Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Engaging adolescents in a computer-based weight management program: avatars and virtual coaches could help

OBJECTIVE This research focuses on the potential ability of animated avatars (a digital representation of the user) and virtual agents (a digital representation of a coach, buddy, or teacher) to deliver computer-based interventions for adolescents' chronic weight management. An exploration of the acceptance and desire of teens to interact with avatars and virtual agents for self-management and behavioral modification was undertaken. MATERIALS AND METHODS The utilized approach was inspired by community-based participatory research. Data was collected from 2 phases: Phase 1) focus groups with teens, provider interviews, parent interviews; and Phase 2) mid-range prototype assessment by teens and providers. RESULTS Data from all stakeholder groups expressed great interest in avatars and virtual agents assisting self-management efforts. Adolescents felt the avatars and virtual agents could: 1) reinforce guidance and support, 2) fit within their lifestyle, and 3) help set future goals, particularly after witnessing the effect of their current behavior(s) on the projected physical appearance (external and internal organs) of avatars. Teens wanted 2 virtual characters: a virtual agent to act as a coach or teacher and an avatar (extension of themselves) to serve as a "buddy" for empathic support and guidance and as a surrogate for rewards. Preferred modalities for use include both mobile devices to accommodate access and desktop to accommodate preferences for maximum screen real estate to support virtualization of functions that are more contemplative and complex (e.g., goal setting). Adolescents expressed a desire for limited co-user access, which they could regulate. Data revealed certain barriers and facilitators that could affect adoption and use. DISCUSSION The current study extends the support of teens, parents, and providers for adding avatars or virtual agents to traditional computer-based interactions. Data supports the desire for a personal relationship with a virtual character in support of previous studies. The study provides a foundation for further work in the area of avatar-driven motivational interviewing. CONCLUSIONS This study provides evidence supporting the use of avatars and virtual agents, designed using participatory approaches, to be included in the continuum of care. Increased probability of engagement and long-term retention of overweight, obese adolescent users and suggests expanding current chronic care models toward more comprehensive, socio-technical representations.
Well-Being and Family Role Strains Among Cuban American and Puerto Rican Mothers of Adults with Mental Retardation

Abstract This article examines predictors of depressive symptoms and caregiving burden in a sample of Cuban American and Puerto Rican caregivers of an adult child with mental retardation. Using a stress process model of caregiving, the focus of this analysis was on family role strains that result from the caregiving process, which were hypothesized to be particularly strong predictors of maternal well-being in Latino families. Findings indicate that Cuban American mothers of adults with mental retardation had higher socioeconomic status than Puerto Rican mothers, yet there was a substantial amount of within-group heterogeneity in family socio-demographic characteristics, linked closely with immigration patterns for the Cuban American mothers. However, taking into account socio-demographic diversity and ethnicity, findings demonstrate that mothers whose family had more problems had higher levels of burden and depressive symptoms, supporting the hypothesized importance of family functioning to Latina mothers with a non-normative parenting challenge.
Inflationary Constraints on Type IIA String Theory

We prove that inflation is forbidden in the most well understood class of semi-realistic type IIA string compactifications: Calabi-Yau compactifications with only standard NS-NS 3-form flux, R-R fluxes, D6-branes and O6-planes at large volume and small string coupling. With these ingredients, the first slow-roll parameter satisfies epsilon >= 27/13 whenever V > 0, ruling out both inflation (including brane/anti-brane inflation) and de Sitter vacua in this limit. Our proof is based on the dependence of the 4-dimensional potential on the volume and dilaton moduli in the presence of fluxes and branes. We also describe broader classes of IIA models which may include cosmologies with inflation and/or de Sitter vacua. The inclusion of extra ingredients, such as NS 5-branes and geometric or non-geometric NS-NS fluxes, evades the assumptions used in deriving the no-go theorem. We focus on NS 5-branes and outline how such ingredients may prove fruitful for cosmology, but we do not provide an explicit model. We contrast the results of our IIA analysis with the rather different situation in IIB.
Estimating stability regions for mismatched uncertain variable structure systems with bounded controllers

