Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ethnocentric Monoculturalism and Ernest Becker: An Existential-Psychoanalytic Explanation of Cultural Encapsulation

The importance of culture in psychology is increasingly being acknowledged. Despite this, cultural competence has been slow to develop in the field (Hall, 2006). Sue (2001) has posited that psychologists themselves represent a major barrier to cultural competence because many are unconsciously trapped within their own Eurocentric worldview, a phenomenon that Sue refers to as ethnocentric monoculturalism. An unfortunate result of ethnocentric monoculturalism in psychology has been an overly narrow focus regarding not only the types of interventions implemented with culturally diverse clients but also the roles that a psychologist should fill (Sue, 2001; Hall, 1997). My purpose in this thesis is to explore the underlying causes and functions of cultural encapsulation represented by ethnocentric monoculturalism through the theory of cultural anthropologist, Ernest Becker. Becker's existential-psychoanalytic theory of culture represents an untapped resource in multicultural clinical psychology for understanding the psychological functions and mechanisms of cultural encapsulation. According to Becker (1973), a fundamental motivating force in human behavior is the awareness of death. Becker believed that culture itself exists in part, as a means for coping with the fear of death. A major argument in this thesis is that one of the reasons that people cling so strongly to their personal belief systems and reject others is because people's belief systems are intimately tied to their own sense of mortality.
Parental Mediation of Television

In the present study a German-speaking scale for measuring parental mediation of television is tested and various factors influencing television mediation are investigated. 252 German-speaking Swiss parents of children aged 3 to 14 answered questions about their mediation behavior and possible determinants. The results confirm international research findings. Active and restrictive mediation as well as coviewing are identified as important mediation styles in German-speaking Switzerland. Though in detail the mediation styles show different determinant patterns, altogether parental attitudes toward television, family interaction patterns, and children's age prove to be central determinants of television mediation styles. Sociodemographic and structural factors seem to become less important.
Introducing usability into smaller organizations

Attack of the 50-foot CHIkid Do you work for a small company and wonder if it is possible to introduce usability into your company? Many articles have been written about introducing usability into larger organizations. This article describes the adventure of bringing usability engineering to a relatively small development organization. to OSI was low-fidelity prototyping. This technique proved to be successful because it allowed me to design collaboratively with engineers, teaching them about good design in the process. It was also a lot of fun. In order to gain support for using low-fidelity proto-typing, I distributed Jared Spool's article called " Low-Fidelity Prototypes: Getting Input Into the Design " [5]. Running low-cost usability tests on low-fidelity prototypes was another technique I introduced. Usability tests were run in collaboration with the engineers on the project. On the first project to which this technique was applied, we detected a major design flaw. Since the design was still only on paper, the change was easy to make. This was a big win and helped build additional credibility. The risks of having engineers participate in usability testing are that they sometimes cannot resist " helping " the user or asking leading questions, resulting in slightly skewed test results. However, these risks outweigh the benefits because engineers are able to see first-hand where users run into trouble. This motivates them to make the changes required to improve the design. Consequently, engineers are encouraged to participate in all usability tests at OSI. During my first design projects at OSI, I started preparing a user interface style guide. Because of the heavy load of design work, it was not possible to find time to complete it. Nonetheless, I found it to be a useful way to document design decisions. After I had been at OSI for a few months, a new vice president of Research and Development (R&D) joined OSI. Shortly after his arrival, the issues regarding developing graphical user interfaces (GUI)s at OSI were discussed by R & D managers and engineering staff. I suggested that these issues were really symptoms of how OSI was approaching product design. I proposed a set of usability engineering techniques that could be used to get to the root of the problems OSI was facing.
Rethinking the New Public Health

This Article contributes to an emerging theoretical debate over the legitimate scope of public health law by linking it to a particular doctrinal debate in public nuisance law. State and local governments have been largely stymied in their efforts to use public nuisance litigation against harmful industries to vindicate collectively-held, common law rights to non-interference with public health and safety. The ways in which this litigation has failed are instructive for a broader movement in public health that is only just beginning to take shape. In response to evolving scientific understanding about the determinants of health, public health advocates are rapidly implementing new law and policy tools to alter our environments and behaviors in ways that improve health at the population level. Critics of this “new public health” movement seek to safeguard individual liberty by disconnecting the law and politics of public health from its science. They argue that modern health threats such as heart disease and diabetes are individual concerns not sufficiently public in nature to trigger doctrines that privilege state intervention over individual rights. Public health scholars engaged in this theoretical debate have overlooked a related doctrinal debate within public nuisance law in which courts have struggled to define the scope of “public rights,” including the right to non-interference with public health. In both debates, critics have rightly insisted that the public must be more than the mere aggregation of private interests. But the narrower conceptions of the public that critics have put forth fail to account for the full scope of the state’s authority and responsibility for public health. This Article stakes out a middle position by adopting the classically liberal view of public health law critics — that state interference with individual liberty requires robust justification — while also defining the public broadly so as to justify considerable state intervention under the banner of public health. Drawing on analysis of public nuisance litigation as a public health tool, I propose that epidemiological harms—which I define as those for which causation can be established at the population level, but not necessarily at the individual level—should be understood as public bads. This conception of the public provides a more robust justification for the new public health law movement that more firmly grounds it in the science of social epidemiology.
Age, Gender and Personality Recognition using Tweets in a Multilingual setting: Notebook for PAN at CLEF 2015

