Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of parent training vs parent education on behavioral problems in children with autism spectrum disorder: a randomized clinical trial.

IMPORTANCE Disruptive behavior is common in children with autism spectrum disorder. Behavioral interventions are used to treat disruptive behavior but have not been evaluated in large-scale randomized trials. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the efficacy of parent training for children with autism spectrum disorder and disruptive behavior. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS This 24-week randomized trial compared parent training (n = 89) to parent education (n = 91) at 6 centers (Emory University, Indiana University, Ohio State University, University of Pittsburgh, University of Rochester, Yale University). We screened 267 children; 180 children (aged 3-7 years) with autism spectrum disorder and disruptive behaviors were randomly assigned (86% white, 88% male) between September 2010 and February 2014. INTERVENTIONS Parent training (11 core, 2 optional sessions; 2 telephone boosters; 2 home visits) provided specific strategies to manage disruptive behavior. Parent education (12 core sessions, 1 home visit) provided information about autism but no behavior management strategies. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Parents rated disruptive behavior and noncompliance on co-primary outcomes: the Aberrant Behavior Checklist-Irritability subscale (range, 0-45) and the Home Situations Questionnaire-Autism Spectrum Disorder (range, 0-9). On both measures, higher scores indicate greater severity and a 25% reduction indicates clinical improvement. A clinician blind to treatment assignment rated the Improvement scale of the Clinical Global Impression (range, 1-7), a secondary outcome, with a positive response less than 3. RESULTS At week 24, the Aberrant Behavior Checklist-Irritability subscale declined 47.7% in parent training (from 23.7 to 12.4) compared with 31.8% for parent education (23.9 to 16.3) (treatment effect, -3.9; 95% CI, -6.2 to -1.7; P < .001, standardized effect size = 0.62). The Home Situations Questionnaire-Autism Spectrum Disorder declined 55% (from 4.0 to 1.8) compared with 34.2% in parent education (3.8 to 2.5) (treatment effect, -0.7; 95% CI, -1.1 to -0.3; P < .001, standardized effect size = 0.45). Neither measure met the prespecified minimal clinically important difference. The proportions with a positive response on the Clinical Global Impression-Improvement scale were 68.5% for parent training vs 39.6% for parent education (P < .001). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE For children with autism spectrum disorder, a 24-week parent training program was superior to parent education for reducing disruptive behavior on parent-reported outcomes, although the clinical significance of the improvement is unclear. The rate of positive response judged by a blinded clinician was greater for parent training vs parent education. TRIAL REGISTRATION clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT01233414.
Fecal Microbial Diversity in a Strict Vegetarian as Determined by Molecular Analysis and Cultivation

Fecal microbial diversity in a strictly vegetarian woman was determined by the 16S rDNA library method, terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T‐RFLP) analysis and a culture‐based method. The 16S rDNA library was generated from extracted fecal DNA, using bacteria‐specific primers. Randomly selected clones were partially sequenced. T‐RFLP analysis was performed using amplified 16S rDNA. The lengths of T‐RF were analyzed after digestion by HhaI and MspI. The cultivated bacterial isolates were used for partial sequencing of 16S rDNA. Among 183 clones obtained, approximately 29% of the clones belonged to 13 known species. About 71% of the remaining clones were novel “phylotypes” (at least 98% similarity of clone sequence). A total of 55 species or phylotypes were identified among the 16S rDNA library, while the cultivated isolates included 22 species or phylotypes. In addition, many new phylotypes were detected from the 16S rDNA library. The 16S rDNA library and isolates commonly included the Bacteroides group, Bifidobacterium group, and Clostridium rRNA clusters IV, XIVa, XVI and XVIII. T‐RFLP analysis revealed the major composition of the vegetarian gut microbiota were Clostridium rRNA subcluster XIVa and Clostridium rRNA cluster XVIII. The dominant feature of this strictly vegetarian gut microbiota was the detection of many Clostridium rRNA subcluster XIVa and C. ramosum (Clostridium rRNA cluster XVIII).
Image Compression Using Advanced Optimization Algorithms

—In this paper, a new image compression technique that uses three-dimensional Discrete Cosine Transform and relies on Two-Dimensional Discrete Wavelet Transform, for image classification, is proposed. The proposed technique utilizes a modified quantization table and a method for converting a three-dimensional image cube into a onedimensional array, which provides better coding efficiency in the run length coding step. To ensure faster performance, the proposed technique uses parallel computation-based algorithms. The first one utilizes computations parallelization process using SPMD (Single Program Multiple Data) and the other method utilizes Graphics Processor Unit (GPU) programming with CUDA language. Several images have been used to test the proposed algorithm. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm outperforms previous compression methods in terms of Peak-Signal-to-Noise Ratio with a lower compression bit rate.
Increasing arboreality with altitude: a novel biogeographic dimension

