Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Risk Factors for Intracerebral Hemorrhage: The REasons for Geographic And Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) Study

Background and Purpose— Risk factors for intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) have been largely identified in case–control studies, with few longitudinal studies available. Methods— Predictors of incident ICH among 27 760 black and white participants from the REasons for Geographic And Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) cohort study were assessed. Results— There were 62 incident ICH events during an average follow-up of 5.7 years. The increase in risk with age differed substantially between blacks and whites (P=0.006), with a 2.25-fold (95% confidence interval, 1.63–3.12) increase per decade in whites, but no age association with ICH risk in blacks (hazard ratio=1.09; 95% confidence interval, 0.70–1.68). We observed increased risk among men, those with higher systolic blood pressure, and warfarin users. Conclusions— The racial differences in the impact of age contributed to a risk of ICH that was >5 times higher for blacks than whites at age 45, but only about one third as great by age 85. Confirming findings from other studies, men participants with elevated systolic blood pressure and warfarin users were also at greater risk. The contributors to the racial differences in ICH risk require additional investigation.
Using dimensionality reduction to exploit constraints in reinforcement learning

Reinforcement learning in the high-dimensional, continuous spaces typical in robotics, remains a challenging problem. To overcome this challenge, a popular approach has been to use demonstrations to find an appropriate initialisation of the policy in an attempt to reduce the number of iterations needed to find a solution. Here, we present an alternative way to incorporate prior knowledge from demonstrations of individual postures into learning, by extracting the inherent problem structure to find an efficient state representation. In particular, we use probabilistic, nonlinear dimensionality reduction to capture latent constraints present in the data. By learning policies in the learnt latent space, we are able to solve the planning problem in a reduced space that automatically satisfies task constraints. As shown in our experiments, this reduces the exploration needed and greatly accelerates the learning. We demonstrate our approach for learning a bimanual reaching task on the 19-DOF KHR-1HV humanoid.
Supporting Distributed Aspects by Extending Object Teams Model into Distributed Environments

Several distributed AOP models and languages have been developed to support aspects in distributed programming. These approaches prosper in encapsulating distributed concerns within aspect modules and facilitate their employment in distributed applications, but lack supporting management facilities; the dynamic activation/deactivation of aspects at runtime as an alternative to the expensive weaving/unweaving mechanism adopted in some approaches. Additionally, these approaches do not regard the real-world semantics of aspects; which reduces their understandability. In this paper we present DOT/J, a distributed model that extends the programming model of OT/J language into distributed environments to support the dynamic management of these aspects, and improve their semantical representation.
All Joking Aside: A Serious Investigation into the Persuasive Effect of Funny Social Issue Messages

This research was designed to assess the effects of contemporary political humor on information processing and persuasion, focusing specifically on two competing processes: processing motivation/counterargument distraction and message discounting. In Study 1, 212 undergraduates read one of four monologues by political comedian Bill Maher. Correlations and path modeling suggested that, in general, humor associated with greater source liking, closer information processing, and reduced counterargument, but also with greater message discounting. In Study 2, 204 undergraduates read one of four versions of a message based on the comedy of Chris Rock, manipulated to be more or less funny and attributed to the comedian or not. Results largely replicated those from Study 1. In addition, the humorous messages promoted more discounting than the serious messages, though they were processed with comparable depth. Although no more likely to be persuasive in the short run, the comedic transcript evidenced a sleeper effect after one week. In sum, the data were consistent with the notion that humorous messages might be processed carefully (but not critically) yet simultaneously discounted as irrelevant to attitudinal judgments. Implications for humor research and the sleeper effect are discussed.
The efficacy of training of stress-coping strategies on marital satisfaction of spouses of veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder

Introduction Marital satisfaction is an important factor in people’s quality of life. It has become increasingly crucial in healthcare and health research and is dependent on coping styles of people exposed to traumatic events. The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of coping-style training on increasing the marital satisfaction of wives of veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Methods In this experimental study, 60 subjects were selected from the spouses of veterans with PTSD. The veterans were chosen from the Veterans Foundation of Northern Khorasan Province (Iran) in 2014. In this study, we used the Enrich questionnaire to determine the marital satisfaction of the aforementioned spouses. Subjects were assigned randomly to study and control groups. We used the training package of a Practical Guide for Stress Management according to cognitive behavioral approaches. Cognitive-behavioral group therapy was administered in 90-minute sessions over a 12-week period. We used the paired-samples t-test and ANCOVA to determine the effect of Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) between the two groups. Results The mean and the standard deviation of age in the study and control groups were 36.8 ± 4.33 years and 35.3 ± 4.7 years, respectively. According to p < 0.005, a significant difference was observed between the subjects in the two groups. Therefore, treatment with cognitive behavioral group therapy showed evidence of clinical improvements in marital satisfaction of the study group. Conclusion The results of our study showed that methods of coping with stress based on CBT are effective in increasing the marital satisfaction of wives of veterans with PTSD.
Modelling Energy Consumption of Relay-Enabled MAC Protocols in Ad Hoc Networks

