Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Effect of Maternal Stress during Pregnancy on IQ and ADHD Symptomatology.

OBJECTIVE Maternal stress during pregnancy (MSDP) has been linked to a decrease in Intelligence Quotient (IQ) in the general population. The purpose of this study is to first examine the association between MSDP and IQ in children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and second, to confirm, in a large sample, the link between MSDP and ADHD behavioral symptomatology. METHODS Four hundred ten children diagnosed with ADHD, ages six to 12, were consecutively recruited from the ADHD clinic and day hospital at the Douglas Institute from 1999 to 2013. IQ was assessed using the WISC III and IV. Symptom severity was evaluated using the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and Connor's Global Index for Parents (CGI-P) and Teachers (CGI-T). RESULTS No significant effect of MSDP on full scale IQ was observed, but MSDP had a significant effect on CBCL and CGI scores. Elevated MSDP was significantly associated with increased CBCL internalizing scores (β=4.2, p<.01), CBCL externalizing scores (β=1.9, p=.04), CGI-P restless-impulsive scores (β=2.6, p=.01), CGI-P emotional lability scores (β=3.1, p=.02), and CGI-T restless-impulsive (β=2.2, p=.05) and emotional lability (β=3.4, p=.04) scores. MSDP increased the variance explained of ADHD symptomatology even after controlling for various factors (i.e. familial income, parental education, smoking and drinking during pregnancy, gender and age). CONCLUSION The study demonstrates that in children with ADHD, MSDP does not have an impact on IQ but rather on ADHD symptomatology, highlighting the importance of potentially offering psychological and social support to mothers who experience stress during pregnancy.
The f index: Quantifying the impact of coterminal citations on scientists' ranking

Designing fair and unbiased metrics to measure the “level of excellence” of a scientist is a very significant task because they recently also have been taken into account when deciding faculty promotions, when allocating funds, and so on. Despite criticism that such scientometric evaluators are confronted with, they do have their merits, and efforts should be spent to arm them with robustness and resistance to manipulation. This article aims at initiating the study of the coterminal citations— their existence and implications—and presents them as a generalization of self-citations and of co-citation; it also shows how they can be used to capture any manipulation attempts against scientometric indicators,and finally presents a new index, the f index, that takes into account the coterminal citations. The utility of the new index is validated using the academic production of a number of esteemed computer scientists. The results confirm that the new index can discriminate those individuals whose work penetrates many scientific communities.
Recursive Greedy Methods

Greedy algorithms are often the first algorithm that one considers for various optimization problems, and ,in particular, covering problems. The idea is very simple: try to build a solution incrementally by augmenting a partial solution. In each iteration, select the “best” augmentation according to a simple criterion. The term greedy is used because the most common criterion is to select an augmentation that minimizes the ratio of “cost” to “advantage”. We refer to the cost-to-advantage ratio of an augmentation as the density of the augmentation. In the Set-Cover (SC) problem, every set S has a weight (or cost) w(S). The “advantage” of a set S with respect to a partial cover {S1, . , Sk} is the number of new elements covered by S, i.e., |S \ (S1 ∪ . . .∪Sk)|. In each iteration, a set with a minimum density is selected and added to the partial solution until all the elements are covered. In the SC problem, it is easy to find an augmentation with minimum density simply by re-computing the density of every set in every iteration. In this chapter we consider problems for which it is NP-hard to find an augmentation with minimum ∗Chapter 3 from: Handbook of Approximation Algorithms and Metaheuristics edited by Teofilo Gonzalez.
Improved Method to Design Rational Decimation System for Software Defined Radio: Part I - Algorithm

This paper presents an algorithm for rational decimation system. The proposed algorithm reduces the overall memory elements and load. The proposal utilizes Interpolated Finite Impulse Response (IFIR) filter. The proposed structure is simplified by splitting the factorable decimation factor into two integers, i.e. $M=M_{1}\cdot M_{2}$ such that $M_{1}> M_{2}$. The applied methods are multi rate techniques and number theory for digital signal processing. This proposed algorithm is applicable in communication systems like Software Defined Radio (SDR).
Psychological morbidity in ALS: The importance of psychological assessment beyond depression alone

