Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Exergaming for Elderly: Subjective Experiences and Objective Movement Characteristics

Background: It is important for elderly to stay healthy and independent for as long as possible, and falls are a major cause for loss of independence. Physical activity aimed at improving balance that includes large movements and cognitive tasks has been shown to decrease fall risk. Using exergames as a training tool has increased in recent years, but the actual movements elicited by such exergames have yet to be investigated objectively.Aim: To investigate usability and enjoyment and provide objective quantification of movement size elicited by two exergames.Methods: Twenty healthy elderly (mean age 74.4, range 65-90) played two exergames, The Mole (SilverFit) and LightRace (YourShape: Fitness Evolved) at easy and medium level, with five trials of one minute at each level. Data on perceived exertion (BORG), enjoyment and system usability (SUS) was collected. Movements were captured using OQUS Motion Capture System, with passive reflexive markers attached to the base of the 1st toe, heel and lumbar area of the back. Movement size was expressed as Interquartile range (IQR) of feet and trunk in all three directions, and as horizontal area covered by the lumbar and toe markers. Correlational analyses were performed to investigate relationships between game scores, BORG-scores, SUS-scores, IQR and area coverage. Repeated measures ANOVAs were used to analyze effects of game, level, and trial.Results: Both games scored high on usability, and the elderly perceived the games as enjoyable, relevant as physical activity, and not very exhausting. Game scores increased across trials and decreased from easy to medium levels. Nevertheless, participants preferred the medium over the easy levels because of the increased cognitive challenge. IQR and area in the feet exceeded those in the trunk, especially in the medio-lateral direction. There were no significant correlations between game score and movement variables.Discussion: The positive attitude from the participants is promising for future implementation of exergames into fall preventive exercises. However, the lack of correlations between game scores and movement variables indicate that although these exergames do not reward players for "cheating" movements; they have room for improvement concerning rewarding desired movements.Keywords: older adults, exergames, movement characteristics, stepping.
The multilevel impact of transformational leadership on teacher commitment: Cognitive and motivational pathways

A growing body of research indicates that transformational leadership affects teachers’ commitment to their school. The present study aims to investigate the processes explaining this effect at the organisational level. Using a sample of 660 teachers within 50 primary French-speaking Belgian schools, the authors test a model hypothesising that the impact of the school principal’s transformational leadership (as an organisational-level construct) on teacher commitment to school is mediated by school culture strength (cognitive pathway) and teacher collective efficacy beliefs (motivational pathway). Results of multilevel analyses largely support the theoretical model, but show that schools have a limited impact on teacher commitment.
The affective reasoner: a process model of emotions in a multi-agent system

The problem we have addressed in this dissertation is that of designing a pragmatic and rich computer representation of emotions that is at least congenial with psychological theory. Our solution has focused on implementing a platform for reasoning about emotions that supports the testing of such theories. In the platform we model a multi-agent world and give simple affective life to agents in the form of rudimentary emotions and emotion-induced actions. In addition the agents are able to reason about emotion episodes that take place in one another's lives. The implementation includes representations for twenty-four emotion types (based on the work Ortony et al., 1988) and 1400 emotion-induced actions. Agents have rudimentary personalities, including an interpretive component which causes them to construe the world in idiosyncratic ways leading to emotional states, and an expressive component which give agents a unique profile for manifesting their emotions. Agents keep internal models of the concerns of other agents which allow them to explain the emotional episodes of other agents by classifying them as instances in which one or more of the twenty-four emotion types arise. The implementation is simulation-based. It has been run with up to forty agents at a time. Situations arise in the modeled world, agents respond to some of these in their own unique, emotional, ways. Emotion-induced actions are generated which may be placed back in the simulation queue and further perturb the system. Other agents observe and explain the situations using both strong-theory reasoning based on a set of emotion rules, and weak-theory reasoning using a case-based heuristic classification system.
Spatial Characteristics of Serial Sexual Assault in New Zealand

Abstract This study examines the crime patterns of New Zealand serial sexual assaulters in order to determine the extent to which such offenders display spatial behaviour in line with their overseas counterparts. Hypotheses concerning journey to crime, criminal range and spatial pattern were tested. Geographical information on 76 serial offenders was extracted from police files and mapped. A series of spatial analyses were conducted in order to examine the spatial mobility of the offenders. It was found that, in line with much overseas research, offenders typically did not travel very far to offend (a median of 3 km) and operated over identifiable criminal ranges. However, in contrast to much overseas research into serial spatial patterns, New Zealand offenders were characterised by transience and commuting patterns of behaviour rather than a predominant marauder style. The implications of these findings for geographic profiling are discussed.
Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma: value of diffusion-weighted MR imaging for nodal staging.