User generated text on social media sites is a rich source of information that can be used to identify different aspects of their authors. Proper mining of this content provides an automatic way of identifying users which is very valuable for applications that rely on personalisation. In this work, we describe the properties of our multilingual software submitted for PAN2015 which recognizes the age, gender and personality traits of Twitter users in four languages, namely, English, Spanish, Dutch and Italian.
Non-Invasive Methods to Diagnose Fungal Infections in Pediatric Patients with Hematologic Disorders

Background Invasive fungal infection (IFIs) is a major infectious complication in immunocompromised patients. Early diagnosis and initiation of antifungal therapy is important to achieve the best outcome. Objectives The current study aimed to investigate the incidence of IFIs and evaluate the diagnostic performance of non-invasive laboratory tests: serologic (β-D-glucan, galactomannan) and molecular (nested polymerase chain reaction) tests to diagnose fungal infections in hematologic pediatric patients. Patients and Methods In a cross-sectional study from October 2014 to January 2015, 321 blood samples of 62 pediatric patients with hematologic disorders and at high risk for fungal infections were analyzed. Non-invasive tests including the Platelia Aspergillus enzyme immunoassay (EIA) to detect galactomannan antigen, Glucatell for β–D–glucan and nested PCR to detect Candida and Aspergillus species-specific DNA were used in a weekly screening strategy. Results Twenty six patients (42%) were considered as proven and probable IFIs, including 3 (5%) proven and 23 (37%) probable cases. Eighteen patients (29%) were considered as possible cases. The sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values for galactomannan test in 26 patients with proven and probable fungal infections were 94.4%, 100%, 100% and 94.7%; for β-D-glucan test 92.3%, 77.7%, 85%, 87.5% and for nested-PCR were 84.6%, 88.8%, 91.7% and 80%, respectively. Conclusions The rate of IFIs in pediatric patients with hematologic disorders is high, and sample collection from the sterile sites cannot be performed in immunocompromised patients. Detection of circulating fungal cell wall components and DNA in the blood using non-invasive methods can offer diagnostic help in patients with suspected IFIs. Their results should be interpreted in combination with clinical, radiological and microbiological findings.
Modification to the Lampariello approach to evaluate reactive oxygen species production by flow cytometry

The aim of this article is to perform a statistical analysis of reactive oxygen species (ROS) cytometric data. It is demonstrated that the classical parametric and nonparametric statistical tests are not suitable to examine these data; the Kolmogorov‐Smirnov test and the modification proposed by Lampariello are shown to be too sensitive with respect to the experimental bias (due to procedure or to the instrument) and variability in the ROS production within the repeated samples. Several approaches are examined and discussed. Modifications of the Lampariello's procedure are proposed to include the variability within samples. The validity of the proposed approach is verified by analyzing repeated measurements of ROS formation in cultured human lymphocytes untreated or treated with ferrous sulfate. The proposed approach is successful in considering the “intersample” variability in the ROS data analysis and keeps a good level of validity. Nevertheless, this procedure is not user‐friendly and needs to be handled by an expert operator. © 2007 International Society for Analytical Cytology
A single photon avalanche detector in a 180 nm standard CMOS technology

We present the performance characteristics of a Single Photon Avalanche Detector fabricated in a 180 nm standard CMOS image sensor technology. The SPAD implemented in 8 different diameters between 5 μm and 40 μm shows a DCR below 10 kHz at 15°C with a low afterpulsing probability (0.2% at 300 mV), a good photodetection efficiency (20%) and a very good time resolution (80 ps at 450 nm).
Mechanisms That Mediate the Development of Fibrosis in Patients With Crohn's Disease