Abstract The assessment of psychological morbidity in patients with ALS has centered around depression, hopelessness, and anxiety. The Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) offers an opportunity to explore psychological morbidity more broadly. We administered this instrument to 111 patients with ALS as part of a larger study of quality of life. Scores of ALS patients on the Global Severity Index and Positive Symptom Distress Index were comparable to the majority of distressed psychiatric outpatients and significantly higher than those of non-patient adults. Among BSI subscales, scores on the Anxiety, Depression, Phobic Anxiety, and Somatization subscales also were not significantly different from distressed adult psychiatric outpatients, and were greater than normal mean scores for a non-patient population sample. Based on these data, ALS patients appear to be significantly more distressed than non-patients in the identified areas, and as distressed as approximately 68% of a distressed psychiatric outpatient sample. In conclusion, a substantial number of individuals with ALS experience psychological distress of various types. Because psychological health impacts lifespan and quality of life in these individuals, broadly-based mental health assessment and treatment should remain an important part of care for patients with ALS. The effects of physical symptoms on responses to questions used to assess psychological distress must be considered.
Automorphisms and abstract commensurators of 2-dimensional Artin groups

In this paper we consider the class of 2–dimensional Artin groups with connected, large type, triangle-free defining graphs (type CLTTF). We classify these groups up to isomorphism, and describe a generating set for the automorphism group of each such Artin group. In the case where the defining graph has no separating edge or vertex we show that the Artin group is not abstractly commensurable to any other CLTTF Artin group. If, moreover, the defining graph satisfies a further “vertex rigidity” condition, then the abstract commensurator group of the Artin group is isomorphic to its automorphism group and generated by inner automorphisms, graph automorphisms (induced from automorphisms of the defining graph), and the involution which maps each standard generator to its inverse. We observe that the techniques used here to study automorphisms carry over easily to the Coxeter group situation. We thus obtain a classification of the CLTTF type Coxeter groups up to isomorphism and a description of their automorphism groups analogous to that given for the Artin groups.
Object-Based Evaluation of MERRA Cloud Physical Properties and Radiative Fluxes during the 1998 El Niño–La Niña Transition

AbstractThe Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Application (MERRA) is a reanalysis designed to produce an improved representation of the Earth’s hydrologic cycle. This study examines the representation of deep convective clouds in MERRA, comparing analyzed liquid and ice clouds with deep convective cloud objects observed by instruments on the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite. Results show that MERRA contains deep convective cloud in 98.1% of the observed cases. MERRA-derived probability density functions (PDFs) of cloud properties have a similar form as the observed PDFs and exhibit a similar trend with changes in object size. Total water path, optical depth, and outgoing shortwave radiation (OSR) in MERRA are found to match the cloud object observations quite well; however, there appears to be a bias toward higher-than-observed cloud tops in the MERRA. The reanalysis fits the observations most closely for the largest class of convective systems, with performance generally dec.
Ulcer recognition in capsule endoscopy images by texture features

The capsule endoscopy (CE) has gradually found its applications in hospitals because of its great advantage that it can view the entire small bowel with almost no invasiveness compared to traditional endoscopes and other imaging techniques for gastrointestinal diseases. However, a major issue with this new technology is that too many images produced by CE causes a huge burden to physicians, so it is very meaningful to help the clinicians if we could partially implement computer aided diagnosis. We proposed a new scheme aimed for ulcer region discrimination in CE images in this paper. This new scheme utilizes texture feature, a very powerful clue for the physicians to diagnose, to recognize ulcer regions with neural network classifier. We advance a new idea of curvelet based local binary pattern as the textural features to discriminate ulcer regions from normal regions, which make full use of the curvelet transform and uniform local binary pattern. Experiments on our present image data sets validate that it is promising to employ the proposed texture features to recognize the ulcer regions.
Synergy: blending heterogeneous measurement elements for effective network monitoring