Biodiversity is spatially organized by climatic gradients across elevation and latitude. But do other gradients exist that might drive biogeographic patterns? Here, we show that rainforest's vertical strata provide climatic gradients much steeper than those offered by elevation and latitude, and biodiversity of arboreal species is organized along this gradient. In Philippine and Singaporean rainforests, we demonstrate that rainforest frogs tend to shift up in the rainforest strata as altitude increases. Moreover, a Philippine-wide dataset of frog distributions shows that frog assemblages become increasingly arboreal at higher elevations. Thus, increased arboreality with elevation at broad biogeographic scales mirrors patterns we observed at local scales. Our proposed ‘arboreality hypothesis’ suggests that the ability to exploit arboreal habitats confers the potential for larger geographical distributions because species can shift their location in the rainforest strata to compensate for shifts in temperature associated with elevation and latitude. This novel finding may help explain patterns of species richness and abundance wherever vegetation produces a vertical microclimatic gradient. Our results further suggest that global warming will ‘flatten’ the biodiversity in rainforests by pushing arboreal species towards the cooler and wetter ground. This ‘flattening’ could potentially have serious impacts on forest functioning and species survival.
Induction of endogenous human cytomegalovirus gene expression after differentiation of monocytes from healthy carriers

Monocytes are one site of carriage of the human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) genome in healthy human carriers. However, as there are conflicting data detailing the level of HCMV gene expression during persistence in these cells, we have analyzed monocytes for evidence of viral immediate-early, early, and late transcription by using reverse transcription followed by PCR. We were unable to find evidence of HCMV lytic gene transcription in freshly isolated peripheral blood monocytes from HCMV-seropositive subjects. However, as differentiation of monocytes to monocyte-derived macrophages results in increased permissiveness to infection with HCMV in vitro, we examined whether such differentiation could result in reactivation of endogenous viral gene expression. Here we show that in vitro differentiation of monocytes does result in expression of endogenous HCMV immediate-early genes. Although this differentiation led to reactivation of endogenous viral immediate-early expression, we were unable to detect any early or late viral transcription. Cocultivation experiments correlated with this level of gene induction, as no productive infection was detected. These data strongly suggest a mechanism of persistence of HCMV in the peripheral blood that is independent of HCMV lytic gene expression and that initial phases of lytic gene expression in monocytes can be induced by differentiation of these cells to monocyte-derived macrophages.
An AER handshake-less modular infrastructure PCB with x8 2.5Gbps LVDS serial links

Nowadays spike-based brain processing emulation is taking off. Several EU and others worldwide projects are demonstrating this, like SpiNNaker, BrainScaleS, FACETS, or NeuroGrid. The larger the brain process emulation on silicon is, the higher the communication performance of the hosting platforms has to be. Many times the bottleneck of these system implementations is not on the performance inside a chip or a board, but in the communication between boards. This paper describes a novel modular Address-Event-Representation (AER) FPGA-based (Spartan6) infrastructure PCB (the AER-Node board) with 2.5Gbps LVDS high speed serial links over SATA cables that offers a peak performance of 32-bit 62.5Meps (Mega events per second) on board-to-board communications. The board allows back compatibility with parallel AER devices supporting up to x2 28-bit parallel data with asynchronous handshake. These boards also allow modular expansion functionality through several daughter boards. The paper is focused on describing in detail the LVDS serial interface and presenting its performance.
Phenotypic effects of the Y chromosome are variable and structured in hybrids among house mouse recombinant lines

Abstract Hybrid zones between divergent populations sieve genomes into blocks that introgress across the zone, and blocks that do not, depending on selection between interacting genes. Consistent with Haldane's rule, the Y chromosome has been considered counterselected and hence not to introgress across the European house mouse hybrid zone. However, recent studies detected massive invasion of M. m. musculus Y chromosomes into M. m. domesticus territory. To understand mechanisms facilitating Y spread, we created 31 recombinant lines from eight wild‐derived strains representing four localities within the two mouse subspecies. These lines were reciprocally crossed and resulting F1 hybrid males scored for five phenotypic traits associated with male fitness. Molecular analyses of 51 Y‐linked SNPs attributed ~50% of genetic variation to differences between the subspecies and 8% to differentiation within both taxa. A striking proportion, 21% (frequencies of sperm head abnormalities) and 42% (frequencies of sperm tail dissociations), of phenotypic variation was explained by geographic Y chromosome variants. Our crossing design allowed this explanatory power to be examined across a hierarchical scale from subspecific to local intrastrain effects. We found that divergence and variation were expressed diversely in different phenotypic traits and varied across the whole hierarchical scale. This finding adds another dimension of complexity to studies of Y introgression not only across the house mouse hybrid zone but potentially also in other contact zones.
Using team-based learning to prepare medical students for future problem-based learning