Abstract:Crohn's disease is complicated by the development of fibrosis and stricture in approximately 30% to 50% of patients over time. The pathogenesis of fibrostenotic disease is multifactorial involving the activation of mesenchymal cells by cytokines, growth factors, and other mediators released by immune cells, epithelial cells, and mesenchymal cells. Transforming growth factor &bgr;, a key activator of mesenchymal cells, is central to the process of fibrosis and regulates numerous genes involved in the disordered wound healing including collagens, and other extracellular matrix proteins, connective tissue growth factor, and insulin-like growth factors. The activated mesenchymal compartment is expanded by recruitment of new mesenchymal cells through epithelial to mesenchymal transition, endothelial to mesenchymal transition, and invasion of circulating fibrocytes. Cellular hyperplasia and increased extracellular matrix production, particularly collagens, from fibroblasts, myofibroblasts, and smooth muscle cells add to the disturbed architecture and scarring on the intestine. Extracellular matrix homeostasis is further disrupted by alterations in the expression of matrix metalloproteinases and tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinase in the gut. Among the 163 susceptibility genes identified that contribute to susceptibility in inflammatory bowel disease mutations in NOD2/CARD15, innate immune system components and autophagy jointly contribute to the activation of mesenchymal cells and pathogenesis of fibrosis in this polygenic disorder. Numerous growth factors cytokines and other mediators also contribute to development of fibrosis in the susceptible patient. This review focuses on the molecular mechanisms that regulate mesenchymal cell function, particularly smooth muscle cells, the largest compartment of mesenchyme in the intestine, that lead to fibrosis in Crohn's disease.
A Combination of Radiosurgery and Soluble Tissue Factor Enhances Vascular Targeting for Experimental Glioblastoma

Radiosurgery for glioblastoma is limited to the development of resistance, allowing tumor cells to survive and initiate tumor recurrence. Based on our previous work that coadministration of tissue factor and lipopolysaccharide following radiosurgery selectively induced thrombosis in cerebral arteriovenous malformations, achieving thrombosis of 69% of the capillaries and 39% of medium sized vessels, we hypothesized that a rapid and selective shutdown of the capillaries in glioblastoma vasculature would decrease the delivery of oxygen and nutrients, reducing tumor growth, preventing intracranial hypertension, and improving life expectancy. Glioblastoma was formed by implantation of GL261 cells into C57Bl/6 mouse brain. Mice were intravenously injected tissue factor, lipopolysaccharide, a combination of both, or placebo 24 hours after radiosurgery. Control mice received both agents after sham irradiation. Coadministration of tissue factor and lipopolysaccharide led to the formation of thrombi in up to 87 ± 8% of the capillaries and 46 ± 4% of medium sized vessels within glioblastoma. The survival rate of mice in this group was 80% versus no survivor in placebo controls 30 days after irradiation. Animal body weight increased with time in this group (r = 0.88, P = 0.0001). Thus, radiosurgery enhanced treatment with tissue factor, and lipopolysaccharide selectively induces thrombosis in glioblastoma vasculature, improving life expectancy.
Theoretical Concerns in the Clinical Treatment of Substance-Abusing Women:

This paper examines female alcohol and prescription drug misuse from a socio-political prospective and offers treatment suggestions based on these theoretical assumptions. It demonstrates how women's roles in society, reflecting the existence of sexism and female oppression, affects the patterns and types of chemicals women abuse, as well as their subsequent treatment. Feminist counseling is proposed as an effective approach for female substance misusers.
Energy-based multi-speaker voice activity detection with an ad hoc microphone array

In this paper, we propose an energy-based technique to track the power of multiple simultaneous speakers using an ad hoc microphone array with unknown microphone positions. By considering the short-term power of the microphone signals, the problem can be converted into a non-negative blind source separation (NBSS) problem. By exploiting the prior knowledge that the source signals are non-negative and well-grounded, very efficient algorithms can be used to solve this NBSS problem, based only on second order statistics. We provide simulation results that demonstrate the effectiveness of the presented algorithm.
Indian Buffet Processes with Power-law Behavior

The Indian buffet process (IBP) is an exchangeable distribution over binary matrices used in Bayesian nonparametric featural models. In this paper we propose a three-parameter generalization of the IBP exhibiting power-law behavior. We achieve this by generalizing the beta process (the de Finetti measure of the IBP) to the stable-beta process and deriving the IBP corresponding to it. We find interesting relationships between the stable-beta process and the Pitman-Yor process (another stochastic process used in Bayesian nonparametric models with interesting power-law properties). We derive a stick-breaking construction for the stable-beta process, and find that our power-law IBP is a good model for word occurrences in document corpora.
A Study on Machine Learning Algorithms for Fall Detection and Movement Classification

Falls among the elderly is an important health issue. Fall detection and movement tracking are therefore instrumental in addressing this issue. This paper responds to the challenge of classifying different movements as a part of a system designed to fulfill the need for a wearable device to collect data for fall and near-fall analysis. Four different fall trajectories (forward, backward, left and right), three normal activities (standing, walking and lying down) and near-fall situations are identified and detected. Different machine learning algorithms are compared and the best one is used for real time classification. The comparison is made using Waikato Environment for Knowledge Analysis (WEKA), one of the most popular machine learning software. The system also has the ability to adapt to the different gait characteristics of each individual. A feature selection algorithm is also introduced to reduce the number of features required for the classification problem.
Modulation of Cell Metabolic Pathways and Oxidative Stress Signaling Contribute to Acquired Melphalan Resistance in Multiple Myeloma Cells

