Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Gratitude : a basis for positive psychology interventions with a clinical population

This thesis includes a literature review that summarises the types of psychological research that have been conducted into gratitude, including the research conceptualising and developing assessments around it and exploring its associations with wellbeing, personality, social interaction, and health. The review focuses specifically on the research examining the relationship of gratitude to anxiety, depression and sleep, providing an outline of current theories about the relationship of positive affect to wellbeing, and a summary of the evidence to date. It is noted that there is comparatively little research on the impact of gratitude on anxiety and sleep but promising findings about the role of gratitude in the treatment of depression. Taken together, it is argued, the current research supported the need for trials of gratitude interventions specifically with clinical populations. Finally, the review looks at the literature of experimental interventions using gratitude. Particular emphasis is given to what has been learnt through these trials that might guide the focus and design of future research. There follows the report of a randomized wait-list controlled pre-post trial of a gratitude diary intended to extend the research into the efficacy of gratitude diaries in the treatment of clinical populations with depression, anxiety and sleep difficulties. It was hypothesised that after completing a brief gratitude diary for three weeks, participants would have lower scores on measures of depression, anxiety, and perceived sleep difficulties, and higher scores on a measure of life satisfaction. These results were also expected to be evident at three-week follow-up. In a randomised waitlist-controlled trial with repeated measures pre-, post- and follow-up design, participants (N=109, from Australia) aged 18-64 years with a current self-reported diagnosis of an anxiety disorder and/or depression, took part in a self-help study via the internet. After completing the diary participants had lower scores on measures of depression, anxiety and perceived sleep difficulties and higher scores on a measure of subjective wellbeing than immediately pre-intervention. In addition, they had improved scores on a measure of stress. At three-week follow-up scores on depression and perceived sleep difficulties were no longer significantly different from pre-intervention, however improvements for subjective wellbeing and stress at post-intervention were maintained. At follow-up scores for anxiety had not only been maintained but had improved significantly beyond post-intervention results. This trial provides support for the use of gratitude diaries as a short-term intervention with a clinical population. Different patterns of anxiety and depression scores raise the possibility that gratitude interventions work differently to address depression and anxiety symptoms and provide support for the idea that gratitude interventions may have sustainable effects on anxiety symptoms.
A Federated CloudNet Architecture: The PIP and the VNP Role

Abstract We present a generic and flexible architecture to realize CloudNets: virtual networks connecting geographically distributed cloud resources (such as storage or CPU) with resource guarantees. Our architecture is federated and supports different (and maybe even competing) economical roles, by providing explicit negotiation and provisioning interfaces. Contract-based interactions and a resource description language that allows for aggregation and abstraction, preserve the different roles´ autonomy without sacrificing flexibility. Moreover, since our CloudNet architecture is plugin based, essentially all cloud operating systems (e. g., OpenStack) or link technologies (e. g., VLANs, OpenFlow, VPLS) can be used within the framework. This paper describes two roles in more detail: The Physical Infrastructure Providers (PIP) which own the substrate network and resources, and the Virtual Network Providers (VNP) which can act as resource and CloudNet brokers and resellers. Both roles are fully implemented in our wide-area prototype that spans remote sites and resources. Zusammenfassung Wir beschreiben eine generische und flexible Architektur, um Cloud Netzwerke (kurz: CloudNets) zu realisieren. CloudNets sind virtuelle Netzwerke, die weltweit verteilte Cloud-Ressourcen verbinden (mit Qualitätsgarantien). Unsere Architektur ist föderiert und unterstützt mehrere (eventuell sogar konkurrierende) ökonomische Spieler, indem sie explizite Verhandlungs- und Administrationsschnittstellen anbietet. Durch vertragsbasierte Interaktionen und eine Ressourcenbeschreibungssprache, welche Aggregationen und Abstraktionen zulässt, ist die Autonomie der unterschiedlichen Rollen ohne Flexibilitätsverluste gewährleistet. Durch einen Plugin-basierten Aufbau kann die CloudNets-Architektur mit beliebigen Cloud-Betriebssystemen (z. B. OpenStack) und Linktechnologien (z. B. VLANs, OpenFlow, VPLS) umgesetzt werden. Dieser Artikel befasst sich insbesondere mit den folgenden zwei Rollen: Dem Provider der physikalischen Infrastruktur (PIP)}, welcher das Substrat und dessen Ressourcen besitzt und unterhält, und dem Virtuellen Netzwerk Provider (VNP), welcher als Ressourcen- oder CloudNet-Broker auftreten kann. Die VNP-Rolle kann dabei sogar rekursiv sein. Sowohl die PIP- als auch die VNP-Rolle sind in unserem wide-area Prototyp vollständig implementiert.
Ocular Scattering

