Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Psychological Well-Being of People Living with HIV/AIDS and the Role of Religious Coping and Social Support

Objective: This study examined correlates of depressive symptoms, particularly the role of religious coping (RCOPE), among people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). The study also examined social support as a possible mediator of the proposed association between religious coping and depressive symptoms and the impact of depressive symptomatology on health outcomes such as HIV medication adherence, immune function, and health-related quality of life (HRQOL) among PLWHA. Method: A convenience sample of 292 PLWHA were recruited from an out-patient infectious disease clinic and AIDS-service organizations in the Southeastern United States. Results: 56.7% reported depressive symptoms. PLWHA with depressive symptomatology reported significantly poorer health outcomes, including poorer HIV medication adherence, lower CD4 cell count, and poorer HRQOL. The odds of being depressed was significantly associated with birth sex (female: OR = 0.43, 95% CI = .23-.80), sexual orientation (gay/bisexual: OR = 1.95, 95% CI = 1.04–3.65), marital status (single: OR =.52, 95% CI =.27-.99), social support satisfaction (OR = 0.65, 95% CI = .49-.86), and negative RCOPE (OR = 1.22, 95% CI = 1.14–1.31). Social support partially mediated the relationship between religious coping and depressive symptoms. Conclusions: High rates of depressive symptoms are present in PLWHA, which negatively impact health outcomes. Religious coping, perceived stress, and social support satisfaction serve an important role in depressive symptomatology among PLWHA. These findings underscore the need for healthcare providers to regularly screen PLWHA for and adequately treat depression and collaborate with mental health providers, social workers, and pastoral care counselors to address PLWHA's mental, social, and spiritual needs and optimize their HIV-related outcomes.
Kyphosis and decline in physical function over 15 years in older community-dwelling women: the Study of Osteoporotic Fractures.

BACKGROUND Maintaining physical function is an important prerequisite for preserving independence in later life. Greater degrees of kyphosis in the thoracic spine are prevalent in older persons and accompanied by reduced physical function in multiple cross-sectional studies. It is unknown whether kyphosis predicts worse physical function over time. METHODS We retrospectively assessed whether greater magnitude of kyphosis is associated with decline in self-reported and objectively measured physical function over 15 years. Digitized Cobb angle kyphosis (T4-T12) was derived from supine lateral thoracic spine radiographs in a cohort of 1,196 women aged 65 and older (mean = 69.3 years [SD = 4.0]). Using regression models, we evaluated associations of baseline kyphosis with both self-reported functional status and objectively measured gait speed, grip strength, and timed chair stands cross-sectionally and as change assessed over 15 years. RESULTS In cross-sectional multivariate analyses, with each 10-degree increment of kyphosis, grip strength was 0.24 kg lower (p = .02), but there were no significant associations between kyphosis and functional status, gait speed, or timed chair stand, likely reflecting the high functioning study participants. In multivariate longitudinal analysis, with each 10-degree increment in baseline kyphosis, there was 0.07 point additional decline in functional status (p = .09), 0.01 m/s more decline in gait speed (p = .07), and 0.32 s greater decline in time to complete five chair stands (p = .004), but no association with decline in grip strength. CONCLUSIONS Greater magnitude of kyphosis may predict worsening lower extremity function over time in older women. Early recognition and preventative measures against kyphosis progression may help preserve physical function over the long term.
‘I'm just a character in your film’: acting and performance from autism to Zissou

This paper examines the role of the actor in the Anderson frame and considers the function of performance as a theme and strategy as a way of reading Anderson's films. Considering the relationship between mise-en-scène, the camera and the actor, I establish the actor's agency in the construction of character and narrative. Anderson's films construct other ‘frames’ through which to read performance, including performance-within-performance framing devices and the ensemble. Such techniques call attention to performance as performance, self-consciously foregrounding film and performance as a constructed image that is then echoed by a number of Anderson's narratives. The paper goes on to examine the distinctiveness of acting in Anderson's films, particularly via a ‘deadpan’ style that is exhibited facially and vocally. Finally, these areas are brought together via a discussion of performance in relation to the enactment of male social roles in order to argue that what we witness in Anderson's films is less a ‘blankness’ than an autistic performance of emotion.
Bayesian Network-Based Customized Highlight Generation for Broadcast Soccer Videos

Sports highlight generation techniques aim at condensing a full-length video to a significantly shortened version that still preserves the main interesting content of the original video. In this paper, we present the system for automatically generating the highlights from sports TV broadcasts. The proposed system detects exciting clips based on audio features and then classify the individual scenes within the clip into events such as replay, player, referee, spectator, and players gathering. A probabilistic Bayesian belief network based on observed events is used to assign semantic concept-labels to the exciting clips, such as goals, saves, yellow-cards, red-cards, and kicks in soccer video sequences. The labeled clips are selected according to their degree of importance to include in the highlights. We have successfully generated highlights from soccer video sequences.
Finite element interpolation of nonsmooth functions satisfying boundary conditions