Network wide monitoring remains a complex and active research topic. Driven by such needs as anomaly detection, network-wide research has seen numerous measurement technologies, in parallel with the development of mathematical models and sampling techniques. We propose a line of work that examines how heterogeneous monitoring results may be effectively combined as a source of information greater than the individual elements. Network traffic monitoring can be done in both time domain and space domain. In this work, we focus on spatial domain network monitoring. Placement of heterogeneous monitors for effective, accurate network monitoring is core of our proposal. Direct monitoring of traffic is beneficial in many ways and removes the need of additional optimization and modeling procedures. However, high cost of direct measurement makes it less feasible solution. We propose a solution of placing different types of monitors at different sites so that they all contribute in collective manner for effectively monitoring the network.
The role of positive character appraisal in narrative messages designed to reduce social distance: An experiment in genetic stigmatization reduction

Many narrative stigmatization reduction campaigns are serial dramas that include several character types: positive characters who model emotions, attitudes, and behaviors accepting toward stigmatized persons, transitional characters who change from stigmatizing to nonstigmatizing, and negative characters who stigmatize others (Rogers et al., 1999). Yet many stigmatization reduction messages are brief, and therefore cannot include numerous characters. For this reason, such messages often include only the individual with the stigmatized condition as the primary character. However, non-stigmatized individuals who choose to associate with stigmatized others (empathic individuals, referred to as “the wise” by Goffman, 1963), may be powerful role models in brief narratives designed to reduce stigmatization. Therefore, it is crucial, both theoretically and practically, to understand how such characters may function as role models. To this end, this experimental research (N = 170) explores the effect of positive, transitional, and negative protagonists in brief narrative messages designed to reduce stigmatization of persons diagnosed with Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency (AATD), a rare genetic condition that leads to pulmonary and liver disease. Results indicated that positive and transitional protagonists are more effective in reducing stigmatization than negative protagonists. Exploration of the psychological processes mediating this reduced stigmatization, operationalized as reduced social distance, revealed that positive character appraisal of the protagonist, not character identification with the protagonist, was the primary mechanism that led to reduced stigmatization. Further, different processes mediated stigmatization reduction for positive/transitional and negative protagonists. Neither empathy with the protagonist nor empathy with the character diagnosed with AATD led to significant stigmatization reduction. These findings have theoretical and practical implications.
The Academy on the edge: taking charge of our future.

It’s an enormous honor for me to be standing before you this morning as your incoming President at a time of remarkable change, the magnitude of which was emphasized in the very critical Institute of Medicine report featured on the front page of this morning’s issue of USA Today 1. In preparing this talk, I’ve been reflecting on the changes that have affected my career since I attended my first Academy meeting back in 1975. That meeting was also here in San Francisco. It was my first year in practice; I had a two‐year‐old daughter. Now I have three children; they’re all grown, they’re all through college, and they’re all contributing to society in very positive ways. I remember the meeting in 1975 clearly. I remember being impressed by the depth and breadth of the science and being very proud to be a member of the Academy. Not long ago, I came across the program from 1975. As impressive as the science was, the strides we’ve made since then are nothing less than astounding. Consider that, just over twenty-five years ago, arthroscopy wasn’t on the program at all, total knee replacement was in its infancy, anterolateral instability of the knee was just being described, and total shoulder arthroplasty was experimental and performed only in patients with deficient rotator cuffs. In fact, in 1975 we had only three papers related to the shoulder and elbow. Today, these subspecialties constitute a separate discipline. This year, we have four sessions, twenty-seven papers, and more than fifty posters on shoulder and elbow topics alone. It is an entirely different world. There were no presentations on health-care reform in 1975. Now, just twenty-six years later, we live in a world of HMOs and PPOs. And the changes extend far beyond health care. We live …
Wall Street Polices Itself: How Securities Firms Manage the Legal Hazards of Competitive Pressures

