Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Substance Use among Nurses: Differences between Specialties

&NA; Objectives: Valid data on factors that increase a health care worker's likelihood of substance use are integral in ensuring professional standards and quality health care for consumers. This study explored the association between nursing specialty and past‐year substance use. Methods: In an anonymous mailed survey, a balanced stratified sample of registered nurses (n = 4438) reported their use of marijuana, cocaine, and prescription‐type drugs, as well as cigarette smoking and binge drinking. Results: Prevalence of use of all substances was 32%. Rates varied by specialty, even when sociodemographics were controlled. Compared with nurses in women's health, pediatrics, and general practice, emergency nurses were 3.5 times as likely to use marijuana or cocaine (odds ratio [OR] = 3.5; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.5, 8.2); oncology and administration nurses were twice as likely to engage in binge drinking, and psychiatric nurses were most likely to smoke (OR = 2.4: 95% CI = 1.6, 3.8). No specialty differences appeared for prescription‐type drug use. Conclusions: Certain nursing specialties were more likely than others to be associated with substance use. The differences were not explained by demographic characteristics. Inasmuch as a comparison of these results for nurses with prior work on physicians found considerable agreement by specialty, preventive initiatives should consider interdisciplinary approaches to substance use education.
An Adaptive algorithm for robotic deburring based on impedance control

In this paper, an adaptive algorithm for the detection of burrs and cavities on a workpiece is proposed for the deburring process. The conventional force control method for the deburring process has the inherent characteristic of leaving the deburred surface or edge as an imprint of the original and can not distinguish the position deflection of the end-effector and the greater burrs. By the adaptive algorithm, the reference cutting force in normal direction and the feed-rate can be adjusted automatically according to the variation of the burr size to get smooth surface. A process force model considering the burrs effect is developed to predict the cutting force. Furthermore, the proposed algorithm is integrated into the impedance control for the deburring operation. The simulation experiment has shown that the adaptive algorithm is effective to determine the existence of the burrs, obtain the desired contour and improve the machining efficiency
Active Learning with Multiple Views

Labeling training data for machine learning algorithms is tedious, time consuming, and error prone. Consequently, it is of utmost importance to minimize the amount of labeled data that is required to learn a target concept. In the work presented here, I focus on reducing the need for labeled data in multi-view learning tasks. The key characteristic of multi-view learning tasks is that the target concept can be independently learned within different views (i.e., disjoint sets of features that are sufficient to learn the concept of interest). For instance, robot navigation is a 2-view learning task because a robot can learn to avoid obstacles based on either sonar or vision sensors. In my dissertation, I make three main contributions. First, I introduce Co-Testing, which is an active learning algorithm that exploits multiple views. Co-Testing is based on the idea of learning from mistakes. More precisely, it queries examples on which the views predict a different label: if two views disagree, one of them is guaranteed to make a mistake. In a variety of real-world domains, from information extraction to text classification and discourse tree parsing, Co-Testing outperforms existing active learners. Second, I show that existing multi-view learners can perform unreliably if the views are incompatible or correlated. To cope with this problem, I introduce a robust multi-view learner, Co-EMT, which interleaves semi-supervised and active multi-view learning. My empirical results show that Co-EMT outperforms existing multi-view learners on a wide variety of learning tasks. Third, I introduce a view validation algorithm that predicts whether or not two views are adequate for solving a new, unseen learning task. View validation uses information acquired while solving several exemplar learning tasks to train a classifier that discriminates between tasks for which the views are adequate and inadequate for multi-view learning. My experiments on wrapper induction and text classification show that view validation requires a modest amount of training data to make high accuracy predictions.
X-Ray Iron Line Reverberation from Black Hole Accretion Disks

The relativistically broad X-ray iron line seen in many active galactic nucleus (AGN) spectra is thought to originate from the central regions of the putative black hole accretion disk. Both the line profile and strength will vary in response to rapid variability of the primary X-ray continuum source. The temporal response of the line contains information on the accretion disk structure, the X-ray source geometry, and the spin of the black hole. Since the X-ray source will have a size comparable with the fluorescing region of the accretion disk, the general reverberation problem is not invertible. However, progress can be made, since, empirically, AGN light curves are seen to undergo dramatic short timescale variability that presumably corresponds to the creation of a single new active region within the distributed X-ray source. The iron-line response to these individual events can be described using linear transfer theory. We consider the line response to the activation/flaring of a new X-ray emitting region. Most of our detailed calculations are performed for the case of an X-ray source on the symmetry axis and at some height above the disk plane around a Kerr black hole. We also present preliminary calculations for off-axis flares. We suggest ways in which future, high-throughput X-ray observatories such as XMM and the Constellation X-ray Mission may use these reverberation signatures to probe both the mass and spin of AGN black holes as well as the X-ray source geometry.
A scalable trust-region algorithm with application to mixed-norm regression