To enhance the throughput of ad hoc networks, dual-hop relay-enabled transmission schemes have recently been proposed. Since in ad hoc networks throughput is normally related to their energy consumption, it is important to examine the impact of using relay-enabled transmissions on energy consumption. In this paper, we present an analytical energy consumption model for dual-hop relay-enabled medium access control (MAC) protocols. Based on the recently reported Relay-enabled Distributed Coordination Function (rDCF), we have shown the efficacy of the proposed analytical model. This is a generalized model and can be used to predict energy consumption in saturated relay-enabled ad hoc networks via energy decomposition. This is helpful in designing MAC protocols for cooperative communications and it is shown that using a relay results not only in a better throughput but also better energy efficiency.
Taking Fact-Checks Literally But Not Seriously? The Effects of Journalistic Fact-Checking on Factual Beliefs and Candidate Favorability

Are citizens willing to accept journalistic fact-checks of misleading claims from candidates they support and to update their attitudes about those candidates? Previous studies have reached conflicting conclusions about the effects of exposure to counter-attitudinal information. As fact-checking has become more prominent, it is therefore worth examining how respondents respond to fact-checks of politicians—a question with important implications for understanding the effects of this journalistic format on elections. We present results to two experiments conducted during the 2016 campaign that test the effects of exposure to realistic journalistic fact-checks of claims made by Donald Trump during his convention speech and a general election debate. These messages improved the accuracy of respondents’ factual beliefs, even among his supporters, but had no measurable effect on attitudes toward Trump. These results suggest that journalistic fact-checks can reduce misperceptions but often have minimal effects on candidate evaluations or vote choice.
Valuation of Travel Time Savings in Viewpoint of WTA

In order to investigate the issues in measurement of value of travel time savings (VTTS), the willingness-to-accept (WTA) for the private car owner is studied by using surveyed data. It is convincing that trip purpose, trip length, time savings, cost savings, income, and allowance from employee have effects on the WTA. Moreover, influences of these variables are not the same for different trip purposes. For commuting trips, effects of income and allowance from employee are significant while time savings and cost savings are dominated for leisure and shopping trips. It is also found that WTA is much higher than expected which implies that there are a group of drivers who are not prone to switching to other trip modes other than passenger car.
Quantification of MUC2 and MUC5AC transcripts in human conjunctiva.

PURPOSE Transcripts of mucins 1, 4, and 5AC have been identified in human conjunctival tissue. Of these, only MUC5AC has been localized to goblet cells. MUC2 is a goblet cell mucin originally identified in the intestinal mucosa. The presence of MUC2 transcripts and levels of MUC2 and MUC5AC transcripts in normal human conjunctiva, as determined by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR), is reported. METHODS RNA from conjunctivae of six donors (3 men, 3 women, 44 to 69 years, all white) was isolated and subjected to competitive reverse transcription-PCR. Internal standards, which are dsDNA molecules with ends complementary to a given primer pair but containing nonhomologous central sequences, were prepared for each gene assayed. Titration of a constant amount of cDNA against serial dilutions of the internal standard allowed quantification of the template cDNA. MUC2 and MUC5AC levels were compared to levels of the "housekeeping" gene, beta2-microglobulin (beta2M). The identity of PCR products was confirmed by sequencing. RESULTS In the six individual samples tested, beta2M mRNA is expressed, on average, at approximately 10(-20) moles per sample (1 microg RNA) or approximately 63.5x10(4) molecules. The mRNA encoding MUC5AC, a relatively abundant ocular mucin, exists at levels 10-fold lower than beta2M. In contrast to previous reports of MUC2 mRNA being absent at the ocular surface, these results show that MUC2 transcripts are present and expressed at levels 5900-fold lower than for MUC5AC. Apparently, MUC2 transcripts exist on the order of only approximately 100 to 1000 molecules/microg of RNA in the analyzed samples. CONCLUSIONS MUC2 transcripts are present in human conjunctival tissue and their abundance is much lower than that of MUC5AC. This is the first application of competitive PCR to the quantitative analysis of mucin expression in human ocular tissue. The sensitivity of this method allows the detection of MUC2 transcripts that were not detected by Northern blot analysis or in situ hybridization in previous studies. It also makes possible the comparison of relative levels of expression for ocular mucins.
Dynamic range improvement for some∗ Canon dSLRs by alternating ISO during sensor readout