This book explains how the self regulatory system for U.S. securities firms works with three tiers of supervision. Overseeing the whole system is the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which directly supervises the self-regulatory organizations such as the New York Stock Exchange and the National Association of Securities Dealers. In turn, these self-regulatory organizations oversee the broker-dealers who conduct the daily business of buying and selling securities. The system relies heavily on the firms' internal supervisory systems to prevent violations of securities laws, since they are in the best position to track their own internal activities. Firms may be fined, or subject to even more stringent penalties, if their supervisory systems fail. This book is an in-depth examination of how this regulatory system works, the types of regulatory problems with which broker-dealer firms must deal, why some firms have more problems than others, and what the experience with the system suggests about ways of improving self regulatory systems generally.
Cloning of an Azorhizobium caulinodans endoglucanase gene and analysis of its role in symbiosis

Azorhizobium caulinodans ORS571, a symbiont of the tropical leguminous plant Sesbania rostrata, showed low, constitutive levels of endoglucanase (Egl) activity. A clone carrying the gene responsible for this phenotype was isolated via introduction of a genomic library into the wild-type strain and screening for transconjugants with enhanced Egl activity. By subcloning and expression in Escherichia coli, the Egl phenotype was allocated to a 3-kb EcoRI-BamHI fragment. However, sequence analysis showed the egl gene to be much larger, consisting of an open reading frame of 1,836 amino acids. Within the deduced polypeptide, three kinds of putative domains were identified: a catalytic domain, two cellulose-binding domains, and an eightfold reiterated motif. The catalytic domain belongs to the family A of cellulases. A C-terminal stretch of 100 amino acids was similar to family II cellulose-binding domains. A second copy of this domain occurred near the middle of the polypeptide, flanked by reiterated motifs. ORS571 mutants carrying a Tn5 insertion in the egl gene had lost the Egl activity. These mutants as well as Egl-overproducing strains showed a normal nodulation behavior, indistinguishable from wild-type nodulation on Sesbania rostrata under laboratory conditions.
Das deutsche Bildungs-Schisma: Welche Probleme ein vorindustrielles Bildungssystem in einer nachindustriellen Gesellschaft hat

* Ringvorlesung Bildung: Humanistische Ideale und wissenschaftliche Erkenntnisse am 11.07. 2006 Das über lange Zeit im letzten Jahrhundert international hoch geschätzte deutsche Bildungssystem ist im letzten Jahrzehnt zunehmend in die Kritik geraten. Galt im ersten Drittel des 20. Jahrhunderts zum einen die höhere Bildung, insbesondere die Universitäten und Forschungseinrichtungen, als vorbildhaft und genoss zum anderen in der zweiten Hälfte des Jahrhunderts bis in die 1990er Jahre hinein die duale Berufsausbildung von betrieblicher und schulischer Unterweisung fast ungeteilte Bewunderung im Inund Ausland, so hat sich im letzten Jahrzehnt insbesondere unter dem Eindruck unterschiedlicher OECD-Studien (nicht nur PISA) die Wahrnehmung deutlich eingetrübt. Die Hauptaspekte der nationalen und internationalen Kritik:
Alcohol use and risky sexual behavior among college students and youth: evaluating the evidence.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the empirical associations between alcohol use and risky sex at two levels of analysis. Global associations test whether individuals who engage in one behavior are more likely to engage in the other, whereas event-specific associations test whether the likelihood of engaging in one behavior on a given occasion varies as a function of engaging in the other on that same occasion. METHOD Studies examining the association between drinking and risky sex in samples of college students and youth were reviewed. Those published in the past 10 years and using event-level methodology or random sampling were emphasized. RESULTS Findings were generally consistent across levels of analysis, but differed across types of risky behaviors. Drinking was strongly related to the decision to have sex and to indiscriminate forms of risky sex (e.g., having multiple or casual sex partners), but was inconsistently related to protective behaviors (e.g., condom use). Moreover, the links among alcohol use, the decision to have sex and indiscriminate behaviors were found in both between-persons and within-persons analyses, suggesting that these relationships cannot be adequately explained by stable individual differences between people who do and do not drink. Analysis of event characteristics showed that drinking was more strongly associated with decreased protective behaviors among younger individuals, on first intercourse experiences and for events that occurred on average longer ago. CONCLUSIONS Future efforts aimed at reducing alcohol use in potentially sexual situations may decrease some forms of risky sex, but are less likely to affect protective behaviors directly.
Effects of Broiler Rearing Environment on Transmission of F-Strain Mycoplasma gallisepticum from Commercial Layer Hens to Broiler Chickens: Role of Acid-Base Balance

