Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Moving toward a neuroplasticity view of bilingualism, executive control, and aging

ABSTRACT Normal aging is an inevitable race between increasing knowledge and decreasing cognitive capacity. Crucial to understanding and promoting successful aging is determining which of these factors dominates for particular neurocognitive functions. Here, we focus on the human capacity for language, for which healthy older adults are simultaneously advantaged and disadvantaged. In recent years, a more hopeful view of cognitive aging has emerged from work suggesting that age-related declines in executive control functions are buffered by life-long bilingualism. In this paper, we selectively review what is currently known and unknown about bilingualism, executive control, and aging. Our ultimate goal is to advance the views that these issues should be reframed as a specific instance of neuroplasticity more generally and, in particular, that researchers should embrace the individual variability among bilinguals by adopting experimental and statistical approaches that respect the complexity of the questions addressed. In what follows, we set out the theoretical assumptions and empirical support of the bilingual advantages perspective, review what we know about language, cognitive control, and aging generally, and then highlight several of the relatively few studies that have investigated bilingual language processing in older adults, either on their own or in comparison with monolingual older adults. We conclude with several recommendations for how the field ought to proceed to achieve a more multifactorial view of bilingualism that emphasizes the notion of neuroplasticity over that of simple bilingual versus monolingual group comparisons.
Positive Youth Development in the United States: Research Findings on Evaluations of Positive Youth Development Programs

This article summarizes a much lengthier one that appeared in Prevention and Treatment. The earlier article grew out of a project initiated by the Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation. The Positive Youth Development Evaluation project described why policy makers, practitioners, and prevention scientists advocated a shift in approach for how youth issues are addressed in this country. The Positive Youth Development Evaluation project sought to define how youth development programs have been defined in the literature and then to locate, through a structured search, strong evaluations of these programs and summarize the outcomes of these evaluations. In the current article, we explain why prevention has shifted from a single problem focus to a focus on factors that affect both positive and problem youth development, describe what is meant by positive youth development, and summarize what we know about the effectiveness of positive youth development programs.
IFN gamma regulates proliferation and neuronal differentiation by STAT1 in adult SVZ niche

The adult subventricular zone (SVZ) is the main neurogenic niche in normal adult brains of mice and rats. Interferon gamma (IFNγ) has somewhat controversially been associated with SVZ progenitor proliferation and neurogenesis. The in vivo involvement of IFNγ in the physiology of the adult SVZ niche is not fully understood and its intracellular mediators are unknown. Here we show that IFNγ, through activation of its canonical signal transducer and activator of transcription 1 (STAT1) pathway, acts specifically on Nestin+ progenitors by decreasing both progenitor proliferation and the number of cycling cells. In addition, IFNγ increases the number of neuroblasts generated without shifting glial fate determination. The final result is deficient recruitment of newborn neurons to the olfactory bulb (OB), indicating that IFNγ-induced stimulation of neuronal differentiation does not compensate for its antiproliferative effect. We conclude that IFNγ signaling via STAT1 in the SVZ acts dually as an antiproliferative and proneurogenic factor, and thereby regulates neurogenesis in normal adult brains.
Keep it simple stupid — On the effect of lower-order terms in BIC-like criteria

We study BIC-like model selection criteria. In particular, we approximate the lower-order terms, which typically include the constant log ∫√det I(θ) dθ, where I(θ) is the Fisher information at parameter value θ. We observe that the constant can sometimes be a huge negative number that dominates the other terms in the criterion for moderate sample sizes. At least in the case of Markov sources, including the lower-order terms in the criteria dramatically degrades model selection accuracy. A take-home lesson is to keep it simple.
A practical approach to assertion testing framework based on inner class

Using logical assertions for program verification is a basic research subject in software engineering. This paper analyzes current approaches and proposes three rules that an assertion testing framework should satisfy. That is, after adding contracts using a framework, the contracts in a tested project should be able to satisfy consistency, transitivity and completeness. By satisfying these three rules, the contracts can perform as a solid foundation for automatic test case generation. This paper also brings forward a practical approach to writing contracts, the Java Test Oracle Creator (jtoc), which uses Java annotations and Java inner class to construct intelligible contracts for programmers. Finally, a proof is given that jtoc-generated test projects satisfy the three rules proposed above.
ITRW on Multilingual Speech and Language Processing Stellenbosch , South Africa April 9-11 , 2006