If you are lurking on popular photo forums, you have probably noticed that some people say Nikon/Sony/Pentax/others have more dynamic range than Canon cameras [1, 2, 3]. The difference is visible in extreme lighting conditions when you try to bring shadow detail, the image from Canon dSLRs tends to get a bit noisier (Figure 1). Can we do something about it? YES. It’s all about how you are scanning the sensor.
SecSess: keeping your session tucked away in your browser

Session management is a crucial component in every modern web application. It links subsequent requests and temporary stateful information together, enabling a rich and interactive user experience. Unfortunately, the de facto standard cookie-based session management mechanism is imperfect, which is why session management vulnerabilities rank second in the OWASP top 10 of web application vulnerabilities [18]. While improved session management mechanisms have been proposed, none of them achieves compatibility with currently deployed applications or infrastructure components such as web caches. We propose SecSess, a lightweight session management mechanism that addresses common session management vulnerabilities by ensuring a session remains under control of the parties that established it. SecSess is fully interchangeable with the currently deployed cookie-based session management, and can be gradually deployed to clients and servers through an opt-in mechanism. Evaluation of our proof-of-concept implementation shows that SecSess introduces only a minimal performance and networking overhead. Furthermore, we empirically show that SecSess is effectively compatible with commonly used web caches, in contrast to alternative approaches.
AUTOMATIC VIDEO OBJECT DETECTION AND RECOGNITION WITH CAMERA IN MOTION

In this paper, we present an automatic moving object extraction and classification system. For extraction, a novel technique for automatic extraction of moving object captured by a moving camera is proposed. Optical flow handles the background modeling and camera motion estimation, and frame difference information yields the exact object shape. We also put forward region boundary based change detection approach for frame difference. This approach assures change detection for uniform intensity regions. For classification, weighted likelihood discriminant based shape classifier is designed. Unlike Maximum Likelihood (ML) methods, proposed method utilizes information from all classes to design the classifier. In the description phase of classifier, curvature features are extracted from the shape and are utilized to build a Hidden Markov Model (HMM). The HMM provides a robust ML description of the shape. In the discrimination phase, a weighted likelihood discriminant function is introduced, which weights the likelihoods of curvature at individual points of shape to minimize the classification error. The weights are estimated by Generalized Probabilistic Descent (GPD) method. To demonstrate the accuracy of the proposed method, we present results achieved for car shapes extraction and classification.
Quantitative assessment of scatter correction techniques incorporated in next generation dual-source computed tomography

Quantitative assessment of scatter correction techniques incorporated in next generation dual-source computed tomography. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The work presented in this thesis could not have been done without the support and hard work of multidisciplinary teams. I would like to first thank Dr. Eric A. Hoffman, my thesis advisor, whose mentorship guided me throughout my time in the lab and with this project. I would like to thank Dr. William " Bill " Lynch for his guidance and direction with our project. I would like to thank my committee members, Dr. for their support and useful comments regarding this work and in regards to my biomedical engineering education. I would like to thank Matthew Fuld for his assistance with image analysis, and for his support and always being ready to help out me out wherever I need him. I would like to thank Jered Sieren for his instructions with scanning techniques. I would like to thank Andrew Primak at Siemens Medical Solutions for his help and insight with medical physics. Lastly, I would like to thank everyone in the Physiological Imaging Laboratory for their help and support. I would like to thank Ann Thompson and John Morgan for all their help throughout the years. I am also grateful for all the technical and emotional support from the staff and other students in the lab throughout the years. iii ABSTRACT CT has emerged as a powerful method for imaging of the lung due to its widespread availability, high spatial resolution, high signal to noise ratio for lung tissue, and fast acquisition speed. Dual-source CT (DSCT) imaging can now provide anatomical, functional, and quantitative information about the lung. CT technology has rapidly evolved from its introduction in the medical field in the early 1970s, and its development through the decades has produced a profound change in the role of diagnostic imaging in medicine. Accurate, cross-scanner assessment of in-vivo air density used to quantitatively assess amount and distribution of emphysema in COPD subjects has remained elusive. Hounsfield units (HU) within tracheal air can be considerably more positive than-1000 HU. With the advent of new dual-source scanners which employ dedicated scatter correction techniques, it is of interest to evaluate how the quantitative measures of lung density compare between dual-source and single-source scan modes. This study has sought to characterize in-vivo and phantom-based air metrics using dual-energy computed tomography technology where the nature of the technology …
Instruction Resource Recommendation Services for Elementary Schools in Taiwan