Ocular scattering is an optical phenomenon that degrades the retinal image in the human eye, similar to the effects of ocular aberrations or diffraction. However, there is still a lack of standardization in defining and measuring ocular scattering. Several devices and procedures have been described during the last decade, but most have not been validated or been shown to be reliable. The development of a standard procedure for measuring and describing ocular scattering is an ongoing subject in visual science. This review aims to provide a general definition of the concept of ocular scattering, based on the work of previous authors, and to highlight the advantages and disadvantages of measurement techniques that have been described.
Fast Convergence in Population Games

A stochastic learning dynamic exhibits fast convergence in a population game if the expected waiting time until the process comes near a Nash equilibrium is bounded above for all sufficiently large populations. We propose a novel family of learning dynamics that exhibits fast convergence for a large class of population games that includes coordination games, potential games, and supermodular games as special cases. These games have the property that, from any initial state, there exists a continuous better-reply path to a Nash equilibrium that is locally stable.
Parent and teacher report of social skills in children with autism spectrum disorders.

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to examine the agreement between parent and teacher perceptions of specific social behaviors in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). METHOD Informant ratings were generated concerning 45 children with ASD between the ages of 5 and 14 years who were enrolled in social skills groups at 2 Midwestern outpatient autism treatment centers. RESULTS Moderate agreement was observed between parents and teachers for the overall social skills rating scores (r = 0.34; p < 0.05), but there was little agreement on specific social items. Distinct patterns of skill profiles emerged. Parents consistently provided relatively higher ratings on items that pertained to initiating interactions. Teachers, on the other hand, consistently provided higher ratings on items related to responding to and maintaining interactions. Parents and teachers agreed most often on items of affective understanding and perspective taking. CONCLUSION These findings suggest that specific social behaviors may be context dependent, indicating the need for a multi-informant approach to provide a more complete profile of a child's social abilities, which is necessary for generating a more effective treatment plan.
PROGRAMA PARA EL CONTRASTE DE LINEALIDAD APLICADO A LOS AJUSTES DE RESPUESTAS PSICOFÍSICAS

En este trabajo se presenta un programa, escrito en QBASIC, para el ajuste de tres tipo de funciones psicofisicas (logaritmica, potencial y lineal) y el contraste de la hipotesis de linealidad del ajuste. El programa proporciona la tabla del Analisis de Varianza de la Regresion, con las sumas de cuadrados que permiten efectuar el contraste de linealidad, los parametros de la funcion de ajuste elegida, el coeficiente de correlacion y el coeficiente de determinacion
Advanced Paternal Age Is Associated with Impaired Neurocognitive Outcomes during Infancy and Childhood

Background Advanced paternal age (APA) is associated with an increased risk of neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism and schizophrenia, as well as with dyslexia and reduced intelligence. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between paternal age and performance on neurocognitive measures during infancy and childhood. Methods and Findings A sample of singleton children (n = 33,437) was drawn from the US Collaborative Perinatal Project. The outcome measures were assessed at 8 mo, 4 y, and 7 y (Bayley scales, Stanford Binet Intelligence Scale, Graham-Ernhart Block Sort Test, Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Wide Range Achievement Test). The main analyses examined the relationship between neurocognitive measures and paternal or maternal age when adjusted for potential confounding factors. Advanced paternal age showed significant associations with poorer scores on all of the neurocognitive measures apart from the Bayley Motor score. The findings were broadly consistent in direction and effect size at all three ages. In contrast, advanced maternal age was generally associated with better scores on these same measures. Conclusions The offspring of older fathers show subtle impairments on tests of neurocognitive ability during infancy and childhood. In light of secular trends related to delayed fatherhood, the clinical implications and the mechanisms underlying these findings warrant closer scrutiny.
No-Show to Primary Care Appointments

Background: Missed primary care appointments lead to poor disease control and later presentation to care. No-show rates are higher in clinics caring for underserved populations and may contribute to poorer health outcomes in this group. The objective of this study was to determine who were the patients not showing to primary care appointments and their reasons to no-show. Methods: A retrospective study was conducted at a community health center serving a predominantly Latino, immigrant, low-income population. Adult patients >18 years old who did not show to primary care appointments during a 5-month period were called by a bilingual (English and Spanish) patient service coordinator. The patients’ reported reason for missing the appointment was documented. Two-sided t test of proportions was used to compare demographic characteristics of the patients that showed to their appointments to patients that did not. Results: Of 7508 scheduled appointments, 5604 were included in the analysis and 927 (16.5%) no-showed. There were 735 (79%) calls made to the patients who missed their appointments and 273 (37%) were reached. The 2 most common reasons for missing an appointment were forgetting (n = 97, 35.5%) and miscommunication (n = 86, 31.5%). When compared with patients who came to their appointments, patients who no-showed were younger (P < .0001), more likely to be black (P = .0423) or Hispanic (P = .0001), and to have Medicaid (P < .0001). Conclusions: No-show rates interfere with quality primary care. Interventions designed to target reasons for no-show are needed to help reduce the no-show rate, improve access and decrease health disparities in underserved patient populations.
Power law statistics and stellar rotational velocities in the Pleiades