We present a new algorithm for minimizing a convex loss-function subject to regularization. Our framework applies to numerous problems in machine learning and statistics; notably, for sparsity-promoting regularizers such as l1 or l1,∞ norms, it enables efficient computation of sparse solutions. Our approach is based on the trust-region framework with nonsmooth objectives, which allows us to build on known results to provide convergence analysis. We avoid the computational overheads associated with the conventional Hessian approximation used by trust-region methods by instead using a simple separable quadratic approximation. This approximation also enables use of proximity operators for tackling nonsmooth regularizers. We illustrate the versatility of our resulting algorithm by specializing it to three mixed-norm regression problems: group lasso [36], group logistic regression [21], and multi-task lasso [19]. We experiment with both synthetic and real-world large-scale data—our method is seen to be competitive, robust, and scalable.
GeneSpeed: protein domain organization of the transcriptome

The GeneSpeed database () is an online database and resource tool facilitating the detailed study of protein domain homology in the transcriptomes of Homo sapiens, Mus musculus, Drosophila melanogaster and Caenorhabditis elegans. The population schema for the GeneSpeed database takes advantage of HOWARD™ parallel cluster technology () and performs exhaustive tBLASTn searches covering all pre-assigned PFAM domain classes in all species (currently 7973 domain families) against the respective Unigene EST databases of the selected four transcriptomes. The resulting database provides a complete annotation of presumed protein domain presence for each Unigene cluster. To complement this domain annotation we have also performed a custom transcription factor-family curation of all Pfam domains, incorporated the Gene Ontology classifications for these domains as well as integrated the Novartis SymAtlas2 dataset for both human and mouse which provides rapid and easy access to tissue-based expression analysis. Consequently, the GeneSpeed database provides the user with the capability to browse or search the database by any of these specialized criteria as well as more traditional means (gene identifier, gene symbol, etc.), thereby enabling a supervised analysis of gene families through a top-down hierarchical basis defined by domain content, all directly linked to an optimized gene expression dataset.
Uterine Progesterone Receptor Expression, Conceptus Development, and Ovarian Function in Pigs Treated with RU 486 During Early Pregnancy1

Establishment of pregnancy in the pig depends on down-regulation of progesterone receptor (PGR) in the uterine luminal and glandular epithelium during the first week after breeding. The present study evaluated the regulation of endometrial PGR by progesterone and the possible role of endometrial tumor necrosis factor (ligand) superfamily member 11 (TNFSF11) and nuclear factor-kappa B (NFKB) activation in PGR expression. Mature, cycling gilts were inseminated (Day 0) and assigned to either untreated control (n = 9) or one of two treatments that employed RU 486 to block progesterone action either before (treatment 1 [T1]) or after (treatment 2 [T2]) the initiation of PGR down-regulation. The T1 gilts were treated with RU 486 (400 mg/day) on Days 3–5 of pregnancy (n = 9), and T2 gilts were treated with RU 486 on Days 6 and 7 of pregnancy (n = 9). Uteri and ovaries were collected on Day 8 or 12 of gestation. The diameter of the conceptuses in T1 gilts was approximately half that in controls by Day 8, and normal conceptuses were not collected from any T1 gilts on Day 12. Endometrial PGR mRNA was more abundant in T1 and T2 gilts compared with control gilts. The PGR-B protein decreased from Day 8 to Day 12 in the luminal epithelium and, to some extent, in superficial glandular epithelium in control and T2 gilts. In T1 gilts, the PGR-B protein remained elevated (i.e., failed to undergo down-regulation) on Day 12. Blocking PGR action early in the cycle (i.e., on or before Day 5), therefore, prevented normal conceptus development, caused elevated PGR mRNA, and prevented the decrease in PGR protein that typically occurs in pigs. We could not confirm a role for NFKB activation in PGR down-regulation, because pigs with extreme differences in PGR and TNFSF11 expression (T1 and controls) had similar NFKB activation on Day 8. Activated NFKB within the luminal epithelium and glandular epithelium (both superficial and deep) was observed in T2 and control pigs on Day 12 when elongating conceptuses (presumably releasing interleukin 1 beta to activate NFKB) were recovered. Gilts treated with RU 486 had greater ovarian follicular growth and greater plasma estradiol concentrations. We conclude that the mechanisms controlling PGR down-regulation are progesterone-dependent and occur between Day 3 and Day 6 of pregnancy. NFKB activation did not appear to have a role in PGR down-regulation within the period that we studied. Blocking progesterone action after Day 6 did not reverse the process of PGR down-regulation, nor did it appear to affect the development of conceptuses collected on Day 12.
Environmentalism in an Entrepreneurial Age: Reflections on the Greening of Industry Network

