Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Gay, gray, black, and blue: An examination of some of the challenges faced by older LGBTQ people of color

ABSTRACT Few studies exist that highlight the life experiences of the older LGBTQ person of color. This cohort faces unique challenges in life that have not been explored or investigated extensively, if at all. Older LGBTQ people of color have experienced discrimination based on race, gender, and sexuality in all phases of their lives, often bearing witness to and helping to start various equal rights and social justice movements. In addition to the unique challenges that come with being a multiple minority—an LGBTQ person of color—they also have to deal with the stressors that come with normal aging. Some of the unique challenges that are faced by the older LGBTQ person of color include homophobia, racism, acculturation, the phenomenon of “going back into the closet,” poverty, housing discrimination, homelessness, and loss of sexuality and ageism, just to name a few. In this article, by getting a glimpse of these unique challenges, we give this vulnerable and marginalized group of people the much-needed attention warranted. With more research on this population, we can develop better interventions to decrease the negative mental health outcomes associated with these unique challenges. This is also a complex cohort, with some studies showing positive findings of resilience and the positive influence of spirituality and religion on the mental health outcomes of older LGBTQ people of color. A general sense of advocacy is needed in the realm of healthcare, social services, legal services, and public policy in helping to shed light on the needs of this population. Furthermore, a greater sense of urgency is needed to elucidate the experiences and challenges faced by older LGBTQ people of color in order to better care for this currently marginalized and suffering group.
Towards a clinical trial ontology using a Concern-Oriented-Approach

To reduce costs and enhance the research quality in clinical trials (CT) a more systematic approach is needed for CT automatization as well as for enhancing interoperability at various levels of the research process. To this aim a conceptual model of CTs should be developed. At the base of any modelling approach there are partitioning criteria which enable us to dominate the complexity of the modelled universe. In this report we introduce an original analysis method based on stakeholders’ concerns to partition the CT conceptual domain in stakeholder-oriented sub-domains. Mental representations of stakeholders related to each concern are identified as clusters of concepts related to each other. We consider such a cluster as a semantic rationale for the associated concern. The concepts found in the semantic rationales populate the universe of discourse specific to each stakeholder and compose the stakeholder’s vocabulary. Some concepts are shared with other stakeholders while others are specific to one stakeholder, some concepts are CT specific while others are medical or general concepts. In this way a concern-oriented ontology of the CT can be created. The method is illustrated for the subject selection criteria, a component of a CT project, but it can be used for any other component of the CT protocol. The taxonomy of the vocabulary of CT concepts and the relative semantic rationale net give us a valuable structure for software development especially in solutions based on a service-oriented architecture.
Do Interictal Spikes Sustain Seizures and Epileptogenesis?

Interictal spiking is seen in the EEG of epileptic patients between seizures. To date, the roles played by interictal events in seizure occurrence and in epileptogenesis remain elusive. While interictal spikes may herald the onset of electrographic seizures, experimental data indicate that hippocampus-driven interictal events prevent seizure precipitation. Even less clear than the role of interictal events in seizure occurrence is whether and how interictal spikes contribute to epileptogenesis. Thus, while plastic changes within limbic neuronal networks may result from ongoing interictal activity, experimental evidence supports the view that epileptogenesis is accompanied by a decrease in hippocampus-driven interictal activity.
E-government as an anti-corruption strategy in Kazakhstan

ABSTRACT Kazakhstan has made progress in economic and social development, but it struggles with systemic corruption. Its leadership has acknowledged the depth of the problem. An ambitious e-government program is underway that is designed to simplify processes, reduce documentation, eliminate queues, and limit interactions between citizens and officials that create opportunities for bribery. Although the initiative is still too new to gauge its full impact, we examine online forums, news coverage, and third-party reports to offer a preliminary judgment. Indications are that e-government is reducing petty corruption, but it needs to be part of a larger package of anticorruption measures.
Mapping anatomical connectivity of the primate cerebral cortex using diffusion MRI

iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my parents, Fred and Sue Damen, for their constant support and love throughout my whole educational career. I would also like to thank Dr. and insightful post-doc mentor these last two years. Finally, I would like to thank Dr. Xiaoping Hu, my current mentor at Emory University for all of his help and guidance during this whole process.
M ay 2 00 4 The Spin Liquid State of the Tb 2 Ti 2 O 7 Pyrochlore Antiferromagnet : A Puzzling State of Affairs

