Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mother-Adolescent Communication About Tobacco Use in Urban Puerto Rican and Dominican Families

Research on parent-adolescent communication about cigarette smoking in Latino families remains relatively scarce. This dearth of information is worrisome given the high rates of tobacco use among Latino adolescents and the large burden borne by adult Latinos in smoking-related morbidity and mortality. This study presents qualitative data on parent-adolescent communication about cigarette smoking in a sample of urban Latino families. The authors conducted 12 focus groups with 40 Puerto Rican and Dominican mother-adolescent dyads (N = 80) residing in the Bronx community of New York. The findings indicate that the mothers were comfortable discussing smoking-related issues with their children. Adolescents expressed a desire to discuss tobacco-related issues with their mothers, although some feared parental punishment. The results highlight a gap in parental knowledge and efficacy regarding social influences to smoke. Results are discussed in the context of developing focused interventions aimed at reducing cigarette smoking among Latino youth.
Enhanced OpenMP Algorithm to Compute All-Pairs Shortest Path on x86 Architectures

Graphs have become a key tool when modeling and solving problems in different areas. The Floyd-Warshall (FW) algorithm computes the shortest path between all pairs of vertices in a graph and is employed in areas like communication networking, traffic routing, bioinformatics, among others. However, FW is computationally and spatially expensive since it requires O(n^3) operations and O(n^2) memory space. As the graph gets larger, parallel computing becomes necessary to provide a solution in an acceptable time range. In this paper, we studied a FW code developed for Xeon Phi KNL processors and adapted it to run on any Intel x86 processors, losing the specificity of the former. To do so, we verified one by one the optimizations proposed by the original code, making adjustments to the base code where necessary, and analyzing its performance on two Intel servers under different test scenarios. In addition, a new optimization was proposed to increase the concurrency degree of the parallel algorithm, which was implemented using two different synchronization mechanisms. The experimental results show that all optimizations were beneficial on the two x86 platforms selected. Last, the new optimization proposal improved performance by up to 23%.
Local Parties In Political And Organizational Perspective

Theoretical Orientation And Empirical Observations The Local Party as an Object of Interdisciplinary Comparative Study: Some Steps Toward Theoretical Integration (Hans Geser) Local Parties in Comparative Perspective (Peter John and Martin Saiz) Local Political Parties In Local And National Context Civic Parties in Canada: Their Diversity and Evolution (Pierre Filion) Local Parties in England: Development and Change 19731994 (Colin Rollings and Michael Thrasher) Local Parties in the German Countryside (Herbert Schneider) Local Parties and Electioneering in Germany: Local Political Messages in an Era of Nationalized Political Communication (Susan E. Scarrow) Do Political Parties Matter in U.S. Cities? (Martin Saiz) Forms of Patronage and Political Parties in the Italian City (Annick Magnier) Local Parties in Switzerland: An Active Pillar of the Swiss Political System (Andreas Ladner) Local Party Organizations in Denmark: Crisis or Adaptation? (Roger Buch Jensen) The Local Party System in Poland (Zbigniew Zychowicz) From Communist Predominance to Multi-party System: The Change in the Local Party System in Russia, 1986-1995 (Sabine Kropp) Conclusion Political Parties in National and Local Context (Martin Saiz)
Dysfunctional Hyperpolarization-Activated Cyclic Nucleotide-gated Ion Channels in Cardiac Diseases

Hyperpolarization-activated cyclic nucleotide-gated (HCN) channels are reverse voltage-dependent, and their activation depends on the hyperpolarization of the membrane and may be directly or indirectly regulated by the cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) or other signal-transduction cascades. The distribution, quantity and activation states of HCN channels differ in tissues throughout the body. Evidence exhibits that HCN channels play critical roles in the generation and conduction of the electrical impulse and the physiopathological process of some cardiac diseases. They may constitute promising drug targets in the treatment of these cardiac diseases. Pharmacological treatment targeting HCN channels is of benefit to these cardiac conditions.
Integrin-dependent translocation of phosphoinositide 3-kinase to the cytoskeleton of thrombin-activated platelets involves specific interactions of p85 alpha with actin filaments and focal adhesion kinase

