Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Home Food Environment, Dietary Intake, and Weight among Overweight and Obese Children in Southern Appalachia

Objectives This study examined the relation of multiple aspects of the home food environment to dietary intake and body weight among overweight and obese children in southern Appalachia. Methods The study used baseline data from a cluster-randomized controlled trial, Parent-Led Activity and Nutrition for Healthy Living, evaluating a parent-mediated approach to treating child overweight and obesity in the primary care setting in southern Appalachia. Sixty-seven children ages 5 to 11 years were recruited from four primary care clinics. Multiple linear regression was used to estimate the relation between multiple aspects of the home food environment to dietary intake (fruit and vegetable intake, fat and sweets intake), and standardized body mass index (zBMI), adjusted for baseline family characteristics (education, smoking status during the past month, BMI) and child characteristics (sex, age, Medicaid/TennCare). Results Findings showed greater parental restriction and pressure in feeding were associated with greater fruit and vegetable intake in children (&bgr; = 0.33, &bgr; = 0.30, respectively; both P < 0.05). The availability of chips and sweets in a child’s home and parental inappropriate modeling of eating were associated with an increased risk for consumption of fats and sweets by children (&bgr; = 0.47, &bgr; = 0.54, respectively; both P < 0.01). Parental monitoring of the child’s eating was associated with a reduced risk for fat and sweets intake (&bgr; = −0.24; P < 0.01). Finally, parental responsibility for feeding the child was associated with lower zBMI (&bgr; = −0.20; P < 0.05). Conclusions The home food environment, including food availability and parenting behaviors, was associated with overweight and obese children’s dietary intake and weight. This study adds to evidence suggesting that programs aimed at improving overweight and obese children’s eating patterns may target both aspects of the physical home environment and parental behaviors surrounding eating.
Associations between symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, depression, and suicide in Korean female adolescents

The objective of this study was to examine the associations between symptoms of attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), depression, and suicide in Korean female adolescents. It was hypothesized that the relationship between ADHD symptoms and suicidal ideation would be mediated by the level of depressive symptoms. Seven hundred and eighty‐eight high school girls completed the Conners/Wells Adolescent Self‐Report Scale: Short Form, Children's Depression Inventory, and Reynolds Suicidal Ideation Questionnaire. Path analyses were conducted using the statistical program, AMOS version 4.0, to determine the best fitting model. The conduct, cognitive, and hyperactivity problems of the ADHD symptoms in each domain were associated positively with the depressive symptoms, with the depressive symptoms being associated with suicidal ideation. This initially proposed model represented an acceptable fit to the data (root mean square error of approximation, RMSEA=0.077; normed fit index, NFI=0.998; non‐NFI, NNFI=0.990; comparative fit index, CFI=0.998). The inclusion of a direct path from the conduct problems of ADHD symptoms to suicidal ideation significantly improved the model fit (RMSEA=0, NFI=1, NNFI=1, CFI=1). The results of our study suggest that depressive symptoms partially mediate the relationship between ADHD symptoms and suicidal ideation, and that the conduct problems of ADHD symptoms are associated with suicidal ideation both directly and indirectly via the depressive symptoms in Korean female adolescents. Depression and Anxiety, 2008. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
OBSERVABILITY-BASED SAMPLING AND ESTIMATION OF FLOWFIELDS USING MULTI-SENSOR SYSTEMS