In this paper we present a new method to synthesize multiple languages with the voice of any arbitrary speaker. We call this method “HMM-based speaker-adaptable polyglot synthesis”. The idea consists in mixing data from several speakers in different languages to create a speakerindependent multilingual acoustic model. By means of MLLR, we can adapt this model to the voice of any given speaker. With the adapted model, it is possible to synthesize speech in any of the languages included in the training corpus with the voice of the target speaker, regardless of the language spoken by that speaker. When the language to be synthesized and the language of the target speaker are different, the performance of our method is better than that of other approaches based on monolingual models and phone mapping. Languages with no available speech resources can also be synthesized with a polyglot synthesizer by means of phone mapping. In this case, the performance of a polyglot synthesizer is better than that of any other monolingual synthesizers based on languages which were used to train the polyglot one.
Inattentional Amnesia to Words in a High Attentional Load Task

We investigated the dependence of visual word processes on attention by examining event-related potential (ERP) responses as subjects viewed words while their attention was engaged by a concurrent highly demanding task. We used a paradigm from a previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment [Rees, G. , Russel, C. , Frith, C. D. , & Driver, J. Inattentional blindness vs. inattentional amnesia for fixated but ignored words. Science, 286, 25042506, 1999] in which participants attended either to drawings or to overlapping letters (words or nonwords) presented at a fast rate. Although previous fMRI results supported the notion that word processing was obliterated by attention withdrawal, the current electrophysiological results demonstrated that visual words are processed even under conditions in which attentional resources are engaged in a different task that does not involve reading. In two experiments, ERPs for attended words versus nonwords differed in the left frontal, left posterior, and medial scalp locations. However, in contrast to the previous fMRI results, ERPs responded differentially to ignored words and consonant strings in several regions. These results suggest that fMRI and ERPs may have differential sensitivity to some forms of neural activation. Moreover, they provide evidence to restore the notion that the brain analyzes words even when attention is tied to another dimension.
Functionalized textiles for interactive soft robotics

We use a conductive fabric substrate as a building material for a soft sensor to extend the functionality of soft actuators. We use PCB etching techniques to apply a pattern to the fabric, yielding distinct conductive surfaces within the same textile. We connect these via flexible wire bus embedded in silicone, terminating in a flexible PCB. We show how touch and metal objects can be localized along the length of the composite fabric strip. We demonstrate an example soft robotic application, by replacing the constraint layer component in a PneuFlex-style soft actuator with the self contained sensing strip. We show that the augmented composite actuator is able to interact with conductive objects in the environment using a capacitive touch sensing with applications in grasping and human-robot interaction.
Effectiveness of a Community-Based Individualized Lifestyle Intervention Among Older Adults With Diabetes and Hypertension, Tianjin, China, 2008–2009

Introduction Though diet and exercise modification is effective in preventing diabetes and hypertension, community-based models for lifestyle intervention for managing these conditions that are practical and effective are few. Methods A community-based lifestyle intervention trial was conducted in 5 community clinics in Tianjin, China. Trained physicians used energy monitors and software as tools to provide eight individualized lifestyle consultation sessions (zhiji management) to 273 residents with mild hypertension (including prehypertension) or diabetes (including prediabetes). The recruitment was based on a waitlist control design. The early group (n = 175) received the 3-month intervention and the late group served as controls; afterward, the early group was followed up while the late group received the 3-month intervention. Selected characteristics between the 2 groups were compared by χ2 tests, continuous variables paired t tests, and independent t tests. Results Compared with baseline, the intervention significantly increased effective (3–6 metabolic equivalents and >6 minutes) physical activity by 54.6 kilocalories per day (P < .01) and decreased total dietary intake by 328.5 kilocalories per day (P < .01). The net differences between early group (intervention) and late group (control phase) were significant (P < .01) for weight, waist circumference, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, 2-hour postprandial glucose, and hemoglobin A1c. Conclusion This community-based lifestyle zhiji management program produced short-term beneficial changes in activity, diet, and clinical parameters in patients with mild diabetes or hypertension. Larger and longer trials are needed to fully evaluate the effectiveness and feasibility of this model.
Dynamic time-alignment k-means kernel clustering for time sequence clustering

This paper presents a novel method to cluster sequences by embedding a non-linear time alignment kernel function into kernel k-means. The time-alignment operation embeds the sequential pattern in the kernel function, allowing kernel k-means to be used to classify entire sequences. The method is evaluated with over 9800 videos and features from the LIRIS annotated creative commons emotional database. Our results show that the method works well in classifying sequences based on their affective content, and performs better than other unsupervised methods for clustering time series. In addition, this paper evaluates several methods abilities to map low-level features onto the valence arousal plane from the LIRIS database. The regression results also show that simple Ridge Regression had comparable performance to state-of-the-art regression methods.
CMT : Predictive Machine Translation Quality Evaluation Metric

