01). The percentage of correct response on the SRM task was lower in the dementia group (58.75%) than in the control group (67.25%), also statistically significant (p=0.03). We also compared the correlations of the CANTAB subtests with the RCFT parame- ters (immediate recall, delayed recall, and recognition). Again, the results showed that the PAL task correlated well with these three parameters (r=-0.59, -0.60, and -0.56, respectively). Conclusion: The CANTAB was useful for assessing cognition in the elderly. In particular, the PAL task, which correlated well with the RCFT parameters, can be used to assess visual memory. It showed to be a valuable tool in diagnosing dementia.
DYNAMICAL MASS MEASUREMENT OF THE YOUNG SPECTROSCOPIC BINARY V343 NORMAE AaAb RESOLVED WITH THE GEMINI PLANET IMAGER

We present new spatially resolved astrometry and photometry from the Gemini Planet Imager of the inner binary of the young multiple star system V343 Normae, which is a member of the β Pictoris (β Pic) moving group. V343 Normae comprises a K0 and mid-M star in a ∼4.5 year orbit (AaAb) and a wide 10″ M5 companion (B). By combining these data with archival astrometry and radial velocities we fit the orbit and measure individual masses for both components of and . Comparing to theoretical isochrones, we find good agreement for the measured masses and JHK band magnitudes of the two components consistent with the age of the β Pic moving group. We derive a model-dependent age for the β Pic moving group of 26 ± 3 Myr by combining our results for V343 Normae with literature measurements for GJ 3305, which is another group member with resolved binary components and dynamical masses.
A new rate coordination protocol for TCP and ABR congestion control

The implementation of an agent-based algorithm to coordinate the congestion control algorithms of the transmission control protocol (TCP) and the ATM (asynchronous transfer mode) ABR (available bit rate) cell-oriented switching architecture is overviewed. A new parameter (CWNDACR) is derived to ensure that even when the ATM switch queues are indicating no congestion, it is the switch (and not the source) which should control the increment in the TCP source rates. The simulation results show that coordination at the edge of the network makes better use of the available bandwidth and improves the TCP's performance over ATM ABR for a range of performance metrics such as the cell loss ratio, the packet retransmission ratio and the throughput.
Boosted Particle Swarm Optimization of Gabor Filter Feature Vector

Many feature vectors used today for classification of images require a significant amount of computation. These feature vectors are high dimensional. An attempt to build an optimized feature vector using Gabor filters is discussed. AdaBoost and Particle Swarm Optimization techniques are used to select Gabor filters which maximize the distinction between positive and negative samples, when comparing the phase at a single location in the image. The feature vector is therefore optimized for a particular classification task, and its performance in pedestrian classification is compared to the HOG feature vector. Although the results do not currently match existing feature descriptors, this method still shows promise due to its extremely low dimensionality, and should drastically improve when further dimensions are added.
Environmental justice content in mainstream US, 6–12 environmental education guides

Over the past three decades, the environmental justice movement has developed out of growing concern about unequal distribution of environmental harm and unequal access to environmental resources. The mainstream environmental movement has been criticized for failing to address adequately environmental justice issues. Several scholars have claimed that environmental education has also failed to incorporate environmental justice concepts regarding the unequal distribution of environmental harm, but no studies thus far have tried to measure this claim empirically. This content analysis examines the level of inclusion of environmental justice concepts, as well as their context of representation, within mainstream, US national, 6–12 environmental education curricula. National curricula from Project WILD, Project Learning Tree, Project WET and the World Wildlife Fund were examined in this study. All guides were developed between the late 1990s and early 2000s, but were revised more recently. A total of 224 lessons were reviewed and evaluated based on several environmental justice indicators, with consideration for the presence of these indicators and whether they were presented within an environmental justice context. The lessons were also coded for implied environmental justice content and supplementary sections of the educational guides, such as appendices and conceptual frameworks, were also coded. The results suggest that these curriculum guides often address issues related to environmental justice (e.g. environmental health impacts on humans); however, they rarely present the issues within an explicit environmental justice context. The guides also rarely address issues traditionally considered to be environmental justice issues. The results show many missed opportunities to incorporate environmental justice, indicating that lessons could be adapted easily to be more inclusive. These results reveal potential cooperative opportunities between those calling for more environmental justice inclusion in mainstream environmental education and those who create mainstream guides.
The smartphone as a gait recognition device impact of selected parameters on gait recognition

This paper aims to identify the impacts of a couple of parameters on gait recognition when a build-in smartphone accelerometer is used. The use of different types of shoes impacts significantly gait recognition while the matching rate on a different surface e.g. grass has only a minor impact. A correlation between accelerometer's data and the phone position was identified. For this, data originating from the Z-axis as well as from the X-Y-Z-axis was used together with Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) for template generation and matching tests.
Genetic Characterization of a Novel Iflavirus Associated with Vomiting Disease in the Chinese Oak Silkmoth Antheraea pernyi