Abstract This article discusses the Greening of Industry Network (GIN) as an example of a contemporary environmental organization. The Network is discussed by means of a cognitive approach to social movements that the author has developed in collaboration with Ron Eyerman. The article reflects on the kind of environmental politics that is carried out within the GIN and discusses some of the ways in which that form of environmental politics, or policy-making, can be seen to be characteristic of the entrepreneurial, or commercial, spirit that has been so hegemonic in the 1990s. Can the GIN be seen as a kind of 1990s-style social movement organization? Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Prevention of conduct disorder before and after school entry: Relating interventions to developmental findings

Abstract In this paper, both longitudinal and treatment studies relevant to conduct disorder (CD) are reviewed, and a developmental approach to its prevention is presented. Outcome studies for the treatment of CD and antisocial behavior are first reviewed to demonstrate that, although none have been entirely successful, many interventions have powerful effects on various symptoms that comprise the disorder, highly predictive antecedents, and risk factors. Second, the development of CD and the potency and interrelationship among antecedent and mediating variables is traced through the preschool and early elementary school years. Third, an attempt is made to synthesize the developmental and treatment research findings to suggest possible integrations of interventions that are promising for future preventive trials in the preschool and elementary school periods. It is concluded that, whereas before the entry to school preventive interventions targeted entirely in the family setting may prove successful, after the transition to school multisetting interventions will be essential. Finally, three examples of new and multisetting prevention trials are briefly described.
Reconceptualizing Stability

Department of Psychology, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec (D.S.M. and K.W.B.), and Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan (S.C.) tests in every situation or in every instance of a certain kind of situa tion. Questionnaires administered once are not well suited for access ing information about such vari ability in behavior and affect. In stead, there is implicit aggregation over situations and occasions. Spe cifically, information about mean ingful variation in the expression of personality across occasions and situations is lost.
On Cost-Sharing, Tuition Fees and Income Contingent Loans for Universal Higher Education: A New Contract Between University, Student and State?

In the search for a viable 21st century cost-sharing contract between university, student and state, the issues of rising participation and student demand, functional differentiation, institutional competition and stratification and social inequality are systematically discussed. The argument develops through, firstly, a critical appraisal of the genre of elite, mass and universal higher education; secondly, a discussion of the consequences of US institutional stratification; and, thirdly, an assessment of national tuition fee systems as a way of sponsoring mass and universal participation. The Ivy League and the California Master Plan as well as the tuition fee systems in Australia, New Zealand and England have addressed rising participation and relative declining state funding (per FTE tertiary student) while seeking to preserve and enhance quality by mobilising and concentrating resources. Yet, the accumulated unintended consequences of theses systems are undermining their very foundations, making none of these a suitable candidate for emulation in the 21st century. Moreover, the conceptual distinction between, elite, mass and universal higher education is flawed and not suitable for guiding further reform initiatives. Consequently, it is submitted that the financing of state funded undergraduate degrees (BA) be decoupled from postgraduate degrees (MA, PhD). The rise of the European Higher Education Area with 46 member states, and more expected to join, serves as a vantage point from which to critique the legacy of the 20th century and develop preliminary policy recommendations for the 21st century.
Mindful M&M’s

Disruptive behavior problems are the primary reason for referral of preschool-aged children to mental health care settings and significantly interfere with social and academic functioning. Furthermore, when left untreated, disruptive behavior disorder may persist and cause impairments in social, academic, and occupational functioning in later developmental stages. Parent-based training programs are effective in ameliorating many symptoms of disruptive behavior disorders, but often neglect other child factors associated with disruptive behavior, such as deficits in emotion regulation. Mindfulness training may be an effective method for addressing these individual-level contributing factors underlying the child’s disruptive behavior. At present, treatment outcome research on the efficacy of mindfulness training among preschool-aged children with disruptive behavior problems is highly limited. This case study examined the implementation of a two-part treatment consisting of a four-session parent-training program as well as four sessions of targeted mindfulness training for a preschool-aged child with disruptive behavior disorder. Treatment outcome data revealed significant gains, including improvements in emotion regulation and decreases in level of aggression, defiance, and sleep problems. Treatment gains were maintained at 6-month follow-up, along with further decreases in aggression, defiance, inattention, and hyperactivity, which resulted in no clinical-level symptoms at 6-months post-treatment. This case study demonstrates the potential efficacy of multi-strategy interventions for preschool-aged children with disruptive behavior problems and highlights mindfulness training as a promising adjunct to family-based interventions.
3D real-time human action recognition using a spline interpolation approach