Title of dissertation: OBSERVABILITY-BASED SAMPLING AND ESTIMATION OF FLOWFIELDS USING MULTI-SENSOR SYSTEMS Levi D. DeVries, Doctor of Philosophy, 2014 Dissertation directed by: Professor Derek A. Paley Department of Aerospace Engineering The long-term goal of this research is to optimize estimation of an unknown flowfield using an autonomous multi-vehicle or multi-sensor system. The specific research objective is to provide theoretically justified, nonlinear control, estimation, and optimization techniques enabling a group of sensors to coordinate their motion to target measurements that improve observability of the surrounding environment, even when the environment is unknown. Measures of observability provide an optimization metric for multi-agent control algorithms that avoid spatial regions of the domain prone to degraded or ill-conditioned estimation performance, thereby improving closed-loop control performance when estimated quantities are used in feedback control. The control, estimation, and optimization framework is applied to three applications of multi-agent flowfield sensing including (1) environmental sampling of strong flowfields using multiple autonomous unmanned vehicles, (2) wake sensing and observability-based optimal control for two-aircraft formation flight, and (3) bio-inspired flow sensing and control of an autonomous unmanned underwater vehicle. For environmental sampling, this dissertation presents an adaptive sampling algorithm steering a multi-vehicle system to sampling formations that improve flowfield observability while simultaneously estimating the flow for use in feedback control, even in strong flows where vehicle motion is hindered. The resulting closed-loop trajectories provide more informative measurements, improving estimation performance. For formation flight, this dissertation uses lifting-line theory to represent a two-aircraft formation and derives optimal control strategies steering the follower aircraft to a desired position relative to the leader while simultaneously optimizing the observability of the leader’s relative position. The control algorithms guide the follower aircraft to a desired final position along trajectories that maintain adequate observability and avoid areas prone to estimator divergence. Toward bio-inspired flow sensing, this dissertation presents an observability-based sensor placement strategy optimizing measures of flowfield observability and derives dynamic output-feedback control algorithms autonomously steering an underwater vehicle to bio-inspired behavior using a multi-modal artificial lateral line. Beyond these applications, the broader impact of this research is a general framework for using observability to assess and optimize experimental design and nonlinear control and estimation performance. OBSERVABILITY-BASED SAMPLING AND ESTIMATION OF FLOWFIELDS USING MULTI-SENSOR SYSTEMS
Motion control with strokes

We present a novel interface for interactive and intuitive motion control of human figures. By drawing a stroke on the screen using a pen or a mouse, a user of our system can make virtual human figures perform various types of motions. An important feature of ‘stroke’ is that it has initial and terminal points. With a single stroke, users can specify the source and target of an action at the same time. An appropriate action is determined based on single stroke and the context. For example, by drawing a stroke from the foot of a character to a ball, the character kicks the ball. By drawing a stroke from a prop to one of the character's hands, the character takes the prop with the specified hand. By drawing a stroke from a character to any point on the ground, the character walks to the specified position. First, we categorize selectable objects into some types. The motions are then described using combinations of the defined types. We also detail the implementation of our system and the methods for motion generation, and finally we discuss some issues based on experiments with the implemented system. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Psychometric properties of the Test of Everyday Attention for Children in Greek-speaking school children

The present study aimed at exploring the psychometric properties of the Test of Everyday Attention for Children (TEA-Ch) in normally developing Greek-speaking school population (6–12 years old). TEA-Ch is an assessment that captures the multidimensional nature of the developing attentional system with child-friendly test tasks. The sample consisted of 174 Greek-speaking primary school children of both genders (N = 88 girls). Children were assessed individually using the TEA-Ch and two tasks (Vocabulary and Working Memory) from the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-3rd edition (WISC-III)-Greek Version. Confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to examine the factorial validity of the TEA-Ch in the Greek-speaking population. The results verified both a two-factor (attentional control/switching and sustained attention) and a theory-driven three-factor structure of the TEA-Ch, namely selective attention, attentional control/switching and sustained attention. Moreover, the weak correlations of TEA-Ch tasks with vocabulary and working memory tasks provide evidence for its divergent validity and its usefulness as an additional measure of abilities that are not captured by well-known conventional intelligence tasks. Furthermore, TEA-Ch appears to be an age-sensitive assessment tool.
Exploring Awareness Related Messaging Through Two Situated-Display-Based Systems

ABSTRACT This article focuses on our exploration of awareness issues through the design and long-term deployment of two systems: the Hermes office door display system (which enabled staff in a university department to post awareness messages to their door displays) and SPAM (a messaging system for supporting coordination between staff at two associated residential community care facilities). In the case of both systems, a significant number of the messages sent could be classified as relating to awareness. Furthermore, with both systems, the situatedness of displays (outside office doors in the case of Hermes and in staff offices in the case of SPAM) had a significant impact on the design and subsequent use of the deployed systems. In particular, the placement of displays provided significant context for awareness messages, including, for example, the identity of the sender of the message and the intended audience of the message. Both systems highlight the need for interaction methods that fit in with both normal working practices (and unplanned events) and that enable the user to manage communication channels. The need for appropriate levels of expressiveness and user control is also apparent: We present numerous examples of users controlling the precision of awareness information and sending awareness messages that have as much to do with playfulness as supporting coordination through activity awareness. This work is funded by the EPSRC funded CASIDE project (grant EP/C005589). The work also builds on work carried out under the EPSRC-funded Equator and CASCO projects. For links to these projects and related work, see http://www.hcibook. com/alan/papers/exploring-awareness-2007/
Symbolic Execution with Interval Solving and Meta-heuristic Search