Larvae of the Chinese oak silkmoth (Antheraea pernyi) are often affected by AVD (A. pernyi vomiting disease), whose causative agent has long been suspected to be a virus. In an unrelated project we discovered a novel positive sense single-stranded RNA virus that could reproduce AVD symptoms upon injection into healthy A. pernyi larvae. The genome of this virus is 10,163 nucleotides long, has a natural poly-A tail, and contains a single, large open reading frame flanked at the 5′ and 3′ ends by untranslated regions containing putative structural elements for replication and translation of the virus genome. The open reading frame is predicted to encode a 3036 amino acid polyprotein with four viral structural proteins (VP1-VP4) located in the N-terminal end and the non-structural proteins, including a helicase, RNA-dependent RNA polymerase and 3C-protease, located in the C-terminal end of the polyprotein. Putative 3C-protease and autolytic cleavage sites were identified for processing the polyprotein into functional units. The genome organization, amino acid sequence and phylogenetic analyses suggest that the virus is a novel species of the genus Iflavirus, with the proposed name of Antheraea pernyi Iflavirus (ApIV).
Water Stress and Aphid Feeding Differentially Influence Metabolite Composition in Arabidopsis thaliana (L.)

Little is known about how drought stress influences plant secondary metabolite accumulation and how this affects plant defense against different aphids. We therefore cultivated Arabidopsis thaliana (L.) plants under well-watered, drought, and water-logged conditions. Two aphid species were selected for this study: the generalist Myzus persicae (Sulzer) and the crucifer specialist Brevicoryne brassicae (L.). Metabolite concentrations in the phloem sap, which influence aphid growth, changed particularly under drought stress. Levels of sucrose and several amino acids, such as glutamic acid, proline, isoleucine, and lysine increased, while concentrations of 4-methoxyindol-3-ylmethyl glucosinolate decreased. M. persicae population growth was highest on plants under drought stress conditions. However, B. brassicae did not profit from improved phloem sap quality under drought stress and performed equally in all water treatments. Water stress and aphids generally had an opposite effect on the accumulation of secondary metabolites in the plant rosettes. Drought stress and water-logging led to increased aliphatic glucosinolate and flavonoid levels. Conversely, aphid feeding, especially of M. persicae, reduced levels of flavonoids and glucosinolates in the plants. Correspondingly, transcript levels of aliphatic biosynthetic genes decreased after feeding of both aphid species. Contrary to M. persicae, drought stress did not promote population growth of B. brassicae on these plants. The specialist aphid induced expression of CYP79B2, CYP79B3, and PAD3 with corresponding accumulation of indolyl glucosinolates and camalexin. This was distinct from M. persicae, which did not elicit similarly strong camalexin accumulation, which led to the hypothesis of a specific defense adaptations against the specialist aphid.
Applying Psychological Science to Examine Prospective Memory in Simulated Air Traffic Control

Failures to remember to perform deferred task actions in work settings such as air traffic control can have serious consequences. Most research examining the cognitive mechanisms underlying prospective memory has used simple, static tasks, which may make it difficult to generalize results to work settings. I describe a body of research that has applied theory and methods from the basic prospective-memory and attention-capture literatures to simulations of air traffic control. These theories and methods can be used to anticipate many findings, such as the finding that prospective-memory demands incur performance costs in ongoing air traffic control tasks, and that prospective-memory error and costs to ongoing air traffic control tasks can be reduced by the use of spatial context or prospective-memory aids. Research in laboratory settings that simulates work contexts such as air traffic control can both establish the utility of psychological theory and produce application-relevant information.
Comparative study: face recognition on unspecific persons using linear subspace methods

Recently many automatic face recognition (AFR) systems were developed for applications with unspecific persons, which is different from conventional pattern recognition problems where all classes are known in the training stage. In this paper, we present a systematic and comprehensive study on linear subspace methods for face recognition on unspecific persons. Over 6700 experiments using different algorithms with different training parameters and testing conditions are conducted on a large scale database (4550 samples) to investigate the compound effect of various influential factors. The observations based on these experiments are expected to provide widely applicable guidelines for designing practical AFR systems.
Towards theory‐driven therapies for aphasic verb impairments: A review of current theory and practice