The pyrochlore antiferromagnet Tb2Ti2O7 has proven to be an enigma to experimentalists and theorists working on frustrated magnetic systems. The experimentally determined energy level structure suggests a local 〈111〉 Ising antiferromagnet at low temperatures, T < ∼ 10K. An appropriate model then predicts a long-range ordered Q = 0 state below approximately 2K. However, muon spin resonance (μSR) experiments reveal a paramagnetic structure down to tens of milli-Kelvin. The importance of fluctuations out of the ground state effective Ising doublet has been recently understood, for the measured paramagnetic correlations can not be described without including the higher crystal field states. However, these fluctuations treated within the random phase approximation (RPA) fail to account for the lack of ordering in this system below 2K. In this work, we briefly review the experimental evidence for the collective paramagnetic state of Tb2Ti2O7. The basic theoretical picture for this system is discussed, where results from classical spin models are used to motivate the investigation of quantum effects to lowest order via the RPA. Avenues for future experimental and theoretical work on Tb2Ti2O7 are presented.
Developing a Semantic Content Analyzer for L'Aquila Social Urban Network

This paper presents the preliminary results of a joint research project about Smart Cities. This project is adopting a multidisciplinary approach that combines artificial intelligence techniques with psychology research to monitor the current state of the city of L’Aquila after the dreadful earthquake of April 2009. This work focuses on the description of a semantic content analysis module. This component, integrated into L’Aquila Social Urban Network (SUN), combines Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to deeply analyze the content produced by citizens on social platforms in order to map social data with social indicators such as cohesion, sense of belonging and so on. The research carries on the insight that social data can supply a lot of information about latent people feelings, opinion and sentiments. Within the project, this trustworthy snapshot of the city is used by community promoters to proactively propose initiatives aiming at empowering the social capital of the city and recovering the urban structure which has been disrupted after the ’diaspora’ of citizens in the so called ”new towns”. 1 L’Aquila Social Urban Network: a hybrid city model The city of L’Aquila is located in the mountain region of Abruzzi, in central Italy. In 2009 the life of this town has been seriously modified by an earthquake that caused damage to between 3.000 and 11.000 buildings in the medieval city of L’Aquila. 297 people died in the earthquake. The severe trauma to physical and psycho-social structures is still in the phase of recovery, since the urban centre has not been fully restored and almost half of all citizens still are displaced from their pre-earthquake homes. The specificity of the situation represent a perfect scenario where the principles and the insights behind the concept of 7 This paper summarizes the results already presented in the AI*IA 2013 workshop on Smart Cities URL: http://ai.unibo. it/SmartCityAIIA2013
HCV prevalence and predominant genotype in IV drug users

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) causes 308000 deaths due to liver cancer and 758000 deaths due to cirrhosis every year. Almost 170 million people have HCV infection around the world. Information regarding this virus helps us to determine the prevalence of other hepatitis C genotypes in population, especially in intravenous drug users. It is assumed that some genotypes are more common in certain areas or groups of people. A recent study strongly confirms the central role of injecting network traits, not only as a transmission factor but also as a predictor of HCV genotype and phylogenetic determination in different communities. Hepatitis C genotypes and subtypes have different prevalence considering the country. Risk factors such as transfusion, hemodialysis, root of acquisition and etc, are detected in intravenous drug users. Several conducted studies have investigated the prevalence, risk factors, and predominance of HCV genotypes infection in different parts of Iran.
Early Exposure to Anesthesia and Learning Disabilities in a Population-based Birth Cohort

Background:Anesthetic drugs administered to immature animals may cause neurohistopathologic changes and alterations in behavior. The authors studied association between anesthetic exposure before age 4 yr and the development of reading, written language, and math learning disabilities (LD). Methods:This was a population-based, retrospective birth cohort study. The educational and medical records of all children born to mothers residing in five townships of Olmsted County, Minnesota, from 1976 to 1982 and who remained in the community at 5 yr of age were reviewed to identify children with LD. Cox proportional hazards regression was used to calculate hazard ratios for anesthetic exposure as a predictor of LD, adjusting for gestational age at birth, sex, and birth weight. Results:Of the 5,357 children in this cohort, 593 received general anesthesia before age 4 yr. Compared with those not receiving anesthesia (n = 4,764), a single exposure to anesthesia (n = 449) was not associated with an increased risk of LD (hazard ratio = 1.0; 95% confidence interval, 0.79–1.27). However, children receiving two anesthetics (n = 100) or three or more anesthetics (n = 44) were at increased risk for LD (hazard ratio = 1.59; 95% confidence interval, 1.06–2.37, and hazard ratio = 2.60; 95% confidence interval, 1.60–4.24, respectively). The risk for LD increased with longer cumulative duration of anesthesia exposure (expressed as a continuous variable) (P = 0.016). Conclusion:Exposure to anesthesia was a significant risk factor for the later development of LD in children receiving multiple, but not single anesthetics. These data cannot reveal whether anesthesia itself may contribute to LD or whether the need for anesthesia is a marker for other unidentified factors that contribute to LD.
Research on Operation Optimization Algorithm of Milling System