Two trials were conducted concurrently to determine and compare, blood pH, blood gases, hematocrit and hemoglobin in F-strain Mycoplasma gallisepticum (FMG) inoculated layers and FMG contactinfected broilers. At the termination of the study, FMG-inoculated layers had the highest partial pressure of O and the lowest partial pressure of CO as compared with the other treatment groups. Blood pH values 2 2 were unaffected by FMG inoculation. Hematocrit and blood concentrations of hemoglobin were slightly higher and HCO levels were lowest in FMG contact-infected broilers in comparison to the other treatments groups. 3 Mycoplasma gallisepticum inoculated layers also resulted in a significant increase in blood concentrations of K , a decrease in Na , but no significant effects on blood concentrations of Ca and Cl . There were no + + 2+ differences in plasma glucose, cholesterone, triglyceride and anion gap, but osmolality was significantly reduced in FMG contact-infected broilers. Results indicate that inoculation of layers with FMG vaccine results in changes in plasma acid-base status along with changes in other blood metabolic variables. However, the FMG inoculation did not prevent homeostatic regulation of acid-base balance, as indicated by constant blood pH. The significant increase in pO in FMG inoculated layers is generally associated with an oxygen2 dependent improvement in tissue oxygenation. Elevated arterial partial pressure of oxygen is beneficial to maximize oxygen transport capacity along with high concentrations of hemoglobin and hematocrit to carry oxygen throughout the body. It was concluded that in addition to protecting birds from MG infection, an FMG vaccine may improve the layer chicken’s ability to withstand the harmful effects of stressors on their performance and well-being.
A frame level boosting training scheme for acoustic modeling

Conventional Boosting algorithms for acoustic modeling have two notable weaknesses. (1) The objective function aims to minimize utterance error rate, though the goal for most speech recognition systems is to reduce word error rate. (2) During Boosting training, an utterance is treated as a unit for resampling and each frame within the same utterance is assigned equal weight. Intuitively, the frames associated with a misclassified word should be given more emphasis than others. We propose a frame level Boosting training scheme that addresses these shortcomings and allows each frame to have a different weight. We describe a technique and provide experimental results for this approach.
Consensus-based matching and tracking of keypoints for object tracking

We propose a novel keypoint-based method for long-term model-free object tracking in a combined matching-and-tracking framework. In order to localise the object in every frame, each keypoint casts votes for the object center. As erroneous keypoints are hard to avoid, we employ a novel consensus-based scheme for outlier detection in the voting behaviour. To make this approach computationally feasible, we propose not to employ an accumulator space for votes, but rather to cluster votes directly in the image space. By transforming votes based on the current keypoint constellation, we account for changes of the object in scale and rotation. In contrast to competing approaches, we refrain from updating the appearance information, thus avoiding the danger of making errors. The use of fast keypoint detectors and binary descriptors allows for our implementation to run in real-time. We demonstrate experimentally on a diverse dataset that is as large as 60 sequences that our method outperforms the state-of-the-art when high accuracy is required and visualise these results by employing a variant of success plots.