A challenging problem in symbolic execution is to solve complex mathematical constraints such as constraints that include floating-point variables and transcendental functions. The inability to solve such constraints limit the application scope of symbolic execution. In this paper, we present a new method to solve such complex math constraints. Our method combines two existing: meta-heuristic search and interval solving. Conceptually, the combination explores the synergy of the individual methods to improve constraint solving. We implemented the new method in the CORAL constraint-solving infrastructure, and evaluated its effectiveness on a set of publicly-available software from the aerospace domain. Results indicate that the new method can solve significantly more complex mathematical constraints than previous techniques.
Final Report: Compliant Thermo- Mechanical MEMS Actuators LDRD #52553

Thermal actuators have proven to be a robust actuation method in surface-micromachined MEMS processes. Their higher output force and lower input voltage make them an attractive alternative to more traditional electrostatic actuation methods. A predictive model of thermal actuator behavior has been developed and validated that can be used as a design tool to customize the performance of an actuator to a specific application. This tool has also been used to better understand thermal actuator reliability by comparing the maximum actuator temperature to the measured lifetime. Modeling thermal actuator behavior requires the use of two sequentially coupled models, the first to predict the temperature increase of the actuator due to the applied current and the second to model the mechanical response of the structure due to the increase in temperature. These two models have been developed using Matlab for the thermal response and ANSYS for the structural response. Both models have been shown to agree well with experimental data. In a parallel effort, the reliability and failure mechanisms of thermal actuators have been studied. Their response to electrical overstress and electrostatic discharge has been measured and a study has been performed to determine actuator lifetime at various temperatures and operatingmore » conditions. The results from this study have been used to determine a maximum reliable operating temperature that, when used in conjunction with the predictive model, enables us to design in reliability and customize the performance of an actuator at the design stage. « less
Unsupervised figure-ground segmentation using edge detection and game-theoretical graph-cut approach

Figure-ground segmentation is to separate the object from background. It can be used in object detection or many other applications. Recently, a lot of methods have been proposed for solving figure-ground segmentation problems. However, most of them are supervised approaches. In other words, those methods need some interactions of users. It makes those methods unfavorable. For example, Graph-Cut needs users to select a part of foreground and background to be foreground seeds and background seeds. A graph and min-cut theory is used to separate the foreground from the image. We proposed an unsupervised figure-ground approach. It uses an edge-based method to grab required information for Graph-Cut. Then, we use game-theoretical Graph-Cut to divide the image into foreground and background. According to our experiment results, our method does not need user interaction and performs very well compared with the previous Graph-Cut method.
Changes in Cortical Plasticity Across the Lifespan

Deterioration of motor and cognitive performance with advancing age is well documented, but its cause remains unknown. Animal studies dating back to the late 1970s reveal that age-associated neurocognitive changes are linked to age-dependent changes in synaptic plasticity, including alterations of long-term potentiation and depression (LTP and LTD). Non-invasive brain stimulation techniques enable measurement of LTP- and LTD-like mechanisms of plasticity, in vivo, in humans, and may thus provide valuable insights. We examined the effects of a 40-s train of continuous theta-burst stimulation (cTBS) to the motor cortex (600 stimuli, three pulses at 50 Hz applied at a frequency of 5 Hz) on cortico-spinal excitability as measured by the motor evoked potentials (MEPs) induced by single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation before and after cTBS in the contralateral first dorsal interosseus muscle. Thirty-six healthy individuals aged 19–81 years old were studied in two sites (Boston, USA and Barcelona, Spain). The findings did not differ across study sites. We found that advancing age is negatively correlated with the duration of the effect of cTBS (r = −0.367; p = 0.028) and the overall amount of corticomotor suppression induced by cTBS (r = −0.478; p = 0.003), and positively correlated with the maximal suppression of amplitude on motor evoked responses in the target muscle (r = 0.420; p = 0.011). We performed magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-based individual morphometric analysis in a subset of subjects to demonstrate that these findings are not explained by age-related brain atrophy or differences in scalp-to-brain distance that could have affected the TBS effects. Our findings provide empirical evidence that the mechanisms of cortical plasticity area are altered with aging and their efficiency decreases across the human lifespan. This may critically contribute to motor and possibly cognitive decline.
Warning Drivers About Potential Congestion as a Means to Reduce Frustration-Driven Aggressive Driving