A method of milling system operation optimization is proposed in this paper. First, use Support Vector Machine to get the relations between milling unit consumption and its related operation parameters. Second, optimize the model with the help of genetic algorithm and composite algorithm, and then optimal operation parameters of this milling system under different working conditions are got, which can guide the operator's operation. Tests show that this method has high modeling accuracy and optimization speed, also, it proves good reliability and efficiency.
Global Exponential Stability of FAST TCP with Heterogeneous Time-Varying Delays

We address the stability property of the FAST TCP congestion control algorithm. Based on a continuous-time dynamic model of the FAST TCP network, we establish that FAST TCP in itself is globally exponentially stable without any specific conditions on the congestion control parameter or the update gain. Simulation results demonstrate the validity of the global exponential stability of FAST TCP.
Automatic detection of small spherical lesions using multiscale approach in 3D medical images

Automated detection of small, low level shapes such as circular/spherical objects in images is a challenging computer vision problem. For many applications, especially microbleed detection in Alzheimer's disease, an automatic pre-screening scheme is required to identify potential seeds with high sensitivity and reasonable specificity. A new method is proposed to detect spherical objects in 3D medical images within the multi-scale Laplacian of Gaussian framework. The major contributions are(1)breaking down 3D sphere detection into 1D line profile detection along each coordinate dimension, (2) identifying center of structures bynormalizing the line response profile and (3) employing eigenvalues of the Hessian matrix at optimum scale for the center points to determine spherical objects. The method is validated both on simulated data and susceptibility weighted MRI images with ground truth provided by a medical expert. Validation results demonstrate that the current approach has higher performance in terms of sensitivity and specificity and is effective in detecting adjacent microbleeds, with invariance to intensity, orientation, translation and object scale.
Implementation of groupware technology in a large organization: implications from an empirical study

This paper is based upon an extensive empirical study of the introduction and use of a groupware application in a large organization. The implementation of the groupware raised a number of conflicts in the organization and it was only partially adopted. We discuss how a model of implementation and change management, which introduces a distinction between an organizational/infrastructural level and a group level perspective might improve how generic technologies for communication and collaboration are adopted in organizations.
Comparing two types of augmentative and alternative communication systems for children with autism

This study compared acquisition and preference for two types of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems in three pre-schoolers with autism. Acquisition of requesting behaviour using a picture-exchange system vs a voice-output communication aide (VOCA) was compared in an alternating treatments design. Following acquisition, both ACC systems were simultaneously available and the child could select which one of the two systems to use. There was little difference between picture-exchange and VOCA in terms of acquisition rates. Two children demonstrated a consistent preference for picture-exchange and the third showed a preference for the VOCA. Both speed of acquisition and system preference should be considered when designing AAC interventions for children with autism and related developmental disabilities. Comparamos la adquisición y preferencia en relación a dos tipos de sistemas (AAC) de comunicación alternativa y aumentativa en 3 preescolares con autismo. Se comparó la adquisición de un comportamiento solicitado a través del uso de un sistema de intercambio de dibujos contra una ayuda de comunicación de producción de voz (VOCA), en un diseño de tratamiento alternativo. Después de la adquisición ambos sistemas AAC estuvieron disponibles en forma simultánea, y el niño podía seleccionar cuál de los dos sistemas usar. Hubo poca diferencia entre el intercambio de dibujos y VOCA en término de tasas de adquisición. Dos niños demostraron una preferencia consistente para el intercambio de dibujos y el tercero demostró una preferencia por la VOCA. Tanto la velocidad de adquisición como la preferencia por un sistema deberán ser consideradas cuando se diseñen intervenciones con AAC para niños con autismo y discapacidades en el desarrollo relacionadas. Palabras Clave: comunicación alternativa y aumentativa, intercambio de dibujos, ayudas de comunicación de producción de la voz, adquisición, autismo.
Central pulmonary artery lesions in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: A transesophageal echocardiography study.