Machine Translation quality is evaluated using metrics that utilize human translations as reference materials. This means that the existing methods do not allow to predict the quality of Machine Translation if no human translations of the same material exist. To use Machine Translation in the translation industry, it is essential to have a metric that allows to evaluate the quality of a newly created Machine Translation in order to decide whether or not it can increase productivity. As a translation company that uses Statistical Machine Translation to generate translation memories for many projects, we decided to develop a metric that can predict its usability on a project basis. This metric, called CMT, is a combination of human assessment and statistics comparable to existing metrics. Our investigations showed that the mean difference between CMT and BLEU is 9.10, and between CMT and METEOR it is 9.69, so it correlates with the existing metrics in more than 90%. CMT is very easy to use and allows to evaluate each translation memory, regardless of its size, in 5 minutes without any reference material.
Design Tradeoffs of SSDs

In this work, we studied the energy consumption characteristics of various SSD design parameters. We developed an accurate energy consumption model for SSDs that computes aggregate, as well as component-specific, energy consumption of SSDs in sub-msec time scale. In our study, we used five different FTLs (page mapping, DFTL, block mapping, and two different hybrid mappings) and four different channel configurations (two, four, eight, and 16 channels) under seven different workloads (from large-scale enterprise systems to small-scale desktop applications) in a combinatorial manner. For each combination of the aforementioned parameters, we examined the energy consumption for individual hardware components of an SSD (microcontroller, DRAM, NAND flash, and host interface). The following are some of our findings. First, DFTL is the most energy-efficient address-mapping scheme among the five FTLs we tested due to its good write amplification and small DRAM footprint. Second, a significant fraction of energy is being consumed by idle flash chips waiting for the completion of NAND operations in the other channels. FTL should be designed to fully exploit the internal parallelism so that energy consumption by idle chips is minimized. Third, as a means to increase the internal parallelism, increasing way parallelism (the number of flash chips in a channel) is more effective than increasing channel parallelism in terms of peak energy consumption, performance, and hardware complexity. Fourth, in designing high-performance and energy-efficient SSDs, channel switching delay, way switching delay, and page write latency need to be incorporated in an integrated manner to determine the optimal configuration of internal parallelism.
One-Year Prevalence Rates of Major Depressive Disorder in First-Year University Students.

First-year university students may be more at risk for experiencing Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) than the general population given associated risk factors of this age range. A two-phase procedure was used to estimate the one-year prevalence rate of MDD and comorbid Major Anxiety Disorders among first-year university students at a small Canadian university. The results of the study indicate that approximately 7% of men and 14% of women in their first year met the criteria for MDD. Further, about 13% of men and 19% of women met the criteria for a Major Anxiety Disorder. Implications of these findings are discussed.
Description of the EMOD-HIV Model v0:7

The expansion of tools against HIV transmission has brought increased interest in epidemiological models that can predict the impact of these interventions. The EMOD-HIV model was recently compared to eleven other independently developed mathematical models of HIV transmission to determine the extent to which they agree about the potential impact of expanded use of antiretroviral therapy in South Africa. Here we describe in detail the modeling methodology used to produce the results in this comparison, which we term EMOD-HIV v0:7. We include a discussion of the structure and a full list of model parameters. We also discuss the architecture of the model, and its potential utility in comparing structural assumptions within a single modeling framework.
A unified analysis of batched searching of sequential and tree-structured files

A direct and unified approach is used to analyze the efficiency of batched searching of sequential and tree-structured files. The analysis is applicable to arbitrary search distributions, and closed-form expressions are obtained for the expected batched searching cost and savings. In particular, we consider a search distribution satisfying Zipf's law for sequential files and four types of uniform (random) search distribution for sequential and tree-structured files. These results unify and extend earlier research on batched searching and estimating block accesses for database systems.
Postoperative Radiotherapy After Breast-Conserving Surgery for Early-Stage Breast Cancer: A Review.