This paper presents a novel descriptor based on skeleton information provided by RGB-D videos for human action recognition. These features are obtained, considering the motion as continuous trajectories of skeleton joints. With the discrete information of skeleton joints position, a cubic-spline interpolation is applied to joints position, velocity and acceleration components. The training and classification steps are done using a linear SVM. In the literature, many human motion descriptors based on RGB-D cameras had already been proposed with good accuracy, but with a high computational time. The main interest of this proposed approach is its ability to calculate human motion descriptors with a low computation cost while such a descriptor leads to an acceptable accuracy of recognition. Thus, this approach can be adapted to human computer interaction applications. For the purpose of validation, we apply our method to the challenging benchmark MSR-Action3D and introduce a new indicator which is the ratio between accuracy and execution time per descriptor. Using this criterion, we show that our algorithm outperforms the state-of-art methods in terms of the combined information of rapidity and accuracy.
The Significance of Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate as a Prognostic Factor for Patients with Prostate Cancer: Gunma Urological Oncology Study Group Investigation

The Gunma Urological Oncology Study Group has performed a multivariate statistical analysis of prognostic factors based on 353 patients with prostate cancer diagnosed between 1974 and 1984. This paper discusses the prognostic significance of erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) in these patients with prostate cancer. Based on three ranges (<20, >20‐ <50, >50 mm/h) of ESR, a significant difference of survival rates among the patients was found by means of univariate analysis. ESR apparently includes components which represent anemia or infection. Hemoglobin, frequently used as a prognostic factor, was compared with ESR by means of multivariate analysis, and ESR was found to be a more useful prognostic factor than hemoglobin. Moreover ESR showed the highest partial coefficient value among the items studied (clinical stage, pathological differentiation, age, acid phosphatase, gait disturbance). It seems that ESR includes not only anemia and infection components but also provides a clue to the degree of bone metastasis or the degree of prostate cancer progression.
A Decision Algorithm for Stratified Context Unification

Context uniication is a variant of second-order uniication and also a generalization of string uniication. Currently it is not known whether context uniication is decidable. An expressive fragment of context uniication is stratiied context uniication. Recently, it turned out that stratiied context uniication and one-step rewrite constraints are equivalent. This paper contains a description of a decision algorithm SCU for strat-iied context uniication together with a proof of its correctness, which shows decidability of stratiied context uniication as well as of satissa-bility of one-step rewrite constraints.
A review of potential Muslim organ donors' perspectives on solid organ donation: lessons for nurses in clinical practice.

BACKGROUND Transplantation is increasingly being used to treat patients with end-stage organ disease. However, when potential organ donors involved are Muslims, religious beliefs and culture have a strong influence on clinical decision making and nursing care. PURPOSE To establish basic aspects that nurses working with potential Muslim organ donors need to know in order to provide culturally sensitive care. METHODS Studies were retrieved from four databases (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, SCOPUS, Medline, and PubMed). RESULTS Findings of available studies show that health education, family involvement, and collaboration with religious leaders are good strategies for ensuring culturally sensitive care for Muslim patients in this situation. CONCLUSION Nurses need to know that organ donation is compatible with Islam and that religious leaders, family, sociocultural beliefs, legal requirements, informed decision making process, and Ramadan are important aspects that need to be considered in order to be able to provide culturally senstive care.
Sound Source Localization by Hearing Preservation Patients with and without Symmetrical Low-Frequency Acoustic Hearing

The aim of this article was to study sound source localization by cochlear implant (CI) listeners with low-frequency (LF) acoustic hearing in both the operated ear and in the contralateral ear. Eight CI listeners had symmetrical LF acoustic hearing and 4 had asymmetrical LF acoustic hearing. The effects of two variables were assessed: (i) the symmetry of the LF thresholds in the two ears and (ii) the presence/absence of bilateral acoustic amplification. Stimuli consisted of low-pass, high-pass, and wideband noise bursts presented in the frontal horizontal plane. Localization accuracy was 23° of error for the symmetrical listeners and 76° of error for the asymmetrical listeners. The presence of a unilateral CI used in conjunction with bilateral LF acoustic hearing does not impair sound source localization accuracy, but amplification for acoustic hearing can be detrimental to sound source localization accuracy.