Thrombin-induced accumulation of phosphatidylinositol 3,4-bisphosphate (PtdIns(3,4)P2) but not of PtdIns(3,4,5,)P3 is strongly correlated with the relocation to the cytoskeleton of 29% of the p85 alpha regulatory subunit of phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PtdIns 3-kinase) and is accompanied by a significant increase in PtdIns 3-kinase activity in this subcellular fraction. Actually, PtdIns(3,4)P2 accumulation and PtdIns 3-kinase, pp60c-src, and p125FAK translocations as well as aggregation were concomitant events occurring with a distinct lag after actin polymerization. The accumulation of PtdIns(3,4)P2 and the relocalization of PtdIns 3-kinase to the cytoskeleton were both dependent on tyrosine phosphorylation, integrin signaling, and aggregation. Furthermore, although p85 alpha was detected in anti- phosphotyrosine immunoprecipitates obtained from the cytoskeleton of thrombin-activated platelets, we failed to demonstrate tyrosine phosphorylation of cytoskeletal p85 alpha. Tyrphostin treatment clearly reduced its presence in this subcellular fraction, suggesting a physical interaction of p85 alpha with a phosphotyrosyl protein. These data led us to investigate the proteins that are able to interact with PtdIns 3-kinase in the cytoskeleton. We found an association of this enzyme with actin filaments: this interaction was spontaneously restored after one cycle of actin depolymerization-repolymerization in vitro. This association with F-actin appeared to be at least partly indirect, since we demonstrated a thrombin-dependent interaction of p85 alpha with a proline-rich sequence of the tyrosine-phosphorylated cytoskeletal focal adhesion kinase, p125FAK. In addition, we show that PtdIns 3-kinase is significantly activated by the p125FAK proline-rich sequence binding to the src homology 3 domain of p85 alpha subunit. This interaction may represent a new mechanism for PtdIns 3-kinase activation at very specific areas of the cell and indicates that the focal contact-like areas linked to the actin filaments play a critical role in signaling events that occur upon ligand engagement of alpha IIb/beta 3 integrin and platelet aggregation evoked by thrombin.
Queryball: A New Model for Querying in Immersive VR Systems

— In this paper, we propose a powerful and convenient querying model, "Queryball", for users to query in immersive VR systems. In immersive VR systems, users expect intuitive and heuristic interactive operations derived from empirical knowledge in the real world. As a possible method for the interactive operations, interaction by virtual tools has been proposed. However, intuitive and heuristic query interaction by virtual tools is too difficult to be performed, because query interaction in immersive VR systems cannot be represented as concrete virtual objects. Queryball is a new style of querying model for intuitive and heuristic query interaction. Queryball, which is a translucent ball, is defined as a quadruple of area specification, search condition, and two types of display methods. The search condition can be applied only to the virtual objects inside of the Queryball. The query results are shown to the user according to the display method. The position and radius of the Queryball changes when the user moves the Queryball interactively with observing the query results.
Management as Design, But What Kind of Design? An Appraisal of the Design Science Analogy for Management

The identity of management as a field of study is frequently challenged on the basis of its relevance to practice. This paper engages with the concept of a design science as it is considered to offer some answers to this enduring debate. The paper goes on to conclude, rather sceptically, that design science may not offer such a distinct perspective on management as a field of study. Our scepticism is based on the design science scholars' rather arbitrary use of Simon's intellectual legacy, particularly the superficial differentiation between explanatory-based and prescriptive-based social sciences, and the promises such a comparison holds for prescriptive outcomes in management. The paper contributes to the design science debate in management by identifying three different types of design, each based on different ways artefacts emerge. These identified differences have profound consequences for understanding design science as an explicitly organized and systematic approach to design. We conclude that later conceptualizations of design science do have a place, but offer only a particular perspective – one that is relevant for a narrow set of organizational phenomena. Finally, we argue that the design analogy is an important one in the current debate about the nature of management studies if it highlights the creation of novelty and disruption of stability. It also offers a way of thinking about the exposition of uncertainty, in contrast to highlighting rules and principles that offer a prescriptive promise to guide the design of social artefacts.
Energy-ordered resource stratification as an agnostic signature of life

The search for extraterrestrial life hinges on identifying biosignatures, often focusing on gaseous metabolic byproducts as indicators. However, most such biosignatures require assuming specific metabolic processes. It is widely recognized that life on other planets may not resemble that of Earth, but identifying biosignatures ``agnostic'' to such assumptions has remained a challenge. Here, we propose a novel approach by considering the generic outcome of life: the formation of competing ecosystems. We use a minimal model to argue that the presence of ecosystem-level dynamics, characterized by ecological interactions and resource competition, may yield biosignatures independent of specific metabolic activities. Specifically, we propose the emergent stratification of chemical resources in order of decreasing energy content as a candidate new biosignature. While likely inaccessible to remote sensing, this signature could be relevant for sample return missions, or for detection of ancient signatures of life on Earth itself.
Forecasting Monthly Sales of Cell-phone Companies - the Use of VAR Model