IMPORTANCE Radiotherapy (RT) after breast-conserving surgery for early-stage disease has become an integral part of breast cancer treatment. This article reviews the rationale and indications for adjuvant radiotherapy to the breast and regional lymph nodes. OBSERVATIONS Randomized trials have demonstrated a significant benefit in tumor control in the treated breast following whole-breast RT that, in aggregate, has resulted in an overall survival advantage compared with breast-conserving surgery alone. Recent studies have further assessed the impact of regional nodal irradiation in women with either high-risk node-negative or node-positive disease and suggest a significant benefit in regional control and breast cancer recurrence, but not in overall survival. Toxic effects, including lymphedema, were increased in the cohorts receiving comprehensive nodal RT. The benefits from regional RT should be weighed against potential radiation-associated toxic effects. Randomized trials have also demonstrated equal efficacy and toxic effects between hypofractionated and conventionally fractionated RT in appropriately selected patients. In addition, current efforts incorporating clinical, pathologic, and molecular features are under way to identify patients for whom RT to the breast can be safely omitted. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE Adjuvant RT in early-stage breast cancer significantly reduces in-breast tumor recurrence and improves overall survival. Although risk reductions observed in randomized trials have been relatively consistent across series, the absolute benefit of RT is not equal for all women. Efforts are under way to identify which patients benefit the most from local or locoregional RT vs those at very low risk for recurrence in whom RT can be omitted. For patients who will benefit from RT and are appropriate candidates, hypofractionated RT should be strongly considered.
Birth of neural progenitors during the embryonic period of sexual differentiation in the Japanese quail brain

Several brain areas in the diencephalon are involved in the activation and expression of sexual behavior, including in quail the medial preoptic nucleus (POM). However, the ontogeny of these diencephalic brain nuclei has not to this date been examined in detail. We investigated the ontogeny of POM and other steroid‐sensitive brain regions by injecting quail eggs with 5‐bromo‐2‐deoxyuridine (BrdU) at various stages between embryonic day (E)3 and E16 and killing animals at postnatal (PN) days 3 or 56. In the POM, large numbers of BrdU‐positive cells were observed in subjects injected from E3–E10, the numbers of these cells was intermediate in birds injected on E12, and most cells were postmitotic in both sexes on E14–E16. Injections on E3–E4 labeled large numbers of Hu‐positive cells in POM. In contrast, injections performed at a later stage labeled cells that do not express aromatase nor neuronal markers such as Hu or NeuN in the POM and other steroid‐sensitive nuclei and thus do not have a neuronal phenotype in these locations, contrary to what is observed in the telencephalon and cerebellum. No evidence could also be collected to demonstrate that these cells have a glial nature. Converging data, including the facts that these cells divide in the brain mantle and express proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA), a cell cycling marker, indicate that cells labeled by BrdU during the second half of embryonic life are slow‐cycling progenitors born and residing in the brain mantle. Future research should now identify their functional significance. J. Comp. Neurol. 520:4226–4253, 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Situational Variability of Attention Problems: Psychometric Properties of the Revised Home and School Situations Questionnaires

Investigated the psychometric properties of the Home Situations Questionnaire-Revised (HSQ-R) and School Situations Questionnaire-Revised (SSQ-R) completed by parents and teachers, respectively, for a large sample of urban elementary school children. These instruments were developed to assess the severity and cross-situational pervasiveness of attention problems. HSQ-R and SSQ-R scores were found to possess adequate levels of internal consistency, test-retest reliability, construct validity; and to share considerable variance with criterion measures such as parent and teacher behavior ratings, direct observations of classroom on-task behavior, and productivity on academic tasks. Boys displayed more severe attention problems across a wider number of settings than did girls, regardless of grade level. The HSQ-R and SSQ-R appear to have utility in the assessment of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and related behavior disorders in which attention problems are an important focus of evaluation.
Effects of Self-Esteem and Narcissism on Bullying and Victimization During Early Adolescence

The current study investigates the longitudinal association, across a 1-year period, between self-esteem and narcissism with bullying and peer victimization. The sample consisted of 1,416 (50.1% girls) Greek Cypriot early adolescents (M age = 12.89) who completed a battery of self-report measures. The small correlation found between self-esteem and narcissism suggests that the two constructs are distinct from one another. Results from the Hierarchical Linear Regression analyses suggested that the combination of low self-esteem (i.e., fragile self-concept) with high narcissism (i.e., grandiose self-view) may contribute to the continuation of both bullying and victimization. Person-centered analyses clarified narcissism predicted membership into “bully” and “bully-victim” groups, although “bullies” were distinguished by low self-esteem when compared with uninvolved children. Current findings can help provide an explanation of the inconsistency reported in the literature in terms of the association between self-esteem and bullying behavior, in that low self-esteem is more strongly associated with bullying for narcissistic youth.