PURPOSE To evaluate diffusion-weighted (DW) magnetic resonance (MR) imaging, as compared with turbo spin-echo MR imaging, for the detection of nodal metastases in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). MATERIALS AND METHODS The study was approved by the ethics committee, and patients gave written informed consent. Before undergoing surgery, 33 consecutive patients underwent 1.5-T MR imaging, including DW imaging performed with a wide range of b values (0-1000 sec/mm(2)). The apparent diffusion coefficients (ADCs) of lymph nodes 4 mm or greater in short-axis diameter depicted on images obtained with b values of 0 and 1000 sec/mm(2) were calculated. After topographic correlation, the lymph nodes were evaluated microscopically with prekeratin immunostaining. The optimal ADC thresholds for discriminating between metastatic and benign lymph nodes were determined. The sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of DW imaging were calculated separately-on per-lymph-node and per-neck-level bases-for all lymph nodes and for supracentimeter and subcentimeter lymph nodes and were compared with corresponding turbo spin-echo MR imaging values. RESULTS Correlation of histopathologic and radiologic findings was possible for 301 lymph nodes. The ADC derived from the signal intensity averaged across images obtained with b values of 0 and 1000 sec/mm(2) (ADC(b0-1000)) was 1.19 x 10(-3) mm(2)/sec +/- 0.22 (standard deviation) for benign lymph nodes and 0.85 x 10(-3) mm(2)/sec +/- 0.27 for malignant lymph nodes (P < .0001). With an optimal ADC(b0-1000) threshold of 0.94 x 10(-3) mm(2)/sec, 84% sensitivity, 94% specificity, and 91% accuracy for differentiation of malignant versus benign status of each lymph node and 94% sensitivity, 97% specificity, and 97% accuracy for differentiation at each neck level were achieved. Compared with turbo spin-echo imaging, DW imaging had higher sensitivity (76% vs 7%) but slightly lower specificity (94.0% vs 99.5%) for detection of subcentimeter nodal metastases. CONCLUSION DW imaging performed with ADC(b0-1000) values had higher accuracy than turbo spin-echo MR imaging in nodal staging, providing added value in the detection of subcentimeter nodal metastases.
The virtual liver: a multidisciplinary, multilevel challenge for systems biology

The liver is the central metabolic organ in human physiology, with functions that are fundamentally important to the detoxification of xenobiotics (drugs), the maintenance of homeostasis of numerous blood metabolites, and the production of mediators of the acute phase response. Liver toxicity, whether actual or implied is the reason for the failure of a significant proportion of many promising novel medicines that consequently never reach the market, and diseases such as atherosclerosis, diabetes, and fatty liver diseases, that are a major burden on current health resources, are directly linked to functional and structural disorders of the liver. This article presents the concepts and approaches underpinning one of the most exciting and ambitious modeling projects in the field of systems biology and systems medicine. This major multidisciplinary research program is aimed at developing a whole‐organ model of the human liver, representing its central physiological functions under normal and pathological conditions The model will be composed of a larger battery of interconnected submodels representing liver anatomy and physiology, integrating processes across hierarchical levels in space, time, and structural organization. In this article, we outline the general architecture of the liver model and present first step taken to reach this ambitious goal. WIREs Syst Biol Med 2012 doi: 10.1002/wsbm.1158
Voltage-dependent Membrane Displacements Measured by Atomic Force Microscopy

Cells use polar molecules in the membrane to sense changes in the transmembrane potential. The opening of voltage-gated ion channels and membrane bending due to the inverse flexoelectric effect are two examples of such electromechanical coupling. We have looked for membrane motions in an electric field using atomic (or scanning) force microscopy (AFM) with the intent of studying voltage-dependent conformational changes of ion channels. Voltage-clamped HEK293 cells were either untransfected controls or transfected with Shaker K+ channels. Using a ± 10-mV peak–peak AC carrier stimulus, untransfected cells moved 0.5–15 nm normal to the plane of the membrane. These movements tracked the voltage at frequencies >1 kHz with a phase lead of 60–120°, as expected of a displacement current. The movement was outward with depolarization, but the holding potential only weakly influenced the amplitude of the movement. In contrast, cells transfected with a noninactivating mutant of Shaker K+channels showed similar movements, but these were sensitive to the holding potential; decreasing with depolarization between −80 and 0 mV. Searching for artifactual origins of these movements, we used open or sealed pipettes and AFM cantilever placements just above the cells. These results were negative, suggesting that the observed movements were produced by the cell membrane rather than by movement of the patch pipette, or by acoustic or electrical interactions of the membrane with the AFM tip. In control cells, the electrical motor may arise from the flexoelectric effect, where changes in potential induce changes in curvature. In transfected cells, it appears that channel-specific movements also occurred. These experiments demonstrate that the AFM may be able to exploit voltage-dependent movements as a source of contrast for imaging membrane components. The electrically induced motility will cause twitching during action potentials, and may have physiological consequences.
Representations of significant others and the activation of interpersonal scripts