Forecast of earnings is one of the major tasks for financial statement analysts, and sales forecast is the most important step in the process of predicting earnings. Taking one large cell phone company in Taiwan as example and by the use of monthly data to fit a proper VAR model, we found that, when forecasting monthly sales, number of clients is a significant forward-looking information for financial statement analysts of the mobile industry. Compared to a model with only past sales as predicting variable, the forecasts generated by the bi-variate (monthly sales and month-end number of clients) model in this paper reduce the forecasting error by almost 30%. The evidence from the two variable VARMA model also support our hypothesis that there is a bidirectional dynamic relationship between sales and number of clients, i.e., both sales and number of clients are leading indicators of one another. The purpose of requiring listed firms to publicly announce their monthly sales before the 10 th day of the following month in Taiwan is of course to provide investors and analysts with relevant information for them to make rational decision. Monthly sales numbers are relevant because users of this financial information can predict future sales based on their past history. In this paper we target on a large cell phone company in Taiwan to demonstrate that a similar timely disclosure of number of clients should also be required in additional to the monthly sales. Besides, the SEC should careful examine for all industries that whether more forward-looking information should be made available to the public.
ShapeGrasp: Zero-Shot Task-Oriented Grasping with Large Language Models through Geometric Decomposition

Task-oriented grasping of unfamiliar objects is a necessary skill for robots in dynamic in-home environments. Inspired by the human capability to grasp such objects through intuition about their shape and structure, we present a novel zero-shot task-oriented grasping method leveraging a geometric decomposition of the target object into simple, convex shapes that we represent in a graph structure, including geometric attributes and spatial relationships. Our approach employs minimal essential information - the object's name and the intended task - to facilitate zero-shot task-oriented grasping. We utilize the commonsense reasoning capabilities of large language models to dynamically assign semantic meaning to each decomposed part and subsequently reason over the utility of each part for the intended task. Through extensive experiments on a real-world robotics platform, we demonstrate that our grasping approach's decomposition and reasoning pipeline is capable of selecting the correct part in 92% of the cases and successfully grasping the object in 82% of the tasks we evaluate. Additional videos, experiments, code, and data are available on our project website: https://shapegrasp.github. io/.
Urban education, the middle classes and their dilemmas of school choice

This article explores a framework for an ethics of choice in urban education. It outlines the educational ambitions and ambivalences of a group of middle class families in one locality. The research on which we draw involved interviews with 28 middle class parents in the London Borough of Hackney and is part of a comparative study of urban middle class parents conducted in collaboration with the Foundation Nationale des Sciences Politique, Paris. Our analysis of the tensions and dilemmas faced by this group of parents deploys an approach derived from the work of American philosopher Thomas Nagel. What we see playing across and through these interviews are the interests and abstractions of a particular fraction of metropolitan middle class families. That is, a reflexive engagement with the social in terms of responsibility to the public good and the needs of ‘others’ who matter as much as they do (the impersonal standpoint) is interwoven with the needs of specific children and the family in relation to imagined futures (the personal standpoint).
Liberation Theology, Group Work, and the Right of the Poor and Oppressed to Participate in the Life of the Community

Liberation theology has developed in Latin America by clergy and laity as a means for reaching the poor and oppressed people and for challenging the power of the Roman Catholic hierarchy. It offers ideas for social group workers in reaching out to the disenfranchised and challenges those elements in our theoretical models that lean toward paternalism and limited empowerment. The relinquishing of power by the worker is an essential aspect of the challenge.
Non-conventional expression systems for the production of vaccine proteins and immunotherapeutic molecules

ABSTRACT The increasing demand for recombinant vaccine antigens or immunotherapeutic molecules calls into question the universality of current protein expression systems. Vaccine production can require relatively low amounts of expressed materials, but represents an extremely diverse category consisting of different target antigens with marked structural differences. In contrast, monoclonal antibodies, by definition share key molecular characteristics and require a production system capable of very large outputs, which drives the quest for highly efficient and cost-effective systems. In discussing expression systems, the primary assumption is that a universal production platform for vaccines and immunotherapeutics will unlikely exist. This review provides an overview of the evolution of traditional expression systems, including mammalian cells, yeast and E.coli, but also alternative systems such as other bacteria than E. coli, transgenic animals, insect cells, plants and microalgae, Tetrahymena thermophila, Leishmania tarentolae, filamentous fungi, cell free systems, and the incorporation of non-natural amino acids.
Optimization alternatives of mechatronic systems containing switched reluctance drives

In mechatronic systems there are several different kinds of optimization alternatives, in particular mechanic, electronic and control means. In this paper, these different possibilities are investigated and compared for a special example: a switched reluctance drive (SRD), energized from a weak supply net, is coupled to an internal spindle-gear to generate a linear output force. Special attention is paid to cost-effective means of optimization
C – Minimizer Algorithm: A New Technique for Data Minimization