In the past, there were more researches of recommendation system in applied electronic commerce. However, because all circles promote information technology integrative instruction actively, the quantity of instruction resources website is more and more increasing on the Internet. But there are less website including recommendation service, especially for teachers. This study established an instruction resource recommendation website that analyzed teaching style of teachers, then provided appropriate instruction resources for teachers immediately. We used the questionnaire survey to realize teacher’s suggestions and satisfactions with the instruction resource contents and recommendation results. The study shows: (1)The website used “Transactional Ability Inventory” that realized teacher’s style and provided appropriate instruction resources for teachers in a short time, it reduced the step of data filter. (2)According to the content satisfaction of questionnaire survey, four styles teachers were almost satisfied with the contents of the instruction resources that the website recommended, thus, the conception of developing instruction resources with different teaching style is accepted. (3) According to the recommendation satisfaction of questionnaire survey, four styles teachers were almost satisfied with the recommendation service of the website, thus, the recommendation strategy that provide different results for teachers in different teaching styles is accepted. Keywords—Instruction resource, recommendation service, and teaching style.
Mental health provider cultural competence in the provision of services to Arabs

ABSTRACT Factors contributing to racial/ethnic disparities (among Arabs) in mental health services include a lack of provider cultural competence. A cultural competence measure toward Arabs was developed and administered to providers in Northern Virginia, in order to assess psychometric properties. Factor analyses revealed a unidimensional construct of cultural competence toward Arabs. Additionally, higher levels of cultural competence were significantly related to higher readiness for change, and, specific to Arabs, more previous knowledge and familiarity, and utilization of books for knowledge. A model inclusive of these factors explained 19% of the variance in mean scores. Implications for research, practice, and training are discussed.
Colonial hangover? A case of multiple cross-cultural influences on Indian Railways

ABSTRACT Employing a reflexive-ethnographic design involving past experiences and analysing qualitative data contained in 73 interviews with senior managers from the Indian Railways (IR), this study argues for the remnants of colonial influence on the management, governance aspects and culture in IR. Findings from the study further ratify and confirm aspects of our four scenarios and indicate that the interaction between colonial culture with both national and organisational culture collides to create a complex and conflicting culture in this extremely large and diverse organisation. Such organisational culture, despite the resilient presence of Indianness, paradoxically retains strong elements of the colonial influences as this is seen at times a legitimate and dominant way of governing the world’s largest commercial employer – The IR.
Video surveillance of interactions

This paper describes an automatic surveillance system, which performs labeling of events and interactions in an outdoor environment. The system is designed to monitor activities in an open parking lot. It consists of three components-an adaptive tracker, an event generator, which maps object tracks onto a set of pre-determined discrete events, and a stochastic parser. The system performs segmentation and labeling of surveillance video of a parking lot and identifies person-vehicle interactions, such as pick-up and drop-off. The system presented in this paper is developed jointly by MIT Media Lab and MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab.
How Can Robots Succeed in Unstructured Environments ? Blind Submission

Roboticists are working towards the realization of autonomous mobile manipulators that can perform useful tasks in human environments. These environments pose a significant challenge because of their complexity and inherent uncertainty. They are characterized by having a high dimensional state space. Consequently, performing tasks in these unstructured environments remains a challenge. Recently, researchers have been successful in developing skills that can handle the complexity of unstructured environments. We hypothesize that those successes are due to a careful implementation that is able to reduce the complexity of the state space, and render the respective problems tractable. In this paper, we analyze this increasing body of literature, in an attempt to extract the common ideas that enable the reduction of the state space. Based on these commonalities, we propose a set of guidelines to facilitate progress for autonomous mobile manipulation in unstructured environments.
PROCOL: a parallel object language with protocols

PROCOL is a parallel C-based object-oriented language with communication based on one-way synchronous messages. Objects execute in parallel unless engaged in communication. Communication partners are defined by object instance identifiers, or by type. Therefore send-receive mappings may be 1-1, n-1, or 1-n, though only 1 message is transferred. PROCOL controls object access by a novel concept: an explicit per-object protocol. This protocol is a specification of the occurrence and sequencing of the communication between the object and its partners. Thus protocols support structured, safer and potentially verifiable information exchange between objects. Protocols also act as a composition rule over client objects, thereby offering a 'part-of' hierarchy of these cooperating objects.