It is a general assumption in psychology that past social relationships and experiences influence present social behaviour. With attachment theory and current social-cognitive theory as conceptual basis, the present study focused on the association between past experiences with significant others and the current processing of interpersonal information. By means of a 2x3x4 experimental design the study investigated the influence of chronic accessibility and subliminal priming (of significant other representations) on the accuracy and speed of processing scripted interpersonal information. One hundred and thirty seven university students took part in two sessions no more than two weeks apart. In session one they completed the Attachment Style Questionnaire (ASQ; Feeny, Noller & Hanrahan, 1994), and provided the names of positive and negative significant others. According to a median split of the Confidence Scale of the ASQ, they were assigned to a chronic positive or a chronic negative group, assuming that the information based on predominantly positive or negative experiences with positive or negative significant others will be chronically more accessible. In session two, in an individual computer task, they were subliminally primed (33 ms) with a control word or the name of the positive or negative significant other to increase the accessibility of the appropriate memory structures. They were then asked to read a positive, negative, mixed or ambiguous script of an interpersonal event and complete a memory test of 36 interpersonal statements (nine positive, nine negative, nine ambiguous and nine filler statements). The accuracy and response time for every statement was recorded, and the response times of accurate responses for positive and negative scripts were included in the main analysis. Separate univariate analyses of the differences between positive and negative priming per polarity of chronic group and script supported the priming hypothesis. The average response time of the chronic negative group was fastest when they received a negative prime (p = .039), and the positive group was fastest when they received a positive prime (p = .000). The results of a two-way analysis of variance for chronic group and script showed a highly significant interaction effect between chronic group and script (p = .000). When the primes were congruent to the scripts, the chronic groups were significantly faster in recognising statements from a congruent script. The results supported the conjunctive model of priming. The implications of these findings for the understanding of the cognitive structures and processes involved in processing interpersonal information are discussed, with specific reference to relational schemas and attachment working models. Possible directions for future research as well as the application of the results are also described.
Engaging educators in representing their knowledge in complex ecologies and cultures of inquiry

This paper is a self-study in which a university teacher educator studies her practice. She creates a space for alternate ways of representing forms of knowledge from diverse cultural backgrounds, including Indigenous, and for their accreditation in the Academy. As she develops a way of thinking that is appropriate for getting closer to understanding indigenous ways of knowing, there is a transformation in her own understandings. Moving from reliance on print to the use of multi-media and artifacts to represent forms of knowledge in complex ecologies support the development of cultures of inquiry. In this work, the meanings of the embodied energyflowing values that educational researchers use to explain their educational influences in their own learning and in the learning of others are made explicit. These meanings are shown to have epistemological significance for educational knowledge.
Mass spectrometry-based discovery of circadian peptides

A significant challenge to understanding dynamic and heterogeneous brain systems lies in the chemical complexity of secreted intercellular messengers that change rapidly with space and time. Two solid-phase extraction collection strategies are presented that relate time and location of peptide release with mass spectrometric characterization. Here, complex suites of peptide-based cell-to-cell signaling molecules are characterized from the mammalian suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), site of the master circadian clock. Observed SCN releasates are peptide rich and demonstrate the co-release of established circadian neuropeptides and peptides with unknown roles in circadian rhythms. Additionally, the content of SCN releasate is stimulation specific. Stimulation paradigms reported to alter clock timing, including electrical stimulation of the retinohypothalamic tract, produce releasate mass spectra that are notably different from the spectra of compounds secreted endogenously over the course of the 24-h cycle. In addition to established SCN peptides, we report the presence of proSAAS peptides in releasates. One of these peptides, little SAAS, exhibits robust retinohypothalamic tract–stimulated release from the SCN, and exogenous application of little SAAS induces a phase delay consistent with light-mediated cues regulating circadian timing. These mass spectrometry-based analyses provide a new perspective on peptidergic signaling within the SCN and demonstrate that the integration of secreted compounds with information relating time and location of release generates new insights into intercellular signaling in the brain.
Relationship between fine particulate matter, weather condition and daily non-accidental mortality in Shanghai, China: A Bayesian approach