Background: This review is intended for both theoretically and clinically motivated audiences with an interest in aphasic verb impairments. This work is supported by a Research Bursary from the Stroke Association (TSAB 2004/01). Aims: Building from previous reviews, our aim is to provide a concise summary of the relevant theoretical research and perspectives on verbs, and from this theoretical foundation to explore which aspects have been incorporated and tested in therapy studies. Main Contribution: In the theoretical domain, the review first considers the patterns of verb and noun impairments in aphasic syndromes. Second, an overview of the linguistic differences between verbs and nouns is provided, differences that occur at various levels of linguistic analysis: phonological, morphological, semantic, and syntactic. This is followed by a detailed account of the psycholinguistic perspective on verb–noun differences. Specifically, this section examines the role of variables such as imageability and frequency, and the issue of depiction of actions in static picture versus dynamic video format. Evidence from neuroimaging studies as well as neurodegenerative conditions such as semantic dementia is also reviewed. Finally, the psycholinguistic account further discusses the question of whether verbs (and nouns) serve as primary ordering principles in the cognitive architecture of language processing or whether they should be more accurately viewed as points on an overarching psycholinguistic continuum. Also within the psycholinguistic discussion, event perception is described as a theoretical account with implications for verb processing. Despite the importance of verbs in their pivotal role in connected speech, there is a very limited body of literature on verb therapies and only a small number of the theoretical issues/perspectives have penetrated approaches to treating verb impairments. Ten published papers are described. Two of these directly compare verb and noun therapies, reflecting the many comparisons of noun vs verb impairments in the theoretical literature. The remaining eight consist of purely verb‐focused therapies, which also examined the effects of increased verb retrieval skills on related sentence production (reflecting the pivotal role of verbs in connected speech). These eight studies are subdivided between four that targeted verb retrieval only and four that also investigated aspects of verb argument structure and sentence production. Conclusions: The general discussion notes possible new approaches to the treatment of verb deficits that arise from the many factors noted in the theoretical literature which are yet to be fully explored in therapy studies.
Quality of higher education: organisational or educational? A content analysis of Chinese university self-evaluation reports

Based on a study of Chinese university self-evaluation reports, this paper argues that higher education institutions are trying to manage the tensions between educational and organisational quality and the increasing and worldwide concerns about quality assurance. After 30 years of dramatic educational reform, China has established a nationwide evaluation system for assessing its higher education institutions. This comprehensive system includes a series of procedures for both internal self-evaluation and external peer reviewing, among which self-evaluation reports prepared by each institution remain an important basis for external review. In an attempt to examine the institutional understanding of quality in higher education, the authors conducted a content analysis study of 53 self-evaluation reports written by a wide range of higher education institutions in China. This study concludes that the self-evaluation reports have a greater tendency to demonstrate their organisational quality to the external world than reflecting on the internal teaching and learning quality.
Cognitive biases toward alcohol-related words and executive deficits in polysubstance abusers with alcoholism.

AIM To study cognitive biases for alcohol-related cues on executive function tasks involving mental flexibility and response inhibition in polysubstance abusers with alcoholism. DESIGN The responses to alcohol-related cues of detoxified polysubstance abusers with alcoholism and of non-addicts were compared. SETTING The University of Iowa City, Iowa, USA. PARTICIPANTS Thirty detoxified polysubstance abusers with alcoholism (PSA) and 30 healthy non-substance abusers (CONT). MEASUREMENTS Using the 'Alcohol Shifting Task', a variant of the go/no-go paradigm, we measured the response times and the accuracy of responses to targets and distracters. Sometimes the alcohol-related words were the targets for the 'go' response, with neutral words as distracters, sometimes the reverse. Several shifts in the type of the target occurred during the task. FINDINGS Relative to CONT, PSA were generally slower to respond to targets, but the group difference was smaller when alcohol-related words were the targets. A signal detection analysis also indicated that relative to CONT, the PSA had more difficulties discriminating between targets and distracters (low d'), and they showed more signs of decision bias (low C), reflecting increased readiness to respond to both targets and distracters. However, these discrimination and inhibition deficits were more pronounced when alcohol-related words were the targets. Furthermore, the weaknesses in RT and C were more pronounced in PSA after shifting the targets from alcohol-related to neutral words, or vice versa. CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that PSA have cognitive biases towards information related to alcohol, and that these biases, as well as the poor executive functions (lower mental flexibility and response inhibition) revealed in PSA might be responsible for their failure to maintain abstinence.
How to think about the Modularity of Mind-Reading

It has been suggested that the fixation of beliefs about people’s beliefs, desires and intentions is modularized. We argue that this is unlikely. We argue that there is modularity lower down: social-intentional ‘markers’ are produced by an encapsulated mechanism intermediate between perception and belief-fixation, and that these markers make a distinctive contribution to the fixation of beliefs about the mental. But belief fixation itself is not modular. Finally, we suggest some complications to our simple picture, and some ways in which our thesis might shed light on pathologies of social understanding.
Persistent differences among centers over 3 years in glycemic control and hypoglycemia in a study of 3,805 children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes from the Hvidøre Study Group.