Digital gates are the basic components of the digital circuits. To reduce the cost of the circuit, number of these gates must be reduced, and hence a method is needed to do the desired. There are some methods such as Karnaugh maps, in which visualization becomes difficult when number of variables become more than five, and Quine McCluskey method, which overcomes the drawback of Karnaugh maps but it becomes complex when large number of variables are used. Here, in this paper, an approach, Consummate minimizer(Cminimizer) has been proposed which overcomes the limitations of such conventional methods and produces a minimized expression containing minimizing elements. The same can be used in minimizing the patterns in large data sets.
Use of Salvia divinorum in a Nationally Representative Sample

Background: Salvia divinorum has known hallucinogenic effects and is legal in most parts of the United States. Given that this psychoactive substance has a potential of misuse and abuse, further data regarding the clinical and psychosocial factors associated with use are needed. Objectives: To examine the clinical and psychosocial characteristics associated with use of salvia. Methods: The study uses data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 2008 (N = 55,623). Results: The results of this study suggest that salvia use is most common among young adults aged 18–25 years as well as individuals who had engaged in risk-taking behaviors (selling illicit drugs, stealing) or illicit drug use (especially other hallucinogens/ecstasy). Self-reported depression and anxiety were also associated with salvia use. Conclusions/Scientific Significance: The results provide evidence that salvia use is part of a broader constellation of psychosocial and behavioral problems among youth and young adults. The accessibility, legal status, and psychoactive effects of salvia can be a potentially complicating health risk to young people, especially among those with existing substance use problems.
Atopic dermatitis, asthma and allergic rhinitis in general practice and the open population: a systematic review

Abstract Objective: To examine whether significant differences exist between the self-reported prevalence of atopic disorders in the open population compared with physician diagnosed prevalence of atopic disorders in general practice. Methods: Medline (OvidSP), PubMed Publisher, EMBASE, Google Scholar and the Cochrane Controlled Clinical Trials Register databases were systematically reviewed for articles providing data on the prevalence of asthma, allergic rhinitis and eczema in a GP setting. Studies were only included when they had a cross-sectional or cohort design and included more than 100 children (aged 0-18 years) in a general practice setting. All ISAAC studies (i.e. the open population) that geographically matched a study selected from the first search, were also included. A quality assessment was conducted. The primary outcome measures were prevalence of eczema, asthma and allergic rhinitis in children aged 0-18 years. Results: The overall quality of the included studies was good. The annual and lifetime prevalences of the atopic disorders varied greatly in both general practice and the open population. On average, the prevalence of atopic disorders was higher in the open population. Conclusion: There are significant differences between the self-reported prevalence of atopic disorders in the open population compared with physician diagnosed prevalence of atopic disorders in general practice. Data obtained in the open population cannot simply be extrapolated to the general practice setting. This should be taken into account when considering a research topic or requirements for policy development. GPs should be aware of the possible misclassification of allergic disorders in their practice. Key Points Epidemiological data on atopic disorders in children can be obtained from various sources, each having its own advantages and limitations. On average, the prevalence of atopic disorders is higher in the open population. GPs should take into account the possible misclassification of atopic disorders in their practice population. Policymakers should be aware that data obtained in the open population cannot simply be extrapolated to the general practice setting.
Multi-Access Strategies for Voice/Data Integration in Heterogeneous Mixed-Media Packet Radio Networks

Abstract : The problem of voice/data integration in a mixed-media packet radio network employing both ground radio links and SATCOM radio links is investigated. Multi-access strategies are devised to take advantage of different characteristics of both radio channels to better serve the requirements of both traffic types. Code-division multiple-access with movable boundary in the code domain is used in the ground subnetwork to serve the voice traffic and the retransmitted data traffic while framed ALOHA with movable boundary is used on the satellite subnetwork for both data and voice. Based on a Markovian model of the system, a complete analysis of the channel access protocols for both traffic types is given. The performance of the multiple-access schemes used in this mixed-media network is evaluated in terms of voice and data throughput, voice blocking probability, and data delay. It is observed that splitting of retransmission traffic between the satellite and ground subnet may increase the overall data throughput when the voice load is high.
Language Plays a Pivotal Role in the Object-Attribute Compositional Generalization of CLIP

Vision-language models, such as CLIP, have shown promising Out-of-Distribution (OoD) generalization under various types of distribution shifts. Recent studies attempted to investigate the leading cause of this capability. In this work, we follow the same path, but focus on a specific type of OoD data - images with novel compositions of attribute-object pairs - and study whether such models can successfully classify those images into composition classes. We carefully designed an authentic image test dataset called ImageNet-AO, consisting of attributes for objects that are unlikely encountered in the CLIP training sets. We found that CLIPs trained with large datasets such as OpenAI CLIP, LAION-400M, and LAION-2B show orders-of-magnitude improvement in effective compositional OoD generalization compared to both supervised models and CLIPs trained with smaller datasets, such as CC-12M and YFCC-15M. Our results provide evidence that the scale and diversity of training data and language supervision play a key role in unlocking the compositional generalization abilities of vision-language models.