Alkylating agents are widely used chemotherapeutics in the treatment of many cancers, including leukemia, lymphoma, multiple myeloma, sarcoma, lung, breast and ovarian cancer. Melphalan is the most commonly used chemotherapeutic agent against multiple myeloma. However, despite a 70–80% initial response rate, virtually all patients eventually relapse due to the emergence of drug-resistant tumour cells. By using global proteomic and transcriptomic profiling on melphalan sensitive and resistant RPMI8226 cell lines followed by functional assays, we discovered changes in cellular processes and pathways not previously associated with melphalan resistance in multiple myeloma cells, including a metabolic switch conforming to the Warburg effect (aerobic glycolysis), and an elevated oxidative stress response mediated by VEGF/IL8-signaling. In addition, up-regulated aldo-keto reductase levels of the AKR1C family involved in prostaglandin synthesis contribute to the resistant phenotype. Finally, selected metabolic and oxidative stress response enzymes were targeted by inhibitors, several of which displayed a selective cytotoxicity against the melphalan-resistant cells and should be further explored to elucidate their potential to overcome melphalan resistance.
Pseudogenization of a Sweet-Receptor Gene Accounts for Cats' Indifference toward Sugar

Although domestic cats (Felis silvestris catus) possess an otherwise functional sense of taste, they, unlike most mammals, do not prefer and may be unable to detect the sweetness of sugars. One possible explanation for this behavior is that cats lack the sensory system to taste sugars and therefore are indifferent to them. Drawing on work in mice, demonstrating that alleles of sweet-receptor genes predict low sugar intake, we examined the possibility that genes involved in the initial transduction of sweet perception might account for the indifference to sweet-tasting foods by cats. We characterized the sweet-receptor genes of domestic cats as well as those of other members of the Felidae family of obligate carnivores, tiger and cheetah. Because the mammalian sweet-taste receptor is formed by the dimerization of two proteins (T1R2 and T1R3; gene symbols Tas1r2 and Tas1r3), we identified and sequenced both genes in the cat by screening a feline genomic BAC library and by performing PCR with degenerate primers on cat genomic DNA. Gene expression was assessed by RT-PCR of taste tissue, in situ hybridization, and immunohistochemistry. The cat Tas1r3 gene shows high sequence similarity with functional Tas1r3 genes of other species. Message from Tas1r3 was detected by RT-PCR of taste tissue. In situ hybridization and immunohistochemical studies demonstrate that Tas1r3 is expressed, as expected, in taste buds. However, the cat Tas1r2 gene shows a 247-base pair microdeletion in exon 3 and stop codons in exons 4 and 6. There was no evidence of detectable mRNA from cat Tas1r2 by RT-PCR or in situ hybridization, and no evidence of protein expression by immunohistochemistry. Tas1r2 in tiger and cheetah and in six healthy adult domestic cats all show the similar deletion and stop codons. We conclude that cat Tas1r3 is an apparently functional and expressed receptor but that cat Tas1r2 is an unexpressed pseudogene. A functional sweet-taste receptor heteromer cannot form, and thus the cat lacks the receptor likely necessary for detection of sweet stimuli. This molecular change was very likely an important event in the evolution of the cat's carnivorous behavior.
Bloom filters: Design innovations and novel applications

Bloom filters have been very interesting in networking because they enable the high speed, low cost implementation of various hardware algorithms. The paper introduces the idea of variable-length signatures, as opposed to the current practice of using fixed-length signatures. This idea naturally enables Bloom filters to perform flow deletions, a well-known problem with standard Bloom filters. Other uses of this idea are also presented and explored. A second contribution of the paper is the use of a bank of Bloom filters to identify the action that must be applied to the packets of a flow, or to dynamically record the state a flow is in. Our work shows that this approach is a promising alternative to expensive CAM or hash table lookups, and suggests a method of building cheap “fuzzy” flow memories.
Single-molecule views on homologous recombination

Abstract All organisms need homologous recombination (HR) to repair DNA double-strand breaks. Defects in recombination are linked to genetic instability and to elevated risks in developing cancers. The central catalyst of HR is a nucleoprotein filament, consisting of recombinase proteins (human RAD51 or bacterial RecA) bound around single-stranded DNA. Over the last two decades, single-molecule techniques have provided substantial new insights into the dynamics of homologous recombination. Here, we survey important recent developments in this field of research and provide an outlook on future developments.