In this paper we will show that, the non-Gaussian statistics framework based on the Kaniadakis statistics is more appropriate to fit the observed distributions of projected rotational velocity measurements of stars in the Pleiades open cluster. To this end, we compare the results from the κ and q-distributions with the Maxwellian.
Substrate Noise Generation in Complex Digital Circuits

Introduction This work intends to develop new methodologies to evaluate efficiently and early in the design process the substrate noise injected by large digital circuits. Nowadays it is possible to build circuital substrate models, which along with the models produced by the traditional extraction tools for the active circuitry can produce a very accurate substrate aware model. Unfortunately these models at transistor level are useless in circuits with thousand of gates due to the unfeasible simulation time required to test the circuit even with a reduced set of input vectors. Several different effects can produce substrate noise when gates are switching [3] but only three appear to be relevant [6, 7]:
Mutations of the mitochondrial ND1 gene as a cause of MELAS

Complex I is the largest of the mitochondrial respiratory chain enzyme complexes, consisting of at least 46 subunits, seven of which are encoded by mtDNA. Deficiency of complex I is the most common respiratory chain defect, and can be caused by mutations in both nuclear and mtDNA encoded genes. It has a wide range of clinical presentations, from lethal infantile mitochondrial disease to isolated myopathy.1–3 Mitochondrial encephalopathy, lactic acidosis and stroke-like episodes (MELAS) is one of the syndromes associated with complex I deficiency and in approximately 80% of cases is caused by a mutation, 3243A→G, in the mitochondrial tRNALeu(UUR) gene ( MTTL1 ). Other mutations in MTTL1 and other transfer RNA genes ( MTTF , MTTV , MTTQ ) account for most of the remainder of cases.4 However, a number of mutations in the mitochondrial MTND subunit genes of complex I have also been reported to cause MELAS, most notably in MTND5 5 and to a lesser extent in MTND6 . 6 In stark contrast, there are presently no mutations in the MTND1 subunit gene associated with MELAS. There are several mutations in MTND1 associated with Leber’s hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON) which may be pathogenic, but only one, the 3460G→A mutation, that has robust evidence, including cell biology studies, for pathogenicity.7–9 Here we report three unrelated patients with MELAS and isolated complex I deficiency in skeletal muscle and cultured fibroblasts due to previously unreported mutations in the MTND1 gene. Evidence confirming the pathogenic nature of these mutations includes data from cell fusion experiments and blue native polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (BN-PAGE), the latter confirming a crucial role for the ND1 subunit in the assembly of complex I holoenzyme.10 ### Patient 1 Patient 1, a white male, presented at 4 years of age with a 3 month history of increasing tiredness, clumsiness, …
Delayed Progression of Edema Formation Around a Hematoma Expressing High Levels of VEGF and MMP-9 in a Patient With Traumatic Brain Injury: Case Report

The mechanisms accounting for the development of tissue damage following traumatic brain injury (TBI) have been studied for several decades. A variety of mediators, such as vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9), which play a crucial role in edema formation after TBI, have been identified. We experienced a case of brain edema that progressed continuously at least until 13 days after head injury. The brain edema occurred around the hemorrhage from an intracerebral contusion. The evacuated hematoma was investigated based on the inference that the unexpected expansion of edema was induced by the mediators within the hematoma itself. A 64-year-old woman was admitted to our hospital following a traffic injury. Left brain contusion was revealed by head computed tomography (CT) on admission. Three hours later, formation of an intracerebral hematoma became evident. Serial CT examination revealed that brain edema had developed progressively till 13 days after the injury. A hematoma removal operation was performed on Day 13. The hematoma was centrifuged and the supernatant was analyzed for the expression of VEGF and MMP-9. The values of both (4400 pg/ml and 920 ng/ml, respectively) were extremely high compared with values reported previously in serum and cerebrospinal fluid collected from patients with intracranial infection or injury. This case suggested that the delayed exacerbation of edema following traumatic intracranial hemorrhage was possibly induced by secretory factors such as VEGF and MMP-9 released from within and around the hematoma.
Constructing query-biased summaries: a comparison of human and system generated snippets