We address the problem of the estimation of stability regions of a class of mismatched uncertain variable structure systems with bounded controllers. The estimation of stability regions such as the practical stability region, the asymptotic stability region, and the exponential stability region are discussed. Moreover, the state transformation used in previous paper is no longer needed so that a new estimation result is directly related to the original system states without state transformation.
Movilidad cotidiana, desigualdad social y segregación residencial en cuatro metrópolis de América Latina

For the fi rst time in history, the 2000 round of censuses in Brazil, Mexico and Chile asked citizens a question about the location of their places of work or study. Analysis of census data produced new results on how daily commutes in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Santiago and Mexico City vary across socioeconomic groups. In Santiago and Mexico City, where the census question better captures daily commutes, there is an interesting paradox regarding individuals' economic status and their geographic location because the likelihood that one's workplace is located in a diff erent municipality from their residence increases as their socioeconomic status rises. However, the poorest municipalities tend to have higher indices of daily commuting. Th is is due to the concentration of employment in the Central Business Districts and wealthy areas, which are usually located far from the poorest municipalities, especially in highly segregated cities. Th is fi nding challenges the hypothesis that the Latin American cities of the future will be polycentric.
Spiritual Ecograms: A New Assessment Instrument for Identifying Clients' Strengths in Space and across Time

Increasing recognition exists for the vital role of spirituality in the lives of many clients, yet relatively few assessment instruments have been developed. This article presents a new assessment instrument—the spiritual ecogram—that taps information in space and across time. In addition to combining the assessment strengths of spiritual ecomaps and genograms in a single diagrammatic instrument, ecograms depict the connections between past and present functioning. Historical influences on current systems can be seen as well as current relationships to historical influences. This article also includes a case example, information on conducting a spiritually competent assessment, and a discussion of some spiritual interventions that flow from ecograms.
A co‐training algorithm for multi‐view data with applications in data fusion

In several scientific applications, data are generated from two or more diverse sources (views) with the goal of predicting an outcome of interest. Often it is the case that the outcome is not associated with any single view. However, the synergy of all measurements from each view may yield a more predictive classifier. For example, consider a drug discovery application in which individual molecules are described partially by several assay screens based on diverse profiles and partially by their chemical structural fingerprints. A common classification problem is to determine whether the molecule is associated with a particular disease. In this paper, a co‐training algorithm is developed to utilize data from diverse sources to predict the common class variable. Novel enhancements for variable importance, robustness to a mislabeled class variable, and a technique to handle unbalanced classes are applied to the motivating data set, highlighting that the approach attains strong performance and provides useful diagnostics for data analytic purposes. In addition, comparisons to a framework with data fusion using partial least squares (PLS) are also assessed on real data. An R package for performing the proposed approach is provided as Supporting information. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Efficacy of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapies in Fibromyalgia Syndrome — A Systematic Review and Metaanalysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

Objective. We performed the first systematic review with metaanalysis of the efficacy of cognitive-behavioral therapies (CBT) in fibromyalgia syndrome (FM). Methods. We screened Cochrane Library, Medline, PsychINFO, and Scopus (through June 2009) and the reference sections of original studies and systematic reviews for CBT in FM. Randomized controlled trials (RCT) comparing CBT to controls were analyzed. Primary outcomes were pain, sleep, fatigue, and health-related quality of life (HRQOL). Secondary outcomes were depressed mood, self-efficacy pain, and healthcare-seeking behavior. Effects were summarized using standardized mean differences (SMD). Results. A total of 14 out of 27 RCT with 910 subjects with a median treatment time of 27 hours (range 6–75) over a median of 9 weeks (range 5–15) were included. CBT reduced depressed mood (SMD −0.24, 95% CI −0.40, −0.08; p = 0.004) at posttreatment. Sensitivity analyses showed that the positive effect on depressed mood could not be distinguished from some risks of bias. There was no significant effect on pain, fatigue, sleep, and HRQOL at posttreatment and at followup. There was a significant effect on self-efficacy pain posttreatment (SMD 0.85, 95% CI 0.25, 1.46; p = 0.006) and at followup (SMD 0.90, 95% CI 0.14, 1.66; p = 0.02). Operant behavioral therapy significantly reduced the number of physician visits at followup (SMD −1.57, 95% CI −2.00, −1.14; p < 0.001). Conclusion. CBT can be considered to improve coping with pain and to reduce depressed mood and healthcare-seeking behavior in FM.
Narrowing socioeconomic inequality in child stunting: the Brazilian experience, 1974-2007.