Background: The original concept of problem-based learning (PBL) was built upon an acceptance that its participants would be of a more mature age, and with personal and potential qualities that would equip them for problem solving as part of their learning process. However, despite global acceptance for the use of PBL in medical and health sciences education, and knowledge of the diverse background of students about to embark upon PBL, structured programs preparing medical students for such an educational activity are not common. Aim: The primary aim of this study is to describe the experience in adopting and adapting an educational approach analogous to PBL, team-based learning (TBL), in preparing medical students to later study in a PBL environment and secondarily, to measure the students’ reaction to this experience. Methods: At the University of Sharjah, 363 students were enrolled over four semesters in the ‘Introduction to Medical Sciences Education (IMSE)’ course. They were divided into groups of 25–27 students per class, where their learning was facilitated through a TBL approach. The course was evaluated both quantitatively and qualitatively and appropriate statistical analysis was applied to their responses. Results: Out of 363 students, 304 (84%) responded to a 28-item closed-ended questionnaire. Their mean scores and consensus measurements indicated a high degree of students’ satisfaction. Eighty-two students (65%) responded to the open-ended questions providing 139 comments. Content analysis of the responses supported the quantitative results. Conclusion: This study demonstrated a high degree of students’ satisfaction from the course in acquiring skills preparing them for future PBL. Although this represents an evaluation of the TBL effects upon the early exposures to PBL, TBL was considered to be a feasible, efficient and cost-effective educational approach in preparing the students for their new educational experience.
Color Selectivity of the Spatial Congruency Effect: Evidence from the Focused Attention Paradigm

ABSTRACT The multisensory response enhancement (MRE), occurring when the response to a visual target integrated with a spatially congruent sound is stronger than the response to the visual target alone, is believed to be mediated by the superior colliculus (SC) (Stein & Meredith, 1993). Here, we used a focused attention paradigm to show that the spatial congruency effect occurs with red (SC-effective) but not blue (SC-ineffective) visual stimuli, when presented with spatially congruent sounds. To isolate the chromatic component of SC-ineffective targets and to demonstrate the selectivity of the spatial congruency effect we used the random luminance modulation technique (Experiment 1) and the tritanopic technique (Experiment 2). Our results indicate that the spatial congruency effect does not require the distribution of attention over different sensory modalities and provide correlational evidence that the SC mediates the effect.
A method for driving event detection using SAX on smartphone sensors

Drivers errors such as careless and aggressive driving behaviors are one of the key factors contributing to road traffic accidents. It is, therefore, essential that drivers are aware of their actions when they are in control of the wheel responsible for not only their own lives but also passengers and bystanders on the road. Driver monitoring and advanced driver assistance systems have already been utilized in fleet and logistic domain as well as built into high end vehicles. However, the majority of drivers on the road today do not have access to such systems. This paper proposes a novel methodology of driving events detection using a time series approximation algorithm known as SAX on data collected from smartphone sensors. The use of smartphone allows the system to be easily accessible, widely available and implemented at low cost. Preliminary results from our experiments revealed that the precision of the proposed detection algorithm of aggressive driving events is fairly good as the precision values range from 50% to 66.67%. Further improvements can be made as our future work on the detection rate of the proposed algorithm as the detection rates reported range from 25% to 37.5%.
Lattice Boltzmann Method for Spacecraft Propellant Slosh Simulation

10; small perturbations only • Flows dominated by surface tension; curved interfaces; fluid-wall contact angles approximately zero • Many semi-analytical or empirical methods that correlate well with theory rely on quasi-steady-state parameters and cannot accurately predict effects of transient flows, e.g. throttling, thruster pulses • Momentum transfer due to fluid must be computed accurately for simulation-based verification ♦
Communication of BRCA Results and Family Testing in 1,103 High-Risk Women