Modern search engines display a summary for each ranked document that is returned in response to a query. These summaries typically include a snippet -- a collection of text fragments from the underlying document -- that has some relation to the query that is being answered. In this study we investigate how 10 humans construct snippets: participants first generate their own natural language snippet, and then separately extract a snippet by choosing text fragments, for four queries related to two documents. By mapping their generated snippets back to text fragments in the source document using eye tracking data, we observe that participants extract these same pieces of text around 73% of the time when creating their extractive snippets. In comparison, we notice that automated approaches for extracting snippets only use these same fragments 10% of the time. However, when the automated methods are evaluated using a position-independent bag-of-words approach, as typically used in the research literature for evaluating snippets, they are scored much more highly, seemingly extracting the "correct" text 24% of the time. In addition to demonstrating this large scope for improvement in snippet generation algorithms with our novel methodology, we also offer a series of observations on the behaviour of participants as they constructed their snippets.
Tiled microprocessors

Current-day microprocessors have reached the point of diminishing returns due to inherent scalability limitations. This thesis examines the tiled microprocessor, a class of microprocessor which is physically scalable but inherits many of the desirable properties of conventional microprocessors. Tiled microprocessors are composed of an array of replicated tiles connected by a special class of network, the Scalar Operand Network (SON), which is optimized for low-latency, low-occupancy communication between remote ALUs on different tiles. Tiled microprocessors can be constructed to scale to 100's or 1000's of functional units. This thesis identifies seven key criteria for achieving physical scalability in tiled microprocessors. It employs an archetypal tiled microprocessor to examine the challenges in achieving these criteria and to explore the properties of Scalar Operand Networks. The thesis develops the field of SONS in three major ways: it introduces the 5-tuple performance metric, it describes a complete, high-frequency SON implementation, and it proposes a taxonomy, called AsTrO, for categorizing them. To develop these ideas, the thesis details the design, implementation and analysis of a tiled microprocessor prototype, the Raw Microprocessor, which was implemented at MIT in 180 run technology. Overall, compared to Raw, recent commercial processors with half the transistors required 30x as many lines of code, occupied 100x as many designers, contained 50x as many pre-tapeout bugs, and resulted in 33x as many post-tapeout bugs. At the same time, the Raw microprocessor proves to be more versatile in exploiting ILP, stream, and server-farm workloads with modest to large amounts of parallelism. (Copies available exclusively from MIT Libraries, Rm. 14-0551, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307. Ph. 617-253-5668; Fax 617-253-1690.)
Elastic fields and energies of coherent surface islands

We present simple models based on isotropic elasticity for determining the stress fields in the vicinity of, and the elastic energy associated with, coherent surface islands (i.e. a quantum dot or a nanorod). The first method treats the surface island as an areal point of dilatation and does not account for details of the island shape. Next, the finite element method is used to study simple island shapes such as spherical caps and cylinders, with a particular focus on the island aspect ratio. The latter is used in conjunction with the analytic results to develop empirical expressions for stress field and energy as functions of aspect ratio, which are somewhat insensitive to other features of the geometry. The analyses are used to assess the effect of lattice mismatch, dot volume and dot/surface contact area on the induced stresses and elastic energies. Furthermore, the interaction energy between surface islands is determined by finite element analyses. Outputs from these analyses are then used in an optimization of several cases of ordering of islands. The results show that for a range of idealized geometries, the shape of the surface island has little impact on the strain energy, and thereby the interaction energy.
Iterative Multi-View Hashing for Cross Media Indexing

Cross media retrieval engines have gained massive popularity with rapid development of the Internet. Users may perform queries in a corpus consisting of audio, video, and textual information. To make such systems practically possible for large mount of multimedia data, two critical issues must be carefully considered: (a) reduce the storage as much as possible; (b) model the relationship of the heterogeneous media data. Recently academic community have proved that encoding the data into compact binary codes can drastically reduce the storage and computational cost. However, it is still unclear how to integrate multiple information sources properly into the binary code encoding scheme. In this paper, we study the cross media indexing problem by learning the discriminative hashing functions to map the multi-view datum into a shared hamming space. Not only meaningful within-view similarity is required to be preserved, we also incorporate the between-view correlations into the encoding scheme, where we map the similar points close together and push apart the dissimilar ones. To this end, we propose a novel hashing algorithm called Iterative Multi-View Hashing (IMVH) by taking these information into account simultaneously. To solve this joint optimization problem efficiently, we further develop an iterative scheme to deal with it by using a more flexible quantization model. In particular, an optimal alignment is learned to maintain the between-view similarity in the encoding scheme. And the binary codes are obtained by directly solving a series of binary label assignment problems without continuous relaxation to avoid the unnecessary quantization loss. In this way, the proposed algorithm not only greatly improves the retrieval accuracy but also performs strong robustness. An extensive set of experiments clearly demonstrates the superior performance of the proposed method against the state-of-the-art techniques on both multimodal and unimodal retrieval tasks.
Once Again to the Subject of Economic Sociology

The paper is devoted to the determination of the subject of economic sociology. The author analyzes the problem of the boundaries of economic theory and economic sociology. The basic foundations of economic sociology are disclosed in the paper. The author suggests the ways of constructing the models of economic-sociological man. The term of action strategy is defined and discussed.