OBJECTIVE Twenty-one international pediatric diabetes centers from 17 countries investigated the effect of simple feedback about the grand mean HbA(1c) level of all centers and the average value of each center on changes in metabolic control, rate of severe hypoglycemia, and insulin therapy over a 3-year period. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Clinical data collection and determination of HbA(1c) levels were conducted at a central location in 1995 (n = 2,780, age 0-18 years) and 1998 (n = 2,101, age 11-18 years). RESULTS Striking differences in average HbA(1c) concentrations were found among centers; these differences remained after adjustment for the significant confounders of sex, age, and diabetes duration. They were apparent even in patients with short diabetes duration and remained stable 3 years later (mean adjusted HbA(1c) level: 8.62 +/- 0.03 vs. 8.67 +/- 0.04 [1995 vs. 1998, respectively]). Three centers had improved significantly, four centers had deteriorated significantly in their overall adjusted HbA(1c) levels, and 14 centers had not changed in glycemic control. During the observation period, there were increases in the adjusted insulin dose by 0.076 U/kg, the adjusted number of injections by 0.23 injections per day, and the adjusted BMI by 0.95 kg/m(2). The 1995 versus 1998 difference in glycemic control for the seven centers could not be explained by prevailing insulin regimens or rates of hypoglycemia. CONCLUSIONS This study reveals significant outcome differences among large international pediatric diabetes centers. Feedback and comparison of HbA(1c) levels led to an intensification of insulin therapy in most centers, but improved glycemic control in only a few.
Exploiting Type Information in Load-Value Predictors

To alleviate the high cost of main-memory accesses, computer architects have proposed various speculation mechanisms, including load-value prediction. A loadvalue predictor forecasts the result of load instructions, thus allowing dependent instructions to execute without having to wait for the memory access to complete. Unfortunately, costly mispredictions hinder the true potential of load-value prediction. This paper describes several approaches to build more accurate and faster load-value predictors with little extra hardware by exploiting the hardware type of the load instructions. Our techniques are easily implementable in any CPU that supports multiple load types, e.g., byte, word, single, etc. Compared to traditional load-value predictors, our schemes substantially reduce the number of mispredictions with a concomitant speedup of the CPU. Moreover, we show that the type of a load can effectively be used as the selector in a hybrid predictor.
How bulimia nervosa relates to addictive behavior

Using longitudinal data that tracks bulimic behavior among young girls (National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Growth and Health Study), we examine (1) whether bulimic behavior is consistent with addiction criteria as stated in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-IV (APA, 1994); and 2) whether the persistence in bulimia nervosa (BN) reflects tolerance formed from an addiction or if it can be attributed to slow learning about the deleterious health effects of BN. Making the case for treating BN as an addiction has important policy implications. First, it suggests that the timing of educational policy and treatment is crucial: preventive educational programs aimed at instructing girls about the deleterious health effects of BN, as well as treatment interventions, will be most effective if provided in the early stages. Second, it would put those exhibiting BN on more equal footing (from a treatment reimbursement perspective) with individuals with drug or alcohol addictions.
Association of ATP-binding cassette transporter A1 gene polymorphisms with plasma lipid variability and coronary heart disease risk.

OBJECTIVE Our study aimed to investigate the association of ABCA1 polymorphisms with plasma lipid variability and CHD risk in the Chinese Han population. METHODS 754 CHD patients and 760 controls were included in this case-control study. Three SNPs (rs363717, rs4149339, and rs4149338) in ABCA1 3'UTR and one nonsynonymous SNP (rs2230808) in ABCA1 exon 35 were selected and genotyped. The analysis of genetic data was performed using the SNPstats program and the SPSS17.0 software. RESULTS Significant associations were observed between SNP rs363717 and CHD risk under different genetic models before or after Bonferroni corrections (codominant model: OR = 0.70, P = 0.003 for AG vs. AA; dominant model: OR = 0.71, P = 0.003 for GG + AG vs. AA). The nonsynonymous SNP rs2230808 was associated with higher total cholesterol levels (P = 0.047). The GCC haplotype (consisting of alleles of SNPs rs363717, rs4149339, and rs4149338) was associated with a decreased risk of CHD (OR = 0.8, P = 0.027). Three ABCA1 SNPs interacted with high triglyceride levels to increase CHD risk (P values of interactions were 0.010 for rs363717, 0.010 for rs4149339, and 0.020 for rs4149338, respectively). CONCLUSIONS Our results suggest that ABCA1 polymorphisms influence plasma lipid variability and CHD risk. ABCA1 polymorphisms could also modify the effects of plasma lipids on CHD risk.