OBJECTIVE To assess trends in the prevalence and social distribution of child stunting in Brazil to evaluate the effect of income and basic service redistribution policies implemented in that country in the recent past. METHODS The prevalence of stunting (height-for-age z score below -2 using the Child Growth Standards of the World Health Organization) among children aged less than 5 years was estimated from data collected during national household surveys carried out in Brazil in 1974-75 (n = 34,409), 1989 (n = 7374), 1996 (n = 4149) and 2006-07 (n = 4414). Absolute and relative socioeconomic inequality in stunting was measured by means of the slope index and the concentration index of inequality, respectively. FINDINGS Over a 33-year period, we documented a steady decline in the national prevalence of stunting from 37.1% to 7.1%. Prevalence dropped from 59.0% to 11.2% in the poorest quintile and from 12.1% to 3.3% among the wealthiest quintile. The decline was particularly steep in the last 10 years of the period (1996 to 2007), when the gaps between poor and wealthy families with children under 5 were also reduced in terms of purchasing power; access to education, health care and water and sanitation services; and reproductive health indicators. CONCLUSION In Brazil, socioeconomic development coupled with equity-oriented public policies have been accompanied by marked improvements in living conditions and a substantial decline in child undernutrition, as well as a reduction of the gap in nutritional status between children in the highest and lowest socioeconomic quintiles. Future studies will show whether these gains will be maintained under the current global economic crisis.
National Identification And Anti-Immigrant Prejudice: Individual And Contextual Effects Of National Definitions

In this study, we examined the relationship between national identification and anti-immigrant prejudice in a multilevel analysis of ISSP survey data from 37,030 individuals in 31 countries. We argue that this relationship depends on how national groups are defined by their members. Across the 31 national samples, the correlation between national identification and prejudice ranged from weakly negative (-.06) to moderately positive (.37). The relationship was significantly stronger in countries where people on average endorsed a definition of national belonging based on language, and weaker where people on average defined the nation in terms of citizenship. These effects occurred at a national rather than individual level, supporting an explanation in terms of the construction of nationality that prevails in a given context. Endorsement of the ancestry-based criteria for nationality was positively associated with prejudice, but only at the individual level.
0-701 Machine Learning: Assignment 2 Q1) Support Vector Machines (pulkit) Svm [20 Points]

Instructions: Failure to follow these directions may result in loss of points. • Your solutions for this assignment need to be in a pdf format and should be submitted to the blackboard and the webpage http://barnabas-cmu-10701.appspot. com for peer-reviewing. • For the programming question, your code should be well-documented, so a TA can understand what is happening. • We are NOT going to use Autolab in this assignment. • DO NOT include any identification (your name, andrew id, or email) in both the content and filename of your submission.
Occupational science: A stock take of accumulated insights

Abstract This article examines the diversity of scholarship associated with occupational science to date, particularly focusing on literature published within the Journal of Occupational Science and in occupational therapy journals. The potential contribution of Strauss's 1993 Theory of Action is also highlighted. The achievements of occupational science are analysed, from the perspective of understanding the elements of occupation, occupational processes and the relationship of occupation to other phenomenon such as health. Based on this analysis, potentially fruitful future research directions are identified. That different directions would have become evident had occupational science been analysed from other perspectives is strongly acknowledged.
Characterization of a proapoptotic antiganglioside GM2 monoclonal antibody and evaluation of its therapeutic effect on melanoma and small cell lung carcinoma xenografts.