In this paper, we propose a modified Lagrange type interpolation operator to approximate functions in Sobolev spaces by continuous piecewise polynomials. In order to define interpolators for "rough" functions and to preserve piecewise polynomial boundary conditions, the approximated functions are averaged appropriately either on dor (d 1)-simplices to generate nodal values for the interpolation operator. This combination of averaging and interpolation is shown to be a projection, and optimal error estimates are proved for the projection error.
Preliminary Evaluation of the Full-Purpose Partnership Schoolwide Model

The full-purpose partnership (FPP) schoolwide model primarily focuses on prevention and early intervention. This model brings the tenets of service coordination directly into the school and focuses efforts to involve families from a strengths perspective before behavioral issues become significant. A preliminary evaluation has shown that this model has a positive impact on the general student population and has identified areas that need improvement to effectively assist students who have or are at risk for behavior disorders. Implications for school, community, and university stakeholders include the development of curricular materials in the form of a toolkit for current and future schools implementing the FPP schoolwide model.
SecureMA: protecting participant privacy in genetic association meta-analysis

MOTIVATION Sharing genomic data is crucial to support scientific investigation such as genome-wide association studies. However, recent investigations suggest the privacy of the individual participants in these studies can be compromised, leading to serious concerns and consequences, such as overly restricted access to data. RESULTS We introduce a novel cryptographic strategy to securely perform meta-analysis for genetic association studies in large consortia. Our methodology is useful for supporting joint studies among disparate data sites, where privacy or confidentiality is of concern. We validate our method using three multisite association studies. Our research shows that genetic associations can be analyzed efficiently and accurately across substudy sites, without leaking information on individual participants and site-level association summaries. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION Our software for secure meta-analysis of genetic association studies, SecureMA, is publicly available at http://github.com/XieConnect/SecureMA. Our customized secure computation framework is also publicly available at http://github.com/XieConnect/CircuitService.
A compression optimization algorithm for community detection

Community detection is important in understanding the structures and functions of complex networks. Many algorithms have been proposed. The most popular algorithms detect the communities through optimizing a criterion function known as modularity, which suffer from the resolution limit problem. Some algorithms require the number of communities as a prior. In this paper, a non-modularity based compression optimization algorithm for community detection is proposed without any prior knowledge, which is efficient and is suitable for large scale networks.
Inhibitory Effects of α-Lipoic Acid on Oxidative Stress-Induced Adipogenesis in Orbital Fibroblasts From Patients With Graves Ophthalmopathy

AbstractA choice of the optimal treatment for Graves ophthalmopathy (GO) is a challenge due to the complexity of the pathogenesis. Alpha-lipoic acid (ALA) is well known as a multifunctional antioxidant, helping to protect cells against oxidative stress and inflammatory damage.The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of ALA on intracellular production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), inflammation, and adipogenesis using primary cultured orbital fibroblasts from patients with GO.Intracellular ROS levels and mRNA expressions of proinflammatory cytokines and chemokines including intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1), interleukin (IL)-6, monocyte chemoattractant protein (MCP)-1, and regulated upon activation normal T cell expressed and presumably secreted (RANTES) were measured. After adipogenesis, the expressions of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR)&ggr;, CCAAT-enhancer-binding proteins (C/EBP)&agr; and &bgr;, and heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) were investigated.H2O2 dose-dependently stimulated ROS production and HO-1 expression. Addition of ALA strongly attenuated ROS production and further increased HO-1 expression. However, by pretreatment of zinc protoporphyrin (ZnPP), HO-1 inhibitor, ALA inhibition of ROS generation by H2O2 was abolished. Tumor necrosis factor (TNF)&agr;-induced mRNA expressions of ICAM-1, IL-6, MCP-1, and RANTES were inhibited by ALA treatment. In this context, TNF&agr;-induced phosphorylation of P65 was also inhibited. In addition, ALA dose-dependently inhibited H2O2-induced intracellular accumulation of lipid droplets. The expression of adipogenic transcription factors, including PPAR&ggr;, C/EBP&agr;, and &bgr;, was also inhibited.ALA is a potential therapeutic agent for GO because of the inhibitory effects on ROS production and gene expression of proinflammatory cytokines and chemokines, resulting in prevention of adipose-tissue expansion.
Study of Genetic Algorithms Behavior for High Epitasis and High Dimensional Deceptive Functions