BACKGROUND In patients with acute pulmonary embolism, transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) often reveals presumably thrombotic lesions within the central pulmonary arteries (CPAs). These CPA lesions, when found in patients with primary pulmonary hypertension, have been attributed to in situ thrombosis or atherosclerosis. We hypothesized that similar CPA lesions may also develop in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in the absence of pulmonary embolism. METHODS AND RESULTS We examined by TEE 25 patients with COPD and 27 control patients with left heart disease. None of the patients had previous pulmonary embolism or ileofemoral and popliteal vein thrombosis. By use of TEE, CPA lesions were found in 12 COPD patients (48%) and 2 control patients (7.4%) (P<0.01). When CPA lesions were subdivided into types 1 (protruding and mobile) and 2 (wall-adherent), type 1 lesions proved to be uncommon, being found within the pulmonary trunk in 12% and 3.7% of COPD and control patients, respectively (P=NS). Conversely, type 2 lesions, which were always localized in the right pulmonary artery, were frequent in COPD patients (36%) and rare in control patients (3.7%) (P<0.01). When available, helical CT and MR angiography confirmed TEE findings, supporting an atherosclerotic origin of type 2 lesions, which were different from typical thrombotic lesions. FEV(1)/FVC ratio, RV/TLC ratio, PaO(2), hematocrit value, and pulmonary artery systolic pressure were not significantly different in COPD patients with and without CPA lesions. At TEE, however, COPD patients with CPA lesions showed a larger size of the main and right pulmonary arteries. CONCLUSIONS TEE often reveals CPA lesions in stable patients with COPD even in the absence of significant pulmonary hypertension and not in close relation with the severity of pulmonary dysfunction.
BIOCHEMICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL EVENTS FOLLOWING EXPOSURE TO UV-B RADIATION IN ICE PLANTS

Summary. The common ice plant ( Mesembryanthemum crystallinum L.) at-tained significance as a model organism for plant molecular biology studieson biochemical and physiological adaptation mechanisms, due to its extremestress tolerance, drought and high salinity resistance, and its ability to shiftfrom C3 photosynthesis to CAM in response to environmental stresses or aspart of its developmental programme. At present minor attention has beenpaid to elevated light and UV rays effects on ice plant metabolism and itsadaptation. Young ice plants have been exposed to 5 W m -2 UV-B light (3 to9 kJ m -2 d -1 UV-B BE ) for 10 – 30 min. On the next day leaves and roots havebeen collected, frozen and used for determination of total contents of osmolytes,chlorophyll, polyamines and free amino acid composition. A decrease in chlo-rophyll and net CO 2 assimilation gave evidence that ice plant had high sensi-tivity to UV-B irradiation. The absence of proline in leaves accompanied withother modifications in free amino acids composition in both leaves and roots,the slight stimulation of polyamine biosynthesis as well as the lack of cadav-erine in roots could be considered as indications for the damage of ice plantsdue to the poor metabolic adaptation to stress caused by UV-B irradiation.Our results suggest that ice plants have lower adaptive capacity to UV-B stressin comparison to drought and salinity. Data are discussed in relation to knownhypotheses for
Variable Gesture-based Haptic Guidance for Human-Robot Interaction

This paper presents a gesture-based variable impedance control approach for haptic guidance in humanrobot interaction. In this approach, applied forces have adaptively been calculated in real time with respect to gestural differences between user motions and reference models. A virtual task has been segmented into primitive gestures and reference hidden Markov models (HMMs) have been trained according to these gestures. Our approach is partially task independent and robust to spatial variation of gestures due to the HMM-based segmentation scheme. Our experimental results show that the variable impedance control can effectively improve user performance in the presence of human behavior uncertainty during a collaborative task. This model-based haptic guidance could be extended to provide haptic guidance in real-time skill assessment, sport training, and rehabilitation exercises.
Test and Evaluation of TRUST: Tools for Recognizing Useful Signals of Trustworthiness

Abstract : This study focuses on the measurement of trustworthiness. The report focuses on testing, research and evaluation of a new research method for measuring and requiring trust between individuals. Not only did this study attempt to understand the holistic neural, psychophysiological, psychological, and behavioral underpinnings of the nature of trust, but more broadly, enhance understanding of the social dynamic of human interaction vital to the success of everyday life, especially in the defense and intelligence community context. The study was adapted from a well-evaluated game theory paradigm (Prisoners Dilemma). The Prisoners Dilemma puts study participants in a situation where they must decide to trust or not trust an assigned partner. Their decisions and the decisions of their partners, to trust or not trust are determined by the amount of monetary compensation participants were given at the end of the experimental session. The study goal was to evaluate the extent to which particular behavioral, psychological, physiological, and neural signals are related to trust between two people. Many areas were studied for this report, including frontal alpha power asymmetry, electroencephalography (EEG), high- and low-frequency and RR interval of heart rate, electrocardiography (ECG), skin conductance levels and Galvanic Skin Response (GSR), oxytocin and cortisol concentrations, and psychological state (questionnaires). These areas were investigated using three different methodological transformations: one examining raw signals, and two adjusting the signals to baseline: minus baseline and divided by baseline. Applied throughout the report are six hypotheses derived from Social Exchange Model. The six hypotheses are provided in the report.