Monoclonal antibodies have begun to show great clinical promise for the treatment of cancer. Antibodies that can directly affect a tumor cell's growth and/or survival are of particular interest for immunotherapy. Previously, we described monoclonal antibody DMF10.62. 3 that had antiproliferative and proapoptotic effects when it bound an antigen of unknown identity on tumor cells in vitro. In this report, we determined that DMF10.62. 3 and a clonally related antibody DMF10.167. 4 recognize the ganglioside GM2. These antibodies react with a GM2 epitope that is expressed on a large number of tumor cell lines, including human melanoma and small cell lung carcinoma, but not on normal primary lines or most normal tissues. Interestingly, this pattern of cellular reactivity is distinct from that reported for other previously described GM2 antibodies, a difference that is presumably due to DMF10.167. 4's binding to a unique GM2-associated epitope. Additional characterization of DMF10.167. 4 revealed that this antibody was able to induce apoptosis and/or block cellular proliferation when cultured in vitro with the human Jurkat T lymphoma, CHL-1 melanoma, and SBC-3 small cell lung carcinoma lines. In vivo, DMF10.167. 4 antibody was well tolerated in mice and did not detectably bind to or damage normal tissues. However, this antibody was able to prevent murine E710.2. 3 lymphoma, human CHL-1 melanoma, and SBC-3 small cell lung carcinoma lines from establishing tumors in vivo and blocked progression of established CHL-1 and SBC-3 tumors in vivo. Therefore, monoclonal antibody DMF10.167. 4 has immunotherapeutic potential.
360SCAN: High-speed rotating line sensor for real-time 360ß panoramic vision

This paper presents the novel smart camera “360SCAN” generating real-time 360° panoramic edge maps using a rotating dynamic vision sensor at up to 10 rotations per sec. The system consists of (1) a bio-inspired dynamic vision line sensor asynchronously reacting to relative contrast changes at high temporal resolution with on-chip time stamping (1μs resolution), having a high dynamic range and the sparse visual coding of the information, (2) a high-speed mechanical device rotating at up to 10 rotations per sec (rps) on which the sensor is mounted and (3) a real-time embedded software for the reconstruction of 360° panoramic views in a contrast map (events) as generated by the sensor. This work contributes by showing the camera capabilities in representing indoor and outdoor scene at certain illumination conditions. A set of experiments were made and evaluated for achieving typical angular resolutions of the panoramic views as well as the visual quality of the data. All evaluations were performed on natural scenes with ambient illuminations. Furthermore, we report 360SCAN results dealing with 360° panoramic views of the natural scene in real-time and at different rotations.
VC dimension theory for a learning system with forgetting

In a changing environment, forgetting old samples is an effective method to improve the adaptability of learning systems. However, too fast forgetting causes a decrease of generalization performance. In this paper, we analyze the generalization performance of a learning system with a forgetting parameter. For a class of binary discriminant functions, it is proved that the generalization error is given by O(/spl radic/h/spl alpha/) (O(h/spl alpha/) in a certain case), where h is the Vapnik-Chervonenkis (VC) dimension of the class of functions and 1-/spl alpha/ represents a forgetting rate. The result provides a criterion to determine the optimal forgetting rate.
The Effect of Multiple Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms in the Folic Acid Pathway Genes on Homocysteine Metabolism