Background: Genetic testing for hereditary cancer risk has implications for individuals and families. This study of women at risk of hereditary breast and ovarian cancer examines communication of BRCA results and subsequent genetic testing in the family. Methods: We surveyed 1,103 female BRCA testers at two hospitals, querying for communication of results and testing in relatives. Results: Ninety-seven percent of participants communicated BRCA results with at least one relative. Communication was negatively associated with older age [odds ratio (OR), 0.66 per decade; 95% confidence interval, (95% CI), 0.4–0.9], Asian race (OR, 0.18; 95% CI, 0.06–0.5), and testing at the public hospital versus the cancer center (OR, 0.19; 95% CI, 0.07–0.5). Communication was positively associated with increased knowledge of hereditary breast and ovarian cancer screening and risk reduction recommendations (OR, 1.9; 95% CI, 1.1–3.4) and increased satisfaction with the decision to BRCA test (OR, 2.6; 95% CI, 1.6–4.0). Seventy-five percent of BRCA-positive participants reported that at least one relative pursued genetic testing. Family testing was negatively associated with Asian race (OR, 0.15; 95% CI, 0.02–0.8) and positively associated with increased socioeconomic status (OR, 1.4; 95% CI, 1.1–1.7) and increased satisfaction with decision (OR, 2.1; 95% CI, 1.1–4.1). Conclusion: Despite high overall rates of communicating BRCA results, underserved and some minority women seem less likely to inform relatives of their BRCA status or have relatives test for a known family mutation. Satisfaction with the decision to BRCA test is positively associated with both outcomes. Impact: This study identified several novel predictors of family communication and family genetic testing in a large population of high-risk women. This work can inform clinicians interested in improving family communication regarding cancer predisposition testing. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 19(9); 2211–9. ©2010 AACR.
Design, privacy and authentication of challenge questions in online examinations

Online examination is an essential part of the online learning and secure authentication is considered vital for the success of online learning. This study is part of an ongoing research on student authentication approaches and the use of challenge questions in online examination authentication. This paper presents the results of an empirical study based on “Profile Based Authentication Framework” (PBAF), which uses challenge questions for student authentication in online examination. The PBAF uses challenge questions related to personal, academic and professional information. These questions inform the usability, security and privacy of PBAF authentication approach. The results presented here summarizes the impact of questions design on the usability based on data collected from challenge questions authentication and a post-experiment survey on the data privacy.
Block Turbo Code and its Application to OFDM for Wireless Local Area Network

To overcome multipath fading and Inter symbol Interference (ISI), in convolutional single carrier systems equalizers are used. But it increases the system complexity. Another approach is to use a multicarrier modulation technique such as OFDM, where the data stream to be transmitted is divided into several lower rate data streams each being modulated on a subcarrier. To avoid ISI, a small interval, known as the guard time interval, is inserted into OFDM symbols. The length of the guard time interval is chosen to exceed the channel delay spread. Therefore, OFDM can combat the multipath fading and eliminate ISI almost completely. The another problem is the reduction of the error rate in transmitting digital data. For that we use error correcting Codes in the design of digital transmission systems. Turbo Codes have been widely considered to be the most powerful error control code of practical importance. Turbo codes can be achieved by serial or parallel concatenation of two (or more) codes called the constituent codes. The constituent codes can be either block codes or convolutional codes. Currently, most of the work on turbo codes have essentially focused on Convolutional Turbo Code (CTC)s and Block Turbo Code (BTC)s have been partially neglected. Yet, the BTC solution is more attractive for a wide range of applications. In this paper, Block Turbo Codes or Turbo Product Codes are used which is similar to the IEEE 802.11a WLAN standard. In this thesis work simple explanation of BTCOFDM theory is given. The BER performance is evaluated for the Block Turbo coded BPSK and QPSK OFDM system, under both AWGN channel and Rayleigh fading channel. It also compares the BER performance of Block Turbo coded OFDM with the uncoded OFDM. It is verified in the present work that the BTCOFDM system with 4 iterations is sufficient to provide a good BER performance. Additional number of iterations does not show noticeable difference. The simulation results shows that the BTCOFDM system achieves large coding gain with lower BER performance and reduced decoding iterations, therefore offering higher data rate in wireless mobile communications.
A method for recovering physiological components from dynamic radionuclide images using the maximum entropy principle: a numerical investigation

The method does not require any assumption about the shapes of the components curves. It is, however, assumed that the components are nonnegative. The method requires normalization of component curves. The sum of squares of each component curve to be estimated is normalized so as to be unity. A first-pass cardiac study and a hepatic study are selected for investigation of applicability of the method. The method is investigated numerically using computer-generated time-activity curves with six components for the cardiac study and seven components for the hepatic study. Within the regions studied, the results demonstrate that the method can recover the component time-activity curves and the corresponding images of physiological components from a sequence of dynamic radionuclide images. The ability of the method to recover physiological components and its limitations are discussed, and potential applications are suggested. <<ETX>>