There are concerns that the reported association of ambient fine particulate matter (PM2.5) with mortality might be a mixture of PM2.5 and weather conditions. We evaluated the effects of extreme weather conditions and weather types on mortality as well as their interactions with PM2.5 concentrations in a time series study. Daily non-accidental deaths, individual demographic information, daily average PM2.5 concentrations and meteorological data between 2012 and 2014 were obtained from Shanghai, China. Days with extreme weather conditions were identified. Six synoptic weather types (SWTs) were generated. The generalized additive model was set up to link the mortality with PM2.5 and weather conditions. Parameter estimation was based on Bayesian methods using both the Jeffreys’ prior and an informative normal prior in a sensitivity analysis. We estimate the percent increase in non-accidental mortality per 10 μg/m3 increase in PM2.5 concentration and constructed corresponding 95% credible interval (CrI). In total, 336,379 non-accidental deaths occurred during the study period. Average daily deaths were 307. The results indicated that per 10 μg/m3 increase in daily average PM2.5 concentration alone corresponded to 0.26–0.35% increase in daily non-accidental mortality in Shanghai. Statistically significant positive associations between PM2.5 and mortality were found for favorable SWTs when considering the interaction between PM2.5 and SWTs. The greatest effect was found in hot dry SWT (percent increase = 1.28, 95% CrI: 0.72, 1.83), followed by warm humid SWT (percent increase = 0.64, 95% CrI: 0.15, 1.13). The effect of PM2.5 on non-accidental mortality differed under specific extreme weather conditions and SWTs. Environmental policies and actions should take into account the interrelationship between the two hazardous exposures.
Annual net community production in the subtropical Pacific Ocean from in situ oxygen measurements on profiling floats

Annual net community production (ANCP) in the subtropical Pacific Ocean was determined by using annual oxygen measurements from Argo profiling floats with an upper water column oxygen mass balance model. ANCP was determined to be from 2.0 to 2.4 mol C m−2 yr−1 in the western subtropical North Pacific, 2.4 mol C m−2 yr−1 in the eastern subtropical North Pacific, and near zero in the subtropical South Pacific. Error analysis with the main sources of uncertainty being the accuracy of oxygen measurements and the parameterization of bubble fluxes in winter suggested an uncertainty of ~0.3 mol C m−2 yr−1 in subtropical Pacific. The results are in good agreement with previous observations in locations where ANCP has been determined before. These are the first results from the western subtropical North Pacific and subtropical South Pacific where ANCP have not been evaluated before. ANCP for the subtropical South Pacific is significantly lower than in all other open ocean locations where it has been determined by mass balance. Comparison of our observations with net biological carbon export estimated from remote sensing algorithms indicates that observations from the subtropical North Pacific are higher than the satellite estimates, but those in the subtropical South Pacific are lower than satellite‐determined carbon export.
Linear Precoding Based on Truncated Polynomial Expansion - Part II: Large-Scale Multi-Cell Systems

Large-scale MIMO systems can yield a substantial improvements in spectral efficiency for future communication systems. Due to the finer spatial resolution achieved by a huge number of antennas at the base station, these systems have shown to be robust to inter-user interference and the use of linear precoding is asymptotically optimal. However, from a practical point of view, most precoding schemes exhibit prohibitively high computational complexity as the system dimensions increase. For example, the near-optimal regularized zero forcing (RZF) precoding requires the inversion of a large matrix. This motivated our companion paper, where we proposed to solve the issue in singlecell multi-user systems by approximating the matrix inverse by a truncated polynomial expansion (TPE), where the polynomial coefficients are optimized to maximize the system performance. We have shown that the proposed TPE precoding with a small number of coefficients reaches almost the performance of RZF but never exceeds it. In a realistic multi-cell scenario involving large-scale multiuser MIMO systems, the optimization of RZF precoding has, thus far, not been feasible. This is mainly attributed to the high complexity of the scenario and the non-linear impact of the necessary regularizing parameters. On the other hand, the scalar coefficients in TPE precoding give hope for possible throughput optimization. Similar to the companion paper, we exploit random matrix theory to derive a deterministic expression of the asymptotic signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio for each user based on channel statistics. We also provide an optimization algorithm to approximate the coefficients that maximize the network-wide weighted max-min fairness. The optimization weights can be used to mimic the user throughput distribution of RZF precoding. Using simulations, we compare the network throughput of the proposed TPE precoding with that of the suboptimal RZF scheme and show that our scheme can achieve higher throughput using a TPE order of only 3.
Concentrated Poverty, Race, and Homicide

Research on the link between levels of poverty and homicide in urban areas has persistently reported the existence of a relationship for whites but not for blacks. This is despite the fact that most analysts expect that the higher levels of urban black homicide are due in part to the higher levels of urban black poverty. The present research introduces a more meaningful, spatially based measure of concentrated poverty and argues that the effect of concentrated poverty on homicide rates should be the same for both racial groups. The hypotheses are tested with race-disaggregated data for a sample of central cities circa 1990. The results suggest that, when poverty is measured as a linear spatially based phenomenon, in is a more important determinat of race-specific homicide rates than overall city levels of disadvantage and that the concentration of poverty increases both black and white homicide rather equally.