Objective. To investigate the joint effects of the single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of genes in the folic acid pathway on homocysteine (Hcy) metabolism. Methods. Four hundred women with normal pregnancies were enrolled in this study. SNPs were identified by MassARRAY. Serum folic acid and Hcy concentration were measured. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and support vector machine (SVM) regressions were used to analyze the joint effects of SNPs on the Hcy level. Results. SNPs of MTHFR (rs1801133 and rs3733965) were significantly associated with maternal serum Hcy level. In the different genotypes of MTHFR (rs1801133), SNPs of RFC1 (rs1051266), TCN2 (rs9606756), BHMT (rs3733890), and CBS (rs234713 and rs2851391) were linked with the Hcy level adjusted for folic acid concentration. The integrated SNPs scores were significantly associated with the residual Hcy concentration (RHC) (r = 0.247). The Hcy level was significantly higher in the group with high SNP scores than that in other groups with SNP scores of less than 0.2 (P = 0.000). Moreover, this difference was even more significant in moderate and high levels of folic acid. Conclusion. SNPs of genes in the folic acid pathway possibly affect the Hcy metabolism in the presence of moderate and high levels of folic acid.
ComEA Is Essential for the Transfer of External DNA into the Periplasm in Naturally Transformable Vibrio cholerae Cells

The DNA uptake of naturally competent bacteria has been attributed to the action of DNA uptake machineries resembling type IV pilus complexes. However, the protein(s) for pulling the DNA across the outer membrane of Gram-negative bacteria remain speculative. Here we show that the competence protein ComEA binds incoming DNA in the periplasm of naturally competent Vibrio cholerae cells thereby promoting DNA uptake, possibly through ratcheting and entropic forces associated with ComEA binding. Using comparative modeling and molecular simulations, we projected the 3D structure and DNA-binding site of ComEA. These in silico predictions, combined with in vivo and in vitro validations of wild-type and site-directed modified variants of ComEA, suggested that ComEA is not solely a DNA receptor protein but plays a direct role in the DNA uptake process. Furthermore, we uncovered that ComEA homologs of other bacteria (both Gram-positive and Gram-negative) efficiently compensated for the absence of ComEA in V. cholerae, suggesting that the contribution of ComEA in the DNA uptake process might be conserved among naturally competent bacteria.
Why Are the Returns to Education Higher for Entrepreneurs than for Employees

We compare the returns to education (RTE) for entrepreneurs and employees, based on 19 waves of the NLSY database. By using instrumental variable techniques (IV) and taking account of selectivity, we find that the RTE are significantly higher for entrepreneurs than for employees (18.3 percent and 9.9 percent, respectively). We perform various analyses in an attempt to explain the difference. We find (indirect) support for the argument that the higher RTE for entrepreneurs is due to fewer (organizational) constraints faced by entrepreneurs when optimizing the profitable employment of their education.
RECEPTORS FOR AGGREGATED IgG ON MOUSE LYMPHOCYTES

An autoradiographic binding assay employing 125I-labeled heat-aggregated mouse IgG2b myeloma protein (MOPC 141) was used to demonstrate receptors for IgG on 20–45% of Balb/c thymocytes and on 70–80% of splenocytes. Binding could also be shown with heat or BDB aggregates of another IgG2b (MOPC 195), with IgG1 and with human γ-globulin, but not with aggregated chicken γ-globulin, IgA, BSA, nor with aggregated Fab fragments of IgG2b. Optimum binding was obtained at 37°C. Detection of binding was dependent upon aggregate size with complexes of more than 100 IgG molecules being optimal, aggregates of 6–25 detecting splenocytes but not thymocytes, and aggregates of less than 6 binding to a negligible extent. Comparison of grain counts on various cell types showed mastocytoma cells (P815) and macrophages averaging 40–50 grains/cell/day, allogeneically activated thymocytes 20–30, splenocytes 2–3, L5178 lymphoma cells 1, and positive thymocytes 0.6 grains/cell/day. Double labeling experiments for surface Ig, θ-antigen, and agg IgG receptor on mouse spleen cells indicated that a relatively high density of receptor was present on about 80% of B cells, 30% of T cells, and 60% of SIg-, θ-, null cells.