Optimization is a widespread notion: a large number of concrete problems require, during the solving process, optimizing a set of parameters (or variables) with respect to a given objective function (or fitness function). These variables can take integer or real values. Such problems for which variables can only take integer values, are called combinatorial optimization problems. This paper focuses on combinatorial optimization problems. The set of all possible combinations of values for the variables of the problem represents the search space of the problem. Constraint combinatorial optimization problems that is problems which define a set of constraints on the variables enabling a part of the search space are not considered here. Global combinatorial optimization problems for which the whole search space is available – are the main focus. In a large number of real problems, in particular in bioinformatics, the objective function is partially or entirely unknown. In this contest, it is however possible to calculate the value of the function in each point of the search space. This kind of problem is called a “black box” problem. Classical techniques of operations research are weakly or not at all fitted to black box problems. Consequently, evolutionist approaches of heuristic exploration strategies, have been developed specifically for black box problems. We are particularly interested in the complexity of such problems and in the efficiency of evolutionist methods to solve them.
Depressive Symptoms and Sleep Disturbance in Adults with Histories of Childhood Abuse

Abstract Depressive symptoms including sleep disturbance are clinically apparent in many patients with histories of childhood abuse. This study investigated the nature and severity of depressive symptoms, sleep disturbance, and trauma-related symptoms in a group of female participants with abuse histories, as compared to a non-abused group of female participants with major depression. Sixty (60) participants with a history of childhood abuse and 13 participants with major depression completed several self-report instruments which examine past life experiences, depressive symptoms, post-traumatic symptoms, dissociative symptoms, and sleep problems. To control for differences in background characteristics, a subset of participants with abuse histories were matched to and compared with the 13 depressed participants. Both the abused and depressed groups showed high levels of depressive symptoms, but there were no significant differences between the groups. The abused group had significantly more intrusive post-traumatic symptoms, more dissociative symptoms, and were more likely to be afraid of falling asleep and more anxious upon mid-sleep awakening. Severity of depressive symptoms in the abused group was correlated with severity of intrusive post-traumatic symptomatology. The investigators conclude that symptoms of major depression in some patients with abuse histories may have a post-traumatic etiology, especially since intrusive reexperi-encing of past trauma may produce severe dysphoria and hopelessness. The nature of sleep disturbance in patients with abuse histories may be a clinical tool to identify patients whose depressive symptoms may be post-traumatic in origin.
A Survey of Associate Models used within Large Software Ecosystems

Associate models are powerful tools for large software ecosys- tem orchestrators to manage clusters within its ecosystem. At present, however, it remains unclear how these associate models are used in prac- tice and of what elements such models consist. Without an overview of what associate models consist of, the concept of software ecosystem or- chestration will remain elusive. In this paper, a conceptual overview is presented that describes the structure of an ecosystem associate model. The conceptual overview consists of the roles fullled by the participant within the associate commitment, including the dimension of the role as well as resulting benets, requirements and costs. Furthermore, the conceptual overview enables a categorization into dierent forms of asso- ciate model governance, entry barriers and goals for the three respective models. With the conceptual overview, software ecosystem orchestrators can develop their own associate models and attain insight into the forces that are at play in their own software ecosystem.
The Benefits of Bimodal Hearing: Effect of Frequency Region and Acoustic Bandwidth

We examined the effects of acoustic bandwidth on bimodal benefit for speech recognition in adults with a cochlear implant (CI) in one ear and low-frequency acoustic hearing in the contralateral ear. The primary aims were to (1) replicate Zhang et al. [Ear Hear 2010;31:63-69] with a steeper filter roll-off to examine the low-pass bandwidth required to obtain bimodal benefit for speech recognition and expand results to include different signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) and talker genders, (2) determine whether the bimodal benefit increased with acoustic low-pass bandwidth and (3) determine whether an equivalent bimodal benefit was obtained with acoustic signals of similar low-pass and pass band bandwidth, but different center frequencies. Speech recognition was assessed using words presented in quiet and sentences in noise (+10, +5 and 0 dB SNRs). Acoustic stimuli presented to the nonimplanted ear were filtered into the following bands: <125, 125-250, <250, 250-500, <500, 250-750, <750 Hz and wide-band (full, nonfiltered bandwidth). The primary findings were: (1) the minimum acoustic low-pass bandwidth that produced a significant bimodal benefit was <250 Hz for male talkers in quiet and for female talkers in multitalker babble, but <125 Hz for male talkers in background noise, and the observed bimodal benefit did not vary significantly with SNR; (2) the bimodal benefit increased systematically with acoustic low-pass bandwidth up to <750 Hz for a male talker in quiet and female talkers in noise and up to <500 Hz for male talkers in noise, and (3) a similar bimodal benefit was obtained with low-pass and band-pass-filtered stimuli with different center frequencies (e.g. <250 vs. 250-500 Hz), meaning multiple frequency regions contain useful cues for bimodal benefit. Clinical implications are that (1) all aidable frequencies should be amplified in individuals with bimodal hearing, and (2) verification of audibility at 125 Hz is unnecessary unless it is the only aidable frequency.
Role of SarA in Virulence Determinant Production and Environmental Signal Transduction in Staphylococcus aureus