Objective: This research was conducted to examine the consequences of forewarning drivers about impending congestion on aggressive driving behavior. Some have argued that aggressive driving stems from frustration experienced on the roadway (often due to congestion), and that by warning drivers about congestion, frustration, and consequently aggressive driving, can be reduced. Methods: The study employed an experimental design, where participants (whose dispositional driver anger was measured using the Driver Anger Scale) were instructed to operate an instrumented vehicle along a prescribed route containing construction. Participants were randomly assigned either to receive a warning about the construction or to receive no warning about the congestion. Measures of aggressive driving behavior were extracted from video (shot from a camera hidden behind the vehicle's license plate) and from an ongoing accelerometer. Results: A total of 49 participants completed the study. Analyses of combined measure of aggressive driving behavior data revealed a statistically significant main effect for dispositional driver anger (with participants scoring higher on the scale actually driving more aggressively), as well as interactions between driver anger and forewarning. Accordingly, forewarning about potential congestion reduced aggressive driving behavior for participants high in dispositional anger but increased aggressive behavior for participants who were low on dispositional anger. Conclusion: Some of the results—particularly the increase in aggressive driving among participants low in dispositional driver anger who were warning about congestion—were unexpected. The interaction effect suggests that the strategy providing warnings about upcoming congestion will not necessarily reduce frustration among all drivers.
Nearest Neighbor Voting in High-Dimensional Data: Learning from Past Occurrences

Hub ness is a recently described aspect of the curse of dimensionality inherent to nearest-neighbor methods. In this paper we present a new approach for exploiting the hub ness phenomenon in k-nearest neighbor classification. We argue that some of the neighbor occurrences carry more information than others, by the virtue of being less frequent events. This observation is related to the hub ness phenomenon and we explore how it affects high-dimensional k-nearest neighbor classification. We propose a new algorithm, Hub ness Information k-Nearest Neighbor (HIKNN), which introduces the k-occurrence informativeness into the hub ness-aware k-nearest neighbor voting framework. Our evaluation on high-dimensional data shows significant improvements over both the basic k-nearest neighbor approach and all previously used hub ness-aware approaches.
L'insegnamento Trilingue Nelle Località Ladine Della Provincia Di Bolzano

Abstract The multilingual education in the Ladin area, Italy, presents an interesting case of multilingualism. Almost all inhabitants are at least trilingual speakers. The more prestigious languages are Italian and German, which are the main school languages in a balanced bilingual model. Ladin as the minority language is the mother tongue of most pupils, but after preschool Ladin is taught only as a subject for a limited number of hours. In teaching religion, all three languages are used. Later on, English is also taught as an additional language. The results for German and Italian competence of the schoolchildren are comparable to other areas in Italy and the results for Ladin are also very positive. The strong influence of Italian and German on the proficiency in Ladin and the increased use and perceived importance of English in this tourist area are challenges for the future teaching of four languages in the Ladin schools.
Composing and performing in the key stage 3 classroom: a study using multi-trait, multi-method analysis

‘Music is both a creative and a performing art’ (Hallam, 2006, p. 70). Many musicians and music educators maintain that composing and performing, although related, are essentially different aspects of musical activity. In the professional musical sphere, composition and performance are almost invariably separated; academic studies have treated them discretely; GCSE and ‘A’ level specifications assess them distinctly, and many music teachers assess them in the classroom as if they were separate disciplines. It is common practice for students in the lower secondary school in England to work in a more integrated way, however (Philpott, 2001; Major, 2008), composing, performing to the class, and appraising each others’ work. Recently produced assessment guidelines for secondary school music teachers in England (NAME, 2011) encourage this more integrated view, accepting the assumption made by Swanwick and Franca (1999, p. 12) that ‘musical understanding is a broad conceptual dimension’ by considering composing and performing as inter-linked ways of demonstrating and communicating musicality. This study sets out to investigate the links between composing and performing in the secondary school classroom, through peer-rating, teacher rating and students’ self-report attitudinal questionnaires, analysing these using a multi-trait, multi-method technique. Evidence for convergent validity was found between performing and composing in the classroom, suggesting that they are closely linked and may indeed be related parts of the same trait. This may have implications for the ways in which composing and performing are taught and assessed. A larger-scale study could be undertaken to investigate this further.