ABSTRACT The staphylococcal accessory regulator (encoded bysarA) is an important global regulator of virulence factor biosynthesis in Staphylococcus aureus. To further characterize its role in virulence determinant production, ansarA knockout mutant was created by insertion of a kanamycin antibiotic resistance cassette into the sarAgene. N-terminal sequencing of exoproteins down-regulated bysarA identified several putative proteases, including a V8 serine protease and a novel metalloprotease, as the major extracellular proteins repressed by sarA. In kinetic studies, thesarA mutation delays the onset of α-hemolysin (encoded byhla) expression and reduces levels of hla to approximately 40% of the parent strain level. Furthermore, SarA plays a role in signal transduction in response to microaerobic growth since levels of hla were much lower in a microaerobic environment than after aerobic growth in the sarA mutant. An exoprotein exhibiting hemolysin activity on sheep blood, and up-regulated bysarA independently of the accessory gene regulator (encoded by agr), was specifically induced microaerobically. Transcriptional gene fusion and Western analysis revealed thatsarA up-regulates both toxic shock syndrome toxin 1 gene (tst) expression and staphylococcal enterotoxin B production, respectively. This study demonstrates the role ofsarA as a signal transduction regulatory component in response to aeration stimuli and suggests that sarAfunctions as a major repressor of protease activity. The possible role of proteases as regulators of virulence determinant stability is discussed.
A Semantic Approach for Document Clustering

Conventional document mining systems mainly use the presence or absence of keywords to mine texts. However, simple word counting and frequency distributions of term appearances do not capture the meaning behind the words, which results in limiting the ability to mine the texts. In this paper, the application of a semantic understanding-based approach to mine documents is presented. The approach is based on semantic notions to represent text, and to measure similarity between text documents. The representation scheme reflects existing relations between concepts and facilitates accurate similarity measurements that result in better mining performance. A document mining process, namely semantic document clustering, is investigated and tackled in various ways. The proposed representation scheme along with the proposed similarity measure were implemented as vital components of a mining system. The approach has enabled more effective document clustering than what conventional techniques would provide. The experimental work is reported, and its results are presented and analyzed.
Mood disturbance in pregnancy and the mode of delivery.

OBJECTIVE In prior studies, mood disturbance has been associated with poor obstetric outcomes. The purpose of this study was to determine whether depression during pregnancy is associated with a higher frequency of cesarean or assisted vaginal delivery. STUDY DESIGN A mood disorders questionnaire, which included the standardized Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), was offered to all antenatal patients in their early third trimester from January 1996 to December 1999 at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Maternal demographics and pregnancy outcome data were collected from a computerized database on 1697 patients who completed the surveys. A CES-D score of 16 or higher was considered to indicate significant depressive symptoms. Rates of cesarean section and assisted vaginal delivery in women with and without scores of 16 or higher were compared by using the chi(2) test. RESULTS Of the study population, 264 women (15.6%) had CES-D scores of 16 or higher. Among all subjects, the cesarean section rate was 24.0%, and the assisted vaginal delivery rate was 10.0%. There was no statistically significant difference between the rate of cesarean section (26.5% vs 23.6%) or assisted vaginal delivery (8.0% vs 10.4%) in women with and without elevated CES-D scores (P =.34). These findings did not change when nulliparous and multiparous patients were analyzed separately, when the definition of patients at risk for depression was expanded to include women who indicated current or past use of antidepressants or when the cutoff CES-D score criteria was increased to 19 or 25. With our sample size, an alpha =. 05 and a beta =. 2, we had the power to detect a 7.5% difference between our two groups. CONCLUSION Data from this study did not support a relationship between depressive symptoms during pregnancy and mode of delivery.
Simulating the geodynamo

Three-dimensional numerical simulations of convection and magnetic field generation in the Earth's core now span several hundred thousand years; the magnetic field created during most of this time has an intensity, structure and time dependence similar to the present geomagnetic field. Five models are described here. The first is a homogeneous Boussinesq model, driven steadily by heat sources on the inner core boundary. At about 36 000 years into the simulation, a reversal of the dipole moment occurs that resembles those seen in the paleomagnetic reversal record. The four subsequent models are inhomogeneous, that is they allow for the varying properties of the Earth with depth. They are also evolutionary, in that they are powered by the secular cooling of the Earth over geological time. This cooling causes the inner core to grow through freezing, with the concomitant release at the inner core boundary of not only latent heat of crystallization but also light constituents of core fluid that provide respect.